Tentative chapter end: Food for Thinking Christians

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A Twentieth-Century writer suggests that Food for Thinking Christians is Russell’s most important book. In that it was the first widely-spread dissemination of Watch Tower teachings, this is true. Criticisms such are Rall’s and those of more modern anti-sect writers ignore or diminish the significance of the long history of Historicist interpretation of prophecy. A more thorough going Biblical discussion would have benefited all parties. It did not occur in any meaningful way.

What did occur was an increase of resignations from former church affiliation on the part of newly converted Watch Tower adherents. Russell printed one such letter in the December 1881, Watch Tower. Written by a woman to her congregation of sixteen years, it was a plain statement of the essentials of Watch Tower teaching:

Believing that we are in the harvest of the Gospel Age as spoken of in Matt. 13:30, when the reapers are separating the wheat from the tares, which the Lord has permitted to grow together during the age, and also that the nominal church of all denominations is represented by the wheat and tares in the field– in which both have been growing, and that its mixed condition of worldly-mindedness and lukewarm Christianity is displeasing in the sight of our Lord, I have … concluded to sell all that I once found dear–my reputation and my friends if need be–my time, my talents, my means, my all.

This mixed condition of truth and error, worldliness and lukewarmness, etc., I believe to be the Babylon described in Rev. 18, in which are still some of the Lord’s dear children. To all such he says, (vs. 4) “Come out of her my people that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

In obedience to this command, I ask to have my name taken off the list of membership of the nominal church. It is written in the Lamb’s book of life and that is enough.

In withdrawing my name I do not withdraw my affections from you, but would if I could have you all “as ripened wheat,” gathered into the barn – condition of safety, rather than bound with the bundles of tares for the burning – with the “fire of God’s jealousy.”

Let me urge you each to a deeper consecration and a more thorough searching of the Scriptures.

Others separated from their previous church affiliation forming de facto congregations in cities where more than one shared similar beliefs. The congregation in Albany, New York, dated its formation to 1881 and by implication the publication of Food for Thinking Christians. They called themselves “Believers in the Restitution,”[1] one of many names used by congregations of Watch Tower adherents. Some were initially skeptical of the message, only to take it up later. Others believed the message on first reading and became life-long adherents. In 1916, A. P. Logan, of Houston, Texas, wrote that he “loved this present Truth since ... ‘Food for Thinking Christians’ first was issued. He considered Russell as “second only to St. Paul.”[2] H. M. Glass recalled his introduction to the message: “In 1881 ... a package of ‘Towers’ came to our Sunday school superintendent, who distributed them to the school. We got one and with it, the Allegheny address of the editor. We next got ‘Food for Thinking Christians.’ Ever since that good day we have been bountifully supplied with ‘meat in due season.’”[3]

Henry Rudolf Riemer, an immigrant from Germany[4], received his copy through a personal visit in 1883. His son, Hugo Henry Riemer recalled it this way:

In 1883, my father, then a presiding elder over a district of the Methodist church in the middle western part of the United States, answered a knock at his door. There stood one of the early witnesses of Jehovah holding up a paperbound book entitled “Food for Thinking Christians,” written and published by C. T. Russell. After a greeting, he told my father, “Mister, here is a book that will make you happy with the only true happiness.” He then handed the book to my father, who thumbed through it, noting the many Scripture quotations and citations in it. Being impressed by the earnestness of the man, who had kept on talking to him, he gave a contribution for the book.

Mother was just packing father’s traveling bag for a weekend trip on the train. He handed her the book, requesting that she put it in his grip on the very top of his things. After he had taken a seat on the train, he opened his grip and took the book out and began reading. He finished reading it when the train arrived at his destination, and he said to himself, “Thank God! That is the truth.”

When father arrived home, he said to mother, after greeting her and us four boys, “Mamma, I have found the truth.” Mother said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Do you remember that book you packed in my traveling bag? I want you to read it and let me know what you think of it.” But he had some misgivings as to her reaction, because she was the daughter of a lay preacher. She read the book and then said to father, “If that is the truth, we have no place in the Methodist church.” With rejoicing father said, “Mamma, those are the most precious words I ever heard you speak.” I was five years old at the time, but from then until now, at the age of 86, Jehovah has not failed to show his love toward me as he poured it out on my father and mother.[5]

  

photo:

Heinrich Reimer

H. H. Riemer’s account leaves out significant detail, and it implies that his father remained a Watch Tower adherent. However, his father Henry [Heinrich] Reimer’s obituary appears in The Dawn, an opposition journal:

Brother Riemer became a Christian at an early age and because of this stand was forced to leave his father’s home. He studied for the Christian ministry and was faithful as a minister in the Methodist Church until he was privileged to see the light of present truth as a result of reading Pastor Russell's booklet, “Food for Thinking Christians, or Why Evil Was Permitted,” published in 1881. With a family of young children to support he withdrew from the Methodist ministry, studied Medicine and was successful as a medical doctor until his retirement late in life. His third and final stand for Christian principle came when he, in company with others of like precious faith, discerned the errors of the Society, and withdrew there from in 1928. Up to the last moments of his life he gave evidence, though with failing memory along most lines, of clearness in his understanding of the fundamental doctrines of present truth. He finished his earthly course on Thursday, October 29th, 1936, at 90 years of age.[6]

W. E. Haller encountered the booklet shortly after it was published. Writing about his experience in 1917, he recalled that “‘Food for Thinking Christians’ was my first book to digest, and [I] still have it.” He moved for work to a town near Allegheny, attending meetings held in the Grand Army of the Republic Hall on Federal Street, Allegheny, starting in July 1887. He committed to the faith in 1888, entering the colporteur work shortly afterward. Recalling his work, he wrote: “Nothing but Millennial Dawns, in paper leaves, was out at the time I first heard him. [i.e. Russell.] Those I introduced by colporteuring up the Monongahela valley during the summer of 1889, the second volume being first published that season.[7]

Ellen S. Dodge [born April 1852] was also introduced to the Watch Tower faith through Food for Thinking Christians. We do not know how the booklet reached remote Schoolcraft County on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and it probably doesn’t matter in this context. She “received comfort from its pages,” she wrote, and “surrendered [her] will to the Lord.”[8]

John L. Mears [May 1837-1920] was a Civil War veteran, serving in two Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiments. His parents emigrated from Lancashire, England, in 1828. About two years before his death John wrote:

After being raised a Baptist by strict religious parents, my father being a minister. I naturally believed a great deal just as it came to my ears at boyhood; but later, doubts arose as to the dealings of God to humanity. So I went on with doubt and fears ... when one day I got a little book called “Food for Thinking Christians,” and I just devoured it and that gave me an appetite for more of the same. I got the Watch Tower and of course that was pretty strong “meat,” but finding that the Tower was in accord with Scripture, I have simply read about everything that our dear Pastor has written.[9]

            George Washington Haney [born 1844], a Kansas farmer, received a copy in 1881. He read it and still had it in his possession in 1914. He arranged to meet Russell in the “early eighties.” “I have read and kept in close tough with everything that he has put out,” Haney wrote.[10] Haney saw participation in the world’s affairs as compromise: “I saw that the enemy is the ruler of this world, and, as I could not serve two masters, I gave up politics, and have not voted since.” He thought serving on a jury and swearing to tell the truth in court were both wrong. He dated adopting these beliefs to near the time he read Russell’s booklet.[11] There are many others whose names we know who persisted in the Watch Tower faith after reading Food for Thinking Christians, but a long list seems irrelevant. The booklet developed interest, and new workers entered the field, some sharing their faith locally and some becoming itinerate evangelists.

            Jane Ann Marwood [Aug. 1834 – Jan. 11, 1927], with her husband Robert, immigrated to America, settling in Nebraska in 1866, and acquiring a small-hold farm. By 1907 her husband is described as an early-days pioneer and a prominent cattleman living near Clearwater, Nebraska.[12]

            Without otherwise defining it, she wrote of ‘a time of trouble’ that turned her thoughts to Christ, and if she hadn’t been a Bible reader before she became one. (Most likely this was the great grasshopper plague.) “I well remember the time when as I was reading Rom. 12:1, it struck me that I had never presented my body a living sacrifice, and being alone, I fell on my knees and, then and there, consecrated. That was somewhere in the late seventies.”[13] A “dear old brother” in the Congregational Church gave her a copy of Food for Thinking Christians. She studied it carefully, consulting the cited Scriptures. She was convinced:

When I received the first copy of Food for Thinking Christians ... and had read and proved it true from the scriptures, I knew I had been taught wrong all my life, and being a teacher in the Sunday School, was teaching others wrong. On my knees I asked forgiveness for the wrong I had done, in the blessed name of Jesus, and God surely heard my cry for light. I sent for the Watch Tower, and the dear Lord led me out of darkness into His Marvelous Light. From that time on I tried to lead others into the light but for years no one would listen.[14]

            That no-one would listen is not totally true. At least one of her eleven children did. In late 1899 or very early in 1900, [Probably December 1899 or early January 1900.] she send Russell five dollars for ‘an order,’ asking him to “put the balance into the Tract Fund. “Some of it is from my daughter,” she wrote.[15] When she accepted Watch Tower teaching as Scriptural Truth, she returned to the friend who had given her the tract. His reaction was unexpected:

The man who first gave me Food for Thinking Christians ... used to say, when I told him of the light I had received: ‘Mrs. Marwood, I do not want that light. It is ignis fatuus light. Every time I received more light on different scriptures I tried to tell him about it, but he would have none of it, and to this day no memeber of his family will look at Brother Russell’s writings. It made my heard sat. When I would go to church or Sunday School they were all afraid of me, thinking I would lead some of their members astray, and my name was cast out as evil.[16]

            Not long after reading Food she subscribed to Zion’s Watch Tower. In a letter to Russell written in 1909, she recalled: “I had always prayed for you and all those who labored with you in the watch tower office, from the time I first took the tower, which was in 1882.”[17] We lose track of Jane Marwood after 1915. However, by 1922 there was enough interest in Clearwater, Nebraska to warrant a visit from W. M. Wisdom, a traveling Watch Tower representative, who spent two days there in 1921.[18] And visits in 1922 by O. L. Sullivan, R. L. Robie, and J. A. Bohnet and regularly thereafter by traveling “brethren.”

             Marwood’s experience illustrates several things. Here, it illustrates the enduring conviction of ‘truth’ engendered in some by reading Food for Thinking Christians and The Watch Tower. In other chapters we note the expulsion of Watch Tower adherent people from their previous churches, not because of untoward behavior, but for contrary belief. In one chapter we consider the evangelical persistence of the sole adherents within their comunities. Marwood’s experience fits neatly into all of these narratives.

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[1]               His Second Coming: Believers in the Restitution Say Christ Will Come again in 1914, The Albany, New York, Evening Journal, May 28, 1900. There is no record of this group in contemporary issues of Zion’s Watch Tower. This article comprises the entire history of the Albany congregation before the 1890’s. In 1900 they met in the home of Fredrick Clapham at 288 First Street. The article is vague, and it is possible that instead of the congregation being formed that year, it was a reference to the formation of Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society. The actual quotation is: “The ‘Believers in the Restitution is a society organized in 1881. It is comparatively small in this city, but in several sections and in England, it is flourishing.

[2]               Note from Logan to Editor of St. Paul Enterprise¸ January 18, 1916, issue.

[3]               Letter from Glass to Editor of St Paul Enterprise, March 7, 1916, issue.

[4]               Born in August 18, 1848, Marienwerder, East Prussia. Died October 29, 1936, in Buchanan. Missouri. Married Emilie Balcke in 1871.

[5]               H. H. Riemer: Experiencing Jehovah’s Love, The Watchtower, September 15, 1964, page 571.

[6]               The Passing of Brother H. R. Riemer, The Dawn, January 1937, pages 32-33.

[7]               Letter from Haller to Editor of St. Paul Enterprise, February 27, 1917, issue.

[8]               Letter from Dodge to Editor of St. Paul Enterprise, January 16, 1917, issue.

[9]               Letter from Haney to Editor of St. Paul Enterprise, January 2, 1914, issue.

[10]             Letter from Haney to Editor of St. Paul Enterprise, January 2, 1914, issue.

[11]             Letter from Haney to Russell found in the article: Practical Questions, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 15, 1893, page 154.

[12]             Untitled article, The Norfolk, Nebraska, Weekly News-Journal, July 5, 1907.

[13]             J. A. Marwood: Letter to Editor, St. Paul Enterprise, July 30, 1915, issue.

[14]             ibid.

[15]             J. A. Marwood to Russell, found in Interesting Letters, Zion’s Watch Tower, January 15, 1900, page 16. [Not in Reprints]

[16]             J. A. Marwood: Letter to Editor, St. Paul Enterprise, July 30, 1915, issue.

[17]             J. A. Marwood to Russell, found in An Interesting Letter: Zion’s Watch Tower, May 15, 1909, page 159.

[18]             International Bible Students Association: Lectures and Classes by Traveling Brethren, The Watch Tower, August 15, 1921, page 256.