Plans for Enlarging the Battle Creek Institution

On pages 111-116 Prophetess of Health deals with the attempt to enlarge the newly established health institute. To give an accurate, factual background for the events calls for a somewhat detailed presentation. The reader of the book finds a discussion of the problems surrounding a proposed large addition to the Health Reform Institute in 1867 and the “shadows” that this episode cast on both Ellen and James White.CBPH 58.10

Mrs. White is accused of being “largely supportive” of her husband’s “erratic” behavior. But we must follow the story from the beginning in order to get a proper perspective.CBPH 58.11

It was in response to Ellen White’s appeal at the 1866 General Conference Session that the Western Health Reform Institute was established. It was a very ambitious undertaking for a denomination of about 5,000 members, with few regular ministers, only a fledgling financial system, and scarcely any qualified physicians. The original call for $25,000 to establish the institute, made in June, 1866, was more than seven times the General Conference budget for that year (see The Review and Herald, May 22, 1866, 27:196, and The Review and Herald, January 1, 1867, 20:48). Still, the appeal met an enthusiastic response in the purchase of stock and in pledges. Only six months later, on January 8, 1867, Dr. Lay was back, pleading in the Review for another $25,000 to erect an additional “large building” (The Review and Herald, January 8, 1867, 29:54). A close study of the financial reports issued weekly in the Review shows that even the first $25,000 was not completely collected from the members until August of 1867, more than a year after the original appeal. But now, in January of 1867, only four months after the Institution had opened its doors, the people were confronted with another call for money.CBPH 58.12

Uriah Smith, editor of the Review, endorsed Lay’s plan for an additional building in the January 29 issue, but he added another ominous possibility by indicating that the amount necessary would be “from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars” (The Review and Herald, January 29, 1867, 29:90). So $25,000 was merely the minimum figure given in the second appeal. All this came at a time when only a “little over half”—$13,950—of the original $25,000 had even been pledged (The Review and Herald, January 1, 1867, 29:48), and only $10,194.97 had actually been paid in for the purchase of stock.CBPH 59.1

Bear in mind that Mrs. White had not yet published any account of her vision of December 25, 1865, which would give the people in written form the call for the Institute project. True, she had called for it at the General Conference of 1866, but the people, and especially the directors of the institute, were still without any written call for support of the new enterprise. No doubt everyone expected that such would be contained in her next pamphlet, Testimony No. 11.CBPH 59.2

James White’s illness had seriously delayed Mrs. White’s writing plans, but on January 22, 1867, the same month in which Lay and Smith had issued the call for the second $25,000, James White announced that Testimony No. 11 would be “ready in a few days.” It was to cover the subjects of the reform dress and hoops, as well as addresses to ministers and to the laity. White added, “Testimony No. 12, may be expected soon; but the matter for No. 11, is regarded as of such importance at this time that it is thought not best to wait till the matter now designed for No. 12 can be prepared” (The Review and Herald, January 22, 1867, 29:84).CBPH 59.3

The directors of the Institute were well aware that Mrs. White had received light calling upon Seventh-day Adventists to establish a medical institution on principles God could approve. They had even put out a circular, according to Smith, promising that the instruction given in the vision as it pertained to the Institute would appear in the next Testimony. Now they had the material for the Testimony in their hands and it contained nothing about the Institute! Naturally, they were perplexed. Since they already had the plans for enlargement, they badly needed the support the Testimony could give. So, on February 5, Uriah Smith addressed a letter to Mrs. White. He opened by observing that Loughborough had just returned to Battle Creek and had met with Aldrich, Amadon, Walker, and himself “in regard to the institute which is now the great question before us”CBPH 59.4

Loughborough had apparently heard Ellen White preach at Wright and Monterey, Michigan, and reported that she gave “good testimony in regard to the Institute and Dr. Lay.”CBPH 59.5

The brethren, Smith reported, thought that “by all means this should go into Testimony No. 11” Though Smith does not mention the plans for the new large building, he does point out that, “A great many are waiting before doing anything to help the Institute, till they see the Testimony.” He naturally felt that for it to go out without any word would be detrimental to the Institute. Smith continued: It has therefore been thought best by all the Brn. mentioned above that the Testimony be delayed till you can write out what you have seen on this point, and send us, which we hope you can do immediately....CBPH 59.6

The manuscript you have here is all in type.... It makes forty pages, leaving eight pages that can be added as well as not. We shall print the first thirty-two in the morning, and let the other stand till we hear from you.—Uriah Smith to Ellen White, Feb. 5, 1867.CBPH 59.7

In a postscript, Smith observed that some of the people felt that health reform was not necessarily a part of the “cause of present truth” and he and the other men thought that “the connection of this work [of health reform] with the cause of truth should be made plainly to appear.”CBPH 59.8

On page 112 of Prophetess of Health Smith is called “brash” to even dare to suggest what needed to be said. But since Loughborough and doubtless others of the men had already heard Mrs. White make her oral presentation on this point, and since they were probably already familiar with the basic outline of the message she had to present, Smith can hardly be called brash for telling her what aspects of the message the people seemed least to understand and to suggest where the emphasis needed to be placed.CBPH 59.9

Mrs. White had no doubt intended to write about the Institute in No. 11 but had delayed the work. Most of her time had been spent in caring for her partially paralyzed husband. James and Ellen White had been absent from Battle Creek since mid-December. They had stayed first with the Root family in Wright, and at the time the letter reached them, they were living with the Maynards in Greenville, Michigan.CBPH 59.10

James White reports that on Thursday and Friday, February 9 and 10, they were at Orleans, about ten miles from Greenville, meeting with the Orleans and Fairplains churches. “As Mrs. W. had important writing on hand, she proposed,” James White writes, “that we conduct the morning service and she would the afternoon.” It seems likely that the “important writing” referred to was the article on health reform and the Institute that Smith had requested, since his letter had been penned four or five days earlier.CBPH 59.11

Ten days later the published testimony, complete with the last-minute addition, was ready for mailing:CBPH 59.12

“We mail Testimony No. 11 this week. It has been unavoidably delayed till this time,” White said (The Review and Herald, February 19, 1867, 29:132).CBPH 59.13

The testimony was a general one, pointing to the importance of health reform and asserting, “I was shown that we should provide a home for the afflicted, and those who wish to learn how to take care of their bodies that they may prevent sickness.” (Testimonies for the Church 1:489). “Here, I was shown, was a worthy object for God’s people to engage in; and where they can invest means which will advance the glory of God.” (Testimonies for the Church 1:492).CBPH 59.14

This was a general statement calling for general support of the Institute. It does not mention the new large building plans just announced, and Ellen White herself, at this point, may not have realized the practical difficulties that would follow when this general endorsement, based on a vision more than a year earlier, was applied to the ambitious plans afoot in Battle Creek. It is one thing to receive divine instructions. It is another thing to apply them at the proper time and place.CBPH 59.15

James and Ellen White returned to Battle Creek on March 13, 1867, and must certainly have had opportunity then to get information about how things were moving at the Institute. Now she began to have misgivings about the situation.CBPH 60.1

On May 1, 1867, she addressed a letter to Dr. Lay in which she expressed her serious concern, based on what she had been shown in vision, about the amusements being conducted at the Institute and about the general level of spirituality there. She wrote:CBPH 60.2

I cannot feel that things are moving at the institute as God would have them move. I fear that He will turn His face from it. I was shown that physicians and helpers should be of the highest order.—Testimonies for the Church 1:566-567. (See 1867 ed. p. 91 for date.)CBPH 60.3

The annual General Conference Session convened in Battle Creek on May 14, 1867. James White was present that afternoon when the meeting opened, a meeting at which the following action was taken:CBPH 60.4

Resolved, That we recognize the hand of God in the successful establishment of the Health Institute, and that we invite the continued action of our people in order that this may be enlarged to meet the wants of its patients.—The Review and Herald, May 28, 1867, 29:284.CBPH 60.5

As yet no building had been done, but by this time James White would most likely have known of the action endorsing the general plan for enlargement. He excused himself from the meeting on that day on grounds of his illness, but certainly he was aware of the plans even before they were put into effect. This tends to show that Kellogg’s allegations made in a 1907 interview (and reported on page 115 of Prophetess of Health) about James White tearing down the building because he was not consulted are not well founded. Kellogg was a boy of 15 at the time.CBPH 60.6

In June Mrs. White wrote Dr. Lay again, saying that she had been shown how he had accepted many of the ideas of Dr. Jackson of Dansville in regard to amusements and exercise. In both this letter and the letter in May to Dr. Lay, we see Mrs. White’s increasing concern over Lay’s course. The visions might give her insights into many problems, but she had to meet these problems in a practical way as they arose.CBPH 60.7