The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress

The Pacific Health Journal

The summer of 1885 was quite an eventful period of progress in the cause of the third angel’s message. The first of May the Rural Health Retreat at St. Helena was placed under the medical management of a regularly graduated physician. In the month of June was begun the bi-monthly issue of the Pacific Health Journal and Temperance Advocate, a 24-page magazine under the editorial supervision of Elder J. H. Waggoner. By these agencies new life came to the health institution, which, instead of losing, as in previous years, began to show, from year to year, a net profit in its workings of from $2,000 to $4,000 per year, until the year which closed April, 1891, it showed a net gain of over $12,000. GSAM 368.1

At the meeting of the Rural Health Retreat Association, at St. Helena, 1887, the following statement was made in reference to the finances of the institution: May 1, 1885, the net worth of the institution was only $5,322.76, or $2,547.24 less than all the stock that had been issued up to that date. In other words, the institution had consumed all of its earnings and $2,547.24 of its capital stock. April 1, 1887, the value of the institution above all its debts was $21,372.64, or a gain in twenty-three months of $16,049.88. Of this sum, stock had been taken to the amount of $5,280, and donations had been made to the institution to the amount of $2,497.60; so on the workings of the institution there was a net gain of $8,272.28. About this time, the Pacific Health Journal was issued as a 32-page monthly, with a cover, and was found to be of still greater service in advancing the interests and principles of the institution. GSAM 368.2