Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 21 (1906)

Ms 45, 1906

A Visit to Mountain View, California

Mountain View, California

May 6, 1906

Portions of this manuscript are published in 5MR 110.

When we reached Los Angeles, April 17, I was about sick from studying the presentations that had been shown me during the night past. And the next morning, we heard the newsboys on the streets, crying, “San Francisco is destroyed by an earthquake!” We read the first hastily printed news early in the forenoon of the eighteenth. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 1

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Wednesday, May 2, we left Loma Linda for our journey homeward. We spent two or three hours pleasantly at the Los Angeles treatment rooms and then took a tourist sleeper on the Coast Line for the north. That night the peace of heaven rested upon me, and I slept quietly until about three o’clock. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 2

As we approached San Jose Thursday morning, we began to notice some of the effects of the earthquake. San Jose has suffered considerably. Some of the principal buildings collapsed; others are seriously damaged. Several people were killed. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 3

At San Jose we changed cars and went on to Mountain View, ten miles farther north. There we were met at the station by Brethren C. H. Jones and W. T. Knox and driven past the principal street to the office building of the Pacific Press. The new post office and some of the largest stores in town had been leveled to the ground—totally destroyed. Other buildings were badly wrecked. And when we saw the fallen walls of the Pacific Press, we were sad at heart; but we could not help rejoicing over the fact that no lives were lost. The Lord mercifully spared His children. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 4

How glad I am to report, also, that in San Francisco none of our people have lost their lives, so far as we have been able to learn. The church on Laguna Street is damaged, but escaped the fire. Our restaurant, sanitarium treatment rooms, and health food store, all on Market Street, are in ashes. The home for restaurant workers was also burned. In Loma Linda I asked Brother Fulton, who for many years has faithfully conducted the San Francisco Vegetarian Restaurant, and who was in the city at the time of the earthquake, “What did you lose, Brother Fulton?” “All but the clothes I stand in,” he replied; “but of all our helpers, no lives were lost.” This is a cause for thanksgiving to God. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 5

Our brethren are planning to present before our church members throughout America the situation of our institutions on the Pacific Coast and invite every one to contribute something toward a fund for the relief of the Pacific Press and the San Francisco medical institutions. We feel certain that it is unnecessary for us to do more than simply to express a wish that our people shall consider the present necessities of this devastated district. We feel an assurance that they will respond quickly and heartily, in order that the Pacific Press office may be properly repaired and the medical institutions helped. We have no idea of urging our people to help the Signs office meet this heavy loss. Our people need no urging. They will respond with gifts and with thanksgiving to God for His protecting care over His people. We leave the particulars of the loss for others to give. The Lord be thanked that we have the truth, which makes us free in more ways than one. Precious truth! It sanctifies the soul and leads us to press together. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 6

The machinery was not seriously injured, with the exception of the two linotype machines. Our brethren at the Pacific Press have been able to issue a special edition of the Signs of the Times, containing an account of the earthquake and some articles regarding the meaning of such disasters. A great effort is now being made to give this special number a large circulation and to accompany its distribution with many books and pamphlets. Just now, when people are thinking seriously, literature on the meaning of the signs of the times, wisely circulated, will have a telling effect in behalf of the truth. 21LtMs, Ms 45, 1906, par. 7