The Gospel to the Sick
By David Paulson
If you have ever been ill, you remember how heavily time hung on your hands, although the entire family were working untiringly for your comfort. But suppose that you had been in a hospital with perhaps a dozen other patients in the same ward, and one nurse trying to care for them all! The city hospitals all over our land are filled with people whose plans and hopes for life have been more or less blasted, and whose hearts are especially susceptible to the influences of the gospel. Here is a splendid missionary field. Nearly all hospitals have certain visiting days, when permission would be granted to distribute to the patients such literature as the management approves. The Life Boat has been found to be an excellent paper for this purpose. Where it has been introduced to the hospitals, the patients read it eagerly, and pass it from bed to bed. Then there are thousands of nurses, many of whom are noble and self-sacrificing souls. They will by the same means get a glimpse not only of our truth, but also of our medical missionary work. The same would be true to a certain extent of the physicians and hospital management. We are not only to proclaim the gospel from the pulpit, but also to carry it to the prison cells, military camps, and the bedside of the hospital patients. A subscription paper passed among business men for this purpose would meet with the heartiest response,—two dollars will pay for ten copies of The Life Boat for one year,—or perhaps some one would donate the proceeds of one day's sales of The Life Boat for this purpose. We believe that God will put it in the hearts of our young people to interest themselves in this matter, as it will open up a host of missionary opportunities. Address your State tract society, or 28 Thirty-third Place, Chicago.