EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE.
Several months ago a letter was received from which the following is quoted:— I need some advice, and I think you will be able to help me out of my difficulty. I am a young girl, and live on a ranch with my father and mother. We have been Adventists ever since I can remember; that is, father and mother have. What I want your advice about is this: I have wanted to take the training for a medical missionary nurse for a couple of years, but my mother does not want me to leave home. She is not satisfied unless all of us children are at home. My sister younger than I married, and I would have been, only mother told me if I would not get married, I could be a nurse. I would rather be engaged in the work than to get married, and so I broke my engagement; but now my mother still refuses to give her consent to let me go to Battle Creek. She does not want me to get married nor to be a nurse; and when I talk about going she will cry, and say I don't care for her. Now I do love her, but I feel that I just can't give up that work, and I don't want to leave home unless she is willing. What shall I do anyway?” I have read your letter with a great deal of interest, and appreciate the situation. I would advise you to take this matter carefully to the Lord in prayer, and as patiently as possible do your work at home; live your life there as conscientiously as you possibly can, doing whatever work you can find to do in your community such as will help to exemplify the truth, and then wait for developments. I do not believe that it would be right for you to ruthlessly tear yourself away from your mother under these circumstances and come to Battle Creek, or to go anywhere with the expectation of taking up any work for the Lord. Your first work is in the place where you are, and you should allow the Lord to open the way and lead you out. When he does that, it will be without needless friction or pain. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. There are some mothers who can never be reconciled to anything which does not suit their own ideas of things. I am not prepared to say whether this is so with your mother or not; but I should be very sure to have the mind of the Lord in this matter before taking any radical steps. Meanwhile you can correspond with the Medical Missionary Association, and so be ready for anything that may occur to open the way for you to come. If the Lord wants you to come, he can remove this bitter opposition upon the part of your mother, or in some way make you know how to move in spite of it. You have a work of patience and loving daughterly service to render to your mother. This is your first work, and afterward whatever the Lord will make clear to you. Remember the promise with the commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” There is no fun in taking up the work in this place or anywhere else. It is all work,—hard, self-denying work, such as will tax every bit of grace and patience that the Lord can give you; and if you cultivate these graces in your home life, you will be better prepared for this service when the way opens for you to take it up. It will not take the Lord very long to open the way for you when he sees fit to do so. Another letter has just been received from this young woman, in which she says:— I expect to leave in the spring to go to Battle Creek to take the nurses’ course. My mother is willing for me to go, and I am so glad that I took your advice, and did not leave home without her consent. I heard about the nurses’ course by correspondence, and so thought I would take it up, and perhaps my mother would be willing for me to go at the end of the year. I had only a few lessons by correspondence when she became as much interested as I, and now she wants me to go. Last summer my father’s name was sent as a special subject of prayer, and Sister Henry sent him a book in regard to the experience of intemperate men. Since that time a great change has come over him. He does not seem to care whether he gets the drink or not, and is talking of being baptized and joining the church this coming summer. I ask that prayer may be continued for him, that he may become truly the servant of God.