The Inner City

In the great cities are multitudes who receive less care and consideration than are given to dumb animals. Think of the families herded together in miserable tenements, many of them in dark basements reeking with dampness and filth. In these wretched places children are born and grow up and die. They see nothing of the beauty of natural things that God has created to delight the senses and uplift the soul. Ragged and half-starved, they live amid vice and depravity, molded in character by the misery and sin that surround them. Children hear the name of God only in profanity. Foul speech, threats, and revilings fill their ears. The fumes of alcohol and tobacco, sickening stenches, moral degradation pervert their senses. Thus multitudes are trained to become criminals, enemies of a society that has abandoned them to misery and degradation.MHH 100.8

Not all the poor in the inner city are of this class. God-fearing men and women have been brought to the depths of poverty by illness or misfortune, often through the dishonest scheming of those who live by taking advantage of others. Many who are upright and well-meaning become poor through lack of industrial training. Through ignorance they are unfitted to wrestle with the difficulties of life. Drifting into the cities, they are often unable to find employment. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of vice, they face powerful temptations. Often indiscriminately classed with the vicious and degraded, it is only by a superhuman struggle, a more-than-finite power, that they can be prevented from sinking to the same depths. Many hold fast their integrity, choosing to suffer rather than to sin. This class especially demands help, sympathy, and encouragement.MHH 100.9

If the poor now crowded into the cities could find homes on open land, they might not only earn a livelihood but find health and happiness now unknown to them. Hard work, simple fare, close economy, often hardship and privation might be their lot, but what a blessing would be theirs in leaving the city, with its enticements to evil, its turmoil and crime, misery and foulness, for the country’s quiet and peace and purity.MHH 101.1

Many of those living in the cities have not a square foot of green grass to put their feet on. Year after year they have looked out upon filthy courts and narrow alleys, brick walls and pavements, and skies clouded with dust and smoke. If these could be taken to some farming district, with green fields, woods, hills, brooks, clear skies, and fresh, pure air, it would seem almost like heaven.MHH 101.2

Cut off to a great degree from contact with and dependence upon other people, and separated from the world’s corrupting maxims, customs, and excitements, they would come nearer to the heart of nature. God’s presence would be more real to them. Many would learn the lesson of dependence upon Him. Through nature they would hear His voice speaking to their hearts of His peace and love, and mind and soul and body would respond to the healing, life-giving power.MHH 101.3

If they ever are to become industrious and self-supporting, very many must have assistance, encouragement, and instruction. There are multitudes of poor families for whom no better missionary work could be done than to assist them in settling on the land and in learning how to make it yield them a livelihood.MHH 101.4

The need for such help and instruction is not confined to the cities. Even in the country, with all its possibilities for a better life, multitudes of the poor are in great need. Whole communities are without education in industrial and sanitary lines. Families live in shacks, with little furniture and clothing, without tools, without books, destitute both of comforts and conveniences and of means of culture. Brutelike souls, bodies weak and ill-formed, reveal the results of evil heredity and of wrong habits. These people must be educated from the very foundation. They have led shiftless, idle, corrupt lives, and they need to be trained to correct habits.MHH 101.5

How can they be awakened to the necessity of improvement? How can they be directed to a higher ideal of life? How can they be helped to rise? What can be done where poverty prevails and is to be contended with at every step? Certainly the work is difficult. The necessary reformation will never be made unless men and women are assisted by a power outside of themselves. It is God’s purpose that the rich and the poor shall be closely bound together by ties of sympathy and helpfulness. Those who have means, talents, and capabilities are to use these gifts to bless those who are less fortunate.MHH 102.1

Christian farmers can do real missionary work in helping the poor to find homes on the land and in teaching them how to work the soil and make it productive. Teach them how to use the implements of agriculture, how to cultivate various crops, how to plant and care for orchards.MHH 102.2

Many who till the soil fail to secure adequate returns because of their neglect. Their orchards are not properly cared for, the crops are not put in at the right time, and a mere surface work is done in cultivating the soil. They charge their poor results to the unproductiveness of the land. False witness is often borne in condemning land that, if properly worked, would yield rich returns. The narrow plans, the little strength put forth, the little study as to the best methods, call loudly for reform.MHH 102.3

Let proper methods be taught to all who are willing to learn. If any do not wish you to speak to them of advanced ideas, let the lessons be given silently. Keep up the culture of your own land. Drop a word to your neighbors when you can, and let the harvest be eloquent in favor of right methods. Demonstrate what can be done with the land when properly worked.MHH 102.4

Attention should be given to the establishment of various industries so that poor families can find employment. Carpenters, blacksmiths, and indeed everyone who understands some line of useful labor should feel a responsibility to teach and help the ignorant and unemployed.MHH 102.5

In ministry to the poor there is a wide field of service for women as well as for men. The efficient cook, the housekeeper, the seamstress, the nurse—the help of all is needed. Let the members of poor households be taught how to cook, how to make and mend their own clothing, how to nurse the sick, how to care properly for the home. Let boys and girls be thoroughly taught some useful trade or occupation.MHH 102.6