Had the word that came over the telegraph wires and reached Elmshaven Tuesday morning, February 18, 1902, carried the word that the Review and Herald Publishing House had been destroyed by fire, Ellen White would not have been surprised. Five months earlier she had written to its managers a message that was read to the board:
I have been almost afraid to open the Review, fearing to see that God has cleansed the publishing house by fire.--Letter 138, 1901; Testimonies for the Church 8:91).
But the message that came that rainy morning was that the two main Sanitarium buildings in Battle Creek had just burned to the ground. The first report of the disaster W. C. White refused to believe. But the second report bore evidence of authenticity, and in a letter he explained his feelings: "I join with all our people in mourning at this great loss to us as a people, and to the world" (18 WCW, p. 425).
Ellen White reached for her pen and somewhat in agony noted:
I would at this time speak words of wisdom, but what can I say? We are afflicted with those whose life interests are bound up in this institution. Let us pray that this calamity shall work together for good to those who must feel it very deeply. We can indeed weep with those who weep.--Manuscript 76, 1903.
She was one who could weep. It was the message given to her by God on Christmas Day thirty-six years earlier that led to the establishment of this institution in Battle Creek in August, 1866.
After signing her name to the pledge list to help get the institution started, she wrote $500. Down through the years she had been very close to the Sanitarium and those who worked there. She was a member of the constituency. Why was it, she was led to ask, that this institution, which had been such a great means for good, should suffer such loss? And as her pen traced the words, page after page, she wrote:
I am instructed to say, Let no one attempt to give a reason for the burning of the institution that we have so highly appreciated. Let no one attempt to say why this calamity was permitted to come. Let everyone examine his own course of action. Let everyone ask himself whether he is meeting the standard that God has placed before him.... Let no one try to explain this mysterious providence. Let us thank God that there was not a great loss of life. In this we see God's merciful hand.-- Ibid.
What she wrote on the day of the fire and the few days following showed that she would encourage attitudes that would not impede a work that had proved to be such an effective part of the work of the church. Anxiously the staff at Elmshaven waited for word presenting in detail just what had happened. This in some larger features came in the West Coast newspapers and then in more detail in letters and in the next issue of the Review and Herald:
It was a winter night, with snow quite deep on the ground. The Sanitarium had been ever gaining in popularity, and its main buildings were filled to capacity. Its guest list carried names of business and government leaders. Only a skeleton staff was on duty at four o'clock that Tuesday morning when the fire broke out in the basement of the main Sanitarium building, just beneath the treatment rooms. The two main alarms in the building were set off as well as the nearest city fire-alarm box. Equipment from Battle Creek and nearby cities hurried to fight the blaze. But spreading through the ventilating and elevator shafts, the flames soon enveloped the building, making it clear that it could not be saved.
The nurses and other staff members swung into their practiced fire-evacuation plan, taking first the fifty patients who were unable to get out of their beds, then assisting women and children to safety. Ambulatory patients made good use of fire escapes. With the special blessing of God every patient was cleared from the building. This was made certain as physicians and nurses, wet towels about their heads, felt their way through the dense smoke to recheck the rooms and corridors. As the insurance inspector looked over the situation a few days after the fire, he declared: "Nothing but divine power could have assisted those nurses and doctors to do as they did in getting the people out."--DF 45a, S. H. Lane to AGD, February 28, 1902.
But one man did lose his life. It was "old man Case," an eccentric patient in his late 80s, who, not trusting the banks, always carried his treasure with him in a satchel--"all the way from one to five thousand dollars" (Ibid.). He, his wife, and daughter were led to a place of safety, and then unnoticed, he must have gone back into the building to retrieve his satchel with its treasure. He never came out.
The fire from the main Sanitarium building soon spread across the street to the hospital, a five-story structure. Situated as it was on a hill, water pressure was insufficient to protect it. So it burned too.
By seven o'clock that Tuesday morning it was all over. The principal Sanitarium structures were gone. The patients, some four hundred in all, had been moved to "the several large buildings which "were rapidly adapted to the purpose, and the cottages which were not included in the disaster" (The Missionary Magazine, April 1902, p. 181). Immediately the staff swung into action to provide for the continued care of the patients. The treatment schedule, modified somewhat, continued that day.
Dr. Kellogg was on the train returning from the West Coast to Battle Creek at the time of the fire; he learned of it when he arrived in Chicago on Tuesday evening. As he continued his journey to Battle Creek he called for a table and utilized the two hours in drawing plans for a new Sanitarium building.
The moving of Battle Creek College to Berrien Springs four months previous to the fire had left buildings vacant that were available to the Sanitarium. The two dormitories, West Hall and South Hall, were soon filled with Sanitarium patients. The old Battle Creek College classroom and administration building furnished space for the business offices. East Hall, the Sanitarium-owned dormitory occupied by nurses, was able to accommodate 150 of the patients. The nurses moved elsewhere. Extensive bath and treatment rooms were quickly fitted up in the basements of two of these buildings. So within a few days' time the Sanitarium program was moving forward quite normally.
The citizens of Battle Creek asked for the privilege of holding a mass meeting in the Tabernacle on the evening of Wednesday, February 19. It was led by the clergymen of the city. The Tabernacle was packed; eulogies were spoken, and pledges given of moral and financial support.
As Ellen White pondered the first sketchy news of the fire, while the embers were still warm in Battle Creek, she wrote:
Our heavenly Father does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. He has His purpose in the whirlwind and the storm, in the fire and in the flood. The Lord permits calamities to come to His people to save them from greater dangers.--Manuscript 76, 1903.
Five days after the fire, with some of the reports before her, she picked up her pen and wrote to the Druillards:
I feel very much troubled about the burning of the Sanitarium. This is indeed a sad calamity. I fear there are among our people those who will put their own construction on this accident, and will act the part of Job's comforters, searching for something to condemn in Dr. Kellogg.--Letter 29, 1902.
As the days passed and Ellen White had an opportunity to recount both experiences through which she had passed and the visions that had opened up to her the dangers of Dr. Kellogg and those associated with him, she began to write more specifically, emphasizing two points: one, the desirability of smaller sanitariums, and two, the temptation of Dr. Kellogg to build up a very great work that would glorify him with a fruitage for which a sanitarium is established, but in reverse proportion to the sanitarium's size.
Ellen White no doubt at the time recalled this, for she wrote later of a conversation with Kellogg in which he declared:
In many respects it would be an advantage if the Sanitarium were in some place out of and away from Battle Creek. "The climate here," he said, "is unhealthful for very many.
"If these Sanitarium buildings were not in existence, I know what I would do. I would find a better climate, and establish the institution there. I would have fewer buildings and more land. I would arrange for the sick to live out of doors much of the time, where they would be surrounded by the beauties of nature."--Letter 110, 1902.
Apparently Dr. Kellogg quickly abandoned any thought of moving to a new location, for in his initial statement concerning the fire, published in the Review and Herald just one week after the destruction of the institution, he envisioned in Battle Creek a fireproof building, a better building, an edifice "standing as a temple of truth, the headquarters for a worldwide movement, represented by hundreds of physicians and nurses, and many thousands of interested friends in all parts of the world" (The Review and Herald, February 25, 1902).
The concept of establishing a great temple of truth in which he would preside dominated his thinking and buttressed his statements, oral and published. In his remarks on Sabbath morning in the Tabernacle, in a special service dedicated to the experience of the fire, he spoke again of a building of a "temple of truth." Elder W. W. Prescott gave the main address. Then Dr. Kellogg spoke, expressing his confidence that God was in it all "because this is God's work, and not man's work. And if God built the house, and permitted the house to burn, it is for some good purpose."--Ibid., March 4, 1902.
There was one feature of this talk by Dr. Kellogg that must have encouraged Ellen White as she read it, for he spoke of "a smaller house." "We must have another house," he declared, "a better house; not necessarily a larger house, it may be a smaller house, but we must have a better house."-- Ibid.
Plans to Rebuild
Plans were quickly drawn. Building concerns were consulted. Bids were called for. A special meeting of the General Conference Committee was called, and approval was given to the general plan for the rebuilding of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. One special point was the prospect of financial relief in Dr. Kellogg's proposal of giving a book manuscript to help raise money. The General Conference Committee considered it a "grand proposition." The doctor proposed 400,000 copies as a gift.
On March 25, Elder A. G. Daniells reported this and other developments in a letter to W. C. White. Between $80,000 and $90,000 had been subscribed in the city of Battle Creek toward a new sanitarium; this, along with the insurance money, amounting to $154,000, would provide a "fair sum with which to erect a new building."
We have accepted plans submitted by an Ohio architect. They are plain but dignified. We propose to erect an absolutely fireproof building, and to pay the cash for everything. We suppose that when it is finished, furnished, and fully equipped for business, the cost will be between $250,000 and $300,000. But the board is determined that no debt shall be incurred by the erection of this building.--DF 45a, AGD to WCW, March 25, 1902.
Another matter Elder Daniells discussed in this letter was the attitude of the city toward the Sanitarium. During the past three years they had levied taxes on the institution that they now agreed to return. This would give them $15,000. They promised to remit all taxes thereafter. So, Elder Daniells wrote:
Under all the circumstances we all feel that we cannot consistently take the Sanitarium away from Battle Creek, and have decided to rebuild here.-- Ibid.
Even the assurances of a modest building and of a debt-free building program did not put Ellen White's mind at ease. On the last night of April a vision was given to her concerning the rebuilding of the Sanitarium, and she wrote in a letter addressed to Dr. Kellogg:
I have been given a message for you. You have had many cautions and warnings, which I sincerely hope and pray you will consider. Last night I was instructed to tell you that the great display you are making in Battle Creek is not after God's order. You are planning to build in Battle Creek a larger sanitarium than should be erected there. There are other parts of the Lord's vineyard in which buildings are greatly needed....
Battle Creek is not to be made a Jerusalem. There are calls for means to establish memorials for God in cities nigh and afar off. Do not erect an immense institution in Battle Creek which will make it necessary for you to draw upon our people for means. Such a building might far better be divided, and plants made in many places. Over and over again this has been presented to me.--Letter 125, 1902.
In this same vein a week later she wrote to Dr. Kellogg's close friend, Percy T. Magan, now at Berrien Springs:
It is not wise to erect mammoth institutions. The Battle Creek Sanitarium was altogether too large. I have been shown that it is not by the largeness of an institution that the greatest work for souls is to be accomplished. A mammoth sanitarium requires a great many workers. But it is difficult, where so many workers are brought together, to maintain the standard of spirituality that should be maintained in the Lord's institutions....
If that institution had been situated in the country, where it could have been surrounded by gardens and orchards, where the sick could have looked upon the beautiful things of nature--the flowers of the field, and the fruit trees, laden with their rich treasures--how much more good would have been accomplished!--Letter 71, 1902.
In the months that followed, she wrote much more along these lines to those who were carrying responsibilities in Battle Creek, both in the Sanitarium and in the General Conference.
With the plans drawn and accepted and the bids let, the next step was the laying of the cornerstone. Sunday afternoon, May 11, 1902, some ten thousand people gathered for the elaborate ceremonies, with guest speakers from the Government and the clergy from the city. Sanitarium employees were seated back of the speakers' stand, and Sanitarium guests and citizens seated in front. W. W. Prescott led out in the main address of the afternoon. The cornerstone was appropriately laid by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg himself. In his address he reminded helpers, guests, and townspeople of the principles upon which the institution stood. He referred back to its history--a history he had often connected with God's providential guidance through the light given to Mrs. White. He declared:
It is certainly no discredit to those who founded this institution thirty-six years ago that, in this new founding, this cornerstone laying, marking the beginning of a new era in the history of this work, it is not necessary to introduce any new principle nor to discard or repudiate any principle which has been heretofore recognized.... The little light kindled here on this hilltop a third of a century ago has never gone out, but has burned brightly, and yet more brightly, as the years have passed, and this day shines out even from the midst of these shapeless piles of brick and stone with a brighter luster than ever before, and not from here only, but from a hundred hilltops scattered throughout the civilized world.--The Review and Herald, May 20, 1902.
He was to liken this new institution to the Temple city Jerusalem, to which the ancient Israelites looked from all over the world. In passing, we note that an element of pantheism appeared in this address, representing a philosophy he firmly held in his heart, the perils of which had not yet been seen by his associates.
With the work well under way, Dr. Kellogg was soon off to Europe with A. G. Daniells to attend the European General Conference. This together with the doctor's endeavors to establish a medical institution in England kept him overseas until mid-August. It was in connection with this enterprise that a rift developed between John Harvey Kellogg and Arthur G. Daniells that was to widen and deepen. It was sparked by differences in financial policies, of which note will be taken shortly.
The decade of the 1890s was a period of institutional expansion. Two new colleges had been started--Union College and Walla Walla. Dr. Kellogg had forged ahead, encouraging the establishment of a number of medical institutions in the United States and one in Mexico, the first medical interest of the church to be established outside the United States. For all of these, money for the capital investment was borrowed and then the General Conference Association was persuaded to assume the obligations.
Kellogg was an energetic, forceful, persuasive man, and somehow the General Conference leaders through the middle 1890s found it difficult to resist his insistence of such financing. Of one such church leader Ellen White wrote: "To Elder--- was given plainly stated instruction as to how the Lord regarded such matters, but he had not the courage to say, 'I cannot betray sacred trusts.'"--Manuscript 144, 1902.
Debts piled on debts--debts assumed with no systematic plan for their amortization. This was reflected in the sad situation of the Battle Creek Sanitarium at the time of the fire. Even though they had been operating for thirty-five years, they had outstanding notes of $250,000. The Boulder Sanitarium, opened in 1893, was heavily in debt. It was overbuilt at the outset and was then plagued by poor business management. Even with a good patronage no appreciable progress was being made in the reduction of its debt load. Other newly established sanitariums were in much the same shape.
When Elder Daniells assumed responsibilities as leader of the church, following the General Conference of 1901, he was appalled to find that the total institutional indebtedness was close to $500,000. In the context of the times, this was a huge sum. The top pay of ministers, physicians, and publishing-house employees at this time was from $12 to $15 a week (DF 243d).
Ellen White's Heart Heavily Burdened
In the meantime, in California, Ellen White was carrying a heavy burden on her heart for Dr. Kellogg. The disastrous outcome of the course he was following in the rebuilding of the Battle Creek institution had been revealed to her. To Dr. David Paulson, one of Kellogg's close associates, she wrote on July 7, 1902:
Brother Paulson, pray most earnestly for Dr. Kellogg. He is going directly contrary to the light that God has given in regard to the building of smaller sanitariums. The evils of erecting a very large sanitarium in any place should be fully understood. The Lord has revealed to me that if, in the place of having one mammoth sanitarium in Battle Creek, smaller sanitariums could be established in several cities, His name would be glorified. The centering of so much in one place is contrary to God's order. Small plants should be started in many places.--Letter 110, 1902.
On August 5 she wrote to Kellogg:
I received your excellent letter a short time ago. You were not at home when you wrote, but were traveling from place to place, and therefore I did not answer immediately. After I received your letter, my heart was much oppressed. For several nights I could not sleep past one o'clock, but walked the room praying.
The fourth night I said, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? I am willing to do anything that it is duty for me to do."
I was instructed, "I have a message for you to bear to Dr. Kellogg." I thought, "It will do no good. He does not accept the messages that I bear him, unless these harmonize with his plans and devisings." Yet I must give the message given to me for you.
My brother, you have not heeded the light given you. If you go forward in your own judgment, to carry out your purposes, you will lead other minds astray. Many of the plans that have been laid for our work are not according to the plans and purposes of God.--Letter 123, 1902.
But the matter was larger than the construction of sanitariums. Basically it was the expression of the hearts of men that gave her such concern.
In her mind she went back to the General Conference session held in April, 1901. She pointed out to Kellogg that if the work had been done there that God designed should be done, the fallow ground of the heart would have been broken up and men bearing responsibilities with humility of soul would have led out in the work of confession and consecration, giving evidence that they had received the counsels of warning sent by the Lord. She laid the responsibility on "men in positions of authority in the medical missionary work" (Letter 173, 1902) and declared:
There would have been one of the greatest revivals that there has been since the day of Pentecost.--Letter 123, 1902.
Sadly she wrote,
The work that all heaven was waiting to do as soon as men prepared the way was not done, for the leaders closed and bolted the door against the Spirit's entrance. There was a stopping short of entire surrender to God. And hearts that might have been purified from all error were strengthened in wrongdoing.-- Ibid.
Near the close of the eight-page letter she urged:
The leaders in our medical work should now be considering the testimonies that for years have been coming to them. If they pay no heed to these warnings, the Lord cannot cooperate with them as He desires to. There is danger of your placing yourself and others in harmony with worldly plans.-- Ibid.
She reminded him:
Faithfulness in duty, trust in God at every step--this is your safety. If you follow your own ambitious projects, you will go where Jesus has given you no liberty to go. Obey the word of God, and you will be safe.-- Ibid.
The next day, August 6, 1902, she wrote again to the doctor:
My Dear Brother,
The Lord is your strength. Take hold of His strength, and make peace with Him. In your human strength, you are as liable as any other man to err in judgment. The Lord is merciful and gracious. He will give you wise counselors.
If ever a man needed wise counselors, you need them--men who will not receive your propositions or representations if they discern that they are not in harmony with the will of God, men who will not make things appear as they are not, who will abide by principles that will stand God's test. The Lord wants you, Dr. Kellogg, to make straight paths for your feet, for the sake of your own soul's salvation, and to save other souls from following in false ways.--Letter 124, 1902.
And then followed these words:
You regard too lightly the sacred truth for this time. You are not, in all things, walking in the light that God has sent you. Beware lest you confederate with unbelievers, accepting them as your counselors and following their worldly policy; for this is dishonoring to God.-- Ibid. (Testimonies to the Church Regarding our Youth Going to Battle Creek Obtain An Education, 35).
In the meantime, brick was being laid on brick in Battle Creek, and the Sanitarium edifice was rising--an edifice that church leaders were soon to discover would cost between two and three times the amount estimated. What is more, not all the promises for financial help made when the institution was destroyed by fire were kept. Some of the pledges made by the businessmen and citizens of Battle Creek were never honored. The anticipated income from the sale of The Living Temple, Dr. Kellogg's gift book, did not materialize, for church leaders found it permeated with pantheistic, philosophies. There is no indication that the pledge made by the Sanitarium Board or the General Conference Committee that no further debt would be incurred in the rebuilding of the Sanitarium was kept or even remembered.
On August 14 a communication from Ellen White, addressed to the General Conference Committee and the Medical Missionary Board, was placed in the mail. The opening paragraph carried these words:
I was shown that the Sanitarium there was deteriorating for the want of men of capability and consecration to carry it forward in pure, upward lines, in accordance with Bible principles. Very clearly it has been presented to me that it would be in God's order for the work of the Battle Creek Sanitarium to be divided, and plants made in many other places, in the cities that are in need of sanitariums....
I am instructed to say that our people must not be drawn upon for means to erect an immense sanitarium in Battle Creek; the money that would be used in the erection of that one mammoth building should be used in making plants in many places. We must not draw all we can from our people for the establishment of a great sanitarium in one place, to the neglect of other places, which are unworked for the want of means.
It is not the Lord's will for His people to erect a mammoth sanitarium in Battle Creek or in any other place. In many places in America, sanitariums are to be established. These sanitariums are not to be large establishments, but are to be of sufficient size to enable the work to be carried forward successfully.--Letter 128, 1902.
Denominational Or Undenominational?
Another deep concern on the part of Ellen White was regarding the position that Dr. Kellogg was taking and advocating, that the Battle Creek Sanitarium was undenominational. This was being heard more and more frequently. Its seeds went back for almost ten years, when Kellogg began to envision the medical work being done by Seventh-day Adventists as a great Christian benevolent work, not particularly denominational in its character. In 1893 the Seventh-day Adventist Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association had been formed to succeed the earlier Health and Temperance Association. But in 1896 the name had been changed, dropping out the words "Seventh-day Adventist" and adding the word "International" (The Story of Our Health Message, 293).
Writing in 1898, Dr. Kellogg declared of this organization that it was developed to "'carry forward medical and philanthropic work independent of any sectarian or denominational control, in home and foreign lands'" (Medical Missionary, January, 1898; quoted in Ibid., 293). (Italics supplied.)
The following year at a convention of the association it was declared the delegates were "'here as Christians, and not as Seventh-day Adventists.'" Nor were they there "'for the purpose of presenting anything that is peculiarly Seventh-day Adventist in doctrine.'" In other words, it was defined as "'simply the undenominational side of the work which Seventh-day Adventists have to do in the world.'"--Medical Missionary Conference Bulletin, May, 1899, Extra (quoted in Ibid., 293).
This growing number of declarations on the part of Dr. Kellogg and his close associates provided sound basis for alarm, and of this Ellen White also spoke in midsummer, 1902:
It has been stated that the Battle Creek Sanitarium is not denominational. But if ever an institution was established to be denominational in every sense of the word, this sanitarium was.
Why are sanitariums established if it is not that they may be the right hand of the gospel in calling the attention of men and women to the truth that we are living amid the perils of the last days? And yet, in one sense, it is true that the Battle Creek Sanitarium is undenominational, in that it receives as patients people of all classes and all denominations.--Letter 128, 1902 (The Story of Our Health Message, 298).
And she pointed out:
We are not to take pains to declare that the Battle Creek Sanitarium is not a Seventh-day Adventist institution; for this it certainly is. As a Seventh-day Adventist institution it was established to represent the various features of gospel missionary work, thus to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord.-- Ibid.
She was distressed, too, when Dr. Kellogg did not abide by the absolute truth in certain statements he made. She sent a confidential warning to Elder Daniells on September 5:
Do not let him beguile you by his statements. Some may be true; some are not true. He may suppose that all his assertions are true; but you should neither think that they are, nor encourage him to believe that he is right. I know that he is not in harmony with the Lord. Do not sanction his effort to gather from every source all the means possible for his line of the work; for God does not favor so great an outlay of means as is now being made in Battle Creek.--Letter 138, 1902.
In a council meeting held at her home on October 19, 1902, attended by Elder Daniells and some others, she again made reference to her deep concern for the doctor. Tying in with her work first, she said:
I am writing on the life of Solomon. And I wish to write more on the case that I have so many times brought before Dr. Kellogg as illustrative of his own dangers--the case of Nebuchadnezzar. Over and over again I have warned the doctor not to follow the course of this king, who said, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built ... by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" Dr. Kellogg is now pursuing a similar course in Battle Creek.-- Manuscript 123, 1902.
Then she added an interesting comment:
I am told that he made the remark that he was glad that the old sanitarium buildings burned down. Brethren, those buildings burned down as a reproof to him, but instead of taking it thus, he has given place to self-exaltation.-- Manuscript 123, 1902.
In a rather interesting sidelight, she had discovered that in order to reduce the expenses of the institution and to gather the funds with which to finance the new plant, Dr. Kellogg had used strong persuasive powers to encourage the young people in training and the nurses working at the institution to either work free, or, if they did receive wages, to accept an amount "so small that it is nearly all used in paying for board, room rent, and incidental expenses"' (Manuscript 123, 1902). This was rather characteristic and showed up in contracts she would later mention, between the Medical Association and young people in training. She emphatically declared that "this is not right in the sight of God" (Manuscript 123, 1902). She emphasized the individual stewardship of the wage earner.
Through the early months of 1903 the work of building the Sanitarium continued. There were 296 patient rooms in the new edifice. Costs soared far above the estimates, adding financial problem on financial problem. The Medical Missionary for June, 1903, presented "Facts From the New Building":
In the structure of the new main building there were used 4,101,000 bricks, 7,400 bbls. of lime, 15,000 bbls. of cement, and 700 tons of iron and steel. There are 16,250 feet of steam pipes, 14,000 feet of water pipes, and 14 1/2 miles of waste pipes. There are 22 1/2 acres of plastering, and 25,500 loads of sand and gravel were used. Over 4,000 sacks of marble chips were used in forming the seven acres of mosaic floor. There are 1,200 veneered doors, finished with American mahogany stain. The gymnasium has 82 windows. The building has 3,500 electric lights, 200 bath and treatment rooms, 132 full bathtubs, and 400 telephones.
Dedication of the New Building
The institution was dedicated in a three-day service running from Sabbath morning, May 30, to Monday night, June 1, with meetings being held in the Tabernacle and on the grounds of the Sanitarium. The Sabbath-morning service was one of dedication on the part of the workers to this important phase of the Lord's work (The Review and Herald, June 9, 1903).
In this dedication Ellen White could heartily agree. The Battle Creek Sanitarium was the Lord's institution. Even though some phases of counsel given concerning its work had been brushed aside, it was still the Lord's institution. A few weeks before the dedication service Ellen White, speaking at the General Conference session of 1903, made this statement:
Let me say that God does not design that the Sanitarium that has been erected in Battle Creek shall be in vain. Now that the building has been put up, He wants His people to understand this. He wants this institution to be placed on vantage ground.... We are now to make another effort to place our institutions on solid ground. Let no one say, because there is a debt on the sanitarium in Battle Creek, "We will have nothing more to do in helping to build up that institution." The people of God must build that institution up, in the name of the Lord. It is to be placed where its work can be carried on intelligently.-- The General Conference Bulletin, 1903, 58, 67.
She urged that one man was not to stand alone at the head of the institution. It was God's will that His servants should stand united in carrying the work forward in a balanced way.
Just how the Sanitarium could be placed on vantage ground she declared she did not know nor could she tell the congregation. "But," she said, "I know that just as soon as the Holy Spirit shall come upon hearts, there will be unity in voice and understanding; and wisdom will be given us."-- The General Conference Bulletin, 1903, 58, 67.
Ellen White arranged for a complete set of her books to be furnished to the Sanitarium as her gift (Letter 96, 1903). These were for the patients' library and were to be in the "best binding."