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The Kellogg File
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Editor's Comments - This document contains the final interview of Dr. John H. Kellogg before his dismissal without trial from the SDA Church. At the time of the interview, Dr. Kellogg still believed in Mrs. White. However, the reader will find it of interest how Mrs. White was manipulated and used by church leaders to further their own political agendas. The reader will also find of interest how Mrs. White received the ammunition used in her testimonies from church leaders and not from "visions" of God. Because the document is lengthy, as an aid to our readers, we have highlighted certain sections dealing with Ellen White.
WARNING! One web site developed by Adventists warned, "the sophistries found in 'THE KELLOGG FILE' and like material can destroy your soul and the souls of any who 'study into them!'" Ellen White wrote, "Some have become infidels; the misrepresentations that Dr. Kellogg has made of the work that God has given me to do has made them infidels." (MR20 351) How could reading an interview with Dr. Kellogg result in the "destruction of your soul"? Could it make you an "infidel"? Are these statements true? Or are they "scare tactics" intended to frighten you away from knowing the truth? The answer will become abundantly clear as you read. The File presents a picture of overwhelming corruption, manipulation, and deceit practiced by church leaders, including Ellen White, and would certainly lead one to question whether this was indeed God's "remnant church".
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The early 1900’s were stormy years for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. This was a time of rapid growth and expansion not only in America but also overseas for the organization. There had been a recent re- organization of the General Conference in 1903 and the World Headquarters had been moved to Washington, D.C. During this same period of time there was a movement afoot for consolidation of power by the General Conference; however, there remained one final obstacle preventing the complete control of all aspects of the work. The Battle Creek Sanitarium in general and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in particular because of their prestige, influence and size became, as it were, the Sword of Damascus over the General Conference. The order of the day under A.G. Daniels, President of the General Conference became "Rule or Ruin." It is common knowledge among Adventists as to the fate of both the Battle Creek Sanitarium and Dr. Kellogg; however, little is known about the other side of the story. Much has been written and said about Dr. Kellogg and the turmoil surrounding Battle Creek at that time with most of this information being of a damaging and derogatory nature. The official version of this entire affair leaves one with the impression that Dr. Kellogg received more than fair and just treatment at their hands.
Fortunate for our generation an exact transcript was made of the final interview between two of the Elders of the Battle Creek Church and Dr. Kellogg. Now for the first time the reader has the opportunity to examine the other side of the controversy.
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Interview at Dr. J. H. Kellogg’s House.
October 7, 1907
Between Geo. W. Amadon, Eld. A. C. Bourdeau, and Dr. J. H. Kellogg.
(J. T. Case present taking notes from 8:20 to 9:00 A.M., when Mr. Ashley arrived and continued reporting.)
G. W. Amadon: Good morning Doctor. It may seem rather early in the morning for a couple of old gentlemen like us to wake you up.
J. H. Kellogg: I stopped my work soon after 1 o’clock, I got three hour’s sleep, then I was awake and working.
A. C. Bourdeau: I think you have a very fine location here. I think of you when you were a young man, -- when you were a scribe for Bro. Little-john. I was pleased to hear just a few words by the Lady who opened the door for us. She said, "Papa will come soon." That indicates that you have a family here, and you have probably a large family. It is a blessing to know that you have such a family.
G. W. Amadon: I don’t know which one of your daughters it was. She was a young lady, eighteen, I suppose; fine appearing, which came to the door.
J. H. Kellogg: I think it was my daughter Bessie -- I think about twenty-four or twenty-five years old. She has two children. She has been married eight years. I guess it is generally known that Mrs. Kellogg and I have quite a good sized family.
A. C. Bourdeau: Yes, it has been known for many years.
J. H. Kellogg: The Lord did not bless us with any children or our own, so we gathered up little waifs whom we thought would be neglected and would not be cared for unless we brought them into our family.
A. C. Bourdeau: We have at my house Oscar Bigueliu’s wife, who was examined by you lately. She has tuberculosis. She is very low. We are trying to help her. He is working for the Sanitarium and has been for some years. I induced him to, I think. I believe he is a faithful worker. She is a Swiss worker. It is very difficult to get help at reasonable rates to care for her. I am going to inquire about help and see what I can find.
J. H. Kellogg: There is no particular danger in caring for these patients if proper precautions are taken. We have a lady at our house who came a little while ago. Of course she could not come into the Sanitarium, since our rules prohibit us from taking into the Sanitarium patients suffering from contagious diseases, but we put her into a tent here on my grounds. We supplied her with food from our table and took care of her in a tent. I do not think there would be any great danger to the family if we would bring her into the family.
A. C. Bourdeau: We have been very careful while waiting on her, because she has a cough.
J. H. Kellogg: This lady has a cough, too, but these patients are not
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dangerous if the sputum is properly taken care of. I think the disease is more often communicated through the stomach than through the lungs. The patient who was in this tent just before the present lady was a missionary nurse who had just returned from China.
A. C. Bourdeau: It would be difficult for a lady as aged as my wife -- sixty-eight -- to care for this patient and do our work; but the Lord has kept us until now, and we are going to try to live just as long as the Lord will have us live.
J. H. Kellogg: I would think that this brother ought to be able to provide some one to give proper care to his wife.
A. C. Bourdeau: We are going to see what we can do. I just introduced the matter to him yesterday. He says people are afraid to wait on her. She has a little baby. If it could be taken care of (it is seven months old) I think it would be better. I do not think it is proper to take care of a little baby there at the present time. The patient is quite low. We hope to have her up today for a half hour at a time. She has not been dressed for a week.
J. H. Kellogg: She ought to breathe fresh air all the time.
A. C. Bourdeau: We have all the ventilation possible. (Slight pause) We came in to see you this morning, and we are quite anxious to know just exactly where you stand. Yet we know in a certain sense where you stand, and it is pleasing to know. I have had pleasant interviews with others, and you have expressed to Rodney a desire to see me and to talk with me in regard to the situation in regard to the Sanitarium and in regard to other matters, and he said that you would be glad to see me and talk with me. I thought I would have Bro. Amadon, who has known you for many years, come with me. We are here together. The situation is rather peculiar at the present time, We do not know what is coming, and yet we are anxious that the Lord will manage everything right and help us to move right all round.
G. W. Amadon: Yesterday, and I might say every week, Doctor, we have a meeting of the elders, -- the pastor, Bro. Bourdeau when he is here, although he is not officially one of the elders of the church, Bro. Foy, Bro. Sevy, and myself. At our meeting yesterday we learned from Bro. Foy the particulars concerning his separation from the Sanitarium. We have heard something about this for some time. In the conversation we had yesterday he mentioned that he had quite an interview with you about his connection with the Sanitarium, and that you were not very well pleased with him because of his attachment to the Tabernacle people, and so he and we felt a little bit surprised, because I guess we all regarded Bro. Foy as one of the very best men that you have at the Sanitarium -- that is, to look after the spiritual interests of young people, and older ones. But that is none of our business, one way or the other. We were surprised, -- I was anyhow. But it is all right, and I guess he feels so. And in the course of the conversation he mentioned about your connection with the work, and he said you remarked that you did not think that you would withdraw from the church, but that you would be rather pleased to have the church drop your name. So we thought Bro. Bourdeau and I would come together and see you, and see whether we had got that straight or not. Nothing under this broad heaven would please us more, Bro. Kellogg, than to have you come down to the Tabernacle and say to us and to some of our
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leading brethren that you in what the Lord has said, and that you have had a wrong view of things, and you want to be in harmony with this people and retract wherein you may have stepped aside -- (and who is there who does not step aside) so there can be union and love on the right basis, as in former times, when God used you in a very eminent sense as His truly beloved physician. I do not believe that that condition of things obtains just now. I say nothing under heaven would please us more than to have an action like that. So you see how we feel. I presume Bro. Bourdeau would be glad to go right down and take a pan and a napkin and wash your feet. There is nothing personal between you and me. You have worked many years in the Review Office, where there with me we have had our trials and toils together, and now you have come along in another branch of the work. But we feel that everything is not right up there on the hill, and of course we hold you very largely responsible for the present status of things. But we have come particularly to see about that point that Pro. Foy mentioned to us. We may have got that wrong, or he may have expressed more than you would have liked to have him express.
J. H. Kellogg: Speaking of Bro. Bourdeau's statement that I desired to see him, or was willing to talk with him, several statements were repeated to me which it was said Bro. Bourdeau had made, and I said, He is in error in relation to these matters, and if he will come to me I shall be very glad to explain to him where he is in error; that I would be very glad to talk with him at any time with reference to myself, or the Sanitarium, or my position, or the situation, and give him the facts. Now with reference to Bro. Foy: He is, as you say, a man whose conduct has been very circumspect, and he has been a very useful man about the Sanitarium. During the last two years I have heard very often that he was doing various things which were not for the good of the institution as an institution, that were not promotive of harmony and peace; saying things in public which, when approached in private with reference to the matter he did not seem prepared to back up at all. I have frequently heard these things, and they have been brought before the board. I have always taken the position that Bro. Foy was a Godly man, and a man whose influence we wanted there, and that even if he had some misunderstanding about things, and took some positions not in harmony with the facts, nevertheless, because of his Godly life and his correct character and good influence, we could afford to keep him. I said I thought he was a God-fearing man and that the Lord would keep him from doing any very serious harm. So it went on for about two years in this way. About a year ago last April Bro. Foy tendered his resignation, and it came before the Board. His resignation was to take effect the first of April, and it was accepted; and since that time it has been a matter of actual uncertainty as to what he would do, because his resignation was there, and accepted, and had never been reemployed. He was taking his wages, but it was uncertain what the situation was, -- whether he expected to withdraw, according to his own proposition, or not.
A. C. Bourdeau: He told me about his resignation at the time, and I advised him to continue as long as his wife was there at work. It seemed better not to have it appear as a separation. I said when he mentioned it in my hearing that he thought of leaving that I thought it seemed strange that he should leave, and then leave his wife there to work, and he be called, perhaps, to go a long distance to find work. It seemed rather strange to me to have him do that way. In my case, I would cling to my wife if I could.
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J.H. Kellogg: I was going to say, sometime ago a committee called upon Bro. Foy to ascertain what his mind was. The matter came up before the Board again and I was appointed a committee to call on him. I thought perhaps some of the things heard were not correct and I thought we should not take action without seeing him personally. So one of our members called upon him and had a talk with him, and told him that we were trying very hard to maintain the Sanitarium standards, that the Board had made no change in its attitude toward Sanitarium work of the truth; that the institution stood for all of these principles unanimous, but desired to keep the institution where it has always stood, and maintain its religious atmosphere where it has always been, and was standing, and had been standing all along for what we have always stood for as a Sanitarium Board. We told him we would like very much to have his help in holding up our standards, especially the spiritual or religious work of the institution; that he had no confidence in it or sympathy for it, and be did not feel that he could do anything of the sort. So I had a talk with him myself, and I asked him to tell me why he could not help us in holding up the spiritual standards of the institution. The immediate occasion of my interview with him was a remark that I heard he had dropped that I thought I would see him about. He did not give me any good reason, only he said that he had no confidence at all in the religious standing of the Sanitarium or its work. I asked him why. Well, he said, he could not explain very well, but the Lord had spoken, and the General Conference brethren were not in sympathy with the Sanitarium, and he thought that was sufficient; he had confidence in the leaders; and had read the various publications that had been printed over Sister White’s signature; and he believed all of them as being from the Lord; and could not have any confidence in the institution. I then asked him if, under these circumstances, he thought it would be consistent for him to be working in connection with a work in which he had no confidence and which he did not approve of, and which he felt it his duty to combat and work against. I asked him if he did not think it would be the proper thing, either to take hold and help us maintain the spiritual and moral standards of the institution; or, if it was so bad he could not do that, if it would not be proper to connect with some work in which he did have confidence, He said he was simply here to earn his pay. He was working for the Sanitarium to earn his pay, just as you work for a Roman Catholic institution or any other similar institution. He said, "You do that." I said, No, indeed. I would not spend my life and energy just for pay for anything. I would not saw wood for the devil at any price. Then he said, You want me to leave the institution? I said, No, I would not ask you to leave it. You are not discharged. A man who has been here as long as you have, and has been as faithful as you have been, would not be kicked out of the institution for anything. This is the only conversation I had with him at all. He said, Do you want me to leave at once? I said, I have not asked you to leave at all. It is a matter for you to decide. I have only asked if you think it is consistent for you to continue connected with a work which you feel it is your duty to oppose and antagonize; when you believe, as you say, that the things which have been published over Sister White’s name with reference to this institution, and widely circulated, are true. He said, I believe these things to be true; and what God says to be true though every man a liar. I said, Do you mean to say that I and my associates are liars when we say things have been published which have not been shown to us to be true and which we do not know anything about and do not consider them as being true, but rather a misrepresentation of the truth? -- Do you mean to say when we say that that we are liars? He said, I mean what you say. I said, Well, I have nothing further to say
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with reference to the matter, -- with reference to your going away or >staying here. This is a matter for your own consideration. If you find it consistent to remain here in your present state of mind, it seems to me a different state of mind from what I should be in. Anything I could not work for, support, or have confidence in, I would not care to be spending life and energy in connection with. And so the matter was left. He intimated to me when he went out of the room that he should probably be leaving in about a week. He shook hands, said good-bye, and went away. Now I do not know whether he is going to leave or not. He said good-bye and left the room, and that is all the intimation I have that he intends to leave.
A. C. Bourdeau: So you didn’t turn him off?
J. H. Kellogg: He has never been discharged, but he is not on the payroll regularly. He has simply been paid along week after week. He had not been discharged, and he has not been asked to go away. He was invited to assist in holding up the moral and spiritual standards of the institution, and he said he could not do it. I told him I thought his position was very inconsistent.
G. W. Amadon: This is not the way it was presented to the Board of Elders.
J. H. Kellogg: It is very difficult to repeat the conversation just as it was, but I have given you the correct impression, I think, as nearly as I can.
G. W. Amadon: There is nothing very important on that point, only, as I said a few minutes ago, that it was a surprise to me that a man of his moral worth (I am not saying he is not a peculiar man.) and integrity should be dismissed as I supposed, from his words; but I see from the way you state it that there is a little difference of opinion there, -- a little difference.
J. H. Kellogg: It is simply this; he tendered his resignation. He has never withdrawn it. His resignation was accepted.
A. C. Bourdeau: I told him to work faithfully, as his wife was there, and I would rather hesitate to leave under those circumstances.
J. H. Kellogg: I don’t see why it should make any difference on that account. If he feels that the Lord has instructed him to cut loose he ought to cut loose. Lot was instructed to cut loose from Sodom, and he would have gone anyhow.
G. W. Amadon: In reference to the third point, in regard to your connection with the church here, with the congregation, is that right? He reported to us that you said you should not withdraw from the church. Others have withdrawn from the church -- your brother, Gibson, Moses Kellogg, and others. He did not intimate that you referred to those cases, but he said you stated you would be glad if the church would just remove your name from the list.
J. H. Kellogg: Did he tell you that?
G. W. Amadon: Not word for word, but the thought.
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A. C. Bourdeau: He said that you said the same as to say you would like it, or would be pleased or satisfied to have your name dropped.
G. W. Amadon: He said if you were disconnected you would not find fault, and that is one object of our early visit this morning. We thought, Bro. Bourdeau and I, that having known you so long, and having been intimately connected with you in the direct work, so that it was a kind of proper thing, he being a minister and I being an elder of the church, to come and find that out.
A. C. Bourdeau: So far as I am concerned, I know I have been dealt with as well as anybody could be dealt with by the institution from the very first.
J. H. Kellogg: I might say that this is the first official visit I have ever had from anybody connected with the Battle Creek Church. This is the first time that the church officers have ever called upon me with reference to my standing in the church. I am, I think, the only surviving member of the original Battle Creek Church. The Church was disbanded, with the exception of thirteen members, in 1870.
G. W. Amadon: You refer to that?
J. H. Kellogg: I was about four years old when I came to Battle Creek, and there was no organized church at that time, simply a small company. Now the church later got into trouble here, and the church was disorganized. The members were asked to withdraw, and they did so, that they might reorganize. Bro. White had a little campaign against Bro. Amadon, Bro. Smith and others. There were thirteen persons left in the church, and I was one of them. I think I am the oldest member and have been in good standing longer than any other member of this church.
G. W. Amadon: Bro. and Sister White, and Willie, were among the thirteen.
J. H. Kellogg: O yes, I had forgotten them. Yes, that is so. It was a funny job.
G. W. Amadon: The tail-board of the cart was pulled out and the contents were dumped, and you were so fortunate as to escape being dumped.
J. H. Kellogg: I considered myself unfortunate in being left in the cart. The process left in a few old standbys to hold the fort, who were ready to do whatever the Elder asked them to do, and they held a regular court down there, -- Andrews, Waggoner -- and I was the clerk. I was not left in the church because I was so good, but because they wanted somebody for clerk. It was purely machine politics. I had to sit there and make a record as they brought the cases up -- "Well, Sister so-and-so, we have heard that you are not as strict in the discipline of Willie as a mother ought to be," etc. etc. "And now Bro. Jones, we have heard that you are not as careful as you ought to be on the question of health reform." I had to take this all down and write it out. There is a book full of this somewhere.
G. W. Amadon: I guess it was burned up in the fire, and I am glad of it.
J. H. Kellogg: I was going to remark concerning what I said to Bro. Foy
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with reference to being connected with the church. Bro. Foy said, "I do not have any confidence in your position." "Well," I said, "Bro. Foy, "what is my position? What is there about my position with which you disagree?" "Well," he said, "I do not know." I asked, "What is there about my belief that you disagree with?" He replied, "Well, I do not know, but you are not in harmony with the conference." I said, "I do not know why the conference should disagree with my belief. If they would sit down and talk with me I presume they would find out there is no occasion for disagreement at all. I have long invited them to come and have a talk with me but they have never come." "Well, but the Lord has said it," he replied. Now there it is, I said I have done all I could do that the Lord has asked me to do, that Sister White has said the Lord has asked me to do. What I meant by that remark was this; In the first place, at Berrien Springs, Bro. Daniells, Prescott, and others who were in a hostile attitude towards me received a letter from Sister White in which they were instructed to come to me and hold out the right hand of fellowship to me and to W. K. Kellogg, and to make no conditions. They never came.
See Mr. Ashley’s notes for continuation.
State of Michigan
SS.
County of Calhoun
Before me, Lycurgus Mccoy, a Notary Public in and for the said County and State, personally appeared Roy V. Ashley, who upon oath declared the document to which this affidavit is attached, being a stenographic report of an interview between Dr. J. H. Kellogg and Geo. W. Amadon, and A. C. Bourdeau, held at the house of Dr. John H. Kellogg, 202 Manchester St., Battle Creek, Michigan, on the 7th day of October, 1907, and reported stenographically by Roy V. Ashley, from pages 12 to 167 inclusive is a true and correct report of said interview.
(Signed) Roy V. Ashley
Subscribed and sworn to before me by Roy V. Ashley this 30th day of December, 1907.
(Signed) Lycurgus Mccoy
Notary Public
Between Dr. J. H. Kellogg, and Eld. G. W. Amadon and Eld A. C. Bourdeau
at Dr. Kellogg’s Residence,
202 Manchester St.,
Battle Creek, Michigan,
Monday, October 7, 1907, 8:00 A.M.
Until 9:00 A.M. the interview was reported by Dr. J. T. Case. This report >covers the interview from 9:00 A.M. until the close, at 4:30 P.M.
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Dr. Kellogg speaking: They never came. I waited on the ground for several days until I was compelled to go home to perform surgical operations, and I waited until the very last minute and the very last train and then hired a conveyance to hurry me to the depot, to give them every opportunity. They never came. They made no overtures of any sort whatever. I then thought that possibly in the light of what Sister White had written, it was my duty to go to them, and felt that possibly I ought to have done so before leaving the ground. So I went to the telephone and spent about two hours at the telephone in telephoning to the brethren, to Brother Butler, to Sister Druillard, and to others there begging that they would come down here and let us sit down and talk our differences all over; and I sent them the message that if they would come, I believed we could settle all our difficulties in half an hour; that we were ready to make every concession that could possibly be made. And they declined to come. They had different appointments. One had an appointment here, another there. Prof. Prescott, however, dropped off on his way through going east and came up with Elder Evans and sat down and had a little talk with me; and in talking matters over he made several statements which I felt were not true, which I knew were untrue, which I proved right on the spot were untrue; and I told him how I looked at it, and I felt that they were not only untrue but that he was consciously telling what was not true, for it was so preposterous, so absurd that it could not be true.
G. W. Amadon: You mean to say he knew what he was telling?
Dr. Kellogg: I mean to say he knew he was not telling the truth, and when I put it straight to him he was completely dumbfounded; he could not say a word; he could not raise a question. And I am willing to tell you what that was because that concerns the very first thing that I am charged with doing -- when the "Living Temple" was published in the first place.
A. C. Bourdeau: I read every word of that "Living Temple" and some parts of it several times over.
Dr. Kellogg: Well, it has been read quite a little, I expect, some parts of it particularly. Now, in preparing that "Living Temple" I did it in harmony with a plan prepared by Prof. Prescott and myself, in harmony with Sister White, -- to prepare an educational campaign for Seventh-day Adventists on questions of health, and I had not given very much attention to the Biblical point of it, but Prof. Prescott had been up here teaching a good deal from the Bible standpoint and some of our doctors and nurses had been in his classes considerably, so they were assisting me in preparing the book. This book was to be the textbook of the campaign, so I did my best to write that book as I thought in harmony with the teaching that Prof. Prescott was giving here at the Sanitarium and in the "Review". I introduced here and there a suggestion by one of my assistants who was helping me. She would suggest a text here and there and tell me what Prof. Prescott had taught with reference to that, show me the reference, show me what he was writing about it, and I Incorporated a number of things in that way into the book that seemed to be in harmony with what I believe; so I endeavored to make this book as I thought, such a book that Prof. Prescott and others would present the view as he held and as I held; for I agreed with him in the main on the principles, and I did not notice anything I did not believe and introduced a number of texts which I supposed to be corroborative of the views I was presenting and certainly they were quite in harmony with what he was publishing in the Review, although I did
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not go quite to the extreme length that he did. He was teaching here, -- for instance, he took a piece of bread and held it up, -- "Do you believe that this is the body of Christ? This is the body of Christ. This is the body of Christ, I say, this is the body of Christ." Now, Dr. Case, you heard him say that?
Dr. Case: He said every meal should be a sacrament; we were eating the body of Christ and drinking His blood.
Dr. Kellogg: Yes.
A. C. Bourdeau: That is the way the Catholics teach, too.
Dr. Kellogg: He held that and you can read it in the Review.
A. C. Bourdeau: Does he hold to those views now?
Dr. Kellogg: He never had said he did not. He never has said a word in the Review or in public. When I had a private talk with him after my book was condemned, -- I had a conference with him at that time and he would not admit to me he had changed, one atom, that he had changed a particle, and I don’t believe he has. When I was writing the book, I prepared it in this way and supposed there would be perfect harmony about it. I had no particular interest in that doctrine at all, and never did have. I think he took rather extreme grounds, and still I did not know but in a certain sense it might be considered true -- in a certain sense; in a certain sense I thought it might be true, and he had been preaching it for some time, and I had heard no dissent from it. Sister White, Elder Daniells and others at that time had made no dissent from it, and he had been preaching it right in the Tabernacle, he had preached it at that very conference of 1901 and Sister White was there and there was no dissent from it.
The views I put into the book I gave right at the conference and they were published in the Bulletin; and I preached around at camp-meetings, and there had never been any dissent on the part of the leading brethren from anything I had taught. I had presented my views on the Living Temple at a meeting at the Sanitarium chapel. We had a meeting there on the question of healing the sick, and I presented my views with reference to the healing of the sick, and I presented the very views that I presented in Living Temple. Afterwards Sister White read the report of what I said there, and she said, "That is right." That was told me right here in the house of Sister Druillard, or Sister Maggie Hare, or Sister McEnterfer, and I think Sister White herself told me the views I presented there were right. I supposed she had reference to the views I presented with reference to healing the sick, and that was so interwoven with my views with reference to the universal presence of God and of His power working in the body that I did not see how one could be true without the other. It was all based on that one thing.
The view I gave there was that whenever a man was sick and gets well, it is God that heals him; there is no power to heal but Divine power; and the healing of the sick is always Divine healing; that God may work quickly, or He may work slowly; that healing power is creative power; end nothing less than creative power can heal the sick man.
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Well, now, those are the conditions under which the book was gotten out. But I might state further that Prof. Prescott was one of the committee who was to look over the book, and he went over it and gave me his written report on it. I had his criticism and in this written criticism of the book, he did not condemn any of the things which he has since condemned.
Dr. Case: It was six and a half pages of typewritten manuscript.
Dr. Kellogg: It was six and a half pages of typewritten manuscript, and not a word said about anything in it for which the book is now denounced - nothing of that kind at all. I have that criticism on file, you know. Then, after I came home from Europe, I found I was under condemnation, and I was condemned at that time because I did not endorse the financial policy of the General Conference. They had adopted a financial policy that no institution should go in debt. They had gone further and said it was wicked for a man to go in debt, and that that text of the Apostle, "Owe no man anything" referred to money, and they took that stand very strongly, made the strongest kind of argument they could, and held me under condemnation because I could not, -- would not endorse that financial policy. I said to them, "You cannot stick to it a year if you try; it is impossible, and it is not right. If you can get some of the devil’s money to use for the Lord's work, if you have to borrow it it is all right; and carry on the work. If you could borrow some money and save somebody’s life, it is a proper thing to do," and I did not take any such position as they did, and I would not. This whole American delegation appeared in London, and that is where the policy was hatched -- in London over night, and it was sprung on me the next day unexpectedly, and I told them what I thought about it, -- that it was fanaticism, unsound, and they never would follow it out if they adopted it; but they did not endorse this and they started a campaign on that basis.
Of course, since that time they have entirely departed from it. I saw a notice in the last report of the Washington Sanitarium, of $2,500 interest, which means a $50,000 debt. They are making new debts, and through, the Review are calling upon the brethren to loan them money; and it is well enough known by everybody that they abandoned that policy although for a long time they did it in a very still kind of way.
When I found the book was condemned, as soon as the book was printed, or rather as soon as it was set up ready to print, I held it in plates for a year nearly, waiting to see what would come out of all this discussion; and when the book was finally condemned by Prescott and others openly, I sent a copy of it as soon as it was printed, before I put it into general wide circulation. I sent a copy to Sister White -- two copies, one to Sarah and one to Sister White. I sent them both to Sarah to give one to Sister White; and Sarah wrote back after that about six weeks -- this was in the spring just after the Oakland (1903) Conference -- she said, "I put a copy of the book on the table in Sister White’s room. For several days she did not look at it. For the last two or three weeks she has been reading it, and she tells me that she is going to read it through, and that she finds it a very different book from what she supposed it was." Sarah wrote me that for Sister White. Sister White did not ask her to write to me, but she wrote it. I sent this book to Sister White and Sarah acknowledged it, said that she had given the book to Sister White and
Sister White was reading it, and Sister White said about it that she was
going to read it through and that she found it a very
different book from
what she had expected it to be. I had that letter from
Sarah in May or
June. Sarah said, "I have read much in it and I find
it a very excellent
book, and I hope it will have a large sale and do a great
deal of good."
So I inferred from that that Sarah had not received any
very unfavorable
impression of it from Sister White and that Sister White
herself had formed a more favorable impression of the book than what she
had supposed it
was from what she heard. That is what Sarah (McEnterfer)
wrote me.
I waited then for Sister White to have a chance to
finish reading the
book, and to see what her criticism would be; so I held
the book in and
did not set it in circulation until fall. And at that
time, along in
October, some months after I sent her the book, I sent out
copies to the
presidents of Union Conferences and asked them to look the
book over and
see what they thought of it, and if they wanted to use it
to help us in
paying the Sanitarium, paying off our debts, and helping
along other
Sanitarium
enterprises. And I had back several very favorable letters.
In doing that, I was acting in harmony with the
agreement that W. C.
White and the Union Conference presidents made at a
special meeting called
for the purpose at the time of the Council which was held
the fall before.
It was agreed there that we should get out the book and
the Union Conference presidents would decide for themselves whether they
would sell it or
not. We were to
publish it, and the responsibility was put on every Union
Conference president to decide for himself. In accordance
with that
agreement, I sent the book around for them to look at.
I never received one line from Sister White
condemning the book or
giving me any hint against it, -- never received one line
from her hinting
to me that I was teaching wrong doctrines, although I had
been teaching
those doctrines for fifteen years or more, -- never had
received a line
from her that those doctrines were wrong in any
particular. They had been
published in the "Bulletin" repeatedly, and
published in at least one
"Week of Prayer Reading," and I never received a
hint that any of them
were wrong; and I never did until that article appeared in
the "Review"
although I sent the book to her for her on special opinion
and waited six
months before putting it into general circulation. Still I
never got any
private reproof from her about it, or any letter at all;
and about the
first thing that appeared was this article in the
"Review."
Now I saw that article a day or two before it was printed in the "Review." It was not sent to me, but I happened to be in Washington, and some of the brethren there had a copy of it, and let me read it; otherwise I should not have seen it at all before it was printed in the "Review." But she did not intend to have it printed in the "Review." I know that. It was done by a trick. I am personally knowing to all the facts about it. She never sent it for publication in the "Review." She only sent it for the private information of those brethren, and it would not have been printed in the "Review" if it had not been for a trick on the part of Prof. Prescott. They telegraphed to Sister White that there was a great crisis, and it must be published. They sent her a telegram, and she consented to it on that.
Now there was no great crisis at all; it was an absolute falsehood. This paper was read before the Council in Washington. I arose before that Council and the whole Conference, and with tears running down my face, I
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said, "I receive what has been said about this thing as from the Lord, and I will withdraw the book from circulation at once." The fact that I did not understand it all -- I could not understand it all; but I said, "I see it is evident that the Lord does not want the book circulated; and I shall telegraph immediately to have the book withdrawn from circulation, packed up in boxes, and stopped." I did that thing at once. I telegraphed for the books to be boxed up and put in the basement of the College, and there they are now. There they are now. But that is a very different story from what is being circulated about the thing. I am telling you these facts because I want you to know them.
Now I went to Prof. Prescott after this public meeting down here, and I said to him, "Prof. Prescott, what is the trouble? What is the difficulty?" I had a private talk with him. I said, "I have written that book, as I supposed, in harmony with what you and I believe, and what was generally believed, and just what I have been teaching for many, many years; and if I have made any mistakes in expression, I am willing to withdraw them."
I might say that at the Council held here the fall before, I asked the chairman to appoint a committee and let the committee revise this book, and whatever they found in it that is wrong, we would take it out. I said, "Anything that is not in harmony with the Bible and with the teaching of the denomination, I will take out of the book if you will point it out to me." Now that is on record. You can find it there. I offered to do it at the very beginning, before the book was printed and after it was printed; and sent it to Mrs. White for her consideration, but did not get a word of fault found with it.
After it was printed and condemned, I said, "Very well, I will withdraw it from circulation, and pack it up." I saw Prof. Prescott, and I said, "What is the matter with the book? I thought this book was entirely in harmony with what you have been teaching," and I said to him, "You sent me your written criticism, and you did not point out any such things in the book in your written criticism, and I could not help but feel that your attitude toward the book was a part of a campaign to bring me into subjection, to hinder me in my work at the Sanitarium; I could not help but feel that way." I said, "Now I want you to tell me what the trouble is."
I said, "This life that is in me and in all living things, if that is not Divine life, what is it? Can there be one life for one thing and another life for another thing?" He said, "Of course, there is only one life; it is God’s life." I said, "Of course, all life is God’s life, and it is the only life there is." "Well," he said, "It is the method of teaching it; it is the teaching of it." I said, "Tell me how to teach it, then, if I have not taught it right; I am willing to be instructed." He said, "I do not know whether I could tell you how to teach it, but I can teach it myself."
Then I said, "Prof. Prescott, you take this book of mine and revise it; go through it from one end to the other; and you make a cross on the margin and you underscore anything you think is wrong in this book, and I will take it out." I said, "We need to use that book, because it is part of our means of raising money, and we need $50,000 before the first of the year, and do not have any other means of getting it that I know of, and I
want to fix this thing up as quick as I can and get it out." Prof. Prescott said, "I do not want to be a censor." "Well," I Said, "I request you to do it, and you do not need to make any argument about it, but simply check on the book margin everything that is wrongly stated, and I will simply take it out." And be said, "I will do it." Finally his lips quivered and he turned his face away, and I was talking to him with the tears running down my face and appealing to him to show me what the trouble was, where I differed from him; and from what we have been doing all the time; and he finally broke down, and his lips quivered, and he said, "I will do it." And he said, "There ought to be somebody else to look it over also." "Whom do you suggest?" He said, "I think Elder Haskell will be a good man." I said, "All right, I will go and see him."
I said, "When can you send it?" He said, "I will mail it to you Sunday." I said, "I will get a copy for you." He said, "No, I have a copy." I said, "Here is a dollar bill; you send it by letter postage with special delivery, for I want to get it as quickly as possible, and here is a dollar to pay the postage." He declined to take the dollar bill. He said, "No, you make it all the harder for me." So I put the dollar bill back into my pocket.
I went up to see Elder Haskell, and he agreed to do the same thing. Now, Prof. Magan remained behind in Washington, and he afterwards told me, "Prof Prescott won’t do that. He is not going to revise that book and send it to you." I said, "He said he would." "Well, but," he said, "He won’t, because I heard he told Elder Daniells he was going to do it, and I heard Elder Daniells say at once, ‘You ought not to do that.’" So he said, "Elder Daniells is going after him and telling him he must not do it and he won’t do it." I said, "Oh, but he promised me he would, and he certainly will do it."
I waited until Sunday and it did not come; and Monday came a postal card saying, "I did not get it finished, and was not able to get it off;" and the next day I got a letter saying that he was not going to do it at all. He advised that the book should not be printed. The next thing I noticed was an article in the "Review."
Of course, when I got home I announced to our friends that everything was going to be settled up, that Prof. Prescott was going to revise the book, take out all the bad doctrine in it, and we were going to put things straight and were going on all right, and the difficulties were over. I told them we had accepted the testimonies that had come; and surrendered the things, and we were going ahead to do the best we could, and going on in harmony. I told them down there that I was willing to work under the smallest conference in the world, that they might put any doctor over me they wanted to. I made up my mind I would trust the Lord to take care of me and I would do anything they said.
Elder Bourdeau: You had revised the book as well, had you?
Dr. Kellogg: I then found Prof. Prescott would not revise it. After a few days I got a letter from Haskell saying he would send a few suggestions. I guess he sent a few suggestions. Then I wrote to Will, told Will White the story, and I said, "I propose to take out of the book certain pages which contain the matter which has been objected to, and to change the name of it to ‘The Miracle of Life,’ and now I want to know
what your mother thinks about that." And I wrote her a letter and told her that I accepted what she had written with reference to the book as a message from the Lord, and had stopped the sale of the book.
Will wrote me back that what I suggested to him seemed to him to be all right, and he said, "I will speak to Mother about it, and if you do not hear anything to the contrary, go ahead." I never heard a word to the contrary. So I went ahead. In fact, I felt so sure that if I took out everything that was complained of that they would find no fault with it, that I sent out a little circular. I had ordered the circular sent out before, and had got the report from it. Brother Jones said, "Of course, if you take that all out they cannot find any fault with it." We were getting it out for Christmas, for the Christmas trade, so this circular was sent out three or four days before I got the letter from Will; but I got the letter from him saying to go ahead, and if his mother had any objections he would let me know. He did not send any objections, and the thing went on.
Now with reference to Prof. Prescott, the situation was this: that it got out and got around that Prof. Prescott was going to revise the book just as he said he would, and Elder Daniells came in and talked to him, and told him he must not do it; so he was in a tight fix, so he had to say something, because that made it appear as though this difficulty which they had themselves created for the purpose of bringing us into subjection to them -- that that difficulty was going to be healed up, and they would not have it healed up for anything. The last thing in the world they wanted to have done was to have the thing healed up because they wanted to keep this thing going until the Sanitarium was crushed, so that they might bring the medical work into subjection to them. That is what their whole campaign was planned for. Elder Daniells told Prof. Sutherland after the first council meeting we had here, "We made a mistake in attacking the theology of the book." It was evident that they thought they made a mistake in doing that thing. Now Prof. Prescott came out with an article in the "Review" saying it had been rumored the General Conference was going to revise the book; that no such thing was going to be done, and no such thing had been contemplated. He put it in stronger terms than that. Now I said to Prof. Prescott, "How could you publish such a thing as that in the "Review" when it was not the truth; when you promised me you would do it?" He said, "I never agreed to revise the book; I only agreed to make a report on it." I said, "Prof. Prescott, was it necessary for me to offer you a dollar bill to pay the postage on a letter? You remember I offered you a dollar bill?" "Yes." "Well, now, was it necessary for me to offer you that dollar bill to pay the two cent postage on a letter?" He was confounded. He could not say a word. Now, I had that conference as a reply to my request to the brethren to come to Battle Creek. I might say, Elder Evans was present at that interview and I afterwards said to Elder Evans, "You saw Prof. Prescott’s attitude when I asked him about the dollar bill, -- he could not say a word?" He said, "Well, it was evident he was in a hard place." And others that were there -- Dr. Reed was there, and I think Brother Butler, and they saw right away. H. G. Butler was there.
Now, I begged them to come here; but they did not come; but W. C. White stayed a day or two behind at Berrien Springs. I wrote him and begged him to come over here so I could have a talk with him. He came over. "Now," I said, "Will, what is the use in fermenting this thing, this war-
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fare, this difficulty and making these things worse all the time? What is the use in it? I don’t believe these things that are charged to me. I am not a pantheist; and I don’t believe in pantheism. Now, you heard what I said at Berrien Springs, -- I got up and made a public statement that if there was anything in what I had written on this question, that so-called pantheism, that I would retract it and denounce it as being untrue. I said that what I believe is just what Sister White had written in the "Review" and in her books; and if anything I had written had given a different impression from what she had written, or was in any way different from what she had written on that subject, was an error, I would retract and denounce it. I am not a pantheist, and you know it. If I were a pantheist, I would be out worshipping the morning sun."
"How can a man be a pantheist and do what I am trying to do? I am trying to hold up things here in the Sanitarium just as I always did; I have made no changes; I read my Bible and I pray as I always did, and I am working for the poor fellows down there in Chicago when I go down there to the Life Boat Mission, as I always did. If I have made an error in any expressions in this book, the "Living Temple," I am very ready to correct it; I have been ready to correct it all the time; I only ask to have it pointed out for me; but when somebody says, ‘You say so and so,’ and I tell them to find it, and they can’t find it, I can’t take it out. I can only take out things that are pointed out to me. I wanted the General Conference folks and the State Conference presidents to come here to take up this whole thing here at Battle Creek; to go into the whole thing and settle it; and if you will have such a council here we will abide by the decision of that council but we ought to have a square looking into the whole business. These brethren say there have been crooked things here; let them come and show them up."
He said, "What we want is a committee of investigation." I said, "If you will have a committee of investigation with authority to investigate everything all around and make a public investigation of it, it is all right. But if you mean for the General Conference to appoint a committee of their own choosing to have a star chamber investigation and nobody know anything about the facts except what they let them know of their statements, we do not want that kind of investigation. They can come up to Battle Creek at any time and look into things as much as they want to; we cannot prevent that; but we will not have any cooperation with that kind of investigation that is not open and above board, and that everybody cannot attend and everybody know all about. But we are ready at any time for the kind of investigation that everybody can attend and everybody can know all about."
He finally agreed to do his best to get the General Conference Committee to come here and sit down. Now, what I proposed to do when that Conference Committee came here was to say to them, "I want to know wherein I am in error; and you point it out to me and I will retract it." I wanted to say to them, "If there is anything wrong about the Sanitarium here, point it out to me and we will make it right." As I stated a little while ago, and as I said to Brother Foy, I have endeavored to do everything that the Lord through Sister White or in any other way has pointed out for me to do. Sister White intimated after we got our building up to the fourth story that we should not have built here in Battle Creek, and I wrote her, "What shall we do then? Here we are up to the fourth story." She wrote back, "Finish it up as cheap as you can; and make expenses as little as
you can." So we did; but she said, "Finish it." She did not say, "Stop where you are;" she said, "Finish it." So we finished it according to instructions.
Eld. Bourdeau: You had made a start before.
Dr. Kellogg: We were up the fourth story before we had a hint we ought not to have built here. These statements that have been published do not present things in a straight light at all. There is a document dated two days after the fire (February 20, 1902), and that document dated two days after the fire, intimating that we ought not to build, never was sent to us and none of us ever knew it existed, never saw it until we saw it in that published document a year ago last Christmas (1905). That was the first we ever heard of it; and that is the first it was ever published. I have a letter from Sarah McEnterfer stating that that was never published until then and that no copy was ever sent to us. Now that was sent abroad throughout the world, and the brethren all think that that document dated two days after the fire was sent to us because it was published there without any explanation at all, as though we had that warning before we ever built, dated two days after the fire, that we ought not to build. I call that fraud; I call that fraud.
Eld. Bourdeau: Prof. Selden mentioned that to me in a conversation with him.
Dr. Kellogg: Certainly. I wrote to Sarah and said, "What does this mean, publishing a document dated two days after the fire, to prove that the Lord gave us warning not to rebuild, when it was never sent to us and no one ever saw it?"
Eld. Bourdeau: You were certain it was never sent to you?
Dr. Kellogg: I got a letter from Sarah saying it was never sent. I said to one of our helpers who came to me and said, "You had this warning from the Lord that you should not build, and why did you do it?" I said, "We never had it." "Do you mean to say you never had that letter from Sister White dated two days after the fire, that you never saw it before it was printed here?"
Eld. Bourdeau: She had written it, hadn’t she?
Dr. Kellogg: Part of it was written in her diary, but part of it was made up for the occasion; there is no question about it. All that part relating to the building was interpolated for that special use in that publication. You can see it is so, because it does not fit in at all. I can prove it to the satisfaction of anybody; and I wrote to Sarah there was an interpolation in that, and I said, "Now, if I am wrong, it is a wrong thing for you to leave me in darkness about it; but that is an interpolation never written in the original document at all, but was written and put in afterwards, and not written two days after the fire, at the time that document is dated." I told her if I was mistaken, I wished she would inform me and would tell me explicitly whether that paragraph I referred to was in the original diary, and she has never written me a word. I wrote her again, appealed to her, if I was in error, to let me know. I said, "I am compelled to believe that was an interpolation. If you remain silent on this point, I cannot believe anything else."
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Eld. Bourdeau: Those points have never troubled me at all.
Dr. Kellogg: No; I was going to say about this thing, this young lady said to me, "But whatever is written here, published over Sister White’s name I believe it from the Lord." But I said, "That thing is not straight, because it was never sent to us at all," and I felt she ought to know it. She said she would write and find out about it; so she wrote to Sarah McEnterfer, and Sarah wrote her back that it had never been sent to us, never had been published. It was in the diary and was copied out at a certain time; but about the interpolation, -- I did not like to say to her anything about that.
At the General Conference at Oakland, I told the brethren that if we had made a mistake it was not too late to correct it. "The Sanitarium is not occupied yet; it has not been dedicated, and if we have made a mistake; if it is not the Lord’s will that the Sanitarium shall be there at Battle Creek, let the Sanitarium be sold, and have the Sanitarium wherever the Lord wants it." Now, when I said that, I said it with the authority of the Board; they authorized me to say that; and that relieved us of whatever fault we had, whatever responsibility we had for the Sanitarium being here. The Sanitarium, from that time on, they took the responsibility of it. I said we will whatever you say. Sister White said, "No, let not the Sanitarium be sold; let not the light of the Sanitarium go out at Battle Creek. The Lord would not have the light of the Sanitarium go out at Battle Creek. Let all take hold to make that enterprise a success." So from that time on we have been trying to make a success of it.
Eld. Bourdeau: The Lord has shown that we should try to build up; that if things were not right in harmony with the mind of the Lord, we should try to build up. At the present time, as the thing is now, we cannot tear it down, so it should be built differently.
Dr. Kellogg: No, but she has never said we should not build anything in Battle Creek. She said, "If the Battle Creek Sanitarium had been moved to a salubrious locality it would have been pleasing to the Lord." She never had any testimony for us that we should have built a smaller institution, or anything of the kind. The only thing we had was simply that, -- "If the Battle Creek Sanitarium had been moved to a salubrious locality it would have been pleasing to the Lord." It was simply the removal of the institution entirely to some other place. That is the only thing we ever had.
And what I was going to say was simply this, -- that I told Brother Foy we had endeavored to do everything we had been asked to do, and were trying to do it still; that whatever instruction we had from the Lord we had endeavored to follow, whether it came through Sister White or any other source; we had endeavored to follow all the light we had, and so far as my connection with the church was concerned, I said, "I expected to be turned out of the church, but I shall make no protest against it." I said I will not on any account withdraw from the church; and I will not ask to have my name dropped; I will do nothing of the kind, because if I do, that will immediately be used as a pretense and published everywhere as proof that I have withdrawn from the church, withdrawn from the truth which I have believed in for all these years, which I have been raised in, -- that I have repudiated it; and it will be said everywhere that I have done it when I have not done it, and it is not the truth.
I said, "I believe just what I have believed for the last forty years and I am standing by everything I have stood by; and I have not changed." The Conference have changed their attitude toward me and toward this institution for campaign purposes and for the purpose of subjugating us; but so far as I an concerned, I have not changed. I believe the Sabbath, I keep the Sabbath; I believe in the Lord as I always did believe in Him; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; I believe in the unconscious state of the mind (in death). I believe that the end of things mundane cannot be very far away, must be near at hand. I believe the general principles of the Seventh-day Adventist faith as it has been taught and as I was taught it.
Eld. Bourdeau: About the sanctuary question, the 2300 days, -- are your views about the same as they were?
Dr. Kellogg: I believe exactly the same as I have been teaching for the last fifteen years about that thing -- just the same; I have made no change at all in that thing.
Eld. Bourdeau: You remember it was stated by Elder Jones at that meeting we had here, that he did not believe that the sanctuary was a limited place, a real location that is limited --
Dr. Kellogg: He never told me that and I never told him that; I never had any conversation with him about it. I believe the Bible; I will just simply state I believe that. Now there are a whole lot of things that in my busy life I have not had time to study into all the details, so that I can define my belief. I do not know, I do not pretend to know. I believe just what the Bible says.
A brother asked me the question awhile ago, "Do you believe the Lord is coming in this generation?" "Now," I said, "The text that says those that see these things -- this generation shall not pass until all things be fulfilled. The Bible says it. I believe the Bible and I believe that." If anybody should ask me to explain it, to limit it and tell exactly what it means, I do not know whether I could; but I believe that whatever it means is true. I said, "Do you know exactly what it means?" He said, "No I know what I think it means, but whether anybody else believes that or not I don't know."
I have heard quite a number of different interpretations of it. I saw a new one in the "Review" the other day. It is the only thing I have seen in the "Review" for some time. Somebody called my attention to it, -- a paragraph from Prof. Prescott putting a new definition on that. Have you seen that? They have got a new definition. When I was a boy, "this generation" meant thirty years. When I got older, got to be about eighteen or twenty years old, then it meant sixty years. A little later it meant the persons who saw the sun darkened (1780), that there would still be some of them alive when the Lord came. Time has kept going on and those people have died off, and I told them I did not know what to believe about it exactly, but I believed it nevertheless. I had hoped that the meaning would become clear after awhile; but Prof. Prescott has discovered a new meaning, -- that "this generation shall not pass" means the generation which recognizes those signs as being signs of the coming of the Lord; the generation that recognizes the signs as fulfilled prophecy, indicating that the end is near. That seems kind of a reasonable proposition.
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Eld. Bourdeau: With me, I take the ground, that I did in the presence of Brother (James) White and Brother (.J. N.) Andrews in my house, that those that were alive and could understand the proclamation of the message in 1844, and the tenth day of the seventh month, for instance, -- at the time the third angel’s message commenced to be proclaimed, -- that those that were alive and could understand, were old enough to understand the meaning and the interpretation given in regard to the signs, that they would not pass away until the Lord comes. That would make it they would have to live when the stars fall (1833); they would have to be born at any rate at that time in order to understand it.
Dr. Kellogg: I don’t want you to misunderstand me. You might get up and state what you believe to be Seventh-day Adventism, and I might not agree with everything you said; and Brother Amadon might do the same thing and I might not agree with everything he said; but I don’t agree at all with this policy that is being carried on of persecution against the Sanitarium and of condemnation without a trial, and the refusal of these brethren to come to Battle Creek, sit down with us and talk our differences over, find out where we stand, and hear my disavowal of the doctrines they were representing everywhere I believed. I wanted the privilege of stating in their hearing that I do not believe so and so. "You are telling all over the world. I do not believe it; I don’t believe it, and I never intend to believe it, and I have never taught it." I wanted to say that to them, and I wanted them to say wherein I had taught it and to show me my error. I don’t know anything further to say except that I told Brother Foy that I stand where I have stood all along; that I had endeavored to do right, and I had endeavored to work in harmony with the people I had been working with as long as I could; that I have not changed; I have not withdrawn, and do not intend to withdraw; the people are withdrawing from me, and I said that if they chose to withdraw from me they could, they could, and that I should make no objections, because then I would not be responsible; that if I withdrew, then I would be responsible for the impression that would go abroad that I had repudiated the truth, the Sabbath and everything else I have always believed in, and have apostatized as they have declared I have apostatized; that would be proof of it. Now if I am kicked out or turned out, the people who do that will be responsible, and I will not be responsible. Then they can say as long as they like and as much as they like, that I have apostatized, but they cannot make it true. But I do not propose to do any act myself which will give any color to that falsehood.
Eld. Bourdeau: I would like to say that my object in speaking to Rodney with regard to having an interview with you was not to bring up these little stories that were told about you or the Sanitarium; these things have never troubled me at all; what is said and what is circulated around, and that has been circulated even down south, that Rodney and Sarah have brought up here, I have never heard of before. My object was to have an interview with you with regard to the Sanitarium corporation, some points in it. I have the book, you know, of the Association, the by-laws of the Association and the articles.
Dr. Kellogg: I would be glad to answer any question.
Eld. Bourdeau: That is what I wanted to have an interview about, and an interview with regard to your views of the personality of God, the angels, and the home of the righteous -- have an interview on that.
G. W. Amadon: Doctor, have you changed your views in regard to the atonement of the Saviour?
Dr. Kellogg: Christ died for sinners. I believe all I ever believed.
G. W. Amadon: Just as you always have, as we believe?
Dr. Kellogg: What do you believe?
G. W. Amadon: I don’t ask that question to draw you out, to get something out that I may repeat sometime; I simply ask the question. Now, that is a very vital thing about the atonement, as vital as the reception of the Bible.
Dr. Kellogg: I will tell you what I believe about that. I believe Christ died for sinners; that He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; and that there is no other salvation except through Christ.
G. W. Amadon: I don’t know --
Dr. Kellogg: These charges that have been made against me, that Professor Prescott has made, has charged against me, that I denied the atonement in conversation with him, are absolutely false. I never had such conversation with him in the world. And knowing that such stories were carried to Sister White through others, I took particular pains in the last interview I had with her to say to her that I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as I always had believed in Him; that I prayed to the Lord every day of my life and many times a day, and that I was doing my best to hold up all the principles that I ever have held up. The foundation of all this campaign against us is not the truths that they tell, but it is the falsehoods that they tell.
Eld. Bourdeau: About our views since Christ entered into the second part of the heavenly sanctuary, and the atonement from that standpoint, and the judgment, for instance, and the end of the "2300 days" and the "tarrying time" in which we have been living since then, and what has been going on.
Dr. Kellogg: The prophetic argument seems perfectly clear; I do not see anything to upset it or anything to shake my faith in it.
G. W. Amadon: I don’t know as I ought to mention it, but I am traveling around here in the church all the while, here and there all over, and I encounter something a man by the name of Robinson is introducing among our people that is materially different from what we have held, what your parents held.
Dr. Kellogg: What Robinson?
G. W. Amadon: He is a young man and I understand he is at the Sanitarium.
Dr. Kellogg: I don't know where he is or what he is doing. That is something I don’t know anything about.
G. W. Amadon: I didn’t know, I kind of imagined, perhaps the Sanitarium was back of that and were recognized in what he was doing; and it is decidedly contrary, you know, to our ancient belief.
Dr. Kellogg: Do you know, that is the root of the whole trouble; has been one of the roots at any rate, -- is people hearing things, then imagining some more, and magnifying it and multiplying it.
G. W. Amadon: He has got a paper he carries around, about nine or ten pages, and he leaves that or reads it, and somebody gave it to me because they were perplexed over it.
Dr. Kellogg: This is the first I ever heard of that. I did not know he had a paper or any special doctrines, or that he was propagating anything. He is employed in the Sanitarium, not in any such capacity, but to work.
G. W. Amadon: I imagined that was some of the Ballenger nonsense, but I don’t know for sure.
Dr. Kellogg: About Ballenger, I do not know what his views of that are; I haven’t any connection with him at all.
Eld. Bourdeau: I presume you did not have anything to do with that pamphlet that went out in regard to the Sabbath School lessons there?
Dr. Kellogg: Eld. Jones got out that pamphlet, ordered it sent out at his own expense and on his own responsibility.
Eld. Bourdeau: Long before Elder Jones was among us we believed as we do now, as he teaches, too.
G. W. Amadon: About three weeks ago I had quite a lively little tilt with Dr. Stewart, and you know he is quite a fast talker, and sometimes when I get started up I talk faster than at other times. We had a pretty lively talk, actually, and I wanted to see a certain document he had written; I had heard part of it read. I wanted to get hold of it. Then he went on and told me in regard to that, how it came to be written, and he said, says he, -- says I, "I expect the Sanitarium is really back of that whole thing." Says he, "No, they are not. I got this up on my own hook, but," says he, "it will never go in print."
I have heard in a kind of round-about way that the thing was going in print, and I kind of wondered in regard to it; for I think that is the most devilish thing that has been gotten up ever; I am surprised, myself, that we, in Daniel’s long time of the end, -- I was wondering if the Sanitarium were backing that thing. I expect they are, because I don’t believe he has got money enough to print it, and he agreed to give me a copy of it, which was about three weeks ago. "Now," says I, "Brother Stewart, shall I come here and get it, or how will I get it?" "No," says he, "I will send it to you." That is the way the thing has been left. Says he, "I am having it copied now." He told me he had it divided up in sections, one here, another there, another one in another place.
Eld. Bourdeau: I had an interview with him on that book, and I told him this from the start --
Dr. Kellogg: What book?
Eld. Bourdeau: With regard to that manuscript he is getting up. I read the whole thing. It took me two hours and a half to read it carefully. I
told him if he believed the Lord used Sister White to give instruction and correction to individuals, etc., it would be better to leave her case in the hands of the Lord and to let the Lord correct her and instruct her in regard to her own case. I thought it was better for him to do that than to do what he was doing in regard to the matter, and that the better way would be to spend the time he was spending in writing those things, in praying that the Lord might direct. I gave him a few thoughts like that. That is the way I would feel, to do in that case. You remember Brother James White used to say, "Hands off, and give room for the Lord to work."
Dr. Kellogg: He didn’t always keep his own hands off. It was your hands he wanted kept off.
G. W. Amadon: I want to know if that will ever be written out in long- hand?
Dr. Kellogg: My stenographers are too busy. I did not expect to have it written out. I have found that so much use has been made of things that I have said, that I have never had any interview for several years now with any of the brethren without having a stenographer to take down everything that was said, because we ought not to be afraid of the truth. We must stand by the truth. It is only untruth we are afraid of.
Eld. Bourdeau: I don’t think we have conversed in any way this morning to be afraid of.
Dr. Kellogg: Brother Amadon has raised a question in his talk with Doctor Stewart. He says he believes the Sanitarium is behind that publication. You know, that is the difficulty; there are any number of people who profess to be good Christian people who are willing to believe all kinds of things on suspicion. Now, that is not the way the Bible directs for Christian people to do. The Bible requires that every man should have a fair hearing. There is a text that says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Now, I have never lived in any period of my life when there has been quite so much judging going on by our people who profess to be good examples of Christian living, and standing in high positions as church elders, ministers and others. I have never come in contact with as much judging as now. Hardly a day passes but I have a letter saying, "Such and such a person has been telling such and such a thing," such and such a minister, perhaps, telling things that are awful lies. The whole machinery of the denomination has been set in operation telling falsehoods about the Battle Creek Sanitarium and myself and my colleagues, based on suspicion, and just as little foundation as you have for thinking that the Sanitarium is behind the publication of that document.
Now I will tell you the truth about it. And I am speaking in the presence of a stenographer here, and you can have a copy of what I say if you want to, and can go to Dr. Stewart and he will verify it. Among those tracts that were printed by Elder Daniells and others and circulated here when they came here a year ago last holidays to make a determined effort to break down the Sanitarium and our work, -- I knew about it before they came; I knew when they were planning it; I knew all about it several weeks before they came. One honest man I know told me that Elder Daniells had said to him, "In spite of all we have done they seem to be going on up there at Battle Creek -- in spite of all we have done." He said, "Actually they seem to be gaining ground a little; but now we are going to join our
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forces, we are all going to join our hands and go up there together, and we are going to come down on that thing with tremendous force; we are going to smash that thing." That is what Elder Daniells said, and what he came here for, and what he tried to do.
Eld. Bourdeau: What I felt was to bring the Sanitarium and all right in unison with the instructions the Lord has given.
Dr. Kellogg: We are willing to follow all the instructions we can. If there is anything you know of we are not following that we can follow, tell me what it is. I don’t believe you will find any other place on the footstool at the present minute where there is as much and earnest effort made to follow the instructions we have been following all these years, as we are doing right here at the Sanitarium. Some things are made almost impossible for us by the attitude that has been taken toward us, but we are doing our very level best.
G. W. Amadon: Brother Kellogg, I don’t believe there is a man on the face of the Lord’s earth that has had so many letters and counsels and instructions and admonitions and encouragements from the Great God as you have. I don’t believe Elder James White had a tithe of them.
Dr. Kellogg: I have the largest collection of personal things that anybody in the world has; and if you can show us wherein we are at the present time going contrary to any principle that has been contained in any of those letters, if you can show that thing, we will be glad to have you do it. I have asked the General Conference to come and do it, asked them all to do it. When Elder Daniells came to Battle Creek with his documents to read at the Tabernacle, I invited him to come up to the Sanitarium and read them right through to our helpers, read everything he had. The trouble is, there are things charged upon us, and they are not pointed out wherein we have done it.
For instance, there are charges that we are robbers. There is not an intimation as to how, when, or where we have robbed. If they could show us, we would correct it. How can we correct that thing when we have never robbed, when it is not pointed out to us where we have robbed? I said, "We do not know anything about it; if we had known we would not have done it." They said we had spies around the country. Now I was not aware of that; and I will simply say that all I can say to that is, "Show me where the spies are, and I will suppress them."
There have been various things said. They said, "You ought not to have built in Battle Creek." I said, "Very well, we will sell it, and have the Sanitarium where the Lord wants it." They said, "Your book is not orthodox; you should not circulate it." I said, "Very well, we will box it up." We boxed it up. We boxed it up and there it is. We have not sold a copy since. I said, "I will get out a revised edition," and have got it out, asked their advice about it, got advice about it and followed it. Wherein are we not following their advice?
They said we should not invite boys and girls, inexperienced young people to come to the Sanitarium. We do not do it. I said, "We want experienced people of established character, and nobody else; that is the kind we want." Show me wherein we are going contrary to any instructions we have received. We were instructed to take hold and make the Sanitarium
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a success, and we are doing it, and the Lord is helping us, and the thing is succeeding beyond our most brilliant expectations. It was intimated to us that we ought not to let down our principles or to make any compromise in order to get patronage, and we haven’t. We are trying to hold our principles up a little higher than we used to.
G. W. Amadon: Your statement about the Berrien Springs meeting and Sister White is just like the letter "T." Lines of light, you know, run pretty nearly parallel; but they are just about like the letter "T."
Dr. Kellogg: I told you what you can do. You can verify my statements. If you will write to Elder Daniells, to Prof. Prescott, to Elder Butler, to W. C. White and ask them when they came to me or to W. K. and held out to us the hand of fellowship, and what thing they did in that direction, write to them and ask them, write to Sister White and ask her what those brethren ever did in the way of carrying out instruction she gave them. I have told you that they never took one step toward following out the instruction. Now, then, if I am wrong about it, you say that is contrary to what Sister White has said; but now you have heard my statement; I will give you a copy of it if you want it, and you can send that to Sister White and ask her wherein I have misstated anything, or to Elder Butler, Daniells, or Prescott.
G. W. Amadon: What Sister White sent here one time, -- I wanted you to see it and read it yourself before it was read in the Tabernacle. I thought certainly, certainly, that must melt down everything. Sister White said there on the occasion of that meeting that it seemed as though there would be a rending asunder of soul and spirit, and she said the Lord Jesus Christ came down Himself and would have taken you right by the hand, and your brother Will, and would have lifted you right out into the light and liberty; but it wasn’t done. Now your statement throws --
Dr. Kellogg: I will go further and tell you something more. I am telling you the truth before the Lord. There were a lot of brethren there that knew it all. I am aware of what you say -- that the two stories are not parallel. I cannot account for that only that there were some things the Lord did not let Sister White know about. I will tell you something more I don’t believe she knows anything about at all. The last morning I was there, after I had been there several days, I sat in the house the next door to the house where W. C. White was staying, and I saw him out on the back porch or sitting on a log somewhere with his head in his hands, and I said, "Will looks as though he is feeling pretty bad," and he had some reason to, because, you see, when Prof. Prescott preached a sermon on Friday night against me and against the "Living Temple," in which he did not read a line out of "Living Temple," but he read out of Spiritualist books, heathen books, pantheistic books, and theosophical books, -- read all those things, horrible things, making those people believe that he was reading out of my book all the time. It was the most horrible thing; I could not stand it, and I came pretty nearly shouting out at the time.
Somebody asked him what book he was reading from, and he would not tell them; then he went on and told this awful tale, these awful heathen doctrines, and said, "This is the doctrine that is being taught among us by this book that has been circulated." But in College View he stated be- fore a public audience that we had circulated fifty thousand copies of that book; and it was falsehood, and he knew it was a falsehood when he
told it, -- of the "Living Temple."
Elder Evans came to my house when he got back and said, "Professor Prescott, W. C. White, and Elder Daniells have bound themselves together in a conspiracy to ruin you, and I have letters which I think will prove it." Elder Evans came here, into this room and voluntarily said that to me, -- after the Omaha meeting or the Lincoln council they had held just the fall after the Berrien Springs meeting. Now, that was true, Brother Amadon. You know Elder Haskell very well, don’t you?
G. W. Amadon: I rather think I do.
Dr. Kellogg: At that same meeting, a few days before Elder Evans came here, two years ago last September, -- a few days before that, Elder Haskell had been out there at that meeting, and one morning I got a very urgent telephone call from Lincoln. I went to the telephone and found Elder Haskell wanted to talk to me. This was just after Sister White’s first visit here, when she came to the Sanitarium, stayed over night, and spoke in the Tabernacle. She went out there. After that meeting was over Elder Haskell telephoned to me and said, "I want to see you." So I arranged to meet him in St. Louis, and be came down to St. Louis to meet me.
The first thing he said to me was, "Doctor, these men, Daniells and Prescott, have come to the end of their rope. Sister White has been out to Battle Creek, and she has seen that they have not told her the truth about things." He said, "Sister White told me and told the people there, ‘Why, Dr. Kellogg is just the same as he always was. Dr. Kellogg is not fighting me. Dr. Kellogg treated me just as be always did; and there at the Sanitarium they treated me dust as they always did.'" They told her we were fighting her, condemning her, trying to oppose her; told her I had a book written to expose the "Testimonies," to show up the weak side of things, and she believed it was true; but she came here and found there wasn’t a word of it true. Sister White must have told you; she told several others here, at any rate. She spoke in the Sanitarium Gymnasium and I spoke following, and she said she could not ask me to say anything more than I did say; she told them out there they must stop this work.
They went to her and told her, "Sister White, it cannot be stopped; it will be ruin, it will be ruin;" so they insisted on going on; but Elder Haskell said to me, "They have come to the end of their rope, and now they are coming up to Battle Creek to try to get some new point against you, and I wanted to see you and put you on your guard." That is the solemn truth, Brother Amadon. So Sister White came back and I came. They came before I did and they got hold of something that changed her mind again, got her to believe I was a forger. They got hold of something and took it to her, -- Do you know Martha Byington?
G. W. Amadon: I think I do.
Dr. Kellogg: She was with her; and Mrs. L. M. Hall; do you know her? They were with Sister White at that time, and they knew just what was done, and these men came to her with my name signed to a document; my signature was there, and I had denied in writing that I had ever signed that document, and I never did sign it. And yet my own signature was there. They told her that I denied having signed that, that I had forged. It was a $1,000 note that I had "forged," and. they got things mixed up so that she thought
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I had forged $50,000, and they found out at last that the bonds were fraudulent; and they found out all about it. And although she came here on purpose to see me, sent word to me to St. Louis to meet her, when I got here, she would not talk to me at all, would not speak to me only to say, "How do you do?" She told several people it had been discovered at last I was a forger and had defrauded, and the bonds were fraudulent, and she stuck to it and believes it until this day.
The truth of the matter was this: I had signed a note in blank, "J. H. Kellogg, President," to be used for the International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, -- to be used for them, but in my absence Dr. Thomason, who was secretary, by mistake had filled out above my name, "Mexican Medical and Benevolent Association," instead of "International Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association," in renewing a note that had come back. But I was authorized to sign notes for the Mexican Association, but I was only agent; I was not president; so the forgery was in that termination, "President," you see. Now, I paid that note. The money was sent down there to Mexico. I never had misappropriated the money. That was done and I did not know it. I could not explain it because I did not know anything about it. I signed it to be used to the International Association, but the note was sent out during my absence, for the Mexican Medical and Benevolent Association; so when they wrote me about it, I told them I never signed such a note, because I was agent, you know, and this was signed as President, and I told them I was not president, -- I had never signed it. You see I signed the first note all right, but in my absence the note came back to be renewed, and Dr. Thomason wrote that on. Miss Steinel who kept the books was away from home. When she got back, Judge Arthur wrote out a full explanation and sent it down to Elder Daniells and those men, but they never corrected it; so Sister White still labors under that impression. At the last General Conference, Sister White made the statement that I was a forger, and Daniells got a shorthand report of that, and when I was in Europe last spring, I found he had been showing it all around over Europe to prove that I was a forger, and that the Lord had sent it.
You see I cannot have any particular sympathy with that sort of doings; so I am perfectly frank to tell you that if you endorse that action on the part of the General Conference Committee, and if this Church endorses the campaign of the General Conference on behalf of fraud, deceit and misrepresentation, when they get ready to drop my name from the book I shall accept it as release that the Lord has given me from any further responsibility in that thing. But I shall never ask for my name to be dropped from your church book, because I believe the truth that I always have believed, and I am standing for the same thing that I always have stood for, and I don’t believe in the policies that are being carried on at all. It is a wicked and unChristian and unbiblical method of procedure. I have never been asked to appear before the church to answer to any charges at all, yet I am condemned everywhere. Certainly I ought to be turned out of the Church if I have committed robberies; if I am doing those things; but it should be pointed out wherein I have done these things, and I should be given opportunity to make restitution, and I am ready to make restitution if the things are pointed out to me. I am ready to make restitution.
Now, then, about Dr. Stewart: I was ready to correct the book, ready to box it up, to suppress it, to do anything in the interests of peace, and I did do it just as far as I could, and am doing it still. Elder
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Haskell said to me, "I believe that their policy is to badger you, to pester you until you do something as an outbreak, and they can make a pretense against you." "Now," he said, "just be patient." Now I have not had any desire to do anything else. I have had no desire to be anything else but patient, but sometimes in the midst of worry, anxiety of hard work, it has been pretty hard to bear all these false reports going about the country, -- to see my friends alienated and being made to believe things that were absolutely false -- it has been pretty hard to bear; but I have tried to bear it with as much Christian grace as the Lord has given me; and I have prayed every day for the Lord to help me to learn from this experience the lessons I ought to learn.
With reference to Dr. Stewart and those documents Daniells circulated when he came here and undertook to crush us, -- among other things was this statement -- that I had never allowed my colleagues to read the things that had been sent to me, the Testimonies, -- that I had received testimonies and suppressed them and not allowed my colleagues to read them. Now, Brother Amadon, before the Lord, I am obliged to tell you that although Sister White wrote that, it is not the truth. It is not the truth although it is over her signature -- it is absolutely untrue. My colleagues have seen everything I have ever received from her, private letters and all, the whole business. Certainly I have never held back one single line that she has written me, never in the world.
Dr. Paulson, you know, got up that little book, "Healthful Living," and Dr. Kress. Away back there we kept all the documents from Sister White in a certain drawer without any lock or key. I kept all my documents in that drawer, and when Dr. Paulson got ready to get that book out, I said to him, "Here are all the things I ever received from Sister White, and you just help yourself." He went through them all. Dr. Kress had access to them; Dr. Rand and my colleagues always did. When I got a letter from Sister White, I laid it before the Board. There were a few things I did not always put in their hands -- I read them. The only thing in the world I never read to them were things she said about me complimentary, and I did not want to read them, did not feel I deserved the compliments, and I didn’t read them.
Sister White said some things about my being the Lord’s physician. You never heard me making any use of that. I never banked on that, -- never did. I never believed the Lord made me His doctor anymore than any other honest Christian man who was trying to do his best. I don’t believe the Lord is arbitrary in that way. I think any honest Christian doctor who is trying to do something to help somebody who is in trouble and suffering; -- looks up to the Lord and asks Him to help him, He will help him, and I don’t believe the Lord ever helped me in any different way than that, or that He ever will, and I hope He will keep on helping me so long as I appeal to Him for help, when I honestly come to Him, appeal to Him.
G. W. Amadon: I hate to hear you say that -- that you don’t believe there was a time when you were the Lord’s physician in a sense in which others were not.
Dr. Kellogg: I cannot believe that I ever was the Lord’s doctor in any different sense from any Christian doctor that undertakes to do his best for suffering human beings is the Lord's doctor. I want to say to you that I never made any use of that thing in order to bolster myself up, and
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you know it.
G. W. Amadon: That’s all right, Doctor, that’s all right.
Dr. Kellogg: Because I never thought the Lord would treat me any different from any other honest man; or that I had an official position that compelled the Lord to help me in any other way than He would help any other man.
G. W. Amadon: I believe it anyhow.
Eld. Bourdeau: I believe the Lord sent His angel to guide your hand.
Dr. Kellogg: I know the Lord helps me in operations, and I know He helps me now; for I get into awful troubles, and I appeal to the Lord to help, and I see He does help me; and I could tell you some things that would surprise you, but because you haven’t had experience in those things, -- to see the trouble I get into and how the Lord helps me out.
G. W. Amadon: I heard you tell that away back years ago when I used to stop at the institution every day most.
Dr. Kellogg: I will tell you of one little case: Three or four days ago I met a man in my office who had been backsliding, and I told him the trouble was he had lost his hold on the Lord, was not reading his Bible, and he was not praying. He said, "I prayed this morning." I told him I was glad he did. I said, "you cannot follow good resolutions unless you earnestly seek the Lord and pray; you cannot possibly get along without religion." And I told him the truth, -- that I had been down on my knees three times that day earnestly praying the Lord to help me in my difficulties, and I would not know how to get along any other way; and the Lord has helped me.
I will tell you a case. We had here a little while ago the wife of a most important man. These men sitting here do not know anything about this. But I am perfectly willing they should hear about it. It was the wife of a Doctor of Divinity, Dr. Greegan, the Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions, -- one of the most prominent missionary men in the world, one of the most prominent Boards in the world -- the American Board. He brought his wife here, and they had declined to operate on her in New York, and it was a very bad case. The New York surgeons had refused to operate on her two years before. She was getting steadily worse, and she was suffering such pain, something had to be done. I knew it was a very serious case. Dr. Greegan knew it, too. He and Elder Tenney had a little prayer meeting there in the patients room the day before the operation. They asked me to come, but I had an engagement so that I really could not come, so I declined.
Now when I came to go up to operations, I went down to this patients room, and got down on my knees at the foot of the bed and earnestly asked the Lord to help us and to help me. When we got into the operating room, we prayed again up there, that the Lord would help us to do that thing right, as we always do; we never do an operation in the world without doing it; I never had an operating day in my life that we did not pray that the Lord would help us in operations, -- I would not dare to do it. Now, when we got into that operation, I found it one of the most terrible operations I had ever had in my life, an enormous tumor, with the intestines
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grown all over it. I had to tear them off. When we got it laid open, there was a great, raw, cut surface, bleeding from a hundred points. Dr. Case was there at the operation and he will remember, how we put in hot sponges and they did not do any good. It was a terribly trying time, and I was afraid that woman would die right there; and I prayed again. I was afraid she would die, and it was an awful case, and I knew I hadn’t the wisdom to know what to do with that case.
I put the forceps on the arteries, but they would not hold; put a ligature in, and it pulled out, and the bleeding was worse than before. It was appalling. I prayed, and the instant after I prayed, I saw that thing shut right up like that, and those great, broad surfaces there, bleeding surfaces, closed together, like that. I don’t think an angel did that thing. I think the assistant who was holding the retractor allowed the retractor to move, or it slipped, released something so it came up. All I had to do then was to run a ligature along the top of that line and bring those bleeding surfaces together, and that stopped it, and that woman made a perfect recovery. That was the thing that saved her life. If I had not paused to pray I should have done something else, and would not have been in a state of mind to have recognized the thing that needed to be done, but the thing came together. If I had been looking off somewhere else when that happened, instead of looking there, I would not have gotten the right thought. I know the Lord gave me that thought to save the woman’s life. He did it for that patient’s sake, not for my sake, because I was any better than anybody else. Any honest doctor who was standing there trying to save a person’s life and felt his own helplessness, who would look up to the great Father to help him, would get help. I have to believe that thing.
G. W. Amadon: Oh, yes, I don’t question that.
Dr. Kellogg: Now, the fact that the Lord does help us notwithstanding all our mistakes and our blunders and our unworthiness, -- for there is plenty of it, -- leads me to obey and struggle on here in spite of all the difficulties we have had, trying to do just what we always have been doing, and with all this storm raging about us, we are still trying to stand where we have stood.I want to tell you another thing you do not know about, a testimony I have from Sister White that she has not published, and that none of them have published, that these men have frequently cut out large chunks of things that Sister White had written, that put things in a light that was not the most favorable of them, or did not suit their campaigns that way, that they felt at liberty to cut them out and so change the effect and the tenor of the whole thing; sending it out over Sister White’s name. I happen to know that, and I think you know it, too. But I have got a testimony that is on record, and Sister White has got it, but they haven’t printed it, and I don’t think they will. Sister White said, -- it was since these troubles began, a long time after this thing started up, -- not so very long ago, -- she said, "I saw a boat out in the storm in the sea, and the waves were rolling high, and there were men in the boat, and they pushed you overboard, and you were hanging onto the edge of the boat with your fingers, and they were beating you off." Now that is exactly what they have tried to do. I propose to hang onto all the truth that I know, and all that I have ever known, and keep right straight along the track I have been traveling all these years, just as near as I can; and
let these men go on and do their wicked work; and let the whole denomination condemn me and cast me out, if they want to. When they get into such a situation that they want to do that, it will be perfectly agreeable to me to have them do it. I haven’t anything more to say.
Eld. Bourdeau: Another question I want to ask you in regard to the views entertained by A. T. Jones in regard to organization.
Dr. Kellogg: I told Brother Jones a great many times that I thought his principles would be beautiful when we get to heaven; but we have to have some kind of organization. Brother Jones is not my product, and I am not responsible for anything he writes or says. Soon after Brother Jones came here, I had an action taken by our Board that in this controversy with the ministers, our Board had no part to act in it and would have nothing to do with it; that it did not pertain to the business of the Sanitarium; and the Board had no responsibility about it; that we medical men and business men should have nothing at all to do with it; and whatever controversy the ministers carried on in this religious controversy should be with them; and they were alone responsible for it, and our Board had nothing at all to do with it.
Now with reference to Dr. Stewart: I had not yet got to explain to you about that thing. Dr. Stewart and Dr. Harris came to me and they said, "We never let anybody see." Several of the medical students spoke to me about it, and I said to them, "It is not true." I said, "You write to Sister White and tell her you spoke to me about it, and I told you to write to her and tell her she was at liberty to send to you, and that I had given you permission to request her to send to you a copy of any testimony she had ever sent to me that I have suppressed; that I have given her permission and you permission to get such testimonies from Sister White and publish them; that I go further than that and say Sister White is at liberty to publish everything she ever sent to me." If I want to tell you; it would clear up the situation tremendously if Sister White would publish everything she has ever sent to me and everything I have ever sent to her. She is at liberty to do it. And Dr. Stewart and Dr. Harris came to me and I told them the same thing. They said, "Would you be willing to let us look over the things she has sent to you?" I said, "You go up there, see my librarian, Miss Hoenes, there; they are all there in her charge. I have nothing private put away, never have had; they are and always have been in the charge of my librarian there, and you have, as I said, access to them; I have never secreted them or locked them up at all; they are there. You tell her you want to see them, and she will let you see them." So they came up here and looked them over.
I suppose that letter -- part of it, is the result of going through those documents, and I have nothing more to do with it than that, and I did it because Sister White had written that I have suppressed things; and that is not the truth. So they came up. I was away from home when that letter was prepared. When I got home, Dr. Stewart brought it to me and read it to me. I said, "Dr. Stewart, that is a very smart document, but anybody reading that would say that Sister White must be a very mean, contemptible kind of woman. Don’t you see they would?" "Well, yes. I think they would." "Now," I said, "Is she that kind of woman? Do you think she is that kind of woman?" "Why no, of course, I don’t." "Then," I said, "you want to be very careful you don’t ever print that, and if you ever let that go out of your hands at all, you should certainly add a statement
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to it that you believe Mrs. White was a woman God had inspired and led, and that these things were only flaws that you had found, but that the main effort and tenor of her life had been wonderfully good and helpful; that she had stood for principles that were straight and right, and that her work had been a good work, and that you believed in that thing. "But," I said, "you ought never to publish such a thing; such a thing ought never to be circulated;" and he promised me he never would publish it, and I don’t believe he ever will, but you see that is what has got Dr. Stewart into a peculiar state of mind about it. He sent Sister White herself a copy of it. Sister white wrote to him a personal letter and asked him to write to her and tell her all his objections; so he prepared it and sent it to Will. He waited some time and got no reply, no notice of it. Now through that fact that he had sent it to Will, Elder Daniells got hold of it; so Elder Daniells came out before the conference down there at the dedication of the Washington Sanitarium and stated publicly there that such a document had been prepared for publication and was going to be published, and went on stating about it, and he set a whole lot of people coming to Dr. Stewart to see it, to know about it; and they kept coming to him, and he let them see it because Elder Daniells had made such misrepresentations about it that he thought it was right to let them see it; but they would not have seen it or known about it if it had not been that Elder Daniells had it; so he had to in self-defense let them see it.
Another thing I ought to say is that these men have gone on, Daniells and other men, to such lengths in the frauds that are being practiced and have been practiced, in the deceit and the untruths, they have become so patent that my colleagues have lost confidence in them. Some of these have not been connected with this movement as long as I have, and they cannot understand that the truth and men are two entirely different things; that the truth is one thing, and the men and the conduct of men is another thing. I have written Sister White repeatedly during all this controversy; I have written her every little while, -- "Sister White, don’t be alarmed at the statements that have been made to you; don’t believe the reports that are being sent to you about my attitude towards you. You have been my friend all my life, and I am your friend and am going to remain so no matter what your attitude is, what you say about me and what you do, -- I am not going to take up any campaign against you for you have been my friend, the best friend I ever had; and I remain there just that way, and shall stand there notwithstanding." I have maintained that attitude and I propose to keep that attitude. I recognize the fact that Sister White has been a messenger of truth to the world.
I do not believe in her infallibility and never did. I told her eight years ago to her face that some of the things she had sent to me as testimonies were not the truth, that they were not in harmony with the facts; and she herself found it out. I have a letter from her in which she explains how she came to send me some things. She charged me with things I never had done at all, and I got a letter from her in which she explains that she thought I had done it, she drew an inference that I had, and she was worried about it. I never made a public matter of that thing. I held that thing in my private drawer, in my own heart, for years and years, and never should have made it public if these folks had not begun a campaign against me, and I have not made it public, and am not going to do it. Just think of it, -- a man who has got as much business as I have, to pursue a feeble old lady, to try to show up tha