Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 25 (1910 - 1915)

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Lt 15, 1911

Haskell, S. N.

“Elmshaven,” St. Helena, California

[March] 1911

Portions of this letter are published in 6Bio 344.

Message to Leaders in Washington

Elder S. N. Haskell:

Your letter received from Madison Rural Sanitarium, dated March 12, 1911. I have read your excellent letter. Thank you. I shall not be able to write you but a few lines. I have not been feeling as well as I would like to feel, but will respond in saying a few words. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 1

I am much pleased to read your encouraging letter. You respond in words that vindicate all that I have expressed of the light given me concerning the location of a sanitarium in Madison. You write: “There is much improvement made since the time you and a few others ate a lunch under the trees after it was decided to purchase the farm. I think it is an ideal place.” It is a quiet place. It is out of the city. And they have about all the students they can manage and utilize at the present. “The sanitarium is nearly full of patients.” 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 2

This is very pleasant and acceptable to me. Notwithstanding all the ideas that have been expressed, I have not had one doubt concerning the place the Lord directed for our school. I have visited the place and seen the establishment of the school, the meetinghouse, and the whole arrangement; and I thank the Lord that the light given me has proved the leadings of the Holy Spirit. If the Lord had not been preparing the way for us to do in accordance to His will, success would not have been, for there were men who opposed and held back that which could have been accomplished without so much hard, trying labor. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 3

We need individually to understand that the highways are to be worked, the byways are to be worked, the hedges are to have the message, by all harmoniously working in the Lord’s order. A hundredfold might now be revealed if men would not block the way with their own ideas and plans. If the school in Nashville had advanced under the Lord’s word, Go forward, a very much larger work would have been accomplished. There have been hindrances to block the way. There are those whom Christ mentions as having eyes but see not and ears but hear not, and their insensibilities as leaders have retarded the work. And now it is tenfold more difficult to do the very work which might have been done if leading men had been willing to be led. Advance following advance would have been made, making impressions upon human minds. That living faith which works out God’s plans was lacking, and the large work that might have been done was hindered by the unbelief and counterworking of those who should have stood united, having spiritual eyesight to take in the work and moving forward intelligently to follow the leadings of the Holy Spirit of God. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 4

The Lord sees a people far behind in genuine faith. Health reform has not done the work it would have done if professed believers had come up to the help of the Lord in earnest. Truths which the Lord has sent in health reform have not accomplished the grand work they would have done had all been drawing in even cords. God sends His workers, men of genuine faith, to do a work in various places; but there are those who have kept up a continual counterworking in their own finite ideas and plans. If the work of entering into our cities under the discipline of Christ had been commenced ten or twenty years ago, and had enlarged in the prominent places, the last message would have been given. Truth would have entered families, and many reforms would have been made in cities and villages. But there has been much counterworking of God’s plans. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 5

The Lord sends His message upon health reform, but there is not harmonious action; and the messages that were heard in Washington were heard but not received and practiced by families. Health reform practiced in families would have been God’s appointed means of saving lives. But families were not awake sufficiently to understand. Physicians whose advice and counsel does not follow in health reform lose their discernment and follow their own impulses. In that important meeting the voice of the Lord in warnings was not heeded. There is a blindness through self-indulgence. Truth is not sanctifying soul, body, and spirit. The Lord calls for all who shall attach themselves to that place to practice health reform and consecrate themselves, soul, body, and spirit, to God and become reconverted. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 6

I merely touch on these matters now. The Lord has given the light for years, and how many are walking in the light? I have much more to write on this subject. (Signed) E. G. W. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 7

I have borne in Washington, when convened in conference, the very message that if received would be a savor of life unto life to all who would be reconverted. My brethren, my sisters, it is a sad continuation of choosing your own way to be wilfully deceived. The warning came to all in Washington in hearing the messages there given in clear lines—the word which God was giving me for His people to be received and carried out. Had there been a working out of the Lord’s plans, there would have been a carrying out of health reform in every family to save their own souls and the souls of all with whom they associated. But the message was unheeded by some, and the indifference of some created a boldness in following their own course of action; and others took liberty to be bold in Washington. I am burdened night and day over the things presented to me of those who heed not the counsel of the Lord. There is a commonplace religion. We need the Holy Spirit’s work on human minds. Angels of two orders were in our meetings in Washington. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 8

Some were eager to receive light and work it out in action, sanctifying and refining their souls for carrying out the Lord’s will in the development of character. The truth believed will work out in action. With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation of their own souls and the souls of others through their influence. Truth, sacred truth, must be stamped upon the heart. All who are indeed converted must have a deeper experience, else their profession of godliness is worthless. Only love the Lord with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy strength. Then all the mind is pure and undefiled. The heart is the citadel of the whole man; and until that is on the Lord’s side, the enemy will gain constant victories. Right in Washington Satan is working determinedly. Self works its own will and way. I want to say, You are in great danger. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 9

It is a life-and-death question now with many in Washington, and not only in Washington but wherever there is a school established, and especially where there is a sanitarium established. The greatest danger comes from those who are disloyal to God and do not live out a character after the divine similitude. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 10

You are not to increase your responsibilities in Washington. You need now, in the place of planting more responsibilities in one place, to move out and build up in places where there is need of work being done. God calls for a decided work being done in Washington. Unless there is a much greater sense of the truth which sanctifies the soul, there will be a much lower grade in the place of a higher, truer sense of what God requires in true holiness. Do not gather in those who have made crooked paths, and connect them with the work and enlarge your work, for the Lord calls for a different mold to be placed on the work. There must be much more living the Scripture before they can work out the plan of God in and through sanctified belief of the truth as it is in Jesus. It is the life of true holiness in the heart and character that is needed in teachers and in students. 25LtMs, Lt 15, 1911, par. 11