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The Ministry of Healing
heaven. For the sake of others and for his own sake, he cannot afford
to disregard physical law. Recklessness in physical habits tends to
recklessness in morals.
The physician’s only safety is, under all circumstances, to act
from principle, strengthened and ennobled by a firmness of purpose
found only in God. He is to stand in the moral excellence of His
character. Day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, he is
to live as in the sight of the unseen world. As did Moses, he must
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endure “as seeing Him who is invisible.”
Righteousness has its root in godliness. No man can steadily
maintain before his fellow men a pure, forceful life unless his life
is hid with Christ in God. The greater the activity among men, the
closer must be the communion of the heart with heaven.
The more urgent his duties and the greater his responsibilities,
the greater the physician’s need of divine power. Time must be
redeemed from things temporal, for meditation upon things eternal.
He must resist an encroaching world, which would so press upon him
as to separate him from the Source of strength. Above all other men
should he, by prayer and the study of the Scriptures, place himself
under the protecting shield of God. He is to live in hourly contact and
conscious communion with the principles of truth, righteousness,
and mercy that reveal God’s attributes within the soul.
Just to the degree in which the word of God is received and
obeyed will it impress with its potency and touch with its life ev-
ery spring of action, every phase of character. It will purify every
thought, regulate every desire. Those who make God’s word their
trust will quit themselves like men and be strong. They will rise
above all baser things into an atmosphere free from defilement.
When man is in fellowship with God, that unswerving purpose
which preserved Joseph and Daniel amidst the corruption of heathen
courts will make his a life of unsullied purity. His robes of character
will be spotless. In his life the light of Christ will be undimmed.
The bright and morning Star will appear shining steadfastly above
him in changeless glory.
Such a life will be an element of strength in the community. It
will be a barrier against evil, a safeguard to the tempted, a guiding
light to those who, amidst difficulties and discouragements, are
seeking the right way.
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