The Value of Medical Missions

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 24, 1910

The Value of Medical Missions

The value of medical missionary work in carrying the gospel into the great regions beyond is being demonstrated at the present time in nearly every mission field. Where one medical missionary was laboring a decade ago, there are a score at the present time. The nearer the church approaches to the methods of working pursued by the Lord in seeking an avenue to men's hearts through ministering to their temporal needs, the more potent will be its efforts. This is true especially in labor in heathen lands. Speaking of the work of this class of missionaries, A. T. Pierson, the editor of the Missionary Review, in the January number of that magazine, speaks as follows:—

Perhaps no one sign of the times is more impressive than the multiplication of healing agencies on the foreign field. Hospitals, dispensaries, manned and equipped most completely and conducted by men of the highest culture, are continually multiplying; as fine physicians and surgeons can be found in the foreign fields as at home. Some of the most promising men have gone forth, from both England and America. There must be some mighty impulse at work, for there is no adequate temporal advantage that attracts.

Garibaldi said to his soldiers in 1849: “I can offer you only hunger and danger; the earth for a bed, the sun for a fire; but let whosoever does not despair of the fortunes of Italy follow me.” Men of brilliant promise are finding their own life worth the living because losing their life for the sake of others. As Dr. Josiah Strong says: “Jesus found servitude a badge of dishonor; he made it a badge of distinction.”