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The Ministry of Health and Healing
unselfish ministry. The presence of a person in need of sympathy and
forbearance and self-sacrificing love would be to many a household a
priceless blessing. It would sweeten and refine the home life and call
forth in old and young those Christlike graces that would make them
beautiful with a divine beauty and rich in heaven’s imperishable
treasure.
A Test of Character
“‘You have the poor with you always,’” Christ said, “‘and when-
ever you wish you may do them good.’” “Pure and undefiled religion
before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in
their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
Mark
14:7
;
James 1:27
.
Christ tests His professed followers by placing among them the
helpless and the poor, to be dependent upon their care. Our love and
service for His needy children prove the genuineness of our love
for Him. To neglect them is to declare ourselves false disciples,
strangers to Christ and His love.
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If we were to do all we could in providing homes in families for
orphans, many others would still require care. Many have received
an inheritance of evil. They are unpromising, unattractive, perverse,
but they are the purchase of the blood of Christ, and in His sight are
just as precious as are our own little ones. Unless a helping hand
is held out to them, they will grow up in ignorance and drift into
vice and crime. Many of these children could be rescued through
the work of orphanages.
Such institutions, to be most effective, should be modeled as
closely as possible after the plan of a Christian home. Instead of large
establishments, bringing great numbers together, there should be
small institutions in a number of places. Instead of being in or near
some town or large city, they should be in the country, where land
can be secured for cultivation and the children can be brought into
contact with nature and can have the benefits of industrial training.
Those in charge of such a home should be men and women who
are largehearted, cultured, and self-sacrificing, men and women who
undertake the work from love to Christ and who train the children
for Him. Under such care many homeless and neglected ones may be