Although official action had been taken by the constituency of the Southern California Conference to buy Loma Linda and operate a sanitarium, officers of the conference saw little light in following through. Of the attitude of the conference president, Ellen White wrote to Elder Burden on June 25, 1905:
I hope that Brother--will move understandingly in reference to the sanitariums already in operation [Paradise Valley and Glendale] and also in regard to the new sanitarium [Loma Linda]....
Do not be discouraged if in any wise there is some cutting across of your plans, and if you are somewhat hindered. But I hope that we shall never again have to meet the hindrance that we have met in the past because of the way in which things have been conducted in some lines in southern California.
I have seen the hold-back principles followed, and I have seen the displeasure of the Lord because of this. If the same spirit is manifested, I shall not consent to keep silent as I have done.--Letter 161, 1905.
But as the days came and went, there was the nagging question: Where would the $5,000 come from for the July 26 payment?
Ellen White, in fulfillment of her promise, was endeavoring to raise money. But there were no immediate responses. One course seemed to offer the promise of relief--selling some of the land. It was proposed that thirty-eight acres could be retained for the
sanitarium. The other thirty-eight could be sold in building lots. Some figured a large portion of the original investment of $40,000 could be raised in this way. Learning of this, Ellen White wrote to Burden on July 5:
I learned that ------ has proposed to sell some of the land to help pay the standing debt. Tell me how the matter is now. Can you obtain a loan of money to raise the rest of the $5,000 [due July 26]? ... We must be sure and have every payment made in time....
I just thought to write you a few lines to assure you that not one foot of that land is to be sold to raise money. We will hire money at the bank rather than this shall be done.--Letter 161a, 1905.
A week later Elder Burden, still manager of Glendale Sanitarium, wrote Sister White advising her that he had hoped to secure the needed money for the July 26 payment from a certain brother, but through unfortunate family circumstances the promise of this was being withdrawn. What is more, a Brother Parker, who had $4,000 invested in some other phase of the work (most likely Glendale Sanitarium), was calling for his money.
"It only shows," wrote Burden, "that the enemy is determined to hedge up the way if possible. I do not know where to look now with assurance for the money on time. Our committee will have a meeting tomorrow."--J. A. Burden to EGW, July 12, 1905.
Four days later Burden wrote, "Thus far we have nothing in sight or rather very little for the next payment." And he continued, "There is an undercurrent at work which is seeking to turn money aside which we ought to have, and had really been promised to us."--J. A. Burden to EGW, July 16, 1905.
Finally in desperation he sought permission of the neighboring conference to the north to make some contacts there that might yield financial help, but he was informed that the securing of the Loma Linda property had been contrary to the advice of the Pacific Union Conference committee. No door was open in the north.
As July 26 neared, Burden must have thought of a letter from Sister White written July 10:
I want you to keep me posted about the money coming in with which to make the payments on the Loma Linda property. I am writing to different ones, asking them to help us at this time, and I think that we shall obtain means to make every payment.--Letter 197, 1905 (The Story of Our Health Message, 358, 359).
Finally Wednesday, the fateful day, dawned with still no money in sight. If the payment was not available by 2:00 P.M. the property and the initial $5,000 payment would be lost. Would deliverance come, or would the enemy succeed in bringing defeat? A meeting of the conference committee had been called for that morning in Los Angeles at their new office on the second floor of 257 South Hill Street (Pacific Union Recorder, June 22, 1905). A heavy cloud of perplexity hung over the assembly. Some felt the circumstances justified the misgivings they had entertained from the start. Others, Elder Burden recounted, "remembered the clear words that had come through the Testimonies, and refused to concede there should be failure" (The Story of Our Health Message, 358). As they reached out for deliverance, someone suggested that the morning mail had not yet come and perhaps relief would come from that source.
We turn to Elder Burden for the heartwarming story:
"Soon after this the postman was heard coming up the stairs. He opened the door and delivered the mail. Among the letters was one bearing the postmark Atlantic City, New Jersey.
"The letter was opened, and it was found to contain a draft for $5,000, just the amount needed for the payment.
"Needless to say, the feelings of those who had been critical were quickly changed. Eyes filled with tears, and one who had been especially critical was the first to break the silence. With trembling voice, he said, 'It seems that the Lord is in this matter.' 'Surely He is,' was the reply, 'and He will carry it through to victory.' The influence that filled the room that day hushed the spirit of criticism. It was as solemn as the judgment day."-- Ibid.
Among those to whom Sister White had written appealing for funds was a woman in Atlantic City, and Elder Burden points out:
"The Lord had put it into her heart to respond and to mail the letter just at the time when our faith had been tested almost to the limit, that it might be revived and strengthened.
"Soon we were at the bank window to pay in the $5,000. As the receipt was taken from the counter, a voice seemed to say to us, 'See how nearly you missed that payment. How are you going to meet the next one, within a month?' In heart we answered, 'It will surely come, even though we do not now know the source.' We thanked God and took new courage in believing that the Lord was going before us."--Ibid., 359.
The Southern California Conference camp meeting was scheduled for August 11 to 21 in Los Angeles, where Evangelist W. W. Simpson's tent meetings were about to close. The big tent would be moved to Boyle Heights--an area that would become well known to Seventh-day Adventists a decade later, for the White Memorial Hospital was to be established there. The tent would be pitched on Mott Street, between First and Second (Pacific Union Recorder, July 27, 1905). The conference president announced that among those present would be "Sister White, Elders M. C. Wilcox, G. A. Irwin, J. O. Corliss, W. C. White, and G. W. Rine."
Ellen White was sure to meet this appointment, for with the markedly cool attitude of the president toward the Loma Linda project, the future of the institution still rested in the balance. She regarded the conference president "an excellent man," but one who had "not had experience in dealing with minds" (Letter 237, 1905).
The annual conference constituency meeting would be held in connection with the camp meeting, which made it a particularly crucial session. Writing of the experience a month later, W. C. White declared:
We all saw that very much was at stake, and that much depended on how the sanitarium work was presented to our people at this meeting. We knew that there was sufficient means among our people in southern California to carry forward all the institutional work in that conference, but if they chose to keep it in the banks, to invest it in real estate, or to tie it up in farms, if they feared to trust it in our institutional work, then we should have great difficulty in securing funds.
He continued:
We knew there was a hard battle to fight at the Los Angeles camp meeting, a battle against indifference, distrust, fear, and selfishness, and we tried to make a thorough preparation.--28 WCW, p. 447.
Indeed, it was a thorough preparation that was made by Ellen White and her associates. It was planned that a series of lessons based on the Bible and the Spirit of Prophecy would be given, one each day during the camp meeting. The people must be made to see the importance of sanitarium work, and that in southern California special responsibilities rested on the Advent believers. To carry this through, some of the most telling Ellen G. White letters, together with related materials, were printed in tract form for distribution to every family. This accounts for the twenty-four-page Special Testimonies, Series B, No. 3, titled "Letters to Sanitarium Workers in Southern California." But instead of day-by-day studies, the presentations were crowded, because of a delay in printing the materials, into one three-hour meeting well along in the conference.
From day to day meetings of the conference business session were held. Ellen White seldom attended business meetings (as she wrote to her old friend Lucinda Hall, she thought that she was "old enough to be excused from such burdens [Letter 237, 1905]), but in this case she felt she should. Of this she said:
In some of the business meetings, I sat on the platform, that I might have an understanding of the questions that came up for consideration by the conference. I feared lest some action might be taken that would in the future bring about confusion.--Letter 263, 1905.
She wanted to sit where she "could hear the motions read" (Letter 237, 1905). At one point a resolution was introduced to "change the constitution in such a way that every church member might become a delegate to the conference meetings" (Letter 263, 1905).
She reports on that meeting:
When I saw that there was a likelihood of the motion being passed, I said, "Read that motion again, if you please." It was read. Then I said, "Such a motion as that was made years ago, and the matter was distinctly opened before me."--Letter 237, 1905.
She advised the congregation:
Such a move should not be made hastily. The delegates to our conferences should be chosen men of wisdom and capability, men whom the Lord may use to prevent rash movements. God has men of appointment, whom He has fitted to judge righteously.--Letter 263, 1905.
Then, referring to light given in early years, she continued:
It will be impossible for me to relate here all the instruction that was then given me, but I will say that the motion has never carried at any time, because it is not in harmony with the mind of the Lord.--Letter 237, 1905.
"The resolution," she wrote, "was finally laid on the table."--Letter 251, 1905.
She spoke six times in the large tent, at times to a packed tent of 2,000. And while some speakers found it difficult to make themselves heard by so large a crowd, the Lord gave her "strength to speak so that all could hear" (Letter 241a, 1905). "The Lord greatly sustained me in my work at the camp meeting," she wrote.--Letter 251, 1905.
At the close of the three-hour meeting when the Loma Linda project was presented, the people began to testify to their confidence in the work, and to tell of the money they had in the bank, which they would lend to the enterprise. Others promised to sell property and to invest the proceeds in sanitarium enterprises. By one o'clock the blackboard showed the responses:
Gifts subscribed on June 20 $1,100
Gifts subscribed today $1,000
Money offered at moderate interest $14,000
Property consecrated to be sold and the proceeds invested in sanitarium work $16,350
—28 WCW, p. 449.
The tide was turned in overwhelming favor of the sanitarium enterprises. Loma Linda would have full support.
This led the astonished conference president to comment in his report in the Pacific Union Recorder:
This liberality on the part of a willing membership, few of whom are well off in this world's goods, ought to stimulate confidence in our own conference and perhaps inspire other conferences to raise funds to liquidate all indebtedness.--September 14, 1905.
The August 26 payment of $5,000 was made on time, and a few days later the December 31 payment was also made. In fact, instead of taking three years to pay the second $20,000 of the purchase price, as allowed in the contract, it was taken care of within six months.
Reports J. A. Burden, who was so close to the enterprise:
The counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy had been confirmed. As we moved forward in faith, the Lord opened the way before us, and the money came from unexpected sources.--The Story of Our Health Message, 361.
A detailed account of God's continued providence in connection with Loma Linda cannot be included here. Fuller accounts are to be found in such works as The Story of Our Health Message, The Vision Bold, volume 3 of Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists, and the Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia.
Ellen White went to Loma Linda following the Los Angeles camp meeting; there she spent two weeks resting and writing. She was delighted with developments, noting particularly the canning of 7,000 quarts of fruit by a Brother Hansen, including apricots, plums, prunes, and other fruit, and a large amount of jelly.
While there she counted 109 Russian towels. She noted also the smaller linen towels, which she did not take time to count. She was "more and more pleased" with the place as she continued her inspection: feather pillows, excellent cotton mattresses, two hair mattresses, good Brussels carpets, thirty-five cotton and woolen blankets besides what was on the beds, about a dozen sofa cushions, washbowls of the most beautiful sort, and fine iron bedsteads (Letter 353, 1905).
Before returning home she spent a week at the Paradise Valley Sanitarium. Here she was met by the Sanitarium automobile. "I enjoy very much riding in the automobile," she reported.--Letter 263, 1905. She was pleased at developments there.
By the first of October Elder and Mrs. Burden were residing at Loma Linda, and within days patients were coming. But pressed hard to meet the needs of an opening institution, the staff found it necessary to postpone the dedication.
Dedication of Loma Linda Sanitarium
The dedication of Loma Linda was something Ellen White could not miss. Invited to give the dedicatory address, she made a trip south to meet the appointment and to attend, a week later, the dedication of the Paradise Valley Sanitarium. She, with her son W. C. White, Sara McEnterfer, her niece May Walling, and Clarence Crisler, reached Loma Linda on Friday afternoon April 13.
She was glad to arrive a few hours before the Sabbath began. She sometimes traveled on the Sabbath and sometimes arrived at her destination after the Sabbath had begun, but she said, "It is very painful to me to be arriving on the Sabbath."--Manuscript 123, 1906.
By the time the sun was setting over the orange groves, casting light on the snowcapped peaks beyond, Ellen White was comfortably settled in the "nine-room cottage," one of several on the eastern end of the Sanitarium grounds. She found the surroundings beautiful--the air filled with the fragrance of orange blossoms, the lawns green and flower gardens colorful, and the glow on Mount San Gorgonio a rich pink from the last light of the sun.
Sabbath morning in the Sanitarium parlor Ellen White gave a sermon on Second Peter. Sunday morning was spent looking over the property as guests came in from all over southern California for the dedication that afternoon. About 500 gathered in the chairs set up on the lawn under the pepper trees. Among the guests were "several physicians and other leading men from the surrounding cities." The speakers' platform was an improvised structure about three feet off the ground and covered overhead and in back by a striped canvas.
Ellen White made her way to the platform for her talk and took her seat beside Elder Haskell (Manuscript 123, 1906; see photo). When her turn came to speak, she stood, according to one of the few pictures of Ellen White in action, just to the left of the small table in the center of the platform. Part of the time she placed her right hand on the table, while she gestured with her left.
Her long, dark dress came within two or three inches of the platform floor. Her jacket, or the top part of the suit, was also long, coming well below her waist, but the buttons reached only to her waist. Her plain white collar was fastened with a simple brooch, and she was hatless, though several in the congregation and on the platform wore hats.
She was beginning to show her age, with a slight bulging at the waist. Her illnesses, along with her difficulties with her heart and hip, kept her from getting the exercise that she needed, so it is only natural that at her age she had become somewhat rotund.
In her talk she reviewed the providences of God in the purchase of Loma Linda, delineated the purposes of establishing sanitariums, and stressed the values of its then rural location in the treatment of the sick (The Review and Herald, June 21, 1906).
She would keep in close touch with Loma Linda, both by correspondence and by visits when these could be arranged. She urged that in its educational features nurses and physicians should be trained there. The training of physicians at Loma Linda was a phase of the work with which she would be involved in 1909 and 1910.
The Food Factory
The production of healthful foods would soon become a part of the Loma Linda program, in addition to canning fruit. Early in 1906 the manager, J. A. Burden, who was acquainted with food production at the St. Helena Sanitarium food factory, began to plan for such a work at Loma Linda. The logical place for such a factory as he saw it, was behind the main Sanitarium building, some 100 or 150 yards to the east. It would be a good-sized plant and produce foods the sale of which, he hoped, would provide profits that would reduce the indebtedness of the institution.
While in northern California, Ellen White received visions relating to the food business and the location of the factory. On May 6 she wrote a ten-page letter to Burden, putting matters in proper perspective:
I must write you words of counsel. I am instructed to say, Move guardedly, and be careful not to take upon yourself too many responsibilities. Your mind is to be left as free as possible from matters of secondary importance.
The Lord has instructed me that it would be a mistake for us to plan for the production of large quantities of health foods at Loma Linda, to be distributed through commercial channels. Loma Linda is a place that has been especially ordained of God to make a good impression upon the minds of many who have not had the light of present truth. Every phase of the work in this place, every movement made, should be so fully in harmony with the sacred character of present truth as to create a deep spiritual impression.
Everything connected with the institution at Loma Linda should, so far as possible, be unmingled with commercialism. Nothing should be allowed to come in that would in any wise lessen the favorable impression you are striving to make. If we manifest a genuine faith in eternal realities, this will have a far-reaching effect on the minds of others. We must allow nothing to hinder our efforts for the saving of souls. God requires us to leave impressions that will help awaken unbelievers to a realization of their duty. Let us use voice and pen in helping those who need clear discernment.
Many are now inquiring, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" We cannot answer this question satisfactorily by connecting with our sanitariums the production of health foods for commercial gain. By our example we are to leave upon the minds of our patients the impression that we are sustained and guided by the grace of God, and that we are keeping constantly in view the glory of God.
Then she wrote of the interesting way the matter was opened to her in the visions of the night:
I was shown a large building where many foods were made. There were also some smaller buildings near the bakery. As I stood by, I heard loud voices in dispute over the work that was being done. There was a lack of harmony among the workers, and confusion had come in.--Letter 140, 1906.
She then saw Elder Burden's distress, and his attempts to reason with the disputers to bring them into harmony. She saw patients, somewhat hidden by the shrubbery, who overheard these disputes, and who were "expressing words of regret that a food factory should be established on these beautiful grounds," so near the Sanitarium. "Then One appeared on the scene, and said, 'All this has been caused to pass before you as an object lesson, that you might see the result of carrying out certain plans.'"-- Ibid.
Ellen White then writes of how a contrasting view was given to her:
And then, lo, the whole scene changed. The bakery building was not where we had planned it, but at a distance from the Sanitarium buildings, on the road toward the railroad. It was a humble building, and a small work was carried on there. The commercial idea was lost sight of, and, in its stead, a strong spiritual influence pervaded the place. A suitable helper was given Brother Hansen at such times as he required help. The management of this small bakery did not bring a heavy responsibility upon Brother and Sister Burden. The patients were favorably impressed by what they saw.
She pointed out further:
We shall have a work to do at Loma Linda in supplying health foods, in a limited way, to the surrounding cities; but it has been presented to me that in the establishment of a large food factory, you would be disappointed in your expectations. The influences connected with its management would not make a favorable impression upon the people.-- Ibid.
With this counsel before him, it did not take long for Elder Burden and his associates to decide where to locate the bakery--on the road near the railway.