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Section 9—The Management of Sanitariums
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idolatry of the age, even if this will bring an increase of patronage.
Christian influence is of more value than this.
A desire for outside appearance is like a canker which is ever
eating into the vitals. Appearance is a merciless tyrant. You need
to guard against your inclination for show and entertainment. It is a
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mistake to suppose that by keeping up an appearance you will obtain
more patients and therefore more means. The evils resulting from
such a course have not yet appeared to you, but they will appear if
you are not guarded....
God’s Way is Best
God looks not upon outward display, but upon the heart. Well-
advised movements must be made. Nothing must be invested ex-
travagantly. It is not because we desire to exalt ourselves that we are
seeking to build up a sanitarium, but because we desire to honor God
and properly represent the truth, which has been misrepresented. In
this institution our peculiar religious principles are to be magnified
and exalted. Never are they to be hidden.
The Lord’s way is always the best way. We are safe while we
follow Him who says, “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart.” If Christ, the Majesty of heaven, is meek and lowly, how
much more ought we to be, who are under sentence of death for
disobedience. The influence of our physicians in the sanitarium
should be such as to encourage meekness and lowliness. Men are not
be exalted as great and wonderful. It is God who is to be magnified.—
Letter 51, 1900
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The Ministry of Trials
In Christian experience, the Lord permits trials of various kinds
to call men and women to a higher order of living and to a more
sanctified service. Without these trials there would be a continual
falling away from the likeness of Christ, and men would become
imbued with a spirit of scientific, fanciful, human philosophy, which
would lead them to unite with Satan’s followers.
In the providence of God every good and great enterprise is
subjected to trials, to test the purity and the strength of the principles