The Tonic for the Sick

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 12, 1912

The Tonic for the Sick

How few know how to conduct themselves in the presence of a sick person! After twenty-five years of experience it is an increasing conviction that visitation of the sick should be limited almost entirely to a very few. Some stay too long. Some talk too loud. Almost all talk about other sick persons. Few ever laugh or smile. The test of the value of any visit to the sick is its effect upon the patient. So tested, most of our trying to do good to the sick is a clumsy, depressing affair.

There is no finer art under the sun than to pitch one's thought and one's voice to lighten up one's face, to illumine one's soul with gracious good cheer, so that one's coming brings a tonic of strength, and one's going leaves a ray of sunshine on the soul of the sufferer. And even this art of healing is only one aspect of all life. How brutal our charity is sometimes! How abrupt and awkward the hand that reaches the dole! This ought not to be. To fill the stomach while we wound the heart is poor policy. It is the spirit that needs our healing everywhere. Out of two decades of contact with human misery we declare with absolute conviction that in nine cases out of ten the human need is for what Jesus gave rather than for what we even try to give.

—Universalist Leader.