Minister Compares Need for Local Hospital to "No Room at the Inn," Dec. 7, 1925

Dr. Rowan Sponsored the Proposed Hospital in His Sunday Sermon

Rev. J.C. Rowan, using as a text “There was no room for them in the inn,” advocated from his pulpit Sunday morning the proposed county hospital. In the course of his sermon he said, “The Christ was crowded out of the inn at Bethlehem because there was no Christianity at the inn. What man can lay any claim to Christianity who would not give up his room in a hotel or his berth on a train to a woman in travail The people of today are crowding out the Christ and can lay no claim to Christianity, if they do not visit the sick. The visitation of the sick enjoyed by Jeus and demanded by vital Christianity is not merely making social calls or paying social visits, but living a life of service and rendering assistance in the hour of need. I know of no wiser and better way of visiting the sick in Cabarrus County than building the proposed county hospital; and I want to be one of the ministers of this county to advocate from the Sacred Desk the building of that institution. To fail in this worthy and Christian undertaking, saying thereby to those who are not only poor but also sick, helpless and dying, we are going to see that you do not get any help even from the benefaction of him who thought of you and planned for you before he died, is to crowd the Christ out of Cabarrus County. He was crowded out of the inn at Bethlehem and to bring upon ourselves the judgment of Him who will certainly say, “I was sick, and ye visited me not, inasmuch as ye did not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.”

From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Monday, Dec. 7, 1925

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