2 Seeking Cohesion
Zion’s Watch Tower believers
did not constitute an independent religion in 1879 or for some years afterward.
As we demonstrated in volume one of this book, they were unified only by belief
that Christ was (or might be) invisibly present. In many other respects they
were disunited. They read a variety of religious papers other than Herald of
the Morning and Zion’s Watch Tower. Some of
them continued to hold to Inherent Immortality Doctrine. Barbour recounts an
instance of that during the Atonement debate, and Russell’s visit to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was hosted by H. E. Hoke, an Evangelical Adventist
who believed the doctrine.[1]
This doctrinal divergence crept into the pages of Zion’s Watch Tower, at
least one booklet, and into Russell’s correspondence.
The basis for their unity was a
broad agreement on the nature and time of Christ’s return and a united
opposition to Barbour’s Atonement views rather than an actual theological
agreement. Russell was aware of and comfortable with differences and inserted
an announcement on the first page of Zion’s Watch Tower disclaiming
responsibility for the views expressed by contributors: “In no case will the
Editor be responsible for all sentiments expressed by correspondents, nor is he
to be understood as indorsing every expression in articles selected from other
periodicals.” This notice appeared in every issue through that of May 1888.
The Watch Tower’s larger
circulation meant that doctrines already settled on by Russell and most of his
associates had to be restated. New questions came his way, and these were
examined. Some of this we consider here, and a few key developments we consider
in a subsequent chapter. Russell’s goal was broad agreement in areas he saw as
essential.
Exploring
Divergent Views
Even before Barbour entered on his
quest for a unified theology, doctrinal divergence and doctrinal evolution characterized
the Barbourtie movement. In volume one, we discussed their transition from
belief in an “agrarian” paradise for the Bride of Christ to seeing the heavens
as the Bride’s proper home. Until sometime in 1877, Russell and his associates
seem to have held the standard Second Adventist and Age-to-Come belief that the
earth was the destined home for the Bride of Christ. In 1855, Henry F. Hill,
Barbour’s close friend and an Evangelical Adventist, wrote The Saints’ Inheritance, or the
World to Come. Hill’s premise was that the proper home for the saved
was a restored paradise earth. His book was widely circulated, but he was far
from the first to promote this doctrine. It can be traced to the ante-Nicene
era.[2]
William
Trotter’s Plain Papers on Prophetic and Other Subjects and similar
publications introduced them to alternative views. Trotter (1818-1865)
converted to Methodism in 1830, becoming active in the cause and writing
several tracts. A controversy surrounding Joseph Barker, a Methodist clergyman
disturbed Trotter and led him into a Literalist interpretation of the
Scriptures. The controversy pushed Trotter into the Plymouth Brethren where he
became a disciple of John Nelson Darby.[3] It
was as a Brethren preacher that he wrote Plain Papers. Its influence
extended far beyond the Brethren community, finding ready readership among
American millennialists, including Adventists, and it was recommended by Seiss.
An American edition was printed. Two other books also on prophetic subjects followed.[4] C.
N. Kraus suggests that Trotter was one of the two most influential Brethren
writers among American Dispensationalists.[5]
William Trotter photo here
Trotter
was aware of the view of many Second Adventists and other millennialists that
the Saints’ proper inheritance was the earth. Entitled “The Heavenly Hope; or,
What is the Hope of the Christian? What is the Hope of the Church?” the first
chapter of Plain Papers addressed the issue: “The hope of the church is a heavenly, not an earthly hope. Heaven,
not earth, is our future dwelling place. What ever links of connexion there may
be in that day between heaven and earth – whatever benign influences the Church
may be employed of God to exert on the earth and its inhabitants – heaven, not
earth, is our distinctive place and portion.” He cited Hebrews 3:1, Ephesians
1:3 and similar scriptures in support. Key to his argument was John 14:1-3,
which reads, according to the Authorized Version: “Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive
you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also.”
For
Trotter, the Father’s house was his location, the place Jesus went to when he
returned to his Heavenly Father. If the Father was in heaven and Jesus was to
receive his disciples home to himself, then they would join them in heaven.
This view became an issue for Stetson in 1875, and it is likely that it was
also the topic of discussion among the Allegheny Bible Study Group. Stetson
wrote a lengthy article for The Restitution defending the traditional
Adventist and Age-to-Come belief system. Hiram Vaughn Reed, the editor, placed
it on the front page of the March 15, 1876, issue. Bible Student familiarity with Trotter is
confirmed by an article appearing in the August 1, 1921, issue of The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom.[6]
Other
doctrinal issues followed Barbourite adherents into the Watch Tower movement. Most of the issues raised in the early
1880s had been discussed within the Allegheny Study Group. With the publication
of Zion’s Watch Tower the debate was resumed but in a wider field, and
it helped define the Watch Tower movement.
Satan: Person or Evil Influence?
In
1842 John Epps, an English-born Homeopathic Physician, anonymously published The Devil: A
Biblical Exposition of the Truth Concerning That Old Serpent, the Devil and
Satan, and a Refutation of the Beliefs Obtaining in the World Regarding Sin and
its Source. Epps
denied that Satan was a living personality, seeing the Biblical Satan as a mere
evil influence.[7]
John Thomas, a close associate of Storrs and the
founder of Christadelphianism read the book and accepted its views. He would
have been drawn to it because of Epps’ Millenarianism and his belief in
Conditional Immortality doctrine. A debate raged through the pages of Age-to-Come
and Adventist papers. Storrs accepted the
belief, and it found an acceptance among Christadelphians and some One Faith
believers. However, it was largely rejected by readers of The
Restitution.
Some of those newly interested in Zion’s
Watch Tower believed the no-personal-Satan doctrine. In October 1879 Russell
answered a series of questions from readers. Included among them was: “Do you
believe in a monster personal devil?” Russell did and said so.[8]
John Epps photo here
Foot Washing
Early in 1881, a Watch Tower
reader tried to persuade Russell to adopt Foot Washing, writing: “Bro. Russell,
please explain the command concerning feet washing. John 13? It seems to be so
plain a command I wonder why it is so little observed.” Though Seventh-day Adventists
advocated it too, this may have come from someone who had associated with
William C. Thurman.[9] Foot Washing was
characteristic of Thurman’s followers. Originally a Brethren preacher, Thurman
authored The Ordinance of Feet Washing as Instituted by Christ in 1864,
and many of those who read his Sealed Book Opened also read this work.
Thurman’s following had diminished considerably by 1876, and many of them
sought a comfortable religious home elsewhere.
Russell’s reply suggested that Jesus
washed the feet of his disciples to illustrate the need for humility and
service to the brotherhood rather than to establish a ceremony: “There are hundreds of opportunities of
showing the meek, lowly and loving spirit of our Master. Would that Christians
could realize that, as God's stewards and servants, it is not self we are to
minister to and serve and pamper, but it is our mission to ‘do good unto all
men as we have opportunity, especially to the household of faith,’ remembering
that we are to walk in His footsteps who ‘came not to be ministered unto
(served), but to minister (serve) and to give his life a ransom for many.’”[10]
Russell’s answer was also the
standard response of The Restitution. When the issue was raised to H. V.
Reed, its editor, he answered: “Feet-washing and kisses of charity do not
belong to the ceremonies of the church – neither can they be adopted as such,
without destroying the objects for which they were practiced in ancient times.”[11]
Even some Age-to-Come believers found it an attractive ceremony, so,
ultimately, it is impossible to pinpoint any one person or group as the
originator of this question. If it didn’t come from a Thrumanite, it may well
have come from someone like J. T. Ongley who while a One Faith evangelist saw
foot washing as an important ceremonial practice.[12]
Foot washing continued to be a topic of debate and speculation among Restitution
readers for some years. Many of that paper’s readers read Watch Tower.
Communion
The timing and nature of the Lord’s
Evening Meal became an issue between the annual celebrations of 1880 and 1881.
G. M. Myers faulted Russell and others for the memorial dates they advocated.
We discuss this in more detail later in this chapter. Others objected too.
Russell discussed this in the May 1881 Zion’s Watch Tower:
A number of letters received seem to indicate that the
occasion was very generally celebrated among the scattered “twos and threes”
“of this way.” We presume that it was celebrated in about twenty places. All
who wrote expressed the feeling of solemnity and appropriateness, attaching to
the celebration on the anniversary, rather than at any other time. One or two
brethren questioned the date announced – suggesting that by the almanac it
would fall on the 12th instead of the 14th of April. To these we
reply that the calendars in most almanacs are arranged upon astronomical
calculations and are seldom exactly in harmony with the Jewish methods, which
seem to be based on the eyesight. Some almanacs publish the Jewish calendar,
and we used it in ascertaining when the “14th day of the first month,” Jewish
time, would come. The moon is used to symbolize The Law or Jewish nation, which
reached its full at the time of Jesus' presence, but began to wane when he gave
them up and died. The moon was at its full on the 14th of April and began to
wane; this seems to agree with the Jewish calendars and therefore we observed
that time.
One sister wrote expressing disapproval, and asks, Why
not go back to the Law in everything as well as in keeping the Passover? Our
sister is in haste; we did not suggest the observance of the Passover as
instituted by The Law, but the observance of “The Lord's Supper” instead of it.
Nor did we suggest this as a law, believing that “Christ is the end of the Law
for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 10:4, and 7:6). But who
will say that we may not celebrate the death of our Lamb on the anniversary,
for, “as often as ye do this, ye do show forth the Lord's death.”
Most of those who transitioned from
being Bible Examiner readers to Watch Tower readers were familiar with Russell’s reasoning, though not necessarily
agreeing with it.
Position of
Women
The
propriety of women preachers seems not to have been discussed by the Allegheny
believers before 1876. Advent Christians allowed women preachers. Others did
not. The question came to Russell in early 1881. Someone asked him to “please
explain 1 Cor. 14:34. Let the women
keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but
let them be under obedience as also saith the law.” Russell answered:
It is not for us to say why, when God gives no
reasons. Neither can we tell why Jesus sent none of the noble and good women
who believed on him to preach, when he sent first the twelve and then the seventy
before his face. However, much may be said of good accomplished by women in the
temperance cause, etc., we nevertheless believe that this scripture has never
been disregarded with impunity. We believe woman to be a type of the church,
and man the type of Christ the head of the church, and we might draw the lesson
that we, the spouse of Christ, are not to dispute or instruct in the church,
but listen to the voice of our Head – give ear to his word.[13]
His answer did not quiet the issue, and
it was raised again in May 1881. Russell was confronted with this question:
Bro. Russell: How do you interpret Phil. 4:3. “I
entreat thee with me in the gospel...whose names are in the book of life.” And
Acts 1:14: “All continued with one accord in prayer and supplication
with the women.” And 1 Cor. 11:5: “Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth
(teaches)?”
Russell’s
reply probably disappointed Advent Christians who approved of women evangelists,
but he took a more liberal position than many in that era. He said:
We understand these scriptures to teach, that women
did a work in the apostles’ days which was approved and appreciated by them and
by the Lord. Yet we believe that women usually spoke only at the smaller
gatherings, and that when Paul said “Let the women keep silence in the
[congregations,]” he probably had reference to the public gatherings, at which
it was the custom to have more or less of a debate. In these public debatings,
Paul thought a woman’s voice would be out of place, and this is the opinion of most
thinking men and women to-day, though we think that it has by many been carried
to an extreme, forbidding them to pray or teach on any occasion, even in more
private assemblies of Christians, and this we regard as an error.
God has arranged that the man and woman are
representative of Christ and his Bride the church, and this rule by which the
husband is the head of the wife is always maintained in scriptures. (Though
there are exceptions to the rule in nature.) And probably this is one reason,
that men have always been given the more active and public work of the ministry
and women more the work of assisting and more private teaching, yet equally as
acceptable to God. So Christ is the active agent in carrying out his own plan.
He is the great minister of all, and we as His church do a lesser part and yet
an acceptable part, well pleasing to God.[14]
Issues
surrounding women’s rights and responsibilities persisted, fueled by the
woman’s suffrage movement and by Russell’s distorted view of marriage. Russell
believed the phrase “and the two will become one flesh” meant that the woman’s
personality was subsumed into her husband’s. (We consider this issue in chapter
[#]) Aggravated by a less than Biblical view of women and attitudes common in
the era, this issue persisted. Russell noted this, though we think
unintentionally, when he wrote: “This is the opinion of most thinking men and
women to-day, though we think that it has by many been carried to an extreme”
Russell’s comment reveals a conflicted view of authority. Thinking men and
women were persuasive authority when they agreed with him. They were not when
they held a contrary opinion.
Ango-Israeliteism
As we
discussed in volume one, George Storrs believed the Anglo-Israelite theory. The belief that
the “lost tribes” of Israel were Anglo-Saxon peoples was pervasive among One
Faith/Age-to-Come believers, so it isn’t surprising that the issue came
Russell’s way. Citing verses from Galatians and Romans, Russell observed:
“Abraham was the father of two seeds, the children of the flesh [twelve tribes
of Israel] and the children of promise, [faith], of which two
seeds Ishmael and Isaac were types.” The promises belong only to the spiritual
seed, “the children of promise.” So it didn’t matter if the English, the
Germans, and Americans were somewhere under the skin Israelites:
We know not whether the people of these United States and of England are the natural, fleshly descendants of Israel or not. It could make no difference as regards the
spiritual “prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.” If they are, and were
made to know it, the effect of those earthly promises would probably be to
blind them to the spiritual prize as it did the others, 1800 years ago. If they
are of the natural seed, they will receive grand blessings in the coming age,
after the spiritual seed has been exalted to glory and power; as it is written.
“They shall obtain mercy (God's promised blessings) through your mercy”
(through the spiritual seed.) – Rom. 11:31.[15]
Other Issues
A significant number of Watch Tower readers also read The Advent and
Sabbath Advocate, the organ of the
Church of God (Seventh Day). There was
drift between this body and One Faith believers as associated with The
Restitution.
The propriety of a Sabbath observance and its proper day were debated questions,
and the issue was raised with Russell. “There are people to-day whose claim is
that they are God's children through keeping the law – the seventh day,
Sabbath, etc,” Russell wrote.[16]
In numbers of ways the Watch Tower emphasized that the law was past and the Sabbaths
were prophetic.
The Trinity was an unresolved issue among those attending
the original Allegheny Bible Class. W. H. Conley, for one, retained the
doctrine. With the Watch Tower spreading its message on to a larger audience than
had the Herald of the Morning, and considering a wider spectrum of Bible
teaching, Jesus’ relationship to God became an urgent issue. William Imre Mann
wrote against the doctrine in the March 1880 issue. He focused on 1 John 5:7, taken
by many to be a plain and Apostolic endorsement of Trinitarian thought. He
quoted recognized authorities to prove the verse spurious:
In Hudson’s Greek and English
concordance we read: “The words are found in no Greek MSS. before the 15th
or 16th century, and in no early version, unless, says Alford, pure
caprice is to be followed in the criticism of the sacred text; there is not a
shadow of reason for supposing them genuine. Tischendorf says, that this
spurious addition should continue to be published as a part of the epistle, I
regard as an impiety, etc.; and President T. B. Woolsey: “Do not truth and
honesty require that such a passage should be struck out of our English Bibles;
a passage which Luther would not express in his translation, and which did not
creep into the German Bible until nearly fifty years after his death?”[17]
The Watch Tower spoke with
a conflicting voice. Paton’s articles reflected Storrs’ Sabellian belief. An article by Lizzy Allen used
Trintarian expressions but her doctrine was something else. Entitled “A Living
Christ,” her article was written to refute Barbour’s speculation on the
two-fold nature of a pre-existent Christ. She drew on the “worship’ of Christ,
making no distinction between “obeisance” and religious adoration. It is
doubtful that she was familiar with the Greek text. Russell was comfortable
with the concept even though he was not Trinitarian. Jesus was God manifested
in the flesh, but if one reads her explanation carefully, Jesus was for her not
God but the explanation of God:
Even in the flesh He was "God manifest."
From His character in its perfection we get our earliest and truest idea of
God. When Philip requested to see the Father, He answered him, "Have I
been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me? He that
hath seen me hath seen the Father also, and how sayest thou, then show the
Father." (John). Whether we, like Philip, become acquainted with Him
through His earthly life, or by catching the spirit of the written word, whose
vital teachings contain the image of Him whose name is called the Word of God,
if so be that we know Him, it shall be to us eternal life. For to know Him is
to know the Father also.[18]
These are all Trinitarian
proof texts, and some readers may have seen this as a Trintarian statement. Readers
questioned Russell over Trinitarianism. Russell wrote a clear statement of his
beliefs, publishing it in August 1881. Put in perspective, Paton was on the way
out of the movement by that August. He and Russell had a confrontational
meeting (we discuss it in a later chapter), and Russell’s exposition of the
Christ’s nature was prompted by it and readers’ questions. [continue]
A
cognate issue was Jesus’ pre-existence. Socinianism, the characteristic belief
of most of those within the One Faith movement, denied it. Josephite belief,
the teaching that Jesus was the “natural son” of Joseph was current among a
small number of Age-to-Come believers, and Barbour accused the Watch Tower party of rejecting the doctrine of Christ’s pre-existence.
The accusation was unwarranted. Watch Tower writers were not Trinitarians. Russell saw the Jesus as a created
being so close to God that it didn’t matter if he prayed to Jesus or Jehovah.
The holy spirit was not a person. Paton was Sabellian in belief, though some of
his comments drift into Semi-Arianism. Though they differed as to the nature of
the Christ and his relationship to God, they believed in Christ’s
pre-existence.
Russell
was clear on the issue:
Jesus’
“being in the form of God,” implies Divine powers, etc.; this on our account he
left, taking “not the nature of angels,” (which would have implied angelic
powers and qualities) but he took the nature of men, which implies the
qualities and powers of man, (before man sinned). He undoubtedly knew of His
own pre-existence as he frequently referred to it as glory had with the Father
before the world was.[19]
Paton
first endorsed the idea in 1879, elaborating on the theme later, he wrote:
We defend the preexistence of Christ, and also the relation
between His coming in the flesh and His death in the flesh. The first prepared
the way for the second; the second was the ransom. Both were necessary, and
parts of the same plan, and both express God's great love for man. Take the
pre-existence of Christ out of the plan, and there was no condescension on His
part, and no motive to benevolence for us, as the apostle presents it. Take the
death of Christ out of the plan, and the types of death are useless, and there
is no ransom, and therefore no restitution.[20]
As
with most of these issues, this addressed the doctrinal mix found among Watch Tower readers. It more directly took up a false accusation made by Barbour
and his closest associates. If Barbour believed what he said, he probably based
it on a confused sentence in one of Russell’s articles.[21]
We do not see that as likely. It is vaguely possible that A. D. Jones was
already preaching his Josephite views, but that seems very unlikely too. When
he expressed them in print in 1882, it surprised everyone. We conclude that
Barbour knowingly lied. The issue would grow with Jones’ deflection in 1882,
but Watch Tower theology was clearly defined by then.
Gifts of the Spirit
Someone
wrote to Russell, asking: “I want to inquire whether we can, properly speaking,
call any church the church of Christ which does not possess the gifts of the Spirit as we
are told the first church had them?” Russell answered in the November 1880
magazine. His reasoning was that among the Gifts of the Spirit were the
Apostles. The scripture is plain that except for Judas, there is no apostolic
succession – Apostleship passed away and remains abeyant until the Apostles are
raised to heaven. Just so, other gifts passed away:
The apostle tells us that there are differences of administration,
but the same Lord. So we see it to be; for instance, as to the apostles' method
of teaching the church. God has seen fit to continue, to some extent, these
gifts. We have in the church “teachers, evangelists, pastors,” &c., but
many of those gifts have passed away under a “different administration.”
Tongues, prophesyings, &c., have ceased, as Paul said they should (1 Cor. 13:8),
probably, because not now necessary.
The church is, to our understanding, one body, from
Jesus, the head, down to the last member bearing the same fruit of the vine.
Its life lasts on earth during the gospel age and until every member is clothed
with its heavenly body. While on earth, any two or three of the members may
assemble themselves as the body – the church – and will be so recognized by the
head, who says He will meet with them.[22]
This
is a mixed answer. There is no apostolic succession. Tongues and prophecy have
ceased. Teachers, evangelists and pastors continue in the church. Not said here
is the idea that healings probably returned to the church, yet Russell believed
that. He saw them as evidence of the Millennial Dawn, that Christ was returned
and the millennium in its early days. We consider that more fully in a later
chapter.
Discussions
on the nature of Spirit Baptism were pervasive and persistent. Russell
addressed it again in the August 1881 paper:
A common error among God’s children to-day, and one
arising from an improper conception of the holy Spirit, is the supposed
necessity for frequent baptisms of the Spirit. We are told, “Be ye filled with
the Spirit”: and we would urge the necessity of constantly receiving supplies
of grace to help our infirmities. We need constantly to go to the fountain to
replenish, because our “earthen vessels” are very defective, and the spirit of
Christ easily slips out, being under constant pressure from the spirit of the
world. But to be filled with the Spirit is something totally different from the
Baptism of the Spirit.
So far as we are informed, there have been but three
baptisms of the Spirit in all: First, Jesus was so baptized; second, the
disciples at Pentecost were similarly baptized; third, Cornelius and his family
were so baptized. These three baptisms were in reality but one, as already
shown from the Levitical type. The holy anointing oil was poured upon the head
and ran down over the body. The same Spirit given to our Head
--Jesus--descended on the church at Pentecost, and has since been running down
over and anointing all that are his. In these three cases, it was an outward
manifestation which witnessed specially that God recognized such as his. To
convince the natural man, the reception was accompanied by various “gifts.” (1
Cor. 14:22.) To them, these gifts were the evidences of the possession of the
Spirit and acceptance with God.
The Spirit, or mind, of God is now received without
the gifts, and without outward manifestation. Those manifestations and gifts
being now recorded in the Word of God, and not (or with few exceptions) in the
persons and deeds of his children. Paul testified that he might have gifts, or
be acted upon by the Spirit, and yet be almost destitute of the Spirit of love
and sacrifice itself-- and thus be but “a tinkling cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1.) Thus
we see that the gifts were not a mark of special favor toward those exercised
by them. What we may have of the “witness” of the Spirit, is a far better
criterion of our spiritual condition, than if possessed of the mountain-moving,
tongue-speaking, and miracle-working power, without the internal witness of
harmony with God’s Word.
Since Cornelius, there have been no such baptisms or
outward manifestations of God’s favor; but instead, the inward unseen witness
of the Spirit of truth with our spirit, that we are children and heirs.[23]
This
discussion did not arise from what we now know as the Pentecostal movement, but
from interest in the Faith-Cure movement. Russell was interested. Conley was
convinced. The article we quote above was written to address the issues of
God-head and Spirit that arose as a result. We consider this more fully when we
discuss W. H. Conley’s Faith-Cure beliefs.
Baptism
We
considered the Allegheny Study Group’s view of Baptism in volume one. With a
much wider voice through Zion’s Watch Tower the nature and importance of
Baptism was re-addressed. This was
primarily a controversy among Age-to-Come believers. Since many of Russell’s
readers came from that camp, he addressed the issue in the September 1880 in an
article entitled “The Importance of Baptism.” While some of the earliest Watch
Tower articles seem confused, this one seems to us a carefully considered
and balanced article. Of course, since it almost entirely matches our personal
theologies, it is easy for us to say so.
Russell,
swayed by Storrs, pointed to Baptism into Christ and into his death as
the true baptism. He defined it thus:
Now it is his death, that we are to be conformed to.
True it will include the giving up of the sins or “filth of the flesh,” and the
“denying of ungodly lusts,” etc., but, thus far it is simply duty. You only
give up things you never had a right to, there is no sacrifice in it. If we
would be made conformable unto his death, it must be by the giving up of things
not sinful and to which you have a right, as men. Jesus did not his own will,
but the will of him that sent him, and we should “Let the same mind be in us
which was also in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Father’s will as done in Christ
Jesus was the giving up of natural things, and comforts, and life, on account
of sin in the world. Sin and sufferings are still in the world and the
disciples of Jesus most willing to “spend and be spent,” to “labor and suffer
reproach,” making “himself of no reputation,” such a disciple most closely
follows Him “who has set us an example that we should walk in His footsteps.” …
Such, baptized into Christ’s death will not make
earthly ease and comfort their aim, but will seek to “do good unto all men as
they have opportunity especially to the household of faith.” Their self-denial
and God-likeness will seek to benefit and lift up the physical man, and how
much more will it lead to self-sacrifice in order that others may be helped on
to the divine life. Thus it was that the apostles spent themselves that they
might declare “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” It was for this cause that Paul
says: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind
of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the
church.”
Unlike
Storrs, Russell saw water baptism as an essential, symbolic
of a covenant of obedience. He wrote:
But while the above mentioned is beyond question the
essential baptism, was there not a baptism into water enjoined also and as a
type? Assuredly there is. When the new hearers had heard of Jesus' death for
them, and of their high calling to share it with him and afterward to share his
glory, they made the covenant with God and gave outward expression to it by the
beautifully expressive type of being buried in water, and said by the act we
die to the world and earthly conditions and rise to "walk not after the
flesh but after the spirit." …
The ordinance of water baptism is so beautifully
expressive of our hope and covenant, that if there was no divine injunction as
to its performance, as there is, we should still feel it a privilege to show
forth and illustrate our planting (burying) together in the likeness of his
death and our expectation of being in his likeness in the resurrection. The
ordinance of water baptism is so beautifully expressive of our hope and
covenant, that if there was no divine injunction as to its performance, as
there is, we should still feel it a privilege to show forth and illustrate our
planting (burying) together in the likeness of his death and our expectation of
being in his likeness in the resurrection. The ordinance of water baptism is so
beautifully expressive of our hope and covenant, that if there was no divine
injunction as to its performance, as there is, we should still feel it a
privilege to show forth and illustrate our planting (burying) together in the
likeness of his death and our expectation of being in his likeness in the
resurrection.
Keith
wrote to Russell, thanking him for the article. He was pleased and found it in
harmony with his thoughts.” Keith’s letter is interesting because it helps date
his personal interest in the ‘true’ baptism, the baptism into Christ’s death:
I
have thought for two years or more, that those who thought, only of water
baptism, when thinking of being baptized into Christ, were taking the shadow
and leaving out the substance; just as they do, who ask to be provided with
daily bread, and mean, mainly, natural bread.
The
real baptism is of vital importance; and it seems to me that when one has
reached that point, he will give expression to it, by water baptism in a proper
way, just as surely as it is true that out of the “abundance of the heart the
mouth speaketh.”[24]
This profoundly affected
some who had minimized the importance of Water Baptism or who had ignored it
all together. They wrote to Russell asking what they should do to be properly
baptized. He said God would open up a way, and offered some suggestions:
Several have written to us that they have carefully
read article in September number, 1880, on “Importance of Baptism,” and would
like to fulfill the outward sign of the death of the fleshly nature, as
symbolized by immersion into water, but are at a loss how to accomplish it.
We would suggest that if you live near any of those
whose names appear in first column of our paper, write to them; if not, if
there are several of you, baptize one another; or if you live near any of the
officiating brethren of the Christian Disciple church, they would doubtless
serve you. (Ministers of the “Baptist Church” are not permitted by their creed to baptize any
except those who join their church.) We only throw out these suggestions. If
you earnestly desire it, you will find that God has some open door for you.[25]
Coping with Difference
A letter addressed to Maria
Russell and her reply published in the June 1887 Watch Tower shows why it was important to address these issues. Maria Russell’s
reply reveals the nature of their association and a tolerance for difference if
it didn’t rest in the understanding of Christ’s sacrifice. A “Mrs S” from Auburn,
Illinois, wrote:
I was first impressed with these newly discovered
ideas regarding the teaching of God's Word, in the fall of 1881. I grasped the
central idea, the Atonement, from the first; also the Restitution of all
things, through justification. These central points seem to me as clear as the
noon-day. Some other points, and in comparison to these, minor ones I should
say, such as the Trinity – the exact state of the being after death, the
Communion, Baptism (the outward symbol and its correct form), and the Law
touching the keeping of the Sabbath – these four questions have caused doubts
and arguments for and against, to harbor within my mind. ….
Perhaps now you will say, I have not truly been
begotten of the Spirit. Dear Sister, I can echo your fears upon this subject.
And that brings me to the principal part of my trouble. My life is one of small
trials and vexations. Like Mary I have chosen the better part, but I am a
veritable Martha, though indeed with all the aspirations and ideas and longings
of a Mary. That is, I am so surrounded with worldly anxieties and petty cares –
having the care of my family, trying to make ends meet and working from morning
till night, with miserable health continually, which of itself is a cause of
nervousness and fretfulness. Do you wonder I doubt my own position in the Plan
of the Ages? I do not presume to know where I stand in this matter – whether upon the spiritual or human
plane. But I can say, with a conscience void of intentional, willful offence,
that I shall be grateful, if I may be accounted worthy even to be a doorkeeper
in the house of our God.
Mrs. S’s situation was not
exceptional. Because Watch Tower readers came from many and diverse
religious cultures, differences were to be expected. There was no organization.
The viewed organization beyond the local level with suspicion. So point of
contact was through one of the Watch Tower principals such as Maria Russell. Maria’s reply shows
us how they viewed doctrinal diversity:
Your esteemed favor of the 25th April is at hand and
be assured that in your questionings and fears I fully sympathize with you. I
do not look upon them however as evidence of any lack of consecration to God,
or that you are not begotten of the Spirit. They come only as the result of an
imperfect understanding of God's great comprehensive plan.
What you need, then, is to take plenty of time, and
with patient carefulness and a meek and teachable spirit which is intent on
knowing and doing God's will only, to study his great plan of the ages. Keep
well in mind its deep foundation--its complete satisfaction of the demands of
justice in our redemption through the precious blood of Christ; its righteous
principles recognizing God's absolute and universal sovereignty and man's individual
free agency; and then mark the wonderful scope of the plan--so far reaching in
its grand results as to affect all creatures "in heaven and in
earth," to establish once and forever the absolute authority of God in all
the universe, and to establish all his creatures in righteousness and joyful
and loving obedience.[26]
They
expected doctrinal diversity, and welcomed those with contrary belief, except
in the matter of Atonement doctrine. Those who did not believe as they did were
not false Christians, but only inexperienced or possessing a less perfect
understanding of God’s word. Watch Tower adherents believed that sectarian division was wrong.
Christians weren’t Mehtodists, Baptists or Anglicans. They were Christ’s and
should be known by no other name but his. This meant that at worst doctrinal
division meant less than behavior. Those with flawed understanding were babes
in Christ, but they were still Christ’s:
We
are satisfied that whatever theory does not recognize the essential unity of
the church must be false; and yet we believe it can be shown, and that it will
yet become more apparent, that there is not only variety in condition here, but
also a corresponding variety in position in the kingdom, and a difference in
the time of reward, as we usually reckon time. “They that are Christ's, at his
coming” (parousia – presence) must include all Christians, even “babes in
Christ,” unless it can be shown (?) that “babes in Christ” are not members of
Christ's body.[27]
Personal Issues
and Early Adherents
Some issues were personal rather than
doctrinal. Occasionally letters were confrontational, but more often they
contained issues of personal consequence, Russell still addressed them.
Amon Hipsher and Lorenzo Jackson
Baldwin
Amon
Hipsher[28]
was a resident of Ames, Story County, Iowa. Born in Pennsylvania about 1820, he was a successful and wealthy farmer.[29]
Hipsher was active in Church of God (One Faith) conferences. He was elected conference
president in December 1874.[30]
At a subsequent conference someone objected to him being placed in sole charge of
future arrangements, describing the arrangement as Hipsher acting as a “little
pope.” This seems to have been an objection only to the arrangement, not a
comment on his personality. He declined re-election for the next year at the
December 1875 conference. By 1884 the conference was renamed The Christian
Conference of Iowa, and Hipsher was elected vice president.[31]
Beyond
the fact that he subscribed to The Heretic Detector, an
anti-Universalist magazine published in Middleburg, Ohio, we know little of his religious background prior to
1874.[32]
He lived in areas reached by Stetson and his closest associates, he was one of The
Watch Tower’s first
readers. In the March 1881, issue Russell addressed a question sent in by him,
writing, “Bro. A. Hipsher, for answer to your question: see ‘Unpardonable Sin,’
page 3.”
Hipsher’s
questions were likely raised by an article in appearing in the September 1880 Watch Tower. Russell’s
approach was interesting. He defined three kinds of sin: [1] Adamic sin, a
condition we inherit from Adam. He saw this as a tendency to sin with a
biological basis. [2] Sins of ignorance for which we are personally
responsible. This and Adamic sin are forgiven through Christ’s ransoming death.
[3] Unpardonable sin was sin against spiritual enlightenment. He explained it
this way:
Paul assures us that
any Christian who has reached a full and mature development in the spiritual
life, having “been enlightened,” “tasted of the heavenly gift,” “been made
partaker of the Holy Ghost,” “tasted of the good word of God” – if such shall
fall away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance. Why? Because
this is an unpardonable sin. … These … enjoyed all the blessings due them on
account of Christ's ransom: i.e. They were reckoned of God justified from all
sin, as new creatures had been brought to a condition of enlightenment and
knowledge of the Lord's will, and then, had deliberately and willfully acted
contrary to it. We do not refer to a child of God stumbling or being overcome
of the old nature for a time, but as expressed in Heb. 10:26 – If we sin
willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more (a) sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of
judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour (destroy) the adversaries.”
… We understand Paul
to teach that the class here described have received all the benefits due them
through Christ's ransom, and that their willful sinning against knowledge,
&c., places them in the same position as Adam occupied when he sinned; the
penalty of all such willful sin is death. In Adam's case it was the first
death. In the case of these it is the second death. They had been reckoned dead
as Christians and then reckoned of God alive as new creatures and now they die
for their own willful sin – the second death. There is neither forgiveness nor
excuse for such sin; they must have the full penalty and die. They have lightly
esteemed the ransom after they knew of it and thus have “trodden under foot the
Son of God and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified
(set apart as new creatures) an unholy (ordinary – common) thing and done
despite (disrespect) unto the spirit of (favor) grace.”[33]
Russell saw those who after once understanding it rejected Christ’s atoning sacrifice as committing the unpardonable sin, though he believed that God measured willfulness and knowledge where humans could not. He ended the article with a restatement of his Fair Chance doctrine, the belief that some had never heard the gospel and would have a full chance to do so.
Lorenzo
Jackson Baldwin (died March 25, 1891) was another Iowa resident. He was born March 2, 1823, in Vermont and died in Madison County, Iowa. He was a small-time
farmer in the Mackenburgh area. In 1883 he wrote to S. A Chaplin, editor of The
Restitution, seeking “a boy between 15 and 20 years old” to live with them
for “two or three years.” He promised “to send him to school winters and pay
wages for eight or nine months in the years.” Baldwin and his wife specifically
asked for “a reader of The Restitution and a believer in the gospel of the
kingdom.”[34]
Baldwin was active among One Faith believers in Iowa. We find him attending a One Faith conference in
September 1875 with an Elder Baldwin, apparently a relative.[35]
We find him noted in the same article in which we met Hipsher. He asked a flood
of questions. Russell’s response was: “Bro. J. Baldwin: It would require the
entire space of Z.W.T. for a year or more to answer all your questions in full.
We commend to you the reading of all the tracts 3 or 4 times; then read ‘day dawn.’ You need not expect to obtain
all the truth on so great and grand a subject at one swallow, it is a
continuous eating. You must seek. ‘He that seeketh findeth.’ ‘Then shall we
know if we follow on to know the Lord.’ (Hos. 6:3.)”[36]
Based on Russell’s recommendation of Bible Students Tracts number one and two,
we believe that Baldwin’s questions centered on issues of “second probation”
and the reason for and manner of Christ’s return. These were issues that would
have raised questions among Russell’s One Faith readers.
Homer A. King photo here
Early in 1880, Homer King questioned
the Watch Tower’s claim
that “Russia has enacted laws compelling the Jews to leave that
country.” Russell replied in the April 1880 issue of The Watch Tower,
citing an article from the Pittsburgh Dispatch of March 29, 1880.[37]
King was pugnacious and some questioned his financial dealings.[38]
During the debate between Miles Grant, a well-known Advent Christian clergyman,
and “Rev. J. G. Fish,” a spiritualist, King had an informal side debate with a
Mr. A. Bennett that cost him $30.45 in fines and costs on an assault charge.[39]
Our impression of King’s letter to Russell, admittedly derived only from one
quoted sentence, is that it was belligerent. By 1880, association between
Advent Christians and Age-to-Come believers had ended. King would not have
accepted Russell’s belief in the return of the Jews, and he would especially
reject any hint that it was imminent.
King
was an Ohio evangelist who associated closely with Stetson and
Wendell. He helped organize the mixed congregation (Adventist and Age to Come)
at Nevada, Ohio in
early 1867 and was instrumental in drawing Stetson to Nevada as pastor.[40]
Wendell and King founded the Advent Christian Church at Nevada, Ohio.
Homer A. King was born near Akron, Ohio, on December 7, 1833. He was educated at home. During winter months his
father would have someone read to the family, focusing on history. King was
drawn to the local Lyceum, a hall for public lectures, debates and political
discussions. He gained a reputation as a debater among Lyceum attendees. His father encouraged him to pursue a college
education, and he enrolled in Knox College but eventually transferred to Oberlin so he could be
free to teach school during the winter months. At Oberlin he was influenced by
Charles Grandison Finney, a famous revivalist preacher and one of the prime
movers behind the American “Second Great Awakening.” Even though King was
pursuing a career in the ministry, he avoided classical language studies.[41]
He
was ordained by the Illinois Advent Christian Conference at least by 1861 and
went on a long evangelistic tour, holding “from one to twenty series of
Evangelistic meetings in every New England state and most of the northern
states to the Mississippi river, forcefully illustrating his texts by the use
of over one thousand square feet of historical, biblical and prophetical
paintings.” King traveled with a “missionary
tent,” and left behind at least one functioning Second Adventist congregation.[42]
In 1871 King founded The Bible Banner, putting it in the hands of John
Couch and William Sheldon, prominent Advent Christian clergy. King’s connection
to the paper ended in1877.[43]
illustrations here.
There
is no denying King’s intelligence, though we question his judgment. Illness
turned King’s interests to publishing, and he turned his bee-keeping hobby into
a major publishing effort. He patented a velocipede design in the 1880s, and in
his last years opened a machine shop and tried to manufacture motorcycles.
King
was comfortable preaching among other denominations. A newspaper article from
1878 notes him as preaching with “the Union Evangelistic Holiness Tent” in New Jersey.[44]
Aspects of the Holiness movement appealed to Second Adventists, Age-to-Come
believers, and readers of Zion’s Watch Tower. However, by the 1890s,
King would affiliate with the Baptists.[45]
The circumstances surrounding his call to pastor Baptist congregations are
unknown. King was also involved with the YMCA.[46]
At his death he was still affiliating with the Advent Christian Church.[47]
King’s
significance rests in his association with those near and dear to Russell. His
letter makes plain the diversity among Watch Tower readers. If the issue of Jewish hopes was not important to many of his
readers, it is doubtful that King’s letter would have seen print.
Persuasion
Russell
and his associates sought to persuade the small groups that had been
sympathetic to The Herald of the Morning to maintain previous doctrine.
Paton traveled extensively while Russell remained in Allegheny preparing for
the release of Zion’s Watch Tower, but as soon as the new magazine was
up and running Russell arranged preaching tours of his own. The first issue of The
Watch Tower announced a new hymnal, Songs of the Bride, edited by
William I. Mann, and an advertisement for Russell’s booklet, Object and
Manner of Our Lord’s Return. The lack of other publications meant that
their new magazine was their primary voice.
In the second issue, Russell noted
that he had sent out six thousand copies of the July and August issues and
invited subscriptions. He said that he couldn’t continue sending free copies
because:
First, it is
expensive, and second, we have no desire to waste truth by sending where it is
not desired and would not be appreciated. We would like therefore to hear from
all who want the paper regularly before the tenth day of August, that we may
know what number of copies to publish for September.
The price is very low
in order to suit the purses of the majority of the interested ones, among whom
are “not many rich,” (for “God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in
faith, heirs of the kingdom.”) and unless a good large list of subscribers are
had, fifty cents will fall far short of paying for printing, &c.
Do not suppose these
remarks to be an appeal for money. No, “Zion’s Watch Tower” has, we believe Jehovah for its backer, and while
this is the case it will never beg nor petition men for support. When He who
says: “All the gold and silver of the mountains are mine,” fails to provide
necessary funds, we will understand it to be time to suspend the publication.
Do not put off until
to-morrow what you can do to-day. If you want the September No. take your pen
at once. Remember that the paper is as free to you if too poor to send the
fifty cents as though you could afford it and paid for it, but we cannot know
your circumstances – You must write also.[48]
Anti-Russell
polemicists insist that Russell stole the Herald of the Morning
subscription list. While the names on that list were probably included among
the six thousand to whom Zion’s Watch Tower was sent, seeing Russell as
a thief is ludicrous. Russell was part
owner of The Herald. There is no clearer indication of this than the
statement found in the earlier issues that the Herald was published
jointly by Russell and Barbour. One researcher suggests that George Storrs may
have made his subscription list available. While this may be likely, Russell
never explained how the list was developed. The Herald didn’t reach six
thousand readers in 1879. It seems to have reached something less than one
thousand.
With
the second issue, Russell explained the magazine’s sub-title, Herald of
Christ’s Presence. Christ was present and had been since 1874, and they
were in the Harvest Age: “We think we have good solid reasons – not
imaginations – not dreams nor visions, but Bible evidences (known to the
majority of our readers) that we are now “in the days of the Son;” that “the
day of the Lord” has come, and Jesus, a spiritual body, is present, harvesting
the Gospel age.”[49]
After
a prolonged illness, George Washington Stetson died on October 9, 1879. Stetson’s dying request was that Russell preach the
funeral oration, and, though other ministers participated, Russell was the
principal speaker. An unintended consequence was enlarging the sphere of those
who heard his message. Because none of the churches were large enough, the
funeral services were held at Normal Hall on the grounds of what was then Edinboro State Teachers
College: “About
twelve hundred persons attended the funeral services, thus giving evidence of
the high esteem in which our brother was held,” Russell wrote.[50]
By comparison, the Second Adventist and One Faith unity congregation at
Edinboro numbered about one hundred in 1873.[51]
The subscription list grew. The same issue contained a
request for spare copies of the October 1879 magazine. Russell sought about
fifty copies to fill a shortage caused by new subscriptions. Reader response encouraged him. Many of the
copies received were heavily marked and well studied. Russell was pleased with
this:
Very many of the
papers returned were liberally underscored etc., and gave evidence of interest
and careful and prayerful reading which was very interesting and pleasant for
the editor to notice. Although not laboring for the “praise of men” nor “seeking
praise one of another;” yet every such indication of your interest in the work
we have so deeply at heart, gives us fresh strength and joy.
The kind words received from many of you during the past six months have been duly appreciated also. Although we have not been able to answer you, they have afforded your editor pleasure and comfort, and that was doubtless your object. We seldom publish letters, of correspondents, because firstly, we have no room to spare, and secondly, they generally contain personal allusion to the writers too complimentary to admit of publication.
Russell
quoted from two letters. The first explained how deeply they treasured The
Watch Tower. The writer, a sister V. N. J., whom we know as Vesta N.
Johnson,[52] from Springfield,
Massachusetts, said, “I read them over and over, lend them, but never give them
away for they are as choice to me as gold dust. As I read, I mark and comment
for my own benefit.” The second correspondent said that a friend had given her
copies to read, and she had subscribed. This represents the most typical form
of Watch Tower evangelism in this era. Interestingly, the last
writer added, “As I am 83 years old and unable to canvas I have secured the
services of a young lady to do so for me.”[53]
In
March 1880, Russell again offered the last few hundred copies of Object and
Manner of Our Lord’s Return. They were available at sixty cents a dozen,
thirty cents for six, or free to those who couldn’t afford them and would “use
them judiciously.” And another small announcement said that “Invitations to
hold meetings may be addressed either to the editor (mentioning whom you wish
to have), or direct to the brethren.”[54]
Entering the
Field
Albert Jones felt called to
evangelize. Sometime in November 1879 he asked to be excused from his post as a
“special contributor” to Zion’s
Watch Tower. Russell
announced this is the December issue:
Bro. A. D. Jones felt
a strong desire for some time to give more of his time to preaching the glad
tidings. He started out this month, going wherever the Lord may open the way.
God will bless him in his endeavor to bless others. May he be used to the glory
of our Lord.
Our brother has other
[business] calls upon whatever spare time he may have, and asks to be excused
as a regular correspondent; so what is the people’s gain is the Watch Tower’s loss. We hope, however, for occasional brief
articles from his pen.[55]
This
wasn’t Jones’ first venture into itinerate preaching. He was in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, in August 1879. He planned on a series of thirteen
lectures, and we suppose he intended to stay two weeks, lecturing daily save
one. The Cambria, Pennsylvania, Freeman of August 29, 1879, reported: “Mr. A. D. Jones who is connected with ‘Zion’s Watch Tower,’ a paper published in Pittsburgh, and who lectured here last week, condensed the
thirteen lectures promised into five and then left, to the relief of both
Calvinists and Arminians.”
The
issue that announced Jones’ evangelical call contained this announcement: “Almost
all the brethren whose names appear on our list as regular contributors, the
editor, and three others who do not write for Zion’s
Watch Tower, but who are in sympathy and accord with its teachings, are
preaching the good news wherever the Lord of the Harvest opens the
way. Requests for their services may be
sent to this office.” We are uncertain who the “three others” were. One of them
may have been John S. Lawver.
Brooklyn, New York, Eagle
January 20, 1881 Illustration here
Jones’ preaching is not well
documented outside of Zion’s Watch Tower. Russell placed an announcement
in the September 1880 issue:
Bro. A. D. Jones will
be in the vicinity of New
York City and Philadelphia during September. If any living in this direction
desire him to give a series of discourses on The object, manner, etc., of the
return of our Lord, he will take pleasure in serving you. Neither pay, nor
traveling expenses asked. This is true of all our preaching brethren associated
with the watch tower. We leave money matters entirely with Him who says, “All
the gold and silver of the mountains are mine and the cattle upon a thousand
hills.” Address immediately A. D. Jones, Pittsburgh, Pa.[56]
In
the December 1880 Zion’s Watch Tower Russell announced that Jones
proposed a second eastward trip. His destination was New York City, but, “any friends en route who would like to have
him stop and meet with them should address him at once. He will be glad to meet
with either the few or many, and hold either public or private meetings, as you
may deem advisable. Those within seventy-five miles of the main line may
address him – Pittsburgh, Pa.”[57] In
January 1881, he was in Brooklyn, New York, preaching nightly at the Cumberland Street Chapel, a
Presbyterian chapel located near Myrtle Street. Surprisingly, we have a solid report of his
lectures. George W. Young, a One Faith believer, attended three of Jones’
lectures, mentioning them in a letter to The Restitution:
Last week, I listened
to three out of seven discourses given in this city, by A. D. Jones, Pittsburgh, Pa.
His effort was
chiefly to show the closing times in which we live. His position is that we are
in the “day dawn” – Christ has come but has not made himself visible – that the
resurrection is going on, and has been since 1874.
This belief, as
expressed in one of his lectures, that the major part of the saints have
already been resurrected, and this year, 1881, will reveal much that has been
hoped for. I am free to admit great plausibility in much said by the lecturer,
but I have not so learned the order, as he lays it down, and he speaks for many
holding the same views as himself.
I pass no judgment on
this at this time. I have learned, I trust, after many years of experience, to
show moderation in this matter of judgment, as I am admonished by the apostle
to be “swift to hear and show to speak.”
There are those who
are ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth – there
are those who virtually say, because they act it – “I will not investigate, and
those new things only trouble me, and I will not be troubled.
I wonder if the
Berean spirit is in them! And if they had so acted when for instance, the
future life through Christ was presented to them![58]
Newark,
New Jersey had a larger, more united group than most. Both
Russell and Jones planned to be there in April 1881. Three meetings were
scheduled for Sunday, April 10th, and they were to remain until the
14th to celebrate the Lord’s Memorial Supper with them.[59]
Russell was unable to go, but included a brief report in the May Watch Tower:
Brother A. D. Jones reports a very interesting and
profitable meeting at Newark, New Jersey, among the friends there and some from
neighboring towns, with whom he celebrated “Our Passover” – between fifty and
sixty taking part.
A number of letters received seem to indicate that the
occasion was very generally celebrated among the scattered “twos and threes”
“of this way.” We presume that it was celebrated in about twenty places. All
who wrote expressed the feeling of solemnity and appropriateness, attaching to
the celebration on the anniversary, rather than at any other time.[60]
Jones presented a series of lectures
at Newark, New
Jersey, in late
May or early June 1882, with plans to repeat the series in New York City and in Brooklyn.[61] It
is obvious that the number of groups interested enough in Watch Tower theology to report their Memorial details to Russell
were both small in number and small in size. A Watchtower Society writer
suggested that these congregations formed around Russell’s preaching. This is
false. These were areas of pre-existing Barbourite, Age-to-Come (One Faith),
and Adventist interest.
Jones moved to New York City sometime before November 1881, establishing a men’s
wear store at 27th and Broadway. Within not many months he abandoned
Watch Tower belief, but that’s the subject of a subsequent
chapter.
Paton’s Preaching
Tour
Paton planned a preaching tour of
the mid-west which was announced in the January 1880, Watch Tower: “Bro Paton purposes visiting several places in Indiana, Illinois
and Iowa during January and February. Any living in that
direction who desire meeting should address him at once.” The February
issue noted that Paton’s trip was delayed while he was writing “a book which
will be of general interest to you all.”[62]
He made the trip in March or April. The only record is a letter from Avis
Hamlin to Barbour, dated April 1880. Though Hamlin would briefly adopt Watch Tower theology, ending up with Paton’s brand of Universal
Salvation, in 1880 she was sympathetic to Barbour. She was unhappy with Paton’s
visit. She was away when he was in Elyria,
Ohio, and returned to find “things a good deal mixed,” her
quaint way of describing controversy in the congregation. Barbour visited
afterward, apparently by her invitation. His visit swayed the congregation back
to Barbour’s new theology. In early 1880 Avis Hamlin thanked God for Barbour’s
visit and believed his newly expressed prophetic scheme.[63] The
situation in Elyria was probably typical of that elsewhere.
We don’t have a verifiable
itinerary, but we have possible, even likely, locations where Paton preached.
Letters expressing interest appear in the Herald of the Morning, many of
which come from the Mid-Western States. The biographies of those we can
identify tell us much about the kind of person interested in the Barbourite and
later Watch Tower movements
Dr.
Victor Caillot, born France 1838-39 and resident near Plymouth, Indiana, wrote to Barbour in 1878. His name is in one of the
money received columns. William N. Sarvis, who lived near Dwight,
Illinois, was a subscriber, and it appears that the Sarvis
family persisted as Watch Tower adherents into the 20th Century. An R. C.
Laine from West Jersey, Illinois, appears but once in the Herald, in the
July 1875 issue. He wasn’t an Adventist he said, but was strongly interested in
Christ’s return. There was a Second Adventist congregation in West Jersey, but we don’t know if they were described as such because they looked
for the near return of Christ or if they were truly Adventists.
Caillot,
though a minor and transient figure within the Barbourite Movement, illustrates
why educated and talented men were attracted to it. He was a member of the
National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, addressing at least one
Grange conference. The Grange was formed in 1867 to promote the interests of
American farmers. It is hard to overstate the plight of agricultural families
in the post-Civil War period. Railroads and grain storage facilities preyed on
farmers, eating up what little profit there was. Farmers often lived on the
margins of or deeply in poverty.
The
Grange was egalitarian and religious. Women and older children could
participate and national offices were filled by women. Farmers’ wives shared
their husbands’ toil. Their lives were in many respects harder than that of
their men. Caillot, speaking before a Grange convention summarized the
difficult lives of Western and Southern farmers:
The dull monotony of
their lives had [sic] only broken in up by an occasional wedding, or funeral; a
shooting match or township election. They … plodded on year after year, working
from sunrise to sunset, and often at moonlight, taking but few holidays, or but
little pastime in an occasional spare of half a day’s hunting or fishing. They
never met their neighbors except at the cross roads store, church or town
meeting; reading, never; but toiling hard and doing their best to transform
themselves into corn and wheat producing machines. Using lots of muscular power
in their business, but very little brains. Of farming improvements, of
scientific culture they knew nothing. And of the cost to make a bushel of wheat
or of corn, to make a pound of beef, of pork or butter, they were utterly
ignorant. The conditions of their wives were worse. Their work began earlier
and ended later than that of their husbands. Their lives were almost slavish
with no variety but that of a quilting or wool picking bee. The haggard looks
and the weary sighs of those farmers’ wives in the West were telling the story
of their hard lot in this world. … It is this sad condition of the farmer’s
life that the Order proposes to reform. It wasn’t to lighten the toil, increase
the knowledge, cultivate the fraternal feelings and advance the material
interests of our class.[64]
His
speech promoted Grange principles. He presented a list of thirteen essentials,
all of which connect to Christian ethics. The first was “to have faith and a
never failing confidence in God.” As noted above, he lived near Plymouth, Indiana, with its thriving One Faith/Age-to-Come community. The
Restitution was published from there. But Granger interest in religion and
more specifically in One Faith belief in the nearness of Christ’s return wasn’t
limited to that area. Benjamin Woodward, a One Faith evangelist found interest
among them. Writing to The Restitution, he recounted this experience:
The Grangers opened
their hall for me. I have preached thirteen discourses at this place, and the
hall has been densely crowded most of the time, and one evening it could only
hold a part of the congregation. The interest is simply intense.
As the result of the
meeting, eight have embraced the faith, and I appointed yesterday, Jan. 12, for
baptism, and I believe it was the worst day we have had this winter. Some of
the brethren tried to persuade those who were about to be baptized to wait till
the weather was warmer, but it was impossible.
They said they had made
up their minds, and they were ready, and would not let the devil cheat them, or
keep them from duty. Four intelligent sisters went down into the water and put
on Christ by baptism. I am sure they will make good soldiers.[65]
For
those who like Dr. Cailott depended on agriculture, no mater what other
professions they had, life was hard. They sought something better through
political action and religion. The promises of Christ and of self-improvement
drew some into millennialist belief. Of the Watch Tower evangelists, Paton and Keith had great fellow feeling
for farmers, having been such themselves.
Hiram
Willett [also spelled Willitt], a hardware merchant of Toulon,
Illinois, described himself as “an old ’43 believer.”[66]
Willetts are mentioned in Restitution as Age-to-Come believers, but
Hiram’s name seems not to appear. Toulon was about nine miles from West Jersey by wagon road. Willett and Laine almost certainly knew each other.
After
the Millerite disappointment Willett turned to the Baptist Church. With a majority of the congregation, he withdrew in
February 1868 and formed a new Baptist congregation. Division, back-biting, and
other abuses were cited. A local history recounted the trouble:
Abuses of power on
the one hand, and fierce resistance on the other, charges, conflicts of
opinion, expulsions for heresy, impeachment and excommunication of one leader,
only to effect a change, not a redress of grievances, until after a bitter
experience with a so-called revivalist, Elder S. A. Estee, February 1868, it
was finally “resolved, that whereas, the troubles and difficulties existing in
the First Baptist Church of Toulon have reached so great a magnitude, that we
can see no way of settling them so we can live in peace, and advance the cause
of Christ, therefore, resolved, that all the members of this church who
subscribe to this resolution, have the privilege of asking for letters of
dismission, and that the same be granted by the church.”
Here now was
revolution and secession all in a nutshell; and a fiercer than political
contest was waged by a few determined spirits to prevent the dissolution of the
old church; but the majority triumphed and the vote to disband was cast February 29th,
1868. And “all the property
of the first Church, was to be surrendered to a committee, to be held for the
benefit of another Baptist church hereafter to be organized.” This majority
then adjourned “to meet in Mr. Hiram Willett’s store building the next Sunday
morning at 10½
o’clock.”[67]
Willett withdrew from the Baptists
in 1870, “because he ‘could no longer conscientiously maintain and indorse the
articles of faith as interpreted by the church.’” A contemporary writer looked
with distain on the disruptive, abusive Baptist churches of Toulon:
Probably the
generation that took part in the conflict of 1868, must pass from the scene of
action, ere all the old wounds will heal. But we can hardly forbear to note in
passing, that this body in two years after its formation, gave proof of its
legitimate descent, by withdrawing fellowship from Mr. Hiram Willett, because “he
could no longer conscientiously maintain and endorse the articles of faith as
interpreted by the church.” Is there not, a suggestion of that famous
Procrustean bedstead of Attica, in such creeds?
There is no whisper of
immorality against this man, no charge of duty neglected; on the contrary, he
was, until this change of opinion, a pillar of the church. But he comes to
believe “that the second coming of Christ is near at hand, that the weight of
evidence in the Scriptures represents the dead in an unconscious state until
the resurrection; also, that in the judgment day the wicked shall be destroyed
with an everlasting destruction, but the righteous be received into life
eternal.” Consequently he is a heretic, judged by Baptist standards, or the
standards of many other orthodox churches. And this may be all right; we but
record it, as a scrap of church history for 1870. But … we would ask no better
material out of which to mould a progressive religious organization, than that
which has been condemned by these two Baptist churches, as heretical in the
last twenty-five or thirty years.[68]
There were other Second Adventists
in the area, found primarily among the Swedish settlers. A congregation of “independent
Adventists” looked forward to the April 1875 date promoted by Barbour and
Thurman. We do not know if Willett associated with them. Documentation is
slight and conflicting.[69]
James
G. Mitchell of Bristol, Indiana, entered the Barbourite movement in mid to late 1877.
A letter from him to Barbour dated August 24, 1878, appears in the September 1877 Herald of the
Morning:
I … have examined
your argument carefully, with a desire to know the truth. I have received more
light in reading those papers than in reading the Bible for the last twenty
years. When I read my Bible now, many passages … which were before dark, now
seem plain. … I must say the Bible is a new book to me.
Mitchell is best known to history
for running a way station on the Underground Railroad, one of many safe houses
for escaping slaves. Bartholomew’s Pioneer History of Elkhart County,
Indiana, says of Mitchell and others from Elkhart County: “these men were prominent citizens of the county in
their day and generation … . All of them were farmers during part of their
lives and it was at their farm homes that the stations were operated.”[70]
Willett lived
in Toulon, Illinios. Photo here
Interest at Mixerville, Indiana, a small trading hamlet, was expressed in a letter
from John Judkins Jones, a physician there.[71]
A letter from Mt.
Carmel, Indiana, appears in the October 1882 Watch Tower.[72] We don’t know if any of
these places were on Paton’s itinerary. The strength of the Barbourite movement
was in the Mid-West, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Paton’s preaching tour and that by Russell that
followed it did not establish new congregations. Their tours were meant to
persuade previous interest to steady the course. Paton’s tours had other
motives too. Paton continued to see himself as a clergyman. While Russell did
not take collections, Paton accepted fees and collections throughout his
ministry. His income depended on his itinerate ministry.
Some, perhaps most, of Paton’s
preaching isn’t documented in Zion’s Watch Tower. For
instance we find him in Detroit, Michigan, on May 1, 1881, preaching at Central Christian Church on Washington Avenue. A brief newspaper report says: “John H. Paton,
Evangelist, will preach morning and evening at the usual hours. Morning topic,
‘The Heavenly Calling,’ after which the ordinance of Christian baptism will be
administered. Evening topic, ‘The Sacred Number Twelve.’ All are invited. Seats
free.”[73]
This was the church with which the Caleb Davis family associated.
Paton seems to have preached
extensively in Michigan, usually close to home or in places reached by
railroad. He was in Howardsville in February 1881. As a result of his visit
Robert Bailey became an adherent. We’ll hear more from him in a later chapter.[74]
Later in the year, Russell wrote that “Brother Paton has been laboring recently
in Detroit and in the neighborhood of his home, Almont,
Mich.”[75]
By November, private conversations revealed a growing doctrinal rift between
Paton and Russell. We don’t know many details, and those we do know are best
presented in a more appropriate place.
Paton traveled eastward in May-June
1880 and visited with Barbour and his congregation. While there is a reference
to the visit in Zion’s Watch Tower, it is vague enough that taken alone
one might misunderstand it. An unequivocal reference is found in the Herald
of the Morning. Barbour wrote of the visit preempting anything Paton
might say:
Eld. Paton called on
us last week and in conversation made a statement which was both an agreeable,
and a sad surprise to me. He informed me that he believed many of the views
advanced in the herald; that he
believes in the preexistence of Christ, that as we had taught, Melchizedek was
Christ; that he agreed with me in more points than he did the C. T. Russell.
This, of course, was
an agreeable surprise. But the sad feature is this: - in what he has written for their paper since
it started, who could have surmised that he believed, and was in sympathy with
more of the views now being taught in the herald,
than with those of the man he is so zealously supporting, in opposing
almost every idea advanced by us? Certainly no one could have learned from
their paper of this similarity in our views.
Why he has and is
opposing to all appearance, what he himself believes, or why he would even
assent to what he thinks in error, by keeping silent, is a mystery; and
one which savors of bondage, either temporal or spiritual.[76]
Barbour
and his partners had suggested that the Watch
Tower party taught
Socinianism or Josephite belief. While A. D. Jones would adopt Josephitism
within two years, this was a conscious misrepresentation. Through these
comments Barbour attempted to create a wedge between Russell and Paton. His
effort was hardly needed. A rift was quietly growing, though not on the grounds
Barbour suggests.
Paton
chose not to address Barbour’s screed. Instead he commented on Barbour’s
preaching: “The writer once heard a preacher talking in defense of the idea
that a ‘Clean Theology’ is the ‘Wedding Garment,’ make the statement in
substance like the following: ‘I wish my hearers would all stop trying to be
good, and give your attention the gaining a knowledge of God’s plan.’” No Watch
Tower reader would
confuse this for anyone but Barbour or Adams. And given Barbour’s statement,
they would focus on Barbour.
Paton
suggested that Barbour’s Clean Theology was morally filthy:
We ask, would the tendency of such exhortation be to
lead men to a higher and purer life? We think not. How different from the
exhortations of the apostles. … Had the apostles held to the theory that a
“Clean Theology” is the “Wedding Garment,” they would [not] have exhorted as
they did, but would have said, “You need not make any effort to be good, but
study the plan.” We do not say it was the purpose of the preacher referred to,
to encourage sin, but we think the tendency would be in that direction.
And surely the theory must be defective that leas any man to make statements as
such variance from the teaching of the Holy Spirit.[77]
Russell’s Trip East
Russell
proposed a preaching tour eastward from Pittsburgh. He wanted to effect unity among scattered believers.
In many places subscribers were “totally unacquainted with each other” and thus
lost “the sympathy and comfort which our Father designed should come to them by
‘The assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is.’” Russell
hoped that “The proposed meetings … might conduce to personal acquaintance.” Russell
inserted a notice in the May 1880, Watch Tower, proposing a speaking tour and inviting them to express their interest.[78]
In
the June 1880 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower, Russell announced specific plans
for a month-long speaking tour taking him to nine towns. “The stay at each
place will average about two days. I shall expect almost continuous
meetings while with you.” Russell’s habitual theme was ‘Things pertaining to
God’s Kingdom.’ While we do not know in specific terms what Russell said on his
missionary tours, he gives us some insight. An article from his pen entitled “How
to Teach” gives it to us:
To
these who would go forth to use either much or little of their time, we would
say: It is a matter of great importance not only to teach the right thing but
to present truth in a proper manner and order. This may be observed as a rule
of life, pertaining to everything we undertake: if we would reap good fruit we
must not only plant good seed, but it must be planted at a proper time, in a
soil previously made ready, and it must be cared for until it becomes possessed
of strength. So, too, must the seed be carefully, prayerfully and wisely sown,
and the words of our Master are: “Be ye wise as serpents but harmless as
doves.”
Present
first the Restitution and the beauties of God's unfolding plan; then show that
all this awaits and is dependent on the King and kingdom coming. Then, when
your hearer or reader has come to love the King and to long for his kingdom,
may be quite soon enough to present the manner of His coming – that it is not
Jesus the man but Jesus a spiritual being, who comes, unseen, except to the
Bride's eye of faith, enlightened by the golden candlestick--the word of truth.
And
lastly present “the time, that now we are “in the days of the Son of Man,” “the
day of the Lord” – if they scoff and say, “where is the promise of His coming –
(parousia – presence) while all things continue as they were?” (2 Pet. 3:4.)
Point them to Matt. 24:37 and Luke 17. But let time be the last part of the “good
news,” and tell no one of the time and presence, except they show that they
have “an ear to hear,” and “him that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit
saith unto the churches,” not unto the world.[79]
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
First on his list was Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Henry E. Hoke was in charge of the arrangements. [Several
bear the name H. E. Hoke, (apparently father, son, grandson) and we’re uncertain
which hosted Russell.] We believe that we’re dealing with the son. He held at
least three patents for railroad car doors and fasteners.[80]
He was among those who suffered loss to their business when Chambersburg was burned during the Civil War.[81]
He was a member of the Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Horticulture Society.[82] The
interest in Chambersburg appears to have been drawn from an Evangelical
Adventist conference of nearby congregations calling themselves Messiah’s
Church “to distinguish this body from those holding the general name of ‘Adventists.’”
Hoke was a member and an agent for The Advent Herald.
Advent
Herald – June
11, 1873 - Photo here
The Chambersburg area had its share of non-Adventist prophetic
students. B. Knepper, a German Evangelical pastor at Wheelersburg, discussed
millennial topics with fellow pastors and preached about them. In 1860 he
published Satan Bound: Or Resurrection, Judgment, And the Happiness of the
Future World Considered. Knepper’s view was essentially Literalist, and his
book was published in Chambersburg. It is probable, though not certain, that most
interest in Chambersburg area came from Evangelical Adventists. The only point
of unity between them and Russell rested in prophetic themes. Evangelical
Adventists maintained Millerite hell-fire doctrine. There was some Barbourite
interest there too, though we don’t know how extensive or enduring it was. When
Barbour called a “General Meeting” for late 1881, one delegate came from Chambersburg.[83]
While no report of Russell’s visit survives, there was enduring interest, and
the group would receive a subsequent visit by Benjamin W. Keith in 1882.[84]
Reading, Pennsylvania
The Reading, Pennsylvania, meetings were hosted by Joseph Brown Keim. (His name
is misspelled as Kine in the announcement.) Joseph Brown Keim was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on November 1, 1853. He had two children one of whom was born about 1881.
A newspaper article described him as “a fine-looking intelligent man,” identifying
him as a cousin to “ex-sheriff Keim of Philadelphia.”[85]
By the early 1890s he was heavily involved Socialist politics in New Jersey. He was the Socialist Labor Party candidate for
Governor of New Jersey in 1892, receiving only 1338 votes.[86]
He was connected with the Socialistic Populist Party in 1894, and he remained
active in Socialist politics into the Twentieth Century, though he switched
party affiliation to the People’s Democratic Party and then later to something
called The New Idea Party.[87]
As a politician he was volatile.[88]
Keim claimed to be a “lineal descendant” of Field Marshal Jacob Wertz and in a
letter to the civil rights magazine The Crisis he claimed to be “a
distant relative of old John Brown” of Harpers’ Ferry fame.[89]
Despite
his shift to politics, Keim maintained some sort of connection to Watch Tower
Society adherents. When, sometime in the early 20th Century, he
first tried to sell a portrait painted by L. Fabre, once a well-known portrait
painter, He used as his agent George H. Fisher, an associate of Russell and
later of Rutherford.[90]
He
was already an active Watch Tower evangelist, preaching near his home. We could not
identify his religious antecedents. We presume some Barbour era interest in Reading. Russell was at Keim’s June 6th and 7th,
1880.
Newark, New Jersey
A meeting in Newark,
New Jersey, was hosted by Mrs. Ellen M. Deems. Ellen appears to
have been widowed. She lived at 500 Washington Street with her sister and her mother, Johanna Goodell, an
invalid. The 1880 Census implies that she had full care of her mother. They had
a boarder. She contributed a poem to the September 1879 issue of Zion’s
Watch Tower, though her name is misspelled as “F. M. Deans.”
The Troy, New York, Daily Whig
of May
2, 1860, described a Second
Adventist congregation in Newark as
small: “The Second Adventists of Newark still keep up their weekly meetings,
and are firmly grounded in the belief that the end of all things is close at
hand. The number of believers habitually in attendance at the meetings is but
small, but there is no lack of zeal or fervor.”
When Russell visited, there were two
Adventist congregations in Newark.
The First Society of Second Adventists, apparently a unity congregation hosting
both Life and Advent Union and Advent Christian Association believers, met at 12 Academy Street. They were “numerically weak and of slow growth”.[91] Church
of the Messiah, an Evangelical Adventist congregation, met at 24 Washington Street.[92]
More importantly because their theology was much closer to Russell’s, a small
One Faith congregation met in a private home.[93]
They seem to have been committed, and at
least one of their number wrote a tract. Published in 1876 and entitled The
True Church, it was meant to “show that the True Church is neither Greek, Protestant, nor Catholic.”[94]
Interest would have come primarily from these groups. We know little about
these three small congregations.
Another
source of interest was the Presbyterian congregations served by J. C. Shimeall
and John Lyle. Shimeall was known to Storrs. Shimeall had a strong interest in last-times
prophecies. This seems to be true of Lyle as well. He was the namesake of John
C. Lyle, a wealthy businessman and Storrs’ friend. J. C. Lyle wrote a memorial poem when Storrs died which Russell published in the Watch Tower.
Lynn, Massachusetts
Amos Hunt was responsible for the
meetings at Lynn, Massachusetts. He worked in a shoe factory at Lynn, apparently as an engineer. (Lynn was a center of American shoe manufacturing.) He was
born in New
Brunswick about
1836 to Roswell Hunt and his wife, the former Fanny Stiles, and was the only
boy among their six children. He and his wife Lizzie later moved to Anoka,
Minnesota, where he contracted “consumption.” He traveled to California for his health, dying in a San Francisco hospital from the tuberculosis on June 22, 1889. When he first met Russell and his degree of interest
are unknown.[95]
Lynn was, by the standards of the day, a large city with a
population of about twenty-five thousand. There was long standing Adventist
interest in Lynn, though in 1891 there was only one small Second
Adventist church.[96]
We couldn’t identify an Age-to-Come/One Faith group. The meeting at Lynn was probably typical of them all. What sparse record
remains gives us insight into Russell’s shepherding. The meetings were long,
almost continuous, partly sermon and partly give and take. Questions were
entertained, and their import analyzed.[97]
Some of the discussion at Lynn
focused on “the number of the beast.” Russell was asked what it was, and he
confessed that he was dissatisfied with the available answers. Writing about a
year later, he said:
I spoke on the
subject of this same chapter to the name-less little company of “this way,” in Lynn,
Mass., and concluded my remarks by telling them that I had
never seen a satisfactory explanation of the 666. And, though I thought I had
given a correct analysis of the symbols of the chapter, yet I could not claim
it to be wisdom, since I could not interpret the number. I suggested, however,
that if ours be the correct understanding of the time in which we are living – the
“harvest” of the age – and if our general application of these symbols be
correct, the number should soon be understood. I urged examination on the
subject by all, for the Lord is sometimes pleased to give wisdom through the
weakest of his children. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast
ordained praise.”[98]
About
three months later, Russell received a letter from “one of the thinking
brethren of that place, saying that he thought he had the key.” Russell
accepted the explanation offered, and it made its way into print. The
suggestion was that the number denoted support of religious organizations, and
that the beast was the Catholic Church, and its image was the Evangelical
Alliance, which sought to present a united voice to political powers. This fit
with Russell’s belief that they were “called out,” separated, fine wheat-like
Christians without any organization but Christ’s:
Among those who thus
openly mark themselves in their forehead (by their creeds) are Episcopalians,
Methodists, Presbyterians and others. But others give a seeming support (mark
in their hand) to the general principal by organizing under various sectarian
names. After these are blended in the image,
(and no one would be admitted to membership in the Evangelical Alliance, unless
he be a member of some such sect), they all are collectively known as the “Protestant
Churches,” ….
If we for instance were to organize, though we protest more than all others against the errors of Rome, and also against the errors of the Image and second beast, yet be would not be reckoned one of the “Protestant churches,” because we would not be recognized as orthodox – They would not count our organization a church.
Should you inquire
for our meetings and ask – Is that a protestant church which meets here? The
answer would come – Oh, no; they are not Evangelical. They have no creed to mark them, so that the Alliance can decide whether they are an Evangelical Protestant Church or not.
At
least one individual was converted to Watch Tower theology by the meetings held at Lynn. Her conversion was recounted in a dramatic fashion
by Samuel I. Hickey, a former clergyman, and for a period a Watch Tower evangelist. Writing to Russell in 1889, he recounted
the story:
While in Boston I was told of a sister at Winchester, about seven miles from Boston and I went to see her. Some eleven years ago she was
a lawless Roman Catholic rum-seller there. Her conversion (a most remarkable
one) occurred in the prison, where she was confined for repeated violation of
the liquor laws. When she was released, she poured to waste all of her liquors
and renounced the Roman Catholic Religion. As she lived in the midst of an
Irish Catholic community, her persecutions were terrible. Her children were
hooted, pelted with stones, and abused in every conceivable manner. She was
cursed and slandered before her face and behind her back.
They even soaped the stairs of her dwelling to cause her to fall and maim or kill herself. The priest visited her, and when he found that she was firm in her determination to serve Christ rather than the devil, he cursed her and persuaded her husband to abandon her and declared that she should never have a Catholic dollar, and said they would drive her from her home. They broke the window panes in her house, and for two years she was obliged to keep them stuffed with rags, etc., being too poor to afford to replace the glass. She united with the Baptist church and was most zealous in her missionary efforts to bring others into that “communion.” She soon ceased to have her hunger satisfied with the husks of the less popish branch of Babylon and longed for more truth, for she saw and deplored the same spirit in Protestantism as in Romanism. About nine years ago, hungering and thirsting for the Word of Life, she heard that there were a series of meetings held at Lynn. You were the preacher and she was so well fed that she eagerly inquired, where she could continue to hear you. A friend told her that she could hear you through Z.W.T. every month. Ever since that God has fed her through your paper. When she was rejected by every body, that spoke peace to her heart. All was written in such a sweet spirit. The very pages seemed illumined by the spirit of God. She cannot write at all and can not read writing. [He means she couldn’t read cursive, only print.]
… When her boy lay dead in her house, a crowd collected opposite and cried that they wished it was the old devil that was dead, instead of the young one, or she along with it. Well, the next day after that she got the Tower. For all the sorrow she had had, it brought great joy, and she felt lifted up. She could not describe the gladness God sent her through it. The Lord anointed her eyes, and she came out of the Baptist church, and her persecutions at the hands of the Protestant religionists were harder to bear than those of the Roman Catholics – a refined cruelty. She attempted to reason with them out of the Scriptures, but was called an ignorant Irish woman and was rebuked for her insolence in presuming to teach them who had been studying the Scriptures all their lifetime. But she knew she had the truth, and counted it all joy – even her severest trials – for they brought her nearer to God, and taught her dependence upon Him. She was overjoyed at the thought that at last you should know of her and of the joy you had been the means of imparting to her.[99]
Clinton, Massachusetts
Mary
T. Miner hosted Russell at Clinton, Massachusetts. She is listed in the 1880 Census as head of
household, but we don’t know if she was a widow or separated from her husband.[100]
The census tells us she was thirty-eight in 1880. She was born in November 1842
and still living in 1900. We do not have a death date. We can’t identify a
religious affiliation. A history of Clinton covering the years from its mid-Seventeenth Century
founding to 1865 says: “The Second Adventists also held meetings in Clinton, in the Deacon John Burdett’s Hall. Their meetings
were characterized by great fervor, but the Adventists did not attain
sufficient numbers or financial strength to build any house of worship.”[101]
So there may have been some interest from that quarter. Russell was in Clinton on June 16, 1880.
Springfield, Massachusetts
He was in Springfield, Massachusetts, two days later. The meeting there was hosted by “R.
W. Stearns.” Rachel W. Stearns (1813-1898[102])
was the daughter of Charles Stearns an abolitionist. She was the namesake of Rachael
Stearns, a hero of the abolitionist movement. A connection through George
Storrs is probable. There were Bible Examiner subscribers in Springfield, and there had been some interest in the Barbourite
movement.[103]
Fort Edward and Montrose
He
veered northward to Ft.
Edward, New York, where J. C. Sunderlin hosted his visit. His next
stop was to be Montrose, Pennsylvania, but he failed to make train connections. His visit
was to be hosted by Daniel Dennison Lathrop. (December 21, 1833 – March 28,
1912) We know scattered details but little else about Lathrop. The Civil War
Draft Rolls list him as a farmer. After the war he became a civil engineer; we
have a record of work done for the Montrose water company in 1909. He was
commissioned a notary public in September 1879.[104]
He was invited to a Shorthand Reporters’ convention in 1880. Sunderlin was an
expert stenographer too, and it is probably through this connection that he was
introduced to Watch Tower theology. In fiscal year 1876, Susquehanna County paid $273.76 for his services, a considerable sum for
the period.[105] He wrote The American
Stenographer: A Work Devoted Mainly to Extended Principles of the Art, Rather
Than to the Details of the Whole System which was published in 1880. As
were several of Russell’s earliest associates, Lathrop was a member of the
Prohibition Party, and served as Secretary-Treasurer of a regional party
committee.[106] He was secretary of the
Susquehanna Farmers’ Club in 1876. Lathrop was appointed guardian of two minor
children, relatives of some sort, in 1877.[107] In
1877, Lathrop wrote and self-published an eight page poem entitled Light and
Darkness. He died in 1912, a short obituary summarizing his life:
The death of Daniel D. Lathrop ends an
interesting and useful career. Born Dec. 25th, 1833, in Rush, the 8th son of a family of eleven children,
his father being Rev. William Lathrop, Jr. a Baptist preacher. He secured his
education at the county schools and later taught several terms. Before the
close of the Civil War he enlisted as a ship carpenter, but saw no action.
Three of his brothers met death on the battlefield. His first wife was Emma
Handrick and he married, second, Mrs. Sallie M. Sherwood. He was one of the
first official court stenographers in the county, taking up the study of “phronography,”
as it was then called, in 1851. He took up the study of Civil Engineering and
as he was a competent mathematician his reputation for care and accuracy in
surveying and mapping was soon well established. In recent years he took a
special course in mechanical drawing to more fully equip himself for this class
of work. In 1902 he started the work, during leisure moments, of writing the
New Testament in shorthand, concluding the task in 1907. Thus closes the
earthly record of a man who so performed his day of work that when the Master called
him from his labor, he responded unabashed and confident.[108]
We know of only one other interested
person in Montrose, and then only by their initials. A J.L.F. of Montrose
submitted a poem to Zion’s Watch Tower which saw publication in October
1879 issue:
WATCH TOWER.
Watchman, on the lonely tower,
‘Mid the desert’s arid sands,
Tell us of the dawning hour,
Tell us of the moving bands.
Seek they now the shelt’ring palm,
Where the cooling springs await?
Cheered, refreshed, now press they on,
Toward the destined City’s gates?
When the fierce simoon is near;
Watchman! give the warning cry;
Raise soul-stirring notes of cheer,
As the journey’s end draws nigh!
Russell was unable to speak at
Montrose, and we do not know if Lathrop’s interest endured.
Berwick, Pennsylvania
Russell’s visit to Berwick, Pennsylvania was hosted by Alexander B. McCrea. Born about 1842 in
Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, to immigrant parents, he was a physician and member
of the Columbia County Medical Society. He graduated from Long Island Medical College June 1, 1865. This tells us he was a contemporary and classmate of C. W. Buvinger,
and we connect him to Russell and Storrs by this otherwise ephemeral fact.[110] He
was an amateur ornithologist, and we find some letters from him to bird
magazines.[111] His health was “impaired
from Malaria,” and he returned briefly to Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, his birth place “and took a partnership in a
drugstore, and attended occasionally to practice.” When his health improved he
moved back to Berwick. In March 1872, he was one of the organizers of Knapp
Lodge – Free and Accepted Masons.[112] His
death notice in JAMA noted Civil War service. He died April 12, 1919, of influenza.[113] We
do not know if McCrae’s interest endured.[114]
As noted
in volume one of this work, J. H. Thomas, who rode the backs of Age-to-Come and
Christadelphian believers, preached in Berwick in 1882, writing to The
Restitution that “the believers here are tinctured a little with
Russellism, which is subversive of the truth as it is in Jesus.”[115] Thomas’
said his meetings in Berwick were sparsely attended. He mentioned only the Hosler
family and a “Brother” Robbins, “a well to do brother of Shenandoah City” who was the Hoslers son-in-law. There were several
Hosler families resident in the Berwick area. We can’t attach any of them to
this record.
Letters published in the Berwick
area newspapers give us some insight into what interest was found there. In
volume one, we presented Russell’s views on the state of the Christian church.
He saw the church as divided into two classes – true, committed Christians and “the
merely nominal Christian who is such because it is essential to respectability
… but who is restive, even under the modified restraint which the church
exacts, and desires to bring the church down to the level of a “social club’
composed of the respectable of society.” Russell framed this into a prophetic
scheme, but the same observation distressed other committed Christians.
While American society was secularizing,
there was another shift that Watch Tower adherents found as disturbing. Russell’s theology was
based on Redemption doctrine, belief in Adamic sin and consequent depravity of
the human race from which Christ’s sacrifice redeems mankind. To many, Darwinian
evolution theory suggested that men were progressing. The thought that human
effort could improve the race pervaded religious and secular thought. Proliferating
invention, and novel ideas (many of which would be discredited), gave the
impression that humanity was improving. They confused inventiveness and
cleverness with improvement. This left Russell and others with conflicted
attitudes. Watch Tower adherents looked for signs that the millennium had
begun. Inventions provided those.[116]
They rejected the idea of progress without remission of sins, but many others
sought it within quasi-religious movements. This manifested in a number of
ways, among them Christian Socialism, the labor movement, Christian utopian and
social service organizations. The most conservatively religious rejected the “social gospel” as contrary to
the “divine plan.”
Residents of Berwick noted the
secularization of religion and were as distressed as was Russell. The
Columbia County Democrat printed a letter addressing the issue in its September 24,
1864, issue. The writer,
noted only as “William,” objected to the politicization of religion in the Methodist Church. William visited the Methodist congregation “hoping
to hear the word of God expounded according to the laws laid down in the Holy
Bible.” Instead, “to the utter shame and disgrace of the Christian community,”
he heard a political “stump-speech, too offensive to be uttered in the house of
God.” It was “still more outrageous” that the minister expressed his political
opinions on the Sabbath, “which should be devoted to the praise of God, and not
to political affairs.” The hymn was a patriotic song, not a religious one.
Though he expressed it as religious
outrage, the issue for William was his contrary political belief. He was a
Copperhead. He wanted Lincoln out of office and McClellan elected. The minister was
a Republican. William called the minister a “political negro head.” While
William came at the problem from a different perspective than Russell’s, his
letter tells us that secularization was an issue in Berwick.
Casual sexuality was also an issue.
The March
6, 1871, issue of the Montour
American, published in nearby Danville, Pennsylvania, editorialized:
We know several
parties who have a habit, in church, as well as elsewhere, of keeping up a
continual cooing to the thorough disgust of everybody about them. If they, like
Armand and Heloise, think themselves consecrated to the “artful god,” whose
arrows have stuck deep in their soft hearts, they should stay home and enjoy
their faith, and not parade it in public places to annoy and disturb the more
high-minded.
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania
Russell’s
last stop was at Jersey
Shore, Pennsylvania, where Samuel M. Bond (1852-1936) hosted his visit.
Bond was at one time a telegraph operator.[117]
We find him in 1897 advertising his services as a bill poster (broadside
poster) and advertising circular distributor. He was for many years a
department manager for L. L. Stearn & Son, a department store in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Before moving to Jersey Shore, he was a member of the Odd Fellows’ Lodge in Renovo.[118]
Advertisement –
Billboard Advertising,
January 1, 1897
In 1894, Bond wrote to Russell,
saying: “I have been with you in this precious faith while you were with the
Herald of the Morning, and ever since the first issue of the Tower.” The
earliest notice of him we found is in the money received column of the January
1879 Herald of the Morning. We presume he had been a reader for some
time, but we really don’t know. Most interest seems to have been in Williamsport, about fifteen miles away.
Lack of documentation outside the
pages of Zion’s Watch Tower leaves us with unanswered questions. We see
some details especially connected to his visit to Lynn and to Berwick. We don’t know how much interested
persisted. We wish we did, but we don’t. We don’t know what the full effect of
Russell’s visit was.
Russell’s
Report
His
mission tour completed, Russell issued a sanguine, somewhat saccharine report:
Many will be glad to learn that my trip, now about
ended, has been a very pleasant one. The unpleasant features about it being the
briefness of the visit at each place and the farewells as we parted. Many of
the dear friends whom we had never met before, seemed, after the two or three
days’ visit, to be life-long acquaintances. We recognized in each other the spirit
of adoption into the one family, and our membership of the one body of Christ;
and we felt ourselves drawn to each other and cemented by “that which every
joint supplieth” – love.
The arrangements were carried out as noticed in our
last, except at Montrose, Pa., where we were unable to make railway connections. The
meetings averaged from four to six hours per day at each place, and we trust,
have been profitable to the hearers; tending to strengthen, encourage, and
establish them in the present truth. With the exception of the bodily fatigue
attendant upon so much traveling and speaking, the month has been a round of
pleasure to your Editor, who returns home feeling much encouraged and refreshed,
by the contact with so many loving, sympathizing hearts, alive with the Spirit
of Christ.
We have seemed to realize more than ever, Jesus’
words: “Ye shall have in this life a hundred fold – houses, lands, mothers, brothers
and sisters.” We have a hundred homes open to us if ever we go the same
direction again. That the invitations to come again were sincere, was attested
by the firm grasp of the hand, the moist eye, and “God bless you,” at parting.
On the whole, the effects of the visit were so
satisfactory that I rather feel impressed that it may be Our Father’s will that
I go among the dear flock more. We shall wait for His leading, and go as the
way seems to open, probably however in other directions.
How dear Brother Paul would have enjoyed such a trip
as the one just ending. It would have required more than a year to accomplish
the same results in his day. But evil also has new channels and rapidly
increases, and if we would be faithful we must take advantage of every circumstance.
Another thought has been suggested to my mind by my becoming
personally acquainted with the saints, viz: If it did me good to know them and
of their affairs, would it not do all of the readers good, to know of the
welfare of each other? I think it would, and propose to furnish a corner of the
“watch tower’s” space each month for your correspondence. Let us all
know every little while, say every three months, how the Lord prospers you;
whether you keep up your meetings with those of like precious faith, etc. Make
it brief and pithy; a few lines on a postal card will do. Thus our interest in
each other will be enlarged and all will be blessed. Who will start it?
This is a mixed report. He was happy
to have met his readers and claimed a mutual recognition as brethren in Christ.
But he laced the report with qualifiers. The trip was “so satisfactory” that he
saw it as God’s will that he continue to travel and preach. But it was only so “on
the whole,” and we are at a loss to explain his statement that he would go
where God led, “but probably … in other directions.” Some, perhaps most,
appreciated his visit, and they parted with “moist eye.” But not everyone was
welcoming: “Evil also has new channels and rapidly increases, and if we would
be faithful we must take advantage of every circumstance.” Russell put the best
face he could on a trip that addressed divisions and continuing controversy
with Herald of the Morning adherents.
Russell’s
Second Tour
In August 1880 Russell traveled West:
I purpose visiting
brother and sister Paton at Almont, Mich., and the other friends in that
vicinity during August, and shall stop enroute at Elyria, on the 9th and 10th,
and at Cleveland on the 22d, and be in Bro. Paton’s charge from 14th to 16th
inst. Elyria meetings are in charge of Sister Avis Hamlin. Those at Cleveland are under Bro. Caleb Davies’ control. May the Lord
direct to His own praise and to our mutual profit. My dear wife accompanies me
on this short trip.[119]
Avis Hamlin (see her biography in
volume one) welcomed Russell after objecting to Paton’s earlier visit. She and
others in the Elyria area swung between previous belief and Barbour’s new
teachings. After the disappointment of 1878, she reported the congregation
still strong in faith. A letter from her dated June 23, 1878, said:
I take the first
opportunity of renewing my subscription, as I should feel lost without the Herald.
We are all strong in the faith. One of the brethren in Elyria said, that since he had read your leading argument in
the June number, his faith was stronger than ever before; and it has filled all
our hearts with hope and strength.[120]
She vacillated until 1881, when
Barbour’s additional prophetic speculations failed. Hamlin sees to have been
swayed by who ever had the strongest personality or was the most recent
speaker. Caleb Davies, whose biography is in volume one of this work, was
converted by Paton. Though we find him mentioned in the Letters Received
columns in the September and October 1878 issues of the Herald, the date
of his conversion is uncertain. Davies seems never to have sided with Barbour. He
was less swayed by personality than by the Bible as he understood it.
Russell printed a short report in
the September 1880 Watch Tower:
We have returned,
having spent very pleasantly, and we hope profitably, two weeks with little
bands of waiting ones. As usual we found them very loving ones, partakers to a
marked degree of the element of the divine nature – love. We visited Elyria and Cleveland, Ohio, and Lapeer, Almont, Belle River, Brockway Center, and Detroit, Mich. To most of them we were strangers in the flesh “unknown
and yet well known,” for we had all drank of the water from the same spiritual
rock – Christ. We want to visit all the dear flock that we may know them, and
will be ready for another trip during October.[121]
Russell’s assessment of those he met
seems overly optimistic but not out of character. Few of those he met remained
interested. Personal attachment took most of them out of the Watch Tower movement and into Paton’s Universalism.
November 1880
Russell announced his intention to
visit “several places in New York
state, [sic] where little bands of subscribers reside,” mentioning Brockport,
Honeoye, and Dansville. Because of urgent calls for tracts, he delayed the trip
until early November 1880. He explained that he would hold public meetings at
the three places he named, but that he was making three other stops. We presume
small, private meetings there. He was in Dansville on the 4th,
Honeoye on the 7th, and in Brockport on the 11th. B. W.
Keith was in charge of the meeting at Dansville, Ira Allen at Honeoye. A “Sister
J. G. Heath” was in charge at Brockport, New York. Loraine Heath was married to a well-to-do building contractor
who specialized in “removing buildings.” On slim evidence we believe her
husband, John Heath, was interested up to the 1875 failure. Heath sold his
Brockport home and moved to Rochester
to wait out Christ’s return.[122]
When translation did not occur, he and Loraine (also spelled Lorraine) returned to Brockport. Loraine was fifty-five in
1880. As had happened with William Vessels Feltwel, her interest waned, and, as
did he, she pursued Christian Science.[123]
Others
entered the field, some of whom have been forgotten by historians of the Watch Tower movement. Among these were
J. S. Lawver
and J. C. Foore
J.
S. Lawver’s preaching tour was announced in Zion’s Watch Tower, and we
can suppose sympathy to the Watch Tower message. Calling him “Brother Lawver,” Russell noted his evangelical
tour planned for mid-1882: “Bro. Lawver of Missouri starts about July first, for a trip through Kansas and Texas. Letters, requests for preaching, may be addressed to
this office.”[124] Russell included him
with other Watch Tower evangelists such as Keith and Sunderlin.
Interestingly, his trip is reported in The Restitution as well.[125]
Some overlap, sometimes a considerable overlap, in teaching and evangelism
between Watch Tower and Restitution evangelists continued into the 1890s.
John
Shellenberger Lawver was born in Pennsylvania about 1834 or 1835, later immigrating with his wife,
Elizabeth Leckington, to New Oregon, Iowa. He was a druggist in 1860 with considerable wealth.[126]
By 1875 they had six living children ranging in age from one month to
seventeen. A son, Monroe, died of spinal meningitis in November 1873.[127]
From Iowa they immigrated to Illinois, thence to Kansas. In Illinois he was a fruit grower with a net worth of $12,000.00,
most of that in land. The Kansas State Census of March 1875 lists him as a
merchant, apparently a wholesale grocer. The post Civil War financial crisis
took its toll on the Lawvers as did the great grasshopper plague. Their net
worth had declined to about thirteen hundred dollars divided between real
estate ($300) and personal property ($1000).[128]
His apples were displayed at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 as part of the
U. S. Department of Agriculture exhibit.[129]
While it is fun to speculate that he met Russell during the Centennial, there
is no proof that he did. By 1880 the Lawvers were in Burlington Junction, Missouri. Census returns list him as a grocer.
Main
Street,
Brockport, New York
The
census records do not tell the full story. Lawver was prominent in the small
Mid-Western communities where he lived. He was, even in bad times, wealthier
than most. With several others, Lawver founded The Howard County, Iowa, Sentinel
in February 1858. The paper was short-lived, a fire destroying it sometime in
1859.[130] In 1863, he was
Secretary of the small Masonic Lodge in New Oregon, Illinois, and he served as an officer in the Union County,
Illinois, Mechanical and Agricultural Society in 1870.[131]
The next year he was elected president. He became a fruit grower and wholesaler
while in Illinois, and a letter from him about a caterpillar
infestation and its reply found its way into The Prairie Farmer of May 16, 1864. That same year he expanded his production to include
strawberries and tomatoes. A short notice in The Country Gentleman said:
“J. S. Lawver had six acres of Strawberry plants sold about $1,000 worth of
strawberries. He bought 60 old sash for $60, worked hard all day and got up
nights when snow was on the ground and replenished his hot bed fires. He was
his own gardener and this was his first fear at the business. From two acres of
land he sold $700 worth tomatoes.”[132]
In February 1865 he and others incorporated the Illinois State Insurance
Company.[133]
As a
believer, Lawver first comes to our notice in The Restitution of February 3, 1875, where he is noted as sending two dollars, apparently
for a subscription. This seems to mark his introduction to Age-to-Come
theology. He shows up next in the April 1876 issue of Bible Examiner, requesting
information and books from Storrs.[134]
Later
that year, Lawver wrote to Hiram Vaughn Reed, editor of The Restitution,
advocating views of Probation doctrine that were identical to those held by Storrs. Reed rejected what he saw as second-probation. Full
Chance doctrine, a better name for Storrs and Russell’s teaching, was controversial among
Age-to-Come believers and Second Adventists. Most Second Adventists were
persuaded that the doctrine was false, but many Age-to-Come adherents
considered it truth or were uncertain enough to believe it might be true.
John
Shellenberger Lawver
Frank
Burr’s comments on the exchange were snide, offensive. Reed sent a reply to
Burr, editor of the Advent Christian Times, who published it but with additional
rude comments.[135] A
long-faced, unpleasant man, Burr was antagonistic to Age-to-Come belief. This
was one of the driving forces behind a growing animosity between the two sects.
Isaac Wellcome connected a period of financial decline and disunity among
Second Adventists, particularly Advent Christians, to Burr’s editorship, though
he was too tactful to name him: “There are causes which have been for some time
changing the condition of this Association, preventing its prosperity and
working disunion; the Association is greatly embarrassed financially, and now
unable to do much work. The primary causes of these evils are not yet
sufficiently investigated and developed to record in history. We pray the Lord
may correct the evils and give prosperity to the work of publishing the
glorious message of the soon coming Christ, to deliver his groaning church.”[136]
Lawver
preached Storrs’ broad salvation views at least from 1877, meeting,
as Russell would later, accusations of Universalism. When a clergyman
interrupted one of his meetings suggesting that his message sounded “very much
like Universalism,” he shot back:
Frank Burr as
he looked about 1855 and later in life.
Burr abused
Age-to-Come believers.
Let me ask you a
candid, honest, brotherly question: Would you not prefer that Universalism
should be true at least, so far as yourself is concerned? He replied, that he
“should.” I then said, “Very well: What right have you, then, to desire that
which it should not be true for the great mass of our brother men who have not
had the opportunities you and I have had? Who gave you such authority? … Oh for
more of the love of God to be shed abroad in our hearts; love that takes all
selfishness out of us and gives us a kind, loving sympathetic heart; one that
does not merely care for self, but a love that cannot make us happy unless our
neighbors can be happy too.”[137]
The “fair chance” doctrine
promulgated by Storrs, Lawver and others was not Universalism. It wasn’t
even second-probationism as usually understood, but it was a far broader view
of salvation than predestination and Hell-fire doctrine allowed. Lawver was
depressed that it wasn’t readily accepted as a scriptural and loving doctrine.
He wasn’t alone. An Elder John H. May wrote to Storrs that an Adventist preacher had banned him from
preaching in that church. The belief that many would be saved in the resurrection
was characterized as Universalism, “devil’s doctrine,” and infidelity. Those
who believed it were characterized as denominational traitors. This experience
would transfer to Watch Tower adherents when they became the doctrine’s principal
advocates.
Persistence
in the faith was difficult. Lawver touched on this in a letter to Storrs written in early 1878:
I never found it so
hard, as I find it now: that is, the nearer we approach the “narrow way,” the
harder it is to keep in it. If we get drowsy, some one is ever ready to lay a
stumbling block in the way, or to pull us out of the way. It requires eternal
vigilance. The loss of friends, and making new enemies, on account of our “peculiar”
way, constantly grinds our sensitive natures. But I still feel that I have the
evidence that to become nothing in standing for the glorious character, and
vindicating the Government of God, is worth more than all the friends of earth
and its wealth.[138]
By
1879 he was recognized by The Restitution as a preaching Elder. Lawver,
partnered with John C. Foore, a school teacher. Both of them were partisans of Storrs, handing out copies of Bible Examiner rather
than other Age-to-Come literature. They preached the same message as Storrs.
Late
in 1879, Lawver engaged with “a public lecturer” in a debate. The topic was the
nature and value of Christianity, and the first proposition was, “resolved,
that Christianity had done more harm than good.” Lawver appears to have been an
adept debater:
After the affirmative
had opened with a triad against the so-called Christianity, I called for a
definition of Christianity. My opponent agreed with me that Christianity proper
was the doctrine put forth by the Christ, whether human or divine. … What were
this Christ’s doctrines? I opened the Divine record and showed what Christ and
his apostles taught. Then I asked the speaker and the audience, whether those
doctrines practiced could do harm? All agreed that those doctrines would make
the world better. Then, said I, the debate is closed. If those doctrines
promulgated by Christ and his apostles could do no harm, then they never did do
any harm. Then the opposition tried to force the teaching and acts of the
so-called churches upon me. No sir, said I, I am not here defending
churchianity, but Christianity.[139]
In
December 1880, Foore was in Golden City, Missouri, preaching on subjects that included “Plan of the
Ages” and “Three Worlds or the Restitution of All Things.” He invited Lawver to
come assist him. While echoing Watch Tower doctrine, these were common Age-to-Come themes, and
we cannot take his preaching on them as evidence of sympathy. But other
evidence is forthcoming. In early 1881 G. M. Myers, who himself had
considerable interest in Watch Tower teachings, wrote a long article asserting
that the Communion Meal took place on Nisan 13th instead of the 14th.
Myers wrote to refute an article published in the April 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower.[140] Entitled “read this,” Myers’ article appeared in
the May 11, 1881, issue
of The Restitution. He lumped Russell and Foore together as doctrinal
partners. Foore and Russell picked differing days for the Memorial Observance.
Without discussing details best left for those who argue theology, we are left
with Myers’ question: “Brother Foore, why this discrepancy between you and
Brother Russell? Have you different calendars?” This still leaves us uncertain
as to the degree of sympathy between Russell and Foore. Probably they agreed
most closely over Restitution doctrine, both of them accepting the ideas found
in Storrs’ [title]. Foore gently poked S. A. Chaplin, The
Restitution’s editor, over his differences with the paper writing that he
still got the paper “and like it very much; but should like it much better if
it could be opened for the advanced views – such as the blessing of all nations
and all kindreds in the age to come.” In short, he wanted The Restitution
to open its pages to Storrs’ view of a larger salvation in the age to come.[141]
Lawver,
as did many of the evangelists loosely connected to The Watch Tower,
loved debates, believing that they countered poor theology and infidelity.
Sometime in late September or early October 1879, he debated “a public lecturer
upon the proposition, ‘Resolved, that Christianity had done more harm than
good.’”
As
did many of the earliest Watch Tower adherents, Lawver read and circulated material
published by others. In December 1880 we find him recommending a pamphlet for
sale through The Restitution entitled Christ’s Kingdom: Where is it?
What is it? It was written by Joseph Laciar (1843-1904), a pharmacist of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, and was the text of a speech given at Berwick, Pennsylvania. As of this writing, we have not been able to secure
a copy. He also encouraged everyone to get subscriptions to The Restitution.[142]
Lawver
drops out of sight by early 1883. A George Kedwell of Arkansas wrote to The Restitution pleading for help and
asking “where is Brother Lawver?” An answer was not forthcoming. He appears to
have died. Some family genealogy sites give him a much later death date, but
this is a misreading of the original typescript family record. The 1905 date
given in some online genealogies attaches to his wife. The original family
record gives no death date but says he “died while on travel.” He seems to have
died during this missionary tour.
Keith,
Sunderlin, and Mann
We do not have a detailed record for
Keith, Sunderlin and Mann. Keith and Sunderlin preached near their residence.
Evidence suggests that Mann preached as well. All the specifics have eluded our
determined research. The only notice of their ministry we have is found in a
notice appearing in the March 1880, Watch Tower: “Invitations to hold meetings may be addressed either to the editor
(mentioning whom you wish to have), or direct to the brethren.”[143] Others
entered the work toward the middle of 1881. We consider them in later chapters.
Gathering
Together
Though Russell and most Watch
Tower readers came from a tradition that questioned the propriety of
organization beyond the local level, Russell was anxious for them to meet
regularly. In April 1881, he asked to hear from all the “twos and threes” and
larger groups holding doctrines similar to his:
We desire to make a list for our office of all places
where our readers hold regular meetings and services of any kind, whether in
churches, halls, or private houses. Evangelists and Teachers frequently pass
the "twos and threes" en route from one point to another.
If you have no gathering of this sort, let me
recommend you to establish one in your own home with your own family, or even a
few that may be interested. Read, study, praise and worship together, and where
two or three are met in His name, the Lord will be in your midst – your
teacher. Such was the character of some of the meetings of the church in the
days of the Apostles. (See Philemon 2.)[144]
Within
some months, Russell asked one of the newer adherents to write to subscribers
in the United
Kingdom
to promote gatherings of those of similar faith. We should note again that
being a Watch Tower reader did not mean a strict adherence to beliefs
expressed within its pages. It is evident that meetings were fluid, sometimes
disappointing. Robert Wakefield,[145]
new to the movement but an experienced Bible student, addressed the issue:
The necessity for the assembling together for mutual
edification, encouragement and trengthening, has been very generally
acknowledged among Christians, yet we doubt if this most desirable end is very
frequently attained – and why? Because we think, in most cases, God is not
permitted to speak, among them, or if so, he is limited.
These assemblings together, oftenest take the form of
prayer and experience meetings, unless there is one of the number who is able
to preach, and then the tendency is to depend upon that one, to a greater
extent than is profitable.
The writer attended one of these experience meetings
among those professing the higher life, where God was almost shut out, and poor
weak humanity, ignorant of its weakness as it always is, had abundant
opportunity to boast itself. At the beginning of the meeting, one text of
scripture was read, the context of which, all were ignorant of, and
consequently its true application could not be understood. …
Nearly two hours passed and the human spirit had
magnified itself greatly, while the holy spirit (God-like mind) of the
"new creatures," (for such I believe they were) was almost quenched.
A brother seemed to perceive that something was wrong, and said "What
these meetings want is more prayer," and then proceeded to pray for every
thing he could think of, ignorant of the fact that he asked for many things in
direct opposition to God's expressed will. And so the meeting closed without
attaining the object for which they met, because God was shut out.
Again, at another of these meetings, one hungry sister
ventured to ask information with reference to a certain scripture, and was told
that lest it should provoke controversy, and since they wished to have harmony,
they would just pass over that, and so she was left unfed.
Now is this right – shall we sell the truth to
purchase harmony – and are we so puffed up as to be offended if God's word
should overthrow our former convictions? Or shall we limit God to five or ten
minutes and take the remainder of two hours to listen to each others
experiences, which in nine cases out of ten, would be better untold? Why not
open the doors wide and let the blessed Master come in and lead our meetings?
It matters not whether there is any one learned or
talented among you. Let each one bring his own Bible, paper, and pencil, and
avail yourselves of as many helps in the way of a Concordance, Em.
Diaglott, old and new versions of the New Testament,
etc. , as possible. Choose your subject; ask for the Spirit's guidance in the
understanding of it; then read, think, compare scripture with scripture, and
you will assuredly be guided into truth. "And the truth shall make you
free" – free from error, superstition, and the corruption of our perverse
nature, and the Holy Spirit (mind of God and Christ) if entertained will
liberate you from formality, as well as from self-exaltation.
Our prayers need not be long …. In few and simple
words, we can make known our wants as far as we can estimate them; but God has
so much more to tell us than we have to tell him. Let him speak, much and long
and often – through his word.[146]
Some,
perhaps initially many, continued to associate with their prior religion. This
was most often unsatisfactory both on doctrinal and behavioral grounds. Nothing
in Watch Tower doctrine was especially unique, though the composite
system was. But it was different from the mainstream, generating animosity from
other church members and dissatisfaction on the part of Watch Tower adherents. Russell was strongly influenced by
Methodist Perfectionist or Holiness doctrine. While many small,
non-denominational groups held the doctrine, and the Advent Christians adopted
it, few practiced it. The belief system was called by various names; we run
into it here under the name Higher Life.
Holiness,
Higher Life, and other Perfectionist sects shared some characteristics. They
usually pre-millennial. They saw themselves as approved of God where others
were less so or not at all. E. T. Clark observed that “sectarian spirit is seen
in an exaggeration of their own importance or acceptability to God and a
corresponding disparagement of other denominations, especially the large and
prosperous.” They usually held to Redemptionist doctrines and what they
believed were the original Bible teachings. They gave lip-service to strict
morals, though adherence to Bible standards was sometimes wanting.
Wakefield returned to the issue of association with an article
published in the August 1884 Watch Tower:
True
fellowship implies love, sympathy, a mutual sharing of good or ill, common
principles, common interests, and a common aim. It may exist between parties on
equal footing, or between those whose conditions are widely different. Where
the latter is the case, benevolence on the part of the superior is shown in acts
of favor and blessing, and on the part of the inferior, in gratitude and such
returns in action as are possible.
Than
such fellowship there is nothing more desirable and more helpful to the saints
in the narrow and difficult way they are called to tread. But while we should
ever seek and cultivate such fellowship, we need to be very careful to see that
our fellowship one with another, is based upon correct principles, else that
which was designed as a blessing, will be found to our great disadvantage.
Realizing
this, the Apostle Paul admonishes us, saying: “Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with
unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness... or what part
hath he that believeth with an infidel?” (2 Cor. 6:14,15.) “How can two walk
together except they be agreed?” It is impossible. Let us see to it, then, that
our
fellowship
is based upon the sure foundation referred to in this text--the blood of Jesus
Christ that cleanseth us from all sin – and that our rejoicing and communion be
of the increasing light as we walk together.
And
this great blessing, the Apostle John tells us, it is our privilege to have. He
says we may have fellowship with our Father, and with his Son, and also with
other saints who are walking in the light – the truth.[147]
Doctrine of Personal Responsibility
As
did Storrs, Russell believed that each was directly responsible
to God for his behavior and beliefs. Russell quoted Joseph Addison Alexander (1809 –
1860), a Presbyterian clergyman to this effect, though he quotes him
imperfectly and without attribution, probably because he clipped the quotation
from another publication. As Russell has it, Alerxander said: “It is man's relation to his God that must adjust and
determine his relations to his fellow-creatures. The symmetrical position of
the points in the circumference arises from their common relation to a common
center. Set a man right with God, and he will certainly be set right with his
neighbors.” What Alexander really wrote is this:
But “soberness” and “justice,” in the wide sense which
has just been put upon the terms, have never yet been found divorced from “godliness.”
As we have seen already, in considering the negative effects of training by
Divine grace, it is man's relations to his God, that must adjust and determine
his relations to his fellow creatures. The symmetrical position of the points
in the circumference arises from their common relation to a common centre.
Such are the objects and effects of Christian
training, that is, of the method by which Christ trains His disciples, with
respect to the present state or stage of man's existence, as distinguished from
those future states or stages to which he cannot but look forward. For although
the sobriety of mind produced by the discipline of God's grace, causes men of a
morbid, penurious disposition to lose sight of present duties and enjoyments in
a vague anticipation of the future, it is so far from excluding expectation
altogether, that our very salvation is prospective. “We are saved in hope,” and
that hope is a blessed one; a hope of blessedness to be revealed and realised
hereafter; a hope, that is, an object of hope, not yet fully enjoyed, but only “looked
for,” and to look for which is one of the effects and marks of thorough
training in the school of Christ. This hope is neither selfish nor indefinite.
It does not terminate upon ourselves, our own deliverance from suffering, and
our own reception into heaven; nor does it lose itself in vague anticipations
of a nameless good to be experienced hereafter. The Christian's hope is in the
highest degree generous and well defined. It is generous, because it rises
beyond personal interests, even the highest, even personal salvation, to the
glory of the Saviour as the ultimate end to be desired and accomplished.[148]
Despite the flawed quotation, for which Russell is probably not responsible, we see that his
point of view in 1880 was that each was responsible directly to God for their
beliefs and conduct. There was no intermediary but Christ. This effected how he
taught. We see this clearly in an article entitled “A Reason for the Hope,”
written in dialoge format. Brother Q (for Questioner) says: “I have followed
you so far, and can agree with your position fully, but wheny ou come to prove
that Jesus is now present and ask me to believe it without any sight
evidence, I am afraid I have not strong enough faith to believe it.” To this
the teacher who clearly speaks with Russell’s voice replies: “I have not asked
you to believe it, Bro. Q. I never ask anyone to believe, I simply give the
evidence; If it is as strong to them as to me they cannot help believing it.”[149]
At this stage of Russell’s ministry he saw the Bible and
“evidence” derived from events as authoritative and persuasive. He wrote this
in a context that suggests that ultimate responsibility rests on the idividual.
This contrasted with Barbour who believed his opinion was authoritative because
he was God’s last-days spokesman. Russell believed God had and perhaps always
would have special agents, special teachers, to promote his will, but obedience
and faithfulness were required or they would lose the responsibility.
Drawing on Pual’s letters and on the atni-Nicine writers,
some historians suggest that Christianity has never been a cohesive religoin. Reoccurring sectarian division suggests to some that this is a valid thesis.
However, Russell believed that sectarian division was a prophesied result of a
post-Apostolic apostasy. Russell and his associates believed true what-like Christians were best unified by
Christian behavior and an earnest desire to know “truth.” The Watch Tower’s
prinicpals believed that Christians could differ in some respects and still be
considered brethren in Christ. How great the difference each found acceptable varied by individual. The standard was an earnest desire for truth.
Russell saw any teaching that questioned the Redemption of
man by a corresponding ransom as non-Christian. Those who advocated contrary
doctrine were apostates and outside the pale of fellowship. Those who enjoyed
“advanced light” should fellowship together and support one another. This was
especially necessary because Barbour and his party kept up an unremitting
attack.
[1] N. H. Barbour: Questions
and Answers, Herald of the Morning, August 1879, page 29. “One of our
friends said to me, if you should convince me that man dies, I should have to
renounce the idea that Christ was our substitute.”
[2] For an extensive history of the idea see D. T. Taylor’s Voice
of the Church, 1855.
[3] Trotter was expelled from the Methodist New Connexion in
1841 with Barker.
[4] Eight Lectures on Prophecy (1865) and Essays on
Prophetic Interpretation (1867).
[5] Clyde Norman Kraus: Dispensationalism
in America,
John Knox Press, 1958, page 48.
[6] See the article The Revelation of Jesus Christ in that
issue.
[8] C. T. Russell: Correspondents Questions, Zion’s Watch
Tower, October 1879, page 8. Though the interpretation of Dragon in
Revelation twelve may seem strange, Russell was not alone in holding this view.
[9] E. G. White was exposed to
foot washing during her early ministry. An article in Adventist Currents,
Vol. 3, Number 1, 1988, says: “Small pockets of believers were scattered
throughout the northeast. The meetings (attended by Miss Harmon), who met
almost exclusively in private homes, were characterized by the ‘holy’
salutation kiss, loud shouting and singing, physical prostration’s, promiscuous
(mixed) foot-washing, multiple baptisms by immersion, odd exhibitions of
voluntary humility (i.e. crawling and barking). (Read that last sentence again
– kissing, crawling and barking.) Did you say, ‘barking?’ A woman, at the
meeting, got on her hands and knees, and crept over the floor like a child. A
man, in the same position, followed her, butting her occasionally with his
head. Another man threw himself at full length upon his back on the bed, and
presently three women crossed him with their bodies.’ Ellen Harmon moved
continuously among these Adventist extremists.” Foot Washing among early
Adventists made its introduction among W. C. Thruman’s believers easier than it
might otherwise have been. One can point to a Thurmanite rather than SDA source
for this letter on the basis that Russell knew and circulated among Second
Adventists who had held to Thurman’s doctrines. He had very little to do with
SD Adventists whom he saw as “seriously out of the way.”
[10] C. T. Russell: Questions and Answers, Zion’s Watch Tower,
February 1881, page 8.
[11] H. V. Reed: Untitled Article, The Restitution, December 22, 1875.
[12] Communications: Answer to Bro. Ongley, The Restitution, April 23, 1879.
[13] C. T. Russell: Questions and Answers, Zion’s Watch Tower,
February 1881, page 8.
[14] C. T. Russell: Questions and Answers, Zion’s Watch Tower,
May 1881, page 8. Brackets are in the original.
[15] C. T. Russell: Questions of Correspondents, Zion’s Watch
Tower, March 1881, page 8.
[16] C. T. Russell: Isaac and Rebecca, Zion’s Watch Tower,
November 1880, page 7.
[17] W. I. Mann: The Three Witnesses, Zion’s Watch Tower,
February 1880, page 7. [Not in reprints.]
[18] L. A. Allen: A Living Christ, Zion’s Watch Tower,
March 1880, page 4.
[19] C. T. Russell: The Two Natures, Zion’s Watch Tower,
October 1880, page 4.
[20] J. H. Paton: Atonement – Resurrection, Zion’s Watch
Tower, October 1879 and Pre-Existence of Christ, June 1880, pages 3-4.
[21] C. T. Russell: Two Likenesses, Zion’s Watch Tower,
April 1880, page 3.
[22] C. T. Russell: Questions and Answers, Zion’s Watch Tower,
November 1880, page 8.
[23]
C.
T. Russell: “Hear, O Israel! Jehovah our God is One – Jehovah,” Zion’s Watch
Tower, July 1882, page 7.
[24] Keith to Russell as found in the October 1880 issue of Zion’s
Watch Tower, page 7. [Not in reprints.]
[25] C. T. Russell: What to Do, Zion’s Watch Tower,
November 1880, page 8.
[26] Letter to Mrs. Russell and her reply as found in the June
1887 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower, page 5.
[27] J. H. Paton: One Body, One Hope, One Spirit, Zion’s Watch
Tower, March 1880, page 3.
[28] We inadvertently called him Aaron Hipsher in volume one. His
first name is Amon.
[29] The 1860 Census returns for Story County, Iowa, say his real
estate was worth five thousand dollars and his personal property worth five
hundred dollars.
[30] Conference Report, The Restitution, January 6, 1875.
[31] “Little Pope”: Report of the Conference Held Near Alden,
Iowa, The Restitution, July 25, 1875. Declines Nomination: Iowa,
The Restitution¸ December 20,
1875. Vice President: Iowa
Conference Report, The Restitution, October 15, 1884.
[32] His subscription is noted in the November 1840 issue.
[33] C. T. Russell: Unpardonable Sin, Zion’s Watch Tower,
March 1881, page 3.
[34] Mr. and Mrs. L. J. Baldwin to Editor Restitution, The
Restitution, October 24, 1883.
[35] Mrs. M. V. Duggar: Iowa
Conference, The Restitution, September
22, 1875.
[36] C. T. Russell: Questions of Correspondents, Zion’s Watch
Tower, March 1881, page 8.
[37] C. T. Russell: Our Authority, Zion’s Watch Tower, April
1880, page 8.
[38] A controversy between H. A. King and Samuel Wagner is
detailed from Wagner’s side in the April 1872 issue of The American Bee
Journal. The controversy involved a patent and the competing reputations of
King’s National Bee Journal. See also Ohio State Historical and
Archaeological Quarterly, 1947:161.
[39] City Items, The Springfield,
Massachusetts, Republican,
March 24, 1866.
[40] G. Stetson: Eight Weeks – Part 1, The World’s Crisis, December 13, 1865. The History of
Wyandot County Ohio, Leggett, Conway & Co, 1884, page 686.
[41] Annual Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Oberlin
College: 1858-1859, page
22.
[42] J. L. Rockey, editor: History of New Haven County
Connecticut, New York, 1892,
volume 1, page 406.
[43] B. M. Bowden: History of the Advent Christian Church, master’s
thesis, University of Wisconsin,
1920, page 168.
[44] Ocean Grove Camp Meeting, New-York Daily Tribune, July 10, 1878.
[45] Starting in July 1883, King was pastor for a little over a
year of a Baptist Church
in Groton, Connecticut.
In the 1890s he was pastor of a Baptist
Church in Philadelphia.
– C. R. Stark: Groton, Connecticut:
1705-1905, Stonington, Connecticut,
1922, page 159; Powelton Avenue’s
New Pastor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Enquirer, November 29, 1892.
[46] Notes of the Week: Railway World, May 12, 1894, page 372.
[47] Funeral Notices, Riverside,
California, Enterprise,
July 13, 1920.
[48] C. T. Russell: Do You Want “Zion’s
Watch Tower”?
Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1879, page 2.
[49] C. T. Russell: How Will Christ Come? Zion’s Watch Tower,
August 1879, pages 2-3.
[50] C. T. Russell: Bro. G. W. Stetson, Zion’s Watch Tower,
November 1879, page 2. The claim made by a later opposition writer that Russell
overstated attendance is false. The basis of that claim is that the Advent
Christian Church was too small to hold anywhere near 1200 people. The funeral
wasn’t held in the church.
[51] Letter from Jonas Wendell to Miles Grant as printed in The
World’s Crisis, April 23, 1873.
[52] According to the 1880 Census, Vesta Johnson was next door
neighbor to the Wakefields, also Watch
Tower adherents. She was
sixty-three in 1880. She died in 1895. She contribute a poem entitled “My Song”
to the June 1880 Watch Tower.
[53] C. T. Russell: Thank You, Zion’s Watch Tower, January
1880, page 6. [Not in Reprints]
[54] C. T. Russell: An Offer to You, Zion’s Watch Tower,
March 1880, page 7; Preaching Notice, page 8.
[55] C. T. Russell: Loss and Gain, Zion’s Watch Tower,
December 1878, page 7. Brackets are in the original.
[56] C. T. Russell: Bro. A. D. Jones, Zion’s Watch Tower,
September 1880, page 8. [Not in reprints.]
[57] C. T. Russell: Notice, Friends East, Zion’s Watch Tower,
December 1880, page 8 [Not in reprints.]
[58] G. Y. Young to Editor of the Restitution in the February 2, 1881, issue.
[59] C. T. Russell: In Newark,
Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1881, page 8
[60] C. T. Russell: Our Passover, Zion’s
Watch Tower¸ May 1881, page 6.
[61] C. T. Russell: View from the Watch
Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower,
April 1882, page 1.
[62] C. T. Russell: Bro. Paton’s Trip West, Zion’s Watch Tower,
February 1880, page 8.
[63] A. Hamlin to N. Barbour, Herald of the Morning¸ April
1880, pages 78-79.
[64] V. Cailott: Patrons of Husbandry: Address Delivered to
Yellow River Grange, December 4, 1873,
The Plymouth, Indiana,
Marshall County Republican, December
18, 1873.
[65] Benjamin Woodward to The Restitution, in the February 2, 1881, issue.
[66] Willett to Barbour as found in the July 1875 Herald of
the Morning. Hardware merchant, see: M. A. Leeson: Documents and
Biography Pertaining to the Settlement and Progress of Stark County, Illinois,
M. A. Leeson & Co. Chicago, Illinois, 1887, page 265.
[67] History of the First Baptist Church of Toulon, Illinios,
as reproduced on the church website.
[68] Eliza Hall Schallenberger: Stark County and its Pioneers,
B. W. Seaton, Prairie Chief Office, Cambridge, Illinois, 1876, page 158.
[69] Lily Setterdahl: The End of Eric Jansonism: Religious Life
in Bishop Hill in the Post-Colony Period, Western Illinois Regional Studies,
Spring 1988.
[70] Henry
S. K. Bartholomew: Pioneer History of Elkhart County, Indiana with Sketches and Stories,
Press of the Goshen Printery, Goshen
Illinois, 1930.
[71] See letter in January/February 1882 issue of Zion’s
Watch Tower¸ page 1 and November 1882, page 2. J. J. Jones was admitted to
the Indiana State Medical Society in 1880 and was the only physician in
Mixerville. He is not identified by name
in the February letter, but by circumstance, being the only physician in the
area. He was born about 1847. He married Lorinda Bourne in December 1879. By
the 1880 census he was a widower.
[72] Page 2 in that issue.
[73] Meetings, Detroit,
Michigan, Free Press, May 1, 1881.
[74] Letter from Bailey to Russell as found in the July 1881, Zion’s
Watch Tower, pages 5-6. [not in reprints]
[75] C. T. Russell: “Food for Thinking Christians: Why Evil was
Permitted and Kindred Topics,” Zion’s Watch Tower, October/November
1881, page 5.
[76] N. H. Barbour: A Confession, Herald of the Morning,
June 1880, pages 93-94.
[77] J. H. Paton: What Effect, Zion’s Watch Tower, July
1880, page 8.
[78] C. T. Russell: Write at Once, Zion’s Watch Tower, May
1880, page 2.
[79] C. T. Russell: How to Teach, Zion’s Watch Tower,
April 1881, page 8.
[80] His first patent was for a freight car door fastener. It’s
dated February 3, 1885, and
is patent number 311,761. With his son he patented a Car-Door fastener in 1891
and another type of the same device in 1893, patents number 463,511 and
522,061.
[81] Donehoo, George P. (Editor): History of the Cumberland
Valley, Harrisburg,
1930, pages 294-5. Local and Personal, The Franklin
County, Pennsylvania,
Valley Spirit, May2, 1866.
[82] Franklin County
Horticultural Society, The Franklin Repository, January 5, 1870. Franklin
County Horticultural Society, The
Franklin Repository, January 5,
1870.
[83] The Meeting: Herald of the Morning, October 1881,
page 46.
[84] C. T. Russell: View From the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower,
April 1882, page 1.
[85] A Socialist for Governor, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, Enquirer, August 2, 1892. Ex-Sheriff Keim was
George De Benneville Keim. Sheriff Keim’s biographical notice says that “the
family from which he descended was one of high consideration and great social
influence in that part of the State, of which the Keims were among the earliest
settlers, having come to this country at the time of William Penn's first
visit, and received large grants of land in and near the site of the present
city of Reading.” – C. Morris: Men of the Century, Philadelphia,
1896, page 133.
[86] Manual of the
Legislature of New
Jersey,
1894, page 160.
[87] New York Times, August 19, 1894; February 13 1911; Manual of the Legislature of New Jersey, 1904, page 185.
[88] They Sat on Mr. Luby – Beaten in an Encounter with Socialist
Joseph Keim, The Jersey City
Evening Journal, April 8, 1898.
[89] After $200,000,000 Dutch Estate, The Jersey
Journal, October 25, 1912.
Letter from Brown to The Crisis dated December
20, 1929 in the W. E. B. DuBois archive at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst.
[90] Letter from Keim to The Crisis as cited above.
[91] W. H. Shaw: History of Essex
and Hudson Counties, New
Jersey, Everts & Peck, Philadelphia,
1884, volume 1, page 522. They drop out of the record in 1894.
[92] Quarter Century of Progress of New Jersey’s Leading
Manufacturing Centers, New York,
1887, page 54.
[93] They are mentioned in a report about a One Faith conference
held in Brooklyn, New York:
J. Donaldson: Report of Conference: Brooklyn, New
York, The Restitution, November 5, 1874. In 1874, the One Faith
congregation was led by Elder Joseph Chapman.
[94] Publications for Sale
at the Restitution Office, The Restitution, November 16, 1876. The tract was by William
Shepherd. We couldn’t locate a copy.
[95] 1880 Census and Mary Stiles Guild: The Styles Family in
America, Joel Munsell’s Sons, Albany, New
York, 1892, page 203.
[96] E. H. Start.: The City of Lynn, The New England Magazine,
June 1891, page 517.
[97] Question sessions seem to have been a regular part of
Russell’s preaching in this era. A notice of Russell’s teaching found in the
May 24, 1890, Pittsburgh Dispatch says: “In the evening there will be a
questioners’ meeting at which questions from the audience on Bible subjects
will be entertained.”
[98] C. T. Russell: “The Name of the Beast, Or the Number of his
Name”, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1882, page 9.
[99] Letter from S. I. Hickey to C. T. Russell reprinted in the
article The Power of Truth, Zion’s Watch Tower, February 1889, pages
7-8.
[100] The 1870 Census suggests that she was
married to an Edmund Miner.
[101] A. E. Ford: History of the Origin of
the Town of Clinton: 1653-1865, W. J. Coulter, Clinton, Massachusetts, 1896,
page 504.
[102] “Massachusetts,
Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910,” index, FamilySearch
(https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FHNQ-9DZ : accessed 06 Apr 2014), Rachel W. Stearns, 24 Dec 1898; citing , reference 71;
FHL microfilm 2030961.
[103] A letter from Randolph Ladd of
Springfield appears in the January 1874, Bible Examiner, page 127.
[104] Journal of the Senate of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the Session Begun January 4, 1881, page
84.
[105] Proceedings of the New York State
Stenographers’ Association, … Fifth Annual Meeting, Troy,
New York, 1881, page 15. Expenditures of Susquehanna
County, The Montrose, Pennsylvania,
Democrat¸ March 7, 1877.
[106] The Scranton, Pennsylvania, Republican,
May 26, 1894, page 7.
[107] Farmers’ Club: Business Locals, The
Montrose, Pennsylvania,
Democrat¸ May 3, 1876.
Guardian: Untitled Article, The Montrose, Pennsylvania,
Democrat¸ June 13, 1877.
We have speculated about a family connection between Lathrop’s second wife and
the Sherwoods of Elyria, Ohio, but at this writing have not made one.
[108] Reprinted in the Susquehanna
County Transcript¸
April 4, 2012.
[109] A Joseph L. Freed is mentioned in a much
later issue of The Watch Tower¸ but we cannot trace him to Montrose.
[110] Battle,
op. cit. page 150.
[111] Communication: Pennsylvania
Medical Journal, June 1906, page 674.
[112] J. H. Battle [editor]: History of
Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, A. Warner & Co., Chicago,
Illinois, 1887, page 201.
[113] Deaths: Journal of the American
Medical Association, May 10, 1919,
page 1385.
[114] Birth date, marriage date and wife’s
name: 1910 Federal Census. A physician: R. Leonard: Medical History of Carbon
County – Biographical Sketches, in Alfred Matthews and Austin Hungerford: The
History of the Counties of Lehigh & Carbon, Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
1884, page 627. Also: Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania,
Twenty-First Annual Session, Held at Philadelphia,
June 1870, Part 1, Philadelphia,
1870, pages 104.
[115] J. H. Thomas to Editor of The
Restitution in the February 22,
1882, issue.
[116] On inventions see C. T. Russell: The
Restored Dominion, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1880, page 7.
[117] The Lock Haven, Pennsylvania,
Express, August 26, 1963.
[118] Death notice in The Lock Haven, Pennsylvania,
Express, August 5, 1936.
[119] C. T. Russell: Via. Elyria
and Cleveland, Ohio,
Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1880, page 3.
[120] Hamlin to Barbour in the August 1878 Herald
of the Morning, page 31.
[121] C. T. Russell: Returned Home, Zion’s
Watch Tower¸ September 1880, page 8.
[122] Brevities, The Brockport, New
York, Republic, May 8, 1873. Local News, The Brockport, New
York, Republic¸ April 15, 1875. J. G. Heath died in November
1888.
[123] Personal, The Brockport, New
York, Republic, February 21, 1889.
[124] C. T. Russell: View From the Tower, Zion’s
Watch Tower, July 1882, page 1.
[125] Letter from B. F. Hodges to Editor of Restitution
in the June 21, 1882,
issue.
[126] U.S.
Census Returns, New Oregon Village, Iowa,
1860. His estate is listed at $8000. (The census image is blurred and this
figure may be incorrect.)
[127] Jonesboro,
Illinois, Gazette, November 15, 1873.
[128] Kansas State Census, March 1875, returns
for Cherokee County.
[129] Report of the Board on Behalf of the
United States Exceutive Departments at the International Exhibition Held in
Philadelphia, PA., 1876, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.,
1884, volume 2, page 262.
[130] Robert H. Fairbairn: History of
Chickasaw and Howard Counties, Iowa, J. S. Clarke Co., Chicago,
1919, volume 1, page 437.
[131] Transactions of the Illinois
State Agricultural
Society: 1868-1879, Springfield, Illinois,
1869, page 276. Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Iowa, of the Most Ancient
and Right Honorable Fraternity of the Free and Accepted Masons, Iowa City, 1863, volume three, page 68.
[132] Notes from Southern Illinois,
The Country Gentleman, January
26, 1865, pages 58-59.
[133] Private Laws of the State of Illinois,
Passed by the Twenty-Fourth General Assembly, 1865, volume 1, page 680.
[134] Letters and Receipts, The Restitution,
February 3, 1875; Parcels
Sent, Bible Examiner, April 1876, page 224.
[135] “Mr. Burr was educated at Torringford
Acad., commenced teaching school in So. Farms, Ct., in 1850 ; was ordained a
clergyman of the Advent Christian denomination in 1859; preached in Ottawa,
Ill., New Rutland, Ill., Alton, Ill., Chicago, Ill., and Norwalk, O., and in
1874 was called to the editorship of the Advent Christian Times, the
chief paper of that denomination in the West; resigned the editorial chair in
1878; rem. to be pastor in Philadelphia, Pa.; went thence to Portland, Me., in
1880; was elected editor of the Sunday-school publications of the Advent
Christian denomination in 1882, with office at 144 Hanover St., Boston, Mass.,
which office he now holds.” – Charles Burr Todd: A General History of the
Burr Family, Knickerbocker Press, New York, Fourth Edition, 1902, page 444.
[136] I. Wellcome: History of the Second
Advent Message, 1874, page 613.
[137] Letter from Lawver to Storrs,
Bible Examiner, August 1877, page 350.
[138] J. W. Lawver [sic]: Editor’s Notices, Bible
Examiner, February 1878, page 134.
[139] J. S. Lawver: What is Christianity, The
Restitution¸ October 15, 1879.
[140] C. T. Russell: Passover, Zion’s Watch
Tower, April 1881, page 5.
[141] J. Foore to Editor of The Restitution
in the October 3, 1877 issue.
[142] Letter from Lawver to Editor of Restitution
in the December 1, 1880,
issue.
[143] C. T. Russell: Preachng Notice, Zion’s
Watch Tower, March 1880, page 8.
[144] C. T. Russell: Regular Meetings, Zion’s
Watch Tower, April 1881, page 8.
[145] Robert Wakefield was an Irish immigrant.
Census records date his birth to about 1828. He died January 1, 1889. He was a well-educated shoemaker,
and later a writer whose articles appeared in The New York Sun, Chicago
Daily Tribune and other prominent
newspapers. In 1850 he lived in a boarding house. The 1870 census tells us he
was well off with real estate valued at three thousand dollars. By the time we
meet him he was a widower. He came to the Watch
Tower movement through Second
Adventism, spending more than thirty years “among them.”[145] He first appears on Zion’s
Watch Tower
(April 1882) as the author of a poem and article both signed “R. W.” We know
little else.
[146] R. Wakefield: Assembling Together, Zion’s
Watch Tower, January/February 1882, page 5.
[147] R. Wakefield: Christian Fellowship, Zion’s
Watch Tower, August 1884, page 5.
[148] J. A. Alexander: The Gospel of Jesus,
T. Nelson & Sons, London
edition, 1861, page 226.
[149] C. T. Russell: A Reason for the Hope, Zion’s
Watch Tower, August 1880, page 2.
4 comments:
I have not had opportunity to read all the post as yet, but it is good to see the work of this blog go forward with this draft chapter.
Marvelous. Enlightening. Fantastic. Thorough. Incredible. Brilliant.
And this is just a subset of a much larger work.
It's what we have all been waiting for.
The wait has been worth it.
Thank you for all the hard work you have done, and continue to do.
More than you realize are grateful for your work.
What treasures have been lost to those who know so little of Russell his work.
As a long-time Witness who has for decades craved a straightforward portrait of our history, I am beyond thankful. I have always been intrigued by Russell and his actions and motives. Your efforts are making him more human and more accessible than ever.
Andrew Grzadzielewski
It's so good. Cannot wait. As a Bible Student it's so great to see my roots. I searched the JW stuff but they're not as concerned about the older history. I have their books but this is a GEM.
Monumental
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