Mrs. White’s Earnest Labor
Most earnestly did Mrs. White work during this conference session for a healing of the breach that seemed to be widening between the General Conference and the leaders in the medical missionary work. She realized that if she were to make public all the counsels she had given to the leaders in the denomination regarding the stand they should take on the points at issue, the crisis might be precipitated. To some it was a matter of surprise and even of perplexity that she rather emphasized the failure on the part of many to accept heartily all the principles of the health message, which had given many of the leaders cause for severe adverse criticism.SHM 321.1
Referring to the perplexity in the minds of some because Mrs. White had advocated standing by the sanitarium, despite its having been so greatly enlarged beyond what her counsel had called for, she said: “You were surprised to hear me say that we are not to let the Battle Creek Sanitarium go into the hands of the world; that we are to make another effort to place our institutions on solid ground. If you will trust in the Lord, this institution can be placed on vantage ground.”—Ibid., April 6, 1903.SHM 321.2
The conditions upon which the institution might still be saved to the denomination were outlined in the following forceful words: “When the sanitarium is placed on its proper foundation; when our people can see it as it was when it was first established; when they can understand that the institution belongs to the work of the Lord, and can see that no one man is to have the control of everything in it; then God will help them all to take hold with courage to build it up. Today you do not know just where it is.”—Ibid.SHM 321.3
That the leader of the medical department should “stand acknowledged and supported in his God-given work” was Mrs. White’s expressed desire, but followed with the solemn declaration: “This he will be if his feet are planted on the truth of the living God. If they are not planted on this truth, specious temptations will come in, through scientific problems and scientific theories regarding God and His Word. Spurious scientific theories are coming in as a thief in the night, stealing away the landmarks and undermining the pillars of our faith.”—Ibid.SHM 322.1
Of the dangerous tendencies of these new theories, and of their influence in undermining the faith of the believers, she said further: “The most specious temptations of the enemy are coming in, and they are coming in on the highest, most elevated plane. These spiritualize the doctrines of present truth until there is no distinction between the substance and the shadow. ...SHM 322.2
“The warning has come: Nothing is to be allowed to come in that will disturb the foundation of the faith upon which we have been building ever since the message came in 1842, 1843, and 1844. ... We do not propose to take our feet off the platform on which they were placed as day by day we sought the Lord with earnest prayer, seeking for light. ... It is to be as the Rock of Ages.”—Ibid.SHM 322.3