Every sanitarium established among Seventh-day
Adventists should be made a Bethel. All who are connected with
this branch of the work should be consecrated to God. Those who
minister to the sick, who perform delicate, grave operations,
should remember that one slip of the knife, one nervous tremor,
may cause a soul to be launched into eternity. They should not
be allowed to take so many responsibilities that they have no
time for special seasons of prayer. By earnest prayer they should
acknowledge their dependence upon God. Only through a sense of
God's pure truth working in the mind and heart, only through the calmness and strength that
He alone can impart, are they qualified to perform those critical
operations which mean life or death to the afflicted ones.
The physician who is truly converted will
not gather to himself responsibilities that interfere with his
work for souls. Since without Christ we can do nothing, how can
a physician or a medical missionary engage successfully in his
important work without earnestly seeking the Lord in prayer?
Prayer and a study of the word bring life and health to the soul.
The Lord is waiting to manifest through
His people His grace and power. But He requires that those who
engage in His service shall keep their minds ever directed to
Him. Every day they should have time for reading the word of
God and for prayer. Every officer and every soldier under the
command of the God of Israel needs time in which to consult with
God and seek His blessing. If the worker allows himself to be
drawn away from this, he will loose his spiritual power. Individually
we are to walk and talk with God; then the sacred influence of
the gospel of Christ in all its preciousness will appear in our
lives.
A work of reformation is to be carried
on in our institutions. Physicians, workers, nurses, are to realize
that they are on probation, on trial for their present life,
and for that life which measures with the life of God. We are
to put every faculty to the stretch in order to bring saving
truths to the attention of suffering human beings. This must
be done in connection with the work of healing the sick. Then
the cause of truth will stand before the world in the strength
which God designs it to have. Through the influence of sanctified
workers the truth will be magnified. It will go forth "as
a lamp that burneth."