How many towns and cities there are that
are utterly neglected. Our people are injuring themselves by
crowding into one place. When trees in a nursery are crowded
thickly together, they cannot grow healthfully and sturdily.
Transplant trees from your thickly planted nursery. God is not
glorified in the centering of so many advantages in one place.
Give room; put your plants in many places, where one will not
lean for support upon another. Give them room to grow. This the
Lord demands of you.
The means expended in enlarging your advantages
in Battle Creek, which are already overgrown and have passed
reasonable limits, should be used in establishing missionary
stations elsewhere. You should broaden your plans and widen the
field of your operations. You should send wise men into the cities
and towns that have not yet heard the gospel message. Pick out
the best men you can possibly spare, and give them opportunity
to become caretakers and burden bearers. Let them have opportunity
to develop the talents that in the past have lain idle. Place
them where they can use their God-given abilities in calling
sinners to repentance. Let men who make it manifest that they
love God have a chance to do something for Him.
Let men learn to pray earnestly, and let
them make their prayers short and right to the point. Let them
learn to speak of the world's Redeemer and to lift up the Man
of Calvary higher and still higher.
All the preaching in the world will not
make men feel deeply the need of the perishing souls around them.
Nothing will so arouse in men and women a self-sacrificing zeal
as to send them forth into new fields to work for those in darkness.
Prepare workers to go out into the highways and hedges. Do
not call men and women to the great center,
encouraging them to leave churches that need their aid. Men must
learn to bear responsibilities. Not one in a hundred among us
is doing anything beyond engaging in common, worldly enterprises.
We are not half awake to the worth of the souls for whom Christ
died.
We need wise nurserymen, who will transplant
trees to different localities and give them advantages that will
enable them to grow. It is the positive duty of God's people
to go into the regions beyond. Let forces be set at work to clear
new ground, to establish new centers of influence wherever an
opening can be found. Rally workers who possess true missionary
zeal, and let them go forth to diffuse light and knowledge far
and near. Let them take the living principles of health reform
into the communities that to a large degree are ignorant of these
principles. Let classes be formed, and instruction be given regarding
the treatment of disease.
It is a fact that through the influence
of the sanitarium the truth of heaven has come to the notice
of thousands. Yet there is a work to be done that has been neglected.
Money has been expended in enlarging facilities in Battle Creek,
when the Lord desires the leaven to be introduced into the mass
of meal, that the whole may be leavened. Instead of building
after building being added to the sanitarium, there should be
at this time many institutions fully equipped and in working
order in other places.
There are men who have been long connected
with the sanitarium who will always be shadows of someone else,
if they are retained there, when, if they were permitted to rely
upon their own judgment, they would become deep, self-reliant
thinkers, capable of giving wise counsel. Let these men have
a chance to learn to bear responsibilities in the strength of
God. Thus they will gain an experience that will enable them
to impart the truth to others.
But instead of men being sent from Battle
Creek, as God has directed in the pointed testimonies that have
been given, thousands of dollars have been devoted to enlarging
the institutions and increasing the facilities in Battle Creek.
And the call comes from Battle Creek for more conveniences and
more workers. But there must be a change.
We are encouraged as we see the work that
is being done in Chicago and a few other places. Years ago the
large responsibilities centering in Battle Creek should have
been distributed. You may look with satisfaction at the widespreading
growth of the sanitarium at Battle Creek, but God does not look
upon it with the same approval that you do. If institutions had
been built up in other places, if men had been given responsibilities
to bear, there would have been far more strength, far more efficiency
in our work, and we should have moved more nearly in accordance
with the mind and will of God than we have. As it is, a few men
are carrying heavy responsibilities. A few wield an influence
that has a controlling power in the management of the work far
and near, while there are many who carry no burdens.
Many of those carrying heavy responsibilities need to be converted. Christ says to them as He said to Nicodemus: "Ye must be born again." "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:7, 3. Many are controlled by an unchristian spirit. They have not yet learned in the school of Christ His meekness and lowliness, and unless they change, they will yield to Satan's temptations. Year after year they carry sacred responsibilities, yet prove themselves incapable of distinguishing between the sacred and the common. How long shall such men continue to wield a controlling influence? How long shall their word be permitted to exalt or to cast down, to condemn or to lift up? How long shall they hold such power that no one dare make a change in their methods?