The Story of our Health Message

Elder Burden’s Decision

The terms offered to Elder Burden were the payment of $5,000 down, and a like amount in August, September, and December. The balance of $20,000 would come due in three years. He conferred with the agents of the property, hoping that they would extend the time for the payment of the option deposit till the delegates would return from the General Conference. But the only concession he could obtain was the immediate payment of $1,000, which might be counted as part of the full option payment, but which would be forfeited if the deal was not carried through. SHM 349.5

Faced with the grave responsibility of immediate decision, Elder Burden decided to borrow the $1,000 on his personal note. SHM 350.1

Thus matters stood when the representatives of the Southern California Conference returned from Washington. They called for a full conference committee session to consider what should be their attitude toward the purchase of the Loma Linda property. The difficulties were so real that it seemed hazardous to proceed with the enterprise, but in view of Mrs. White’s apparent certainty that they should go ahead, they could not agree to follow what otherwise seemed to be the reasonable course. So no final decision was reached, and they adjourned to meet at Loma Linda at the time when Mrs. White should arrive from the East. SHM 350.2

And so it was that when, on Monday morning, June 12, 1905, Mrs. White drove onto the grounds, from Redlands, there was quite a large company gathered to look over the property and to consider what should be done. As she was taken through the buildings and over the grounds, she repeatedly said that she recognized this as the very place she had seen in vision four years before. And as she sat down in the recreation center, she spoke of the educational work that was to be carried forward there, urging that men be connected with the institution who had had an experience in the early development of the work, and who would help to establish the enterprise in harmony with the plan that had been divinely set forth for medical missionary work. SHM 350.3