p. 11 | Hookworm Weariness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 10, 1912

Hookworm Weariness

For years it has been known that some of the people of semitropical countries possessed “constitutional weariness,” an indifference amounting to indolence, if not to laziness. It has come to be known of late that one leading cause of this condition was the hookworm infection. Speaking of this, the Advance of Sept. 19, 1912, points out the same condition of spiritual apathy existing in the religious world, and suggests the remedy which may be applied:—

It seems as if the religious world to-day were under a spell not unlike this. The spiritual life of the day is everywhere, except on mission fields, characterized not by any virulent disease, but by a wide-spread apathy. Men have not lost their faith, but only lost their energy. They have not fallen victims of any bubonic plague or black death, but of a spiritual indolence that renders them indifferent to present spiritual welfare or future reward. But whether it is love of sin against which we have to contend, or a love of ease, the remedy must be the same; and that is nothing short of the grace of God, which can purge out the cause of all our ills, and by freeing us from the cause of our apathy, restore us to spiritual vigor and joy in service.