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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
and keen discernment. These persons discover such defects at once
and comment upon them. Men cannot love God supremely and their
neighbor as themselves, and be as cold as icebergs. Not only do they
rob God of the love due Him, but they rob their neighbor as well. Love
is a plant of heavenly growth, and it must be fostered and nourished.
Affectionate hearts, truthful, loving words, will make happy families
and exert an elevating influence upon all who come within the sphere
of their influence.
Those who make the most of their privileges and opportunities
will be, in the Bible sense, talented and educated men; not learned
merely, but educated, in mind, in manners, in deportment. They will
be refined, tender, pitiful, affectionate. This, I was shown, is what
the God of heaven requires in the institutions at Battle Creek. God
has given us powers to be used, to be developed and strengthened by
education. We should reason and reflect, carefully marking the relation
between cause and effect. When this is practiced, there will be, on the
part of many, greater thoughtfulness and care in regard to their words
and actions, that they may fully answer the purpose of God in their
creation.
[549]
We should ever bear in mind that we are not only learners but
teachers in this world, fitting ourselves and others for a higher sphere
of action in the future life. The measure of man’s usefulness is in
knowing the will of God and doing it. It is within our power to so
improve in mind and manners that God will not be ashamed to own
us. There must be a high standard at the sanitarium. If there are men
of culture, of intellectual and moral power, to be found in our ranks,
they must be called to the front, to fill places in our institutions.
The physicians should not be deficient in any respect. A wide field
of usefulness is open before them, and if they do not become skillful
in their profession they have only themselves to blame. They must be
diligent students; and, by close application and faithful attention to
details, they should become care-takers. It should be necessary for no
one to follow them to see that their work is done without mistakes.
Those who occupy responsible positions should so educate and
discipline themselves that all within the sphere of their influence may
see what man can be, and what he can do, when connected with the
God of wisdom and power. And why should not a man thus privileged
become intellectually strong? Again and again have worldlings sneer-