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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
creature. You have been like a blind man; you have given her credit
for qualifications which she does not possess.
You should have remembered that your moral worth is estimated
by your words, your acts, your deeds. These can never be hidden, but
will place you upon the right elevation before your patients. If you
manifest interest for them, if you devote labor to them, they will know
it, and you will have their confidence and love. But talk will never
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make them believe that your arduous labor for them has taxed you
and exhausted your vitality, when they know that they have not had
your special attention and care. The patients will have confidence and
love for those who manifest a special interest in them and who labor
for their recovery. If you do this work, which cannot be left undone,
which the patients pay their money to have done, then you need not
seek to gain esteem and respect by talking; you will as surely have it
as you do the work.
You have not been free from selfishness, and therefore you have
not had the blessing which God gives His unselfish workmen. Your
interest has been divided. You have had such a special care for yourself
and yours, that the Lord has had no reason to especially work and care
for you. Your course in this respect has disqualified you for your
position. I saw one year ago that you felt competent to manage the
Institute yourself alone. Were it yours, and you the one to be especially
benefited or injured by its losses and gains, you would see it your duty
to have a special care that losses should not occur and that patients
who were there upon charity should not drain the Institute of means.
You would investigate and would not have them remain a week longer
than it was positively necessary. You would see many ways by which
you could reduce expenses and keep up the property of the Institute.
But you are merely employed, and the zeal, interest, and ability which
you think you possess to carry on such an institution do not appear.
The patients do not receive the attention for which they have paid and
which they have a right to expect.
You were shown me as frequently turning away from invalids
who were in need of your counsel and advice. You were presented
before me as apparently indifferent, seeming rather impatient while
scarcely listening to what they were saying, which was to them of
great importance. You seemed to be in a great hurry, putting them off
till some future time, when a very few appropriate words of sympathy