Our Relationship to Our Sanitariums by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 4, 1915

Our Relationship to Our Sanitariums

By F. M. W.

WHAT part do our sanitariums sustain to this movement? What should be our relation to them? The answer to the second question is determined by the answer to the first.

Our sanitariums constitute, we believe, important agencies in the carrying forward of this work with which we are connected. We shall find many in the kingdom of God who were brought there through the loving ministry of our medical institutions. By what they see and hear and by the lives of physicians and nurses, many will be led to give themselves to God. While obtaining physical and material benefits, they will receive, even above these, spiritual benefits of infinite worth. How widespread this influence has been exerted, only the judgment will reveal.

Constituting as they do an essential part of this movement, our sanitariums deserve our hearty sympathy and support. Indeed, we should feel that they are our institutions, to be nurtured and built up by us, to be sustained by our prayers and by our means.

When we are in need of the ministry which these institutions can give, we should gladly avail ourselves of their aid, thanking God that in our affliction we can commit our cases to physicians and nurses who not only possess as good professional and technical training as physicians and nurses of the world, but who are Christian men and women—our own brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus.

But when we enter our sanitariums as guests, there are involved mutual and reciprocal obligations. The institution on its part should do for us all that lies within its power. Our physicians are expected to bring to bear upon our cases the most skillful, painstaking care and attention. But in doing this, the institution incurs heavy expense, and it is at this point that our obligations begin. Our sanitariums are not ours in the sense that we should make out of them personal gain. We must recognize that they have heavy obligations to meet. Many of them are laboring under a great burden of indebtedness. Indeed, the expense involved in our care may be represented in borrowed money on which the institution is paying interest. It is not right for us to throw upon the institution this burden, so far as we are concerned. And yet some, we fear, among our brethren and sisters have failed to recognize their personal obligation for the care which they have received at our sanitariums.

We find that all our sanitariums are carrying on their books heavy accounts involved in the care of Seventh-day Adventists. Some of these accounts have been running for many years; and when the managers have reminded delinquent ones of their obligations, it has sometimes caused unpleasantness. We believe that the principle enjoined in the Word of God, "Owe no man anything," applies to debts which have been contracted with our sanitariums as well as in our worldly business; and that where our institutions have taken our brethren and sisters in hours of need, and have endeavored to bring them back to health and strength, these same brethren and sisters should appreciate not alone the duty, but above all, the privilege which they have of making some commensurate return for the service rendered them. We believe that the principle of honesty

and integrity will lead every Seventh-day Adventist to pay his debts, whether those debts are contracted in the carrying on of his business in the world or whether they are debts which have been contracted in connection with our schools and sanitariums.

We do not know how many who read these words may be concerned in the discussion of this question. We hope, however, that if any of our readers is obligated to our institutions for service which has been rendered him, he will endeavor in the fear of God to pay his just and proper obligations; and we believe that as he endeavors to find ways and means of doing this, the Lord will cooperate with him. The Lord does not want any of his children under the burden and bondage of debt. He wants us to be free men and women in Christ Jesus; and we believe that as we reach out for this freedom and struggle to get rid of every encumbrance, God will respond to this endeavor on our part, and will open ways before us that we did not see, whereby it may be accomplished.

Brethren, let us be honest with the Lord, with our fellows, and with God's institutions. Let us pay our debts. If we owe our local church societies, if we owe the tract society, if we owe our schools, if we owe our sanitariums, let us seek to render to them according to the service and benefit which we have received, and God will bless us in this undertaking.

F. M. W.