Counsels on Health - Ellen G. White

members of the several churches are responsible
before God for their afflicted ones. They should
bear their own burdens. If they have sick persons
among them, whom they wish to be benefited by
treatment, they should, if able, send them to the
sanitarium. In doing this, they will not only be
patronizing the institution which God has
established, but will be helping those who need
help, caring for the poor as God requires us to do.
It was not the purpose of God that poverty
should ever leave the world. The ranks of society
were never to be equalized; for the diversity of
conditions which characterizes our race is one of
the means by which God has designed to prove and
develop character. Many have urged with great
enthusiasm that all men should have an equal share
in the temporal blessings of God; but this was not
the purpose of the Creator. Christ has said that we
shall have the poor always with us. The poor, as
well as the rich, are the purchase of His blood; and
among His professed followers, in most cases, the
former serve Him with singleness of purpose,
while the latter are constantly fastening their
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