Teaching Health Principles

Then, in afteryears, the light was given that we should have a sanitarium, a health institution, which was to be established right among us. This was the means God was to use in bringing His people to a right understanding in regard to health reform. It was also to be the means by which we were to gain access to those not of our faith. We were to have an institution where the sick could be relieved of suffering, and that without drug medication. God declared that He Himself would go before His people in this work.1NL 136.1

Well, the work has been steadily increasing. The way was opened for our churches to take hold of it. I proclaimed health reform everywhere I went. At our camp meetings I spoke on Sunday afternoons, and I proclaimed the message of temperance in eating, drinking, and dressing. This was the message I bore for years before I left for Australia.1NL 136.2

But there were those who did not come up to the light God had given. There were those in attendance at our camp meetings who ate and drank improperly. Their diet was not in harmony with the light God had given, and it was impossible for them to appreciate the truth in its sacred, holy bearing.1NL 136.3

So the light has been gradually coming in. Over and over again instruction was given that our health institutions were to reach all classes of people. The gospel of Jesus Christ includes the work of helping the sick. When I heard that Dr. Kellogg had taken up the medical missionary work, I encouraged him with heart and soul, because I knew that only by this work can the prejudice which exists in the world against our faith be broken down.1NL 136.4

In Australia we have tried to do all we could in this line. We located in Cooranbong, and there, where the people have to send twenty-five miles for a doctor, and pay him twenty-five dollars a visit, we helped the sick and suffering all we could. Seeing that we understood something of disease, the people brought their sick to us, and we cared for them. Thus we entirely broke down the prejudice in that place.1NL 136.5

Here is Battle Creek, with a large church, the members of which are called upon, in the name of the Lord, to go out into the field and help their fellow beings, to bring joy to those in sorrow, to heal the sick, to show men and women that they are destroying themselves.1NL 136.6