Helping the Poor to Help Themselves
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Eden, opens a field in which there is opportunity for multitudes to gain
a subsistence....
If the poor now crowded into the cities could find homes upon
the land, they might not only earn a livelihood but find health and
happiness now unknown to them. Hard work, simple fare, close
economy, often hardship and privation, would be their lot. But what
a blessing would be theirs in leaving the city, with its enticements to
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evil, its turmoil and crime, misery and foulness, for the country’s quiet
and peace and purity....
If they ever become industrious and self-supporting, very many
must have assistance, encouragement, and instruction. There are
multitudes of poor families for whom no better missionary work could
be done than to assist them in settling on the land and in learning how
to make it yield them a livelihood.
The need for such help and instruction is not confined to the cities.
Even in the country, with all its possibilities for a better life, multitudes
of the poor are in great need. Whole communities are devoid of
education in industrial and sanitary lines....
Imbruted souls, bodies weak and ill-formed, reveal the 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.
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?—
The Ministry of Healing, 188-193
.
A Work for Christian Farmers—Christian farmers can do real
missionary work in helping the poor to find homes on the land and in
teaching them how to till 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 culti-
vating the soil. Their ill success they charge to the unproductiveness
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of the land. False witness is often borne in condemning land that, if
properly worked, would yield rich returns. The narrow plans, the little