The Story of our Health Message

The Need for a Greater Vision

It would be gratifying to be able to report that this plan was enthusiastically received by the churches, and that Dr. Kellogg’s services were in continuous demand. That there was a need is beyond question. There were doubtless not a few companies of believers of whom it might be said, as one worker wrote regarding a particular church: “They are sadly behind in the health reform. ... If some thorough-going, well-informed health reformer could give them a course of lectures on health during the coming winter, I think the labor would be well expended.”—Ibid., June 30, 1868. SHM 239.1

But the churches most in need of such instruction would, naturally, be the last to realize it and to place a call, at some expense to themselves, for a health lecturer. So it was a keen disappointment both to the doctor and to the General Conference Committee to find that after filling appointments in three churches, where the lectures were highly appreciated, the doctor received no further invitations. After a few months the readers of the Review and Herald were notified that Dr. M. G. Kellogg had “returned to California, not receiving sufficient calls for help to induce him to remain in this part of the country.” Ibid., August 18, 1868. SHM 239.2

And then eight years more passed. During this time, through The Health Reformer, through lectures in the Health Reform Institute by the physicians there, or through instruction in the churches by the ministers, the work of health education was carried on with more or less effectiveness, though apparently with diminished rather than increased emphasis. The possibilities of greater success in the work of the ministry through uniting the teachings of health with those of holiness were as yet only dimly comprehended, till the Testimonies pointed to a higher conception of the value of the health principles. SHM 239.3