Chapter 8, First ten Pages

Don't click on the footnote links. As usual Blogger is broken when it comes to footnote links.

 

8 Aftermath of Failure

           

As with much else in this era of Watch Tower history, we find significant, purposefully-created nonsense and bad research. For example, Graig Burns asserts that “the Bible Students had split off from a group of Second Adventists under N. H. Barbour, which later became the 7th-Day Adventist Church.”[1] We’re fairly certain Seventh-day Adventists would be surprised to know this. We certainly were.

            They were small in number. Firm figures elude us, but we can make an educated guess. They drew from Second Adventists, primarily Advent Christians and Life and Advent Union adherents. Though Second Adventists claimed a combined membership of thirty-thousand world-wide, this was a huge exaggeration and has no basis in fact. Few Adventists found the Barbourite message attractive. Adventists turned to 1877 and then 1879 as probable dates for Christ’s return. Age-to-Come/One Faith adherents numbered less than four thousand.[2] Many Barbourites came from this group, attracted to Barbourite theology by its Age-to-Come belief. In 1885 Barbour reported that the average monthly circulation of The Herald of the Morning was one thousand copies, including missionary and give-away issues.[3] It was probably somewhat less, and we are probably being generous if say that in 1877, they had something less than two thousand adherents. The regularly-published money-received column suggests far fewer committed believers. This was a very small movement.

They expected translation in the spring of 1878. Some were hesitant to name a specific day, but many of them pointed to Passover Day that April.[4] They saw the work of Moody and Shanky as an extension of their own and as proof that God was calling to Christians preparatory to “the harvest” gathering. Age-to-Come advocates and Second Adventists felt similarly, republishing Moody’s February 1877 sermon on the Lord’s Return. Revival conversions were often temporary, and lapsed behavior, if not lapsed belief, was common. But the numbers attending Moody’s revivals convinced them that their prophetic scheme was well-founded. Russell never abandoned belief that Moody did God’s work.[5]

Historians of the Watch Tower movement seldom define “Translation.” Age-to-Come adherents saw it as the change from a mortal body to an immortal one, both of which were bodies of flesh and blood. Some postulated a temporary sojourn in heaven before a return to a cleansed earth. Some saw it as mere change without any heavenly experience. Barbour and his associates rejected an “agricultural heavens” or a heaven-on-hearth theology in 1877, believing that the Bride of Christ would have a heavenly home, ruling over a cleansed paradise earth. Translation meant glorification to heaven in a new spirit body to be with and like Christ who was himself a life-giving spirit. This was the next step, the expected next move on the part of an invisibly present Christ.

            Others expected translation on the same or similar grounds. S. A.  Chaplin, editor of The Restitution, adopted much of Barbourite interpretation. Writing in the October 9, 1877, issue of The Restitution, he presented the Euphrates River as a prophetic image.[6] He identified it as interloping powers dominating the Promised Land, Immanuel’s Land:

 

The mystic Euphrates is not much longer to flood Immanuel’s land, in the stage of events now in progress. Immanuel (Jesus) is to become the chief actor in the scenes. During the evaporation of these mystic waters he comes as a thief. This coming is to a locality in the deep ethereal to which he suddenly and secretly removes his elect church. This is the next grand event of prophecy, and is now imminent. Are we living in a state of preparation for the sudden translation? The door into this heavenly household will soon be closed forever, and to all eternity remained closed. The Gospel will soon win the last hair of a crown of glory, and the princely priesthood be complete. The Coming One “Shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” See Ps Lxii, 8. The Euphrates will not bound his empire, but it will be world-wide. He says, “Behold, I come quickly: hold fast thou hast, that no man take thy crown.” Rev. iii. 11. And again, “Behold, I come as a thief.  Blesses is he that watcheth and keep his garments. This is a warning of current events. Shall we so live as to share a part in his universal reign?[7]

 

            Chaplin saw a two-fold, partially-invisible parousia, and he adopted Barbourite emphasis on the Euphrates as a prophetic symbolism. Translation was at the door. Chaplin spoke out of both sides of his mouth over this issue. He reprinted an article from The Rainbow cautioning against fixing a time, and he printed a letter from a Robert Baker of Kansas who asked: “Who of us will live to see the end of the year 1878? Or will our blessed Lord come and restore all things back to their former beauty?” Baker advised the brethren to be “more earnest in the cause of the Lord.”[8] In fairness to Chaplin, he wrote for a diverse audience who freely debated issues in his paper.

            As we noted earlier, In February 1878 Chaplin printed Russell’s Object and Manner, sending it out as a supplement to The Restitution. In a follow-up article he explained wherein he and Russell differed: “We think that the coming Messiah is the same Jesus that died, was buried, rose from the dead, and subsequently ascended from Mouth Olivet into heaven.” He rejected the “spirit bodies” arguments found in Object and Manner. He looked “for more tangibility in the resurrection” than did Russell. He closed by observing that “The ‘fair chance’ part of the supplement will probably please some of our readers.”[9] J. B. Cook’s negative review of Object and Manner, also noted in a previous chapter, was published in the June 26, 1878, Restitution. It is noteworthy that Cook waited until April passed before blasting Barbour. The degree of outrage found in Cook’s review probably indicates a degree of disappointment.

            Sending out Object and Manner as a supplement to The Restitution and to Prophetic Times was a last-ditch effort to bring as many into the Light as was possible. Results seem to have been small, a poor return on the money invested. Barbour published a single sheet double issue to Herald of the Morning sometime in the in the spring, giving “the time arguments.” No copies are known to exist, but Barbour claimed it had as much matter as two copies of Russell’s Object and Manner. Ten thousand copies were printed, but not all were circulated, and one could still order it from The Herald in the 1880s.[10] “We tried to make it clear,” Barbour recalled, “that [Christ] was present, and that coming into the true condition, he might materialize and meet us at any moment.”[11] Michael Baxter, who seems to have jumped on nearly every prophetic speculation, published a handbill widely circulated in London, “announcing the approaching translation to heaven of 144,000 Christians without dying.” We couldn’t locate this tract, but it was circulated at the end of 1877 and early in 1878.[12]

The spring of 1878 came and went. A Yellow Fever epidemic broke out in the Mississippi Valley. Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as President, even though by actual count he lost the election. (Democrats were accused of massive voter fraud, and a special commission sustained the charge.) There were tensions between Mexico and the United States over cross-border raids by Mexican bandits. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. William “Boss” Tweed died in jail. England and Russia were on the brink of war. Harley Proctor introduced Ivory Soap, causing Americans to rejoice that they no longer had to fish around the bottom of the tub to find a lost bar of soap. Pope Leo XIII issued a papal bull entitled Inscrutabili Dei Consilio bemoaning the loss of papal influence over public institutions. But nowhere, least of all in Pittsburgh or Rochester, or in any of the little towns and villages where Barbourite adherents lived, was anyone “changed in the twinkling of an eye” or raised to the heavens. Their disappointment was profound.

 

A. H. Macmillan’s Claims

 

            A. H. Macmillan reported that “Pittsburgh newspapers” said Russell “was on the Sixth Street bridge dressed in a white robe on the night of the Memorial of Christ’s death, expecting to be taken to heaven.” We could not find the original of this newspaper report, though we do not doubt its existence. The fact of the report is interesting, but the conclusions many have drawn from it are distorted. The report, no matter who printed it, was long removed from the events of 1878. Macmillan’s association dates from 1900.[13] The newspaper article could be no older than that and is probably dated later, perhaps after 1906. As Macmillan has it, Russell’s reaction was to laugh “heartily” and say:

 

I was in bed that night between 10:30 and 11:00 P.M. However, some of the more radical ones might have been there, but I was not. Neither did I expect to be taken to heaven at that time, for I felt there was much work to be done preaching the Kingdom message to the peoples of the earth before the church would be taken away.[14]

 

            One should dispose of the ascension-robe claim first. It was an old, often-repeated calumny. Though there isn’t a verifiable instance, everyone with clearly defined end-of-the age expectations was subject to it. It is especially out of place when applied to Russell. He expected a change to a spirit body, making any self-made ascension robe irrelevant. He understood the “white robes” of Revelation 6:11 to be symbolic, not literal. That he or any of the Pittsburgh believers dressed in robes is a newspaper reporter’s lie. The story delights Russell’s enemies who discount his denial, and others simply repeat it, believing it to be accurate because it saw print.

            If Macmillan reports Russell’s belief that “there was much work to be done” and that he didn’t “expect to be taken to heaven at that time” with any sort of accuracy, then we must presume his doubts to have arisen in the last weeks before April 1878. Any time prior to the spring of 1878, we find Russell and Barbour believing with equal fervor that translation impended.[15] It is apparent that he believed and preached that translation was due. Taken as a whole, this seems a very unreliable report. But we come away from it noting two things: There was among the Pittsburgh brethren a “more radical” party; they were somewhat fragmented.

            We see Macmillan’s claim that Russell did not expect translation and that he saw a vast field of work ahead as wrong. Russell wrote that “since 1878 (and never before that) we have felt at liberty to call God’s children out of the nominal churches to a position … where they would be free to serve Him fully.”[16] This clearly dates his vision of a vast work to after the disappointment.

 

Doubts

 

That some doubts were expressed is verified by J. H. Paton, who wrote: “That translation was not due in the spring of 1878 is certain, and yet too many were inclined to treat others as not ‘in the light’ for not expecting it then.” And there were some who doubted the accuracy of their expectations. An example is Austin J. Marsh from LaCross, Wisconsin. Writing to Barbour after the failure, he claimed to have had significant doubts. “I was not sorely disappointed,” he wrote. His doubts focused on their understanding of the seventy weeks prophecy: “I had thought there was something a little cloudy about the last ‘week,’ of the seventy, in the midst of which Christ ‘made the sacrifices and obligation to cease;’ and the parallel to which seemed to demand more time here. I assented to the view that translation would take place this spring, but more than half thought that instead of it, more light would beg given to make the ‘week,’ more complete.”[17]

Paton described some in the movement as “positive” and “dogmatic,” observing that being so “does not make anything true, even if it does make an impression.”[18] Be that as it may, any doubts Russell had were nascent, tenuous. Barbour introduced the concept of translation in 1878 as a mere possibility. Stating his belief that the Resurrection to heaven started in 1875, he suggested that translation might “commence this side of 1878.”[19] He felt it would happen no later than 1878. His later statements were more positive. In September 1875 he wrote that the spring of 1878 marked the second half of a “double” or parallel between first century and 19^th Century events. He looked for “the kingdom” to manifest itself. “To us,” he wrote, “this is an important matter; and the evidence seems clear that ‘the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand;’ and that we have entered into the transition, or ‘time of harvest.’”[20] Those who doubted were treated as not in the light of Christ. Post-failure, Barbour denied believing that Christ came as King in 1878. This was, of course, an obvious lie.[21]

            Doubts grew as April approached and events did not play out as they expected. Barbour tried to assuage them: “We had often talked together, that if the time went by we should certainly have an increase of light as on former occasions.”[22]  Most were fervent, fully convinced, and they were disappointed. “We carefully re-examined our position in the dim light we then had,” Barbour wrote. “We were disappointed, having expected that … we should certainly be caught away to meet him. From that time until the autumn, we were all trying to make our lamps throw more light.”[23] For some the disappointment was doubly bitter. Some among them had followed other date speculations in addition to Barbour’s theories. They looked to a date in 1877. The Lockport and Hudson, New York, groups looked to Sunday, July 8, 1877, but on what basis we do not know.[24]  Failure of hopes for 1878 was for them especially bitter.

            With April’s passage, several doctrines were re-examined. Members of the Allegheny City congregation met to consider matters. William Mann reports this, writing that they “looked back over the chronology, and found it was solid as ever.” This was a replay of their approach in 1873, 1874 and 1875. Mann focused on the Elijah “type,” their belief that the prophet’s life patterned last-day events. Some fourteen years later, he explained his thinking:

 

After the disappointments, we looked back over the chronology, and it was solid as ever. Then it began to dawn on me that in following that life journey, we should have seen that if one part was typical, all was typical; and therefore the life, the last journey and the culmination, horses, chariots, fire and ascension, were alike figures of good things to come. A chariot of fire may seem a strange conveyance, but it has a wonderfully purifying effect and a tremendous lifting power. The translation is first ‘from the power of darkness … into the kingdom of his dear son’ Then the progression is ‘Transformed by renewing your mind.” It now becomes our privilege to be “raised up,” “from the earth, and from earthly things even to sit in ‘The Heavenlies’ with Christ.”[25]

 

            He sought any solution to their failed speculation short of abandoning their chronology. He saw the inconsistencies in their previous interpretations and replaced them with this. He did not focus on a continuing work but on Christian personality development. When Mann wrote this in 1892, Paton suggested that none of this was a specifically last-times work, writing that “the translation from darkness to light, from Satan’s kingdom to Christ’s and the transforming of the mind have been possible all through the age as well as now, so has it been the privilege of sitting with Christ in the heavenlies.”[26]

            Barbour was also committed to the pattern of failure, disappointment, and new speculation. He followed in William Miller’s footsteps, seeing each failure as proof of divine leading, if only one could determine what it was. Barbour saw himself as God’s last-days spokesman. He took upon himself authority and responsibility he did not have, putting himself at odds with those who did not accept his further time speculations or accept each new doctrinal whim. There is no other way to describe Barbour than as fanatically blinded to failure. The string of failed dates and expectations between 1873 and 1878 was, for him, proof that they were experiencing advancing truth. It was a chant, almost a song for him.

Others accepted Barbour’s self-definition. Writing to Barbour some twenty years after the 1878 failure, James R. Deputy, an adherent from Missouri who entered the movement in 1871, was as adamantine as ever:

 

Being rooted and grounded in these grand truths concerning the restitution of all things, no power on earth can wrest them from us. I have been in this movement for twenty-seven years, and at no time have felt like giving it up. And although getting on in years, my desire and faith is that I shall live to be change to incorruption without tasting death. How much I would like to be at your meetings, and hear you talk about the return of our coming King.[27]

 

            Others expressed similar views. An H. R. Perine of Denver, Missouri, wrote:

 

My confidence in this, as a prophetic movement, is unchangeable. Have been a reader of your writings since 1873; have been confident all through this quarter of a century, that we were in a shining pathway that would lead us on to the consummation of our hopes. Have never doubted this; hence, disappointments have not destroyed my confidence and rejoicing.[28]

 

Barbour’s self-anointing as God’s last-days prophet meant that he couldn’t simply say, “We’ve been wrong all along. I am sorry.” If he had the character of George Storrs, he would have done so. He did not, the difference being that Storrs saw himself as one of God’s servants and Barbour saw himself as God’s servant. Barbour addressed the issue in the June 15, 1878, Herald of the Morning. He recognized that adherents were grievously disappointed:

 

From 1843 to the present time, the light on the Time and manner of the advent of Christ has been continually on the increase; and as we have passed terminus after terminus of the prophetic and chronological periods … the pathway after each crisis had been passed was made to shine more and more. And now, what we had fully believed to be the last of those terminal points has been reached and passed, and the hoped-for deliverance is still unrealized. And the question is again forced upon us, What scriptural position, if any, can now be occupied in harmony with all this unfolding light in relation to the closing work of this dispensation?

 

            Barbour re-stated his belief that they were entering “the time of trouble” in fulfillment of Daniel 12:1. There “was no room for doubt” that they were, he wrote. “Our reasoning was, that this time of trouble could not progress far until after translation” because the saints were to judge the world. Barbour had to give the whole thing up as bad work or find prophetic events to fill the time between when “the time of trouble” began and change to spirit life. He presented a new scheme. Pointing to the “wine press” judgment depicted in Isaiah chapter sixty-three, he suggested his readers “learn that when this ‘winepress’ is trodden, the saints are not yet with Christ.” There was more work to do. The “wheat” Christians still in the nominal churches were to be gathered. And the “wheat” had to mature:

 

If we are not mistaken, there will be a ripening of ‘wheat;’ a sanctification of the spiritual element of the churches, during the next few years by the spread of these glorious truths, which shall not leave a kernel ungarnered. God is in this movement, the glorious light of truth is shining from his word, as it has never shone before; and his ministering spirits are abroad in the land …. And in this dark hour, that is settling down on the nations, the angels are to gather the wheat; not to a locality, but to a condition of victory over the world.

 

Implicit in this is a claim to a special place in dispensing truth. Barbour’s was convinced that he possessed and dispensed “truth.” He was God’s special spokesman. Those who remained unshaken saw him as such. One woman addressed him as “Dear Leader.”[29] Helen H. Landis of Rochester, New York, believed every setback was proof of increasing light: “I have been in this glorious pathway since 1875, during which time the light has steadily increased until now (1898), when the pathway is illuminated even to the perfect day.”[30] To doubt Barbour was to sin. To fail to follow him into every speculation and doctrinal twist was to fall out of the light.

            “Although we expected translation this present spring, we find the road leads on a little further,” Barbour wrote. He postulated a short period during which true “wheat” Christians would mature and pass through a “fiery” test. “The time for the gathering the wheat of the gospel church may be three and a half years, but cannot be determined with accuracy,” he wrote. “Yet, until the wheat is gathered, the change of the living from mortality to immortality cannot be expected.” By the end of his article he was more positive: “The work of the gathering of the wheat … will doubtless be about three and a-half years.”  

Barbour was more disappointed than he admitted. After the 1843-1844 failure, he was ashamed to have been associated with the Advent Movement. Yet his disappointment was followed by a reaffirmation of belief with additions and alterations to account for failure.[31] He continued that pattern after the 1873, 1874, and 1875 failures. These were personal crises calling his faith and authority into question. After the 1875 failure, he published a letter suggesting that he and his assistant editors were like the Two Witnesses of Revelation. He defined the movement as the faithful virgins with himself as head.[32]

Some decades later, Edward Payson Woodward, one of Barbour’s associates in the 1873 movement, commented on Barbour’s exegesis. Woodworth’s comments in their entirety are a bit convoluted and a whole lot disingenuous. He avoided saying that he was involved in the 1873 movement. He avoided using Barbour’s name or Wendell’s. Yet, he touched on the essential weakness of the Barbourite movement:

 

Certain persons satisfied themselves that Jesus Christ would return to this world in A. D. 1874. The prophecies on which their belief rested were to them so plain, that there seems to have been no doubt in their minds – He would come then.

 

This ‘set time’ went by, and Christ did not appear. Yet, so minute had been the predictions and so positive that statements concerning the expected fulfillment of Prophecy, that (like others previously) it was hard for the men of 1874 to acknowledge … “we were wrong: Christ has not come as we expected.’ On the contrary, they … repeated what had … been said by some connected with the 1844 Time Movement – ‘We were right regarding the Time, though wrong concerning the Event.’ Instead of a frank confession of their error (with an acknowledgement that ‘time-setting’ was wrong in itself), they tried to modify the shock of failure by affirming that Christ did return to earth in 1874, as they had predicted, only his return was invisible!

 

Within not many sentences, Woodward wrote, “Just who originated this ‘device,’ may never be known.” That was, of course, a lie. He knew very well who originated it; he had been in the movement up to at least 1874. For Woodward, the issue wasn’t sincerity. Woodward wrote of Russell: “I do not question his honesty in his first belief that the Lord would return in 1874 – others have made a similar mistake.” He had, of course, to include himself, though he does not say so. The issue was failure to “admit his own mistakes, as he probably would be insistent that others should admit theirs.” While these comments are about Barbourite and later Watch Tower belief concerning 1874, they apply with equal ease to the 1878 disappointment.[33]

 

photo here

E. P. Woodward

 

An article by J. H. Paton followed Barbour’s. He defended the idea of “Definite Time.” He refuted several competing concepts, none of which are relevant to this history, then, in defense of Barbourite practice, wrote that their “premature expectations no more invalidate the arguments than the premature expectations of the disciples of Christ proved the incorrectness of their faith in him as the Messiah, and the ‘day of visitation.’” Russell didn’t contribute to the July 15^th Herald of the Morning. His article appeared in the next issue.

Russell wrote a letter to someone in Lynn, Massachusetts. As Barbour has it, he speculated about the “Elijah type” and “that as Elijah went back, and re-crossed the Jordan, so we must return and re-cross, or something to that effect.” There is no more detail, but it is evident that Russell sought in prophetic types a remedy for their disappointment. Barbour loved to misrepresent Russell, so while he doesn’t give us details he sniffs that Russell “said nothing to me.” Barbour’s italics tell us that he thought Russell owed it to him to consult before preaching.

            Barbour reported that “some of the friends” wrote to him saying they were “disgusted” and “thought it was foolish.” They were “on the point of ‘giving up the whole movement.’” When this was written, it was in Barbour’s interest to blame division on Russell so he could point to Watch Tower adherents as the “foolish virgins” of Christ’s parable. The real issue for Barbour was Russell’s independent thinking. Re-examining the “Elijah type,” which for “some time” they had “looked with interest,”[34] without consulting him shook Barbour’s confidence. His statement that Russell had preached new doctrine in Lynn was questioned, and he had to retract it. He also retracted the claim that “some friends” wrote, amending it to a “sister.”[35]

            Shortly after the June 15, 1878, Herald of the Morning reached its subscribers, the principals, except for Paton who was hurt in a fall from a carriage, met in Rochester. [36] Paton participated through an exchange of letters. Barbour described the meeting:

 

Bros. R[ussell] and K[eith] at my office in Rochester, and Bro. P[aton] by letter. I endeavored to satisfy them as to the last half of the harvest … &c. They were at first a little stiff, so that I began to realize that there was a division, yet they seemed to see the new light on the present half of the harvest, and some of its work, so much so, that they immediately commenced making a chart, then and there, at our rooms, in harmony with the new position. And, though I had misgivings, that it was not clearly seen and accepted by them; but as they arranged their charts so as to promise with the advanced light, and to show the last 3 1-2 years of the harvest, I hoped for the best.[37]

 

            Barbour wanted to show them as “eagerly” seeking light from him, but he felt his grip on their allegiance was slipping. They seemed to doubt. They were reluctant. They were becoming the “foolish virgins.” Barbour’s self-esteem depended on being God’s voice. His description of this meeting was designed to show him as the fountain head of truth to which others turned.[38] Previously, Russell and Paton had readily deferred to Barbour. He was disturbed to find them hesitant to accept his new speculations. (He and his followers would call it the “shining path” doctrine.) Yet, he reported:

 

They came and listened to what we [he means himself] had to say; heard the explanations in relation to the last half of the harvest, as it was explained and illustrated on a small paper chart, and immediately copied that chart on a larger scale, and began to preach this advanced light as seen, as soon as they left Rochester, and also in the next articles from their pen, which appeared in the Herald.[39]

 

            Leaving the Rochester meeting, Russell traveled to Lynn, Massachusetts, preaching an extension time for refining and ingathering of Saints. They had maybe the next three and a half years. Whoever faulted Barbour for misrepresenting him said Russell “greatly strengthened the brethren.” While grudgingly acknowledging he may have misrepresented matters, Barbour implied that Russell rejected the “light” that extended “time” to 1881. This was also false.[40]

            Barbour seems to exaggerate what ever reluctance Russell and B. W. Keith felt. The issues to which he points were not the immediate cause of group fragmentation. Russell gladly accepted the new emphasis on the Wedding Garment and an extended time of favor to nominal Christians. Describing this period he wrote:

 

Coming to the spring of 1878, the time parallel to the giving up of the Jewish church and ending of the Gospel church by the Spirit, we naturally and not unreasonably expected some change of our condition, and all were more or less disappointed when nothing supernatural occurred. But our disappointment was brief, for we noticed that the Jewish church (and not the Gospel church) was the pattern of ours, and therefore we should not expect parallels to Pentecost or to anything which happened in the beginning of this church.

 

We looked again at the Jewish church as the pattern and saw that though Jesus gave them up as a fleshly house at the close of his three and a half years ministry, yet he continued special favor to them …

 

We then looked for the parallel to this in the Gospel Age and found that the nominal Gospel church, the parallel of the Jewish church, was “cast off” or “left desolate,” “spewed out” at the parallel point of time, 1878, but was due to have favor as individuals for three and a half years, or until the autumn of 1881, during which they were to separate themselves from the “Babylon” church.[41]

 

            Some of their new thoughts were developed as late as the spring of 1879, but the most important of them appeared in Barbour’s July 15^th article. Russell noted that their disappointment was “brief.” This marks Barbour’s claim that they were reluctant learners as exaggerated. None of them gave up preaching set time, but their emphasis changed:

 

Up to 1878, though Restitution was the key note, and entire consecration was always urged, yet the time element was one of the most prominent features always. Since 1878, however, though the same time element is recognized in all our preaching and teaching, and is repeatedly referred to as a proof of our position, yet the direct teaching of time has almost stopped among all the preaching brethren – and this too, without any pre-concerted arrangement, and without any other reason, than that other elements of truth came into greater prominence.[42]

 

With the July 1878 Herald, Barbour converted the magazine into a monthly, dropping the notice that it was published by both Barbour and Russell. Russell’s post-failure article appears in that issue.

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[1]               G. Burns: Exit From Soul-Abuse: Redefining Extremist Cults, Trafford Publishing, 2012, page 454. Burns is an ex-Witness. One wonders how he could associate with that religion for twenty-four years and not know the basics of Watch Tower history.

[2]               In 1896 H. K. Carroll numbered them at 4825. [The Religious Forces of the United States, page 13.] The January 25, 1906, Christian Advocate reported a membership of 2872 for Churches of God in Jesus Christ (The Restitution) and 646 for The Church of God (Bible Advocate). The 1918 edition of Encyclopedia Americana gives the figure 2224 as the number of adherents for Churches of God in Jesus Christ, now known as Church of God - General Conference (Atlanta).

[3]               The Edwin Alden Company’s American Newspaper Catalogue, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1886, page 251.

[4]               L. Jones (editor): What Pastor Russell Said, Chicago, 1917, page 150.

[5]               L. Jones (editor): What Pastor Russell Said, Chicago, 1917, page 157. Russell taught that the Great Company of Rev. 7:9 represented a class of less-committed Christians who did not merit a place as kings and priests but who were raised to heavenly life.

[6]               For Barbourite views on the Euphrates as a prophetic symbol see J. H. Paton: The Euphrates, Herald of the Morning, September 1878, pages 37-38.

[7]               S. A. Chaplin: Untitled Editorial Article, The Restitution, October 10, 1877.

[8]               R. Baker to S. A. Chaplin in the January 9, 1878, issue of The Restitution.

[9]               S. A. Chaplin: The Restitution Supplement, The Restitution, February 27, 1878.

[10]             N. H. Barbour:  Fulfilling the Law, Herald of the Morning, May 1880, page 66.

[11]             N. H. Barbour: Parable of the Ten Virgins, Herald of the Morning, December 1898/January 1899, page 174.

[12]             Notices, The Brooklyn Eagle¸ January 20, 1877.

[13]             A. H. Macmillan: Faith on the March, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1957, page 42.

[14]             A. H. Macmillan: Faith on the March, page 27.

[15]             C. T. Russell: A Conspiracy Exposed and Harvest Siftings, Zion’s Watch Tower, special edition, Apriil 25, 1894, pages 103-104.  The Prospect, Herald of the Morning, July 1878, page 11.

[16]             C. T. Russell: The Year 1881, Zion’s Watch Tower, May 1881, page 5.

[17]             A. J. Marsh to Barbour in the August 1878 Herald of the Morning, page 80. As were many of Barbour and Russell’s associates, Marsh was an inventor and a businessman of some prominence in his community.

[18]             J. H. Paton: The Wedding Garment, Zion’s Watch Tower, October 1879, page 5.

[19]             N. H. Barbour: Two in the Mill, Herald of the Morning, June 1875, page 13.

[20]             N. H. Barbour: “The Time is Fulfilled,” Herald of the Morning, September 1875, pages 56-57.

[21]             N. H. Barbour: Has Christ Come? The Herald of the Morning¸ July 1880, page 2. “I was not aware that anyone claimed that Christ came as King in the spring of 1878; much less that anyone has proved it.”

[22]             N. H. Barbour: Questions and Answers, The Herald of the Morning, January 1880, page 15ff.

[23]             N. H. Barbour: Parable of the Ten Virgins, Herald of the Morning, March 1898, page 359.

[24]             Mentions, The Lockport, New York, Daily Journal, July 5, 1877. Disappointed Again, The Hudson, New York, Daily Register, July 10, 1877.

[25]             W. I. Mann: An Open Letter, The World’s Hope, June 1, 1892, pages 175-176.

[26]             J. H. Paton: Editor’s Comments on An Open Letter, The World’s Hope, June 1, 1892, page 176.

[27]             Letter from J. R. Deputy to N. Barbour, Herald of the Morning, June/July 1898, pages 34-35. First name is found in the 1870 Census. He was born December 1835 in Indiana. Ancestry.com has him dead by 1874. This is an error. He is listed in the 1910 Census as living in Missouri. The 1880 Census says he was a farmer.

[28]             Letter from H. R. Perine to N. Barbour, Herald of the Morning, June/July 1898, page 47. Hamilton (Harry) R. Perine was born in 1833 and was still living in 1910. He was a farmer. He was present at the August 2, 1874, meeting that organized what became a Church of God Seventh Day Missouri State Conference. [R. C. Nickles: History of the Seventh Day Church of God, 1999, page 78.]

[29]             Letter from Mina S. Aasved to N. Barbour, Herald of the Morning, June/July 1898, page 37. Mina Aasved appears to have been a spinster school teacher. She was born in Iowa in 1863.

[30]             Letter from H. Landis to N. Barbour, Herald of the Morning, June/July 1898, page 63. Helen Landis was a “Medical Electrician” specializing in “brain diagnosis and treatment” and in “pneumatic treatment.” Her offices were in the Wilder Building in Rochester, New York.

[31]             Advent Movement: N. H. Barbour: Elias,  Herald of the Morning, March 1876, page 19. Re-examination: In the Secret Chamber, Herald of the Morning, October 1875, page 77.

[32]             N. H. Barbour: Wise and Foolish, Herald of the Morning, March 1876, pages 20-23; J. H. Paton: Does Christ Tarry? Herald of the Morning, January 1876, pages 4-7.

[33]             E. P. Woodward:  Another Gospel: An Exposure of the System Known as Russellism, The Safeguard and Armory, July 1914, pages 5-6, 20.

[34]             Quotations: C. T. Russell and anonymous correspondent: Questions and Answers, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1881, page 8.

[35]             N. H. Barbour: Questions and Answers, Herald of the Morning¸ January 1880, page 15; Personalities, Herald of the Morning, February 1880, page 27.

[36]             Barbour says he was not sure of this detail. See January 1880 Herald of the Morning, page 15.

[37]             N. H. Barbour: Questions and Answers, Herald of the Morning¸ January 1880, page 15.

[38]             He sustained that view of himself until his death, writing in 1897: “These men went out from this movement, and what little truth they have as well as a good deal of error, - was learned or copied bodily from the teaching of herald of the morning.” [N. H. Barbour: Moses and Christ, Herald of the Morning, April 1897, page 58.] This is largely false. Other than a shared chronology which Barbour borrowed from others, Paton and Russell had well-defined doctrines before they met Barbour.

[39]             N. H. Barbour: Questions and Answers, Herald of the Morning¸ January 1880, page 15.

[40]             N. H. Barbour: Personalities, Herald of the Morning, February 1880, page 27.

[41]             C. T. Russell: “Cast Not Away Therefore Your Confidence,” Zion’s Watch Tower¸ February 1881, page 4.

[42]             C. T. Russell: Blessed Dying, Zion’s Watch Tower, December 1881, page 4.

Extracted from my Personal Blog

I spent a lot of time, several hours, turning pages in my "sources" binders looking for points we omitted that we may wish to include in volume one. I haven't found much. So far, all I've found is a place where we need to add a sentence or footnote for clarity. We quote one of the major characters self-description of a fall on a slippery, iron sidewalk door. He connected the fall to Scripture. We failed to explain that this fell into the pattern of American Calvinist thought. Scholars call this the Type-Antitype approach. Some of my readers know in a limited fashion what that is. Puritans and Calvinistic Separatists took that concept beyond the covers of the Bible, and saw Bible verses as finding fulfilment in daily life.

The Bible's concept of type and antitype, as used by Paul, is that Old Testament scripture sometimes foreshadowed later events. Paul used this process to suggest that Sarah and Hagar represented two covenants. The anonymous writer of Hebrews (Some think that's Paul.) uses the type-antitype method of exegesis to state that the Law of Moses forshadowed the Christian polity and the method of salvation.

American Calvnists went beyond that.Deborah Madsen tags this as "spiritual interrogation of events." [See her American Exceptionalism.] She quotes the well known passage from Governor Winthrop's Journal:

"At Watertownthere was (in the view of divers witnesses), a great combat between a mouse and a snake; and, after a long fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave this interpretation: That the snake was the devil; the mouse was a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which should overcome Satan here, and disposes him of his kingdom. Upon the same occasion, he told the governor, that, before he was resolved to come to this country, he dreamed he was here, and that he saw a church arise out of the earth, which grew up and became a marvelous goodly church."

Russell's interpretation of dreams and daily events in the light of scripture comes from this herritage.

We should have included that point. We will in some fashion.

Final Draft: Title Page, Copyright Page, Introductory Essays

A Separate Identity

 

 

 

ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY

AMONG READERS OF ZION’S WATCH TOWER

1870-1887

 

 

 

Volume One

 

 

B. W. SCHULZ

 

AND

 

 RACHAEL DE VIENNE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fluttering Wings Press

2014

 

 

About the Authors

 

Bruce W. Schulz teaches writing, history, and literature. He is the lead author and general editor of this series.

 

Rachael de Vienne raises children and goats. She teaches literature and history to gifted and talented students.

 

 

 

 

[photo here]

Pittsburgh and Allegheny City in 1874.

Woodcut View by Alfred R. Waud.

Pittsburgh & Allegheny City, Pennsylvania: 1874 Woodcut View by Alfred R. Waud

Copyright 2014 by B. W. Schulz

Permissions: BWSchulz2@yahoo.com

 

 

The first book in this series is:

Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten Prophet.

Introductory Essay

 

            It was once the fashion to introduce books similar to this one with an apology for adding another work to an already well-covered topic. We offer no such apology. The Watch Tower movement is one of the most controversial and most written about religious movements of the last two centuries. It is also one of the least understood and most misrepresented movements. There is no accurately presented history of the Watch Tower movement’s foundation years. This book exists because neither the friends nor the enemies of Charles Taze Russell have produced anything approaching a reasonably well-researched and accurate account of the Watch Tower’s early years.

Despite a persistent mythology to the contrary, the emergence of the Watch Tower movement as a cohesive and separate religious identity owes far less to Russell personally than it does to the adoption of mutually agreeable doctrines. This process filled the years from 1871 to 1886. No one doctrinal choice marked Russell and a growing body of associates as unique. The collective did, resulting over time in a separate religious identity.

Friends of the Watch Tower and of Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Zion’s Watch Tower, have seldom passed beyond an uncritical reading of a biographical article published first in 1890, but a wealth of detail is available. A Russell-centric view overlooks the interplay of personalities and the debates that molded the loosely connected group into a distinct religion. Russell’s friends have separated the spiritual from the mundane. Compartmentalizing history leaves no room for an accurate narrative. Worse, one recent writer whose book presents a largely favorable picture of Russell manufactured out of his or another’s imagination an entire narrative, almost none of which is correct.

Russell’s admirers put him in a historically untenable position. Even when presenting reasonably accurate narrative, they tend to create or perpetuate a myth. For many of them, Russell was God’s special instrument to restore vital truths. This apotheosis disconnects Russell from the realm of critical history. It presents a false picture of Russell, his associates and opponents. Even if one believes Russell was favored by God, no person of faith should pursue myth-building at the expense of carefully researched, accurate history. If God’s hand directed the Watch Tower movement in Russell’s day, would that not best be shown by a reasonably well-researched presentation of events that reconnects Russell to his environment? If Russell had a place in God’s work, mythologizing him hides it.

Almost none of the published material meets an academic standard. Of those few books that do, none of them consider the founding period in any detail. All of them derive what little they say from a single Watch Tower article with some additions from Alexander Hugh Macmillan’s Faith on the March. There is a consequent failure to grasp key events in the growth of an independent religious movement. And there is a significant misdirection, because of the very narrow and contracted view of Watch Tower history found in Russell’s 1890 article.

Opposition writers also manufacture, distort and misrepresent events. This is especially true of former adherents. Several examples come to mind. Some suggest Russell plagiarized Paton’s Day Dawn. One frequent though seldom accurate writer suggests that Russell stole the Herald of the Morning subscription list. One former adherent has turned himself into an Internet “troll,” posting in the comments section of any news article about Jehovah’s Witnesses that Russell was an Adventist. The claim of Russellite Adventism is common. Aside from the fact that this is wrong, we are at a loss to explain how having been an Adventist would tarnish Russell’s character. Russell was baptized a Presbyterian; he was a Congregationalist; he became a One Faith Millenarian with Age-to-Come views. He was never an Adventist. Only the intellectually lazy would define him as an Adventist.

            Without looking further, writers have uniformly suggested an Adventist origin for Watch Tower theology. There were undeniable contacts with Adventism, and many of the early adherents came from the fractured Adventist movement. Researchers tend to focus on what became the Advent Christian Church, ignoring interchanges with other Adventist bodies, including the Life and Advent Union, independent Adventist congregations and Sabbatarian Adventists. The focus has been on the development of Watch Tower doctrine from Millerite Adventism. This is a mistake.

            As commonly told, Russell was introduced to Millerite Adventism by Jonas Wendell and other Adventists. Some suggest a Seventh-day Adventist connection, which is laughably ignorant. Russell is supposed to have adopted much of Millerite theology. Though he denied ever having been an Adventist, he was one. 

This is wrong. None of Russell’s doctrines owe their origin to Millerism or any of the descendent Adventists organizations. Russell’s belief system, with a few key exceptions, was developed while in association with Age-to-Come believers, especially those in the One Faith Movement. This movement was most closely associated with The Restitution, a newspaper published in Plymouth, Indiana. Russell’s closest associates were connected to One Faith or some form of Age-to-Come belief. This includes George Storrs.

            Storrs was an independent Age-to-Come believer, abandoning Millerite Adventism in 1844. You will find some of that history documented in this book. Storrs and those loosely associated with The Restitution avoided organizational structure. The movement spoke with conflicting voices, but they held some key doctrines in common. They believed in a restored paradise earth without the fiery destruction predicted by Adventists. They believed that the prophecies, indeed all of scripture, should be taken literally. The Jews would be restored because the plain literal sense of Scripture suggested they would be. They were divided on other issues. Storrs taught a Fair Chance doctrine that some called Second Probationism. A significant minority of One Faith believers followed this path.

            There are several reasons why this part of Russell’s history is misrepresented. Many of Russell’s contemporaries, particularly those outside the two movements, lacked a clear understanding of what Adventism was and how it differed from Age-to-Come and other pre-millennialist beliefs. One finds One Faith and Christadelphians described as Age-to-Come Adventists – a name they rejected. Because Adventists, Millenarians, and Christadelphians believed that Christ’s return was near, outsiders lumped them under the one name.

            While some of Russell’s contemporaries and some academic writers today confuse Age-to-Come belief with Adventism, the two parties saw themselves as doctrinally distinct. The decade of the 1870s was a transitional period for the Advent Christian Association. It was rapidly transitioning from a loose association of those believing in the near return of Christ with good Christian conduct as the sole standard of association into a Church with more closely defined doctrine. Some who associated with them were ostracized and found new associates among Age-to-Come believers. George Stetson was one of these, though he died before a decisive break between the two bodies occurred.

            The division between Literalist and Adventist belief affected Watch Tower adherents. Subsequent tensions between Russell and Adventists derive from his Age-to-Come (also called Millenarian) belief system which was derived from British Literalism. These differences would serve as a sieve that would catch and remove from fellowship those who accepted other systems. Paton and his followers, many of whom had been Adventists, rejected Literalism, and this rejection of “plain sense” exegesis accounts for many of their differences. Arthur Prince Adams says that his differences with Russell are based on his rejection of Literalist belief. Adams sought the “hidden meaning” behind the Bible’s plain words. He explained this in the introductory article to the first issue of his magazine:

 

By Spirit of the Word I mean its real and intended meaning, in contradistinction to its apparent and surface meaning, or the “letter.” It is a common mistake among Christians to suppose that the Bible is written in very plain and simple language, and that the correct meaning is that which lies upon the surface – the most obvious and apparent sense. If I err not, the truth is just the opposite of this. The Bible often means something very different from what it says; there is a hidden, mystical sense that is like the pearl hid in the depths of the sea, the real jewel.[1]

 

            This stands in stark contrast to Russell and his associates. They sought the Bible’s plain words. It is not our purpose to suggest he succeeded in that quest. That determination is best made by our readers. But we state the difference in theological perspective. It explains much.

Another reason Russell is seen as a closet-Adventist derives from unreasoning opposition to his teaching. The name Adventist was seen as a pejorative. Adventists were uniformly seen as on the fringe of American religious life. Newspapers noted every passing and failed prediction, every supposed and real extreme among Adventists. They described as “Adventist” those who were not such. They manufactured events. Adventism became a hot-tar-soaked brush for editors to use when news was sparse. Painting Russell with the brush of extremism is a fad among opposers.  There is, however, a real story behind the myth.

            We believe our research restores detail. In doing so, we believe that a clearer understanding of events emerges. We examine the roots of Russell’s theology, tracing his doctrinal development to various individuals and publications. This dispels the myth that Russell and his early associations studied in a vacuum, independent of the commentary or exposition of others. We explore the doctrinal disunity among early adherents. How Russell and his associates addressed this explains the transition from mere readership to an ecclesiastical unity.

            There is a startling lack of perspective in most “histories” of the Watch Tower movement or of the antecedent and cognate groups. Advent Christians liked to claim there were thirty thousand adherents world wide. We could discover no valid basis for that claim and believe the number was much smaller. One Faith believers played a significant role in Watch Tower history.[2] They counted about four thousand adherents in 1880. Russell sent out six thousand copies of Zion’s Watch Tower’s first issue. Numbers dropped precipitously as real interest replaced hoped-for subscribers. Yet, by 1882 Russell could report a circulation of nearly fifteen thousand.[3] The belief system reached England before Russell first published his magazine. There was an adherent in France in the 1870s. The message reached Germany in 1885, perhaps earlier. It reached Norway about 1880 via personal letters. This represented a social shift not just among millennialists but in American religion, and that makes this story important.

            The actors in this religious and social drama are archetypical. Of special interest to us is the self-view of the principal and many of the minor players. You will find N. H. Barbour who saw himself as God’s spokesman even if almost no one else did. In his later years Brarbour claimed a thousand adherents, but realistically probably had fewer than two hundred truly-interested followers. You will meet Frank Burr who believed he heard Christ’s voice. There is John Paton who saw himself as divinely chosen, the recipient of divine revelation. There is Russell who believed himself divinely led, as God’s “special agent for special times.” We find Elizabeth [Lizzie] A. Allen who agonized over her life choices. We meet J. C. Sunderlin who because of war wounds became an opium addict, seeking relief in religion and a quack cure. Which of these you sympathize with will depend on your approach to this story.

            We leave issues of faith largely untouched. We’ve taken a historian’s approach. We will tell you what Russell said of himself and others. We will tell you what his associates said and did. We will not tell you that all this was guided by Holy Spirit or God’s own hand. That’s not a historian’s place. We will leave that analysis to your own prayerful (or skeptical) estimation. We have avoided the trend among modern historiographers to analyze motives. We’ve borrowed our approach from 19^th Century historians who told their tales in detail, but with little commentary. So we owe much to Francis Parkman, H. H. Bancroft, and Israel Smith Clare, historians who within the limits of available documentations gave their readers detailed, largely accurate, narratives.

            However, we cannot entirely escape addressing motives. When required to do so, we limit ourselves to presenting them in the words or by the unambiguous acts of those involved. Russell is overly kind to Albert Delmont Jones. Jones was a disreputable man, a thief, a fornicator, a religious fraudster. We tell that story in Volume 2 from the public record and his own words. Other scandals will appear. (We humans are prone to stupidity.) So you will read about William Henry Conley’s faith cure house, its pastor, his relationship to the women and girls associated with Conley’s faith-cure belief. There are others you won’t read about because we cannot verify to our satisfaction that there was real scandal. Suspicion attaches to one of Russell’s early associates and a young teenage girl. We tell as much of that story as we can verify. We leave the unverified gossip to the ebay posters, the Internet scandal mongers, and the conspiracy theorists and inept Wikipedia writers.

            As perverse as it seems to say so, the endless divisions that we chronicle here resulted in doctrinal unity. They were key to the formation of an ecclesiastical unity centered on Zion’s Watch Tower and its editor, Charles Taze Russell.

 

***

           

            Watch Tower history as it has been written resembles Greek mythology. As with Greek mythology the stories are often told in conflicting ways. If you have ever read the myths of Pan’s parentage, you understand what I mean. In the Russell mythology there is Russell the saint and there is Russell the devilish, religious fraudster. We have limited ourselves to Russell the man. We deal with unfounded claims in each chapter. In the process, we probably offend everyone with a personal commitment to the myths. We have enjoyed bursting bubbles. Watch the footnotes carefully. We detail false claims in footnotes where we do not always do so in text. We’ve been even handed in this. You will find us faulting claims made by true believers and by opposition polemicists.

            The first chapter considers Russell’s youth. Several key ideas and some minor statements fall to research. Unlike a Bible Student writer, we do not chronicle Russell as the modern-day Samuel, destined to be God’s special servant in the last days. We do not question his belief. This is not about belief. It’s about accurately told history, kept within the context of real, verifiable events. We only tell the story as we can verify it, and we do that largely through Russell and his contemporaries’ own words supplemented with documentary evidence.

            Mythology replaces history when lack of curiosity is coupled with lack of thorough research. This is especially pronounced among Russell’s modern-day friends. A number of letters passed between us and institutions representing descendant religions. In a nearly uniform way, they focus on Russell, express lack of interest in anyone else, and simply do not look for detail. This distorts the history. Russell did not function in a vacuum. He was influenced by his friends, by his enemies, by what he read and experienced. These details are recoverable. The biographies of his early associates are available to a determined researcher. The “brothers” Lawver, Hipsher, Tavender, Myers, and a host of others who receive more or less mention in Zion’s Watch Tower were living people who had a physical and spiritual presence in Russell’s life and an effect on his beliefs. There are many others, some of considerable but forgotten prominence, who significantly contributed to Watch Tower history and to the development of a unified body of believers. But where is Aaron P. Riley or the small group in West Virginia who withdrew from the Church of Christ to form a congregation? Not in any history of the Watch Tower of which we are aware. Why is Calista Burk Downing a name without biography in histories of Zion’s Watch Tower?

            Probably there are several reasons why the Watch Tower story hasn’t been told with any sort of depth. Lack of curiosity is a prime one. Exchanges with interested parties elicited comments such as, “Thank you for the photocopies. We’re only interested in Russell himself.” This approach is part of the Saint Russell myth. Time and circumstances have wounded this approach so that some who sustained it in the past are no longer able to do so. A recent change in Watch Tower Society theology diminishes Russell’s’ status as interpreted through a doctrinal lens. A new religious paradigm does not alter the historical significance of C. T. Russell and his many associates.

Another major problem has been lack of resources. The resources we use to reclaim the biographies of Russell’s earliest associates and to restate their place in Watch Tower history have always been out there. They are somewhat easier to find now than they were twenty years ago. But individuals and organizations with more resources than we have could have found them if they had the curiosity to pursue the matter.

Attachment to a religious mythos in preference to accurately told history has stifled curiosity. We have encountered a certain amount of fear and resentment while writing this book. A university professor who is writing a competing book strongly objected to our consideration of One Faith belief because it undermines his premise. Another writer fears that we will refute a story she wishes to tell. A Bible Student expressed considerable discontent that we do not present Russell as the God-directed Faithful and Wise Servant. We’re writing history, not religious commentary. A person with considerable talent as a writer, though he is published anonymously, suggested that this history might show his religion as other than the Truth. Truth rests with God. Simply because they are human, truth is never embodied in His human servants.

            Another issue we address, though on a limited scale, is the disconnect between the lives of Russell and his associates and the world they lived in. The only redeeming feature of a recently published biography of Russell is the author’s attempt to reconnect to contemporary history. Russell was born into a world without flush toilets. In court testimony someone tells of carrying “the slops” through Bible House to drop them down a drain. I’m old enough to remember my stay in a forty room mansion in Ohio where the only facilities were a two-door wooden outhouse. Most of our readers aren’t that old. Russell was born into a world of no garbage collection, where the streets were rank with filth. He walked down streets littered with the leavings of draft animals and their owners. He was taught by teachers who were outnumbered by students one hundred to one, who had little education of their own and few resources to improve what they had.

            We are disconnected from the social issues of Russell’s day. Allegheny City and Pittsburgh were by reputation better, more peaceful cities than some of their more easterly cousins. Yet, they were filled with prostitution (we give details) and violence. A gruesome murder took place just doors from the Russell’s home. The Western states were subject to Native American uprisings and brutal repression. The period from the 1870s to the 1890s was one of re-occurring financial depression. Shoeing the feet of children was a major concern and a major expense. Scandal was the norm in politics. People were willing to see the period as “the last days” because it was violent, politically unstable, and seemed to be exactly what Jesus had predicted.

            An English writer described Allegheny City and Pittsburgh in terms of the industrial area of Staffordshire. Writing in 1859, he said that “there are the same red brick housed and workshops, the same smoke, the same uneven streets – from the heavy weights drawn over them – and at night, the glare of the iron furnaces at work.” The houses were built “close up to the very tops of the hill-sides, and presenting something of the appearance which the old town of Edinburgh does when viewed from off the Calton Hill or Arthur’s Seat.” Pittsburgh and Allegheny City were large, rambling, ill designed places. In 1853 the combined population was about one hundred ten thousand. It was an area of churches. We detail Russell’s associations with several denominations.

 

***

 

This was the era of Louisa Alcott’s Little Women. Read it. It will help you connect to the age we consider. Pay attention to the details. Note the cold, rat-infested house; consider the poverty, the infant mortality, the approach to morals and religious infidelity. The era in which these events transpire is both familiar and alien. This was an era of invention. The telephone was a marvel. Cities were electrified, but most homes were without electricity. They had gas if they were fortunate – oil lamps or candles if not. Few saw a telephone. The Penny Press and letter from friends connected one to the outside world.

            The American west was still the Wild West. The year Russell met Jonas Wendell the first transcontinental rail tracks were joined at Promontory Point, Utah. New and more powerful steam engines were marvels. Indian wars replaced the Civil War. When the Allegheny Bible Study Class was re-examining old belief, grasshoppers plagued Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri, eating varnish off furniture, paint off houses and peaches to the pits. War and rumors of war were everywhere. The Franco-Prussian war altered the face of Europe. Russia and Turkey fought, both brutalizing civilians, especially women and little girls. Fears of a general European war found a place in newspapers. Discontent and abuses in the Reconstruction South led to talk of a second Civil War. The United States had unsettled claims against the United Kingdom related to the Confederate raider the CSA Alabama. There was talk of war. An English parliamentarian suggested a test of arms. Cooler heads within the British government noted that while America maintained a severely reduced army, it had a million men trained to arms and baptized in blood. Any war with America would in high probability cost the empire the newly formed Canadian Confederation.

            Disasters beyond human control brought with them a sense of impending or wrought Divine judgment. Currency and credit manipulation by European banks, prominently the Bank of England, amounted to a quiet war against the United States. Credit manipulation brought consequences beyond those foreseen in boardrooms. Labor issues, oppressive working conditions and issues of social equality led to riot and insurrection. The year of Barbour and Russell’s grand missionary tour saw Pittsburgh burned and Federal troops engaged in battle with railroad workers. A large segment of Americans embraced protectionism. Depressions swept America and Europe. “Banker,” always a ‘dirty word,’ became a blacker pejorative.

            A pope died and another was elected. Many Protestants (and interestingly, some Catholics) saw the popes and the Roman Catholic Church as the embodiment of the more negative prophetic images. American Protestants watched Catholic affairs in that light. The pope was variously seen as the Biblical “man of sin” or the Anti-Christ. The Roman Church was seen as Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots. By the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, a significant number saw Protestant churches as the Harlot’s Daughters. Interactions with Catholics were suspect and scrutinized as a possible fulfillment of prophecy. Otto von Zech, a German-born Evangelical Lutheran clergyman was expelled from the Ohio Synod in part for refusing to characterize the Catholic Church as Anti-Christ.

            Our ancestors were not (taken as a whole) stupid, nor were they more gullible than our contemporaries. But their frame of reference was different. While the shift to a secularist society had begun, most were still profoundly religious. Religion was a social and political power, influencing –sometimes irrationally – public decisions. If they were ready to believe what might seem to us irrational doctrines, we should note that the same tendency exists today, though more often expressed in conspiracy theory, political polemic, or ill conceived private and public policy. We haven’t improved; we have only changed focus. The characters in this history deserve a sympathetic consideration.

 

***

 

            This is a far different book than we envisioned. We anticipated a slim volume somewhat like our biography of Barbour. We believed the basic facts were known, though as presented by most writers the story lacked detail. As our research evolved, we made format and content decisions, some reluctantly. Among the decisions we hesitatingly made was that leading us to present more or less extensive biographies of the principals. You will find most of those in volume one. We believe these biographical excursions are necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the Watch Tower movement’s early years.

 

B. W. Schulz

My Turn: R. M. de Vienne’s Comments

 

Bringing this volume to print isn’t exactly like giving birth, but there are similarities. Original research has its own set of pains, agonies, and irritations. And it has its joys.

You will better understand portions of this book if you first read Nelson Barbour: The Millennium’s Forgotten Prophet. We should note that our quotations retain original spelling, punctuation and formatting. Unless we note otherwise, all italics, capital letters and puzzling grammar are as they were in the original.

 

****

 

            We knew error and fabrication colored how this story has most often been told. We did not appreciate the extent to which this is true. We expected a reasonable amount of competence among those who have tackled Watch Tower history, and we found some authors reliable. Most are not. Even among the most reliable, we found a tendency to turn presumption into “fact.”

            Many of those who preceded us were polemicists. This is true of some who presented themselves as credentialed historians or sociologists, and it is especially true of most clergy who’ve written on the subject. It amazes me that these writers are taken seriously merely because they were published.

            We do not fault anyone for having a point of view. We have our own, and privately we debate issues ranging from our personal theologies to interpretation of historical evidence. However, a point of view should not lead one to turn presumption into ‘fact.” It should not lead one to fabricate.

            The works of some are characterized by logic flaws. An anonymous writer substitutes capital letters for reason, presuming that capitalizing random words proves a point. This reflects a seriously defective education on his part and on the part of those gullible enough to find this convincing. He also withholds from his readers documentation. If the antiquated psychological-descriptor “anal retentive” has any validity, it applies here.

We reject this approach. We tell you what our sources are, and, though that results in copious footnotes, it leaves no doubt about the trail we followed. Occasionally we tell you where to find rare or otherwise hard to find sources. Don’t ignore the footnotes. We adopted the dictum “the story is in the details,” probing and poking at original sources, following hunches and hints where ever they led.

After reading rough drafts of some of our chapters, another writer suggested that this book is destined to be the classic presentation of Watch Tower history. I appreciated the kind comment, but we see this work as preliminary, as the first step in research that should have been undertaken decades ago. We look for more and better research from others more competent than ourselves or who are willing to follow trails we could not. A major flaw in previous research is willingness to parrot the unfounded assertions of others. If you take up the themes we’ve opened in this volume, ask this critical question of each writer you consult: “How do you know that?” Check their sources; probe for detail.

The story we tell here is, as Mr. Schulz observed in his introductory essay, different from what we presumed it would be. We presumed a “unity of belief” among Russell and his associates that did not exist. In volume two we will detail the divisions and separations and early controversies that resulted in ecclesiastical unity, a separate religion. Our premise as it finally developed is that exploration of Bible teaching resulted in a settled doctrine developed out of debate, difference, and controversy. The doctrines finally settled on created a new religious unity. It peeled off dissenters who went their own ways.

In this volume we examine the historical and theological roots of Zion’s Watch Tower. That the story is more complex than and often different from that usually presented should surprise no one. One largely-accurate history presents this entire period in six paragraphs. We presume the author told us everything he knew or thought important. The fault isn’t in what he wrote. It is in what he omitted.

Theologically I’m a skeptical believer. I approach historical research in the same way, which means I question everything including commonly believed “facts.” Many of those proved absolutely true. Some proved false. As you explore this first volume of A Separate Identity you will encounter the familiar and the new.

The men and women in this story, long dead though they are, produced an emotional response. I came to like some of them. Some of them are remarkably distasteful, mean spirited and delusional. No historian writes an impartial history. But we have written to the full measure of our ability an accurate one. Despite our best efforts, we have probably made some errors of fact. We hope not, but given the depth and complexity of this research – and the newness of some of it – it seems inevitable that we got something wrong. It won’t hurt my feelings if someone points out a flaw, but I expect proof, not mere opinion. I expect critics to be as competent as we are, and I hold them to the same standards of historical research we manifest here.

A number of people have taken an interest in our research, assisting in various ways. We cannot name them all, and some wish to remain anonymous.

            Institutions that were especially helpful included the Methodist archive at Wofford College through Dr. R. Philip Stone; the State University of New York at Plattsburg; Franklin County Ohio through archivist Sandy Eckhart; the Archives of the Episcopal Church at Austin, Texas, through archivist Laura Kata; Ohio State Historical Society through Elizabeth Plummer; Almont District Library though its librarian, Kay Hurd; Junita College through librarian Janice Hartman. I’ve probably left out others equally helpful. I apologize to those I’ve omitted.

            Some institutions were distinctly unhelpful, even hostile. We’re still waiting on replies to emails and letters sent to some several years ago. The Library of Congress was hostile and unhelpful. The National Archives of the United States of America sent us key documents connected to one of Russell’s early associates. They refused to help when we requested other documentation that may hold the Department of Justice in a bad light, even though the material is about a hundred years old. The archivist at Boston University refused to provide photocopies of key material based on her reading of the papers. One of the friends of this research traveled there and made the copies in person.

            Though the Watch Tower Society declined access to a key document, they forwarded nine pages of photocopy, four of which we did not have. They are, of course, not responsible for our research or our conclusions. Given the opportunity to review volume one, they made no comment. They did not sponsor this work.

            Some individuals were exceptionally helpful. This would be a significantly diminished work without their help. Some names that should appear in this list do not because of privacy concerns.

[list follows]

---

[1]           A. P. Adams: The Title of the Paper, Spirit of the Word¸ March 15, 1885, Finley Reprint Edition, page 6.

[2]           Most of our readers will be unfamiliar with the term. We explore One Faith/Age-to-Come belief in chapter two.

[3]           The 1882 edition of N. W. Ayer & Son’s American Newspaper Annual reported 14,800 copies per issue. See page 600.

Apparently everyone in the world knew this but me ...

Lytel is the old English spelling of Little and is so pronounced. Joseph L. Russell connects to the Little/Lytel family of N. Ireland.

We need a volunteer to ...

We need a volunteer to transcribe the entire article entitled Redemption appearing in the November 1878 Herald of the Morning. Anyone?

We need a good, readable photocopy or scan of this ...

It was on ebay for an unreasonable price. It didn't sell. It's now on Bookfiner for an even higher price.

The seller has no understand for this material, and doesn't even know what he has.

If you have a copy, please scan it for us.

Help if you can.

As of this morning we have had 73,808 visitors to this blog. That’s not a huge number considering that accounts for repeat visits and is the total count since the blog was new.

If you like this blog, tell your friends and anyone else you think might be interested. I know I’m the one saying so, but there isn’t another Watch Tower history sight that is as detailed or as well researched. We don’t turn a soda-ash and salt mine into a secret Gold Mine. We don’t make up scandal where it doesn’t exist. If we find it, we tell you either here or in whatever book we’re writing.

We don’t cry about current Watch Tower policies, belief, or practices. Mr. Schulz is a Witness. I am not. I am not unsympathetic, but I believe enough differently that I’m not an adherent. You will get the facts from us as we find them. We have no agenda but accurately told history.

We have an invitation only blog that is in abeyance as we finish volume 1 of A Separate Identity. We’ll return to it after this volume is published and we resume work on volume 2. So tell your friends. …

 

We have a huge wish list. On it are items we do not expect to find, but we keep looking. We need any issue of Rice’s Last Trump. Paton’s personal letters would be helpful. Any letter by Russell. (We have a few, but only a few.) Opposition booklets published in Russell’s lifetime. Any of the German language Watch Tower with von Zech as editor. Von Zech’s magzine. (We have one year only.) Anything related to the earliest days of Watch Tower evangelism in Europe. Most of this history is earlier than the Year Book histories suggest, but the evidence is sparce.

We need a volunteer living near the Library of Congress who can copy some items with a digital camera and make photocopies of others. Some of this is simple work and some will require turning pages in an archive.

We need a volunteer to visit the National Archives of the United States.

Other than the first year, we need any and all issues of A. P. Adams’ magazine, The Spirit of the Word.

We need at least the location of The Millenarian, a magazine or paper.

We need copies of as much of the Canadian National Archives records of the word war 1 ban. That will require someone to visit, and, at their expense, make copies and mail them to us. Or if you’ve made copies, to scan them and get them to us. This is a  huge imposition, and you’d have to be really interested. We hope there is someone that interested.

Personal letters of any Russell era Bible Student would help, even if the contents seem inconsequential. Many of our readers have no clue how important small bits are. We are led to sound, important research by small clues.

Help if you can.

I should add … 

There are a few congregational histories out there. We don’t have many of them. If you have notes or a finished manuscript detailing the history of a Watch Tower congregation, please pass it along.

We need ...

Any and all material related to Russell's newspaper sermons and their syndication.

Biographical material concerning M. F. Russell, even if you think we probably have it.

There were numbers of booklets published about the 1881 speculation. Only one of them was published by the Watch Tower, but we're interested in all of them. We aren't interested in the Mother Shipton booklets  unless they cover a wider field than the fake Shipton  prophecy.

We need Paton's private letters. (Probably wishful thinking.)