INSTRUCTOR
By DUNBAR W. SMITH, M.D.
After an Internship at the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hos- pital We Hope to Be Able to Respond to This Call; and, if I Cannot Use My Voice, I Shall Use My Hands; and, by Means of Medical Ministry, Finish the Task God Has Given Me to Do
All Things Work Together for Good
WELL, son," said the noted throat spe- of a fine church in a large city, discontinue and intelligent audience. We were barely cialist after examining my larynx, my network broadcast and associated Bible halfway through the series when I had to "you will have to quit preaching for a correspondence school, and abandon the quit speaking because of a severe laryn- while, and give your voice a rest. I notice plan to hold another evangelistic campaign gitis. some roughening of the cords, which will in the fall. I must disband my congenial My difficulty was due to the activities of only get worse if you continue, and in time evangelistic company and say good-by to some who wished to disturb the meetings you may not be able to talk at all." my many friends. and discourage attendance. Night after These were indeed sad words. I loved Two years before, I had injured my night lime was dusted in the air on the to preach, and greatly enjoyed my work. voice while preaching in the mission field. windward side of the beautiful new tile- God had called me to the ministry, and At the time we were conducting the third roofed tabernacle we had erected for this His servants had ordained me by the lay- series of Bible lectures in the beautiful campaign. As the dust drifted through, ing on of hands. I had no other thought and cultured Oriental city of Colombo, it caused considerable coughing, eye ir- but to "preach the word" until Jesus came Ceylon. Five nights a week for more than ritation, and other distress. I was the or until my lips were stilled in death. Now two months we had been presenting the speaker, and it especially irritated my I must consider resigning my pastorate great doctrines of the Bible to an eager —Please turn to page 17 VOL. 97, NO. 45 NOVEMBER 8, 1949 EALLY, Ben, I don't think you should again? It was a hard fight and a losing young people, were a vital part of her R risk skating today after this near miss battle, for when morning came there were life. She simply had to have her smokes! of pneumonia you just had. Why not stay two nurses on the case, and the doctor had But she wanted to go to college, and in where it is warm and cozy until we are called a colleague in for consultation. her parents were ready to send her, their sure that your difficulty has cleared up en- Ben survived—just! And that only be- only daughter. They did not know about tirely and until you are stronger? Then cause the risk was taken of moving him to the cigarettes or the occasional cocktails. • you can go out on the lake with the other a city hospital twenty-five miles away They only knew that Ruth was very "dif- boys and really have a good time." where the very latest in oxygen equipment ferent" now and hard to understand. She "Oh, I'm all right, Mother. My cold is and other up-to-date helps were available. seemed to enjoy the society of a "crowd" so much better, and I promised Jack I'd be A long convalescence followed, and his that—well—they were very modern young out. I think I'll go along." lungs never regained their strength and people, and occasionally the anxious father "But if you should take more cold, and ability to function normally. Also his heart and mother heard of some of their activ- the congestion recur in your lungs, just was left weakened. For the next year Ben ities, which to them were definitely ques- think what it would mean. If you should was a semi-invalid. Then he gained a tionable. They hoped that going away to get down sick, you probably would have little, and it was thought that maybe he college would change Ruth's tastes and to miss so much school that you couldn't could finish his academy work by home give her new ideals. graduate with your class." study. But it was too much. The dreaded Were these fond hopes realized? Far "Oh, bother! They're my lungs, aren't tuberculosis fastened itself upon him, and from it! The girl who was so insistent on they? And if they do get congested, whose the family home was finally sold to make living her own—life taught -her loomiliate business is it but mine?" it possible for him to remain in a hospital and six other dormitory girls to smoke "Well, remembering how Dr. Bell and in a favorable climate. His father, who had and to enjoy cocktails too. But the dean the nurse and your father and I worked been a share cropper in the South before was an alert housemother, and the day over you only about ten days ago, I think he had managed to pay for a small acreage came when the "whole crowd of smokers it would seem that you needed some help of his own, went back to share cropping, and drinkers" were put on probation, then about tending to what you now claim was and his mother took in washing to help finally expelled and forbidden to set foot your own business." balance the family budget. His two on the campus. Ben said nothing in reply, but his face younger sisters managed to finish grade I understand that one or two of these looked like a thundercloud the rest of the school, but could not go on with their misguided girls have succeeded in break- morning, and after lunch he dressed to go education as they longed to do, because ing the habit; but the rest, Ruth included, out. they must needs help out with expenses. seem to have forgotten the faith of their "Please, Ben, put your heavy sweater on Hospital bills for Ben came in every fathers, and have gone out into the world under your lumber jacket," urged his month, and they were heavy! for all that they can get out of it. The mother, "if you're determined to go skat- A few weeks ago the diseased lungs and son of one of them is now in an Adventist ing. Since you're seventeen and taller than the overburdened heart ceased to function, academy, and he has asked that during your father, I suppose I shouldn't consider and the young man who as an academy the Week of Prayer his mother be made taking you across my knee and spanking senior took the bit in his teeth and de- the special subject of petition for one day some sense into you with the razorstrop, cided to live his own life, no matter what by all the prayer bands! His father does but that's exactly what you need!" anybody said, fell into the sleep of death. not smoke or drink; and if his mother "That's what you think," defended Ben But one of his last acts, when he was al- only would stop, he feels that his home airily, "but you'll see. This skate is going most too weak to hold a pen, was to would surely be a happy place, which it to do me good—a lot of good! After all, write a letter to the home folks and ask is not now, and that his younger brothers I've got to live my own life!" their forgiveness for the headstrong act and sister would have a better chance. An hour later Ben was in the icy water that had, after all, been very much their And all this because a girl set out to of Green Lake, below the ice that had business for six long, weary years. live her own life under the mistaken seemed "thick enough to hold up a four- idea that what she did was nobody's busi- horse team," and the village volunteer fire It did not seem too important to Ruth ness but her own! company had been called to the rescue. when she went out for an evening date Finally he was fished out, stiff with cold; with Larry despite her parents' objections. It simply can't be done, friend o' mine! and his response to artificial respiration, "I'm going to live my own life," she re- "For none of us liveth to himself" is just even though it was given under the direc- marked as she closed the front door firmly as true today as when Paul penned the tion of his doctor, was slow indeed. But at behind her and hurried out to the car, admonition in his letter to the Roman last he breathed again, and was taken where her escort waited. church. Just remember this the next time home in the doctor's car, put to bed under But that was the evening she smoked you are tempted to try to live your own his mother's care, and his former nurse her first cigarette and drank her first cock- life, no matter what! called back to give the heavy preventive tail. Almost before she realized it those treatments ordered. Could the pneumonia miserable, deceiving, white coffin nails that had been so threatening be held off that have become such a curse to so many