Often these ministers need special care
and treatment. Our sanitariums should be a refuge for such and
for all our worn workers who need rest. Rooms should be provided
where they can have a change and rest, without continual anxiety
as to how they are to meet the expense. When the disciples were
worn with labor, Christ said to them: "Come ye yourselves
apart, . . . and rest awhile." Mark 6:31. He would have
arrangements made whereby His servants now may have opportunity
to rest and recover strength. Our sanitariums are to be open
to our hard-working ministers, who have done all in their power
to secure funds for the erection and support of these institutions,
and at any time when they are in need of the advantages here
offered they should be made to feel at home.
These workers should not at any time be
charged a high price for board and treatment, neither should
they be regarded as beggars, or in any way
made to feel as such by those whose hospitality they receive.
To manifest liberality in the use of the facilities God has provided
for His worn and overworked servants is genuine medical missionary
work in His sight. God's workers are bound to Him, and when they
are received it should be remembered that Christ is received
in the person of His messengers. He requires this, and is dishonored
and displeased when they are treated indifferently or dealt with
in a small or selfish manner. God's blessing will not attend
close dealing with any of His chosen ones. Among the medical
fraternity there has not always been a keenness of perception
to discern these matters. Some have not regarded them as they
should. May the Lord sanctify the perception of those who have
charge of our institutions, that they may know who should have
true sympathy and care.
That branch of the cause for which these
worn-out laborers have worked should show an appreciation of
their labor by helping them in their time of need, thus sharing
largely with the sanitarium the burden of expense.
Some workers are so situated as to be able
to lay by a little from their salary, and this they should do,
if possible, to meet an emergency; yet even these should be welcome
as a blessing to the sanitarium. But most of our workers have
many and great obligations to meet. At every turn, when means
are needed, they are called upon to do something, to lead out,
that the influence of their example may stimulate others to liberality
and the cause of God be advanced. They feel such an intense desire
to plant the standard in new fields that many even hire money
to help in various enterprises. They have not given grudgingly,
but have felt that it was a privilege
to work for the advancement of the truth. By thus responding
to calls for means, they are often left with very little surplus.
The Lord has kept an accurate account of
their liberality to the cause. He knows what a good work they
have done, a work of which the younger laborers have no conception.
He has been cognizant of all the privation and self-denial they
have endured. He has marked every circumstance of these cases.
It is all written in the books. These workers are a spectacle
before the world, before angels, and before men, and they are
an object lesson to test the sincerity of our religious principles.
The Lord would have our people understand that the pioneers in
this work deserve all that our institutions can do for them.
God calls upon us to understand that those who have grown old
in His service deserve our love, our honor, our deepest respect.