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Testimonies for the Church Volume 7
build up the interests where the work has already obtained character
and influence, but mistakes have been made in this line. It is burden
bearing that gives strength and development. And for the workers in
different localities to be largely freed from responsibility means to
place them where their characters will remain undeveloped and their
powers will be repressed and weakened. The work is the Lord’s, and it
is not His will that the strength and efficiency shall be concentrated in
any one place. Let each institution remain independent, working out
God’s plan under His direction.
Consolidation
The policy of consolidation, wherever pursued, tends to the exal-
tation of the human in place of the divine. Those who bear respon-
sibilities in the different institutions look to the central authority for
guidance and support. As the sense of personal responsibility is weak-
ened, they lose the highest and most precious of all human experiences,
the constant dependence of the soul upon God. Not realizing their
need, they fail of maintaining that constant watchfulness and prayer,
that constant surrender to God, which alone can enable men to hear
and to obey the teaching of His Holy Spirit. Man is placed where
God should be. Those who are called to act in this world as heaven’s
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ambassadors are content to seek wisdom from erring, finite men, when
they might have the wisdom and strength of the unerring, infinite God.
The Lord does not design that the workers in His institutions shall
look to or trust in man. He desires them to be centered in Him.
Never should our publishing houses be so related to one another
that one shall have power to dictate as to the management of another.
When so great power is placed in the hands of a few persons, Satan
will make determined efforts to pervert the judgment, to insinuate
wrong principles of action, to bring in a wrong policy; in so doing he
can not only pervert one institution, but through this can gain control
of others and give a wrong mold to the work in distant parts. Thus the
influence for evil becomes widespread. Let each institution stand in
its moral independence, carrying on its work in its own field. Let the
workers in each feel that they are to do their work as in full view of
God, His holy angels, and the unfallen worlds.