Part 9

"MY DEAR MR. FLETCHER:

"I have your kind favour of July 14. You are doing me altogether too much honour. I am only a plodding, humble doctor, and have never had any opportunity to do any great thing, because of the limits of my abilities, and because I have not the opportunity to devote my energies to any one special thing; but have so many things to do that I can do nothing very well.

"I remember Dr. Krauss very well. He has for some years been assistant to Prof. Winternitz, the Professor of Nerve Diseases in the Medical Department of the Royal and Imperial University of Austria. He seemed a very able physician and a delightful gentleman. I was very glad to meet him.

"I have already sent you a copy of a little booklet entitled 'The Building of a Temple of Health.'

"We will be most happy to have a visit from you. I would like to know about what time you are coming, and I will endeavour to be here. I have a call to give an address at Chautauqua, N. Y., early in August, and if I do not know when you will be here, I might possibly be away, which I should consider a great misfortune.

"We have nothing here, I am sure, which will be new to scientific men, and I apprehend that they will have a very different opinion of our work than you have.

"I have a little book which I think I have not sent you, entitled 'The Living Temple.' I will send a copy to you; also a copy of the 'Chewing Song,' which is now out. It is nothing but a cheap thing, intended only for my own little folks; but it got out, and several people wanted it, so I have allowed it to be put in print. The purpose was, of course, simply to impress the chewing idea. Of course you are well, as you are apt to be well by chewing well.

"By the way, I met a disciple of yours a day or two ago. He was Senator Burrows, from Kalamazoo. He called with his wife and some other ladies, and Mr. Rose, the chief clerk of the U. S. Senate, to make us a little visit. I had a very delightful chat with them. On remarking to the Senator that he did not look any older than when I saw him last, but seemed to be very well, he told me he was in perfect health, and he expected to live for ever. He had recently gotten hold of something that was doing him so much good that he believed he should never be sick. I begged to know his secret, and found it was chewing. I asked him how he discovered it, and he told me he had learned it from your delightful book. You are certainly promoting the most important hygienic reform which has been brought forward in modern times. When you visit us again, you will see in our dining-room of our new building more Horace Fletcher disciples, and more hard chewers than you ever saw together in one place in your life before. Our doctors and helpers are taking hold of it with great enthusiasm, and I trust we shall be able to render you some good service in promoting this good idea, for which you certainly deserve the gratitude of the whole world.

"Hoping to have the pleasure of a visit from you soon, I remain, as ever,

"Yours most sincerely and respectfully,

"J. H. KELLOGG."

"BATTLE CREEK, MICH., Aug. 13, 1903.

"DEAR FRIEND:

"Your kind notes of August 7th and 11th received. I have asked the Publishing Department to open an account with you and send you everything you order promptly at publisher's discount.

"'The Living Temple' is published for the benefit of the Sanitarium. Everything received from it goes toward paying for the new building. The cost of printing, paper, and binding is paid for by contributions, so all the money received goes toward the building fund for the Sanitarium. I hope by this and other means to get the building paid for before I die.

"I think your chewing reform is of more importance to the world than you realise. You must have a great fund of good cheer with you; doubtless because you chew! I told our patients here that I had heard from you that King Edward was chewing. It interested and amused them very greatly. The idea of 'munching parties' is a good one.

"As ever,

"Your friend,

"J. H. KELLOGG."

"BATTLE CREEK, MICH., August 21, 1903.

"DEAR MR. FLETCHER:

"I have yours of August 20th with the list of persons to whom you desire to have 'The Living Temple' sent. The books are already sent together with a little note calling attention to them.

"Your continued courtesies are putting us under obligations which we can never repay.

"There are a lot of devils of different sorts to be cast out, and I am sure the dyspeptic devil is about the worst and the meanest of them all.

"A quartette sang the 'Chewing Song' just before my lecture in the parlour last evening. The great parlour was filled to its utmost capacity. The people cheered heartily, not at the singing nor the song, but the sentiment. I took occasion to tell them I thought Mr. Horace Fletcher, in inaugurating the chewing reform, had done more to help suffering humanity than any other man of the present generation, and that I felt very much mortified that we had neglected this important matter to such an extent here that you had to come to the Sanitarium and be a missionary of good health and urge this important matter upon our attention. I feel that we are all greatly indebted to you, and seem to be getting continually more and more into your debt, and I do not know any way to discharge the obligation; but if any accident should ever happen to you so you get ill, it will certainly be a delight to us to have the opportunity to minister to you if you will permit us so to do.

"I am glad you have postponed your visit until October, as by that time we shall have many things in better working order, and our medical class will be here. I want to have our medical students meet you.

"I told Mr. Nichols the other day you were coming to visit us. He was greatly delighted to hear this. He feels as I do that the work which you have inaugurated is the most important movement which has been started in modern times.

"I remain, as ever,