The Story of our Health Message

Not to Centralize Power in Battle Creek

Although an action was passed by the delegates of the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association in support of this plan of organization, it was not long before definite instruction was received from Mrs. White, pointing out that it was a mistake. Under date of July 28, 1901, Mrs. White wrote: SHM 310.2

“It has been presented before me distinctly that there is not to be a submerging of interests or a binding up of all the sanitariums with the Battle Creek Sanitarium, so that they shall all be amenable to your control. These things are not of God’s devising, but are the result of human planning. ... SHM 310.3

“The Lord has presented matters to me again and again, and given me instructions to say that God Himself is ruler and counselor and guardian of every sanitarium that shall be established. It is an error to tie up everything possible with the powers at Battle Creek. All are required to work in perfect harmony. Each has a part to act, the high and influential and also the lowly ones. They can work in harmony without being bound with human cords, as they were being bound to Battle Creek as their great center and power.”—E. G. White Letter 180, 1901. (Italics mine.) SHM 310.4

Although the action taken by the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, binding all branches of the work to the central body, was later to become a controversial issue, yet its implications were not generally seen at the General Conference of 1901, and there seemed to be such unity and understanding between the two bodies as looked promising for the future. SHM 310.5

When an appeal was made for the raising of a fund to provide a suitable building for the medical college in Chicago, there was a hearty response. Many of the delegates had occupied rooms at the sanitarium; and when the session closed, it was with great rejoicing on the part of those who had the interests of the cause at heart that there was not only a better mutual understanding between the medical workers and the General Conference, but that in the reorganization of the work provision had been made for closer co-operation between the medical and evangelistic parts of the work, not merely co-operation, as of two separate bodies, but real unity. SHM 311.1