Plan of the Ages - UK help, please

We located a copy of the Saalfield & Fitch printing of the Plan of the Ages. I need a clear scan of the title page showing the Saalfield imprint. The book is in the UK. Anyone interested in helping?

UPDATE

The British Library wants £28.75 to make a one page photocopy. That seems excessive for a scan we'd only use as an illustration. If someone in the UK can show up in person, the cost is minimal.

Or, perhaps someone has the Saalfield & Fitch printing of The Plan of the Ages? I've never seen one in person. I just want a clear scan or photocopy of the title page showing the Saalfield imprint. It's not a huge loss if we don't get one. We will have many illustrations. For instance, the chapter tentatively titled "Advertising the Message" will have at least these illustrations:

1. Advertisment by Willson & Bruckner for Millennial Dawn, 1887.
2. Photo of D. W. Whittle
3. Photo of C. H. Smith (Bill Arp)
4. The Arp Tract. (quality is poor; we're looking for better)
5 DeWitt Talmage.
6. L. C. Baker. (articles by him were in ZWT)
7. Mrs. C. B. Lemuels advertisement from 1887.
8. Ad for Plan of the Ages from 1887.
9. Ad for Millenial Dawn from Open Shelf.

On our Wish list are:

1. Photo of Samuel I. Hickey
2. Photo of the editor of the Syracuse, New York, Standard (1887). We don't know his name yet, and this is low priority.
3. Photo of Charles H. Dickinson, a civil war veteran from the mid-west. He lived in various places. He left an important Civil War diary, though it's not relevant to our research. He was an early adherent.
4. Fleming H. Revell.
5. Viola Gilbert, an independent evangelist in New York City in the 1880-1900 period.

Probably we'll not find any of these. But we are looking.

Charles Henry Smith - Bill Arp

Arp Tract

Does anyone have a better copy they can scan for me?

colporteurs

I have the 1903 Colporteur guide, Suggestive Hints to New Colporteurs. We need to see the 1887 edition. As far as I know, it does not exist. But we're hoping it does and that you have it. Can anyone help?

Soul's Awakening.

I remember very well the period of my soul awakening. It was when I was about 15 years of age, and I thought, as I looked at that picture called "Soul's Awakening," that the young person in the picture looked to be about 15, and that gave me the thought that perhaps there were a great many of about that age when they reach thoughtful conditions. There seems to be a great change, you know, in human nature about that time, and it is a splendid time for the forces of spiritual growth to come toward these, and for parents and guardians to have in mind that it is a very favorable time for soul awakening. I do not mean to say that we should delay our endeavor to bring the child to a knowledge of the Lord. Quite to the contrary, from the time the child is born it should always be trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We believe the training of the child should begin nine months before it is born, in order that the child may be properly born, in order that the parental mind may have the proper influence on that child. The best opportunity you will have in the whole experience, so that the proper thoughts of justice, and love, and mercy, and kindness, and gentleness, and reverence toward God, may be impressed upon the child mind is prior to its birth. - C. T. Russell, 1913.

herald of the morning

We desperately need to see the April and May 1876 issues of Herald of the Morning. Anyone?

Conely and Stetson

The Wikipedia article on Conley says, "Adventist minister George Stetson lived for a time with the Conleys during a prolonged period of illness until his death." The citation is to "Allegheny City census result of 1879 published in 1880."

This citation is vague. Does anyone know the actual location, name, title or full bibliographic information for the Allegheny City Census?

We found this. It wasn't a "census" but a listing in Thurston's City Directory. The Stetson name is correct. The occupation is not. So we're left with a mystery. The George W. Stetson living with the Conleys is described as a "clk," or clerk. Wouldn't someone that ill be unemployed? Had Stetson's second wife already died? Were the Conleys already operating a faith-healing sanitorium?

william c. mcmillan

also spelled macmillan, one of the first directors of the watch tower society .... any biographical information would help.

Winnowed Hymns

A song book sold through Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society into the 1890's. I'm afraid my copy is really ratty, but I'm happy to have one.

George Stetson

We need proof that he practiced medicine in Ohio. Anyone have a contemporary reference?

We need to see the Stetson-Thew letters. Anyone bother to send for those? Are you willing to make copies for us?

Really hard stuff ...

There was at least one believer in Guildford, England, in 1886. We can find no clue as to his name or any other details. Anyone out there have a clue?

One of our blog readers pointed us to the Russell v. Russell, Appellant, Transcript of Record for the 1907 hearing. Russell speaks of donated Florida lands, something we are researching. The details as he gives them in 1907 do not match the details found in the 1884 and 1885 Watch Tower. And he seems to point to more than one sale of donated property. Can anyone help clarify this? You will find this testimony on page 47 of the transcript. We really would benefit from having more data on the Florida land donations.

Also, I've had a few emails asking about copies of the transcript. The 1907/8 Transcript is 286 pages long and my copy is faint. We've been discussing retyping it and publishing it and the courts decision as a book. It wouldn't be cheap, I'm afraid. And retyping would be very time consuming. Is there enough interest out there?

We also have a copy of the defendant's paper book and some other legal material related to the Russell's marital problems. These present even greater problems with reproduction. However, if there is a significant interest, we will consider publishing this.

How best to help ...

We've been getting lots of helpful comments and private emails. This is great. Keep it up.

Some things what would help us include:

1. If you have a reference, please be as specific as possible. For instance: "Bible Examiner, March 1875" is superior to "Bible Examiner sometime in the 1870's."

2. If you're telling us something you remember reading, tell us if you're not certain as to source. Memories can be faulty.

3. Guesses don't help very much. This doesn't mean we're not open to your speculation. Our guesses lead us down some fruitful research trails, and yours do too. But tell us the reasoning behind your "guess." This will help.

4. The more detail the better. "Russell wrote to Storrs" is much less helpful than "Russell wrote to Stores three times that I know of in 1874. You can find the letters in Bible Examiner of this date, that date and the other date."

6. No observation is too insignificant. Yes, we may already know what you're posting, but we may not know it. Every researcher has his blind spots. Your thoughts are important. Even wrong conclusions are sometimes helpful because they make us think, "Well, that's not right, and here is why."

7. Be willing to stretch beyond what you think you know. Most of Russell's early history has taken on the character of myth. Some long-held beliefs about early Watch Tower history have roots in reality but are not good history. Think beyond what you know. Look more widely. That's what we do, and, if you want to help, you should do that too.

8. We try to avoid pointing to motives unless one of the persons we research tells us either directly or indirectly through things they wrote what their motive was. Unless you can provide us with a quotation that indicates a motive for something, we can't use a comment that assumes motivations. We're trying to be even handed, even if we may personally disagree with the conclusions of some of the people we are profiling. Frankly, some of these guys were as disreputable as can be. A. D. Jones comes to mind, but there were others too. If it matters to the story, we'll give the details. If it does not matter and the character is incidental to the history, we probably won't. And we won't report mere speculation, even if we agree with it, if it bears on anyone's character. For instance, we believe there is enough evidence to suspect two of Russell's early associates of having an affair. We cannot offer proof that meets any sort of evidentiary standard. So we won't include our suspicions. Both these individuals are important enough to the story that IF we stumble on proof, we will say so.

Negative evidence will not meet the standard of proof. We asked for a copy of some private papers we know exist. The person who owns them refused, suggesting that they would show her ancestor in a "bad light." Fine. We have no idea what she meant by "bad light." This is negative evidence. We wont use it.

Continue to help and post. We appreciate all of the comments and suggestions, even the vague ones. They all make us think, and they all contribute to our daily exchange of ideas.

A thank you is due to everyone who's posted a comment lately. Consider it given.

Tentative ID

margaret russell said: “Later, about 1877, after attending a series of services held by my brother, a prominent Pittsburgh physician remarked concerning him, ‘I should not be much surprised if he should prove to be the youthful David who will yet slay with his pebble of Truth the great ecclesiastical goliath.’"

We have tentativly identified this man as Charles Wesley Buvinger, MD, a civil war veteran, and a sometime associate of George Storrs. Anyone out there who can firm up this ID or help reject it?

George D. Clowes, Sr.

... was expelled from the Methodist church in the summer of 1871. This was detailed in The World's Crisis. Anyone know the exact issue? DO you have it? can you give us the text of the article?

Any Ideas - - -

footnote in object and manner of our lord's return:


Another brother, also of the M. E. church, and for several years a professor in one of their principal colleges, being convenient to me, I called his attention to the above. After examining the text critically, he endorsed the above rendering, remarking that it was very peculiar; then happening to glance at the 46th verse of Matt. 24 he called my attention to the fact that the word there translated cometh is elthou , and signifies after He has come . Read verses 45 and 46 with this thought in mind. Is it possible that there will be faithful servants giving meat in due season after the Lord has come? It is so stated, and at that same time the evil servant will not be aware of His presence, (verse 50).

Who was this "brother ... of the M E. Church ... a professor"?

Restitution

This Indiana paper reviewed Object and Manner of Our Lord's Return.

help ...

We’re puzzling things through. Rachael is writing first rough draft of a chapter dealing with the Allegheny Bible Class between 1871 and 1876. There is more detail than usually presented, but there are some chronological issues. Russell points to 1871 as the date the class was established, though in one place he seems to say 1872. I’m continuing to work on the first year of Russell and Barbour’s joint ministry.

Russell and his brethren spent most of 1872 considering the ransom doctrine. This seems to have been prompted by articles appearing first in The Herald of Life and later in The Bible Examiner. Our money is exhausted, and we can’t afford copies of the Bible Examiner for 1872. Anyone want to be exceptionally nice and make copies for us? We can’t reimburse you at all.

Issues with these chapters are:

1. How many people were in the founding group? Can we say from original, not secondary, sources?

2. The first issue examined by this group was the doctrine of Probation. They adopted George Storrs’ views. We have articles by Storrs from a slightly later date. Anyone have something by Storrs on Probation and Second Probation published in 1870-1872?

3. Can we list specific writers who influenced this group? Thus far we have Henry Dunn, George Storrs, George Stetson, Joseph Seiss, various Adventist publications. Russell mentions “others.” Thus far we’ve only established one name other than those listed above. I’m sure there are more. Russell’s words suggest there are.

4. The preface to the Watch Tower reprint volumes says Russell was elected pastor of this group in 1876. We consider that a secondary source because it did not come from Russell’s own pen. Can we prove this statement from another source?

5. Restitution magazine reviewed Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. Anyone have that issue?

Can you add to this ...

In the June 1882 Watch Tower Russell announced that “Bros. Leigh and Spears have started on a trip down the Ohio river in a small boat belonging to the latter. They purpose (D.V.) to visit all the river towns between here and Cincinnati or St. Louis, spending about a week at each. This will require all summer or longer.” The purpose of this trip was to circulate Food for Thinking Christians.
Identifying Leigh and Spears is difficult. The primary identifier is that they sailed from “here” or Pittsburgh. This suggests that they were residents of either Allegheny or Pittsburgh. The only Leighs in the city directories include an S. M. Leigh, a teacher at The House of Refuge, a home for juvenile offenders. Unfortunately, this is a “Miss S. M. Leigh,” thus not qualifying as “brother” Leigh.[1] A later directory lists a William Leigh, a waiter.[2] The 1880 Directory lists a Valentine Leigh, a laborer. Other directories list a Samuel Leigh, a glass molder, and an E. C. Leigh, a student living on Federal Street. It is impossible to point to any one of these as the “Brother Leigh” of Russell’s article.
We fare no better with “Brother Spears.” The 1880/81 Directory lists a number of people with the last name “Spear” but only one with the name “Spears,” and thereby we might make the connection. James Spears was a glass cutter, living on Carson Street. It may be no more than coincidence that Samuel Leigh and James Spears worked in the same industry, but I am inclined to believe these are the two we seek. There isn’t enough evidence to say with surety. James Spears drops out of the directories no long after, either moving away of dieing. As much as one wishes for more detail, it seems not to exist.
[1] 1873 Directory of Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, G. H. Thurston, page 323; 1873/4 Directory, page 43.
[2] 1878 Directory, page 373.

Sigh ...

A shill for a book keeps trying to post on this blog. They do not read this blog, only an earlier post revewing a book by Fredrick Zydek entitled Charles Taze Russell – His Life and Times – The Man, the Millennium and the Message. I've already posted my reply where he will see it, and I'm posting it here for all to see:

Time for a restatement of the rules:

IF you want me to review a book, you must send me a copy at your expense. I will decline all posts advertising a book that I have not seen. You want to shill for a book, that's your business. You want me to review it, mail me a copy.

Also, insulting me over a review someone else wrote will get all of your future comments deleted.

1. I did not write the review, but I fully agreed with the review as written.

2. I cannot take your word for anything sight unseen.

3. Questioning my 'integrity' will not make me accept your post.

4. Post under your own name, and not an assumed one, if you wish to advertise your book.

5. The review stands as written. I will not delete it.

6. You want me to review a book, mail it to me at your expense.

And finally ... I'm tolerant of many views and opinions. I'm not tolerant of rank stupidity.

Additional note:

I write young adult fiction using a pen name. Good reviews are always nice, and I get my share. Bad reviews are a fact of life. If you can't live with a bad review, you shouldn't be writing.

The publishing industry is a small world. Word gets around. Authors talk to their friends, publishers talk to their friends, agents talk to their friends. And they all talk to readers. Being self-published doesn't make you immune to the consequences of your stupidity.

Any experienced agent or author will tell you it's a bad idea to insult someone you wish to read and review your book.

The real question of integrity rests in your insulting remarks. A man of integrity would not engage in ad hominem attacks to get his way.

You may think using AOL gives you web anonymity, but it does not. You used the same "name" to shill for this book elsewhere. It won't work here.

Want to play detective ...

Starting at Rochester, New York, and ending a Louisville, Kentucky, what would have been the probable train rout in 1877? What would have been the stops? Anyone?

also ... Russell and Barbour were in Louisville in February, March or April 1877. Certainly it was no later than that. Any really ambitious person in the Louisville KY area willing to consult microfilms of old newspapers?

Dispatch Building - 1876

After Food for Thinking Christians was published a Church of God clergyman challenged Russell to debate throught he pages of the Dispatch.

Sixth Street Bridge

Omnibus Leaving 6th Street Bridge on the Allegheny Side - 1876.

C. T. Russell

Russell in his study. Originally in Overland Monthly.

Courtesy of a friend of this blog.

John H. Paton - Later in Life

Photo courtesy a friend of this blog.

John H. Paton and Family

Photo courtesy of a friend of this blog.

Seiss's Miracle in Stone

I have an extra copy. It's clean looking outside, but the hinges are cracked. The cover is still attached and a bit of glue would fix the problem. The text block is nice and clean. It needs a good home.

Make me an offer. Expect $3.50 media rate shipping and tracking.

D. W. Whittle

Major Daniel Webster Whittle blocked the Plan of the Ages from the Revel bookstore and wholesale lists.

A thought ...

It occurs to me that some of my blog readers don't understand that the real history of Zion's Watch Tower has never really been told. I don't mean to diminish the work of others. I benefit from previous research. Some of them are certainly better, more readable writers than I am. The Proclaimers book comes to mind.

But most histories of the era are brief. They're dependant on one Watch Tower article and very little else. So histories that limit themselves to that source and a few other incidentals do not really tell the story. Personalities are left out. You never read about Tavender, Moffitt, or others whose names appear. You never hear what they did to further the work or why they did it. Rachael and I want to tell as much of the complete story as possible.

If you omit significant details, you change the story. What you tell becomes a kind of mythos and not history at all. Oh, it can be historically accurate. But it is incomplete, and it changes one's focus as a result. It's like describing the back side of a retreating horse without ever telling what the front side looked like or was doing.

J. H. Brown

We need a really clear digital scan of the photo of John H. Brown found in the 1908 Convention Report. Anyone?

Blog Policy

While there may be exceptions, especially if the review comes from a regular contributor or a regular blog reader, I will not review books, announce their publication, revision or otherwise publicize them unless you provide me with a copy.

If you want me to mention your book or a friend's book or a book you simply want to recomend, you must send me a copy at your expense.

Old Quaker Shirt Store Partnership

Asking for the moon ...

Joseph Moffitt of Newcastle on Tyne republished his 1884 Watch Tower article as a pamphlet. Does any one have, or can you find:

Ransom and Testimony will they become co extensive By Joseph Moffitt, 29 Close Newcastle on Tyne, 1885

from an 1886 Watch Tower article:

Another similar effort to hand-truck Christian people into the
great Omnibus of Spiritism, is a little paper published on the
Pacific Coast, which goes under various names, one of the most
popular of which is the "Father's Love." This journal selects
from other papers some good, simple articles as a sugar coating,
which with its title, we doubt not often entraps for a time at least
God's hungry children, only to feed them on no ransom, and
dispensational evolution, and to introduce to them out and out
spiritist publications.

- View from the Tower, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 1886, page 4.

Does anyone KNOW anything about the magazine Father's Love to which Russell refers?

HELP!

Fredrick Clapham

Anyone with an ancestry.com account? Lived in Albany, New York in 1900. Meetings were held in his house? Data? Anyone?

Simon O. Blunden

I no longer have an ancestry.com account. If you have one, please send me the material on S. O. Blunden found there, including the city directory information. Blunden was born in Ireland in the 1840s and died just past 1910. Anyone?

A bit of good news ...

We've finally located some of the 1877 Pittsburgh newspapers we want to examine. The library that has them is willing to lend the microfilms. This is good. No guarantee we'll find what we're looking for in either of these newspapers. We know only that it was in one of the Pittsburgh papers in 1877.

District Messenger Boy - London

Messenger boys such as this one distributed Food for Thinking Christians

Tackabury

S. T. Tackabury is listed in the ohio obituary index on acestry.com. Anyone have a membership? Can you email me the information? Or post it here?

Tackabury was born about 1832 and died in 1888.

Needs

It seems that all i'm posting lately is requests for help. Here is another:

We need the exact details of a Advent and Sabbath Advocate article on parousia that appeard in 1881 or 1882. It is mentioned on page 348 of Watch Tower reprints.

Any contemporary comment by the press, a magazine or anyone about the circulation of Food for Thinking Christians would be helpful. Anyone?

A "brother McGranor" is mentioned in the reprints on page 291. Anyone have an exact name? Who was this?

George M. Myers

Myers is mentioned only by last name in Zion's Watch Tower. We need to see a booklet he wrote in the 1880's entitled "The Atonement." It's mentioned in The Bible Advocate, December 15, 1908, 103-04.

We havent' found a copy. Anyone?

Boston; the rules; old posts; and stuff

To answer an emailed question: This site contains more material than appears on the front page. Use the “older posts” button on the bottom of the page.

Rachael continues to work on the early publishing ministry. I’m still probing the months Russell and Barbour spent traveling and preaching. There is a mass of documentary evidence to which we have no access. The problem is the amount of the material exceeds what the archive is willing to photocopy. It runs to about eight hundred pages, I’m told. I cannot afford to travel to Boston, and I certainly can’t afford to pay for 800 pages of photocopy at the through the mail rates. They are letter size pages, but probably could be reduced to photocopy as two to a page. All this material relates to Arthur Prince Adams and represents his defense during the “trial” that removed him as a Methodist minister.

If you live anywhere near Boston and wish to help, let me know either through an email or post. I am not happy with the limited material we have for this era, but I’m treading new research ground. I don’t think anyone has really followed this trail before. If they have, they haven’t published their findings.

We have good solid biographical material on most of the really significant Barbourites within the time of Russell’s association. But we lack key detail on some events. We have only one of the semi-monthly issues of Herald of the Morning. The missing issues obviously contain material we should see. Anyone know where they are?

Important material is in the 1877 Pittsburgh newspapers. The library that owns the microfilms does not share them via interlibrary loan. I’m too poor to travel and too sick.

I don’t question your beliefs on this blog. Readers take both sides of the issue when it comes to Russell. Your beliefs are not my business. Every one who behaves is welcome. I need to repeat that if you post stupid comments, they won’t make it to the blog. If you have comments or questions on facts or merely wish to say you appreciate the blog, those are always welcome.

This is hard work. I’m not sure some of our readers know just how difficult, expensive and time consuming finding the facts is. In this past week we’ve purchased something like six books, 400 pages of photocopy and written eight letters or emails to various university libraries or private archives. It takes valuable time to digest what we find and follow up on leads and hints.

Four hundred pages may not seem like much. But when a library asks an initial fee of thirty-five dollars and then charges by the page, it becomes a significant investment. I have to calculate how much I can afford on a mostly fixed income.

There’s a book out there now, used, ratty and fifty dollars plus postage. The man selling it hasn’t a clue what he has. He’s priced it solely on the basis that he has the only one for sale. I want to read this book. More, I want to own it. There simply is no way for me to spend the money. It will have to wait.

Then there are the things that seem to be gone for good: Barbour’s spiritism booklet; Adam’s Bible Harmony; issues of various magazines, many of which most Witness researchers have never heard of or read.

This week I wrote to a group notorious for not sharing its research, and I asked for the moon. I’ve tried to appeal to them on the basis that what is said about the issue is wrong and harmful. They’d do better by putting the raw material in the hands of someone who will consider it fairly. I don’t expect an answer anytime within the next few months. They’re notoriously slow to answer requests like that. But, surprisingly, they do sometimes provide help. We’ll see.

The way we handle that in the current research is to simply say in text or footnote that such-and-such a library or archive owns the material and declined to make it available. It’s time some of these institutions be exposed to their own policies.

Years ago I did extensive research for someone else’s book. I had a great working relationship with the Library of Congress. That was back in the late 1980s and early 1990’s. The people that were helpful have all retired. The current crop of Library of Congress employees leaves me frustrated. They can’t read the text of an email, only skimming what I write and answering with comments that do not match my question. It’s become an unfriendly, difficult resource, unless you are in Washington, D. C. In contrast, The American Antiquarian Society is superior, friendly, helpful. The Library of Congress should take lessons from them. Boston University seems to hate outside scholars. Rochester Public Library is helpful and the staff I’ve contacted are superior. You can see it’s a very mixed experience.

Some of these institutions and societies seem to delight in withholding material from professionals – or anyone else. My worst experience was with a staffer at the Wyoming State Library who refused to fill an interlibrary loan request because it was critical of her religion, or so she thought. The material was from 100 years in the past. This is insane.

I’m wandering from my topic. Old men do that. Sorry. We need immediate help with the material in Boston. Anyone?

William Lee Stroud

Stroud was editor of Eusebia: A Montly Journal for Bible STudents, published in Oakland, California in the 1880's and 90's. He was Born 15 Jan 1833 in New York and Died 23 Aug 1911. I no longer have access to ancestry.com. If any of you do, will you please provide me with a good copy of the two photos and other information found there.

Plan of the Ages - Saalfield & Fitch edition

Advertisement in the back of another Saalfield publication.

Publishers' Weekly

In 1892 the religious publishing house Saalfield & Fitch published an edition of The Plan of the Ages. It was advertised in Publishers Weekly (February 20, 1892) and in the after-matter in some of their other publications, but without connecting it to Zion's Watch Tower. A notice in Review of Reviews of the Saalfield edition gives Russell's name as author. There are adds and notices in scattered magazines, including the Febuary 13, 1892, issue of The Critic.

Does anyone have this edition? Have you seen it? Do you know of anyone who has it?

Anyone in Boston

A significant archive related to A. P. Adams is in Boston. We need a volunteer interested enough in Watch Tower history to consult it, make photo copies, and share them with us. This would be a labor of love. What little research funds we have left have been committed to something else.

Anyone?

We urgently need to see ...

The Kingdom of God; The Covenant with David and David's Seed, by G. M. Myers - 1885 - 16 pages

Controversial on the Nature of Man: A correspondence, G. M. Myers and J. M. Henry - 1885 - 48 pages

The Millenarian, published by Myers, established in 1882, circulation in 1885 said to be 2000 published at Lanark, Illinois

Anyone know the locations? Have copies?

A. D. Jones

Albert D. Jones’ embezzlement of funds is discussed elsewhere on this blog. Thanks to research by Rachael de Vienne, we know more about the back ground.

Jones’ investment in the Knickerbocker Bank went up in smoke. Other transactions reduced him to near poverty. A judgment against him for $7,044.00 was entered in January 1892, in favor of George F. Whipple on notes made in 1886 and 1887. [The New York Sun, January 19, 1892]

An article in the New York Tribune, February 12, 1892, shows that he had secured an investment with his furniture. His belongings were subsequently sold for six thousand dollars, a considerable sum in those days. He had mishandled the investments of Jane Crossley, the widow of a prominent carpet dealer.

UPDATE

In December 1889 many of Jones’ creditors took him to court and won judgments. The total of the December judgments approached $40,000.00. The record is found in the December 28, 1889 issue of The Real Estate Record and Guide.

Help? Anyone?

In 1900 William C. Couch of the Disciples of Christ debated a brother Whitaker. The debate was printed, but we can't find a copy. Anyone? Any details? Brother Whitaker's initials may have been "I. P." The debate is mentioned in Thomas N. Thrasher's Encyclopedia of Religious Debates, volume 1, but no details are given. ANYONE?

We Need to See This ...

With the January/February 1882 issue of Zion's Watch Tower, Russell sent as a supplement a combined pamphlet that included both Tabernacle Teachings and Food for Thinking Christians. We would like to see the title page. Anyone have this? If you do, a scan of the title page would be helpful.

Sunderlin

John Sunderlin's first wife died in 1899. She made her home in Glens Falls, New York, and was living apart from her husband. Does anyone know why? Sunderlin would travel back and forth between Flemington and Glens Falls, maybe once a year, though I only have a record of two visits in the mid to late 1890's. .... anyone?

Research assistance needed ...

There is a strong, contemporary assertion of the presence of believers in the UK before Food for Thinking Christians was circulated. Other than one statement we have no details. Anyone know anything?

We need more material detailing public reaction to Food for Thinking Christians in the United States, United Kingdom (Including all of Ireland at that time), and Canada. Newspaper comments would be great. Anyone?

We still haven't identified J. J. Bender. We have three good possibilities, but can't connect any of them to Russell. help!

Russell's first preaching tour with Barbour took them from Rochester, New York, to Louisville Kentucky. We need a volunteer in Louisville or in Kentucky somewhere willing to look through microfilms of old newspapers from 1877 to find the advertisement for Russell's lecture in Louisville.

We need a photo of Lizzy A. Allen. Also needed are her obituary. We believe she died in Buchannan, Michigan, but can't prove it and have no details.

How shall I put this politely? Apparently there is no really polite way ... Someone has suggested that Paton took the younger Miss Allen as his mistress. We can't prove that and have no solid indication that it is so. Anyone know? We'd need some solid proof, not mere speculation.

Sunderlin was for a while a Methodist clergyman in New York. There must be a photo out there. Anyone know where?

Several people prominent in what became Church of God General Conference or cognate groups associated with Russell in the 1880s and early 1890s. Anyone know details?

We need early issues of The Millennarian. Issues before 1895 would help.

Our special thanks

Our special thanks go to Ton, who's sent us a flood of documentation including key newspaper articles we had not seen. Among these is one on J. J. Bender that solves part of a puzzle for us. Another concerned the arrest of one of the early evangelists for tracting in front of a church. There are too many to list, all of them helpful. Excellent! and thanks!

William R. Covert

A Church of God minister and pastor of Townsend Street Church of God in Pittsburgh challenged Russell to a debate when Food for Thinking Christians was released.

Memorial 1889

The Second Adventists

Celebrated the Feast of the Pssover in Allegheny Yesterday.

The Feast of the Passover was observed yesterday at a meeting of the Second Adventists held in their hall, at 1010 Federal street, Allegheny. The ceremonies begun at 10 o’clock in the morning and continued through the day, under the guidance of Rev. C. T. Russell. There were about 400 persons present. One of the delegates, or colporteurs, Mr. Webb, said his home was in Canada and that he had traveled 1,700 miles to be in attendance. There were others from New York, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and West Virginia.

There was no prescribed form of ceremony, the attendants confining their address to experiences in spreading their faith and reporting on their work. This occupied the entire morning and a portion of the afternoon. At noon a luch was served in the hall, and again at 2 and 6 o’clock in the afternoon. Baptismal services were conducted by Mr. Russell at 2 o’clock, when 10 men and 12 women professed the faith of sect and were received into the organization.

In the evening the feast of the Passover was celebrated after Rev. Russell had delivered a short address, and all present ate of unleavened bread, signifying the purity of the flesh, as by faith the spirit is pure.

There was a choir in attendance and hymns were sung, and ta 10 o’clock the ceremony came to a conclusion. These services are observed on Palm Sunday every year.

The Pittsburgh Dispatch, Monday April 15, 1889

Solving a puzzle

The claim is sometimes made in print that Russell exhibited at the Centenial Exhibition in 1876. We looked through every list of exhibitors we could find and came up with a blank. Ton pointed us to May 8, 1892 Pittsburgh Dispatch which says the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Allegheny was on the list of exhibitors at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago that year.

I think the two events have been confused in oral tradition.

Also the name "Old Quaker Store" is slightly in error. A legal notice in the Dispatch of Sept 18, 1892, names it as the Quaker Shirt Store and says its motto was "Truth, Fair Dealing and Low Prices."

Thanks Ton!

Barbour and Russell

Starting in February 1877, Russell and Barbour went on a preaching tour that took them from Rochester, New York, to Louisville, Kentucky. Russell lectured for the first time in Louisville in 1877. We can document this from the November 1891 Herald of the Morning.

We would be happier if we had something from the Louisville newspapers. Anyone?

Pot Calling the Kettle Black ...

"no man ever lived, with any pretensions whatsoever to Biblical knowledge, who could crowd so much absurdity into so small a space"

A comment on Nelson Barbour by the editor of The Flaming Sword, January 20, 1899. The Flaming Sword was the journal of the Koreshanity movement. Among other things they believed in a hollow earth and cellular cosmongony.

Russell and Christian Endeavor Societies

In 1892 Russell tried to engage members of the Christian Endeavor Societies to circulate tracts. He detailed the plan in a short newspaper article published in The, Washington, D. C., National Tribune, December 1, 1892.

Does anyone know if he made a similar offer earlier? Can you document it?

Also ...

Russell was criticized for his choice of the name "Bible House" and later for using "Brooklyn Tabernacle." I didn't make a note of the criticism when I read it, thinking that it was not important to our current research. It is. .... Anyone know who made the criticism. My faulty brain can't remember.

Henry Warleigh - Thanks to Ton who scanned the photo!

More on A. D. Jones

Thanks to Ton for the research ...

As reported in the January 20, 1889, Pittsburgh Dispatch, Carried M. Jones filed for divorce on the grounds of indifelity. The divorce was granted, and that is reported in the June 25, 1890, issue.

Thanks Ton!

Albert Delmont Jones

Things you haven't seen or don't know ...

Albert Delmont Jones was a principal stock holder in the Knickerbocker Bank of New York, founded in 1889. The bank was short lived. He lost a significant amount of money, apparently, and this seems to have been the motive behind his theft of funds. This two dollar bill was issued by the bank, and you can see Jones' signature as treasurer on the bottom left.

It'd be nice to have one of these, wouldn't it? Make a nice addition to a Watchtower history collection ... but the bill pictured above sold at auction for twenty-four thousand one hundred fifty dollars at Smythe's Spring Currency & Stock and Bond Auction in 2006.

Above is an advertisement for The Day Star from 1885. Notice that he had dropped "Zion's" from the title.

Urgent!

We need immediate help from someone in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. We need a volunteer to go to a university there and photo copy a booklet. Interested? email me at BWSchulz2 @ yahoo.com

New material re Barbour and Adams

Rochester Daily Union and Advertiser. August 29, 1881

A Religious National Convention.

The national convention of the “Church of the Kocklesia,” [sic] members of which believe in the second coming of Jesus Christ, began in the Church of the Strangers yesterday, about seventy-five persons from out of town attending. Three meetings were held yesterday, Dr. N. H. Barbour conducting the services. The sacrament of the Lord ’s Supper was administered in the afternoon, and an address was delivered by William P. Adams of Beverly, Massachusetts, in which he explained the faith of the church. Members of the church calculate that the beginning of the end of the world will commence in October next.

Note: Obviously the reporter was innatentive. For Kocklesia read Ecclesia. He got A. P. Adams' name wrong too. But still interesting.

A. P. Adams - New York Times, Feb 17, 1878

Huntington, NY, Long Islander, Nov 5, 1892

Brother Bergner/Burgner

A brother and sister Burgner/bergner were active in Newark NJ in the 1880's and 1890's. Anyone know anything?

A series of newspaper articles appeard in pittsbugh newspapers in 1881-2 after Food for Thinking Christians was published ... anyone have them?

Food for Thinking Christians

Some time ago I posted about a controversy caused by the circulation of Food for Thinking Christians in Newark, NJ. I asked for help tracing this down.

We ran across this in an article we found in a Chicago newspaper. It lacked details, but we were interested. One person offered to help, then backed out because it required more work than he was able to put into the project.

My writing partner made it her personal project. It was a frustrating one - until today. We now have the full details. They're found in an article in the New York Sun.

We also have artcles from a Buffalo NY newspaper and a Reading PA newspaper. The article in the Reading, PA, Eagle is very brief and much after the fact, but it clearly identifies an individual mentioned only by last name in Zion's Watch Tower. His name is spelled two ways, and we've been unable to trace him down.

Joseph B Keim was an early Watch Tower evangelist, one of the first. Knowing his name is an excellent jumping off point for additional research. If any of our readers knows anything at all about him, please share the information with us.

Help ...

We need someone with more talent than we seem to possess to scan the picture of Henry Smith Warleigh found in Froom's Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers and edit it into usable clarity.

Have any of you researched Russell's "gospel church" doctrine. We're interested in insights into its origins.

We still need to see Bible Students Tracts number two and three.

We have several regular blog readers who live in Florida. Any of you want to check some county records for us? It would be a labour of love. We couldn't reimburse you at all.

Any documented insights into Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society finances in the 1880's would help.

We still need to actually SEE the Warleigh tract that Storrs published. We also need a clear digital scan of its front page.

We need a good digital scan on The Minister's Daughter.

anyone?

Up Date Still very rough draft

Comments, please ...

Day Dawn, while it addressed the need for a clear statement of their theology, did not fill the need for simple direct and brief missionary tracts. Russell received “numerous and urgent calls for Watch Tower Tracts on various topics.” He suspended traveling for part of October 1880 to prepare them. “They will be cheap tracts for gratuitous distribution and will be furnished at a very low price to those agreeing to distribute them, or free to those so desiring them,” he explained.
Day Dawn stated their theology as seen by Paton. The tracts, with the exception of one written by Albert Delmont Jones, presented Russell’s view. There were differences, and they would grow. Ultimately they became the basis for the Watch Tower’s first major doctrinal publication, Food for Thinking Christians.
There was some sort of delay producing the proposed tracts, and Russell expressed his disappointment in a brief announcement in the December 1880 issue. He advised readers to expect them within a month: “They will be free to all who agree to use them wisely. We advise that you make a list of all Christian people whom you may have any hope of interesting, and send them the tracts in rotation, as numbered, so that
they will get hold of the subjects in a connected manner. Make out your lists at once.” When issued they were small thirty-two page tracts.
The first of the tract supplements, entitled Why Will There Be a Second Advent, was duly released with the January 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower.[1] It was a reprint with slight revisions of an earlier Watch Tower article of the same title. Russell outlined his plans for circulation in the announcement:

With this number we send Tract No. 1. We have arranged for quite a number of them, and you may expect one or two a month for several months. They will all be free, on condition that you order no more than you will wisely use.

We will not send more than 25 at one time. You can re-order when they are gone. This is a way in which all can "both labor and suffer reproach," as well as give the "glad tidings" to some who have ears to hear and hearts to appreciate; "The love of God, which passeth all understanding," revealed to us in His word.

We suggest that each tract be carefully read by you before you give it to others.

[insert analysis and sources]
Russell attacked the prevalent idea that Christ wouldn’t return until the world had converted. This was a standard Second Adventist theme[2] but was not unique to them. John C. Ryle, the well-respected Church of Christ commentator, made the same claim and on the same scriptural basis, writing in 1879: “The world will not be converted when Jesus comes again. The earth will not be full of the knowledge of the Lord. The reign of peace will not have been established. The millennium will not have begun. These glorious things will come to pass after the second advent but not before. If words have any meaning the verses before us show that the earth will be found full of wickedness and worldliness in the day of Christ's appealing.”[3]
Supplement number 2 was issued with the February magazine. Russell reminded his readers that they should read it carefully before circulating it. He explained that the tract supplements were “specially designed for thinking Christians, and would be, to the natural man, foolishness.” None of the tracts were designed to convert unbelievers. They believed they were in the Gospel Harvest when the Wheat and Weeds of Jesus’ parable would be separated. They were calling to the wheat-like Christians.
The titles of tracts two and three are unknown to me. An educated guess based on the later content of the small book Food for Thinking Christians leads me to suppose the titles were How Will Christ Come? and The Day of Judgment. These are only articles of correct length, and their subject matter follows logically after tract one.
[insert Wanted 1000 preachers]

Tract Supplement Number 4, Why Evil Was Permitted was mailed with the May 1881 issue of The Watch Tower with the explanation that “It is a subject much thought of by all, and more than one child has asked, "Why did God make the Devil?" It is a subject which should command some attention from all thinking Christians.” It was a reprint, with some revisions, of an article of the same name found in the [date] issue.
Why Evil Was Permitted: A Dialogue, reprinted from the August 1879, Zion’s Watch Tower, was meant as a restatement and elaboration of Russell’s Substitutional Atonement beliefs. He believed the doctrine to be misunderstood and incorrectly taught: “A false idea of substitution has obtained among Christian people from the supposition that it represented God as a vindictive, vengeful tyrant, angry because man had sinned; refusing to show mercy until blood had been had been shed and carrying not whether it was the blood of the innocent or the guilty as long as it was blood.”
The bulk of the tract considers atonement and restitution, issued dividing Watch Tower adherents from their former associates. The article and the tract it became also reveal the roots of Russell’s doctrine of the inevitability of sin and redemption. Russell acquired the doctrine via his association with George Storrs, who had published an identically titled tract in the 1860’s.
The tract published by Storrs was extracted from a larger work by Henry Smith Warleigh, Anglican rector of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. It is unclear to us when and how the Warleigh material was first published, but the 1873 edition of his book, Twelve Discussion Proving the Extinction of Evil Persons and Things, reprints it all. The tract published by Storrs is found therein as chapter ten, “Why Evil Was Permitted.”
Russell’s tract and the Warleigh tract are both in dialogue format, but the parentage of the one by the other is not shown by this, but by similarity of doctrine. Russell asserted that “if an intelligent creature is to be made at all, he must be made liable to change; and as he was created pure, any change must be from purity to sin.” This thought was derived from Warleigh’s, “man can be but a creature … Unchangeableness is an infinite attribute; and can belong only to the Unchangeable, Uncreated God. … If man be made at all he must be liable to fall, though there may be no innate necessity for it. There must be the capacity, though there need not be the inevitability.”
Both Russell and Warleigh have the dialogue foil ask if God could not have made man incapable of sin. Russell answers: “No. To have done so would have been to make another God. Unchangeableness is an attribute only of an infallible, infinite being – God.” The dialogue respondents in both works ask, “Are not all things possible with god?” Russell’s answer is a paraphrase of Warleigh’s.
Russell believed sin was inevitable and desirable because it furthered God’s plans. Adam, he asserted, “could not … know the meaning of Good unless he had evil to contrast with it. … A knowledge of evil could be obtained in no way except by its introduction, and remember he could not have disobeyed if God had given no commandment. … Therefore, I claim that God not only foresaw man’s fall into sin, but designed it. It was part of his plan. God permitted, nay wanted man to fall. … He saw the result would be to lead man to … see the bitterness and blackness of sin.”
This was an elaboration of Warleigh’s claim that God’s “works of creation had exhibited his wisdom, power and goodness … but there were attributes not yet exhibited; such as pity and mercy; or that pitying love which he tells us he delights to exercise. … But his pity and love cannot be exhibited except by the exercise of them; and they cannot be exercised … except upon an appropriate object. Now the only thing that can call forth the exercise of pity, is a miserable object; and there can be no miserable object, unless there is sin. In other words, unless there is evil in existence.”
Neither Russell nor Warleigh relied on Biblical proof for any of this. Instead they relied on a chain of inferences, some of them quite flawed. Warleigh’s definition of pity was especially flawed, and both Russell and he limited the scope of Adam’s perfect intellect so that they presupposed a need for expirential learning. Apparently neither of them thought Adam or Eve capable of abstract reason.
Russell liked what he read of Warleigh’s work and adapted it uncritically. Warleigh wrote: “Man was the masterpiece of all creation” This viewpoint may be more understandable in him because he was Trinitarian and saw Jesus as uncreated, a part of the ‘godhead.” Still, it is hared to forgive him this bit of nonsense in the light of the Psalm that has man a little less than angels.
Russell borrowed this though wholesale, writing that man was “the masterpiece of God’s workmanship.” At least Russell had the good sense to limit that status to man’s state among earthly creatures. Even then the though implies that the rest of God’s earthly creation was only practice and not as well formed.
This is a history and not a theology text, and I will not discuss the theological merit of these ideas at length. The two most obvious problems were that Warleigh and Russell after him relied on “reason” and not scripture. They denied that their scheme made God the author of sin, but if He saw it as “necessary” so man could be taught “good,” planned for it, made it inevitable – who else was?
This belief undercut his more thought-out view of Atonement and Reconciliation, though it was scant few of his opponents that saw the flaw. Many of them shared his admiration for Warleigh. Most of this doctrine was abandoned by Jehovah’s Witnesses under J. F. Rutherford. Many Bible Students continue to believe it, though without any understanding of its roots.
Supplement number five was a reprint of the earlier article entitled “Narrow Way to Life.”

This tract we hope will be acceptable to you all. We hope that its general distribution will be productive of good results and that it may be used of the Lord as an eye salve to many to enable them to see "the exceeding riches of His grace in His loving kindness toward us." And for you, brethren, we pray that the viewing of the narrow way to life, may bless you, and that "The Father of Glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (that) the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; ye may know, what is the hope of his calling; and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints; and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us." Eph. 1:17.

We have quantities of this tract, and will try to supply all your demands. Order all you can use, and use all that you order.

Tract number five was entitled The Narrow Way to Life, and was with slight revision the same as the article of the same title appearing in the [date] Watch Tower. Russell saw this matter as of primary importance and as a major advance forward in understanding Bible truth. [Develop]
Tract number six was by Albert Delmont Jones. It was entitled A Call to "The Marriage Supper of the Lamb." The Hour of God's Judgment, and Consequent Fall of Babylon, and presented his ideas on the nearness of translation to heavenly life. It exists as a single copy in a university library.
Jones had already expressed positive views that 1881 would see a prophetic crisis, and he was drifting off into areas that Russell and others would see as un-Christian and unstable. Jones tract produced a strongly negative reaction, and Russell felt compelled to offer explanations through Zion’s Watch Tower:

We have a number of inquiries relative to tract No. 6, (written by Bro. A. D. Jones) asking whether the editor's views are in harmony with those expressed in that tract. To which we answer that it is quite possible for different persons to have somewhat different ideas regarding the manner of the unfolding future, though they be entirely agreed with reference to the work of the past, present and future. We are for instance, not much in sympathy with the idea that the "Perihelion of the planets" is to bring "a carnival of death," and for this reason have refrained from mentioning the harrowing details furnished by astrologists as the probable result. It may be that such a dreadful scourging is to come upon the world so soon, but from our understanding of prophecy we expect that the carnival of moral pestilence, spiritual famine, and death will come first, upon the nominal church--the sort of "pestilence" and "arrows" referred to in Psa. 91 from which nothing will shield but the "truth." (vs. 4.)

But while we do not expect such literal plagues, we do not venture to gainsay
the astrologers and their predictions; it is possible that both astrology and scripture may be correct concerning the coming events, but our confidence and sole reliance is on the latter. To compare notes we suggest that Scripture indicates that the nominal church is to be given over to tribulation and be shown no favor from October of this year; and every thing seems ripe for just such a thing: On the other hand the astrologers began as far back as 1871 to predict what would occur in 1880 and 1881. But though the largest planet Jupiter has already reached the point of perihelion (more than nine months ago) and though Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction six months ago, yet there is nothing except unusual rain storms thus far to justify the awful pictures drawn.

Any sympathy Russell had for astrological predictions would disappear. Given his later anti-Spiritualist writings, finding this much sympathy expressed is surprising. Jones was swayed by contemporary astrologers because they reflected his own views of what 1881 would bring. He borrowed heavily from them. It would be a surprise if he did not read C. A. Grimmer’s The Voice of the Stars: or the Coming Perihelia with Attendant Plagues, Storms, and Fires from 1880 to 1887, Supported by Historical Facts, published first in 1879 and reprinted several times in America. Grimmer predicted that the period “from 1880 to 1887 will be one universal carnival of death.” (Page 7 in the edition I consulted.) He may have also read L. D. Broughton’s The Elements of Astrology. Broughton and others suggested that the perihelion of the major planets due near 1880 and extending to 1886 would see major disasters. He predicted “great plagues … in all their intensity.” He foresaw “droughts, epidemics, pestilence and famine” but thought the effects would be less in more civilized countries. The predictions of astrologers fit exactly into Jones’ view of impending events.
Jones wasn’t the only one to grasp at any hint that a major prophetic fulfillment would occur in 1881. Even more main steam clergy such as S. Peacock, the Baptist pastor of Barrowden, Rutland.[4] He used the impending parihelia Jupiter, Neptune, Mars, and Uranus between 1880 and 1882 as proof of impending prophetic fulfillments. “The effect of this perihelia upon our earth has been made known by various professors of astronomy and others,” he wrote. He cited a “professor Grimmer of America” as his principal authority. “Professor” C. A. Grimmer’s title was self-awarded. There is at least some evidence that Professor Grimmer was in fact David Gilbert Dexter, a Congretationalist Deacon and newspaper editor,[5] and that the sensational article by Grimmer that first appeared in the September 24, 1880, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tribune was written by him. The Grimmer material became quite popular, and Dexter published it as a booklet entitled The Coming Catastrophe. It is copyrighted by Dexter, strong but not quite decisive indication that he was the actual author.
For more on this controversy see the chapter entitled “Approach to 1881.”
The last of the Supplements was a Chart of the Ages issued with the
July/August 1881 magazine. It was reproduced the next month in Food for Thinking
Christians.

We present to each of our readers with this issue, a "Chart of the Ages," (unfortunately printed June, instead of July supplement) with the suggestion that you hang it in some convenient place where it will be often in your sight; that its diagram of the narrow way to life, may be a constant and helpful reminder to you of the way our Leader trod; that thereby you may be enabled to make your calling and election sure.

We hope too, that you will so place it, that it will be an object of interest to all who may visit you, and that you will so familiarize yourself with it as to be able to explain its teachings to them; thus each reader will be a preacher of the "narrow way to life" -- to Glory, Honor and Immortality, so soon to close; and also of the plan of God for the world's salvation, which is only just beginning. May God make you able ministers of his word.

The Chart should have your careful attention and study for at least one month: for this reason, and to allow needed time for other parts of the service, this paper and chart supplement will constitute the July and August issue. Therefore you may expect nothing more until September.

Food for Thinking Christians
[develop]
Financing the Work


Russell and others poured their personal fortunes into keeping Zion’s Watch Tower afloat. In late 1881 he attempted to make the paper free to all, something the Postal regulations would disallow. Explaining his reasons, he said, “The subscription price was made so low in endeavoring to make it burdenless upon the majority of our readers who cannot well afford to spend more, that it did not pay expenses. (The paper from the first has only paid about two-thirds of its expenses--not to mention the additional cost of
Supplements during the last six months.)”
A major source of the money was a donation of Florida land that seems to
have come from Russell and his father. A special supplement offering the land
for sale was issued with the November 1884 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. By
December, eight of the plots had been sold. There were forty plots on the list “of ten acres each, on Pinellas Peninsula, Hillsboro Co., Florida, donated to this Society's funds and offered for sale at ten dollars per acre cash; or two years' time to settlers.” The supplement seems not to exist in any library or collection, but some detail is preserved in short announcements. The land seems to have been in the Disston and Pinellas areas.
Additional plots were offered for sale late in 1885:

Some who engaged plots of the land donated to "Z.W.T. Tract Society" at Pinellas
(See Supplement), finding that circumstances do not favor their going, have donated the installments paid to the Fund and returned the land for sale. Besides this, another Brother interested in the truth, has donated to the Society near the other donated lands four ten-acre plots.

Thus it comes that we have about twelve plots now for sale. Of these four have small ponds, and would require some ditching, and can therefore be had at half price.
[1] Controversialists have focused on the article and later tract to speculate on the origins of Russell’s teaching on “the Christ” and its effects on the modern Watchtower belief about Christ as Mediator. The quotation cited by Robert Stewart: The Watchtower and the Doctrine of “The Christ” does not contribute to that discussion, and Steward does not acknowledge the difference in meaning between the Greek word translated “propitiate” and that translated “mediator.” Another controversialist pointed to the free distribution of this and the following tracts as proof a hidden financial backing from a source seeking societal dominance. The research is laughable, but there is always someone who loves a conspiracy theory.
[2] eg: “So you see the world will not be converted for some will be ignorant of God and some disobedient.” - I.C.G.: Behold He Cometh the Clouds, Western Midnight Cry, January 13, 1844, page 36.
[3] John Charles Ryle: Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, St. Luke, Robert Carter, New York, 1879, page 244.
[4] S. Peacock: Is the Close of the Present Age to be about 1890? The Prophetic News and Israel’s Watchman, August 1880, page 240/
[5] Dexter’s obituary is found in the April 9, 1908, issue of The Pacific, a limited circulation religious magazine published in Berkeley and San Francisco, California. It describes him as a deacon of the First Congregational Church of San Francisco. He died at age seventy-five. Dexter was the founder and firstr editor of The Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tribune.

Exact Title ...

Now this is new!

Bible Student's Tract number six by Albert Delmont Jones:

A call to "The marriage supper of the lamb." the hour of God's judgment, and consequent fall of Babylon

We've located this. NO word on costs yet.

Rough Draft - Extract from our current reseach

This is a fragment of the chapter we're currently writing. I'm posting it in very rough and incomplete draft. It's open for comment and suggestions.

Bible Students’ Tracts and an Expanding Ministry


Day Dawn, while it addressed the need for a clear statement of their theology, did not fill the need for simple direct and brief missionary tracts. Russell received “numerous and urgent calls for Watch Tower Tracts on various topics.” He suspended traveling for part of October 1880 to prepare them. “They will be cheap tracts for gratuitous distribution and will be furnished at a very low price to those agreeing to distribute them, or free to those so desiring them,” he explained.
Day Dawn stated their theology as seen by Paton. The tracts, with the exception of one written by Albert Delmont Jones, presented Russell’s view. There were differences, and they would grow. Ultimately they became the basis for the Watch Tower’s first major doctrinal publication, Food for Thinking Christians.
There was some sort of delay producing the proposed tracts, and Russell expressed his disappointment in a brief announcement in the December 1880 issue. He advised readers to expect them within a month: “They will be free to all who agree to use them wisely. We advise that you make a list of all Christian people whom you may have any hope of interesting, and send them the tracts in rotation, as numbered, so that
they will get hold of the subjects in a connected manner. Make out your lists at once.” When issued they were small thirty-two page tracts.

The first of the tract supplements, entitled Why Will There Be a Second Advent, was duly released with the January 1881 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. It was a reprint with slight revisions of an earlier Watch Tower article of the same title. Russell outlined his plans for circulation in the announcement:

With this number we send Tract No. 1. We have arranged for quite a number of them, and you may expect one or two a month for several months. They will all be free, on condition that you order no more than you will wisely use.

We will not send more than 25 at one time. You can re-order when they are gone. This is a way in which all can "both labor and suffer reproach," as well as give the "glad tidings" to some who have ears to hear and hearts to appreciate; "The love of God, which passeth all understanding," revealed to us in His word.

We suggest that each tract be carefully read by you before you give it to others.


Supplement number 2 was issued with the February magazine. Russell reminded his readers that they should read it carefully before circulating it. He explained that the tract supplements were “specially designed for thinking Christians, and would be, to the natural man, foolishness.” None of the tracts were designed to convert unbelievers. They believed they were in the Gospel Harvest when the Wheat and Weeds of Jesus’ parable would be separated. They were calling to the wheat-like Christians.
The titles of tracts two and three are unknown to me. An educated guess based on the later content of the small book Food for Thinking Christians leads me to suppose the titles were How Will Christ Come? and The Day of Judgment. These are only articles of correct length, and their subject matter follows logically after tract one.
[insert Wanted 1000 preachers]

Tract Supplement Number 4, Why Evil Was Permitted was mailed with the May 1881 issue of The Watch Tower with the explanation that “It is a subject much thought of by all, and more than one child has asked, "Why did God make the Devil?" It is a subject which should command some attention from all thinking Christians.” It was a reprint, with some revisions, of an article of the same name found in the [date] issue.
Why Evil Was Permitted: A Dialogue, reprinted from the August 1879, Zion’s Watch Tower, was meant as a restatement and elaboration of Russell’s Substitutional Atonement beliefs. He believed the doctrine to be misunderstood and incorrectly taught: “A false idea of substitution has obtained among Christian people from the supposition that it represented God as a vindictive, vengeful tyrant, angry because man had sinned; refusing to show mercy until blood had been had been shed and carrying not whether it was the blood of the innocent or the guilty as long as it was blood.”
The bulk of the tract considers atonement and restitution, issued dividing Watch Tower adherents from their former associates. The article and the tract it became also reveal the roots of Russell’s doctrine of the inevitability of sin and redemption. Russell acquired the doctrine via his association with George Storrs, who had published an identically titled tract in the 1860’s.
The tract published by Storrs was extracted from a larger work by Henry Smith Warleigh, Anglican rector of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. It is unclear to us when and how the Warleigh material was first published, but the 1873 edition of his book, Twelve Discussion Proving the Extinction of Evil Persons and Things, reprints it all. The tract published by Storrs is found therein as chapter ten, “Why Evil Was Permitted.”
Russell’s tract and the Warleigh tract are both in dialogue format, but the parentage of the one by the other is not shown by this, but by similarity of doctrine. Russell asserted that “if an intelligent creature is to be made at all, he must be made liable to change; and as he was created pure, any change must be from purity to sin.” This thought was derived from Warleigh’s, “man can be but a creature … Unchangeableness is an infinite attribute; and can belong only to the Unchangeable, Uncreated God. … If man be made at all he must be liable to fall, though there may be no innate necessity for it. There must be the capacity, though there need not be the inevitability.”
Both Russell and Warleigh have the dialogue foil ask if God could not have made man incapable of sin. Russell answers: “No. To have done so would have been to make another God. Unchangeableness is an attribute only of an infallible, infinite being – God.” The dialogue respondents in both works ask, “Are not all things possible with god?” Russell’s answer is a paraphrase of Warleigh’s.
Russell believed sin was inevitable and desirable because it furthered God’s plans. Adam, he asserted, “could not … know the meaning of Good unless he had evil to contrast with it. … A knowledge of evil could be obtained in no way except by its introduction, and remember he could not have disobeyed if God had given no commandment. … Therefore, I claim that God not only foresaw man’s fall into sin, but designed it. It was part of his plan. God permitted, nay wanted man to fall. … He saw the result would be to lead man to … see the bitterness and blackness of sin.”
This was an elaboration of Warleigh’s claim that God’s “works of creation had exhibited his wisdom, power and goodness … but there were attributes not yet exhibited; such as pity and mercy; or that pitying love which he tells us he delights to exercise. … But his pity and love cannot be exhibited except by the exercise of them; and they cannot be exercised … except upon an appropriate object. Now the only thing that can call forth the exercise of pity, is a miserable object; and there can be no miserable object, unless there is sin. In other words, unless there is evil in existence.”
Neither Russell nor Warleigh relied on Biblical proof for any of this. Instead they relied on a chain of inferences, some of them quite flawed. Warleigh’s definition of pity was especially flawed, and both Russell and he limited the scope of Adam’s perfect intellect so that they presupposed a need for expirential learning. Apparently neither of them thought Adam or Eve capable of abstract reason.
Russell liked what he read of Warleigh’s work and adapted it uncritically. Warleigh wrote: “Man was the masterpiece of all creation” This viewpoint may be more understandable in him because he was Trinitarian and saw Jesus as uncreated, a part of the ‘godhead.” Still, it is hared to forgive him this bit of nonsense in the light of the Psalm that has man a little less than angels.
Russell borrowed this though wholesale, writing that man was “the masterpiece of God’s workmanship.” At least Russell had the good sense to limit that status to man’s state among earthly creatures. Even then the though implies that the rest of God’s earthly creation was only practice and not as well formed.
This is a history and not a theology text, and I will not discuss the theological merit of these ideas at length. The two most obvious problems were that Warleigh and Russell after him relied on “reason” and not scripture. They denied that their scheme made God the author of sin, but if He saw it as “necessary” so man could be taught “good,” planned for it, made it inevitable – who else was?
This belief undercut his more thought-out view of Atonement and Reconciliation, though it was scant few of his opponents that saw the flaw. Many of them shared his admiration for Warleigh. Most of this doctrine was abandoned by Jehovah’s Witnesses under J. F. Rutherford. Many Bible Students continue to believe it, though without any understanding of its roots.
Supplement number five was a reprint of the earlier article entitled “Narrow Way to Life.”

This tract we hope will be acceptable to you all. We hope that its general distribution will be productive of good results and that it may be used of the Lord as an eye salve to many to enable them to see "the exceeding riches of His grace in His loving kindness toward us." And for you, brethren, we pray that the viewing of the narrow way to life, may bless you, and that "The Father of Glory may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (that) the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; ye may know, what is the hope of his calling; and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints; and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us." Eph. 1:17.

We have quantities of this tract, and will try to supply all your demands. Order all you can use, and use all that you order.

This tract was a reprint of the article of the same title appearing in the August 1879 Watch Tower.

Tract number five was entitled The Narrow Way to Life, and was with slight revision the same as the article of the same title appearing in the [date] Watch Tower. Russell saw this matter as of primary importance and as a major advance forward in understanding Bible truth. [Develop]

Tract number six was by Albert Delmont Jones. Its title has been lost, but a record of controversy that followed its publication persists. Jones had already expressed positive views that 1881 would see a prophetic crisis, and he was drifting off into areas that Russell and others would see as un-Christian and unstable. Jones tract produced a strongly negative reaction, and Russell felt compelled to offer explanations through Zion’s Watch Tower:

We have a number of inquiries relative to tract No. 6, (written by Bro. A. D. Jones) asking whether the editor's views are in harmony with those expressed in that tract. To which we answer that it is quite possible for different persons to have somewhat different ideas regarding the manner of the unfolding future, though they be entirely agreed with reference to the work of the past, present and future. We are for instance, not much in sympathy with the idea that the "Perihelion of the planets" is to bring "a carnival of death," and for this reason have refrained from mentioning the harrowing details furnished by astrologists as the probable result. It may be that such a dreadful scourging is to come upon the world so soon, but from our understanding of prophecy we expect that the carnival of moral pestilence, spiritual famine, and death will come first, upon the nominal church--the sort of "pestilence" and "arrows" referred to in Psa. 91 from which nothing will shield but the "truth." (vs. 4.)

But while we do not expect such literal plagues, we do not venture to gainsay
the astrologers and their predictions; it is possible that both astrology and scripture may be correct concerning the coming events, but our confidence and sole reliance is on the latter. To compare notes we suggest that Scripture indicates that the nominal church is to be given over to tribulation and be shown no favor from October of this year; and every thing seems ripe for just such a thing: On the other hand the astrologers began as far back as 1871 to predict what would occur in 1880 and 1881. But though the largest planet Jupiter has already reached the point of perihelion (more than nine months ago) and though Jupiter and Saturn were in conjunction six months ago, yet there is nothing except unusual rain storms thus far to justify the awful pictures drawn.

Any sympathy Russell had for astrological predictions would disappear. Given his later anti-Spiritualist writings, finding this much sympathy expressed is surprising. Jones was swayed by contemporary astrologers because they reflected his own views of what 1881 would bring. He borrowed heavily from them. It would be a surprise if he did not read C. A. Grimmer’s The Voice of the Stars: or the Coming Perihelia with Attendant Plagues, Storms, and Fires from 1880 to 1887, Supported by Historical Facts, published first in 1879 and reprinted several times in America. Grimmer predicted that the period “from 1880 to 1887 will be one universal carnival of death.” (Page 7 in the edition I consulted.) He may have also read L. D. Broughton’s The Elements of Astrology. Broughton and others suggested that the perihelion of the major planets due near 1880 and extending to 1886 would see major disasters. He predicted “great plagues … in all their intensity.” He foresaw “droughts, epidemics, pestilence and famine” but thought the effects would be less in more civilized countries. The predictions of astrologers fit exactly into Jones’ view of impending events.
The last of the Supplements was a Chart of the Ages issued with the
July/August 1881 magazine. It was reproduced the next month in Food for Thinking
Christians.

We present to each of our readers with this issue, a "Chart of the Ages," (unfortunately printed June, instead of July supplement) with the suggestion that you hang it in some convenient place where it will be often in your sight; that its diagram of the narrow way to life, may be a constant and helpful reminder to you of the way our Leader trod; that thereby you may be enabled to make your calling and election sure.

We hope too, that you will so place it, that it will be an object of interest to all who may visit you, and that you will so familiarize yourself with it as to be able to explain its teachings to them; thus each reader will be a preacher of the "narrow way to life" -- to Glory, Honor and Immortality, so soon to close; and also of the plan of God for the world's salvation, which is only just beginning. May God make you able ministers of his word.

The Chart should have your careful attention and study for at least one month: for this reason, and to allow needed time for other parts of the service, this paper and chart supplement will constitute the July and August issue. Therefore you may expect nothing more until September.

Food for Thinking Christians
[develop]
Financing the Work


Russell and others poured their personal fortunes into keeping Zion’s Watch Tower afloat. In late 1881 he attempted to make the paper free to all, something the Postal regulations would disallow. Explaining his reasons, he said, “The subscription price was made so low in endeavoring to make it burdenless upon the majority of our readers who cannot well afford to spend more, that it did not pay expenses. (The paper from the first has only paid about two-thirds of its expenses--not to mention the additional cost of
Supplements during the last six months.)”
A major source of the money was a donation of Florida land that seems to
have come from Russell and his father. A special supplement offering the land
for sale was issued with the November 1884 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower. By
December, eight of the plots had been sold. There were forty plots on the list “of ten acres each, on Pinellas Peninsula, Hillsboro Co., Florida, donated to this Society's funds and offered for sale at ten dollars per acre cash; or two years' time to settlers.” The supplement seems not to exist in any library or collection, but some detail is preserved in short announcements. The land seems to have been in the Disston and Pinellas areas.
Additional plots were offered for sale late in 1885:

Some who engaged plots of the land donated to "Z.W.T. Tract Society" at Pinellas
(See Supplement), finding that circumstances do not favor their going, have donated the installments paid to the Fund and returned the land for sale. Besides this, another Brother interested in the truth, has donated to the Society near the other donated lands four ten-acre plots.

Thus it comes that we have about twelve plots now for sale. Of these four have small ponds, and would require some ditching, and can therefore be had at half price.

We need a clear photocopy of this ...

Henry Smith Warleigh: Why Evil Was Permitted: A dialogue, published by George Storrs, 1863.
We can use any edition. Anyone?

Update!

We also need clear photocopies of How Will Christ Come? and The Day of Judgment. Both were printed in the early 1880's. We need a photocopy of the front only. A clear digital scan would be better.

Yes, we realize this is asking for the moon. As far as I know, no copies still exist. But it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?

Meetings at 79 Woodgrange Road

The Religious Life of London, edited by Richard Mudie-Smith and published in 1904 lists the Woodgrange Road congregation under the name "Zion's Watch Tower."

As reported by those attending, the congregation consisted of sixty-eight men, sixty-two women and fourteen children. Given this proportion of children to adults, one might suppose that the congregation tended to be made up of older individuals. I'm not certain that any other conclusion can be drawn from these spare statistics.

The "public hall" located there was King's Hall Cinema. It had a seating capacity of 250.

Comments? Anyone?

Historical Research

My writing partner, Rachael de Vienne, will be a panelist at an online writers' conference. You may find the discussion on accurate historical research interesting. Registration is free. The panel is slanted toward back ground research for fiction, but the principles are the same.

conference details are here:

http://coyotecon.com/

Millennial Dawn Meetings

Meetings were held at 79 Woodgrange Road at the turn of the 20th Century. I don't know if these photos show number 79. Anyone know?

London

We need a good period photo of 79 Woodgrange Road, London. Any photo taken about 1900 or so would do. I understand a pizza place is there now, and I'm not certain that the building there is the same as the one existing about 1900.