Lessons from the Past
205
Then the idea gained favor that the medical missionary work would
be greatly advanced if all our medical institutions and other medical
missionary interests were bound up under the control of the medical
missionary association at Battle Creek.
I was told that I must lift my voice in warning against this. We were
not to be under the control of men who could not control themselves
and who were not willing to be amenable to God. We were not
to be guided by men who wanted their word to be the controlling
power. The development of the desire to control has been very marked,
and God sent warning after warning, forbidding confederacies and
consolidation. He warned us against binding ourselves to fulfill certain
agreements that would be presented by men laboring to control the
movements of their brethren.
An Educational Center
The Lord is not pleased with some of the arrangements that have
been made in Battle Creek. He has declared that other places are
being robbed of the light and advantages that have been centered and
multiplied in Battle Creek. It is not pleasing to God that our youth
from all parts of the country should be called to Battle Creek, to work
in the sanitarium, and to receive their education. When we permit
this, we are often guilty of robbing needy fields of their most precious
treasure.
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Through the light given in the testimonies, the Lord has indicated
that He does not desire students to leave their home schools and san-
itariums to be educated in Battle Creek. He instructed us to remove
the college from this place. This was done, but the institutions that
remained failed of doing what they should have done to share with
other places the advantages still centered in Battle Creek. The Lord
signified His displeasure by permitting the principal buildings of these
institutions to be destroyed by fire.
Notwithstanding the plain evidence of the Lord’s providence in
these destructive fires, some among us have not hesitated to make light
of the statement that these buildings were burned because men had
been swaying things in directions which the Lord could not approve.
Men have been departing from right principles, for the promulga-
tion of which these institutions were established. They have failed of