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The Ministry of Health and Healing
“Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.”
Psalm 37:3.
Thousands and tens of thousands might be working on the soil
who are crowded into the cities, watching for a chance to earn a
trifle. In many cases this trifle is not spent for food but is put into
the coffers of the liquor seller, to obtain that which destroys soul and
body.
Many look upon a regular job as drudgery, and they try to obtain
a livelihood by scheming rather than by honest work. This desire to
get a living without work opens the door to wretchedness, vice, and
crime almost without limit.
The Inner City
In the great cities are multitudes who receive less care and con-
sideration than are given to dumb animals. Think of the families
herded together in miserable tenements, many of them in dark base-
ments reeking with dampness and filth. In these wretched places
children are born and grow up and die. They see nothing of the
beauty of natural things that God has created to delight the senses
and uplift the soul. Ragged and half-starved, they live amid vice
and depravity, molded in character by the misery and sin that sur-
round them. Children hear the name of God only in profanity. Foul
speech, threats, and revilings fill their ears. The fumes of alcohol
and tobacco, sickening stenches, moral degradation pervert their
senses. Thus multitudes are trained to become criminals, enemies of
a society that has abandoned them to misery and degradation.
Not all the poor in the inner city are of this class. God-fearing
men and women have been brought to the depths of poverty by illness
or misfortune, often through the dishonest scheming of those who
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live by taking advantage of others. Many who are upright and well-
meaning become poor through lack of industrial training. Through
ignorance they are unfitted to wrestle with the difficulties of life.
Drifting into the cities, they are often unable to find employment.
Surrounded by the sights and sounds of vice, they face powerful