Manuscript Releases, vol. 9 [Nos. 664-770]

A Disproportionate Work in Chicago Slums

Means must not be drawn away from the [Battle Creek] 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.... 9MR 83.1

I have been instructed to say that you [Dr. J. H. Kellogg] have drawn your time and strength and money away from enterprises which, if they had been advanced, would have done tenfold more good than the enterprises that you have carried forward. Invention after invention has taken your time and means. Your money has been used in a way which has done more harm than good. The setting of men to work in various ways in what is called medical missionary work has consumed much time and money, but has produced next to nothing. The Lord entrusted capital to you, to be used in advancing His kingdom in our world, and if you misuse this capital, you must settle with him. 9MR 83.2

Investments have been made without sitting down and counting the cost, without finding out whether there was enough money to carry forward the work started. A shortsightedness has been shown. Men have failed to see that the Lord's vineyard embraces the world.... 9MR 83.3

My brother, you have not as much firmness and assurance as you have had. You have the most critical cases to handle, and at times a dread comes upon you. To perform these difficult duties, you know that rapid work must be done, that no false moves must be made. Again and again you have had to pass swiftly from task to task. Who has been by your side during these critical operations? Who has kept you calm and self-possessed in the crisis, giving you quick, sharp discernment, clear eyesight, steady nerves, and skillful precision? The Lord Jesus has sent His angel to your side to tell you what to do. A hand has been laid upon your hand. Jesus, and not you, has guided the movements of your hand. At times you have realized this, and a wonderful calmness has come over you. You dared not hurry, and yet you worked rapidly, knowing that there was not a second to waste. The Lord has greatly blessed you. Others, who knew not of the presiding Presence working with you, gave you, J. H. Kellogg, all the glory. Eminent physicians have witnessed your operations and praised your skill. This has been pleasant to you. You have not always been able to endure the seeing of the Invisible by faith. You have been under divine guidance. You have been greatly honored by God, that His name, and not yours, should be magnified.... 9MR 83.4

The Lord has not laid upon you the burdens you have been carrying. The result of your carrying these burdens is felt all through the vineyard of the Lord. God has not called His people to ignore present truth for these last days, and take up a work that so absorbs workers and means that the Lord is not represented as He would otherwise be. Never would a rival sanitarium have been, through Satan's devising, planted close to the Lord's institution, if you had kept at your work for the class of people whom the Lord desires to become, through the Sanitarium, acquainted with present truth, with the message God has given to those who follow Him, to be communicated to the world. The Sanitarium in Battle Creek was to bring the chosen people of God before men of high standing, to represent the ways, and works, and power of God. It was to be His witness in behalf of truth—elevated, satisfying truth. The Lord made you, my brother, His honored instrument. He has never required from you one task that would crowd out your work in connection with the institution that was to stand for the truth, to do a certain work for God, flashing light upon the pathway of thousands. 9MR 84.1

The Lord would have kept the Sanitarium pure and true, to represent the truth for these last days. But the very ones who could have helped you to do this work, you despised and turned from as unworthy of your notice. God sees that His work is being lowered into the slums, as Satan wants it to be; that the elevated sanctification of the truth will become so mingled with tares that its peculiar, holy character will sink out of sight. The Lord saw how this would be, and He has been sending you warnings. Yet you are tempted to go right on in your own way and pick flaws in the message, just as others have done before you.—Letter 215, 1899, pp. 6, 7, 12, 15, 16. (To J. H. Kellogg, December 12, 1899.) 9MR 85.1