To the Medical Superintendent of the Battle
Creek Sanitarium--
My Dear Brother: You speak as if you had
no friends. But God is your friend, and Sister White is your
friend. You have thought that I had lost confidence in you; but,
my dear brother, as I have before written you, I know that the
Lord has placed you in a very responsible position, standing
as you do as a physician to whom the Lord has given knowledge
and understanding, that you may do justice and judgment, and
reveal a true missionary spirit in the institution established
to present truth in contrast with error.
My brother, the Lord has not left you to
go on a warfare at your own charges. He has given you wisdom,
and favor with God and man. He has been your helper. He has chosen
you as His agent to exalt the truth in the Battle Creek Sanitarium
as it is not exalted in the medical institutions of the world.
It was His purpose that the Battle Creek Sanitarium should be
known as an institution where the Lord is daily acknowledged
as the Monarch of the universe. "He doeth according to His
will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the
earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest
Thou?" Daniel 4:35.
The Lord designs that the proclamation
of the third angel's message shall be the highest, greatest work
carried on in our world at this time. He has honored you by placing
you in a very responsible position in His work. You were not
to separate your influence from the ministry of the gospel. Into
every line of your work you were to bring an understanding of
and obedience to the truth. The place assigned you by the Lord
was under Him in the divine theocracy. You were to learn of Jesus,
the Great Teacher, planning and working in accordance
with His example. You were to make God first,
ever obeying His word. In this would be your strength.
You were to be a faithful physician of
the souls as well as of the bodies of those under your charge.
Had you fulfilled this trust, using aright the talents God gave
you, you would not have worked alone. One who never makes a mistake
was presiding. Only the Holy Spirit's power can keep the spirit
sweet and fragrant, soft and subdued, enabling the worker to
speak the right words at the right time.
You have not been faultless. Often you lost
control of yourself. Then your words were not what they should
have been. At times you were arbitrary and exacting. But when
you were striving for the mastery over self, angels of God cooperated
with you, because, through you, God was working to exalt His
truth and cause it to receive honored recognition in the world.
God gave you wisdom, not that your name should be magnified,
but that those coming to the sanitarium in Battle Creek should
carry away with them favorable impressions regarding the work
of Seventh-day Adventists and respect for the principles that
are the foundation of their work. The honor given you did not
come to you because you were righteous above all men, but because
God desired to use you as His Instrument.