THOSE two things being settled, another thing that comes right along with them is that our institutions must be put firmly and uncompromisingly upon the principles for which they were planted in the world, and for which they stand.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.1

I have seen in Seventh-day Adventist institutions the very principles for which those institutions stand, despised, rejected, and cast out by those who were in the place of responsibility in those institutions and for those institutions. I have seen institutions planted to represent a certain phase of the third angel’s message in which there was not a single principle recognized for which the institution stood, as a practical thing, in the institution.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.2

Now I want to know how we can in any true sense at all expect God’s prospering hand to be with an institution when the management of the institution is conducting the institution in defiance of the principles for which the institution stands. How can that be? And is it any wonder that such institutions as that cannot make their way, and that they run behind every year? Is there anything strange about that? When an institution is planted for a certain purpose, and stands in the world for certain principles; and yet by those in responsibility there those principles are ignored, if not despised and rejected,—then it is any wonder that those institutions run behind? Is it any wonder that the brethren, the people, the Seventh-day Adventists, are not very ready to make donations to those institutions, and to the work of those institutions?ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.3

I have seen it in my experience, when I have told the managers of more than one institution that I had neither the heart nor the face to ask any Seventh-day Adventist for money to be spent in behalf of that institution until a better showing was made of the money that had been spent in it. But let you and me straighten up, conduct this thing straight, wed ourselves to the principles for which it stands, and firmly place the whole institution upon those principles, so that it will recommend itself to the people for what they did give their money, and you will not have difficulty, you will not run behind; and money will come all right. I have never seen it fail. I do not know of any people in this world who are more liberal, or more ready to give, and who more lovingly give, than Seventh-day Adventists. And in justice to those people, to their liberal hearts and their consecrated energies, you and I, as men in responsible places on committee, or as ministers in the field, it is your place and mine to do everything in our power to see that every institution, and every part of the cause is conducted strictly upon the principles for which the cause and the institutions stand.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.4

Then when that is done,—I say again, I have never seen it fail,—the people are ready to put their means liberally into the work. And that is so in the connection on which I spoke last night,—the conference treasury and the ministry. It is surprising to me in the experience I have had for a good while, that the Seventh-day Adventist ministry are unable to see how dissatisfied the people are with the slipshod way in which the ministry is doing its work. There are Seventh-day Adventist people to-day sending their tithes, not to the conference treasury, but to the mission fields, rather than to the conference treasury, because of the loose, unwise, dilatory way in which the ministry of their conferences work, taking money from the treasury for little or no returns.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.5

The man who is to be a minister of the gospel can be that truly only by being swallowed up in that ministry, every fiber of his being, body, soul, and spirit. Every item of his being has to be devoted to the ministry of the gospel. Nothing else can have any possible place. Neither speculations, dealings, investments, nor side issues of any kind can have any place in the life of a minister of the gospel. “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.”ARSH August 12, 1902, page 10.6

There is God’s law for the ministry of the gospel: Entangleth not himself with the affairs of this life. The affairs of this life have no place in the affairs of the minister of the gospel.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.1

That is the law of the ministry, and a man is “not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” Those men who mix up in other things with the ministry of the gospel,—when the day comes for them to be crowned, they will be crowned as men of these other things, and not as ministers of the gospel, if indeed they be crowned at all. They cannot be crowned as ministers of the gospel, for they have compromised it with these little, unworthy things that have no place, and that are not to be mentioned in the same breath with the ministry of the gospel. And that is why the ministry of the gospel of Seventh-day Adventists all over this land has been going the other way all the time, instead of rising to the height where the ministry of the gospel belongs, and where God has called it to stand.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.2

Now the financial success that will come from this reversal and reorganization of things is nothing at all in importance as compared to the divine manliness and the divine integrity and strength that will come to the ministry by their adopting, and wedding themselves to, this principle; for the man who puts his whole dependence for all that ever comes to him upon the gospel which he preaches, is independent. He will always have a good support, and his work will always more than pay all that his wages and expenses amount to.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.3

And this brings in a double principle that I want you to get hold of. I am telling you the truth. The man who starts into the work of the gospel ministry on this principle, and adheres to it till he makes his work pay his way,—then his work will pay his way, that is true; and it will more than pay his way. And as his work goes on, his work will grow. And as his work grows, he will grow with it; so that the longer that man’s ministry continues, the more successful it will be, and the more his efforts will bring into the cause, in return.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.4

Now that is so, and not one of you should accept any other thing than that principle worked out that way. If you have been in the ministry ten years, then your work this year should bring into the cause far more returns in proportion than it did the first year or the second. So that a man’s work, as it continues, and continues to grow, and he grows with it, will easily bring three, five, six, ten, or twenty times as much to the cause as his wages and expenses take out. And it is perfectly easy, because as his work grows thus, he is certain to grow with it, in manliness, in strength, in stamina, in manly, Christian independence—independence of conferences, conference committees, institutions, treasuries, and everything of the kind; because in the gospel which he preaches, he has conferences, he has treasuries, he has institutions, everything. And if the gospel which you preach, my brother, and the gospel which I preach, does not have in it conferences, and treasuries, and institutions, and the whole thing, then we have not the right kind of gospel yet.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.5

Another thing that comes along with all this: ill-advised moves have been made,—and we as men in responsible places and on committees must look out for, and guard against, such things as that,—institutions have been built on a scale that made them far larger than were the men who were to conduct them. And when you have an institution that is a great deal larger than are the men who are in it to conduct it, you have an institution that is bound to run behind while those men are there. Then you see that it is an utter mistake, it is not economy at all, it is extravagance, wastefulness, to put up institutions larger than are the men who are to conduct the institutions.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.6

But as certainly as each man, whether minister, doctor, teacher, or printer, starts into the work upon the basis that makes his work pay his way, and himself grows with his work, he will always be as large as is his work. And when an institution grows up under his work, the institution will not be bigger than he is. He himself will be as large as is the institution that God brings under his hand; and that institution will be a success from the day the first stone is laid in the foundation until the day it is fully equipped and running, whether it be medical, educational, or publishing, or a conference. That is the truth.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.7

Other institutions will have to be built. We have not yet nearly all the institutions that there must be. Our educational institutions should cover this land in a perfect network,—the home school, the church school, the intermediate school, perhaps not any more colleges; but between the college and the home, there is to be a whole string in all these regions yet. There are to be health institutions, sanitariums,—many more than there are now. And you and I as managers and men in responsible places, must not allow ourselves to overreach, and build great institutions, larger than anybody who can ever be brought in to conduct them. No; built the institution according to the needs, however small it may be. Get the men who can run it at that size. Then let these men conduct it successfully at that size, and they will grow as the work grows. Then enlarge it, and they will still be as large as the enlarged institution is; and that institution and its business will always be a success.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.8

Isn’t it perfectly plain, then, that that is a principle, and not merely a policy, nor even only business? What principle is it? Isn’t it the divine principle that is before us in all nature, and in the Bible,—the divine principle of growth? Plant institutions small, and let them grow. Then the men who are there will grow with them. But plant them so large that they never can grow, and bring in to manage and conduct the work in such an institution men who have not had time to grow, however much they may be ready to grow—they are not the size of the institution, they cannot grow up to the height of that thing, and the thing goes at loose ends, and everything goes backward.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.9

Then you can see that it is the divine principle of growth. You can see that it all centers in the ministry; and you can see that the correct solution of our financial problem, and our financial success that is to come out of this problem, yea, everything that concerns the cause of the third angel’s message, turns upon the ministry of the gospel. There is where this whole reform and the whole work of reorganization center. And each one of us must put himself into the mill, and let it grind. Do not have the brethren of the committee do it. Each one of us must put himself there, and hold himself there until that thing is settled the right way.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.10

And when this is done, then what? Just review the ground, and let the things be carried out that are before us, and let the problem that is under our hands be solved, in the way that we have studied to-night; and then what? What do you think of it? What is the prospect? Well, it will be so restful that we can stand and take a long, refreshing breathe, and rest. That is the way out of this thing, and there is no difficulty, there is no problem, about it at all. It is simply the divine principle of righteousness; it is simply the divine principle of self-government; it is simply the divine principle of self-support; it is simply the divine principle of growth, allowed to work by the divine power of the gospel.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.11

O, there is a higher place for us to stand! There is a higher place for the denomination. There is a higher place for our institutions. There is a higher place for conference committees. There is a higher place for the teachers in our schools. There is a higher place for the ministry, yes, a hundred per cent higher. For every soul, every phase of the work, there is an infinitely higher place for us to stand than where we have stood.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.12

Brethren, there is a great work going on. And, thank the Lord, it is going on. It is going on; and it is never going to stop. That is the other beautiful part about it. Three beautiful things: there is a great work; it is going on; and it is never going to stop. Let us go with it, in the way that it is going.ARSH August 12, 1902, page 11.13

August 5, 1902