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The Ministry of Healing
The need for such help and instruction is not confined to the
cities. Even in the country, with all its possibilities for a better life,
multitudes of the poor are in great need. Whole communities are
devoid of education in industrial and sanitary lines. Families live
in hovels, with scant furniture and clothing, without tools, without
books, destitute both of comforts and conveniences and of means
of culture. Imbruted souls, bodies weak and ill-formed, reveal the
results of evil heredity and of wrong habits. These people must be
educated from the very foundation. They have led shiftless, idle,
corrupt lives, and they need to be trained to correct habits.
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How can they be awakened to the necessity of improvement?
How can they be directed to a higher ideal of life? How can they be
helped to rise? What can be done where poverty prevails and is to
be contended with at every step? Certainly the work is difficult. The
necessary reformation will never be made unless men and women
are assisted by a power outside of themselves. It is God’s purpose
that the rich and the poor shall be closely bound together by the ties
of sympathy and helpfulness. Those who have means, talents, and
capabilities are to use these gifts in blessing their fellow men.
Christian farmers can do real missionary work in helping the
poor to find homes on the land and in teaching them how to till the
soil and make it productive. Teach them how to use the implements
of agriculture, how to cultivate various crops, how to plant and care
for orchards.
Many who till the soil fail to secure adequate returns because of
their neglect. Their orchards are not properly cared for, the crops are
not put in at the right time, and a mere surface work is done in culti-
vating the soil. Their ill success they charge to the unproductiveness
of the land. False witness is often borne in condemning land that,
if properly worked, would yield rich returns. The narrow plans, the
little strength put forth, the little study as to the best methods, call
loudly for reform.
Let proper methods be taught to all who are willing to learn.
If any do not wish you to speak to them of advanced ideas, let the
lessons be given silently. Keep up the culture of your own land.
Drop a word to your neighbors when you can, and let the harvest be
eloquent in favor of right methods. Demonstrate what can be done
with the land when properly worked.
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