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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
my attention. So numerous are these agents of Satan becoming, and
so general is the practice of seeking counsel from them, that it seems
needful to utter words of warning.
God has placed it in our power to obtain a knowledge of the laws
of health. He has made it our duty to preserve our physical powers
in the best possible condition, that we may render to Him acceptable
service. Those who refuse to improve the light and knowledge that
has been mercifully placed within their reach are rejecting one of the
means which God has granted them to promote spiritual as well as
physical life. They are placing themselves where they will be exposed
to the delusions of Satan.
Not a few in this Christian age and Christian nation resort to evil
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spirits rather than trust to the power of the living God. The mother,
watching by the sickbed of her child, exclaims: “I can do no more. Is
there no physician who has power to restore my child?” She is told
of the wonderful cures performed by some clairvoyant or magnetic
healer, and she trusts her dear one to his charge, placing it as verily
in the hands of Satan as if he were standing by her side. In many
instances the future life of the child is controlled by a satanic power
which it seems impossible to break.
Many are unwilling to put forth the needed effort to obtain a knowl-
edge of the laws of life and the simple means to be employed for the
restoration of health. They do not place themselves in right relation
to life. When sickness is the result of their transgression of natural
law, they do not seek to correct their errors and then ask the blessing
of God, but they resort to the physicians. If they recover health they
give to drugs and doctors all the honor. They are ever ready to idolize
human power and wisdom, seeming to know no other God than the
creature—dust and ashes.
I have heard a mother pleading with some infidel physician to save
the life of her child; but when I entreated her to seek help from the
Great Physician who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto
Him in faith, she turned away with impatience. Here we see the same
spirit that was manifested by Ahaziah.
It is not safe to trust to physicians who have not the fear of God
before them. Without the influence of divine grace the hearts of
men are “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Self-
aggrandizement is their aim. Under the cover of the medical profession