Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 14 (1899)

Lt 249, 1899

Kellogg, Brother and Sister [J. H.]

“Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

June 3, 1899

Portions of this letter are published in 4Bio 396-397.

Dear Brother and Sister:

I am troubled, greatly troubled. Matters have been opened before me and I am greatly perplexed [to know] what to do and what to say. Here we are, longing to see the medical missionary work established in this country, but we are behind that which we could do if we could obtain means to establish a sanitarium. Some things have been presented to me, that if the Lord had been permitted to run things in America there would be an altogether different showing. Not only would new territory be entered and the truth proclaimed and souls perishing in their sins converted, but churches would be built in America and new churches solidly established to support the work. But this kind of work has not received the care, and studied, careful plans have not set in operation, to add territory after territory where the truth has not yet been proclaimed. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 1

There is a work to be done that is not done, and the Lord holds the ministers and leading men responsible for the work that should be done that is left undone. The third angel’s message is being considered a matter out-of-date, and yet the state of things in our world is revealing the end near. There is to be a work done that is not done. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 2

There has been human overworking in some lines of that which is supposed to be medical missionary work. But everything is not to be carried in this kind of management of the missionary work. There is the great necessity of young men entering the canvassing field to do a work that preaching the Word cannot do. The youth are to be educated and trained in as short a time as possible, and not left to drift where they take a notion and pick up fanciful ideas and, without careful study of the Scriptures, weave false threads into the web. This is being done, and it is becoming a rarity to hear the gospel trumpet giving clear, distinct, pure Bible doctrine—present truth for this time. Young men would do excellent work if linked with experienced preachers, ever bearing in mind that the medical missionary work is an arm and working hand to the body, not the body, not the all and in all. It is to be connected with the work of the ministry. There is danger of swaying the work heavily in one line, while other essential lines are neglected; things are getting turned upside down. The arm is made the all-important everything and the body nothing. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 3

The work is moving strangely, not healthfully. It is getting to be something which is absorbing all the vitality and the means, and is hedging up the way for the gospel to be proclaimed to the world in all its dignified bearings. The ministry is not to be treated as if it had lost all its sacred efficiency, and here has come in a work which takes the place of the ministry. Never, never can this be. The Lord God of Israel will have the ministry hold its sacred character as long as time shall last. Why, my Brother Kellogg, do you, before your colleagues, present the ministry as secondary to the medical missionary work? God does not make your methods and all your inventions the thing to prepare a people to stand in the great day of God. The medical missionary workers are not to feel that it is a right action to belittle the gospel ministry. God has never indicated or inspired men to do this, and He calls for a different sentiment. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 4

My Brother Kellogg, you are making a great mistake. Had the Lord led your mind you would not have linked up with A. R. Henry, and carried the donated means to establish another sanitarium, when you had the painful difficulties we were in here in this new world kept before you. It is not God’s Spirit that gives you eyes and ears only for the things that are nigh. The medical missionary work, united with the ministry, will carry a proper dignity with it that the third angel’s message of warning to our world means something to the world. The large donations you received! Think you, if James White were alive, in health as he once was, he would not have taken in the situation and seen afar off, as well as nigh. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 5

That sanitarium in Boulder should not have been created until there had been, Dr. Kellogg, an interest to understand there was [a] greater necessity in fields where there was nothing. You know the character of the work God has given me to do, and my being sent to this field meant to you that God called upon you to divide your donations until the medical missionary work should be established. But we could not have the assistance of the hand and arm to the body because you manifested a selfishness to center the institutions where you pleased. The necessity was kept before you, and you could have managed not to have absorbed so largely and abundantly in America and left the ones God has sent [to Australia] to struggle along, destitute of the help that you could and should have given us. Years have passed, and we are still unable to work—the hand and arm connected with the body. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 6

There has not been any desire for you to give of your private personal funds, but [only] to [have you] turn to Australia some of the gifts and offerings flowing in. I cannot feel that this is God’s leading, for I have much more confidence in my heavenly Father than to consider this is His way of managing. I have, myself, spent thousands of dollars. If I had not done this, we should have been not at all advanced. But I am sore at heart to see the time passing and you absorbing means and devising [plans] to use up the funds in medical missionary lines, and yet you are not deeply moved to establish that which is deemed so important in connection with the ministry here in Australia. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 7

The Lord called me to this field, and when at times I have been almost discouraged, then figures and symbols would be given me, and the words in explanation, that in every department of the work it is the willing mind, the earnest, unselfish spirit the laborer possesses that achieves the victory. But I have been restrained from entering into the work as have done in America, absorbing means to such a large extent with, indeed, so little solid work that bears the divine credentials. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 8

The discouragement our ministers have received has not been of the Lord. The Lord calls for wise planning and economy in the investing of means. There is now a confused state of things, but the Lord will bring order out of the confusion. The medical missionary work is not to supersede the ministry of the Word. God has given now, at the present time, the very same outlining of the work that He gave in the first establishment of the truth in the lines we have worked. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 9

I have not said to you or to others all I have been authorized to say, for neither you nor they could bear it. Neither can you now bear it. I may never say the things I might say. 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 10

I have listened to your words in jots and tittles to demerit the ministers and their work; it was not to your credit to do this. It was against the Lord’s organized plans, and if all had been done to please your ideas, we should have strange things developed; but God has held in check some things, that they should not become a specialty. The ministering forces are not to be measured, or to be under the control of yourself or any living man to bind them about, to put them in the dust. You have become exalted; you have come to think that the message God has given for this time is not essential. Nevertheless, if the trumpet gives a certain sound, it will be the proclamation of the third angel’s message. All the heart is to be renovated and given to God. This is our individual work. Oh how few understand the workings of the power of Satan upon the human heart! 14LtMs, Lt 249, 1899, par. 11