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Loma Linda College of Evangelists

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 26, 1906

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 83, No. 30.

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Loma Linda College of Evangelists

By W. E. Howell

No apology is offered for the opening of another denominational school, for our instructions are clear and definite; but we desire all our people to understand the nature and the scope of the work to be done.
Briefly speaking, the school is established to fill the need expressed in the following words:—
“I have been instructed that there are decided advantages to be gained by the establishment of a school and a sanitarium in close proximity, that they may be a help one to the other.”
“Loma Linda is to be not only a sanitarium, but an educational center. A school is to be established here for the training of gospel medical missionary evangelists.”
“Make the school especially strong for nurses and physicians. Thousands of workers are to be qualified with the ability of physicians, not to work as physicians, but as evangelists.”
The type of worker this school is designed to prepare, is aptly expressed in the term “medical evangelist.” Properly interpreted, this means one who is qualified to minister to the sick and suffering as he comes in contact with them in his gospel work, or who is able to serve the soul while he cares for the body. In the work of Christ no distinction was made between physical and spiritual ministry; they were always blended when the case required it. The disciples, whom he had in training for three years, he commissioned to do likewise. “He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:2), and they were always equal to the occasion. Even Luke, “the beloved physician,” was also Luke the evangelist; and it was he who wrote the third great evangelist, or gospel,—a record of the words and deeds of Christ. Paul not only did the same kind of work, but gave specific instruction on the care of the health to those whom he brought into the faith.
It has come to be the watchword of this denomination that the world should be evangelized in this generation, not in general terms, but in the specific import of the threefold message. In developing the different phases of this message, however, there has crept in a growing tendency to professionalism. Perhaps this has not been the least noticeable among medical men, but our teachers have not altogether escaped, nor have the ministers been entirely free from a certain formal, perfunctory service. Nurses, book sellers, and bookkeepers have confined themselves too much to technical work. These results are probably owing in large part to the kind of training received. Again and again all classes of workers have had to be called back to the simplicity of the gospel, in more direct and positive service.
One of the most hopeful signs of progress in this cause at the present time is a marked turning away from this evil of formalism or of secularizing a sacred work. The distributors of our literature are coming to be no longer mere book agents, but King’s messengers, canvasser-evangelists, sounding a certain note wherever they go. Our teachers are awakening to the fact that their work is an integral, inseparable part of this great advent movement, and that the workers they train in our schools must go forth with a definite message burning in their hearts; and many of our nurses and physicians are beginning to sense that they are honored with a part in this final, world-warning movement, not merely to act as physicians and nurses technically speaking, but to work as medical evangelists—givers of the gospel in the threefold message, with their medical knowledge and skill as a strong right arm to do the Lord valiant service.
It is for the encouragement and development of workers of this last class especially, that the College of Evangelists is opened at Loma Linda; but it will provide adequately also “for teachers, Bible workers, canvassers, and others, who wish to acquire a working knowledge of how to care for the sick and minister to the unfortunate as they find them in connection with their work, to the end that souls may be saved; and also how to preserve their own physical and mental vigor while serving others.
We are instructed that some will need to qualify legally as physicians, but that thousands should acquire the practical ability of physicians, to work either in association with registered physician-evangelists or as medical evangelists in connection with some other line of service. For the development of both these classes of workers, the college offers the evangelistic medical course. For the present at least, this will consist of three years of the most practical work selected from the regular four years’ medical course, done under conditions favorable to spiritual growth and to confidence in the fundamental truths of the message for this time. Of any who have completed twelve grades or an equivalent of general school work, those who may take this course are,—
  1. Graduate nurses.
  2. Natural or practical nurses who have not been graduated.
  3. Teachers, ministers, Bible workers, canvassers, and others who wish this training to widen their usefulness in their regular work.
This course will include also instruction for those who wish to take certain preparatory medical subjects where they can have the advantage of instruction by graduate and experienced physicians and of association with them in the actual work of the sanitarium.
In order that teachers and others may not be obliged to discontinue progress in literary lines while pursuing this special study, they will be permitted to carry one collegiate subject selected from the scientific course offered in our regular colleges, and provided for in our collegiate course.
A regular nurses’ course, three years in length, is offered. This course provides a training broader than that usually given to nurses. To make way for this, the time required for the practical work of the regular course has been considerably reduced. A few also will be allowed to pay cash for part of their expenses, to gain further time. Candidates for this course must have completed nine grades or an equivalent of general school work.
The fourth and last course offered is called the gospel workers’ course. It will be conducted as a field auxiliary to the college and a constituent part of its work, and will afford opportunity to receive and put into practise instruction in Bible readings, canvassing, health and temperance demonstration, gospel music, and the keeping of simple accounts. This course is continuous from year to year, credit being given for the actual work done.
The school will provide instruction and practise in instrumental music, voice culture, and singing, by instructors of tested ability and experience.
The regular expense to all students is fifteen dollars a month of four weeks, and fifteen hours of manual labor a week. Those taking the nurses’ course will be provided work for their board, room, and tuition, which, with the exception of six hours a week which are spent in outdoor work, will be a part of their regular training.
A scholarship is offered to all who sell two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of our own books, and turn in the proceeds to the amount of one hundred and twenty-five dollars.
The college year will be forty-two weeks, in three terms of fourteen weeks each, beginning Sept. 20, 1906.
The teachers employed so far are: W. E. Howell (in charge), the sanitarium physician-in-chief, Dr. Julia White, Dr. Geo. K. Abbott, Mrs. W. E. Howell, the sanitarium chaplain, Elder S. N. Haskell, Mrs. S. N. Haskell, J. W. Beardslee, Miss Gertrude Grainger, W. H. Covell.
A brief announcement has been prepared as a forerunner to our regular prospectus not yet ready, and may be had on application, as may also copies of the outline of courses, which will soon be ready for distribution.
All who may be interested in our school are requested to correspond with the writer at Loma Linda, via Redlands, Cal., and no one should come without first making definite arrangements, as recommendations will be required in all cases. W. E. HOWELL.