Care for Workers
365
any way made to feel as such by those whose hospitality they receive.
To manifest liberality in the use of the facilities God has provided for
His worn and overworked servants, is genuine medical missionary
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work in His sight. God’s workers are bound to Him, and when they are
received, it should be remembered that Christ is received in the person
of His messengers. He requires this, and is dishonored and displeased
when they are treated indifferently or dealt with in a small or selfish
manner. God’s blessing will not attend close dealing with any of His
chosen ones.
Among the medical fraternity there has not always been a keenness
of perception to discern these matters. Some have not regarded them
as they should. May the Lord sanctify the perception of those who
have charge of our institutions, that they may know who should have
true sympathy and care. That branch of the cause for which these
worn-out laborers have worked should show an appreciation of their
labor by helping them in their time of need, thus sharing largely with
the sanitarium the burden of expense. Some workers are so situated as
to be able to lay by a little from their salary; and this they should do,
if possible, to meet an emergency; yet even these should be welcome
as a blessing to the sanitarium.
But most of our workers have many and great obligations to meet.
At every turn, when means are needed, they are called upon to do
something, to lead out, that the influence of their example may stim-
ulate others to liberality, and the cause of God be advanced. They
feel such an intense desire to plant the standard in new fields that
many even hire money to help in various enterprises. They have not
given grudgingly, but have felt that it was a privilege to work for the
advancement of the truth. By thus responding to calls for means, they
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are often left with very little surplus.
The Lord has kept an accurate account of their liberality to the
cause. He knows what a good work they have done, a work of which
the younger laborers have no conception. He has been cognizant of
all the privation and self-denial they have endured. He has marked
every circumstance of these cases. It is all written in the books. These
workers are a spectacle before the world, before angels, and before
men; and they are an object-lesson to test the sincerity of our religious
principles. The Lord would have our people understand that the pi-
oneers in this work deserve all that our institutions can do for them.