The Future of the St. Helena Sanitarium

W. C. White: Have you any counsel for us about our work for the coming year? This morning we have the task of selecting the board of managers and the faculty, and of organizing our work here for the coming year.19MR 43.3

Mrs. E. G. White: I cannot tell, unless you mention some point on which I have received light.19MR 43.4

W. C. White: Have you any light as to whether our success in the battle will be to cut down expenses and have a limited faculty, or whether our success. will be through branching out and trying to enlarge the business? Is there anything in your mind with reference to the future here that would guide us at all in this matter?19MR 43.5

Mrs. E. G. White: It would be a great pity to dry up, as it were.19MR 44.1

W. C. White: We have adopted the new doctrine of natural development. We will let the work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego develop naturally. While we are developing in so many other places, it looks to some as if the patronage here would naturally be less, and that we should resail, and sail along very carefully, letting this business live, if we can, with what is left after the others have taken their share.19MR 44.2

Mrs. E. G. White: That is a queer doctrine, I think. There is much more unbelief in it than there is faith in God. I do not approve of it. Let the work develop in these other places. Keep the standard as high as possible here. Do everything you can to make this institution what it ought to be. Choose a faculty who can educate the helpers. This institution is much more favorably situated than many other, for it is removed from many of the attractions so detrimental to institutional work.19MR 44.3

This sanitarium is not to outlive its usefulness. From first to last it has often been a source of great discouragement to me. Since returning from Australia I nearly lost my life in trying to set before the managers what we must do and be in order to prosper. To become less and less prosperous, after these changes have taken place, would be a weak chapter in our experience—a chapter with which I am unacquainted.19MR 44.4

As I cannot see the end from the beginning—excepting failure—I could not endorse the idea that because the Lord is working in other places, He cannot work here. The same God who works in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the other places where our medical work is established, is ready to work in a hundred—yes, a thousand—other places, if we so relate ourselves to Him that we shall not stand in His way. We should strive to make this sanitarium a living institution. When God sees a willingness on our part to come into line and to glorify His name, He will show favor to the St. Helena Sanitarium.19MR 44.5

W. C. White: The multiplication of sanitariums in other places seems to place upon us here an additional responsibility to set an example in right methods and right principles.19MR 45.1

Mrs. E. G. White: Exactly. As the oldest institution, we should have the best methods and should reach the highest standard. Above everything else, we should desire God's approval.19MR 45.2