2. To offer the lepers the Gospel. Worship is held daily. No one is compelled to listen to it, or in any way pressed to accept the Gospel. It is believed they will gladly do so of themselves when they learn how merciful it is, and see illustrations of it in the Home.
3. To segregate the lepers from the healthy population, and thus do what we can to stamp out the disease. Formerly it was impossible to prevent them from going about in the markets and other public places of resort, but there is no reason for allowing that, now there is a comfortable home provided for them.
4. To rescue the children of leprous parents, removing them from the parents, with their consent, before they contract the disease; and to provide for them. What a blessed preventive work is this!
5. Lastly, to follow the example of our Master, who never came in contact with suffering but He relieved it; and thus to give a worthy and consistent view of the true genius and spirit of the Christian religion to the tens of thousands of the heathen who throng around us. To them this Home for Lepers is an argument which they know how to appreciate, and it will not be lost upon them.
Richard Baxter quaintly says: “As long as men have eyes as well as ears, they will think they see your meaning as well as hear it; and of the two senses they are more likely to trust their eyes as being the more reliable sense of the two.” So if we can let them see Christianity as well as hear it, we may hope that they will embrace it the sooner. No one knows philanthropy when he sees it better than a native of the East. Here, then, we trust there will always be Christianity writ large before their eyes.
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
“Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
“Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am ....
“And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: