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378
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students
The cause of God today would have been far in advance of what
it is, had we in former years been more active in the training of
nurses who, in addition to their acquirement of more than ordinary
skill in the care of the sick, had also learned to labor as evangelists
in soul-winning service.
It is for the training of such workers, as well as for the training of
physicians, that the school at Loma Linda has been founded. In this
school many workers are to be qualified with the ability of physi-
cians, to labor, not in professional lines as physicians, but as medical
missionary evangelists. This training is to be in harmony with the
principles underlying true higher education. The cause is in need
of hundreds of workers who have received a practical and thorough
education in medical lines, and who are also prepared to labor from
house to house as teachers, Bible workers, and colporteurs. Such
students should come out of the school without having sacrificed the
principles of health reform or their love for God and righteousness.
Those who take advanced training in nursing, and go forth into
all parts of the world as medical missionary evangelists, cannot
expect to receive from the world the honor and rewards that often
come to fully accredited physicians. Yet as they go about their work
of teaching and healing, and link up closely with God’s servants who
have been called to the ministry of His word, His blessing will rest
upon their labors, and marvelous transformations will be wrought.
In a special sense they will be His helping hand.
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The duties of the physician are arduous. Few realize the mental
and physical strain to which he is subjected. Every energy and
capability must be enlisted with the most intense anxiety in the
battle with disease and death. Often he knows that one unskilled
movement of the hand, even but a hairbreadth in the wrong direction,
may send a soul unprepared into eternity. How much the faithful
physician needs the sympathy and prayers of the people of God!
His claims in this direction are not inferior to those of the most
devoted minister or missionary worker. Deprived, as he often is, of
sufficient rest and sleep, he needs a double portion of grace, a fresh
supply daily, or he will lose his hold on God and will be in danger
of sinking deeper in spiritual darkness than men of other callings.
And yet often he is made to bear unmerited reproaches and is left