Mohave County miner., 1913-04-26
The Truest Christianity.

to be very good, to the desert, or to isolate himself in cell to prepare himself for heaven by means of prayer and holy contemplation and introspec- tion. His great desire was to escape hell by individual effort supplemented by aid from Deity
 Things have changed in modern times. The real Christian has little time to think whether he has soul to save or whether there is a he'll He has work to do far more impor tant than centering his thoughts on him. self and hls existence beyond the grave.
 What the American Jew, Nathan Straus, is doing with his great wealth is more in harmony with the spirit of all that is worthy Tn Christianity than all that is done in the way of singing and praying and building churches all of them worthy in themselves, but not the chief end of the Christian re- ligion
 Some months ago it was announced that Mir. Straus had sailed from New York to Jerusalem, where he would devote the remainder of his life to bettering the conditions of the people of Palestine. Just now returning travellers are telling of the work he is doing there.
 For centuries Jerusalem had been city of disease, poverty, misery. The people were ignorant, superstitious and under the dominion of the Turk, who Is notorously bad ruler. It was a plague spot.
 This year things are different. There has been food for the hungry, work for the idle and hope of health for the victims of malaria, and deliverance from hydrophObia, which had prevail, ed there for scores of years because of the vast number of dogs that roam about the streets, acting as scavengers and protected by the Ottoman author ities.
 MT. Straus, after travellng oyer the country, took pity on the miserable inhabitants. His work has not bsen confined to the Jewish population. With the widest philanthropy he has showed no distinction between Jew, Christian and Mohanmedan in the dis. tributon of his benefices. First of all he established soup kitchens from which the hungry were fed. Next he established workshops in which thou sands are employed making souvenirs that are sold to the pilgrims and that formerly were imported from Conecti- cut.
 Best of all, probably, is the health bureau established with the ald of the Mohammedan government, so far as a building for the purpose went and police authority for the enforcement of sanitation. His greatest battle was with the mosquitoes, which swarmed from the cis,erns, carrying malarial poison with their bites. The pools aboundlng about the city were filled and the cisterns were cleaned out, for the first time in centuries. and filled with pure water. The people have been shown how to dlsinfect their premises and keep them in a sanitary condition.
 The work of sanitation has been ex- padded and is now being conducted in all the centers of Palestine. The halt, the lame and the blind are going about the streets, instead of curing them with miracles, Mr. Straus has on hand skilled physicians who are treat ing them according to the canon of modern science. Modern science has worked wonders in many places. but nowhere has it done more in so short a time, not even in the Canal Zone. than it's results show in Jerusalem Within a few years it will become q new Jerusalem.
 Nathan Straus, in his work in New York City, where he maintained pas teurizing milk stations at his own ex- pense. and stations for the distribu- tions of coal in winter and ice in sum- mer for the poor and lodging houses where the homeless and the penniless could find clean places to sleep, winter or summer, has been emphatcally