General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4

MICHIGAN SANITARIUM BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION

J. H. KELLOGG

Second Meeting, April 10, 3 P. M.

Dr. Paulson: Recently I have been thinking more in reference to the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary and the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary. This truth is particularly beautiful to me. We have been urged to study the sanctuary question, and I have been trying to study it some. You know it says, “Unto twenty-three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Christ is not only a minister of the sanctuary, but also of the true tabernacle, which God pitched and not man. He is ministering not only the heavenly sanctuary, but also is ministering in everyone of these earthly sanctuaries—the soul temples. 1 Corinthians 6:19. GCB April 11, 1901, page 189.17

It is not a mere coincidence that when the light flashed to this people with reference to the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary that at the same time corresponding light was flashing upon us as to how to co-operate in securing the cleansing of the earthly temple. It is not a mere coincidence, but was in the hand of God that a people should be prepared to meet him, that a people should be getting ready to pass over without seeing death, that was to have a special cleansing work done for them, and that is why the light has been flashing upon this last generation. This great truth with reference to the cleansing of these soul-temples has specially come out in this last generation. Brother Loughborough, who sits here on the platform, preached this truth many years before I was born, is able to verify these facts, which to me are matters of history. Is it not true, Brother Loughborough, that the ministers in the ordinary churches drank liquor in those days? GCB April 11, 1901, page 189.18

J. N. Loughborough: Sometimes in preaching funeral sermons they would have some liquor right on the stand by them to wet their throats, and it was considered a great breach of etiquette if the friends of the deceased did not furnish liquor. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.1

Dr. Paulson: Now, that is the point. Until this last generation the most outrageous things from a physical standpoint were considered perfectly orthodox. But that kind of body could not be taken over on the other side, as Enoch and Elijah passed over, and this cleansing work can not go on in heaven only as it has a chance to go on beneath, because the work above is a faithful representation of what is taking place beneath. So God began to flash out light. 2 Corinthians 6:16. “I will dwell in them, and walk in them;” that is, in these earthly tabernacles. “Christ in you the hope of glory,” or the “mystery of godliness,” which is to be finished in this generation. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.” And then what will be perfected? “Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” That is the cleansing that is taking place beneath, the cleansing of this temple to which our attention was called years ago. I read from one of the first-page articles in the Review of 1890: “Christ is cleansing the temple in heaven from the sins of the people, and we must work in harmony with him upon the earth in cleansing the soul temple from its moral defilement. When we engage in this work, the angels of God will draw near to impart divine power, and combine heavenly strength with human weakness.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.2

Now, brethren, it is certainly consistent that God should, day by day, let light keep flashing in as to how to cleanse these earthly temples, and bear in mind the lesson that was shown way back there in the great day of atonement that every detail had to be followed out closely. It was of no use for some to say, back there, “Oh, those unimportant things do not count anything.” That is why the Lord laid such great stress on little things. Now, have you not sometimes read about some things back there, and said, “Why was the Lord so particular about small things? How could he lay such stress on that?” Brethren, that is to teach us to-day some of these things that concern our earthly temples. You and I can not cleanse either the heavenly sanctuary or the earthly. Brethren, it is just as impossible for you and me to cleanse the earthly temple as it would be to cleanse the heavenly, but we must co-operate if we have the cleansing work done. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.3

Now the cleansing way back in the days of Israel was to teach us that those things that we call little things—such things, for instance, as concern us physically, as eating doughy bread, pasty mush, have a bearing on this work. Some people say, “Oh, that has nothing to do with religion.” But ask them whether in the cleansing of the sanctuary back there nothing was so small as to be important: Brethren, that is to impress upon us that there is nothing small that concerns such a great work, and God will hold us responsible for every ray of light that is flashed upon our pathway, and to pass that light on to others. There will be earthly temples here that will be fitted up, which will represent to others what God can do in human flesh when a person is fully given up to him. We need to be a people marching on, shoulder to shoulder, who will be able to say that they realize the advantage of thorough and complete consecration to the principles of truth and to God’s will. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.4

Friends, the plagues, the troubles, are right upon us, and God is going to take this people, and transplant them over there without death, but we must have a little heaven to go to heaven in. We shall learn to bask in the blessed presence of Christ here, so that we shall be able to live before it when we get there. God help us that that work may begin at once, if it has not begun in our experience already, and that this great company may be gathered together with him. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.5

Dr. J. H. Kellogg (coming in late): This is a meeting of the Michigan Sanitarium and Benevolent Association. We will come to order so that we may preserve our legal succession. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.6

It may be profitable to devote this hour to a sort of social meeting, the gospel of health being our subject. Mrs. White was to speak, but not being able to appear, it is thought best to devote the hour to some reminiscences of the early days of health reform. There is not a particle of doubt in my mind that God is developing a truth in the world. This truth began to be developed in about 1844. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.7

I was in Nebraska a few weeks ago, and sat at the table of the College View Sanitarium with an old gentleman 84 years of age. His hair was absolutely white, and his skin was as clear as a babe’s. Scarcely a wrinkle was on his face, and he was strong, hearty, and well. His wife was a patient at the sanitarium. He said, “Doctor, I am glad to see you. I have read your books for many years. I am well acquainted with you, though I never met you before.” We had a little chat about several things. He said, “I have read every number of the Good Health that was ever printed.” I began to talk about something. “Oh, yes, I know about that. I read that in the last number.” And he was posted right up to date. I said, “How long have you been in sympathy with these principles?” GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.8

“Oh,” he said, “since 1844.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.9

“How did you get hold of these principles?” GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.10

“I used to take dinners at a hygienic boarding-house in Boston, kept by Margaret Fuller.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.11

Many of you have heard of her as the great educational reformer. She introduced Froebel’s idea in this country back in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. He said, “I sat at her table, and ate a dinner like this in 1844. And just across the table sat Horace Greeley;” for he was a vegetarian in those days. A little ways off from there was the Brook farm, where Bronson A. Alcott, Charles A. Dana, Hawthorne, and George Ripley, a famous Boston preacher and philanthropist, and nearly 140 others were frequently found. Many of these became eminent people, with worldwide reputations. They advocated the very principles that we represent here to-day. No tea, no coffee, no pork, no meat of any sort. The whole purpose of their movement was to encourage a return to nature, which means a return to God; for God is in nature, and what is truly natural is truly spiritual. GCB April 11, 1901, page 190.12

Those men caught a glimpse of truth. Graham was one of the chief apostles, and Shaw, and William A. Alcott, whose son is now a minister in Massachusetts; and a score of other men. Sylvester Graham traveled extensively. He traveled in Michigan, and all through the West and in many new countries in those days. Anywhere that a conveyance could be found to take him where he could get an audience, all over the United States, he went preaching the gospel of health. There was a wonderful interest in it. Thousands of people became vegetarians, and abandoned the use of flesh food. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.1

There was an epidemic of cholera in New York City about this time. Sylvester Graham advertised in the newspapers for vegetarians, and offered a reward for anybody that would bring forward a single case of a vegetarian who had the cholera. A brother told me yesterday that where he lived, there were one hundred cases of smallpox in the little town, but not a single vegetarian had the disease. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.2

A brother who lived in the State of Indiana, about twenty years ago, said that during the three years that he had lived in a certain town, “every single family in town had malarial fever except his family, and not a single one of them ever had the malarial fever.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.3

But these men away back in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s saw these principles. I saw not long ago a little pamphlet on health reform, written by Elder Evans, of the Shaker fraternity, down in New York. In this he denounces the use of tea, coffee, meat, pork in particular, all kinds of meat, and recommends two meals a day, and simplicity in diet. That pamphlet was written in 1840. We do not have a monopoly of these principles. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.4

It was exactly the same as it was with the Sabbath truth that came to this people. The Seventh-day Adventists did not discover that the seventh day is the Sabbath. That truth has been in the world from Adam’s time down to the present. The Seventh-day Baptists came forward in England, and represented that truth two hundred and fifty years ago. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.5

When I was a boy about thirteen years old, when these principles were first taught in Battle Creek, Dr. Trall came here, and gave us a little more light. Brother and Sister White and others gave us ideas and principles, and put books in our hands. The “Science of Life,” by Sylvester Graham, was also brought here and sold. Thus we received various ideas. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.6

I shall never forget the first gem-pans we had, and the first gems. I was a boy at home; and part of my business was to get up in the morning, and make several pans full of gems for the whole family. I had some little experience in cooking that was very useful to me. And I remember that sometimes there was a strife among the brethren as to who could eat the most gems. One brother ate a dozen of those gems, but that was not very much, after all, for they were nearly all air. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.7

In those days it was not very easy to be a reformer. I went to school, and I remember that I often had the finger of scorn pointed at me. They said, “There is a boy that lives on a horse diet,” because I lived on oatmeal. We were called by opprobrious names. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.8

But that day has passed. These ideas and these reforms have found their place in the world. They have made a place for themselves. They did not originate with Seventh-day Adventists; but Seventh-day Adventists had the best chance anybody ever had in the world to be the chief apostles of this reform. Maybe we have a little chance left yet; but we have missed a great part of it; for these reforms are springing up in all parts of the world, and people are coming forward to champion these truths, who are as loyal and true as anybody could possibly be. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.9

Our people are getting a reputation for being the Sanitarium people. I will tell you a little story to illustrate it. In northern Michigan, there is a brother who lives ten or twelve miles from any town, out in the woods. The principal merchant of the nearest town had been sick, and could not eat without soon vomiting his food. After two or three months, when nearly starved, he heard that away out in the woods there was a Seventh-day Adventist; so he had his horse and carriage got up, and went out there to see him. When he found him, he said, I am starving to death, and hearing that you are a Seventh-day Adventists, I thought you might know of something to tell me to do. That was a pretty good recommendation for that man. He had been living up to what light he had, and his neighbors knew it. It was a good idea to have that kind of reputation. He told the man what to do,—to eat zwieback, and two or three other things of that kind, but without meat. The man went home, and in two or three weeks he was much better. He went back to get some more information. He said, “Isn’t there something else I can eat?” The man gave him a few more ideas, and then he went back home. But the brother then wrote to me. He said, That man will be back again in a few days, and I want you to give me some information quick. I have told him all I know. So I sat down and gave the man quite a treatise on diet, and sent him everything I could to help him out. The last thing I heard of his merchant, he was well again, and had gone back to business; he got well simply by knowing how to eat. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.10

I had a letter from a lady who is a thoroughgoing health reformer down in San Diego, Cal. She said she met a stranger on the street, and he came to see her, and told her his experience. He said he had come to town two or three weeks ago, and wondered where he could find a boarding-place where he could get a Battle Creek diet. He was walking along, and asked a man if he could tell him where there was a Seventh-day Adventist. He thought if he could find a Seventh-day Adventist, he could get a Battle Creek diet. The man he was talking to said, “I am a Seventh-day Adventist.” “All right,” he said, “I want to go home and live with you. I want to live with a Seventh-day Adventist, or a man who knows how to live.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.11

These principles are a life-line, that can be thrown out to men who are drowning in disease, and bring them back to life again. I have seen this thing done hundreds of times. Many people come to the Sanitarium, and what is the thing we do for them up there?—It is not to give them surgical operations. These principles that we have at the Sanitarium are not simply surgical principles: they are not medical principles; they are not simply curative principles, to cure bad stomachs, livers, and bad nerves, and bad skin, or bad eyes, etc.,—that is not the principal thing we have there. These are principles of life, of righteous living; and that is the most important thing we have. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.12

The principles we use there are nothing more than ought to be in every single home, in every church. Why shouldn’t we have them in every single Seventh-day Adventist community? I want you to think soberly about this thing for a few minutes. But if it is worth thinking about, give it a little earnest thought. Stir yourselves now, and think of it. You represent here seventy-five thousand people. I want you to get these principles into your minds and hearts, so that when you go home, you may do your utmost to get this whole seventy-five thousand people to plant their feet squarely on these principles of righteous living. You have been organizing Sabbath-schools, and other things and they are all good; but this is one thing that you have not been doing. Why not just take hold of this thing for a little while? Of these seventy-five thousand people, I do not think there are ten thousand who are receiving any of our health literature in their homes, or know anything about these principles. I have been making an experiment to see if we could not find out something about it. During the last six or seven months, we have been sending out our doctors to the different cities near by, in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and other States. Every Sabbath from eight to ten or a dozen doctors go to some church, and talk with them. They come back, and report a most lamentable state of things,—of people drinking tea and coffee, eating beefsteak, etc., and not caring much about these health principles. GCB April 11, 1901, page 191.13

We have no right to use our palates simply for the purpose of creating a little temporary pleasure by eating pickles and other such things. Some people regard their palates simply as a thing to be tickled, with a variety of flavors, or to produce a variety of sensations; and so they use pickles to get just as many tickles as they can. Once when I was eating my lunch on the cars, a professor in a medical college came along back of me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said. “Well, doctor, I have caught you right at it, and I am glad I have an opportunity to see what you have to eat. I have been looking over your shoulder for a minute. I noticed you eating your lunch. Is that all you have to eat?” GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.1

“Yes,” I said, “what more do I need? Here is bread—that is the staff of life; nuts—that is my beefsteak and butter; apples—the dessert,—pie, cake, sauce, and all the rest.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.2

“Well,” he said, “that seems to me to be rather a poor dinner. I have just been in the dining-room, and I think I have been having more fun than you.” I said, “You don’t know how much fun I am having. This zwieback is very sweet.” GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.3

He broke off a piece, and put it in his mouth. “I can not taste anything,” he said. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.4

“Well,” I said, “of course you can’t taste anything; you have been in the dining-car, and eaten spices, pickles, mustard, pepper, and all sorts of things of that kind, so you can not expect to taste the sweetness in that dry crust.” He said that was just what he had been doing. He said he always like things that tickled his palate. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.5

One man came to me, and said he had been at the Sanitarium for several days, and he could not understand our diet. When he went away, he had not had any beefsteak for a long time, so he thought he would go out somewhere else, and get a good big beefsteak. He said that the first piece he put into his mouth, he could not swallow. He absolutely could not eat it. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.6

I want to tell you that these principles have done everything for me. When I was a boy, my father thought I wasn’t worth raising, I was such a runt of a boy, and was an invalid all the time. It has only been the last ten or twelve years of my life that I have known what it was to be free from pain. I can not remember a day of my life that I did not suffer pain. I inherited such a miserable nervous system that I thought I was a total wreck. I never expected to reach 20 years of age, and when I lived to reach 20, I said I should never reach the age of 30; and when I reached 30, I said I should never live to reach the age of 40; now I am nearly 50, and I am thinking of living to be 100. And I am strongly tempted—in fact I have made up my mind—to try to live forever. [Voice: Amen!] GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.7

Now I would like to hear a few words from some of the older brethren here as to their experience in these lines. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.8

John Reeves, of Chicago: Three years ago I began taking Good Health, and stopped eating meat. I have not tasted meat since. Nine weeks ago I fell and broke my leg, but to-day I am nearly as well and strong as ever in my life. My circulation isn’t very good yet, for the reason that my leg has been in a cast for some six weeks or so. I am 78 years old. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.9

Dr. Kellogg: That shows what the principles will do. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.10

D. T. Bourdeau; I wish to pay a brief tribute to health reform. Forty-two years ago, in northern New York, I was told by a physician that I could not live three months. I was given up to die of consumption. The Lord gave me a new lease of life in answer to prayer. I groped my way in comparative darkness until I learned by instinct that pork was injurious. I dropped that, but before dropping the use of pork I was full of sores from head to feet. Were it not for that fact, you would not see a single gray whisker in my beard to-day. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.11

Two years later Brother and Sister White came to my home in northern Vermont, and we talked this matter all over among us, and from that time to this my wife and I have not eaten meat. Of course there have been a few exceptions. I have outlived a great many of those who thought that I was going to die, because I have been very careful in living up to health reform. Seventeen years ago I was given up to die, but I am still alive. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.12

Last summer I was in a forest of Canada, working my way along with a satchel in my hand and a bundle on my back, looking to God for strength, up there among the bears and wolves. There I saw women working for their husbands. I was holding a tent-meeting there, but I went to work with my hands, and mowed and pitched hay. There was only one man in the country who dared to come up and mow with me. So that I feel, at the age of sixty-six, that my youth has been renewed, and I have found physical exercise a great source of strength. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.13

D. T. Shireman: I became acquainted with Elder Bourdeau in 1865, and I had no idea that he would live a year. He came to Marion, Iowa; and one day I examined his throat, and it was perfectly raw. I thought that he would not live a year, and have watched him ever since that time. I looked for his obituary notice in the REVIEW year after year. To-day as I heard him speak here, I was surprised to see how young he is. Of course he looks younger than I: for he is not as old as I am. I adopted health reform that year on account of my health, which was very poor, and the doctors had given me up to die. I adopted the two-meal-a-day plan, and gave up meat, butter, etc., and in two years I was as strong as ever, and I know that the Lord has given me strength through all these years; for I have worked hard from sixteen to eighteen hours a day. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.14

A Sister: These things are just as good for women as they are for men. It is now about three years since I have given up meat, and I find that my health is very much better than formerly. GCB April 11, 1901, page 192.15

The Chair: Here is a text which I will read in this connection: “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:5. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.1

A Sister in the Gallery: That is just what the Lord has done for me. I think there are very few people who could stand before you to-day at the age of almost forty, and could say that they had their youth renewed as mine has been. Where I have been laboring in New York State [Lowville], a gentleman about seventy years of age recently gave up the use of all kinds of meat, and adopted the principles of health reform. When I went there his condition was such that his physicians said his case was hopeless, and that he was likely to drop dead on the street or anywhere, any time. He had such an extreme case of eczema that his hands had become stiff and cracked open, and in such a condition that he had to use poultices. Since Thanksgiving day he has given up the use of all kinds of meats; and now his hands are well, and he walks and appears as if he were only about thirty years old. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.2

He is a very prominent citizen of the place, being cashier of the bank, and the people acquainted with him have been greatly influenced by his change of life. They ask him what makes him so well, and what has caused this great change of appearance. Some have even asked if he would not allow them to come and live with him for a time, that they might learn how to live as he lives. While I was there, physicians and nurses came to me, and asked me to visit their patients, and some of these patients have been raised up to health, and now use our health foods all the time. They want a branch sanitarium started, and desire to obtain the health foods at some convenient place; in fact, they are all anxious to learn how to live healthfully. I hope the Lord’s people will in some way plan to carry the light of health reform to these people who are suffering because of a lack of knowledge of these life-giving principles which we cherish. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.3

Dr. L. Bedford (of Chicago): I have been a vegetarian about nine years. Since I came upon this ground, I took a severe cold, and there developed an acute case of cystitis. I used hydrotherapy, and followed it up carefully in a private way, and the case became so severe that I was in excruciating pain. I saw one of the Sanitarium physicians, and in a few moments gave him the diagnosis. He wrote a prescription, and sent me to the Sanitarium for treatment. I wanted to get the benefit of the meetings held every day, and not miss one of them. I wanted to hear what Dr. Kellogg had to say on these things; for I believe in health reform, and practice it and teach it when I am at home. I told the Lord about it at the morning service alone. I told him how much I would like to take in the meetings. I said: “I have applied to the best physicians I know, and I am living up to the best principles I know, and yet I am suffering. Now, Lord, you can heal me. I could call the elders of the church; but you can heal me if you will, I know; and if it is your will, I would like to be free from this;” and so this morning I asked the Lord again. I said: “Now I do not want to trespass by setting a time when thou shalt do this; do it in your own good time.” I praise God that before the early morning meeting to this time, I have not had a symptom of any kind. Somebody may say, “O, this is divine healing.” Suppose the water treatment at the Sanitarium did it? Would not that be divine healing? The same God conducts the Sanitarium, and Health Reform Association, and reigns over all this world. I am so thankful that we have one God, who unifies all in one, who is the Guide of all. Let us thank God, journey on, and soon we shall be where there is no physical or spiritual disease. It is the same God who relieves from physical disease, who gives spiritual health. The water that relieves physical disease is a fit type of the water of the smitten rock that releases from spiritual disease. It is one God in all those cases, who heals. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.4

The Chair: I am glad that we are all getting hold of that grand thought that there is only one kind of healing, and that is divine healing. We should bring this meeting to a close soon, that we may have a meeting of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association. Perhaps there is a committee prepared to report. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.5

H. W. Cottrell: The Committee on Nominations are prepared to submit their report. The secretary of this Committee, Dr. Craig, will read the report. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.6

J. M. Craigg: The Committee on Nominations for Trustees of the Michigan Sanitarium and Benevolent Association submit the following-named persons for election: J. H. Kellogg, G. H. Murphy, David Paulson, A. J. Read, Geo. W. Thomason. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.7

The Chair: The Committee on Nominations has brought in a report, naming persons to take the places of those whose term of office expires at this meeting. They have submitted the names of the same persons who have been in office heretofore. These persons are nominated for two years. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.8

O. A. Olsen: I move the adoption of the report as it was read. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.9

R. M. Kilgore: I second the motion. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.10

The Chair: It is moved and seconded that this report be adopted. Did you make this motion with the understanding that elects these persons to fill these offices? GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.11

O. A. Olsen: Yes, sir. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.12

The Chair: It is understood, then, that these persons will be elected to fill the vacancies of trustees for two years. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.13

The question was put, and unanimously carried. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.14

O. A. Olsen: I move that we adjourn to Monday afternoon (April 15), at 3 P. M. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.15

The motion was seconded and carried. Elder O. A. Olsen dismissed the congregation. GCB April 11, 1901, page 193.16

J. H. KELLOGG, Chairman.
A. J. READ, Secretary.