The Work in the City of Chicago
By D. H. Kress, M. D.
AN important council, composed of Elders A. G. Daniells, W. T. Knox, O. A. Olsen, Allen Moon, G. E. Langdon, and representatives of the city work, was held in Elder K. C. Russell's tent and the West Side Mission building August 19 and 20, to consider the needs of the city of Chicago and how they may be met. The city work is still an unsolved problem. Something has been done, it is true; but greater efforts must be made, and more extensive plans evolved, if we would meet the needs of the hour. The council approved the efforts that have been made in the past to educate, enlighten, and help the people. Dr. David Paulson and his associates were encouraged to continue their good work in educating city workers at the South Side Mission. It was felt that in addition to this a medical mission should be opened on the West Side, the work of which would differ somewhat from the work done in the South Side Mission. The burden of those conducting the South Side Mission will be to take men and women who have a burden to learn how to become a blessing to their neighbors, and give them a course of six months' training in treating simple diseases, in the preparation of foods, etc. With this will be combined Bible instruction on how to lead men and women to Christ, and how to present the truth to them in the most attractive manner. Practical work will be one of the chief features of the training. This will include ministering to the sick poor, distributing literature, conducting cottage meetings, etc. It was voted that the General Conference be requested to furnish a Bible instructor. The West Side Mission is for the purpose of giving advanced work to graduate nurses and experienced Bible workers in carrying forward schools of health, giving lectures on health, temperance, and other Bible topics, and conducting Bible readings with the better classes. It is hoped in this way to carry on a ministry to all classes. In addition to this, these workers will assist in carrying forward training schools in our churches for the benefit of the members who are desirous of being a help in the community in which they live. Physicians and ministers will unite in carrying forward meetings in halls. We trust that we shall see accomplished a good work in the city of Chicago during this fall and winter, when people are most accessible, and that this wave of reform may extend to all the large cities, and that the time will come when every Seventh-day Adventist Church will be a training-school for Christian workers, and every Seventh-day Adventist an intelligent and efficient worker somewhere in the Lord's vineyard. We are living in the eleventh hour. There are many honest souls who are anxious to do something, but are afraid to venture, or do not know how to begin. Many of these are to be encouraged to go to work in the communities where God has placed them, not as conference employees, but as self-supporting missionaries. There are those who have home duties that will not permit them to canvass for our literature, or to do other self-supporting work. These should learn how to be neighborly, or how to be a neighbor, in the community in which they live. Christians are needed to-day, not merely in our large cities, but everywhere. Men and women living the Christ-life, going about doing good, helping the people where help is most needed, — this is the manifestation of the sons of God that this world needs and is longing for.