p. 20 | Synopsis of Elder Daniels’ Discourse

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 25, 1908

Synopsis of Elder Daniels’ Discourse

Our sanitariums are located in all parts of the world. We have them in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico, South America, in Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, India, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, as well as in various other parts of the world; and the institutions are the same everywhere. That is, the principles that are held, and that govern the management, are recognized the world over.

These institutions differ from hospitals, and even from denominational hospitals, quite materially. In the first place, we educate our own physicians; that is, the physicians are gathered from our own ranks, and the denomination takes an interest in the development of these

young men and women who wish to qualify for medical practice. We educate our own nurses. Every sanitarium is a medical training-school for nurses. We graduate our own nurses, and train them, and they do not receive their training in other institutions.

Then, again, we follow methods of our own. Our institutions are peculiar to ourselves as a people. We have not copied after other institutions. We have not based our methods upon those of any other institution. While we have gathered the scientific knowledge and methods to a degree from various hospitals and institutions, yet our sanitariums have a genius of their own.

The chairman has raised the question as to why we establish and maintain sanitariums. It has already been suggested by the speakers who have preceded me. It is because we believe that religion pertains to the body as well as to the soul. We do not believe that we have discharged our responsibility when we pray, and when we read the Bible and endeavor to cultivate the higher or the spiritual nature. We believe that the mind and body, the soul and the physical frame, are so closely related that in order to enjoy the highest degree of spirituality we must take the best of care of the body.

We have not established these institutions for commercial reasons. If we should turn them into commercial institutions, we would miss the great object for which we have established them. We can not establish prices beyond the reach of the common people, and so while we place our prices for treatment, for operations, and the care of the sick, so that the common people can avail themselves of these advantages, we place ourselves where we can not make money, and we are satisfied with that. But we must make them self-supporting.

Another thing, we must not only establish prices that will let the ordinary class have these privileges, but there are hundreds of poor, sick, suffering people who have not any money at all, but they need help. They need treatment; they need the physician’s care; they need just what can be given them in our institutions. And so every year we do thousands upon thousands of dollars’ worth of free work, that we might call charitable work. We contribute that to suffering humanity, and you would be surprised if I were to roll up the figures here showing the charitable work that is being done by these institutions the world over every year. But we believe it ought to be done.

And yet we have a still higher purpose than the healing of the sick, and that is to reveal the living God and the Saviour Jesus Christ. I do not hesitate to tell you that beyond all these material things we want to open the hearts of men and women to the reception of the Saviour of men; and we understand that that was the chief reason why our Lord and Master healed the sick wherever he went. He knew that at the very best this life would be a failure without this salvation, and he knew that by touching them at the needy spot, by healing their sickness, by relieving them of their sufferings, he could reveal himself as their Saviour to them; and so he did that day by day to help those people. And he would have this church in the earth, representing him, do the work that he did and for the purpose for which he did it.

We are very glad as a people to have this sanitarium added to our family of institutions. We are glad to see that the promoters have exercised good judgment in the selection of a location, and that they have manifested good taste in beautifying the grounds, and good judgment in the selection of material. I am glad as I go through this institution, to find it well constructed, light and airy, well ventilated, and with plenty of sunshine; to find it neat and clean and attractive, with furniture good enough for any of us; and to find provision made for all the wants and needs of the people.

I feel that this institution is a credit to our denomination, and it is also a credit to this conference and to this town in which it is located. And in behalf of the denomination I wish to say to our Indiana Conference that we wish you every prosperity in the operation of this place. We trust that it will be a blessing to the people of this city, and that they will never have occasion to be sorry that it has been established near them.