Elder Smith’s Call for Action

This question was answered promptly in a Review and Herald editorial by Elder Uriah Smith:SHM 172.3

“The institute, now not yet five months old, is literally running over,” he said. “A large, new building is essential. ... Now is the time to be getting the materials. ... Hence the necessity for immediate action. ... There is but one thing that can be done, and that is to erect a commodious building at the earliest possible date. This must be done; and to let the enterprise fail, or even to drag, for want of means, is to be recreant to our duty and the light we have received.”—Ibid., January 29, 1867.SHM 172.4

Elder Smith had consulted a few friends of the enterprise in Battle Creek and found them ready to subscribe further to the amount of nineteen shares of $25 each, and expressed confidence that this was but the beginning of a move that would swell to a thousand shares.SHM 173.1

The manager of the institution expressed his confidence that the brethren would see the necessity of taking hold of this work, and announced that “we have already made a large commencement, by making contracts for materials for the building, and which are now being rapidly conveyed to the place assigned. We need funds immediately to meet these contracts.”—Ibid., February 12, 1867.SHM 173.2

A week later Elder J. N. Andrews enthusiastically reported the encouraging conditions which he had found on a recent visit to the institution, and said, “You have responded nobly to the calls for means with which to lay its foundation. We ask you to aid its immediate enlargement.” The financial calls were still being made on the basis of dividend-bearing stock, and in harmony with this plan Elder Andrews continued:SHM 173.3

“We do not ask you to give one cent, but we invite you to invest your money in an institution where it may be the means of great good to others, while at the same time it shall yield a fair return of income to yourselves. The entire income will belong to the stockholders, and to no one else. If, therefore, any of you fear a speculation, you will see that the proceeds of it come into your pockets, and not out of them; and if any of you desire to receive nothing as a return, you can have your part of the income devoted to the relief of such patients as can pay nothing. ... We invite all our people to act in this matter. Some can do largely: all can do something. Shall it be said of us, ‘They have done what they could’?”—Ibid., February 19, 1867.SHM 173.4