Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 24 (1909)

Ms 133, 1909

Talk/Talk given by Mrs. E. G. White to the Heads of Departments of the Hinsdale Sanitarium

Hinsdale, Illinois

August 13, 1909

Previously unpublished.

Every opportunity seems favorable for the work being carried on here in a way that God would have it. Angels will just as surely make the impression. It is not possible for human beings to be as God, but the Lord can guide them by His Spirit, and this is a place where many will be brought to a knowledge of the truth because this sanitarium is situated just as it is. This was not taken out of Chicago by chance. Our cities are not the place for our people to work to good advantage, and now we must do what we can. Every one that goes to the cities so that they should have less objection raised against the truth, it is better to get outside of the city. From the light that I have, those cities will be terribly visited. This is the large cities. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 1

As I look around and see the changes that Brother Paulson has been showing me and these great opportunities, why, I consider how we used to go to G____ and how we gathered all that would come there. We did not exclude any, especially those working in the line of temperance. We planned right together and there we would work. We would go out every little while and have meetings. Why, these workers did not make their beliefs prominent, and still they were brought in all the time. The very instruction given was making this a question, and they knew that I would not turn aside from the temperance principles. The W.C.T.U. would get me whenever they could. I would tell them, “You know what I believe.” They said, “Certainly.” I used to go whenever they called me. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 2

I want to say it is not driving work that brings souls into the truth, it is simplicity and true godliness. There will be angels of God right around us to make the impression; we cannot make the impression. I felt while talking in Chicago that angels of God were making an impression on the people, and that gave me courage to hope that there will be a work done in Chicago that we have not seen done yet. Everyone that places themselves in right relation to God, what does He say of you? “Ye are laborers together.” That is everything with us, “together with God.” [1 Corinthians 3:9.] 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 3

If we have the force of One that cannot be resisted, that is the power of God, we shall see His salvation. Just as surely we shall see and understand, and if we walk in humility of mind and know it is not us, it the Lord that must make the impression, and then honor God in every way possible, we shall see the work accomplished even by us in the cities. There will have to be a work done in cities. We cannot go right in the crowded masses; we have got to have a place where we can speak. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 4

Do not be discouraged; do not talk doubts but just talk faith, and faith is infinite, that faith that lays hold on infinity. When God sees that we acknowledge the infinite, that we do not trust in our own human strength, He will honor us and we shall see the salvation of God. That is just what it is. There is old men and old women who are hungering and thirsting after a better knowledge of spiritual things. Give it to them, give it to them right here. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 5

There is every advantage in what Brother Paulson has been showing me. Take your patients right out under the trees, take them right out of the buildings, and then do not get them poisoned with bad air. Get them right out where they can see nature and God and the angels of God. They make the impression, it is not us that make it; it is the Lord God of heaven working with us. He has not provided these advantages right around us for naught. I have been around; they have showed me more things about the location. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 6

Now have it understood you are going to have a temperance meeting. Then get them the people out. My husband and I did that. One would stop me on the street, “Sister White, did you know what your talk has done? Why it has made my wife a new woman.” “Why, what is that?” “She never would have a door open, complained she was so weak, exhausted, etc. Then you talked about opening windows, breathing pure air, going out planting flowers and working in that way.” 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 7

I told them my husband would go and get a carriage and take me, and he would set me right down in a chair and there were things that I could work with and plant, and that is the way he used to do to recover my health, and I recovered it. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 8

Some things we can do and nobody else can do. And when he my husband fell, then I had to take hold and go with him. He thought he could not go anything and so when we were driving home with the lumber I would take hold of one end and he the other. We did not want anybody with us. I wanted him to see that he could do something himself. I would take hold of one end of the lumber and he the other—thanking God if it got lost off on the way! Then we got hoes, and I told all the boys that we were going right out and till the soil. Well, my husband would lean on the hoe more than he would use it. That did not discourage me, we got out in the better air and every one of us got better, and my husband would see that he was not as dilapidated as he thought he was. I wanted him to get out and pick up the lumber that fell from the carriage as we passed. He dreaded to get out, but he found he would live if he did get out. The doctors told him that it was a life and death question. Thus his life was saved and my life was saved. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 9

I want to tell you there are those who, if they will understand that using their muscles and using their faith and being lifted up thus where they can bear an excellent testimony, will find it is worth everything, and every worker can act his part. Do not have all brain work, why the poor brain is used all up. I tried to get a young man to go to school. He did but did not know how to take care of himself and he died. His father was not a believer. I tried to get him to come to my house but he did not, and took another young man with him. He was breathing that air and lost his life. When I saw him come into the meeting I burst right out crying, I knew he was gone. He died. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 10

Now let us have good common sense and place ourselves right where we can have good air, then you get every advantage there is to succeed. When you have a meeting, take them right out of the house and not be in the house. The blessing of the Lord is in having such a place as this. You are not surrounded by unbelievers and if you were it would do them good to see how rational you act in regard to the health question. But this man says, you have saved the life of my wife, and he was a wealthy man who lived out of Battle Creek several miles. Every one can work himself up into health. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 11

Believe and trust in God, that He did not mean you should lay down your life now, and be of good courage. Do not speak a discouraging word to a soul, no matter to whom it is. Talk hope if it is in the very last of life, and if they die let them die praising the Lord. That is the nicest way to die. Now, I know about the subject, I have opened my doors to the consumptives; I have opened my house to them—more than one or two or three or four. I have seen the souls going down. The head printer said, “Will you take me?” “Yes,” I said. We put him into our house and the cholera was around and the family he was with had the cholera and they left him right there alone. A man brought him and put him in our room. The doctor came and said he would not live until morning, he would live until midnight and that was about all. Stephen Belden—we worked and we prayed for him all night long. In the morning when the doctor came, he said, “What have you done for that man?” We prayed all night long. Nothing else would have saved him. He was in the very last stages of cholera. Our God answers prayer. Let everyone talk courage if it is to the very last breath. We kept him with us much longer that we expected him to live. He said, “I want to ride out.” I put up my hand and said, “Don’t ride out now.” I said, “You wait a little longer.” He had one sleeve in his coat on, and sat in the rocking chair, and sat there praising God all the time until the last breath was drawn. Well now, let them die in that way if they will, if they cannot be helped. That is the best way. I buried so many from my own house, I understand it. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 12

Now I want to say to every one, let us talk faith, let us praise God whether we live or die. If they die in the Lord there is a blessed morning of the resurrection. Now I want to say, never be discouraged whatever may come, never be discouraged but just say the Lord loves us, He will do His part. Does He ever fail us? I never knew Him to fail us. I want to say, God lives and we may have to take care of dying ones, but do not be discouraged with them. They may rest from their labors and their works do follow them—the work that they had done. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 13

This intelligent young man studied himself to death. There was the daughter and husband, sister and brother, and they sent them to us as their only hope because the father and mother did not know how to take care of them. Death has no terrors for them. Praise God, praise God. He said, “Will you examine me.” That was about six weeks before he died. I said, “I will.” I put my ear right to the back of his lungs. Said he, “What do you say?” Said I, “You may live just about six weeks.” He lived about that time and then died and we said in his case, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. He had many friends and he was an intelligent gentleman. We take them right to our home that we might ease them down to the grave, that was our work. We might say, Praise the Lord with heart and soul and voice and we do not praise the Lord half as much as we ought to. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 14

Here is Christ. He came to our world to die for us, that we might have everlasting life. Do let everyone improve it and be determined they will not have Christ die for them in vain. He passed through all that agony on the cross that none of you can suffer any more than He did. And yet He did all this in behalf of a work to save a ruined world. He came here to our humanity, that humanity might grasp divinity and lay hold upon the divinity that Christ brought into the world. And now let us be thankful always for Christ’s sake. 24LtMs, Ms 133, 1909, par. 15