[Dr. Brown made a weekly trip from Scotland to London as a labor of love to help establish the health and nutrition work as part of the New Gallery evangelistic program. Her service was wonderfully successful and left a lasting impression.—R. A. A]
It was my privilege for thirteen weeks to be associated with the medical evangelistic program conducted at our evangelistic center, the New Gallery, Regent Street, London. No words that I can write could convey the encouragement and inspiration this work has brought to all of us associated with it. The enthusiasm of the people attending the lectures, the appreciation they have shown of the School of Nutrition and Better Health, and the healing results obtained in our primitive treatment rooms are things that could never be expressed on paper.
One would need to see for himself how God has blessed the humble efforts of His people to spread the great light that He has given for these last days.
Our own health institution at Crieff, and a very successful medical evangelistic campaign in Glasgow conducted by Pastor McGougan, assisted by the writer, resulted in eighty persons being baptized during the past fifteen months.
A few days after we opened our School of Nutrition and Better Health with demonstrations, we were introduced to a woman who was very interested in the meetings, but suffering considerable pain. She asked if we could help her. After examining the patient I felt convinced that we could help her with hydrotherapy, but as we had no place to give treatment, we took her fifteen miles out to the home of a good Adventist nurse, Mrs. Nolan, who gave her a treatment. The patient felt so much better from even that first treatment that she asked if it would be possible to give her treatments in London, as she had an important position that was almost impossible to leave at the moment. So in faith we fixed up a very temporary room in the basement of the New Gallery. The only available space was a small room being used by our canteen staff to change their overalls, but we managed to get a single bed and a massage cot into it. So the treatment rooms at the New Gallery were opened in prayer and faith, minus appliances and conveniences. Our good sister, Mrs. Nolan, was engaged to help me two half-days weekly in our School of Nutrition, but she most willingly fitted the treatments in between our lectures and cookery demonstrations. So the good work went on.
Our first patient made great progress, and soon recommended the treatments to her friends. In a short time the requests were so numerous that it was almost impossible to fill them in our limited accommodations. Before long we were treating from fifteen to twenty patients per day, and when the list rose to twenty-three per day we had to ask the Stan-borough Sanitarium to lend us a nurse, which they kindly did.
Spiritual Emphasis
We were all deeply impressed by the great interest shown by our patients in the spiritual side of our work, as well as the message of health. Our health lectures were being conducted all this time, and we had some wonderful opportunities to bring Christ into the hearts of sad men and women, who were not only physically ill but spiritually hungry for the Bread of Life. In the lectures we made it very plain that the gospel of health was the opening door to great spiritual truths to follow. We especially emphasized the fact that the gospel of health, as valuable as it is in improving and promoting health of body, will at its best only add a few more years to our span of life in a weary, sin-cursed earth; whereas the acceptance of the whole gospel, with its message of eternal life, opens the gateway to life everlasting. Instead of merely an invitation to our demonstration tables filled with the products of this life, we offered a gracious invitation to the marriage supper of the Lamb, to eat of the tree of life, of better grapes than those of Eshcol, and of luscious fruits that await us in the new earth.
There has been something significant and unusual in this experience. We feel that God has honored this work in a very special way, for although we have been engaged in medical work for many years, we have never seen such good results from hydrotherapy as we have had here, in spite of our limited appliances. And we ask ourselves, Is this not the fulfillment of the promises God's servant gave us in the Spirit of prophecy concerning the results that would follow when we used the right arm of the message to open doors and hearts in our great cities? We have seen it here in the heart of old London, and also in Glasgow, and we pray that this good work may go on. All our people greatly appreciate the generous gift from the General Conference of this lovely building, situated in the best part of London and doing a great work for God in this great city. We have had to refuse many applications for treatment until we can get more accommodations. There is space available, but it needs to be fitted up for this work.
In reviewing this experience in London I am vividly reminded of Ellen G. White's instruction in Counsels on Health, p. 556:
"The medical missionary work is a door through which the truth is to find entrance to many homes in the cities."
"Medical missionary work is the pioneer work. It is to be connected with the gospel ministry. It is the gospel in practice."—Ibid., p. 532.
Our good hydrotherapy treatments are just as much needed today as ever. Nothing will ever take their place. Modern wonder drugs, antibiotics as we call them, may, and have, helped some people in times of emergency, but there are many patients who are resistant to these methods. Has anyone found a patient resistant to hydrotherapy? I have not found one in more than forty years of medical work. Some folks have wondered if the day of hydrotherapy has not passed. Our experience convinces us that the simple methods of treating disease are closer to the divine pattern.
