The work of our colleges and training schools should be strengthened year by year.
No Time For Delay
Time is short. Workers for Christ are needed everywhere. There should be one hundred
earnest, faithful laborers in home and foreign mission fields where now there is one. The
highways and the byways are yet unworked. Urgent inducements should be held out to those who
ought now to be engaged in missionary work for the Master.
The signs which show that Christ's coming is near are fast fulfilling. The Lord calls upon our
youth to labor as canvassers and evangelists, to do house-to-house work in places that have not
yet heard the truth. He speaks to our young men, saying, "Ye are not your own; for ye are bought
with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." Those who
will go forth to the work under God's direction will be wonderfully blessed. Those who in this
life do their best will obtain a fitness for the future, immortal life.
The Lord calls for volunteers who will take their stand firmly on His side, and will pledge
themselves to unite with Jesus of Nazareth in doing the very work that needs to be done now, just
now.
There are among us many young men and women who, if inducements are held out, would
naturally be inclined to take several years' course of study at Battle Creek. But will it pay? The
talents of God's people are to be employed in giving the last message of mercy to the world. The
Lord calls upon those connected with our sanitariums, publishing houses, and other institutions
to teach the youth to do evangelistic work. Our time and money must not be so
largely employed in establishing sanitariums, food factories, food stores, and restaurants, that
other lines of work shall be neglected. Young men and young women who should be engaged in
the ministry, in Bible work, and in the canvassing work, should not be bound down to
mechanical employment.
The youth are to be encouraged to attend our schools, which should become more and more
like the schools of the prophets. Our schools have been established by the Lord; and if they are
conducted in harmony with His purpose, the youth sent to them will quickly be prepared to
engage in various branches of missionary work. Some will be trained to enter the field as
missionary nurses, some as canvassers, some as evangelists, some as teachers, and some as
gospel ministers.
The Lord has plainly instructed me that our young people should not be encouraged to devote
so much of their time and strength to medical missionary work as it has been carried forward of
late. The instruction they receive regarding Bible doctrines is not such as to fit them to perform
properly the work that God has intrusted to His people.
Satan is earnestly striving to lead souls away from right principles. Multitudes who profess to
belong to God's true church are falling under the enemy's deceptions. They are being led to
swerve from their allegiance to the blessed and only Potentate.
A Present Duty
All our denominational colleges and training schools should make provision to give their
students the education essential for evangelists and for Christian business men. The youth and
those more advanced in years who feel it their duty to fit themselves for work requiring the
passing of certain legal tests should be able to secure at our Union Conference training-schools
all that is essential, without having to go to Battle Creek for their preparatory education.
Prayer will accomplish wonders for those who give themselves to prayer, watching thereunto.
God desires us all to be in a waiting, hopeful position. What He has promised He will do, and if
there are legal requirements making it necessary that medical students shall take a certain
preparatory course of study, let our colleges teach the required additional studies in a manner
consistent with Christian education. The Lord has signified His displeasure that so many of our
people are drifting into Battle Creek; and since He does not want so many to go there, we should
understand that He wants our schools in other places to have efficient teachers, and to do well the
work that must be done. They should arrange to carry their students to the point of literary and
scientific training that is necessary. Many of these requirements have been made because so
much of the preparatory work done in ordinary schools is superficial. Let all our work be
thorough, faithful, and true.
In our training-schools the Bible is to be made the basis of all education. And in the required
studies, it is not necessary for our teachers to bring in the objectionable books that the Lord has
instructed us not to use in our schools. From the light that the Lord has given me, I know that our
training-schools in various parts of the field should be placed in the most favorable position
possible for qualifying our youth to meet the tests specified by state laws regarding medical
students. To this end the very best teaching talent should be secured, that our schools may be
brought up to the required standard.
But let not the young men and young women in our churches be advised to go to Battle Creek
in order to obtain a preparatory education. There is a congested state of things at Battle Creek
that makes it an unfavorable place for the proper education of Christian workers. Because the
warnings in regard to the work in that congested center have not been heeded, the Lord permitted
two of our institutions to
be consumed by fire. Even after this revealing of His signal displeasure His warnings were not
heeded. The Sanitarium is still there. If it had been divided into several plants, and its work and
influence given to several different places, how much more God would have been glorified! But
now that the Sanitarium has been rebuilt, we must do our very best to help those who are there
struggling with many difficulties.
Let me repeat: It is not necessary for so many of our youth to study medicine. But for those
who should take medical studies our Union Conference training-schools should make ample
provision in facilities for preparatory education. Thus the youth of each Union Conference can be
trained nearer home, and be spared the special temptations that attend the work in Battle
Creek.--Review and Herald, October 15, 1903.