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La préhistoire des témoins de Jéhovah

 La préhistoire des témoins de Jéhovah

Edition of the AEIMR (Association for Study and Information on Religious Movements); BP 70733, F. 57207 Sarreguemines cedex). 250 pages. Index €18 + €6 postage. (The AEIMR offers postage to subscribers to the Mouvements Religieux magazine )

I seldom allow book reviews. If my memory is accurate we’ve reviewed four books since I started this blog in 2007. I’ve read Professor Blandre’s newest book, despite my inadequate French. It is a worthwhile read. I take exception to his chart of origins found at the end, and there are a few points to which I will give some thought and some which are incorrect. But those are few. Bernard’s book dramatically contrasts with another recently published book; La préhistoire des témoins de Jéhovah is neutral, ethical research without an agenda.

Professor Blandre’s description of his book follows:

This book reviews the historical origins of Jehovah's Witnesses, but also many religious organizations which refer to the teaching of Charles Taze Russell without having ever belonged to the Jehovah's Witnesses: Bible students, Aurorists, Lay Interior Missionary Movement, friends of man ... Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses? 

It is said that Russell was the founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is true that they refer to him, that part of their teaching comes from him and that he was the creator of the Society of the Watchtower ( Watch Tower Bible an Tract Society ) which distributes the magazine  The Watchtower  and for which several million Jehovah's Witnesses circulate. 

But for Jehovah's Witnesses, Russell's teaching is outdated and after his death "the truth" has progressed.

It is only after Russell that the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to celebrate the religious holidays of other Christians: Christmas, Easter, etc. It is only after Russell that Jehovah's Witnesses consider the cross to be a pagan symbol. It is only after Russell that the Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions…

Russell taught that the soul is not immortal and that hell does not exist; but he only took over these beliefs from the Adventists who received them from George Storrs. 

Russell rejected belief in the Trinity; but he only took up what Henry Grew taught who had made Adventists admit this denial.

Russell is the one who taught that 144,000 anointed ones would be specially selected for leadership in the millennium. He had fixed the year 1914 as the end of the present "system of things." He taught that the great pyramid of Egypt announced this year 1914 by its dimensions. But he only repeated what Adventist Nelson Barbour had written before him. Jehovah's Witnesses no longer refer to the pyramid and have revised the 1914 meaning.

Russell taught that the restored Jewish people in Palestine would have leadership in the millennium. It was at a time when Israel did not exist. But he took this belief from Adventists in the age to come, and Jehovah's Witnesses now reject this doctrine.

Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate only one religious holiday each year: the memorial. It was George Storrs who introduced him to Russell. 

In fact Russell was not the creator of a new religion. He took up what his predecessors taught. His historic work has been to spell out details of a belief system that existed before him, and to have effectively made it known to a large number of people, groups and organizations, many of whom have remained more faithful to him than the Jehovah's witnesses.

The content of my book   La préhistoire des témoins de Jéhovah:

    This book presents the progressive creation of the belief system that Russell took up and disseminated. 

     The story begins in the late 18th century and ends in 1879, when Russell founded  Zion's Watch Tower magazine and became the true leader of the Bible Students, after his to be freed from the influence of one's main thought leaders. 

    This book is the result of research work which, without neglecting what has already been published, is based on the original sources published at the time of the events. 

    It is a book that respects the method and ethics of historical research: establishing the facts as they really happened. It is neither a book of propaganda, nor denigration, nor controversy. Jehovah's witnesses and Bible students who want to know the origin of their religion can read it without putting themselves in contradiction with their co-religionists, except intolerance. Those who have separated from the Jehovist organization, those who militate against the Jehovah's Witnesses can read it; they will be able to find objective arguments that they can interpret and avoid erroneous argumentation (No, the number of people saved is not limited to 144,000). And, perhaps most importantly, the author will take note with interest of the criticisms which could be addressed to him. 

Bernard Blandre

 

Kingdom Hymns 1925

 Thanks again to all who helped me find a digital edition. My copy - an original - was missing its last song. Now that I have a ebook edition, I'm selling my original to raise research funds. It's expensive, and I do not want anyone to buy the book just to fund my -very difficult- research. I hope who ever buys this really treasures our publications.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225666391286 

All in a Day's Work

A notice in the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle for November 26, 1892.

Transcribed it reads:

THE CELEBRATED WRITER, CHARLES T Russell, author of “Millennial Dawn,” will preach in Room 24, Cooper Union, N.Y., Sunday, November 27, at 10:30 A. M. Subject “In Our Days.” Seats free. All invited. He will also preach at 3 P. M. at Hardman Hall, New York, corner Fifth av and Nineteenth st., on “The Restitution of All Things,” and at 7:30 P. M. at same place, on “The Millennium and Its Day of Preparation.” Seats free.

All in a day’s work - three public lectures on three subjects.

Twenty years later CTR would be suing the Eagle over the miracle wheat cartoon, but now they were happy to take advertising for his work.

New to my Research Collection.

 

1925 Song Book

 I need a good pdf file of the 1925 song book, Kingdom Hymns. 

Dating the Bible House photo series

     

Most readers here will be familiar with the set of sixteen numbered photographs taken at the Bible House that were published in various places including as a set of postcards (see below).

     The most familiar pictures are probably CTR at his desk, and then the Bible House family (without CTR) having a group photograph taken outside the building.

     Can we date these photographs?

     We can start to narrow it down by the picture of CTR at his desk in his study. On the bookcase shelf to his right are the International Sunday School Lessons books for 1905 and 1906. Zion’s Watch Tower mirrored these lessons with its own comments on the Bible verses for many years. But this would suggest that the photograph was taken after 1906.

     At the end of 1908 they prepared to move to Brooklyn, so there would be no point in a series of promotional photographs for Bible House. New photographs were soon taken in Brooklyn and many of these can be found in the 1909 convention report.

     So most sources suggest the Bible House picture series dates from some time in 1907. We should also note that the group picture outside the main building includes Francis and Susan Winton, sitting together in the front row. They both died within days of each other in January 1908.

     We can now establish that the photo series was taken on May 3, 1907. A professional photographer, using a 5 x 7 inch glass plate camera, would probably have taken them all over one day, and one photograph contains a date.

     It is the Mail and Express Department.

     The three figures in the picture are (from left to right), Morgan T Lewis, Carl E Franklin and Frederick L Scheerer. Between Morgan and Carl on the wall is the number 3.

     You will not be able to see it on this reproduction, but if you had an original photograph and a strong magnifying glass or microscope you would see above the 3 in a darker color the year 1907. In between the 1907 and the number 3 is the month of May. So the calendar for this working day displays May 3, 1907. As noted above, the whole picture set was likely taken on that same day.

     With grateful thanks to Andrew F, Mike C, Brian K, and Bernhard B for their combined research which made this article possible.

Brooklyn Tabernacle

 

Update

 I'm experiencing difficult health issues, most of them age related. So my research has slowed to a crawl. I have some unanswered emails. If you're waiting on a reply, consider this to be it. If you said nice things about the blog or wished me well, you have my thanks.

If you want to help, research the post- 1881 interactions between Russell and Paton. Your summary should be footnoted to sources. I need something similar for the relations between Adams and Russell, also post- 1881.

I appreciate all my volunteers. 

I have three surgeries in August. I'll be "out of service" for about two or maybe three weeks. So if you want to write a guest post, now would be a good time. Maybe a summary of everything posted to this blog about A. D. Jones?

Pyramids

     The examination of Egyptian pyramids caused massive speculation in the 19^th century. Reflecting the religious beliefs of the Egyptians, with their concept of the afterlife, mixed in with astrology and the shape of the sun’s rays, the structures soon inspired theories as to their construction and purpose. In particular this applied to the Great Pyramid of Giza.

     The founding father of what came to be commonly known as pyramidology was John Taylor who published The Great Pyramid: Why was it Built? And Who Built it? in 1859. He greatly influenced Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, who followed with Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid in 1864. Smyth visited Egypt – something Taylor never did – and as a respected astronomer gained considerable attention. Moved by his beliefs, when he died in 1900, his monument in the graveyard of St. John’s Church, Sharow, near Ripon, was a pyramid.

Smyth’s pyramid – photo credit Julia & Keld

     After Smyth’s book, the baton was taken up by an American Lutheran minister, Joseph Augustus Seiss, in 1877, with the publication of The Great Pyramid of Egypt, Miracle in Stone. As a result, in the last few decades of the 19^th century many religious groups believed that the Giza pyramid was not a tomb, but had been constructed to reveal God’s plan for mankind to future generations. The measurements of certain features would equate to time periods, and would tie in with scripture.

     The concept was widely accepted, although the interpretations of the “evidence” varied from writer to writer. It also changed as different surveyors re-measured the edifice and came up with revised figures from those accepted by Seiss and early writers. Today it is often associated with Anglo-Israelites, those who believe that the ten lost tribes of Israel can be traced down to the British nation.

     Charles Taze Russell would be one of many who mentioned the pyramid. In his 1916 forward to Volume 3 of Studies, he wrote: “We have never attempted to place the Great Pyramid, sometimes called the Bible in Stone, on a parallel or equality with the Word of God as represented by the Old and New Testament Scriptures – the latter stand pre-eminent always as the authority.”

     However, he did view the Great Pyramid to be a corroborative witness.

     Certain other Bible Students focused on the pyramid far more extensively. William Wright corresponded with Piazzi Smyth (the correspondence is in Studies volume 3) and two brothers, John and Morton Edgar of Glasgow, wrote several books on the subject, including Great Pyramid Passages volumes 1 and 2.

     When the Watch Tower Society arranged for its own burial plot at United Cemeteries, Ross Township, a central memorial for the plot was designed by John Adam Bohnet in the shape of a pyramid. However, this was not a special sign or even a grave marker for any individual, but rather a communal monument designed to record the names of those buried on site in four quadrants around it, linked to the four pyramid sides. As it happened, only nine names were ever recorded before the idea was abandoned. The structure was eventually removed for safety reasons.

Pyramid (L) and CTR’s grave marker (R) c. 1921

     As time passed, general interest in pyramid theories waned in the mainstream. Finally, in 1928, after little comment for several years, the Watch Tower magazine produced two articles on the subject in the November 15 and December 1, 1928, issues. The gist of their arguments, which were against the Giza pyramid being of God, were reproduced in more recent times, in The Watchtower for May 15, 1956.

     The correspondence columns of the Watch Tower had various responses after the 1928 articles, best summed up by a future president of the Watch Tower Society (issue of July 1, 1929):

     The Golden Age magazine (January 23, 1929) had some fun naming certain individuals who no longer associated with the I.B.S.A. and who had made new predictions based on the pyramid. One was Morton Edgar.

     Of course, those who did not agree with the Watch Tower’s new position continued to believe in pyramidology, and in at least one case, tried to emulate Smyth. From a Yeovil (Somerset, UK) cemetery is this example.

     The last inscription on its sides was for Clara Hallett, who died in 1938.

     Her husband, Bible Student William Henry Hallett, had died in 1921.

     Perhaps surprisingly, the family who had done so much to promote the concept, the Edgars, did not go for a pyramid monument themselves. Most of the Edgars, including writers John and Morton, are buried in a family plot in the Eastwood (Old) Cemetery, Glasgow, and chose to have no monuments or headstones at all.

     With thanks to the Glasgow and West of Scotland Family History Society volunteer who checked the printed records and then took the photograph. There are sixteen Edgar graves (four plots, four deep) on either side of the tree in the middle of the picture. One wonders what size the tree was when the plots were sold originally,

     Perhaps to end on a really bizarre note:  London could today have had the largest pyramid in the world if the plans of architect Thomas Willson (1781-1866) had been realised. Detailed plans were drawn up and investors invited for what would be called The Metropolitan Sepulchre.

     It was designed to work a bit like a modern multi-storey car park and was to be built on top of Primrose Hill. Had it been approved it would have been four times the height of St Paul’s Cathedral, and would hold an estimated five million dead Londoners.

     What a landmark that would have become, towering far higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza if put side by side. The plans were first put before parliament in 1830, and later at the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition of 1851 for another proposed location. But ultimately garden cemeteries (out of town with help from new-fangled railways) and later crematoria were more practical solutions.

     Can you imagine the problems Willson’s pyramid would have caused for future generations when it was full? And what a useful landmark it could have been for German bombers in World War 2. One clear strike and there could have been five million extra cadavers spread across London. Now there’s an alternative history for you.

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.