Manuscript Releases, vol. 4 [Nos. 210-259]

Counsel Regarding Work in the Inner City

Here we were in this new world, with only a very few churches, mostly composed of poor people who were not prepared to give financial aid to the work. How could we meet the requirements in establishing churches and conferences and build up the work in medical missionary lines? We needed health foods, but we had no money to purchase material or machinery with which to prepare them. 4MR 414.2

Then I thought of what we had done and were doing here to help the poor, to lift up the bowed down and oppressed, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, all of whom were just as precious in the sight of the Lord as the same class in America.... 4MR 414.3

We helped one man pay for his place, advancing him money to be returned when he was able. Another must have money to pay the rent on his place. To another we loaned a cow. Those who were wounded and sick and ready to die we took to our own home, feeding and nursing them free.... Then came another boy with an injured knee. Sister McEnterfer gives him treatment daily.... 4MR 414.4

God does not require the workmen to obtain their education and training in order to devote themselves exclusively to the poorer classes. Some can engage in that work, and let them draw their means largely from those outside of our faith. This work might be presented in such a way that every dollar would draw from our people and there be no resources for aggressive warfare in new fields. 4MR 414.5

Let not the work for the poor and debased draw the means from our churches so that they shall neglect the needs of the work all over our world. This has been done, and will be done again unless there is a decided change of operations. The great question of our duty to humanity is a serious one, and much of the grace of God is needed in deciding as to the best way to work in order to accomplish the greatest amount of good.... 4MR 415.1

There is no question but that it is a duty for some to labor among the outcasts, and try to save the souls that are perishing. But there is such a thing as leading men to center all their energies on this class when God has called them to another work. Satan is inventing every kind of plan to enfeeble our churches. He seeks to place them where they will not become strong and have the work of God abiding in them so that they may overcome the wicked one. We must not be ignorant of his devices.—Letter 4, 1899, pp. 7, 28, 30. (To “Dr. Kellogg and All Who Are Connected With Him in the Sanitarium Board and Councils,” January 6, 1899.) 4MR 415.2

We see the work that must be done, and in every place we enter we unite medical missionary work with the gospel ministry, just as God would have with our limited resources. We labor earnestly for the poor, the distressed and the sick. 4MR 415.3

If we find a poor widow struggling to support her family we show our sympathy in a tangible way, and help her to help herself. We seek to awaken the missionary spirit in our churches. We appeal to the members to show their religion by their works of sympathy and do all they can.—Letter 232, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, November 10, 1899.) 4MR 416.1

In all our work the law of God must be presented, with its far-reaching requirements, to lead men and women and youth to see the need of loyalty to God. The efforts put forth to rescue degraded outcasts will not be of any avail unless the claims of the law of Jehovah are imprinted on mind and heart.—Manuscript 150, 1899, p. 17, 18. (Untitled. typed October 26, 1899.) 4MR 416.2

These words may arouse discussion, but nevertheless I tell you the truth. I long to have our people move solidly. They have been more or less harnessing themselves to a work which has not relation to the grand work for this time. I have carried this burden of agony of soul.... 4MR 416.3

God forbid that the purposes Dr. Kellogg has in mind should be carried out. Our work is not to be a divided work.—Manuscript 6, 1900, 12, 13. (“Words of Instruction Regarding the Medical Missionary Work,” typed January 12, 1900.) 4MR 416.4

He [God] has not made it the special work of Dr. Kellogg to go into the worst dens of iniquity in the large cities. The Lord does not require impossibilities of men. He gives to every man his work. The work which He gave to Dr. Kellogg was to symbolize to the world the ministry of the gospel in medical missionary work.—Letter 205, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 19, 1899.) 4MR 416.5

I tell you plainly that you are carrying forward that which you call missionary work according to misconceived judgment and opinions. The sanitarium will be weakened and suffer because you have given yourself up to do a work for which God will call you to account. 4MR 417.1

I have been instructed that you have been doing a work which the Lord never appointed you to do.... The place assigned you by the Lord was under Him in the divine theocracy. You were to learn of Jesus, the great Teacher. You were to be and do after His character and example.—Letter 215b, 1899, pp. 1, 2. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, December 14, 1899.) 4MR 417.2

Too much commercial work has been mingled with the medical missionary work. The capabilities that should have been developed under God in caring for the sick, and doing the work of a physician of the soul, as well as of the body, have, in recent years, been used largely in launching out in various enterprises. These enterprises necessitated the carrying of many responsibilities that the Lord never intended that Dr. Kellogg should bear. 4MR 417.3

The Chicago work was not in all respects carried on in the right way. Too great an effort was made to feed a large class. Too much money was used in doing slum work. 4MR 417.4

God did not lay upon Dr. Kellogg the responsibility of doing so much of this kind of work. The Lord declared, “He is My physician.” Letter 218, 1906, pp. 3, 4. (To “Elders of the Battle Creek Church, and to Our Ministers and Physicians Throughout the Field,” June 28, 1906.) 4MR 417.5

One part of the work is not to be made all-absorbing, to the detriment and hindrance of other parts. This has recently been so distinctly presented to me that I am compelled to speak.... 4MR 418.1

You have misappropriated God's money in doing a work you were not appointed to do, while missionary fields white for the harvest have been left without facilities. They did not receive their portion of the Lord's entrusted capital. The enemy has blinded your eyes, so that you have not seen the necessity of cooperating with the Lord's missionaries in fields which are ripe for the harvest.... 4MR 418.2

You are full of ambitious projects for a class that will not, with scarcely an exception, be capable of honoring and glorifying God. You have sunk your interests deeply in a work that will not properly represent the refined, elevated character of the truth. 4MR 418.3

There should be no lessening of the zeal or fervor or energy shown in the work of saving souls ready to perish. But all the time and means are not to be consumed in one line of work, while the work for God's vineyard as a whole is neglected. This disproportion is brought in and the work is swayed in wrong lines.—Letter 85, 1900, pp. 2, 5. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, May, 1900.) 4MR 418.4

I know that God would not have His money absorbed in Chicago as it now is.... A large amount of money has been used in a way which has accomplished very little. Much has been spent on a class of people who will never be fitted to receive and impart, unless the Holy Spirit shall make them entirely new, heart, mind, and body. The work done for this class has been disproportionately large in comparison with the work that has been done in fields that are waiting and longing for the truth. How many more years will the way of man counterwork that which God would have done?—Letter 92, 1900. 4MR 418.5

In every city there should be missionaries, evangelists appointed to work for the lower classes, who through abuse are ruining themselves. But all the resources are not to be used in this work, or the work of bringing the truth to other cities and missionary fields afar off from America will not be accomplished.—Letter 86, 1900, p. 4. (To “Dear Brother A. G. Daniells,” June 18, 1900.) 4MR 419.1

Those who have been placed as stewards of the Lord's goods should see that everything is managed in such a way as to bring the Lord the greatest revenue. A wise steward will not select a few portions of the vineyard and absorb in them the means which God has intended for the entire field.... 4MR 419.2

The vineyard must be cultivated, vines must be planted, that crops may be gathered. To every man is not committed the same task, and the work in the different lines must be done in unselfishness. The minds of the workers are first to be molded by God through His appointed agencies; the word of the Lord is to be communicated to men, to supply their minds with suggestions and methods for working the field in such a way as to present to God the very best returns from all parts of His vineyard.—Manuscript 109, 1899. (August 3, 1899.) 4MR 419.3

Means have been drawn from the sanitarium to erect buildings for the care of people who can never be relied on to fill places in the ministry or on councils. They have not a knowledge of the work of character-building and they cannot be relied on as men of forethought. They have ruined their mental powers and nearly destroyed their spiritual discernment by the indulgence of appetite and passion, and this makes them weak. They are fickle and changeable.—Letter 215b, 1899, p. 2. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 14, 1899.) 4MR 420.1

We do not advise our people to open up a work in our cities, to the extent of erecting buildings to which they can invite the most depraved class of people to come and receive food and beds and treatment without money and without price. None are required to establish a work in any city which gives to an indiscriminate class an invitation to be supported by the charities of the Seventh-day Adventists people, whose special work is to bear an unpopular message to the world. The commission is given to bear the message to all nations.—Letter 90, 1900, p. 2. (To Elder and Mrs. S. N. Haskell, June 12, 1900.) 4MR 420.2

We are to present the truth to those in the highways. This work has been neglected. We have a work to do for the higher classes, and this work needs all our capabilities. While we are in no case to neglect the poor and destitute, we have neither men nor money for the work among the very lowest classes. We point our workers to a higher grade. All reasons for this I cannot explain now. 4MR 420.3

The fields ripe for the harvest have been spread before me. We must work for the higher class of people. Then we shall have strength and ability with which to carry forward in the lines which God has pointed out.—Letter 164, 1901, p. 2. (To “Dear Brother A. G. Daniells,” January 23, 1901.) 4MR 421.1

If men feel that God has called them to devote all their missionary efforts to the worst part of the cities, no one should forbid them to work.—Letter 3, 1900. 4MR 421.2

If there are men who will take up the work of laboring for the most degraded, men upon whom God has laid the burden to labor for the masses in a variety of ways, let these converted ones go forth and gather from the world the means required to do this work. Let them not depend on the means which God intends shall sustain the work of His gospel.—Letter 205, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 19, 1899.) 4MR 421.3

The Lord's poor subjects are to be helped in every case where it will be for their benefit. They are to be placed where they can help themselves. We have no question in regard to the cases of this class of poor. The best methods of helping them are to be carefully and prayerfully considered. 4MR 421.4

The Lord lays this responsibility upon every church.... God suffers His poor to be in the borders of every church.... They are not to pass by the Lord's poor but they are to deny themselves of luxuries ... that they may make the suffering, needy ones comfortable. 4MR 421.5

After this they may reach still farther to help those who are not of the household of faith, if they are the proper subjects to be helped.—Manuscript 46, 1900. (See Testimonies for the Church 1:272-274.) 4MR 422.1

If the efforts, the talent, the labor, the money, which have been thrown into Chicago for the last several years had been appropriated toward acquainting with the truth of God for these last days a class of people who could have been reached with wise, well directed efforts, many would have received the truth who would now be working to give it to others of their own class.—Manuscript 46, 1900, 3. (“The Temperance Work,” typed July 25, 1900.) 4MR 422.2