Manuscript Releases, vol. 1 [Nos. 19-96]

The Second Interview

[Partial report of interview of elder E. E. Andross with Mrs. Ellen G. White, “Elmshaven,” Sanitarium, California, December 12, 1913, 2 P. M.]

Elder Andross: “I thought I would like to ask your counsel, Sister White, a little further about the matter we were considering the other day,—the matter of wages of employees, especially physicians, in our institutions. If you have any further counsel for us with reference to the wages that our physicians should receive, we should be glad to hear it.” 1MR 86.1

Mrs. Ellen G. White: “If our physicians set themselves to demand higher and higher wages, the Lord will not prosper them. Over and over again this has been presented before me, during the night season. The Lord desires us to stand in a position where we can look to Him for guidance, and rely on Him for light, and follow on to know Him, whom to know aright is life eternal.” 1MR 86.2

Elder Andross: “The question confronting us now is, what wages should we pay our physicians? You know some of them feel that we are not dealing with them liberally; that they ought to receive a very much larger wage than they are now receiving—larger than the wage received by ministers and other workers in our cause. They urge that they can earn a large wage in worldly practice—a much larger wage than the minister could earn.” 1MR 86.3

Sister White: “Yes; and they will have the temptation continually before them. But in the matter of encouraging our physicians to set their own wages, we must be very guarded. I am sorry I am not able to present this matter fully as it has been opened up before me in the night season. I hope to be able to say more in the future regarding this question; but I can say now that I must continue to bear my testimony against the idea that men may be permitted to set their own wages. Let a man begin on this line, and Satan will help him wonderfully.... 1MR 86.4

“Our brethren in positions of responsibility must come into harmony on this matter, and not regard any man as so indispensable that he must be allowed whatever he thinks his services are worth. No one should cherish the idea that he is to be exalted above his brethren who are doing as faithful service as he is. We must have correct views on the wage question, if we expect the Lord to continue to prosper us in our work. Those who persist in following their own way, contrary to the counsels of their brethren, will find that they are on losing ground, and they will finally fail. 1MR 87.1

“From the beginning, our work has been carried forward on self-sacrificing principles. Over and over again we have proved the value of these principles. And when men have attempted to turn from the way of self-denial, they have not prospered. The Lord has not blessed them in any such course. Let us be true to God in this matter, Elder Andross....” 1MR 87.2

Elder Andross: “Some of the brethren feel that a wage considerably in advance of that which the ministers receive, is for them a very small wage; it is not anything in comparison with what they could get out in the world; and so they do not count it a large wage at all. They say, for instance, that forty or fifty dollars a week is a very small wage for a competent physician and surgeon to receive; that this may be a large wage for the ministry, but not for them because of their superior earning power. This is the way they reason.” 1MR 87.3

Sister White: “Yes, but I wish to say decidedly that we cannot maintain any class of workers in the policy of setting their own wages; and if they are led by God, they will not continue to do it. These matters have come up often in the past, and if I had the time and the strength, I could find in my writings many things that have a direct bearing on this very question; and the outcome of following such a policy has always been against our cause, and not in favor of its progress.... 1MR 87.4

“I have gone through experience after experience that has taught me that the enemy of our work would be pleased to see introduced a policy regarding wages that would bring us into trial. God is not in any arrangement that permits a man to specify how much he should receive. When one says that he cannot labor in one of our institutions unless he is treated just so and so, why others will feel at liberty to make similar demands. It will not do for us to adopt any policy that will open the way for such results. When this question has been up for consideration in times past, the Lord has given clear light over and over again, that no man be permitted to mark out the exact course he is to pursue; for to allow this would bring the cause very soon into a state of confusion. God will help us, if we walk in the light of His counsel. 1MR 88.1

“We are coming into a place where the enemy will use against our work every advantage that it is in his power to use. We must all depend wholly upon our God, and be in a position where we can follow on to know the Lord, that we may know His going forth is prepared as the morning. In the past, when this matter of large wages has come up for consideration, the Lord has overruled many times, and men have been saved from falling into a snare of the enemy. When men have urged their seeming necessities, we have dealt faithfully with the principles underlying rewards in God's service, and a blessing has attended our efforts. Our brethren have been led to see what the result to the cause would be in a little while, if we acceded to their requests, and they have wisely chosen a better way.”—Manuscript 14, 1913, 1-4, 6. (Report of Interview of E. E. Andross with E. G. White,” December 12, 1913.) 1MR 88.2