MATTERS AND THINGS by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 2, 1877

MATTERS AND THINGS.

By James White

Since our return from California in May last, our time has been fully occupied from early morning until late at night with matters and things pertaining to the general cause, and yet we have not been able to give personal attention to one-half the work that has been thrust upon us.

THE CAMP-MEETINGS.

These we have refused to attend on the ground that we have had more important work on hand. And besides, we have not recovered from the terrible strain of the labors of last camp-meeting season. In consequence of this over-work at camp-meetings last year, we were nearly worthless in California last winter, and we are at the present time only partially recovered. If we call at any of the camp-meetings of this season, it will be to spend Sabbath and first-day under most favorable circumstances. We are rapidly recovering, and intend to take a course that will insure strength to do long-neglected, important writing the coming winter.

BATTLE CREEK COLLEGE.

Everything has been done, and will still be done, to make our beloved school as near a perfect success as possible. Board and room rent will be put at as low a figure as possible, and every means will be employed to advance pupils in their studies, to protect them from bad influences, and to surround them with moral and religious influences that will elevate and sanctify. The attendance will be large, including a large number of those who have entered the ministry and also those who have the gospel ministry in view. The next will be an exceedingly important year of our school. A full course of Biblical lectures will be given. The fall term will commence Wednesday, August 29. It will be much better for students to be on the ground a few days before the term commences, than a few days after it has commenced. All correspondence respecting the school should be addressed, Battle Creek College, Battle Creek, Mich.

THE SANITARIUM.

This institution, formerly known as the Health Institute, located at Battle Creek in 1866, is now in a most flourishing condition. As a minister of the gospel from Iowa, who has received great benefit as a patient, said, “This is not one of those Health Institutes whose popularity is all abroad,” and added, “You stand higher in this city than in any other in this country.” The patronage from the better classes in this city is very flattering. The rooms are all full of patients from abroad. And in fact several new cottages are opened and occupied in addition to rooms occupied at any previous year. And besides these, there is an outside pressure for baths and other treatment from the best families in this city, until we are obliged to confess to inability to meet the demands of the public with present facilities.

And we have been much occupied with the plans, and the general oversight of the execution of those plans, for far greater facilities for the treatment, board and lodging of the sick. A bath-room 50 x 60 feet, with three stories, is being built, and pushed forward as fast as possible. And the foundation of the main building is being laid, 136 x 46 feet, three stories besides a basement kitchen, all to be heated with steam. All this we have had in mind during the past six years. Others have proposed building. We have opposed, and have urged that our buildings and facilities generally were equal to our physicians. We saw clearly that in order to have a first class institution, young men of promise must be thoroughly educated.

We went at the work as the farmer sets out his orchard of young trees. The fruit is now seen in the youthful physician-in-chief, J. H. Kellogg, M. D., and in his students, W. J. Fairfield, W. B. Sprague, and E. J. Waggoner, who have attended one term of medical lectures at the University of Michigan, and will finish their medical education at the highest school on the continent. We build this year. At the opening of next spring, God favoring the work, we shall have three or four young men holding diplomas from the highest medical school in this country, imbued with the true spirit of the great health reformation.

HEALTH REFORM.

We stand upon the same ground touching the health question we have occupied during the past fourteen years. There is only this difference, time has given room for more mature thought, and for a precious experience, both of which have demonstrated that to be true which we entered upon fourteen years ago as an experiment. God has made the health reformation of invaluable worth to us. We cannot swerve from it. We cannot keep silent upon it. We shall faithfully warn a backsliding people to beware of the consequences of departing from precious light upon the subject, as we may find time to write. If it be true that “the health reform sustains the same relation to the work of the third angel’s message as the arm does to the human body,” no true believer will dare to depart from it. God save us.

BATTLE CREEK CHURCH.

Great and grave responsibilities are upon the church at Battle Creek. With a membership of 290, besides many residing here whose names are enrolled elsewhere, the Battle Creek congregation will be too large for our house of worship when the fall school term shall add two hundred students from abroad. We now view it necessary to divide the congregation either between a forenoon and an afternoon service, or between the house of worship and College Hall, both services to be held the same hour. Either will be disagreeable, but for want of room we shall be forced to adopt one of the two plans in a few weeks, at the opening of the fall term of our school.

We need not less than $25,000 to build a house of worship that will take in the resident congregation, and students at the school, and those who are able, and are disposed to attend from the Sanitarium. Few patients now attend for want of room. Our kind and friendly neighbors stay away from meeting, as they know there is not a spare seat for them. The situation is becoming alarming. What shall be done?

This church cannot build a suitable house. The membership is largely made up of poor, aged people, widows and orphans. Our younger brethren who have a liberal competency will not settle at Battle Creek. They know very well the burdens to be borne here, and they avoid them. But the poor, widows and orphans, press in at this point, and many of them look to our institutions located at Battle Creek for help. We are doing a great work, and ask our people abroad to help us.

Some ask treatment at the Sanitarium free, or at great reductions. Others ask our publications free, or for the next thing to nothing. And yet others plead that their children may work for their board to save the trifling expense of club board, and reduced rents of rooms. We answer these appeals as follows:

1. The Sanitarium will not be less than $30,000 in debt when the buildings and furnishing are complete, and can make no reductions, excepting to ministers, until the friends of reform shall take stock to cover the debt. And let it be borne in mind that seats will be demanded in a roomy house of worship for one hundred patients, but the Sanitarium cannot pay one dollar for such a church.

2. The draft upon the publishing department has been so large for reductions on publications, and gifts of publications, that it cannot help build a suitable house of worship. It brings laborers to this point requiring seats in the house of worship, but has not a dollar to put into the house.

3. The Battle Creek church alone has paid in nearly one-fourth the entire stock taken in Battle Creek College. We are surprised to find the figures stand thus:

The whole sum paid by all the friends of the College is $49,591. Of this sum the Battle Creek church has paid $12,029, while nearly one hundred churches in the State of Michigan have paid $9,505, a trifle more than three-fourths as much as this one church.

We say to those who ask that their children work for their board, and attend school, There are very few families in this church who are able to pay kitchen work and chores done in this way. Do any of you urge that your sons can care for the horse and cow and thus pay their board? We reply: There is not a tithe of the families of the Battle Creek church who feel able to own a cow, and less who keep a horse, and none of them are able to let the caring for them out to others.

In behalf of the Battle Creek Church, and our institutions located at this point, we appeal to our people abroad for sympathy and help. We are doing a great work. We are making great efforts in our work for God and humanity, and ask for help. Let none come to Battle Creek for financial help. Those who cannot help have no business at Battle Creek. This whole matter pertaining to the wants of the cause here at headquarters will be laid before General Conference at its next session.

Those who urge us to go long, weary distances to attend their camp meetings will please bear in mind that our Sabbath congregations of believers at Battle Creek during the College terms is double the number of believers at several of our camp-meetings.

THE PRESENT

Is a time of thrilling interest. The Progress Department is glorious. A score of Battle Creek College students are in the field. The cause demands hundreds. God is working with his truth mightily. We have no time to spend on those who sneer at us, and hate our work. The cause has too deep root in the confidence of the people to be longer hindered by religious scoffers. Let us all thank God and take courage.

THE FUTURE.

The work before us is almost without limit. The opening fields are all white for the harvest. In the Progress Department of the present issue is a voice from old Denmark, by our beloved Bro. Matteson. A great work is to be done in Europe. A man is wanted for England and Scotland. And is not Eld. Canright that man? May God direct. Calls come from all parts of the South. We think there is not a single State in the Union but has its little companies of Seventh-day Adventists. Five hundred men are wanted to enter all parts where calls are coming in for help. There are probably fifty Sabbath-keepers in the new State of Colorado, and not a man to respond to the many calls for help there. The same can be said of many good fields.

What can be done? Answer, Let those who have the truth and love it, and love poor sinners, arouse to the work of saving them. Let Biblical Institutes be held at proper points during the next Conference year, and let men and women be qualified to defend the truth of God. The brief future of our message demands labor, care and toil; and eternal rest and glory lie just beyond. J. W.