Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 19 (1904)

Lt 403, 1904

To the Leaders in the Southern Californian Conference

Nashville, Tennessee

June 23, 1904

Previously unpublished. Not sent.

[To the Leaders in the Southern Californian Conference:]

I speak to the working forces in Southern California with my pen. I have some things to say to you. I was beholding the situation that has presented itself for some years in Southern California. There is no hope for success in the future unless there is a decided change in the working men. They have gone decidedly contrary to the light God has given in several things, and I am not surprised that you are in a state of perplexity. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 1

I was in conversation with Elder Santee and Elder Healey, and these were the two prominent ones who have devised, and Bro. ______. There were several that have held the work back in not following the counsel God has given. [You] placed great confidence in your own individual supposed capabilities and were not willing to connect with, to advise and counsel with, brethren who could have helped you had you had humble hearts to unify and not wanted your identity to be strikingly developed. From the light God has given me, if you wish to work in the Southern [California] Conference you can do individually a good work in your own appointed sphere, not [with] any one man [acting] as a whole sufficiency and getting your minds so high to do by your individual selves that work which should be divided with your brethren after consultation. To every man God has given his work. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 2

Just as surely as you shall work in this line to consider you can carry things to a success in following your own plans, a heavy debt will rest upon the school faculty that will be a heavy burden to other interests to lift. The Lord is not pleased with your methods, piling up debts, of which you are so sanguine. We deeply regret that the wisdom you exercise is more human than divine. Your constant jealousy of other schools having the preference is working up a division of sentiment that will leave upon others an impress not agreeable to be worked out. I am sorry, so sorry in heart, that Elder Santee and Elder Healey are so united in having and carrying their own plans irrespective of the healthful outcome. These plans they have originated make me sorry in my soul, for I have been shown the outcome. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 3

I am sorry that a heavy debt will be accumulated and other important advancements will be retarded because of this unwise management. Why will you encourage a spirit of jealousy and evil surmising? Why will you do this? You will leave a most difficult problem for some others to have to carry, and also to settle the debts that with clear eyesight and intelligent devising never need be. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 4

Brethren Healey and Santee, you have linked your interest together which should not be, and I am so sorry, Brother Santee, for you to place that confidence in Elder Healey’s manner of devising and carrying things, for it will surely bring future perplexity upon the Southern [California] Conference. Elder Healey’s disposition is of that character that he will magnify his own plans, although directly opposed to the light the Lord has given as to the right way and how to carry His work. Elder Healey stands directly in our way, and if he thus blocks the work, the Lord will be dishonored. Those who are struggling with all their force to establish the work that the Lord has laid out must be done, to establish interests in important places that have not been worked, I know will have to meet with this erratic course in Elder Healey again and again. Yet he will not be cured. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 5

The Lord has presented before me he should not be united as an influence in our sanitariums or schools, for he will ever seek to be a controlling power, and the Lord will not vindicate his plans or propositions. The man needs to be converted and to consider that others have a right to means. If he would be humble to follow God’s plans, then there would be a different showing. The Lord will not accept his ideas that Elder Healey’s mind is as the mind of God, for it is oft placed in opposition to the mind of God, and I am charged with a work I dread. It is to guard the people of God from this disposition to carry things his way when it is opposed to the way of the Lord. I am charged to warn our brethren that shall follow the leadings of the Spirit of God to not be moved aside to Elder Healey’s suggestions, for these suggestions will, if received and carried out, hinder the work of the Lord. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 6

Truth will triumph if the Lord is trusted to be our Leader, but if, in the institutions which shall be developed, Elder Healey is to act an official part, the work of God will be retarded. Therefore I am to watch and give the note of warning when Elder Healey shall place his opinion so as to rule the body. When the man possesses the spirit of meekness, willing and anxious to understand the will of the Lord, he can minister in word and doctrine. There is to be a work done all through Southern California, but it will not answer unless he takes his place as a learner as well as a teacher, for he is in constant danger to work his own mind until he wearies out the men in office. As my messenger, you are to stand to not allow the people to be deceived. Self, self, self is the obstruction to many things. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 7

Elder Santee has been led and his mind controlled by Elder Healey’s many words and self-assured wisdom, and it must not be permitted, for the work of God has been retarded for years by the ideas and workings of Elder Healey. God is not glorified by his spirit and his ways and his manner of carrying the work. It is God who has ordained that the truth shall sanctify the heart, that there shall be unity expressed. I say the truth in love: Unless Elder Healey shall change his own spirit and his own judgment, he will seek to warp the carrying of the work, to endanger its prosperity. He will keep these ideas in front and will present them as the best plans, and if it does not carry the first time, he will present them again and again, which is a wrong course to pursue. For this reason he is not to be allowed to carry our conference in Southern California according to his mind. The Lord forbids the spirit to prevail that presses to the front his own oft selfish plans, to accommodate some plan of his own devising. I am to say to our brethren in Southern California, Watch and pray and heed the warnings the Lord sends. You, Brother Burden, must be on guard. That man who will plan a course of action that creates in the school a debt of thousands of dollars for the conference to settle is not following the Lord’s plan. 19LtMs, Lt 403, 1904, par. 8