Ellen G. White: The Progressive Years: 1862-1876 (vol. 2)

The Crucial Weekend at Battle Creek

They met with the Battle Creek church on Sabbath, September 14, and entered upon the work they dreaded, establishing restraints on the premature enlargement of the Health Institute. They had come to Battle Creek “with trembling” to bear their testimony, and this they did. Ellen White reviewed some of the high points in the call for, and the rapid development of, the institute. She may have read from proofs of Testimony No. 12 such statements as the following: 2BIO 195.2

As to the extent of the accommodations of the Health Institute at Battle Creek, I was shown, as I have before stated, that we should have such an institution, small at its commencement, and cautiously increased, as good physicians and helpers could be procured and means raised, and as the wants of invalids should demand; and all should be conducted in strict accordance with the principles and humble spirit of the third angel's message. 2BIO 195.3

And as I have seen the large calculations hastily urged by those who have taken a leading part in the work, I have felt alarmed, and in my many private conversations and in letters I have warned these brethren to move cautiously. My reasons for this are that without the special blessing of God there are several ways in which this enterprise might be hindered.—Testimonies for the Church, 1:558. 2BIO 195.4

She pointed out that physicians might fail, through sickness or death or by some other cause; money might not come in as needed to put up the larger buildings; and there might be a lack of patients, resulting in a lack of means to carry on. She had confidence that with proper efforts put forth in a “judicious manner, and with the blessing of God, the institution will prove a glorious success” (Ibid., 1:559). She added: 2BIO 195.5

Our people should furnish means to meet the wants of a growing Health Institute among us, as they are able to do without giving less for the other wants of the cause. Let the health reform and the Health Institute grow up among us as other worthy enterprises have grown, taking into the account our feeble strength in the past and our greater ability to do much in a short period of time now. Let the Health Institute grow, as other interests among us have grown, as fast as it can safely and not cripple other branches of the great work which are of equal or greater importance at this time.—Ibid., 1:559, 560. 2BIO 196.1