Rural Health Retreat and Pacific Health Journal by John Norton Loughborough

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 9, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 47.

Rural Health Retreat and Pacific Health Journal.

By John Norton Loughborough

THE Rural Health Retreat at Crystal Springs, St. Helena, Cal., was re-opened about the first of June, 1885, with the Pacific Health Journal as an advocate of the principles taught, illustrated, and exemplified at the Retreat. Since that time more than four hundred patients have enjoyed, more or less, the benefits of the institution. The journal has not only gone forth on its mission instructing thousands how to live and how to avoid disease, but it has been calling the attention of the people to the Retreat, with its skillful, attentive physicians, and genial helpers, in fact to a “home” whose praises its visitors delight to extol.

As a sample of what “they say” we will quote from the words of Hon. W. W. McKaig, of San Francisco. This gentleman went to the Retreat, suffering from many physical difficulties. After a few months' stay he returned to his home, declaring that he was cured of all his maladies. In the Pacific Rural Press of May 8, he said of the Retreat:—

“One of the first things a visitor notices on coming here is the air of sociability that pervades the place. In an hour's time he feels perfectly at home. He finds no one afflicted with homesickness. The affable superintendent, the ever watchful and sympathetic matron, the vigilant doctors, and, indeed, all the officials and helpers seem to vie with each other in making the sojourn of the invalid pleasant and comfortable. And this is not the studied and artificial politeness of hotel officials and waiters, but is something akin to the spontaneity of humanity. But what is still better, the Retreat is in the hands of men who revere God and devoutly praise the principles of morality and religion. One cannot help feeling that he is in a pure, moral atmosphere, that is spiritually healthful, and that he can recommend to his friends to send wife or daughter here without fear that their sensibilities will be shocked by ribald jokes, bad manners, and exhibitions of intemperance and profanity.”

We long to see hundreds more coming to the Retreat to enjoy its physical, social, and moral benefits. Just such hundreds are waiting to hear of such a place. The physicians at the Retreat tell me that the Health Journal is the best medium we have on this coast to advertise the institution. We would be pleased to see the journal going to thousands of afflicted in the Pacific Coast States and Territories. The journal is a 32-page, issued each alternate month. The subscription price is only fifty cents a year. The information contained in the number just issued for December and January is worth more than a year's subscription.

We would request all readers of the SIGNS who have been taking the Pacific Health Journal, and whose subscriptions have expired, to favor us with an immediate renewal. We hope also to be favored with many new subscribers, and thus a knowledge of a source of relief to the afflicted will be greatly extended. Recollect the price of the Journal is fifty cents for a volume of six numbers, issued each alternate month. Send your names, with remittance, to Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.