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128
The Ministry of Health and Healing
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 ties
of sympathy and helpfulness. Those who have means, talents, and
capabilities are to use these gifts to bless those who are less fortunate.
Christian farmers can do real missionary work in helping the
poor to find homes on the land and in teaching them how to work 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
cultivating the soil. They charge their poor results to the unproduc-
tiveness 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.
Attention should be given to the establishment of various in-
dustries so that poor families can find employment. Carpenters,
blacksmiths, and indeed everyone who understands some line of
useful labor should feel a responsibility to teach and help the ignorant
and unemployed.
In ministry to the poor there is a wide field of service for women
as well as for men. The efficient cook, the housekeeper, the seam-