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Ellen G. White and Her Critics - Contents
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    Large Building Plans Develop

    As nearly as we can reconstruct the picture from the news items in the Review and Herald, the building plans and the urge to build immediately seemed to grow as the months passed by. In August, 1867, less than twelve months after the opening of the institution, E. S. Walker, the secretary of the Health Reform Institute, announced through the church paper that certain building materials for the new structure had been delivered and paid for, but that the funds were exhausted, and $15,000 was “wanted immediately.” Here is how he calls on Mrs. White’s words to support his appeal for more funds:EGWC 498.1

    “We have no doubt that you all know your duty, but we are all so liable to forget that we think a few short quotations from Testimony No. 11, would not be amiss to stir up our minds by way of remembrance.”—The Review and Herald, August 27, 1867, p. 169. *Walker states: “We have purchased and had delivered on the ground about all the timber and finishing lumber necessary for the building, to the amount of about $6,000.00, and have completed the lower story of stone, all of which is paid for. We are now ready for the brick, and have expended all our ready means.”—Page 169. If we conservatively estimate $4,000 for the work already done (the critic says $11,000) plus $6,000 for lumber purchased and ready to use, plus the $15,000 “wanted immediately,” we have a total of $25,000. This is the figure given by Dr. Lay (The Review and Herald, January 8, 1867, p. 54) for the “erection and furnishing” of the new, large building then being discussed. But Walker’s appeal for funds up to a total of at least $25,000 was only for completion and furnishing of such part of the building as seemed to be immediately required. Thus do building programs sometimes grow. He assured his readers that “the remainder of the building could be finished as means came in and the wants of the cause demanded.” How many thousands more would be required to complete the building is not here revealed. We are left to surmise the amount, and also to speculate on how the fact of the unfinished “remainder” would be the occasion for an endeavor on the part of those interested in the Institute to draw from a limited church constituency monies for finishing the building that should go into other branches of missionary endeavor.EGWC 498.2

    Two thirds of Walker’s article consists of quotations from this particular testimony (No. 11). The only conclusion that any reader could draw from his article, which was typical of the promotion employed for the new, “large building,” was that Mrs. White gave to all this expansive building program her unqualified endorsement. But her Testimony No. 11, published in January, 1867, gave no such endorsement. It was based on a vision given December 25, 1865, and called for the support of the brethren in founding a medical institution. James White, who had been a leading spirit, and who has been described, even by the critics of Adventism, as an astute businessman, had seen in that testimony no license to engage in unsound building expansion, because, as already noted, he heartily endorsed what she had written. *However, his ill-health, following his “stroke” in 1865, had largely kept him out of active leadership. In fact, he was away from Battle Creek most of the year 1867. But as things had developed, there was grave danger that the Health Institute, so well begun, in modest dimensions, would, under enthusiastic but inexperienced leadership, become top heavy and collapse under debt. In view of the imminent financial danger from overexpansion, that confronted the Institute, Mrs. White included in Testimony No. 12, published in September, 1867, a chapter entitled “The Health Institute.” For the date of publication of No. 12, see The Review and Herald, September 17, 1867, p. 224, where notices signed by J. N. Loughborough and James White, state that No. 12 is ready. The chapter, “The Health Institute,” appears in current form in Testimonies for the Church 1:553-564. As might be expected the chapter is filled with counsel against overexpansion and other dangers For example:EGWC 498.3

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