The Interview with Dr. Kellogg

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It is time that Dr. Kellogg should be given a fair hearing on this board. It is not the Lord's way to condemn a man without him being given a fair hearing. He was never given a hearing by the General Conference leaders who had embarked on a campaign against him to hurt and destroy him. Like brother Jones he was tried, judged, and sentenced without him being present at the trial. The leaders had again become prosecutors and judges in their own case.

"There can be no more conclusive evidence that we possess the spirit of Satan than the disposition to hurt and destroy those who do not appreciate our work, or act contrary to our ideas." D.A.487, bottom of the page.

This interview with Amadon and Bourdeau provides us with many insights into what really happened in regard to the book The Living Temple and Dr. Kellogg's true attitude toward Mrs. White and the Testimonies. This interview will reveal what is sometimes true that truth is often stranger than fiction!

 

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Interview between Elder G. W. Amadon, Elder A. C. Bourdeau, and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg

Excerpt # 1:

Dr. Kellogg: I was going to remark concerning what I said to Bro. Foy 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, 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 that 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 to W.K. Kellogg, and to make no conditions. They never came.

Dr. Kellogg: 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 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.

Dr. Kellogg: 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 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.

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 dumfounded. 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 thing that I am charged with doing--when the Living Temple was published in the first place.

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.

 

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Excerpt # 2 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: 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 not go quite to the extreme length that he did.

A.T. Case: He said every meal should be a sacrament; we were eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood.

Dr. Kellogg: Yes. He held that, and you can read it in the Review.

Bourdeau: Does he hold to those views now?

Dr. Kellogg: He never has 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 had.

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 sometime, and I had heard no dissent from it. Sister White, Eld. 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 here 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 by 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; and nothing less than creative power can heal the sick man.

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.

Case: It was six and a half pages of typewritten manuscript.

 

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Excerpt #3 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

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 $2500 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 that she is going to read it through, and that she finds it a very different book from what she supposed it was."

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 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 the book out, 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 received a line from her that those doctrines were wrong in any particular.

 

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Excerpt # 4 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg.

Dr. Kellogg: 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 own 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 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 there, 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 I 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."

tbc

 

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Excerpt 4b of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: 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 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 a 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 margin of the book everything that is wrongly stated, and I will simply take it out." And he 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. He finally broke down, and his lips quivered when 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 asked, "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 doctrines 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 thing, 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.

 

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Excerpt # 5 of the interview with Dr. Kellogg

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 out.

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 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 "But 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. Read was there and I think Brother Butler--and they saw right away. H. G. Butler was there.

 

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Excerpt #5 b of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: Now, I begged them to come here. But they did not come. 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 fomenting this thing, this warfare, this difficulty and making 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 I would retract it and denounce it as being untrue. I said that what I believe is just what Sister White has 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 change. 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, they can't find it so 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 statement, we do not want that kind of investigation. They can come up to Battle Creek at any time and look into things as they want to. We can not prevent that, but we will not have any co-operation with any 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. 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."

 

[JDMiowa]

"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; and nothing less than creative power can heal the sick man." From excerpt #2. The opposite is also true. When one is well there is no power to kill but that of the adversary. What would Dr. Kellogg say about elective abortions in SDA hospitals?

 

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Right, for adversary is the destroyer, not God.

"God's great and strange work is to redeem and save and thus repair the ruin that sin has made." E.G. White. Review & Herald, vol.3,583.

sky

 

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Excerpt # 6 of the interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: 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 the 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.

Bourdeau: You had made a start before.

Dr. Kellogg: We were up to 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, 1902], 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 ever was 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.

Bourdeau: Prof. Belden 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?"

Bourdeau: You were certain it was never sent to you?

Dr. Kellogg: Part of it was written in her diary [in 1902], 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 [in 1905]. 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 and told 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--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."

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 is 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.

 

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Excerpt #6 b of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: 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 it, 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 do 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.

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 knew 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 we 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 as far as my connection with the church was concerned, I said, "I expect 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. I have not changed." The Conference has changed its attitude toward me and toward this institution for campaign purposes and for the purpose of subjugating us. But so far as I am concerned, I have not changed. I believe the Sabbath; I keep the Sabbath. I believe in the Lord as 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 man-made 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.

Bourdeau: About the sanctuary question, the 2300 days--are your views about it the same as they were?

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt #7 of The Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Bourdeau: About the sanctuary question, the 2300 days--are your views about it the same as they were?

Dr. Kellogg: I believe exactly the same as I have been teaching for the last fifteen years about the thing--just the same. I have made no change at all in that thing.

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 these 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 a while. 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 which recognizes those signs as fulfilled prophecy, indicating that the end is near. That seems kind of a reasonable proposition.

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 so that they would have to live when the stars would fall [1833]. They would have to be born at any rate at that time in order to understand it.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt #7 b of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

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 to sit down with us and talk our differences over, to find out where we stand, and to hear my disavowal of the doctrines they were representing everywhere I believed. I want the privilege of stating in their hearing that I do not believe so and so. "You are telling [such and such] 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 I 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 I should make no objections because then I would not be responsible; that if I withdraw, 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.

Bourdeau: I would like to say that my object in speaking to Rodney with regard to having an interview with you was not to ring 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 questions.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 8 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

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.

Dr. Kellogg: Christ died for sinners. I believe all I ever believed.

Amadon: Just as you always have, as we believe?

Dr. Kellogg: What do you believe?

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.

Amadon: I don't know--

Dr. Kellogg: These charges that have been made against me, that Prof. 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 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.

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 on it.

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 our parents held.

Dr. Kellogg: What Robinson?

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.

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 and then imagining some more and magnifying it and multiplying it.

Amadon: He has got a paper he carries around, about nine or ten pages, and he leaves that or reads it. 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.

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.

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: Elder Jones got out that pamphlet, ordered it sent out at his own expense and on his own responsibility.

Bourdeau: Long before Elder Jones was among us we believed as we do now, as he teaches, too.

 

[ricker]

"God's great and strange work is to redeem and save and thus repair the ruin that sin has made." E.G. White. Review & Herald, vol.3,583.

sky

That is an intelligent and profound quote.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Before we get to Excerpt # 9 I would like to bring your attention to a statement from the book The Living Temple:

"When a man believes that God is ever present within him, and that not the smallest hair of his head may fall without God's noticing it ; when he feels that there is a mighty power working within him ; that he is not left to depend alone upon a fallible doctor, who makes mistakes and blunders, and makes wrong diagnoses and wrong prescriptions; that he is not left to depend upon his own poor human nature, or upon some feeble, perhaps wholly useless, remedy; that he is not left to depend upon any human agency, or system, or philosophy which may possibly prove false and futile, nor something mystical or questionable or unreasonable, but that the mighty power that made the universe is the groundwork of his hope and confidence; when he feels that the same power cares for him which maintains the sunshine, that keeps the earth turning regularly on its axis and the planets circling in their orbits, then he knows that he has his feet upon a firm foundation; he can lift his head above the doubts and apprehensions of disease, fancied or real, and with Job can declare,'I know that my Redeemer liveth;' and with Daniel, can say,'He is the strength of my life;''who forgiveth all mine iniquities, who healeth all my diseases.''He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.'" J.H. Kellogg, The Living Temple, 486.

Now let us compare the above statement from Dr. Kellogg with a couple more statements from the SoP:

"The physical organism of man is under the supervision of God; but it is not like a clock, which is set in operation, and must go of itself. The heart beats, pulse succeeds pulse, breath succeeds breath, but the entire being is under the supervision of God 'Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.' In God we live and move and have our being." 1 S.M.294.

"The mechanism of the human body cannot be fully understood; it presents MYSTERIES that baffle the most intelligent. It is not as the result of a mechanism, which, once set in motion, continues to work, that the pulse beats and breath follows breath. In God we live and move and have our being.(Acts 17:28) The beating heart, the throbbing pulse, every nerve and muscle in the living organism, is kept in order and actitivy by the power of an ever-present God." Ministry of Healing,417.

Notice how in this last statement we are told that the human body presents MYSTERIES that baffle the most intelligent.

Now this: "The only key to the MYSTERIES that surround us is to acknowledge IN THEM ALL the presence and power of God." D.A.606.

And "The DIVINE SPIRIT that the world's Redeemer promised to send IS THE PRESENCE and THE POWER OF GOD." Signs of the Times, Nov.23,1891.

These statements PROVE beyond any shadow of doubt that "the same power that upholds nature is working also in man." Education,99.

That power is the Holy Spirit.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 9 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

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 says,'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 never will go into 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.

Bourdeau: I had an interview with him on that book, and I told him this from the start--

Dr. Kellogg: What book?

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 White [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.

Amadon: I want to know if that [their conversation being recorded by a stenographer] will ever be written out in longhand.

Dr. Kellogg: My stenographers are too busy. I did not expect to have it written out. I have found that so much 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. It is only untruth we are afraid of. We must stand by the truth.

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 Dr. 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.

 

[rainbowinthesky]

That is an intelligent and profound quote.

It is, isn't it? A pearl of a statement, to be sure.

sky

 

[rainbowinthesky]

Excerpt # 10 of the Interview with Dr. Kellogg

Dr. Kellogg: 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 all we have done." He said, "Actually they seem to be gaining ground a little, but now we are going to join our 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.

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.

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 would 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 I have got it out, asked their advice about it, got advice about it and followed it. Wherein are we not following their advice?