In a moral sense this world is
a hospital. There are no thoroughly well people in it. Some
are convalescent, but none altogether above the need of that
tenderness due to the sick. Who of us has not some trouble of
mind or heart, some burden weighing upon our spirits, some trial
that taxes our strength, some anxiety or secret, unspoken sorrow
that depresses our spirits? Few hearts are uncovered to the
world. "The heart knoweth its own sorrow." Every house
is said to have a skeleton behind the door. There are personal
trials, unsatisfied wants and ambitions, crushed hopes, defeated
plans, unrealized ideals, unanswered longings; there are family
trials, purposes and desires misunderstood, imperfect matings,
heavy burdens, care that galls, solicitude for thoughtless or
not perfect children, shortness of supplies, inappreciation,
incompatibility of temper or character; there are neighborhood
troubles, school troubles, church troubles, business troubles,
vexations of all sorts, which chafe and try and depress. Are
there any who do not know about some or all of these? Then there
are losses, disappointments and defeats, bereavements, sorrows
and hopes deferred, how many! Surely there is not a painless
heart in all the world. The rich and the poor have their burdens,
though different; the great and the small have their trials
which are hard to bear. Yes, the world is a hospital and the
people are all sick at heart. They need and ought to have sympathy,
tender consideration, the sweet help of good words, polite attentions
and all the good news that can be borne to them for their encouragement.
Then there are cruel pride, chafing temper, demanding vanity,
hateful selfishness, low deceit, hard ambition, fierce lust,
the crying greed or gain, and many more desires and passions
which torture us by turns and waste the life we are trying to
live. Oh how much reason there was for that great compassion,
that marvelous tenderness of love, which the dear Savior manifested
for suffering, sinful men! He brought to them the good news
of His gospel, and why should not we give them all the good
news we have? Why should we peddle bad news when there is so
much good to be told?
