Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 107, 1900

Braucht, F. E.

“Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

July 4, 1900

Portions of this letter are published in Te 221. +^Note

Dear Brother Braucht:

I received and read your letter and would say in reply, You have done quite right in not subscribing to the contract to make over the property you mention to any association in Battle Creek. Hold it until clear light comes from the Lord. Things are not being handled right in Battle Creek, and Dr. Kellogg regards nothing that has been given him from the Lord to show him his mistakes. He goes right on just the same as if no warnings and reproofs had come. He makes a continual raid on the ministers, because he cannot swing them into his line of thought to sustain him in his line of action. He has tried his hand in the oppression of the General Conference against the college at Lincoln. The college was doing well, but he has caused it great distress, because the managers could not see it their duty to make over to him all the profits received in the health food business. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 1

This is the contract which he will try to make with every institution. His process and method of tearing to pieces that which he cannot rule is remarkably like the enemy of God and man. I have written to him largely, and will not cease my note of warning until he changes decidedly. He is too proud spirited to acknowledge that he has made mistakes. He now disregards the testimonies God has given him and works against them. He is as a blind man leading his associates, many of whom are also blind. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 2

I feel deeply over this matter. I would have our people in New Zealand to be on guard. Dr. Kellogg is keen to watch all the revenue he can grasp to sustain his own line of work in Chicago, by placing an embargo upon other institutions in the productions of health foods, or something which he supposes he has invented. Who gave him his mind, his genius and tact? God, and that for the purpose of benefitting His people. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 3

Now he is virtually exalting himself as a god, and makes claims that the health foods are a production of his own inventive powers. He has experimented with them through his bakers. With his suggestions and with their skill they have been the agencies which have produced the results which he claims as his own inventions. God is the Author, the Alpha and the Omega of all these things that are produced for the benefit of man, and when Dr. Kellogg claims to be the inventor, he claims that which is not his right. The credit of this light is to be given to the Power above, which is to be respected by all human intelligences. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 4

I cannot write out at this time all that I have to say. The mail has just gone to Africa and to America, and many things are to be considered. It would have been far better if some of the money which has been donated to Dr. Kellogg—for instance, the forty thousand dollars which at one time came from the Wessels brothers—had been placed in other hands, to be used proportionately in advancing the various departments of the cause of God, in the destitute fields nigh and afar off, where plants of the Lord’s setting should be created. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 5

In hundreds of localities there would this day stand memorials where now there is nothing but barrenness of the knowledge of the truth. Chicago has received more money than will ever be known by human computation. These enterprises cannot present the showing for any such investment of means. The time, the labor, the money used in providing buildings, if expended in other parts of God’s great moral vineyard, would have been the saving of thousands of souls—trees of the Lord’s planting to bear fruit to His name’s glory. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 6

If the means which have been used in this work which Dr. Kellogg has taken up, which as it is conducted the Lord has not placed in his hands, if this means had been invested to give strength and courage to our institutions already in existence, it would have placed them on vantage ground. But for the want of means to clear them from debt, the interest has accumulated, reaching in Europe an amount which discourages every one from attempting to lift it. Nevertheless, we feel that we must make an effort, that the property shall not go to the banks; for this would mean [a] twenty-thousand dollars loss to the cause of God. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 7

I would have our people in New Zealand stand free from debt. I would have them stand as God would have them, in moral independence, not bound about with contracts to use the profits that God may be pleased to give them, according to one man’s mind and judgment. The profits that come to our institutions are not to flow into America, to make it in the power of any man to use them in creating that which has been created in Chicago. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 8

“Well, Sister White,” you may say, “is it not a good work?” This is the very thing that Satan has been devising that Seventh-day Adventists should do; that they should take on them that kind of a work which the churches of the world would all unite in doing if the situation was placed before them as eloquently as it has been placed before our own people in the faith to move them to action. God does not design that Seventh-day Adventists should carry this load and become entangled in meshes that seem impossible to break, diverting money from the channels in which it should flow, where it could accomplish a hundred fold more in saving souls. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 9

In all the churches in our world there are sincere Christians through whom God can work. They have not rejected the light, and physicians and ministers standing unitedly upon one platform can make their appeals to outside parties in behalf of this low class of people who are found in every city. Let the talks upon temperance reform which are given to Seventh-day Adventists be given to the other churches. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 10

If our own people will unite with the W.C.T.U. on the temperance question, they could be as a leaven to work in the meal. But the work which the Lord has given to Seventh-day Adventists to do is a special work, which the world and the churches do not sustain, but oppose. It is not to be of the character that it now presents. There is to be no raid made by Seventh-day Adventists by pen or voice against any temperance movement. Until there is a different showing with them as to the work which they should do wisely and with the Spirit of God, coming into close association with others who are doing a good work, co-operating with them, they will not be able to let the light of truth shine forth from the Scriptures. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 11

The cause of God requires that I write you these lines, that you may be on guard. Do not be coerced in any matter by men who seek to bind those of our faith to obligations which are not just, but cruel. The way will open before you and light will come, so do not be at all discouraged. The Lord lives and reigns. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 12

The Lord would have His work carried forward soundly and healthfully. When man shall surrender his mind, heart, and soul to Christ, the very first lesson for him to learn is that God has given to every man his work. In the sacred mystery, Christ’s person links together the human and the divine. God would have His work carried on under His supervision. Each man has his own post of duty in the great whole, each has his own appointed work, and every man is to find out what the Master would have him to do, and then to do that work in connection with other laborers in the service appointed them. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 13

In the life of man things sacred and secular are to be done, some in business lines, some in the ministry of the Word, and some in various trades; but when a man gives himself to Christ and loves God with the whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, he serves with a devotion that takes the whole being to perform the work. He recognizes the ownership of his powers, and the ownership of himself. This consecration invests his whole life with a sacredness which makes him in his work gentle, kind, courteous. His every act is a consecrated act. “Holiness unto the Lord” is his motto. [Exodus 28:36.] He is under Christ, being trained for the higher grade above. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 14

Christ gave His precious life for us, that through His own merits and His own value of character in the heavenly courts above, He might supply all needed grace that we should not miss the opportunity of gaining the far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. If we would in this life establish our principal and interest in heaven, we will secure the position as members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 15

The counsel to lay up your treasures where they will be secure is given to the wealthy and to those who are not wealthy. In this life put them to the very best use that can be made to advance the kingdom of God and save souls unto eternal life. In comparison with the value of one soul, the whole world sinks into insignificance. Christ finds men risking everything to secure earthly riches; He finds men crazed with the prospect of earthly gain, and He urges them as they respect their own rationality to take into consideration eternity. What provisions have they made in regard to the future immortal life? He lifts His voice and asks, “What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” [Mark 8:36, 37.] 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 16

A great work is to be done in our world, and we are to act a part in this work. May the Lord help us to be co-workers with Jesus Christ! “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” [Proverbs 3:5, 6.] I will now say, God bless you in your work. 15LtMs, Lt 107, 1900, par. 17