Typical Nonsense

My thanks to David who secured this pamphlet for me. 

This is an Australian clergyman's attempt to counter Witnesses. As I've observed in both volumes of Separate Identity, almost no clergy-effort at refutation was Bible based. Most relied on some shade of ad hominem. This one is similar to many others, but they are historical documents, useful to a researcher as long as one is not swayed by idiocy. 

The images below are of the front cover and a paragraph from the preface. Note the use of ad hominem. If you are intent on refuting an argument but are compelled to resort to terms that denigrate your opponent, you have no worthwhile reply. 

"remarkable effusions;" "intelligent person;" "led astray;" "audacity;" "false teachers;"

"arrogant teachers"

The interesting point here is that Australian churches, like their American and European counterparts, lost members to Witness theology because they "thirsted for more truth" and did not find it within their previous denominations. This admission by A. Waldock, the author of the preface, should have brought him more shame than indignation. 

The Spills

At the family home, this place, Monday, Sept. 3, 1894, Mrs. Mary Spill, wife of Walter B. Spill, aged 53 years and 4 months. Mrs. Spill was born at Blaina, Wales, but had resided in this country the greater part of her life. The testimony of the community in which she lived is that “she was a Christian neighbor. Her husband mourns the loss of “a faithful wife,” and her children “a devoted mother.” Three daughters – Misses M. Edith, Emily A. and Ethel, and two sons – W. Edgar, and Elmer – survive. Alfred Meyrick, of Jersey Shore, Pa., and Mrs. George Cook, of this place, brother and sister – also survive. The funeral services were conducted Thursday afternoon by C. T. Russell, of Allegheny, Pa., a large concourse attending. Frostburg, Maryland, Mining Journal, September 08, 1894.

 

A Reminder

 This is not a place to advertise your books, pamphlets or internet programs.

The People's Pulpit Association

 

When the headquarters moved to Brooklyn in 1909 it was deemed advisable to create a new corporation to deal with publishing and property matters, The People’s Pulpit Association. With grateful thanks to Bernhard, here is the letter CTR sent out inviting certain trusted Bible Students to become members. The letter also details the original officers of the association. You may need to click on the image to see it in full.

Convention Photo - Identify?

 

Can we identify the man? Do we know the date and place of this convention? Any other details?

The Ross Libel Trial - The Case of the Missing Transcript

 

     One of the historical documents researchers have long wanted to see is the transcript of the Ross libel trial.

     The subject of this hearing for the charge of criminal libel has been discussed twice before on this blog. First, the whole background was dealt with back in 1913.

      https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-ross-libel-case.html

     This established that, in British law (which governed Canada), a charge of criminal libel had no chance of success in the circumstances. It was a legal point and had nothing to do with the merits, or otherwise, of the case.

     Second, the recent discovery of copies of an anti-Russell paper, Philip Sidersky’s Searchlight on Russellism, has finally yielded transcripts from the case that answer the key question on the oft-repeated perjury charge. This was a real find and the background is given here.

      https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2022/09/philip-sidersky-and-ross-libel-trial.html

     The actual surviving transcript (without any editorial comment) was published here.

      https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-ross-libel-trial-transcript.html

     At the time that last article was written, two issues of the Searchlight paper had been examined.A third issue has now been found (Volume 1, number 7) but this reports on CTR’s death and has no more of the transcript.

     In this article we are going to look at the background to the original transcript’s disappearance.

     First, let’s consider those most concerned with the case at the time. Extensive research showed that the archives of George Lynch-Staunton (CTR’s interrogator) do not have a copy. John Jacob Ross, CTR’s accuser, died in 1935 and no modern family can be traced. He obviously had access to the transcript, because his later flawed quotations come from it, but whether he had his own copy or simply used the court copy is unknown. Since he wasn’t even in court for CTR’s cross-examination by Staunton and had no input on these proceedings, he may have just used the copy from the court file. The same would be true of Philip Sidersky. If they, or friends or relations, ever had a copy I think it would have surfaced by now.

     That leaves just two remaining sources, the official court files and of course the copy CTR and the Watch Tower Society might have once had.  All sorts of rumors may have flown around on this, but we will try to keep strictly to facts that can be verified (to this writer’s satisfaction at least).

     As far as official court files are concerned, some writers on the subject since the early 1950s present an air of authority by advising their readers they can always check the material (and accusations) in the court copy in the files of the Ontario High Court – Russell vs. Ross – “defamatory libel” – March 17, 1913.

     One of the first, if not the first, to do this was Walter Ralston Martin. Martin spent some time and effort attacking the witnesses. In covering the Ross case, he made it appear that he had consulted the original transcript – “Jehovah’s witnesses cannot deny this documentary evidence” – but then went on to quote, not from the original transcript at all, but rather from J J Ross’s incorrect rendering… Had Martin followed his own advice and checked, he would not have found the transcript. We are going to establish that the court copy went AWOL many, many years before. And we will come back to Walter Martin again a little later.

     In the mid-1980s this writer spent some time cooperating with a researcher who has scoured varous official sources in Canada in an attempting to find what actually happened to the transcript. To make sure the contacts were being above board, I followed up by sending my own questions as a separate researcher – and got the same outcome. Here is a general flavor of the results. From the Records Supervisor of the Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police (October 1985):

     The 1912 hearing obviously did not end up on microfilm. The “all that was available” was a thin file dating from 1968. Signed by a Justice of the Peace, it reads: “The enclosed includes every particle of information that I have been able to unearth in this matter during the past forty years.”

     Taking “forty years” at face value, from 1968 would take you back to 1928. The actual file (as examined in 1985) contained just the original indictment and a photocopy of two pages from an opposition book from the 1950s, which someone – disagreeing with its negative comments – heavily annotated. This had obviously been donated by an earlier enquirer. As for the actual trial transcript – that was nowhere to be seen.

     Next, from the Court Administrator for the Ministry of the Attorney General for Ontario (November 1985) came similar negative results:

     The “past 40 years”from 1985 would take you back to 1945 – not quite as far as 1928 suggested in the previous enclosure, but far enough to suggest again that the trial transcript was long, long gone.

     The “sorry – goodbye” message was rounded out by a letter from the Chief Supreme Court Reporter, from the same Ministry of the Attorney General – this from March 1986:

     So any records and transcripts in the court files prior to 1960 were no more.

     So what about the Watch Tower Society’s own copy?

     First, we have to assume that they really did have a copy. There were no photocopiers back then, or documents on screens as pdfs. Unless there was a special need, would a court stenographer use carbon paper throughout to make more than one copy? Some trials – the Brooklyn Eagle (miracle wheat) trial and the first CTR separation hearing of 1906 were typeset and printed, but the Ross hearing was never published. It is reported that at one point CTR sent staff members to Canada to examine the court file and take some notes. This would not have been necessary if they’d had their own copy.

     So we come back to Walter Martin again. After encouraging his readers to check an empty police file, in a subsequent work he confidently refers to: “a copy on file in the headquarters of the cult in Brooklyn.” He does not actually say he’s seen it personally, but that is the inference.

     So Martin is our witness that the Society had its own transcript. The reality is – do we believe him? We have to ask, if Bethel did have it why would they show it to him - of all people? It may be noted that Martin was subject to a whole book attacking his honesty (The Latter Day Saints’ 320 page volume They Lie in Wait to Deceive). While one hesitates to focus on character assassination, the book is highly entertaining. And we return to his original review of the case, referred to above. In it, Martin did not quote from the transcript but from J J Ross’s “selective edit.” That covers Martin as far as this writer is concerned.

     A contemporary of Martin in the first half of the 1950s was Marley Cole. Researching over 1953-1954 his work Jehovah’s Witnesses – The New World Society was published in 1955. Cole was a witness and was given cooperation and help by the Watchtower Society. In Cole’s autobiography The Harvest of Our Lives (1996) he explained: “Headquarters worked with me, page by page on every chapter throughout the book, furnishing some of the material.” That was good, because it meant the book had been fact checked. In covering the Ross trial, Cole does not say he saw the transcript but many years later in a personal letter he specifically stated that he did not. All he saw was a record about it from opposers – Ross or Martin? – take your pick! (Letter from Marley Cole dated February 15, 1989).

     Using secondary sources like the works of Martin and Cole, numerous other publications thereafter touched on the case.

     In 1972, Ditlieb Felderer wrote a whole 200 page “thesis” on the subject. Those who obtained a copy were disappointed. The work veers all over the place and spends much of its time attacking the character of J J Ross. Crucially, it is obvious that Felderer never saw the original transcript either.

     Then the book Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada (1976) covered the case briefly and reconstructed the key section from earlier accounts, but again there is no indication that the author ever saw the original transcript. Interestingly, when the Watchtower Society produced its 1979 Yearbook history of.Canada and covered the case, they had the opportunity to use the transcript if they’d had it, but instead chose to simply quote from Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada. Their subsequent paragraph on page 94 of the Yearbook: “We do not know how the case was presented to it (the grand jury)” is a good indication they had no transcript of the full proceedings to consult.

     Anyone contacting the Society would have received a clear answer. Here is one example from 1985: “We do not have a full official transcript of the trial that took place in Hamilton, Ontario, involving Brother Russell, Some excepts were taken from the trial record shortly after the trial took place and you will find one excerpt on page 19 of the May 15, 1953, issue of The Watchtower.”

     So how could it go missing? The answer is – very easily!

     A few years after the hearing, CTR died in 1916. The new administration faced difficulties during World War 1, with key officials being put in jail, and the headaquarters hurriedly being relocated from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh and then later back to Brooklyn again. No doubt some items were lost then. Materials from some branches may have been confiscated, and never returned. As evidence of this, when the plan was announced to reprint the first 40 years of the Watch Tower magazine in the early 1920s, they did not have a complete file of copies. The headquarters had to appeal to readers and collectors to lend them a few issues so the project could go ahead. If that is what happened to the archive of their key magazine, then a transcript of a hearing that didn’t really work out, and featuring a former president, now deceased, would hardly be a priority. Again, this all presupposes that they ever had a copy in the first place.

     It may of course still be there in the bottom of a drawer somewhere and could still be rediscovered, and that is why unsubstantiated rumor can florish. Or, as suggested above, for all the claims to the contrary, the original stenographer only ever made one copy for the court file. Everyone else involved had to consult that master copy and take notes from it – if they were sufficiently interested – until it disappeared.

     About ten years ago, a trusted researcher was given three typewritten pages by Watchtower archives that covered some verbal sparring between CTR and George Lynch-Staunton. When examined more recently these pages turned out to be the whole of page 2 from Volume 1 number 1 of Sidersky’s Searchlight on Russellism as preserved in the Harvard Divinity School library.

 

     But does it matter? While one might like to see a complete transcript, this writer believes it doesn’t.

     Examining the newspaper accounts of the day, and what Ross actually wrote, nearly all the material seems to have been covered in an earlier trial from January 1912: Charles T Russell vs The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (commonly called the Miracle Wheat trial). This makes sense. Ross had no personal knowledge of CTR and nothing original to say. He simply rehashed criticisms that had gone before. However, the transcript of that earlier trial does still exist.

     So, the only real issue the Ross trial makes “unique” is his claim that CTR committed perjury. And thanks to the work of a virulent opposer, Philip Sidersky, way back in 1916, we have that covered. Not that that was Sidersky’s intention of course. But anyhow, thank you Philip!

 

     With grateful thanks to fellow researcher RP with whom I made contact again after 35 years. I will try not to leave it another 35 years…

1893 Chicago revisited

A recent post reproduced the photograph of some of the delegates at the 1893 Chicago convention, and readers were asked if they could provide better copies. Both Bruce and I have subsequently received or found other copies. Here are two of the best.

You may need to click on them to see the details. It is a simple matter to take a screen grab if you want a copy

An Interesting Volume

    

Revised

     The Church of God General Conference is a religious group, primarily based in America, which grew out of loosely related groups that used such terms such as Church of God, Age to Come and Abrahamic Faith in the 19^th century. Going back far enough, they are cousins of the Christadelphians, and in the mid-ninteenth century often associated on a local level wth Advent Christians. Ultimately, as statements of belief were firmed up and became “official” there came to be a parting of the ways. However, as established in Separate Identity, the early group Charles Taze Russell associated with had such a mixture of influences.

     See for example, the earlier article on this blog:

     1874-75: Allegheny-Pittsburgh – Adventist or Age to Come? The case of George Storrs and Elder Owen.

     https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2011/10/1874-75-allegheny-pittsburgh-adventist.html

     The modern Church of God has put certain archives online, and while most relate to the 20^th century and maybe outside our area of interest, they do include one or two from the 19^th century. Their blurb on their archives states:

“This collection of books contains authors who considered themselves part of the Church of God those who pre-date the formation of the Church of God General Conference, and others who held to similar doctrinal positions but were not formally aligned with the Church of God.”

      One such book is of particular interest to us, because it is a copy of Three Worlds, by Barbour and Russell (Barbour as writer and CTR as publisher) and even more interesting, it appears to be one gifted by CTR himself.

     This copy is clean and unmarked apart from pencil on one page only, but without any textual notations.

     The main paper of the Church of God in the second half of the 19^th century was The Restitution and it provides much information on CTR. He sent most of his earlier writings to the paper. Object and Manner was given away as a freebie to all subscribers, and Three Worlds, The Plan of the Ages and later volumes of Millennial Dawn were often reviewed. The reviews veered from polite but condescending to outright hostile as CTR’s ministry took off, and veered away from what became official Church of God doctrine.

     For details of this, see old article Charles Taze Russell and The Restitution.

     https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/charles-taze-russell-and-restitution.html

     But in 1877, Church of God adherents were an obvious audience for Three Worlds.

     The flyleaf contains an inscription that mentions CTR, and with the marvels of computer programs it can be “raised” from faded away to legible. The inscription reads:

     A transcription reads:

Christine Railsback's Book (?)

Argos, Ind(iana)

A present from Bro.

C.T. Russel of

Pittsburg, PA

June – 1877

     It would be really nice to think that this was personally autographed by CTR, but the misspelling of "Russel" strongly suggests that the inscription was made by the recipient, Christine, to show where the book had come from.

     So CTR sent the volume as a present to Christine Railsback (1841-1897) of Argos, Indiana. Christine (the former Christine Swafford) married John Corbaley Railback (1841-1928) in 1863. When she died, her obituary in The Argos Reflector for May 20, 1897, stated she had been a life long member of the Church of God and her funeral took place in the Argos Church of God.

When her husband died over 30 years later, his obituary in The Argos Reflector for June 7, 1928, made a similar comment about his background. His funeral too was conducted in the Argos Church of God.

      Although no familial connection can be established, John Corbaley Railsback would appear to have been named after John Corbaley. John Corbaley was a well-known Church of God evangelist, who established churches with Benjamin Wilson (of the Diaglot) and also Hugh B Rice, who had a short association with CTR. Rice was listed as a contributor in the first issues of Zion’s Watch Tower, although in fact never did contribute anything.

     For his story and the Corbaley background see old article: H B Rice – An Impecunious Man.

     https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/2019/05/h-b-rice-impecunious-man.html

     Perhaps the only unanswered question is why CTR sent the book to Christine rather than John? Ultimately the book ended up in the archive library of the Church of God.

     Copies of Three Worlds are highly collectable. One actually gifted by a young Charles Taze Russell would be even more so.

Friends of this Blog in Australia

I need a scan or photocopy of J. Hunter's Faults in Creation, 1932. A copy is in the Australian National Library. I cannot afford to pay for this. So any help will be a 'labor of love.'

1893 Chicago

 

A key photograph in the history of the Watch Tower Society is that for the 1893 Chicago convention, the first real national convention the Bible Students held. Most readers here will be familiar with the picture below that was published in the 1914 Chicago City Temple brochure. It shows around 76 of the 360 delegates in a group photograph. You may need to click on it to see the picture in full.

It would be nice to have the clearest photograph possible to try and identify the different Bible Students who appeared in the picture.

Does anyone out there have a better copy that could be shared? To illustrate, below is a selective enlargement from the bottom right hand corner of the photograph. Again you may need to click on it to see it in full. However, I think most would agree that the definition is far better.

The story behind the above is that when I was in America as an international delegate in 2014 I visited a home that had a large card-backed photograph of this scene. Using a cheap camera I took a quick snapshot of just this small section. The “original” from which the snap was taken is now apparently buried under glass in an Assembly Hall display. My reason for just taking a selective extract was that all I wanted at the time was a good photograph of a young Ernest Henninges and his wife to be, Rose Ball. They are sitting together on the ground in the front on the right. As a bonus, in this selective enlargement you can see in the “middle row” towards the left of the picture, CTR sitting with his wife Maria. Their inclusion was accidental, but this adds another picture to the Russell family history.

It was only when back home, several thousand miles away, that I realised what a missed opportunity this had been.

So again, does anyone have a nice clear photograph that can improve on the complete group photograph as shown in this post?

An extract from a Catholic anti-sect book from 1925

Translation Help Please!

In derselben art wird bei dieser sekte durch vortrage in riesenversammlungen gearbeitet. Da hier auf Erden vielfach gerade das allereinfaltingste, wenn es mit der notigen dreistigkeit voretragen wird, die meisten glaubigen findet, so ist kaum zu verwundern, das die vortrage diser "Ernsten Bibelforscher" uberullt und ihre schriften uberall machtig verbreitet sind. Alles zeigt uns die gemeingefahrlichkeit disser sekte. 

What I have:

In the same way, this sect works through mass meeting lectures. Since here on earth often the simplest idea (?), when presented with the necessary audacity, finds many adherents, it is hardly surprising that the lectures and meetings of the "Bibelforschers" and their writings are energetically circulated everywhere. Everything reveals the common danger of this sect. 

Can you improve this?

On ebay

 The book by Meffert noted a few posts down as "more translation help" is for sale on ebay. Remember this is an anti-Witness book written by a Catholic priest. It is, however, a useful historical document. The example on ebay is soft covered and an extra from my research library.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225527684171

I need a clear, flatbed scan of this

 Petition card from the Rutherford era.

The Russell's Store

 Sent by Raymond who regularly provides me with his research finds. These are from the Pittsburgh Commercial of April 5 and 28, 1877.

This is from The Monongahela Valley Republican of August 14, 1879.

A Correction to Separate Identity, Volume One

 As most of my readers know, I'm committed to accuracy, and I've noted on this blog a few points needing correction or elaboration. Robert M. Bowman Jr. recently emailed me to correct a comment and footnote on page 79. I attributed something to him that is the work of another, and my comments were quite critical. In fairness to myself the book I cited attributed the material to Bowman, but in fact the editor was responsible. Bowman was not.

Bowman's email says:

It has come to my attention that on page 79 of your book A Separate Identity, you criticize Alan Gomes and me for referring to Jonas Wendell's influence on Charles Taze Russell as that of Seventh-day Adventism. To be honest, I had no idea this statement had been made. The book you quoted was Truth and Error, by Alan Gomes; I was not its author. What you were quoting was Gomes's summary of my book in the series, entitled Jehovah's Witnesses, and in this instance Gomes inaccurately summarized what I had written. In my book, I never called Wendell a Seventh-day Adventist. I associated him with the Advent Christian Church (p. 10), not with the SDA Church. I noted some similarities between SDA and Russell, but I never attributed any of Russell's beliefs to SDA influence.

I plan to bring the matter to Gomes's and Zondervan's attention, but since the publication is 25 years old and has never been revised I doubt Zondervan will be willing to edit the statement. The error is regrettable. Your caustic comment about the authors and publishers does not fairly apply to me. I make every effort to be accurate in what I write and am quite dismayed by this mistake, even though I am not the one who made it, since unfortunately my name is attached to the mistake. I will note, on the other hand, that had you consulted the book Gomes said he was summarizing you would have discovered for yourself that I did not make that mistake.

In Christ's service,

Robert M. Bowman Jr.

President, Institute for Religious Research

When the revisions to volume one are complete - sometime after vol. 3 sees print - I will correct this. In the meantime I correct it here with my apologies to Mr. Bowman.

Again, I express my apologies.

B. W. Schulz, FRHistS

More Translation Help, Please.

I scanned one of the pages I'm trying to read. I get the drift, but need a good translation which is beyond my ability. I've done this reluctantly because the book is very fragile. If you can translate this page, starting from where we left off in the previous post, please do so. 

The author is Dr. Franz Meffert. The title is "Bibelforscher" un Bibelforschung under das Weltende. This was one of the first Anti-Watch Tower tracts/books published in Germany. My intent is to quote parts of this in the last chapter of Separate Identity vol 3.

Click the image to see it in its entirety. 

Translation help?

 I read German at the most elementary level. Here is what I have and how I would translate it. Can you improve this?

wird er kaufmann und Gerät in die sekte advenisten, durch die er mit der phantasien uber das bald kommende weltende bekannt wird.

He became a merchant and active in the Adventist sect, through which he became acquainted with their fantasies about the near ending of the world.  

nun beginnt er, ohne jemals mit wissenschafitich-theologisschen forschungun die leiseste fuhlung genommen zu haben, auf eigene faust als bibelerklarer aufzutreten.

At this point, without any knowledge of scientific theological research, he presented himself as a Bible teacher. 

A Review of The Plan of the Ages

Editorial Review of Plan of the Ages by The Churchman, an Episcopalian magazine, November 13, 1886. 

Millennial Dawn, Vol. 1. Plan of the Ages. [Pittsburgh, Pa.: Zion’s Watch Tower.]

             This volume belongs to the order of “religious-crank literature,” and we do not care to criticize it at length. It is entirely in vain to try to persuade the originators of such matter that their speculations are not the height of importance and that there can be the smallest doubt of their truth. We can only say that the Church has always rejected the Millenarian idea. As for other theological speculations in this book – They are much of them nonsense – or patent heresy. What is said of our Lord’s nature appears like an ingenious blending of all the errors condemned by the Church in all the great councils.

            It is a pity such books should be published, but they need not be read, and we can safely assure our friends that they will not lose anything by letting this work, and others like it, severely alone.

Mary Grew

GREW, MARY, b. Conn., 1813; daughter of Henry Grew, a Baptist clergyman; educated in Catherine E. Beecher's seminary in Hartford. In her youth, when New England was greatly agitated by the controversy between the old-school and new school theology, she received a training in metaphysics which made her a skillful logician. In childhood she was deeply interested in the condition of the colored people, both free and slave, and was therefore prepared to adopt the fundamental principle of immediate emancipation of slaves as the duty of the master and the right of the slave. Her public addresses combined the skill of the trained logician with the warmth of womanly sympathy, and she was therefore highly popular as a speaker. She was not less skillful with the pen. As corresponding secretary of the Philadelphia female anti-slavery society, she wrote its annual reports for nearly or quite 30 years in succession, and so unique were they in their impressiveness that they excited a degree of public attention rarely awarded to such documents. At different times also, she was the editor of the Pennsylvania Freeman, the organ of the Pennsylvania anti-slavery society. She was educated a Baptist, but is now connected with the Unitarians, in whose pulpits she occasionally preaches. She is an earnest advocate of woman suffrage. She has resided in Philadelphia since 1834. -- Library of Universal Knowledge: American Additions, Volume 2, 1881

1910 Baptism

 

Indianapolis, Indiana, News, July 15, 1899

 

Acquisitions Funding.

 I need to raise an additional eighty dollars to purchase two scarce to rare booklets that I cannot find to download. Can you help?

New to my Research Library

Die Sekte der Ernsten Bibelforscher by Trarsicius. Paffrath, 1925. This is a Catholic response to German Bible Students. 

What happened to it?

 Some considerable time past I posted images of Maria Russell's sermon notebook. A seller of antiquarian diaries and ledgers had it. A faithful blog reader helped me acquire it. It now has a new home, has been de-acidified and conserved. It was part of the history display at the annual meeting.

Another postcard

 

Below is a nice postcard reproduction of an official issue by the British branch of the Bible Students, The headquarters address of Eversholt Street predate the more familiar Craven Terrace, and the date of the postcard being sent is February 24, 1911.

A  previous article on this blog (The Channel Islands, posted on February 24 this year) showed what can be gained historically from studying the messages sent in this way. Alas, this card was not so productive, but nonetheless, a little history was gleaned. The message side of the card is below.

The actual message provides very little actual Bible Student information, other than the use of the abbreviation “Sis” for “sister.”

The recipient was a Mrs Ferguson of 131 Elgin Road, Seven Kings (in the UK county of Esses). The 1911 census identifies this as being a Catherine Ferguson, originally from Ireland. She is 35 with four living children. These include Lily (who is eight and is mentioned on the postcard) and a son, Dugold, who is four and probably the “dear Boy” mentioned on the card. There is no husband at the address and Catherine is down as the “head.” However, when husband Colin died in 1921 the probate registers give the Elgin Road address and list Katherine Ferguson (variant spelling) as the widow. Colin left not far short of two thousand GBP in his estate. That they were reasonably well off is shown back in the 1911 census when the household included a live-in domestic servant.

And there the trail goes cold.

All we know about the sender, who obviously chose a Society postcard to send, is that she is “your loving Sister Ainslee” (or possibly “Ainstee”). Without a forename or address the search for her is pretty hopeless, although an independent Bible Student magazine in its “Gone from Us” feature did list a “Sis. J. Ainsley” of Wallsend who died in May 1948. Maybe the writer? Maybe not.

This therefore is one of those cases where the graphic on the front of the card is of the greater interest.

Needs - Watch Tower

Hi everyone,

I need originals of the following Watch Towers:

Jan. 1, 15; Feb. 1, 15; Mar. 1, 15; April 1, 15, and May 1,  Sep. 15, 1921. 

July 1, 15, 1922.

I have usable scans. Originals are easier on my old eyes. Can you help?

Good Health magazine - March 1883

 This was a Seventh-day Adventists magazine. It contained the following notice of Zion's Watch Tower in its March 1883 issue:

Click the image to see it entire.

The Jewish Era: A Christian Quarterly in Behalf of Israel

 The April 1892 issue of The Jewish Era quoted these two paragraphs from the December 1891 Zion's Watch Tower:

ISRAEL. 

Nothing in our understanding of the teachings of scriptures is in opposition to the idea that Great Britain, Germany and the United States may contain some of the descendants of the ten tribes which separated from the two tribes in the days of Rehoboam. It could not be claimed, however, by any one who is familiar with the racial mixture which prevails, especially in the United States, that any of these nations are of pure Israelite stock. Neither do we debate the question whether the prosperity of these nations, more than that of some other nations of the world, is due to their lineage. Perhaps this is true. What we do maintain, however, is that, so far as the Lord's “high calling” of his church is concerned, the middle wall of partition having been broken down, the Israelitish origin of an individual or a nation would gain the individual or the nation no advantage over other individuals or nations of a different race under the terms of the New Covenant. From it wall Israel,” “the natural branches,” were broken off, except a “remnant” which accepted of Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant; and that “remnant” had no pre-eminence over others because of nationality. God, through the Apostles, has preached no favors to Israel according to the flesh during the period of the selection of spiritual Israel; but he has declared that when the company of spiritual Israel is complete, his favor will return to the fleshly house.

Because we believe that the spiritual Israel is nearly complete, therefore we are expecting blessings upon the Israelites who are according to the flesh, and the turning away of their blindness, anticipating that they will be the first of the restitution class to be blessed by spiritual Israel, and so “receive mercy through your mercy.” (Rom. 11 : 31.) After they have thus received mercy through the complete and glorified church of Christ, they will indeed be used as the Lord's instruments for blessing all the families of the earth, and thus the Abrahamic promises will be fulfilled unto both the seeds – both that which is according to the flesh, and that which is according to the spirit-”To the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham.” (Rom. 4:16.)-[Zion's Watch Tower.

From The Esoteric: A Magazine of Advanced and Practical Esoteric Thought

 February 1897 issue:

You may need to click on the image to see it entire.

Studies in the Scriptures, Volume 3, German Edition of 1923. Paper Covers

 Part of a rather large collection of foreign-language Bible Student and Witness material. See: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=285111530068&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2562&_ssn=rareandcollectible2

The Channel Islands

 

Expanded with further research from an article that first appeared on this blog in 2017.

     Many readers of this blog will be collectors of Watch Tower related postcards, official IBSA issues, the Photodrama cards, the Lardent cards and the like. While the picture side is the obvious attraction, sometimes the message side gives us historical information that we would not have had preserved otherwise. This article is about one such example.

     In 1986 the Awake magazine had an article about the Channel Islands, British owned but quite near the coast of France. It stated (Awake April 22, 1986, page 19):

“Seeds of Bible truth were sown here back in 1925 when Zephaniah and Ethel Widdell arrived from England with their bicycles to organize a regular program of Bible studies. As a direct result of their work, congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses were soon formed in both Jersey and Guernsey.”

     A postcard message now takes that history back a further fourteen years to 1911.

     But first, where did the 1925 account come from? One must remember that there was never any official attempt to document the growth of interest in places like the Channel Islands at the time. We have to rely on people looking back long after the event. In 1970 the Society sent a lengthy letter to all old-timers asking for their reminiscences. The letters sent by return will have numbered into their hundreds, possibly thousands, around the world, and formed the basis for the various histories that subsequently appeared in the Yearbooks. These covered not just countries like the United States and Britain, but everywhere. This testimony was supported by documented proof in some cases. For example, the son of one of the editors of the St Paul/New Era Enterprise was moved to send his files to the Society. However, in other cases it was simply the anecdotal memories of older people looking back. The account in the 1986 Awake may date from that 1970 initiative. No-one alive in 1970 had any memory of events before 1925 for the Channel Islands. However, the 1925 account of the Widdells arriving to organise a “regular program of Bible studies” might suggest some prior interest.

     That is why the ‘find’ of a post card from 1911 is so useful. It is reproduced in full below. Grateful thanks are due to Franco, who owned the original and made it available.

     The picture is simply a Guernsey location. The sender was A W Bowland of 4 Union Street, St Peter’s Port, Guernsey, and the date of the message was 9/11/11, which (the way the British write dates) would be November 11^th, 1911. The recipient was A Weber, Tour de Garde, Convers [Canton], Berne, Suisse.

     The message transcribed, reads:

Dear Brother, Thanks for card. We have received parcels safely today. We also thank you very much for Millenial Cards. Glad to say we are still selling a good number of volumes here. With much love in the Lord. Yours in his service, A W Bowland.

     The card was sent to a very well known figure, Adolphe Weber (1863-1948). Weber became a Bible Student in America and worked as a gardener for CTR for a short while in the 1890s. He went back to Europe and was involved in the German language Watch Tower. His story can be found in a number of Yearbook histories for various European countries and also in the Proclaimers book on page 409 with his photograph.

     The writer was A W Bowland, who wrote to Weber in English. I could only find one male named Bowland (the variant Boland) in Guernsey in the 1911 census, which was taken in April 1911, living in a street quite near Union Street in St Peter Port, from whence the postcard was later sent that year. This Bowland/Boland was a labourer working in the stone industry, aged 31, with a wife and two children. However, the initials don’t match. So the writer of the card could have traveled to Guernsey after the census was taken, perhaps to specifically do colporteur work.

     If that was the case, there was a British Bible Student Alfred Whittome Bowland, who was born in 1884 in Cambridgeshire. In the April 1911 census he is lodging with a family named Beavor in Middlesex, one of whom, Ernie Beavor, would have a long history with the Watch Tower Society. Alfred lists his occupation in 1911 as ‘Colporteur Bible and Tract.’ Later in 1916, while living at St Austell, Cornwall, he was a conscientious objector, listing himself as colporteur for a ‘Bible Tract Society’ and adding that he was an IBSA member. In 1938 he wrote a letter to The Watchtower (June 1^st issue) headed LORD IS USING PHONOGRAPH TO HIS PRAISE where he wrote “it has been a happy privilege to be twenty-seven years in the full-time service” – which would go back to 1911. He was currently working in the “special business house service.” The next year, in the UK 1939 census register, A W Bowland and wife Gertrude are listed as evangelists, but now in Northumberland. This same A W Bowland died in Swindon at the end of 1967 or early 1968 (death registered in the first quarter of 1968).

     On a personal note, I knew Ernie Beavor in the early 1970s when he stayed at my parents’ home, and also when A W Bowland died in Swindon I was “pioneering” in the next congregation. Unfortunately, I wasn’t researching this particular article at the time…

     So what does the postcard show? It takes the work in the Channel Islands back another fourteen years from the time the Widdells worked the area on bicycle. The Bible Students’ evangelising work was happening there way back in 1911. Since the card states: “we are still selling a good number of volumes here” perhaps even earlier. It may be that several Cornish colporteurs could have had ‘working’ holidays in the Channel Islands.

     This all illustrates that even the smallest piece of ephemera is well worth checking in the search for a more complete picture.

     With grateful thanks for Franco who supplied the postcard, Bernhard who provided the lead for Alfred W Bowland, and Gary who provided further research on World War 1 conscientious objectors. Truly a team effort.