THE CHURCH OFFICERS’ GAZETTE 13
Testimony Study: “ A Coll to Service.”’~ The following quo-
tations have been selected from sources whieh are available to
all, and so they are merely suggested. We are indebted to L. A.
Hansen, of the Medical Depariment, for them (we give the first
and last words of the quotation): i
1. A work for all,
“ The work which the disciples did, . . . lighten the woes of
suffering humanity.” The Ministry of Healing,” p. 104.
2. Lengthening the chain,
“ Jesus did not consider .
3. In His steps.
“Many feel that it would . .
Id., pp. 105, 106.
“We are to feed ths hungry, .
4. The one way to reach souls,
“ Chrigt’s method alone . ‘Follow Me’ ¥—1Id., p. 143.
5. Kindling faith.
“Many have no faith . . . Word is opened.” Id., p. 145.
6. The youth, God’s helping hand.
“The Lord has appointed the youth to he Hig helping hand.
If in every church they would conseerats themselves to Him,
if they would practise self-denial in the home, relieving their
careworn mother, the mother could find time to make neighborly
visits, and when opportunity offered, they eould themselves give
assistance by doing littls errands of mercy and love. Books
and papers treating on the subject of health and temperance
could be placed in mamy homes. The circulation of this litera-
ture is an important matter; for thus precious knowledge can
be imparted in regard to the treatment of disease,— knowledge
that would be a great blessing to those who eannot afford to
pay for a physician's visits.” Counsels on Health,” p. 428.
Tall: Opportunities” — Ask the leader of the Christian help
band to give a report of work dons by the members, and make
suggestions for further work, Perhaps arrangements can he
made to give instruction in simple treatments.
Response— This is an opportunity for all who are interested
in this kind of work to make if kaown., Plan for definite re-
sults. No enthusiasm should be allowed to die. Ask those who
have reported © Treatments given” to be ready to tell how the
homes of neighbors have been entered and help given. If such
ministering has opened the way fo tell ths “truth” or has in
any way broken down prejudice, tell of that, too.
Junior Notes
Standard of Attainment Dyill— The study for the day is on
the 2300 days. Have a chart drawn on the blackboard. Then
study carefully the verses that mark the begiming and close of
the period. On an understanding of this, period depends an
understanding of the eall which has made Advsntists what they
are. Tt iscthis that reveals to us ths faet thal even now the
investigative judgmsnf is going on. After ths study, call on
several Juniors to draw the chart from memory.
Leader's Tolls~- Bee the notes for Senior Leader’s Talk.
Tall: “ Helping My Neighbor.” Tell the story of ths good
Samaritan. Luke 10: 30-35, Illustrate by this incident:
© “One wintsr day the evening train, which was the only train
that stopped, brought to a, certain Western fown a man who
looked like a foreigher. He asked for the best hotel! Now
the town had only a very small boarding house. Ths men at
the corner joked the stranger a good deal as they told him fo
walk right aeross the road and enter their very hest ‘ hotel’
“The next day. word spread around town that ths stranger
was sick and needed care. The ranchmen promptly {ook charge,
and every one took his turn in looking after the sick man. It
was a long pull, for the neweomsr was very ill, but no one failed
when his turn came. When, at last, the patient began to get
better, he did not seem like a stranger, for they felt that he
belonged to them, But the man was surprised When he came
to himself and found a man whom he did not know trying to
feed him some broth. ‘ Who are you? ’ he asked. ‘One of your
ngighbors,’ ths ranchman said. ° Well, how did. we get to be
neighbors?’ the sick man went on, Oh, said the ranchman,
‘you needed neighbors, and: we took you on’
“ When the visitor became well, he went away, but soon came
hack and built a small hospital to show how grateful he was.
Hg always said that his best friends were. the men who adopted
him for a neighbor when he was sick and a stranger.”
Did these men have the spirit.of Christ in their hearts when
they ministered to the sick stranger? | SI Loe
Superintendent's Talk and Besponse~—Fmphasize the value
of being ready to serve others. If the meeting is not on Sab-
bath, havs a first-aid drill, and review the principles that. Junior
Companions are supposed to know. (See Junior Manual, pages
136-146.) A bandags drill or the tying. of a tourniquet, would
be an interesting exercise. Ask soms, Junior to bring her doll
to serve as patient. ; Give a demonstration of fomentations,
using small woolen ‘cloths instead of regular fomentation cloths,
and the doll for the patient. If the meeting is on Sabbath,
emphasize the importancs of learning how to do things so as
to be ready when the opportunity presents itself. Study the
instruction that has besn given us (gee article for Senior Talk
No. 5), and show ths ehildren why every Christian should know
how to care for ths sick. For the responss, ask the hoys and
girls to make suggestions as to how they ean: bs of use when
there is sickness in the home, or have experiences related.
. path He trod, ”— Id., p. 105.
. in need of consolation ’—
. hopeless,”— Id., p. 106.
i!
A Woman Who Ministered
BorN in Hampden, Maine, April 4, 1802, Dorothea Lynde Dix
knew such suffering as a child that never to the end of life
would she refer to her first twelve years. “I never knew child-
hood,” was the only reply she would ever make to questions.
Certainly she knew no home, for her father was a wanderer
who dragged his wifé and child from place to place. They
stitched fogether and sold the traets he wrote, and so earned
a scanty, uneertain living. At twelve years of age Dorothea
went to her father’s mother, in Boston.
Here she studied night and day to fit herself to be independ-
ent. So well did she succeed that at fourteen she began to
teach, a work that she followed, with a few intervals of study
and travel, for twenty-five years,
By that time her father and mother had died, and the two
-young brothers whom Miss Dix had reared and cducated, were
started in life for themselves. The grandmother who had given
the child a homs had died also, leaving all her worldly posses:
sions to Dorothea.
She was a woman of thirty-nine, “ tall and of dignified car-
riage, head finely shaped and set, with an abundance of soft,
wavy brown hair. I thought her the most beautiful woman I
had ever seen.” Bo said one of her pupils. She had fulfilled
all family obligations and was financially independent. What
should she do?
Chance answered the question, “ Eternal God the chance did
guide.” Coming out of church one morning, she overheard two
men talking of the inhuman freatment of the prisoners, sane
and insane, in the jail at Bast Cambridge, Mass, A day or two
later Migs Dix was asked to tsach a Sunday school class made
up of wemen in this jail. She was ready to accept the task,
but to those who asked her she put the question, “ How can I
teach love and good will toward all men to the half-starved and
freezing? v
She was told to prove these statements. With deferminsd
ensrgy shs investigated for herself the jail conditions. She
found the evererowded place filthy; shs saw the innocent, guilty,
and insane herded together without any heat in a room where
the {smperature was below zero. Men like Dr. Samuel Howe
and Charles Sumner hslpsd her carry ths matter to ths’ courts,
and so clean this Augean stable,
Womanlike, Miss Dix wondered if this jail were the exception,
or if there were others like it, Without any authority from the
State she visited all its prisons and almshouses. Then shs com-
piled a report to the legislature, a report confined to a gtatement
of the conditions of ths insane; for to these helpless sufferers
her sympathy had gone out most strongly. “I proceed, gentle-
men,” she wrote, “to eall your attention to ths state of the
insane confined within (his Commonwealth in cagss, closets,
stalls, cellars, pens; chained, naksd, bsaten with rods, lashed
inte obedience.”
She cited illustrative cases, sueh ag that of ome patient con-
fined in total darkness, & chain from the iron collar about his
nsek fo a staple in the wall préventing his moving about. The
keeper boasted of this collar, saying the man liked it.
“ How do you know he likes it?” flashed Miss Dix.
“ Why, he’s quit trying to run away!” was the astounding
reply. L :
Another poor man had lived for years in a stone cell; eight
feet square, with no light, no air, no heat. Case after case. of
heartbreaking suffering Migs Dix told’ of, and the State was
shoeked into remedying the evils. For the hospital at Worcester
alone $200,000 was appropriated. So
From Massachussfts Miss Dix went to Rhode Island. Con-
ditions there were equally frightful. Again Miss Dix made a
report, and again the State was shamed into bettering condi
tions. Then on she went to other States. 2
After State insane asylums: were established here, Miss Dix
visited State after State in the South. Much of her traveling
had to be done in a carriage, over wretched roads, so rough
that Miss Dix always carried with her in preparation for an
emsrgency, “ a hammer, wrench, nails, serews, coil of rope, and
straps of stout leather.” No danger dauntsd her, and diffcultiss
only whetfed her spirit: She used to say, “ The tonic I need
is the tonic of opposition. That always set me on my feet.”
Her work. carried her to nearly ever State east of the Rocky
Mountains, to Canada, ahd to many of the countries in Earope.