The Story of our Health Message

The Cost and Display

Not alone in the size of the new sanitarium, but in the cost and the display, was there a departure from the plain counsels that came through Mrs. White, and the recommendation of the joint council with the General Conference officers. The grandeur of the new building, as well as its monumental size, is indicated by a statement published a few days before the dedication. From this description we quote briefly: SHM 318.3

“The general style of the building is that known by architects as the Italian renaissance. ... The floors of the great structure make up an area of five acres of marble mosaic, the construction of which was superintended by the Italian artist in that line of work, who had charge of the beautiful mosaic work of the Congressional Library building at Washington, D.C. ... When fully completed, it will stand as one of the beautiful buildings of Michigan, creditable to the city and to the state in which it is located.”—Hon. Perry F. Powers, auditor-general of the State of Michigan.¹ SHM 318.4

Among the plans to raise money for the erection of the new sanitarium was one making provision for the sale by members of the denomination of a new book to be written by Dr. J. H. Kellogg, all the profits to be given by author, publisher, and distributor. SHM 319.1

When all the type had been set and the galley proofs of the book were sent to a few persons for examination, it was then discovered that the author had made very prominent the teachings regarding the immanence of the life of God in all things, as he had presented them before the General Conference of 1901. In the galley proofs of the new book The Living Temple, the same theory was advanced. It was asserted that “God is the explanation of nature—not a God outside of nature, but in nature, manifesting Himself through and in all the objects, movements, and varied phenomena of the universe.”—The Living Temple, 28. (Italics mine.) SHM 319.2

“We have a physiological proof of the existence within the body of some power superior to the material composition or substance of the body, which exercises a constant supervision and control whereby individual identity is maintained. This can be nothing less than the Power which builds, which creates—it is God Himself, the divine Presence in the temple.”—Ibid., 52. (Italics mine.) SHM 319.3