Chapter 15—Divine Rebuke for Ignoring Counsel
Introduction
One reason the fires were permitted was the proliferation and the
overdevelopment of institutions in Battle Creek; and the failure of the
church to reach out and establish new and viable centers of influence
in many places. The payment of excessive wages to a select few was
also displeasing to God.
Because of the weaknesses and shortcomings of institutional ad-
ministration in Battle Creek and Mountain View, divine providence
allowed these tragedies to occur.
The fires also revealed the fact that the institutions of the church
belonged to God Himself, and He intended that divine authority should
not be abrogated. The institutions must be operated according to the
divine pattern of instruction if success was to be achieved.
Message after message of warning and counsel was sent to the
leading workers pointing out the evils and the dangers. To Uriah
Smith, editor of the Review, Ellen White wrote in January, 1898:
“Christ sorrows and weeps over our churches, over our institutions
of learning, that have failed to meet the demand of God. He comes to
investigate in Battle Creek, which has been moving in the same track
as Jerusalem. The publishing house has been turned into desecrated
shrines, into places of unholy merchandise and traffic. It has become a
place where injustice and fraud have been carried on, where selfishness,
malice, envy, and passion have been borne sway. Yet the men who have
led into this working upon wrong principles are seemingly unconscious
of their wrong course of action. When warnings and entreaties come
to them, they say, Doth He not speak in parables? Words of warning
and reproof have been treated as idle tales.”—
Letter 31, 1898
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“We have no permission from the Lord,” wrote Ellen White, “to
engage either in the printing or in the sale of such publications; for
they are the means of destroying many souls. I know of what I am
writing, for this matter has been opened before me. Let not those who
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