Newspaper Page Text
6
THE CHRISTIAN NUUSL
Address 'Before the Graduating Class of The Tabernacle Infirmary Training School Tor Nurses, December 13, 1907
Sv RE V. JOHN E. PURSER, D. D.
O-NIGHT you are to be invested with
all the rights and privileges which this
school and our commonwealth can be
stow for your life-work. The impor
tance of the work you have chosen is
growing in the estimation of the peo
ple, and receiving more and more the
commendation of all men. The raising of
the curriculum, the extension of the
T
time required, promises a higher, nobler and more
efficient service. If, in the time I have I can make
this sphere of service a little more attractive, the
conviction to do your best a little deeper, your
courage a little stronger, and your hopes of mak
ing some real contribution to the needs of humanity
a little brighter, I shall have been amply repaid.
With this desire I shall speak of your work, your
equipment, and your reward. There is no more im
portant and Christ-like work done in this world
than that to which you have consecrated your life.
History tells us of the rise and fall of empires,
the epic poet thrills us with songs of heroism and
valor, the pastoral poet sings to us of rural scenes,
and the joys of country life. We are waiting for
some poet to rise who will worthily tell of the
cultured, consecrated young woman who takes her
life in her hands and goes forth to serve suffer
ing humanity. I speak to you to-night of that work
which brings balm to the tortured soul, courage to
the fainting heart, and health for the sick body.
You are the physician’s and surgeon’s right hand,
and are to go into homes and hospitals to adminis
ter the medicines, prepare the bandages, smooth
the pillow, sooth the fever-tossed patient, and in
every way within your province, help to nurse the
sick and suffering back to health and strength.
It is a real, practical work. There is a great con
trast between real work and much of the so-called
charity of our day. Theory is indispensable in its
place, but you will never alleviate the woes of men
if you stop with theorizing. There are those who
are moved by imaginary suffering, but will not
leave their luxurious homes to serve humanity, how
ever great the necessity may be. The sufferers of
this world want work as well as tears; kind deeds
as well as kind wishes, and a manifestation of that
spirit which leads one to say, “I’ll help you,” as
well as “God bless you.”
One Woman to Five Thousand Men.
Tn alleviating the ills that flesh is heir to, I will
put one earnest, hard-working Christian woman
against five thousand men who merely theorize on
the subject. Some theorists have never laid tribute
on themselves for one dollar of their wealth or for
a single hour of their time to gladden a human
heart or bless an afflicted home. There are men
who can give you the history of Zoroastrianism, or
Confucianism, or Buddhism, or any other isms, who
never have given a penny to shed the true light
noon the millions who sit under the shadow of their
blasting systems of error. There are women who
talk and write beautifully about the suffering
world, who have neither the courage nor the grace
to make one visit to the helpless and hopeless, ly
ing in the shadow of death. You do not belong to
that class. The call of duty has sounded in your
souls, and when the cry went forth saying, Who
will help? you bravely answered, “Here am I, use
me.” This means sacrifice on your part, and puts you
in line with the world’s great and heroic women. We
are told that the Princess of Conti sold her jewels
that she might buy bread for the famished, smit
ten sufferers among her people. The wife of Henry
the First went among the poor, washed their
wounds, and administered their medicines. Before
the smoke had cleared away from Gettysburg and
Stone Mountain, the women of the North and the
women of the South were on the battle-fields, for
getting all animosities, nursing the wounded and
closing the eyes of the dying.
History has recorded how your predecessors have
The Golden Age for January 23, 1908.
stood and battled through the long hours of the
day, and the weary hours of the night, with death
and disease as the epidemics lay on the great cities.
And so you come to-night to consecrate your
lives to the service of suffering humanity, whether
it be amid domestic scenes, or the hospital, or the
tenement, or the bivouac. You are to go wherever
and whenever duty calls you. Sometimes among the
rich; sometimes among the poor; sometimes among
the learned and influential, and sometimes among
the obscure and illiterate. In answering your calls
you will w’alk at times through the halls of splendid
palaces, and then your feet will climb the bare,
rickety stairway, and on a broken chair you will
keep your vigil beside the lonely sufferer. But in
every case you are to go as an angel of mercy. This
is your work.
As to the equipment you have, many have made
contributions. God made His; the teacher made
his; you made yours. God has pre-eminently en
dowed women for this work. You possess as wo
men some characteristics which men do not have.
You have quick intuitions, and this intuitive judg
ment is often more to be relied upon than an elabo
rate process of reasoning. We all know women who
decided questions on the instant with unerring ac
curacy, over which men had worried their brains
for hours and seemed to get deeper and deeper
into the mazes of doubt and difficulty.
Henry Ward Beecher said that his wife could
scan a stranger standing in his front door and know
more about him in that moment than he could know
after hours of conversation with the man in his
study. When emergencies arise, woman seems
gifted with a second sight.
The Tender Touch.
God has given you a tenderness which man does
no.t possess. “Tenderness is that quiet influence
which, like the scented flame of an alabaster lamp,
fills the sick room with light and warmth and fra
grance.” Tenderness makes the pillow soft on
which sickness lays its head' and forgets half its
misery. It is the warmth of affection, the prompti
tude of sympathy, and love in all of its depths and
delicacies at service. God has given more tender
ness to you than to your brother, and for a wise
purpose.
Then, woman has superior endurance. She can
■watch night after night for weeks, keep up her
spirits and never show a sign of weariness until
the emergency has passed. A woman’s patience is
proverbial. You all know the story of Griselda.
I have discovered the reason why women are all
more or less patient. It is because they have to
deal with men. In your work you will need infinite
patience. The results do not always come as soon as,
or in the way that, the anxious physician plans ,and
you are the unwearied, faithful, alert watcher
whose face and voice must be keyed up to hope and
courage.
Then, women have a quality of courage peculiarly
their own. The woman who shrieks hysterically
over a mouse may nerve herself to meet unflinching
ly a great moral or physical crisis.
Not only has God made His contribution to your
equipment, but.your teachers have done much in
your preparation. Your advantages have been far
superior to those who even a few years ago went
out from our training schools. There have been
marked improvements along all educational lines,
but none greater than those along the peculiar lines
which you have pursued. lam sure you will never
cease to be grateful to those who, with so much
care, have guided you through your three years’
course of study and helped you to acquaint your
self with one of the noblest of all sciences. If you
are wise, you will never think you know enough.
Strive to master your profession. There is strength
and courage in the consciousness of knowledge.
Then there is the motive which lies behind all prep
aration and work, See to it that your motive is
what it ought to be. I can think of three motives
which could move you: The first is low —the motive
of gain only. The second is higher —a desire to ad
vance scientific knowledge. The third is the high
est —a desire to serve God and humanity. Let this
motive be yours.
That leads me to one other thing of your equip
ment, which is without doubt the most important.
With a sound body, a sound mind, healthy morals,
a trained hand, a knowledge of the potency of reme
dies, and a mastery in the use of them, you need a
Christian heart. Before you leave this institution
I charge you in the name of Almighty God that
you seek first the kingdom of God and His right
eousness. Jesus is the Great Physician. Before
every duty, before every sorrow, before every sac
rifice, I would have you sit at the feet of the divine
Healer and learn of Him. Remember always who
you are, and what you are. Do you dream that
out of the resources of your own poor hearts, you
can supply all the draughts that will be made on
your strength and sympathy? But there is One
to whom you can go who turns none empty away.
And then there will come times when you will have
the opportunity of rendering the greatest possible
service to the sick and the dying, namely, to enter
into the holy of holies of their souls and take with
you that which they most need —the Bread of Life.
As no one else in all the world, you will be permit
ted to tell the story of Jesus and His willingness
and power to save.
A Godless Nurse.
Without God you do not carry within your bos
oms light for the dying, hope for the despairing,
consolation for the bereft and patience for the sick.
Unless you know Christ as your own personal Sa
vior, you have not light and hope and patience suffi
cient for your own soul’s wants while performing
your ministries. Piety, then, is an absolute neces
sity. Think of standing beside a sick child or a
broken-hearted man, or a dying mother, with no
word from heaven, and not even the ability to point
the passing soul to the everlasting home! De
prived of the outside inspiration, working in the
quiet and secluded sphere, you will greatly need
the conscious presence of your heavenly Father
and His approving smile. At times you will hear
the rumble of wheels and the rush and roar of the
world’s business and pleasure while you will be
shut within the compass of four walls, soothing the
anguished brow, sending up the silent prayer, count
ing the heart-throbs, and for the most part, doing
your work alone. Few will think of the long nights,
the fears, the pains, the anxieties inseparable from
your office. I would have you so at peace with
heaven, the world, and yourselves, that tears would
only flow at the call of sympathy. “I would have
you as immaculate as the light,” devoted to all
good deeds, industrious, intelligent, patient, heroic,
Christ-like. Such a life will not go unrewarded.
No honest toiler, no earnest Christian, leaves this
world without being missed. Poverty comes and
shows the garments that that life provided. Re
stored invalids gather to speak of services ren
dered. “Orphans are lifted up to look into the
calm face of the sleeping benefactress,” and there
is mourning in the streets because the toiler is dead.
Margaret, the Bread Woman.
You have heard, doubtless, of Margaret, the bread
woman of New Orleans. She was poor and unlet
tered and uncultured. She kept a little eating
house for sailors out on the river front. Every
body loved her. She was never too busy or too
poor to help the less fortunate. After awhile she
opened a bakery and had one delivery wagon, and
her benefactions increased. The more she gave the
more she made. It was her bread that everybody
bought. She founded and supported the largest
orphan asylum in New Orleans, and at her death
left it handsomely endowed. The mayor and the
(Concluded on Page Seven.)
