Joseph Bates, that indefatigable former sea captain, seemed to be the first and, for some time, the only Adventist leader who had come to terms with health principles and the cause of disease. On the basis of observation and personal experience, he had decided in 1824 (at the age of 32) to abstain “from all intoxicating drinks.” Earlier, he had given up tobacco in all forms. After another seven years, he determined not to drink tea or coffee. Probably the lectures of Sylvester Graham, who had written that “both tea and coffee are among the most powerful poisons of the vegetable kingdom,” confirmed his observations. 25Joseph Bates, The Autobiography of Elder Joseph Bates (Battle Creek, Mich.: Steam Press of the Seventh-Adventist Publishing Association, 1868), pp. 168, 234. By 1843 Bates had given up flesh food. 26The Health Reformer, July 1871. MOL 280.3
However, though a staunch Millerite and later an energetic apostle of the seventh-day Sabbath, Bates apparently was not a health-reforming evangelist. He did not write out his strong health-reform beliefs nor personally try to persuade his associates. 27“Regarding the minor points of [dietary] reform, he [Bates] exerted a silent influence, but did not urge his practices upon others. Sometimes his friends would ask him why he did not partake of flesh meat, or grease, or highly spiced foods; and he would quietly reply, ‘I have eaten my share of them.’ He did not make prominent in public or in private his views of proper diet unless asked about them.” Robinson, Our Health Message, p. 59. But he was very successful, through his Sabbath pamphlet, in convincing James and Ellen White in 1846 that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Thereafter, Bates and the Whites were intrepid leaders of the “scattered flock.” MOL 280.4