Footprints of the Pioneers

Chapter 20—The House of A. Hilliard

Aaron H. Hilliard

IT WAS in the house of A. Hilliard, at Otsego, Michigan, June 6, 1.863, wrote Ellen G. White, “that the great subject of health reform was opened before me in vision.” ¹²⁴ FOPI 169.4

What this meant to the cause of the last gospel work in the world is infinitely more than the simple words may to many convey. It was a turning point in the experience of the heralds of the Second Advent, converting some of them from chronic invalids to healthy, enduring workers, and lighting the road to health for all. It was the cleansing of a unique church from the use of deleterious articles of diet, fashions of the world, and damaging habits of work and recreation. It was the kindling point of the fires of health service and education, eventuating in hundreds of health institutions, the training of physicians, nurses, dietitians, public health lecturers, and ministers. It was the start of the growth of a Christian health movement that was to become “the right arm of the message,” “the entering wedge” which has won favor for the last gospel message, from huts in the jungle to kings’ palaces ministering to the soul through ministering to the body. At the house of A. Hilliard. FOPI 169.5

On the trail of history we went up to Otsego, to find this landmark in the annals of our cause. My wife has here a friend, Mrs. Edith Hilliard, a former co-worker in the Review and Herald at Battle Creek, who is the widow of a grandson of Aaron Hilliard. We found her, and she graciously accompanied us to the former home of her husband’s grandfather. To my surprise, it was not in town, but about three miles out in the country. It is owned and occupied by non-Adventists now, but Mr. and Mrs. Barnes were most courteous and cordial to us, permitting us to examine the house, and taking us out to the old barn, with its massive hewed timbers and high-reaching mow, which Aaron Hilliard built nigh a hundred years ago. The place was sold some twenty-five years ago by another grandson of Aaron Hilliard, Arleigh Hilliard, whom I also reached by phone, he being away from home. Further information has since been received by letter from a cousin, Mrs. Alta Hilliard Christensen. FOPI 170.1

The house has received considerable alterations, both outside and in. The present living room has been made by taking out the partition wall between the old-fashioned parlor and the sitting room, and the spacious old-time kitchen has been abbreviated. (I remember that arrangement from my boyhood: in the better appointed houses the kitchen was the common living room, the sitting room was used for neighbors’ visiting, but the parlor was closed to all but the most formal functions.) 1 could not be certain in which room the meeting was held where Sister White had her vision. The dimensions of either sitting room or parlor seemed too small to hold the company of workers then present, and perhaps the large kitchen, extending over most of the back part of the house, was the place. However, Arleigh and Alta Hilliard think it was held in the parlor. At any rate, we stood, at some point, as in the midst of that praying company. FOPI 171.1

Elders R. J. Lawrence and M. E. Cornell were holding tent meetings in Otsego that summer, and a company of friends from Battle Creek, including James and Ellen White, drove the thirty miles to be with them over the week end. It was in the midst of the Civil War; it was just after the formation of the General Conference. The plight of Seventh-day Adventists who were drafted into the Army, and whose noncombatant principles, added to their Sabbath observance, made for them many difficulties, had weighed upon the leaders. The struggle to bring organization into the church body had just been won, after years of conflict. Elder White was worn and depressed, his health was feeble, and he had worked beyond the limit. He came to this week end in Otsego in a low state of mind and body. FOPI 172.1

Aaron H. Hilliard and his wife Lydia were the stanch pillars of the work in Otsego. They were Adventists who had come from New York about 1855, ¹²⁵ and around them grew up the church which had its beginnings under Bates. Their home was one of the resting places in Michigan to which Elder and Mrs. White sometimes resorted for recuperation. So they went this time to Brother and Sister Hilliard’s. As the Sabbath came on, the workers in the tent company came out to the farm to join with the family and the visitors in Sabbath evening worship, and for counsel. Mrs. Martha Amadon, the daughter of John Byington, was present, and she has left this account: FOPI 172.2

“Sister White was asked to lead in prayer at family worship. She did so in a most wonderful manner. Elder White was kneeling a short distance from her. While praying, she moved over to him, and laying her hand on his shoulder continued praying for him until she was taken off in vision. She was in vision about forty-five minutes. It was at this time that she was given instruction on the health question which soon after became such a matter of interest to our people. Those present at the time this vision was given will never forget the heavenly influence that filled the room. The cloud passed from the mind of Elder White, and he was full of praise to God.” ¹²⁶ FOPI 173.1

The light given in that testimony on health was broad and penetrating and vital. It dealt not only with food, laying the foundation for that dietetic reform which has become an integral part of our life, but with dress and adornment, with habits of work and recreation, with healing by natural means, and with the influence of the mind upon the body. This revelation was, in embryo, the whole health message. It was needed by all the workers and all the brethren and sisters. Great have been the happy results in the lives of those who have followed the light; how much greater they might have been had everyone cheerfully and faithfully accepted it! Since that time voluminous instruction has poured forth from the lips and the pen of Sister White, expanding and illuminating the principles of health, the practices of hygiene, and the rational cure of disease. It is a precious legacy that began with that vision, under the pressure of need, in the house of A. Hilliard. FOPI 173.2

The Whites were yet to pass through deep waters. Scarce two months had gone ere they laid their eldest son, Henry, in the grave, and another, an infant son, was soon to follow. As the Civil War closed, in the spring of 1865, James White was laid low with his most severe attack of paralysis, which invalided him for two years. Ellen White, bearing up bravely during that ordeal, while carrying also the burdens of the infant church, and sometimes the misunderstandings and estrangement of friends and co-workers, was then always in precarious health, save when the Lord granted her miraculous strength. Yet they came through at last triumphantly. FOPI 173.3

It was no easy road. Elder and Mrs. White started their work in poor health, back in 1846; she a consumptive, he a dyspeptic. They ignorantly and devotedly transgressed some of the laws of health, in their efforts to forward the cause of God working intemperately, without recreation or relief, sinning dietetically because they knew no better, and in the case of James White at least often worrying over the problems that continually confronted them. This instruction from the Lord struck at the foundation of all intemperance and perversion, whether of work, or dress, or diet, or thinking. FOPI 174.1

Temperance was an objective of this band from the beginning. Far in advance of his co-workers, Joseph Bates set an example that is even today a shining mark. He not only lived right but lived well. While never in his life, even in the company of hard-living seamen, had he become a sot, he had nevertheless to decide for himself to abandon the use of liquor and tobacco. These evils were never in the way of James White, John Andrews, or Uriah Smith. But Bates went further, and left off the use of tea and coffee. In this his example was early followed by the Whites, who campaigned also against tobacco, until the young church, even in the 50’s, was well freed from this curse. And Bates went on to eschew all condiments and pastries, and finally meats and all animal products. In consequence, though he labored hard and endured as much privation as any of his co-workers, he was ever free from their disabilities and diseases. James and Ellen White, and all the rest of the principal workers, had not followed Bates so far, and they were frequent sufferers. FOPI 174.2

Now, in obedience to the vision, a reform began among this people both lay and clerical. It was a heroic task. Seventh day Adventists, with a very few exceptions, were at one with the general public in their dietetic habits. And those habits included a heavy consumption of flesh foods, with the use of animal greases, fried foods, and pastries for breakfast, dinner, and supper, tea and coffee in universal use. The dietetic reforms instituted by Graham, Trall, and Jackson were very little regarded, only a small percentage of “cranks” embracing them. To call out a people, to establish an entire church, upon the platform of correct physical and mental living, was an achievement little short of miraculous. And the great change which has come over the public in dietetic science and practice, not complete yet very pronounced, is in great part due to this transformation in a religious body which produced a dynamic for the nation and the world. The breakfast foods and the meat substitutes which figure so largely in the nation’s diet today, had their origin in the Battle Creek Sanitarium. FOPI 175.1

It was not a reform which grew out of the practice and prejudice of its author. The instruction given was directly opposed in many respects to Mrs. White’s own habits. She was a great meat eater; she could not endure bread; without the third meal in the evening she felt weak and faint. Yet immediately she undertook to practice what she had been shown in vision, and she persevered without flinching a hairsbreadth, until she had the victory. In consequence, she was relieved from many of the physical ills she had been experiencing, and she grew in strength. FOPI 175.2

Some there were, it is true, who lightly regarded the instruction, some who tried weakly and failed, some who did not take hold of the hand of God to carry them through. It is an experience repeated again and again in later years. The acceptance and practice of health reform principles is left to the individual. Those who adopt it intelligently and with determination not only reap benefits but shower benefits upon others; those who refuse are a weakness to themselves and a stumbling block to others. But it is certain that only the self-controlled, self disciplined disciple will win through. FOPI 175.3

The health reform was fairly attached to the Seventh-day Adventist message in that early time, within the second decade of the movement. It was a message not only for the benefit of the members of that church but for the world, for as it was revealed as a part of the gospel, it belonged to that threefold message which was to redeem men from the power of Satan. Many years later Mrs. White wrote of it: “The medical missionary work is as the right arm to the third angel’s message which must be proclaimed to a fallen world.... In this work the heavenly angels bear a part. They awaken spiritual joy and melody in the hearts of those who have been freed from suffering, and thanksgiving to God arises from the lips of many who have received the precious truth.” ¹²⁷ FOPI 176.1

All this, and how much more, passed before my mind in review as I stood in the house of A. Hilliard, at Otsego, Michigan. FOPI 176.2