The Washington herald., 1913-11-23

of poverty, these brave nountaineers.
They are proud and sensitive and en-
ergetic, but they fight losing battle,
for, in their ignorance of the common
laws of health, they contract the most
fearsome diseases and die like sheep
because they cannot afford doctor.
Mr.. Wilcox told of the three schools
he has established and the eager chill
dren they house; children who plead
that he teach them even on holidays.
so hungry are they for a way out OF
their ignorance and rags, and also of
those hundreds of other children he
cannot teach because there are neither
buildings nor teachers for them, a con-
dition due, of course, to the pititully
small help he and other brave men
who are working for these Appalachian
folk are given by us. !,
OF the many examples he cited OF
the Appalachian's courage, the most
heartbreaking was the tale of woman
suffering from cancer, who, when at
last the priest had secured enough
money to persuade doctor to go to
her, endured the knife for the removal
of twenty-five cancers without an an
aesthetic, and welcomed the agony in
comparison with the pain the disease
itself had brought.
HeartbreaIIng Poverty.
He told of the terrible accidents
which often befall the children of
large families while their parents work
in the fields, and the impossibility, IN
the main of securing medical attention
because of the heartbreaking poverty
of the patients.
Recently he has secured a trained
nurse who, because of the climatic con-
ditions, is willing to help the priest
for just enough financial compensation
to enable her to live in the mountains
until she herself is cured of pulmonary
trouble, but o he is so grateful for her
help; so thankful to God for every bit
of encouragement in his brave, fight for
the fathers and mothers and little chill
dren of whom there are hundreds ana
hundreds crying out to us across the
Appalachian ranges of Western North
Carolina and West Virgmia-our near
est field of missionary work.
He told again of mothers whose lives
go out into the Forever-Ever Land be-
cause there is not obtainable just
little money TO get them to Asheville
to hospital, and yet again of the
hundreds of orphans with whom he
knows not what to do because there
are no orphanageS in the mountains,
and the city homes for destitute chill
dren are filed to overflowing, and yet
further of the young men who, be-
cause the farm lands of their fathers
have already been so often divided for
each succeeding generation, that there is
no possibility of longer making living
push further west, unequipped to meet
life and live it in the light of Christian
understanding, of its highest possibili-
ties, and so our failure to educate the
youth of the mountains; OUR failure to
keep them well, and teach them the
laws of God does not conhne itself 10
the mountain ranges, but goes out into
the world beyond where the harvest of
thistles is reaped.
RadiantIy Blessed.
And as he told of this great work
of his which cries aloud for our help,
the woman who had been so sure that
she had no Thanksgiving message to
bring you this year was suddenly aware
of the insignihcance OF our individual
griefs when they are so deeply sunken
in the great superAuity of blessings
with which the All-Father has sur
rounded US; blessings which are simply
radiant in comparison with those ac-
corded the Appalachian mountain folk
of whom she had been hearing.
You have long since guessed that
the woman was myself. And what /
have told you is your Thanksgiving
message, and mine, for It opens way
through which we may prove how
grateful we are to God that the cir
cumstances which surround our lives
are so radiant in comparison to those
under which thousands of lives are
eieed out in the mountain fastnesseS.
If you want to give proof of your
gladness and gratitude reach out a
hand of help to those who need you
so. You have but to telephone me and
l will joyously tell you how.