Ellen G. White: The Early Elmshaven Years: 1900-1905 (vol. 5)

Problems that Loomed Large

Beginning with 1889 certain measures were strongly promoted to consolidate and centralize various features of the denominational work. This would begin with the publishing interests and then reach out to the educational and medical lines. 5BIO 72.2

As a diversified and growing denominational work with multiplied business interests rapidly developed, spiritual fervor waned, and in some areas there was a failure to heed the counsels God sent to alert of dangers and to guard the cause. 5BIO 72.3

In the publishing house in Battle Creek, the employees devoted a large part of their time to commercial printing. This included fiction, Wild West stories, Roman Catholic books, and works on sex and hypnosis. When cautioned, men in positions of management at the Review office declared that they were printers and not censors. Often, commercial work was done to the neglect of denominational printing. The cause of God was marred by self-interest on the part of some workers who were demanding abnormally high wages. Discouragement developed. The sale of message-filled books plummeted. It was during this period in the 1890s that many of the startling messages addressed to church leaders and ministry now found in the book Testimonies to Ministers were penned and sent to the leaders at Battle Creek. 5BIO 72.4

Medical missionary work, under the brilliant and dedicated leadership of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, had grown rapidly into a large, strong program. The Battle Creek Sanitarium, with all its facilities, could care for more than one thousand guests. By the year 1901 two thousand persons were employed in medical work in Battle Creek and in the medical institutions in other parts of the country and overseas, while those employed by the denomination in conference, evangelistic, and other lines of work numbered only 1,500. The medical workers were directed by the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, under Kellogg's leadership, and not by the General Conference or local conference committees. 5BIO 73.1

Though missionaries were being sent abroad and the work of the church was growing in other parts of the world field, the situation in Battle Creek often led to sad neglect of the growing work. Failure to provide the funds to sustain missionary workers sometimes brought on suffering and want. Workers were sent to the world field by three different Seventh-day Adventist organizations—the General Conference, the Foreign Mission Board, and the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, with resultant confusion. 5BIO 73.2

Church leaders, without resources and without budgets, often borrowed money with which to launch sanitariums and to operate the church's mission program. The cause was badly in debt. Leading men, so wrapped up in the interests at headquarters, had insufficient time to deal with the problems of the far-flung work, which was very disheartening to those laboring at a distance from Battle Creek. 5BIO 73.3