Warning Not to Rebuild in Battle Creek—Yesterday morning we heard that the Review and Herald publishing building has been burned to the ground. How sad this is! The financial loss that the fire will be to the cause, we do not yet know. I hear that nothing was saved. (PM 176.1) MC VC

This disaster may make a decided change in affairs. I hope that our brethren will heed the lesson that God is trying to teach them, and that they will not rebuild the publishing house in Battle Creek. God means that we shall not locate in the cities, for there are very stormy times before us.—Letter 2, 1903. (PM 176.2) MC VC

Scattering From Battle Creek Spreads the Light—In the calamities that have befallen our institutions in Battle Creek, we have had an admonition from God. Let us not pass this admonition carelessly by without trying to understand its meaning. There are those who will say, “Of course the Review office must be rebuilt in Battle Creek.” Why did the Lord permit Jerusalem to be destroyed by fire the first time? Why did He permit His people to be overcome by their enemies and carried into heathen lands? It was because they had failed to be His missionaries, and had built walls of division between themselves and the people around them. The Lord scattered them, that the knowledge of His truth might be carried to the world. If they were loyal and true and submissive, God would bring them again into their own land.—Manuscript 22, 1903. (PM 176.3) MC VC

The Lord instructed me that unless the people did respond to the words of admonition sent them, He would surely scatter them from Battle Creek. Again and again I have been shown that the Lord would turn and overturn in Battle Creek.... The Lord told me that I must present these warnings to His people in other parts of the world who had not heard them and who, as they met in conferences and councils at Battle Creek, were ignorant of the light that has been sent regarding the need of getting out of Battle Creek.—Letter 126, 1903. (PM 176.4) MC VC