584
Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
instead of Brother and Sister, and in popular amusements, in which
all could engage in a sort of comparatively innocent frolic—when I
saw these things, I said: This is not that which was shown me as an
institution for the sick which would share the signal blessing of God.
This is another thing.
And yet calculations for more extensive buildings were made, and
calls for large sums of money were urged. As it was then managed, I
could but regard the Institute, on the whole, as a curse. Although some
were benefited healthwise, the influence on the church at Battle Creek
and upon brethren and sisters who visited the Institute was so bad as to
overbalance all the good that was done; and this influence was reaching
churches in this and other states, and was terribly destructive to faith
in God and in the present truth. Several who came to Battle Creek
humble, devoted, confiding Christians, went away almost infidels. The
general influence of these things was creating prejudice against the
health reform in very many of the most humble, the most devoted, and
the best of our brethren, and was destroying faith in my Testimonies
and in the present truth.
It was this state of matters relative to the health reform and the
Health Institute, with which other things were brought to bear, that
made it my duty to speak as I did in Testimony No. 13. I well knew
that that would produce a reaction and trial in many minds. I also
knew that a reaction must come sooner or later, and, for the good
of the Institute and the cause generally, the sooner the better. Had
[635]
matters been moving in a wrong direction, to the injury of precious
souls and the cause generally, the sooner this could be checked, and
they be properly directed the better. The further the advance, the
greater the ruin, the greater the reaction, and the greater the general
discouragement. The misdirected work must have such a check; there
must be time to correct errors and start again in the right direction.
The good work wrought for the church at Battle Creek last fall,
the thorough reform and turning to the Lord by physicians, helpers,
and managers at the Health Institute, and the general agreement of our
brethren and sisters in all parts of the field relative to the great object
of the Health Institute and the manner it should be conducted, to which
is added the varied experience of more than one year, not only in the
wrong course, but also in a right direction, give me more confidence
that the health reform and the Health Institute will prove a success