Medical Missions

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... FROM CANDIDATE TO MISSIONARY I. The Call Carlyle has said, "Blessed is the man that hath found his work. Let him ask no other blessedness." The call to a life work on the foreign field--what constitutes it? This question is perplexing the minds of a large number of earnest men and women in colleges, universities, theological seminaries and medical schools. It is sheer mockery for any student to look for an answer to the question who does not genuinely purpose to live a life of the largest possible usefulness. But where that purpose directs the question, any honest seeker may learn whether or not he is "called" to missionary service. What are the factors in such a call? The need constitutes one factor in the call. It is the first thing that impresses a man who studies the condition of the non-Christian world. It is the first impression, the most lasting and the most urgent. One cannot escape the appalling fact that millions of his fellow beings are sick unto death, without medicine, without surgery, without hospitals, without doctors, without nurses, and, in addition, are deprived of the gospel of good cheer. The desire to meet the need is a second factor in the call. The impulse is God-given. To realize the need of suffering humanity is but to create an insistent desire, in the heart of every true Christian, to relieve that need. To do less is to be lacking in a sense of gratitude to God, and to be untrue to the obligation to give our fellow men what we have ourselves received. The judgment of those who know the candidate best, his qualification and disqualification, together with the demands of the field and of the service to be rendered--all enter into the final decision. A personal commitment to the will of God is the most important...