An Instance of Providential Help

Once such instance happened only about a week after the opening of the medical college. An elderly gentleman rang the bell at the office where the president of the school was hard at work, and explained that “his business was to find a way to dispose of a few thousand dollars which he had in his pocket.” He had been interested in the work of the sanitarium and its various branches, and had stopped off at Battle Creek to see how the work was progressing. Dr. Kellogg rehearsed recent developments of the medical missionary work in Mexico, Colorado, and other places, and especially of the American Medical Missionary College. The visitor then expressed a desire to dispose of his means in such a manner as to secure for himself a possession “over in the other country,” and said he would like to leave $2,000 to be used for the benefit of the American Medical Missionary College.SHM 282.3

For the moment Dr. Kellogg had forgotten that only the evening before, “when discussing ways and means for meeting some of the most urgent necessities of the enterprise,” the sanitarium board had determined to go ahead with what seemed to be clearly duty and necessity, although the necessary funds were not in sight, trusting that the Lord would send the money in due time. The Medical Missionary, October, 1895.SHM 283.1

In relating this incident, Dr. Kellogg said, “This donation, like all others which have been received for our medical missionary enterprises, was wholly unsolicited, and it was entirely unexpected as regards the individual source from which it came.”—Ibid.SHM 283.2

Such experiences tended to deepen the confidence of those who were leading out in this enterprise that a divine providence had been going before them, and would continue to guide them as they followed His providential leading.SHM 283.3