p. 172 | An Appeal for Help in Providing Buildings in Which to Train Medical Missionary Workers

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1902

An Appeal for Help in Providing Buildings in Which to Train Medical Missionary Workers

By William Warren Prescott; S. H. Lane; Percy T. Magan

It is now more than sixty years since the angels' messages foretelling our Lord's return to earth have been ringing through the world. The period of time which has elapsed since the General Conference of 1901, and especially the last few months, has been marked by the spirit of reorganization, reform, and revival in the hearts of thousands of God's people.

A spirit of work, conceived in prayer and heart consecration to God, is being born into many lives. We thank God that the offerings during the past year are larger than ever before in the history of the denomination. The sales of “Christ's Object Lessons” for the relief of our schools have been unprecedented during the last few weeks.

From the beginning of our work, the health reform and medical missionary truths have been cherished as a precious heritage from Heaven to the waiting remnant people. The health reform is the right arm of our message; the medical missionary movement is the entering wedge to hearts.

The work done among our churches by our medical workers during the last five or six years has brought health and happiness, both physical and spiritual, to thousands upon thousands. The past decade has witnessed great changes in our modes of living. And during the last few weeks The Forward Movement has caught up this work, and is still further spiritualizing and purifying it.

We have been eager to have this health reform and medical missionary work done among our own churches. We have been desirous that it be carried on among those not of our faith. To this end we have willingly given of our means to establish restaurants in our large cities. Donations have freely been made for the support of cheap hygienic lunch counters and homes for the homeless poor. Orphanages are being systematically maintained. Bath and treatment rooms are doing a noble work in many places. Our sanitariums dot the land, and girdle the globe.

But now comes the strange part of it all. As a denomination we have never yet appropriated a single dollar for the founding of a college in which to train our sons and daughters for the health reform and medical missionary work. We have invested between half and three quarters of a million dollars in colleges and academies in the United States, in which to train young men and women for other branches of the message. This is a large sum when the size of the denomination is taken into account. At the same time, while saying that the medical missionary work is to the Third Angel's Message as the right arm to the body, we have never made any attempt to raise a fund for a medical missionary college. Brethren and sisters, we will all say, with one heart and voice, This thing ought not so to be.

The work of training Christian physicians and medical missionary workers has been done under somewhat discouraging circumstances. During all these years a large school of pupils preparing for medical work has been carried on without any school building in which to give the instruction.

It is true, of course, that the north end of Battle Creek College has been occupied for a few years by classes composed of those preparing to become physicians. But the physicians are only a very small part of those in training for medical missionary work. There are always from ten to twenty nurses in training where there is one physician. Then

there are those preparing to teach in schools of health, those who are taking up courses of study in healthful cookery, and those who expect to engage in rescue work in our large cities.

The inconveniences which teachers and students in these lines of work have suffered have been great. Classes have been held in basements of our sanitariums, in corners of bath rooms, in small treatment rooms, in gymnasiums, in buildings in Chicago so infested and unsanitary that they were hardly fit to live in. But now the day has come when this work must have a suitable college in which to train our medical workers. Medical college buildings are one of the crying needs of the hour.

The flames have burned the main buildings of our Battle Creek Sanitarium, but the people of the world are coming forward with offers of money with which to help in rebuilding it.

And now while the world is doing this, shall not we provide the money for a medical missionary college? Shall not the remnant people among whom Heaven has made the deposit of this precious light, furnish a place where young men and women can be trained to man our sanitariums and treatment rooms, and to fill our medical missionary ranks all over the world?

By faith we hear the voices of thousands upon thousands of God's friends responding, “Amen and Amen. In the hour of calamity to the mother Sanitarium, we will come up to the help of the Lord. In a most practical and tangible manner we will manifest our sympathy for leaders and their assistants in the medical missionary work. And above all that we may do to comfort the hearts of our brethren and sisters in arms, we will demonstrate in no uncertain voice or action our loyalty to Him ‘who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil,’ and who ‘himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.’”

At the last General Conference it was agreed that the Battle Creek College buildings should be transferred to the medical interest, and used for a medical missionary college. Some of the debts of the Battle Creek College have been paid by money received from the sale of “Christ's Object Lessons,” but a large sum still remains unpaid. All told, we ought to raise one hundred thousand dollars for our medical missionary college.

We have raised more than half a million for our eight principal colleges and academies in which to train laborers for other departments of the work. This being so, there is no question but what we can easily raise one hundred thousand dollars for a medical missionary college. The Battle Creek College was the first and the mother of our denominational colleges; henceforth it is to be the mother of our medical colleges.

The Missionary Acre Fund has been consecrated by authority of the last General Conference to the securing of this plant for a medical school. The springtime is near at hand. Soon the minds of our brethren and sisters all over the land will turn toward the kindly earth, from whose bosom, by their labor and the blessing of our Heavenly Father, will spring forth food for the sustenance of our bodies. And will it not please our Heavenly Father if, as we prepare the soil and sow the seed, we consecrate a portion of that soil and seed to Him, by giving its proceeds to the Missionary Acre Fund, which is to be used to provide “a holy house” from which will come forth missionaries whose special work will be to teach men how to preserve their God-given health, and to bring back to the fullness of life those whom disease has stricken low?

And now shall we all help to swell this fund—every one whose heart stirs him up, and every one whom his spirit hath made willing? Shall we be “wise-hearted” men, and bring the Lord's offering as they did in the ancient days when the tabernacle was built in the wilderness?

Every soul of us can and should aid the Missionary Acre Fund. Wise and liberal-hearted men can plant one, two, three, perchance five or more, acres. The harvest will be a kind of first fruits—holy unto the Lord. Others can dedicate a certain part of the returns from their orchards, their vineyards, or their berries. Those with stock farms can devote a portion of the increase of their flocks and herds. Another class may choose to plant a garden, and make their offering from its yield.

Besides the brethren dwelling in the country, there are many who live in cities and villages, and work at trades and for wages. Such can dedicate a portion of their salaries to the Lord.

The sisters can also help. They can plant gardens, raise poultry, and with their needles make useful articles for sale. Other sisters can consecrate their spare time to canvassing for our smaller books, and give the proceeds.

The children also can be enlisted to assist in this good work. Their parents can help them to do many things which will yield returns.

The chief thing necessary to make this work a success is to put away unbelief and doubt, faultfinding and criticism, and to come to the missionary acre movement with heart stirred up and “spirit made willing,” determined with the help of God to see the thing accomplished.

At present we are not asking any to make definite pledges. It is too early for that. We want all our brethren and sisters joyfully, hopefully, and prayerfully to consider this matter and God's claims upon them in regard to it. We do want each one to purpose in his heart, and then to give “according as he purposeth.”

Everywhere throughout America during the next two weeks, let there be praying and purposing over this matter. Then on Sabbath, April 5, let us all come together in our various places of worship, and have a blessed meeting, relating our purposes and experiences in this work. A special reading will be sent to all church elders for use on this Sabbath. No offering will be taken up at that time, and the exercises will be wholly those of devotion, praise, and melody to the Lord. At a later date a definite plan to ascertain just what our brethren and sisters have decided to do will be inaugurated.

In the meantime, if any have money which they believe the Lord wants them to give for this purpose, they may send it to the Treasurer of the General Conference, H. M. Mitchell, Battle Creek, Mich.

With the prayer that this appeal may be blessed to many hearts among the waiting people, we leave this matter with God and with those whom He calls His friends on the earth.

(Signed) W. W. PRESCOTT, Vice-Pres. General Conference; S. H. LANE, Chairman of Acre Fund Committee; P. T. MAGAN, Financial Sec. S. D. A. Gen. Conf.