Part 18

Emma is bidden to heat water, which she does by filling an old black kettle and standing it on the blazing embers of the open fire.

How the nurse worked, and watched, and prayed as the hours passed, and no improvement! The day came and went, and another night brought closer the shadow--the little one seemed hardly to breathe. Then the mother fled out in the darkness to rock back and forth in an agony of weeping, which was hushed only when the quiet voice of the nurse said: "You make it harder. Pray instead."

At last the waiting nurse feels the little body relax under her touch. Sleep and restoration begin to steal back the ebbing vitality--the little life is saved.

To-day within reach of this home, and many like it, the Mary Isabel Alien Memorial Hospital at Gray Hawk, Kentucky, stands with open doors and inviting beds for all who suffer. [Footnote: Women's Board of Domestic Missions, Reformed Church in America.]

Whatever equipment and loving service can do to provide healing may be found here.

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"The military occupation of Porto Rico drew the attention of the Christian churches of the United States to their opportunity and responsibility for sending the light of the true Gospel to that island where it had never penetrated. Soon after this the investigations of a military surgeon demonstrated the important fact that ninety per cent of the working population of the island were affected with the hook-worm disease. Apart from other diseases which were present, here was a great economic and humanitarian problem. The government had done much, but as elsewhere, other agencies were needed if the physical ills of the Porto Ricans were to be healed. In response to this need Dr. Grace Atkins went to Porto Rico in 1900 as the first medical missionary under the Woman's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. She started a clinic in a room of her rented house, and treated many sick people in their homes. Being impressed with how little she could do in this way for many who were seriously sick, or who needed operations, she urged upon the Board the erection of a hospital. In response to her call to the church, in February, 1904, the present hospital buildings in San Juan were opened to receive patients. There were forty-five beds and, at that time, this was the only hospital on the island in which the sick could be properly treated.

"That there is need for the work and that the hospital is meeting that need is shown by the number of those who come for treatment. This has increased from seven thousand in 1907 to over nineteen thousand in 1914. The majority of these naturally are treated in the dispensary, where a clinic is held daily, except Sunday. On Monday all day is required to treat those who come, the number reaching almost two hundred at times. Many come in from the surrounding country, often walking from ten to thirty miles. All classes of diseases are seen. Besides the more common ailments, with which all are familiar, there are many cases of hook-worm anemia and a number of other diseases peculiar to the tropics. Then there are many who need surgical treatment. Blind men come in led by little boys; some are brought in rocking chairs by their friends; others are carried in hammocks, while still others arrive in coaches or automobiles. One woman may have a piece of a needle broken off in her hand and another a large tumor which needs a major operation for its removal. Each one must be examined, a diagnosis made and the proper treatment and instructions given. The most serious cases are admitted to the hospital when there are beds available. On an average six to eight cases a week have to be refused admission because the beds are filled.

"In the private rooms are treated many Porto Ricans and many Americans. The latter not only receive medical attention needed, and much appreciated, on a foreign shore, but also an education in practical Christianity which in many cases proves a great surprise as well as a benefit to themselves and the hospital. Practically all the patients in the wards are Porto Ricans. A few of the more serious medical cases are admitted, but the majority are those who need operations. Able to pay nothing or very little, there is no other place where most of them can receive treatment which will enable them to support themselves and those dependent upon them. The blind have been made to see and the lame to walk. So many apply for admission that there is always a waiting list. Many lives have been saved in the children's ward by taking in babies who have become sick from improper or insufficient food due to ignorance or poverty. Tuberculosis of bones fend joints is common and many little sufferers have been restored to health and strength.

"That the work done in the hospital is not only helpful to individuals but that it could be done by no other institution present or projected is the testimony of the head of the Department of Health, who is an American and has resided many years on the island.

"One of the most important departments of the hospital is the training school for nurses. There were practically no trained nurses on the island and no provision for their training when our school was opened. About sixty have graduated and are doing faithful and efficient work as head nurses in our own and other hospitals, and in the homes of their own people. There are usually about fifteen pupil nurses. In addition to the regular hospital work a department of district, or visiting, nursing has been started and each one is trained to do actual practical work in the home. Not only is this valuable for the nurse, but it makes it possible to follow up many of the cases from the clinic, or hospital, and supervise their diet and care and so try to keep them well, which is especially important for the babies. One of the graduates is doing this in connection with the settlement work of our church in San Juan. Her work has suggested to the local Board of Health the desirability of establishing a similar work on a larger scale. This is an illustration of the indirect benefits of missions throughout the world.

"But men are souls and merely have bodies, so that, however important it is to heal the body, our Master came to save the soul and our duty is to point them to Him. Every day in the wards and in the clinic the Bible is read and prayer is offered. On Sunday a service is held in which the Gospel message is explained. They have never had the Bible and know nothing of the true Gospel. The are either entirely ignorant of religion or their ideas are erroneous. By the spoken word in the hospital and by giving them the written Word to carry to their homes, the way is prepared for the entrance into their hearts and lives of the divine Healer and Saviour.

"The three years' course affords opportunity for the thorough religious instruction of the nurses in a weekly Bible class and in the church services which they attend on Sunday. With very few exceptions they have become members of evangelical churches before graduation." [Footnote: Presbyterian Hospital, San Juan, P.I.]

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"Of first importance in the physical well-being of the boy or girl is the knowledge that will lead to a wholesome development of body and mind.

"One of the most important phases of Home Mission medical work is instructing the students in Mission Homes and Schools in health and home sanitation, bringing to them something of the ideal for their older lives that Dr. David Starr Jordan expresses in "The Call of the Twentieth Century," where he speaks to the boy of to-day:

"So live that your after self--the man you ought to be--may in time be possible and actual. Far away in the twenties, the thirties of this century, he is awaiting his turn. His body, his brain, his soul are in your boyish hands. He cannot help himself. What will you leave for him? Will it be a brain unspoiled by lust or dissipation, a mind trained to think and act, a nervous system true as a dial in its response to the truth about you?"

The place and need of Home Missions as a present day healing force can be more fully realized when we consider the conditions peculiar to our country, which call urgently for greatly increased facilities for physical regeneration.

Pre-eminent among these are the constant influx of aliens from southern Europe and others of a dangerously low standard as regards sanitation and health--and the economic pressure which produces appalling congestion in living conditions.

"People are already living on certain portions of Manhattan Island at a density which, if continued throughout the entire city, would give New York a population of 197,372,635."

There is, on the other hand, the isolation and neglect of large groups of people who are uninformed of sanitation and have only precarious access to medical attendance, and whose needs call insistently for help, as well as constitute a menace to the health of these communities; such are found among Alaskans, Indians, Mexicans, and others.

As the enlarging view of spiritual regeneration has come to include the redemption of the environment so that it shall be an aid to better living instead of an almost insupportable hindrance, so also a newer and infinitely greater scope is daily coming to the realm of healing science--that of prevention of disease and stamping out of scourges rather than merely the healing of individuals after disease has claimed them.

This wider vision of physical regeneration, Home Missions is seeking earnestly to promote, that the better day for which humanity yearns may be hastened, when His Kingdom will come on earth.

AN INTEGRATING FORCE

"Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth o'er a' the earth May bear the gree and a' that, For a' that and a' that, It's coming yet, for a' that, That man to man, the world o'er Shall brothers be for a' that."

"Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?"

"There is neither Greek nor Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all."

"One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all."