Loyalty to Our Institutions
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them. Money has been advanced to some special ones that they might
obtain a medical education and be useful to the institution. Dr.----
has placed hopes upon some of these, that they would relieve him
of responsibilities that have rested most heavily upon him. Some
have become uneasy and dissatisfied because those who have started
institutions in other parts of the country have tried to flatter and induce
them to come to their sanitariums, promising to do better by them. In
this way the workers—some of them at least—have become uneasy,
unsettled, self-sufficient, and unreliable, even if they did not disconnect
with the sanitarium, because they felt there were openings for them
elsewhere. Those who are just beginning to practice have felt ready
to take large responsibilities which it would be unsafe to trust in their
hands, because they have not proved faithful in that which is least.
Now we wish all to look at this matter from a Christian standpoint.
These tests reveal the true material that goes to make up the character.
There is in the Decalogue a commandment that says, “Thou shalt not
steal.” This commandment covers just such acts as these. Some have
stolen the help that others have had the burden of bringing up and
training for their own work. Any underhanded scheme, any influence
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brought to bear to try to secure help that others have engaged and
trained, is nothing less than downright stealing.
There is another commandment that says, “Thou shalt not bear
false witness against thy neighbor.” There has been tampering with
the help that has been secured and depended upon to do a certain kind
of labor; efforts have been made to demerit the plans and find fault
with the management of those who are conducting the institution. The
course of the management has been questioned as regards those whose
services they desired to secure. Their vanity has been flattered and
insinuations made that they are not advanced as rapidly as they should
be, they ought to be in more responsible positions.
The very gravest difficulty that the physicians and managers of our
institutions have to meet is that men and women who have been led
up step by step, educated and trained to fill positions of trust, have
become self-inflated, self-sufficient, and placed altogether too high an
estimate upon their own capabilities. If they have been entrusted with
two talents, they feel perfectly capable of handling five. If they had
wisely and judiciously used the two talents, coming up with faithful-
ness in the little things entrusted to them, thorough in everything they