How Shall Our Youth Be Trained?
215
A Division of Responsibility
St. Helena, California,
August 4, 1903
To the Leaders in the Medical Work:
Dear Brethren,
I have a message for you. I am instructed to say that not all the
arrangements connected with the management of the medical mission-
ary work are to originate in Battle Creek. The medical missionary
work is God’s work, and in every conference and every church we are
to take a decided stand against allowing it to be selfishly controlled.
After I received word in regard to the excellent meeting of con-
fession and unity that had been held in Battle Creek I was writing in
my diary and was about to record the thankfulness I felt because a
change had come, when my hand was arrested, and there came to me
the words: “Write it not. No change for the better has taken place.
Teachings that are turning souls from the truth are being presented as
of great worth. Doctrines are being taught that lead into bypaths and
forbidden paths; doctrines that lead men to act in harmony with their
own inclinations and to work out their unsanctified purposes; doctrines
that, if received, would destroy the dignity and power of God’s people,
obscuring the light that would otherwise come to them through God’s
appointed agencies.”
The leaders in our medical work at Battle Creek have endeavored
to bind our medical institutions fast, in accordance with their plans.
Notwithstanding the many warnings given them that this should not
be done, they have desired to bind up these institutions in some way
so that all our medical work shall be under their control.
In the past I have written much upon this subject, and I must now
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repeat the admonitions given, for it seems difficult for my brethren to
understand their perilous position.
“The Lord forbids that every sanitarium and bathhouse established
should be brought under one control—bound up with the medical in-
stitution at Battle Creek. The managers of the Battle Creek Sanitarium
have their hands full now. They should devote their strength to the
work of making this sanitarium what it should be.