Workers in Our Institutions
185
light from the Lord, it is not advisable to pay one man considerably
more than another doing a similar work. For, if you do, the others will
think it perfectly proper to expect similar high wages. We must look
at all things on all sides, and it is of no use for us to think that we can
offer a successful worker a high wage simply because he may demand
it. We must, rather, consider what we can afford to do at the present
time, when the fields are opening upon which we shall henceforth have
to expand much more means than we have spent hitherto. These are
matters that will test the faith of our people.
W. C. White: They do test our faith, mother—especially when
a group of workers have labored with a man until they have learned
to love him and admire him, and they believe that he can do better
work than any other man. Then it is natural for them to think that it
is wrong for the brethren to withhold from him that which he might
use to advantage. They think, “What is a thousand dollars, or fifteen
hundred dollars, extra, when life is involved?” They say, “Here is such
and such a case that he has just brought through, and there is another
whose life he has saved”; and they feel as if it would be awfully mean
of us not to meet his requirements. They say, “There is no one who has
[204]
to work and suffer as does a surgeon. Think of the hours of arduous
labor, of anxiety, of mental anguish he has to endure, when a precious
life is hanging by a slender thread.”
But, on the other hand, in considering this matter, we must remem-
ber that other institutions are influenced by our action. We see a poor
struggling sanitarium situated in a beautiful place, in a position to do a
large business, and with every prospect of making money if only they
can have a brilliant physician; and they can get a good physician if
they are encouraged to pay only three or five hundred dollars more
than the wage scale recommended. They say, “If you will only let us
pay a few hundred dollars more than you have advised, we can gain
five thousand dollars to cover this small additional expense for wages.”
And thus it seems—when we look at it from a business point of view
.
Sister White: You see there is a selfishness that underlies that,
that the Lord is not pleased with. We must work harmoniously. It
is through harmonious action that our work is to be carried forward,
and some will have a very hard time. Some will have an easier time.
But all these things will have to be taken just as they come, and the
workers must remember what Jesus gave in coming to our world. I