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Is It Worth While?

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Nov 20, 1913

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 90, No. 47.

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Is It Worth While?

By E. M. Graham

A recent letter from Elder J. A. Burden gives the following interesting account of the missionary work in which the Loma Linda students have been engaging:—
“Since writing you before, our students have been working in house-to-house school of health work, and have had excellent results, both in sending patients to the sanitarium and also in awakening the church where they worked to genuine Christian endeavor. One entire family was brought into the truth through health lectures and Bible readings.
“The other evening at prayer-meeting one of our medical students who has been working all summer in one of the county hospitals, gave an interesting account of his experiences. When he went to the hospital every door seemed to be closed against him on account of prejudice; but as he labored along missionary lines, treating the people and scattering the printed page among them, he won not only the hearts of the sick people but of the matron and medical staff, including the superintendent of the hospital. They were very loath to have him leave at the end of his vacation. Two or three expressed themselves as fully convinced of the truth. It took him nearly an hour to recite the interesting experiences he had had. Patients would call him and ask him to pray for them and read the Bible, saying they had never met a doctor like him. It seemed that their souls were craving for the bread of life.
“Others who have been out in the canvassing work have had good experiences. One evening the young people’s meeting was devoted to reports from the medical students who had been canvassing. It was intensely interesting. It helped to demonstrate how true it is that the medical work is the entering wedge and gives free access to the people.”
We are maintaining a medical college at Loma Linda at considerable expense to the cause, and the question is sometimes asked, “Is it worth while?” As one who has been intimately associated with two medical students who have passed through a school of the world, I am sure it is worth all it costs. The whole tendency of the medical schools of the world is against faith in the Bible as the inspired word of God. In them our students have to meet trials of their faith that only the strongest are fitted to battle with. Therefore, to have a medical school which leads our students to such missionary work as this letter speaks of, while they are taking their medical course, is worth more than many perhaps realize. When these students graduate, they will be missionary doctors, with experience in saving souls as well as in healing bodies.
E. M. GRAHAM.