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Teaching and Healing
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Thousands need and would gladly receive instruction concerning
the simple methods of treating the sick—methods that are taking
the place of the use of poisonous drugs. There is great need of
instruction in regard to dietetic reform. Wrong habits of eating and
the use of unhealthful food are in no small degree responsible for
the intemperance and crime and wretchedness that curse the world.
In teaching health principles, keep before the mind the great ob-
ject of reform—that its purpose is to secure the highest development
of body and mind and soul. Show that the laws of nature, being
the laws of God, are designed for our good; that obedience to them
promotes happiness in this life, and aids in the preparation for the
life to come.
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Lead the people to study the manifestation of God’s love and
wisdom in the works of nature. Lead them to study that marvelous
organism, the human system, and the laws by which it is governed.
Those who perceive the evidences of God’s love, who understand
something of the wisdom and beneficence of His laws, and the results
of obedience, will come to regard their duties and obligations from
an altogether different point of view. Instead of looking upon an
observance of the laws of health as a matter of sacrifice or self-denial,
they will regard it, as it really is, as an inestimable blessing.
Every gospel worker should feel that the giving of instruction in
the principles of healthful living is a part of his appointed work. Of
this work there is great need, and the world is open for it.
Everywhere there is a tendency to substitute the work of organi-
zations for individual effort. Human wisdom tends to consolidation,
to centralization, to the building up of great churches and institu-
tions. Multitudes leave to institutions and organizations the work of
benevolence; they excuse themselves from contact with the world,
and their hearts grow cold. They become self-absorbed and unim-
pressible. Love for God and man dies out of the soul.
Christ commits to His followers an individual work—a work
that cannot be done by proxy. Ministry to the sick and the poor,
the giving of the gospel to the lost, is not to be left to committees
or organized charities. Individual responsibility, individual effort,
personal sacrifice, is the requirement of the gospel.
“Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come
in,” is Christ’s command, “that My house may be filled.” He brings