Introduction to Chapter 2

2 Among the Second Adventists, Millenarians, and Age-to-Come Believers: 1869-1874

 

Wendell’s meeting at Quincy Hall, led Russell to an examination of the principal strands of prophetic thought. As Russell defined them these were Second Adventism, “Pre-Millenarianism,” and “Post-Millenarianism.” Of the three, pre-millennial thought would be most influential. Russell identified himself as a pre-millenarian rather than an Adventist, and others would do so with his evident approval. For instance, Russell reprinted a review of The Day of Vengeance that identified him as a pre-millennialist, though with a “more exalted idea of prophetic events than is common” to them.[1] A tract first published about 1914 and purporting to be by a former Millennial Dawn adherent calls Russell’s belief system “Millennial Dawnism that is also known as ‘Zion’s Watch Tower,’ [and] ‘Age-to-come.’” While the tract’s author appears to lie about her association with Watch Tower belief, one can note from it that even opponents associated Russell with Age-to-Come belief rather than Adventism.[2]

Russell summarized the belief systems in an article published in Zion’s Watch Tower.[3] He said that Second Adventists expect that Christ will soon appear as “a fleshly being in the sky”:

 

The Church will be caught up into the air above the earth and there remain with him, while fire and brimstone are rained upon the earth, burning it to a cinder. During the time it is burning, and until it cools off (probably thousands of years), Christ and the Church will be waiting in the clouds. These will then take possession of the earth, which will become as the Garden of Eden again. There they expect to “build houses and inhabit them, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them, and long enjoy the work of their hands.” There they expect to reign with Christ as kings and priests – over whom none can tell (unless it be over one another), since all the rest of mankind must have long since perished in the burning earth.

 

While Adventists were and are premillennialists, they were not within Russell’s definition of Pre-Millenarians. In America, the term Millenarian was unique to Age-to-Come[4] believers who congregated around a few periodicals but had little formal organization. Also known as Literalists, they expected Christ to come “unawares and gather the Church, and with them leave the world and go to heaven for a few years”:

 

During the absence of Christ and the Church, the world will be full of trouble, distress of nations, pouring out of the vials of wrath (more or less literal), etc. This trouble and distress will destroy or subdue unruly sinners, and then Christ Jesus and his church will return to earth and inhabit a New Jerusalem City which will (literally) descend from the sky. Christ and his saints--all glorious fleshly beings – [called spiritual as a compliment to Paul (1 Cor. 15:44-50), though held to be really fleshly] will then reign over the few of the nations which have survived the trouble. This reign will last a thousand years. Then the dead, so unfortunate as not to live during the Millennial age, will be brought out of a “lake of fire” to earth, and arraigned for mock trial and condemnation before Christ Jesus and his Church. All will speedily be condemned and sent back to hell for never ending ages; then Christ and the Church will go to heaven and deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, and the world will be set on fire and melted – possibly to become, at some future time, again a stage for combat between new races of men and devils; or possibly to continue to roll through space a blackened cinder, a lasting memorial of the lost cause of man’s dominion, and of God’s lack of wisdom in undertaking to establish an earthly government of which man should be king. (Psa. 8:6.)

 

He claimed that “Post-Millenarians” were by far the “largest class” and included nearly all orthodox Christians. These “claim, and with good reason …, that it would be very absurd to think of the glorious Christ and his Church (spiritual beings) either building houses and planting vineyards and enjoying the work of their hands, or reigning and living in a city in Palestine. They think this would be progress backward and not forward. During this age, say they, the church walks by faith and not by sight. … They claim that the Millennium … will be marked by no visible manifestation of Christ …, but that the Church, in her present condition, will stem the tide of evil and cause righteousness to prevail, and that thus God’s kingdom – church – (which they claim is now reigning) will conquer the world, and bring about the foretold blessedness and happiness to fill the earth. All this is to be accomplished without Jesus’ personal presence here.”

Russell read the publications of each group. He quoted their principal authors and read their journals, but he was most influenced by a subset of the Millenarian (Age-to-Come, Literalist) movement. The principal approach to prophetic studies in the United Kingdom and in the United States from the colonial era to Russell’s day was Literalist. Almost without exception, every important and most minor American expositors before the Millerite Movement were Literalists. As the name implies, Literalists believed the prophetic promises should be taken literally. Spiritualizing prophecy, if done at all, should be limited to those elements found in apostolic writing.

As a principal of prophetic interpretation, it arose on the European continent and in the United Kingdom at nearly the same time. Arguably, it’s an apostolic view with an ages-long history, but for our purposes we’ll focus on the resurgence of prophetic study that began near the start of the 17^th Century. American Literalists, especially among Age-to-Come believers, admired the Dutch theologian Campegius Vetringa. He was a post-millennialist, adopting some of Daniel Whitby’s pernicious theories,[5] but his approach to exposition remained Literalist. His principal of interpretation was “that we must never depart from the literal meaning of the subject mentioned in its own appropriate name if its principal attributes square with the subject of the prophecy.”[6]

Johann August Ernesti’s (1707-1781) dictum that it was right to hold the literal sense to be the only true interpretation was also much admired by American and British literalists.^[7] Other German prophetic students, notably Johannes Piscator (1546-1625), held similar beliefs.^[8] German prophetic thought would enter Russell’s notice through J. A. Seiss’s Last Times. Literalists took the Bible in its plain sense without spiritualizing it. Adventists were willing to spiritualize some parts of it, finding prophetic symbolisms in statements taken at face value by others.

Many of those who espoused Millerism came from a Literalist background and continued to read Literalist works. The Christian Observer, a British journal, was republished in the United States. From its first year of publication (1802), it presented articles on prophecy by Literalist authors. The American Millenarian and Prophetic Review and The Literalist were published during the Millerite miss-adventure. Both papers advocated a plain-sense interpretation. One critic noted that the “central law of interpretation by which millenarians profess always to be guided is that of giving the literal sense.”[9] The Literalist, published by Orrin Rogers of Philadelphia, reprinted of works by British expositors such as Bickersteth, Brooks, and Cuninghame.

Millerite Second Adventists read these authors, and were willing to accept Literalist support for the message of Christ’s near return. Some effort was made to reach out to British Millenarians though it was rebuffed. Millerites expected some sort of compromise from British Literalists. It was not forthcoming. Joshua V. Himes recalled the attempt in terms that show the exchange as less than pleasant:

 

The Millennarians [sic] holding these views and looking for the speedy coming of Christ have become very numerous in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Indeed some of the brightest lights of those countries are of that school. In 1840 an attempt was made to open an interchange between the Literalists of England and the Adventists in the United States. But it was soon discovered that they had as little fellowship for our Anti-Judaizing notions as we had for their Judaism, and the interchange was broken off.[10]

 

It is a mistake to attribute the growth of Literalist belief to Millerite failure. It was the strongly held belief of many prior to their entry into Millerism and would remain such after they left the movement. Men such as Joseph Marsh and John Thomas did not originate Literalism’s characteristic doctrines. They were held by most Colonial Era expositors. J. S. Hatch, Ephraim Miller, Jr., A. N. Symore, E. Hoyt, S. A. Chaplin, and Henry Grew, among others, were heavily involved in the Christian Connexion (aka Christian Connection) before the rise of Millerism.[11] These men returned to their Literalist, Age-to-Come roots, and to some degree each would influence Russell’s thinking.

During the 1843-1844 craze, some Millerites continued to teach Literalist doctrine and circulate books by British writers to the great distaste of their brethren. This became an issue when Millerites were impelled into a separate denominational existence. Previously they saw themselves as representatives of diverse denominations but brethren on the basis of an earnest belief in Christ’s impending return. With a move toward unity, abortive though it may have been, doctrinal diversity was less desirable.

A hallmark of the Literalist system is belief that God would return the Jews to the Promised Land probably before conversion. Another doctrine advocated by some Literalists was a sort of “second probation.” A Millerite conference held at Boston in May 1842 soundly rejected Literalist belief, passing a resolution that condemned both doctrines: “No portion of the New Testament scriptures give [sic] the most indirect intimation of the literal restoration of the Jews to old Jerusalem,” the resolution read. “We believe that the arguments drawn from the Old Testament prophecies are based on a mistaken view of those prophecies; and that they have been fulfilled in what the gospel has already done, or remain to be fulfilled in the gathering of all the spiritual seed of Abraham into the New Jerusalem.” The resolution claimed that “the notion of the return of the carnal Jews to Palestine either before or after the Second Advent” was a “snare by which many will be lost forever.”

Second probationism was treated similarly: “The notion of a probation after Christ’s coming is a lure to destruction, entirely contradictory to the word of God.”[12] Whether one hears the gospel or not, one’s fate is determined now, and one is destined to heaven or hell during this life. Another issue not raised at the conference was the fate and endurance of the earth. Probation doctrine teaches that humanity is on trial in this life.

George Storrs, a well-known Millerite Adventist, wrote an article refuting belief in the conversion and return of the Jews. Published in the February 17, 1843, issue of The Midnight Cry!, the article made several key points:

 

It is said, “The world cannot come to an end yet, for the Jews are to be brought in first:” it is added, “God must have some great design in having kept the Jews a distinct people for the last 1800 years:” and, it is asked “What can that design be but their conversion to Christianity?”

 

In reply, I remark, God has not “kept the Jews a distinct people: Here is the root of the error of our opponents in regard to the Jews. I will not deny but that they are a distinct people; but, the question is, who has kept them so? Our opponents say God has’ but I deny it. God has no more kept the Jews a distinct people than he has kept drunkards “a distinct people;” or than he has kept Mormons, or Mohammedans, or Papists, or liars, or any other class of the wicked or deluded men, “a distinct people.” The fact is, God broke down the “partition wall” between Jews and Gentiles by the death of his Son; and never intended that any distinction should exist after “the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” That “seed is Christ” ….

 

To talk about God’s Keeping “The Jews a distinct people,” in the face of such positive declarations of the Bible to the contrary, it seems to me, shows a strong disposition to maintain a theory at all hazards.[13]

 

An emphatic rejection of “Judaizing” continued throughout the Millerite period. For instance, early in 1844, Enoch Jacobs published a pamphlet entitled The Doctrine of a Thousand Years Millennium, and the Return of the Jews to Palestine, Before the Second Advent of Our Savior, Without Foundation in the Bible.

 

Defining the Difference

 

            As disappointed adherents returned to their previous belief systems, Millerites saw the need to define the difference between Literalist (Soon to be called “Age-to-Come” belief in America) and Millerite belief. Writing in the May 1844 issue of Advent Shield, J. V. Himes defined the differences this way:

 

The distinction between Adventists and Millennarians, is, – The Millennarians believe in the pre-millennial advent of Christ, and his personal reign for a thousand years before the consummation or end of the present world, and creation of the new heavens and earth, and the descent of the New Jerusalem. While the Adventists believe the end of the world or age, the destruction of the wicked, the dissolution of the earth, the renovation of nature, the descent of New Jerusalem, will be beginning of the thousand years. The Millennarians believe in the return of the Jews, as such, either before, at, or after the advent of Christ, to Palestine, to possess that land a thousand years, while the Adventists believe that all the return of the Jews to that country, will be the return of all the pious Jews who have ever lived, to the inheritance of the new earth, in their resurrection state. When Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with all their natural seed who have been of the faith of Abraham, together with all pious Gentiles, will stand up together, to enjoy an eternal inheritance, instead of possessing Canaan for a thousand years.

 

The Millennarians believe a part of the heathen world will be left on the earth, to multiply and increase, during the one thousand years, and to be converted and governed by the glorified saints during that period; while the Adventist believe that when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, then he shall be seated on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from the other, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. He shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. That one part will go away into everlasting (eternal) punishment, but the righteous into life eternal. They cannot see any probation for any nation, either Jew or Gentile, after the Son of Man comes in his glory, and takes out his own saints from among all nations. They also believe “God will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.”

 

The Millennarians believe that the saints must have mortal men in a state of probation, for a thousand years, as their subject, in order for them to reign as kings; for, say they, how can they reign without subjects? To which the Adventists reply, If it is necessary for them to have such subjects for a thousand years to reign, by the same rule they must have them eternally; for “they shall reign forever and ever.” – Rev. xxii:5.[14]

 

            There are errors in this definition as there are in any definition of a broad and varied movement, but this is reasonably accurate. The Age-to-Come movement was not monolithic but composed of many independently-minded believers and congregations, each with their own doctrinal system. Historians of these movements tend to point to the founders of each church system as the originator of the doctrines. In fact, most of the beliefs seen as unique and developed by or rediscovered by the “founders” were previously believed by others including their contemporaries. Age-to-Come belief was the norm prior to the Millerite movement. Though L. E. Froom (Prophetic Faith of our Fathers) was anxious to hide the fact, most of the prophetic expositors he describes as forerunners to the Millerite movement believed Literalist, Age-to-Come doctrine. The most we can ascribe to Joseph Marsh, the Wilsons, John Thomas and others like them is a return to or an adaptation of views held by others for centuries before the Millerite movement.

            Russell had some interaction with most Age-to-Come groups. He was drawn to and associated with individuals and congregations who centered on The Restitution, a newspaper most clearly identified with Joseph Marsh’s work and with Benjamin Wilson and his tribe of relatives. He would write to, visit, preach with, and identify with many of the most prominent of those who wrote for or preached in association with Restitution. Many of these congregations adopted names such as One Faith, Church of God, Church of Christ, or compromise names such as The Second Advent Church of God. The Restitution was brought to birth by Thomas Wilson in 1871, and by 1872 he was calling it the “organ of Servants of Jesus Christ.”[15] In 1873 Wilson described the paper as “the recognized organ of a religious society known as Marturions.”[16] There were many independent congregations who disagreed on minor and sometimes major points of doctrine. Because names were variable and changeable we will describe them most generally as One Faith.

            David Graham wrote that the antecedents of the Church of God General Conference (Abrahamic Faith) “did not irresponsibly go to extremes, as did Storrs, to shelter such faction [sic] as the Russellites, British Israel, or even the Pyramid Theorists, even though references to them may have been made time and again from various authors.”[17] This is a misleading, self-serving mythology. Graham’s statement is wrong. Not only did Russell and his associates find a congenial home among the One Faith antecedents to the Church of God (Abrahamic Faith), but there was a strong interest in Pyramid symbolism, particularly in the 1870s and 80s, within the One Faith movement. Thomas Wilson, Benjamin Wilson’s nephew, wrote frequently about the symbolism of the Great Pyramid.[18] Jonathan Perkins Weethee, a geologist and college president turned Age-to-Come believer, was well respected by Restitution’s editors. He believed the Saxons were the “lost tribes” of Israel, that most white Americans were descended from Manasseh, and that the Great Pyramid was inspired of God.[19] Restitution readers and writers formed friendships with Russell, and he found a comfortable home among the One Faith antecedents to the CoGGC until about 1880 and continued association with some of its members into the 1890s.

 

J. P Weethee

 

            By the mid-Twentieth Century, Abrahamic Faith writers were describing the Age-to-Come movement as Adventist, primarily because everyone else did. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Jan Stilson pointed out that Age-to-Come/One Faith believers originally rejected the name Adventist and held a significantly different doctrine. “The Church of God has historically coined itself as being Adventist, meaning that it was developed in the aftermath of the Millerite movement …. This may be a misnomer … Adventists believed a different set of doctrines than the Age-to-Come advocates.”[20] There was, in fact, considerable tension between the two groups. By the 1870s the differences led to irreconcilable animosity. George Stetson who preached in association with the Advent Christians would complain of it. Others would as well. J. W. Houghawout and George M. Myers, Age-to-Come evangelists, were banned by vote of the congregation from ever again preaching to the Advent Christian congregation in Traer, Iowa. Houghawout’s version of events is a colorful and accurate portrayal of inter-group tension:

 

I came out of the M.[ethodist] E.[piscopal] Church into the Advent Christian Church, but when I began to preach the restoration of Israel and the reign of Christ and his brethren over the nation, they cast me out; and as I owned the church building they could not stop me from preaching, they quit coming and would not hear. This was in Cherokee. At Traer the Advent Christian church voted that Brother G. M. Myers and I should never preach in their church again. I hope our Advent friends will soon see the folly of rejecting the restoration spoken of by all his holy prophets[21]

 

Tensions between Age-to-Come believers and Millerite Adventists were evident from the first. Acrimonious exchanges, partisan labels (ie. Judaizers), and a firm refusal to see any holding Age-to-Come faith as true believers characterized the two first decades of the Advent Christian Society. By the 1870s many believers gravitated to the two independent Age-to-Come bodies, the Christadelphians and the One Faith movement centered on The Restitution. This accelerated as the Advent Christians moved from being an association of those who believed in the near return of Christ to a denomination with a narrower doctrinal set.  In the late 1860s complaints against some Advent Christian churches were voiced in The World’s Crisis. These were two-sided. Some congregations, it was said, would not receive any evangelist who did not believe Age-to-Come doctrines, and others would not receive anyone who did.

By the very early 1870s attempts to preserve unity had failed. The Advent Christian Times, through its editor Frank Burr, maintained a constant attack on Age-to-Come belief, especially as represented by the One Faith movement. In mid 1875 Burr wrote an editorial suggesting that there should be no “controversy.” His vision of peace was the ostracism of One Faith believers. Amos Sanford, a prominent One Faith evangelist, took up Burr’s attack, assessing

it as coming from a well of theological frustration:

Evidently some of the “one faith” contenders, whom he denominates “theological gladiators,” have been attacking him with the “sword of the spirit” and controverting his “advent faith.” He doesn’t seem to care so much for Himself as for his flock whom he advises to have no “controversy” with “theological gladiators,” but to patiently endure “the trying ordeal.” He tells them that “the spirit of God is not a spirit of controversy or contention.” Strange as it may appear, in the very same issue, under the head of “What Next?” the editor enters into a controversy with his brethren, Dr. N. H. Barbour and Wm. C. Thurman. The former he denounces as a “fanatical leader on definite time,” and speaks of his disappointed Brother Thurman in a manner calculated to stir up feelings of unkindness instead of brotherly love. With their controversy I have nothing to do, for the reason that it is about the “advent faith,” and not the “one faith.” But one can not help reflecting that Adventism had its birth in 1843-4. It was begotten by its partisan leader, “Father Miller,” and brought forth by its mother, “Definite Time.” The Times has heretofore endorsed “Thurman’s Chronology,” and asserted the probability of his ’75 definite time calculation being correct. Now that time is past, and those honest, earnest believers in Adventism are smarting under the failure in their calculations of the prophetic periods, isn’t it a little unkind in friend Burr to cast the same in their teeth?^[22]

 

Tension between the two belief systems was not new to the 1870s, but increasing tension brought matters to a head in that decade. When The Restitution changed hands in 1874, the Advent Christian Times sniffed that it was “patronized by a portion of those who believe in probation after the Lord comes.” The Restitution was, he explained, an exchange, “and we find many excellent things in it concerning the present age, but when it treats of the Age-to-Come we are filled with righteous doubt.” Within a few years the Times would call Age-to-Come belief “trash.”[23]

In September 1875, Amos Sanford wrote to The Restitution complaining that “the Adventists refused to meet with us in conferences or general meetings. One of them had said he would give me a mule if I would join the Advent conference, and I gave him a chance to ‘come and let us reason together’ to see if it would be right for me to accept the mule on those conditions. The brethren of the ‘one faith,’ ‘few in numbers,’ had a good meeting.”[24] Hiram Reed, then editor of The Restitution, remarked: “The petty persecutions of professed brethren, who should be our warmest friends, are galling to the spirit, and help to make this life, God knows troubled enough already, still more painful. Would they but stop a moment and remember that evil done to God’s people can do no good, whereas it does the flock … harm, they would perhaps relent. O when will men bearing the Christ’s name cease to treat each other with imperious cruelty!”[25]

In late 1877 the Advent Christian Association passed a resolution ordering that “appointments to preach shall not be published in their organ, the ‘World’s Crisis,” for anyone who believes … in … ‘age to come.’” S. W. Bishop responded by calling it “a relic of the barbarism that has prevailed for centuries in the mother church.” He said it identified Adventists as a daughter of Mystic Babylon.[26]

Because there was little organization and there were few exclusively Age-to-Come congregations, some One Faith believers continued to associate with Adventists. In 1879, a Mary Bush wrote to S. A. Chaplin, Restitution’s editor, that she and “quite a number of others” were associated with Adventists “because there is nowhere else we can go.” She suggested that Age-to-Come believers who shared her situation could “do them more good by being with them than by withdrawing.” Association with Adventists was frustrating: “They held their annual conference here … . The hall was crowded. I thought what a great opportunity to present a little more gospel, but we did not get it; they have dropped definite time and do not preach quite so much fire, so I think there is some improvement.” Age-to-Come evangelists remained active among Adventists, targeting those with an ear to hear.^[27]

Another letter to The Restitution published later that year summarizes the relationship between One Faith and Adventists. Abby A. Perry’s letter told of her experiences in Providence, Rhode Island:

 

I found among the so-called Adventists there some of the greatest opposers to the Age-to-Come, or reign of Christ on David’s throne, future, that I have ever met, but I did not shun to declare the whole counsel of God and his servants on that subject to them; but contended earnestly in public, and in private with them, for the faith once delivered to the saints.^[28]

 

The controversies with Adventists (and among themselves) were extensive and diverse. A. R. Underwood, Restitution’s editor in the late 1890s, described them as “discussions … over the Three-fact Gospel, the world-burning theory, the Restoration of Israel, The Age-to-Come doctrine, what baptism was for, what to believe as pre-requisite to baptism, the essential gospel, the covenant of promise, etc.”[29] These controversies defined them as a body, and they also built Russell’s theology.

By 1880 the best part of Restitution’s relationship with Adventists was expressed in a letter to the editor which called them “our half-brethren – the Adventists.”[30] By 1896, W. H. Wilson made a clear distinction between “members of the true Church of God, and either the First or the Seventh Day Adventists,” adding that “with regard to communing with Adventists, I would say, what fellowship can obedient gospel believers have with those who destroy the gospel?”[31] The anti-Adventist feeling was bitter. An Ira Hall wrote, “I had rather go to a place where they have never heard anything [of the gospel], than go into a [World’s] Crisis’ Advent community.”[32] By this period the two bodies were distinctive in doctrine, point of view, and personality, and they often would not worship with each other. Another letter to The Restitution said: “We have a church here. They style themselves Adventists, but do not fellowship [with] us, so we cannot worship with them. They reject the glorious doctrine of the age to come.”[33] Though there was a significant antipathy between the two bodies, prominent Church of God (Abrahamic Faith) evangelists continued to fellowship with and sometimes informally debate Russell.

Plainly One Faith and other Age-to-Come believers did not see themselves as Adventists. Their distinctive doctrine marked them as something else. There was, until three quarters of a century later, little peace between the two bodies. The Advent Christian Church defined itself in the 1870s in ways that alienated those who believed in the nearness of Christ’s return but not in the Adventists’ world-burning, spiritualizing doctrine. This is an important fact. Those who see Russell’s connections to Second Adventists as defining him as a closet Adventist miss his vital connections to One Faith belief. To accurately understand his theology, we must recapture the sources of his belief. They are not derived from Adventism but from One Faith doctrine.

 

Jonas Wendell

 

Jonas Wendell’s preaching was Russell’s introduction to a diverse pre-millennialist culture. Russell’s description of the dusty, dingy hall and his cursory summary of their exchanges are almost all the details Russell provides. He says that this occurred “about 1869.”[34] And elsewhere he dates his encounter with Wendell to “nearly two years” after leaving Plymouth Congregational Church.[35] We can probably date this to sometime after mid-February 1869 and before mid-May the same year.

Wendell spoke in Lafayette Hall in late January. Soon after Wendell’s lecture, the Pittsburgh believers rented Quincy Hall for regular meetings. Notices of meeting times were published. Russell met Wendell sometime after the Lafeyette Hall meeting, a conclusion we reach by noting that Russell stepped into their usual meeting place, their rented hall. Wendell and Russell quickly developed a friendship, and Russell remembered him as “my friend Jonas Wendell.”[36]

Wendell was born December 25, 1814, in Minden, Montgomery County, New York, to Jacob and Magdalena (Snyder) Wendell. They christened him in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Minden Township, on January 22, 1815. Before his conversion to Christianity and Adventism, he was involved in Whig Party politics, serving as a delegate to the Young Men’s Whig Senatorial Convention at Saratoga Springs in August 1839.[37]

---

[1]           Russell self-identifies as a pre-millennialist in an interview published in the December 26, 1878, issue of the Indianapolis, Indiana, Sentinel. The review from John O’Groat Journal is copied in the March 1, 1898, issue of Zion’s Watch Tower, page 80. The review was by G. M. Fife and is found in the December 3, 1897, John O’Groat Journal, published in Wick, Scotland.

[2]           Emma Doolittle: Millennial Dawnism, later reprint by Faith Publishing House, Guthrie, Oklahoma, no date but originally not earlier than 1914.

[3]           C. T. Russell: A Harmonious View, Zion’s Watch Tower, April 1883, page 5ff.

[4]           “Age to come” is a biblical phrase. It was used early in the Millerite movement, but not always to refer to Literalist doctrine. The term was not exclusive to Millerites or Literalists but being a Biblical phrase was used by others. 

[5]           For a discussion of Whitby’s theories see Froom’s Prophetic Faith.

[6]           Hatchet: Destiny of Man in the Ages to Come, The Millenarian, February 1887, page 1. Vitringa (1659-1722) was professor of Oriental languages and later professor of Theology and sacred history at the University of Franeker. His major prophetic statement was Anacrisis Apocalypsios Johannis Apostoli, published in 1719.

[7]           Institutio Interpretis Novi Testamenti, 1761.

[8]           J. Piscator: Commentarii in Omnes Libros Novi Testamenti, 1613.

[9]           Modern Millenarianism, The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, January 1853, page 68.

[10]          J. V. Himes: The Rise and Progress of Adventism, Advent Shield and Review, May 1844, page 92.

[11]          For a helpful article see David Graham: The Age-to-Come Influence of Elias Smith, Church of God General Conference History News Letter, Summer, 1984, page 1. The claim that Elias Smith was the first to preach Age-to-Come made in the Editorial accompanying the article, (see page 10) is, of course, false.

[12]          The resolution is reproduced in full in L. E. Froom: Prophetic Faith of our Fathers, volume 4, pages 617-618.

[13]          G. Storrs: The Return of the Jews, The Midnight Cry! February 17, 1843, page 1. (Pages are not numbered in this issue.)

[14]          J. V. Himes: The Rise and Progress of Adventism, Advent Shield and Review, May 1844, pages 47-48.

[15]          The Story of Chicago in Connection with the Printing Business, Regan Printing House, Chicago, 1912, page 203. Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, 1872 edition, page 31.

[16]          Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, 1873 edition, page 53. Marturion is the Greek word for Testimony. Wilson’s conception was of a society of witnesses to God’s word and work.

[17]          David Graham: The Old Union Church and the Church of God Abrahamic Faith in Indiana, Church of God General Conference History Newsletter, Autumn 1984, footnote 8 on page 7.

[18]          Thomas Wilson wrote in Our Rest: “I have been for some time prayerfully engaged in the study of that greatest wonder of earth (The Great Pyramid), ‘the witness,’ and the Lord has at last blessed my investigations by revealing to me what I sought after, viz., a perfect chronology, reaching back to the beginning of the world. I have felt impressed for some time with the idea that this building of His, so perfect in all other respects, would not fall short here, and so it has proven. The testimony is gradually being given, and in every instance it witnesses for the truth of that good old book, the Holy Bible.” – Quoted in B. W. Savile: Anglo-Israelitism & the Great Pyramid, London, 1880, page 102. Wilson wrote a series of articles on the Great Pyramid in the 1880s. Two of the most significant are found in the January and November issues of Our Rest. These were picked up and commented on by The International Standard: A Magazine Devoted to … The Great Pyramid. See the May 1884 issue, pages 117, 124.

[19]          See his The Eastern Question in its Various Phases, Columbus, Ohio, 1887.

[20]          Jan Stilson: Editorial, Church of God General Conference History Newsletter, Autumn 1984.

[21]          J. W. Houghawout: Report of Labors, The Restitution, August 14, 1875.

[22]          Amos Sanford: Controversy, The Restitution, June 23, 1875.

[23]          Advent Christian Times as quoted in H. V. Reed: Doubt Castle Invaded, The Restitution, December 16, 1874. Characterization of Age-to-Come as “trash”: Advent Christian Times, July 18, 1877.

[24]          Amos Sanford to The Restitution in the September 19, 1875 issue.

[25]          Untitled short article, The Restitution¸ September 15, 1875.

[26]          S. W. Bishop: Wherein Lies the Difference, Bible Examiner, December 1877, page 52.

[27]          Mary Bush: Letter to S. A. Chaplin in the January 22, 1879, issue of Restitution.

[28]          Abby A. Perry: Letter to S. A. Chaplin in the April 16, 1879, issue of Restitution.

[29]          “The Covenants of Promise” Again, The Restitution, May 10, 1899. Three-fact gospel debate is a reference to Christadelphian teaching that the gospel is more than the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and includes "things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ."

[30]          Letter from P. A. Brown to Editor The Restitution, found in the July 28, 1880, issue.

[31]          W. H. Wilson: What is the Difference? The Restitution, July 8, 1896.

[32]          Letter from Ira R. Hall to The Restitution, August 12, 1896.

[33]          Letter to the Editor (Signature is unreadable on our copy), The Restitution, May 20, 1896.

[34]          C. T. Russell: To Readers of the Herald of the Morning, Supplement to July 1879 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower.

[35]          1912 Convention Report, page 134.

[36]          C. T. Russell: Harvest Siftings and Gatherings, Zion’s Watch Tower, July 15, 1906, page 230.

[37]          Montgomery County, Albany, New York, Evening Journal, August 19, 1839.

Our Thanks to "Ton" who is a stellar researcher ....

 

Click to view entire image.

In volume 2

We consider the nature and formation of early congregations in volume 2. They struggled with a name. Russell's early exposure to One Faith/Age-to-Come belief (adherents of millenarianism as connected to The Restitution, a religious newspaper) led him to reject names beyond "Christians" or "Church of God." Individual congregations adopted a variety of names. One of these was "Church of the Firstborn." That name lead to confusion because a predominately Black church used it. In New York State several congregations used the name "Church of the Little Flock." In that connection we present this article taken from the Broome, New York, Republican, November 9, 1901. You may have to click on the image to view the entire article.

Update on B. F. Land.

... We're duplicating each others' work. So I'm posting a few paragraphs from Chapter 4 where Land appears in the story:

            Margaret (spelled Margareta in the 1880 Census) dated her “knowledge of the truth” to about 1874 making her about eighteen or nineteen years old. Of course, this does not mean she didn’t attend the class earlier. Her reference was to her “consecration” and baptism. By 1876 she was married to Benjamin Franklyn Land. We have not located a marriage record, but census records tell us that she had her first child, a daughter named Ada, that year. Was B. F. Land a member of the Allegheny Study Group? We think so, but we lack satisfyingly sound documentation.

            Land came from a Methodist background. His father attended that church. To distinguish themselves one of them used the name “Frank.”[1] Frankly, we don’t know which was which, though we suspect that Frank was the father. We base that on a Civil War pension application where the father is listed as “Frank.” They were both cabinet makers, working in the same shop. Thurston’s Directory for 1873-1874 only lists one of them, giving his occupation as architect. In 1875, B. F. Land is a partner in the firm Getchell & Land, carpenters and builders. This appears to be Margaret’s husband because we have him living at 80 Cedar Avenue, Allegheny in 1878, an address that matches the census records for Benjamin and Margaret. The marriage date alone is enough to suppose that B. F. Land was a member of the Bible Class, though probably a late-comer to it. We do not know how deep his interest was or how lasting.

            Additionally, we find in June 1874 Bible Examiner a request for tracts sent from B. F. Land. This is a strong indicator that he was present at Storrs’ lecture earlier that year. Also noted in that issue are letters from J. L. Russell, G. D. Clowes, and W. H. Conley. Another indicator is a brief article, apparently originally a letter to the editor, that we find in the April 21, 1875, issue of The Restitution. The article is merely a quotation from the Bible book of Revelation. Entitled “What the Spirit Saith,” it is signed Benjamin R. Land.  A poorly written copperplate R and an F are easily confused. We suspect this is from Margaret’s husband. If so, it shows him as interested in One Faith belief and anxious to encourage others.

Researchers have issued statements suggesting the number of original participants ranging from a definite “five” to “about ten.”  Names are suggested that are patently impossible. Russell gives us an indefinite “small.” Bible Classes of this sort were made up of friends who held similar interests though not necessarily to the same religion. Russell ever distinguishes between the Age-to-Come congregation and the Bible Class. We should take him at his word. They saw themselves as independent body.

---

[1]           Thurston’s Directory: 1870-1871, page 225.

Wherefore Art Thou Benjamin?

Does anyone out there have any information from Ancestry or a similar site about Benjamin Land?

As this time of writing, I cannot put my hand on any primary documentation, but we know that CTR’s sister, Margaret married Benjamin F Land in the mid-1870s. Margaret was born in 1855, so would have been around 20 years old at the time of the marriage. Their first child, Ada, was reportedly born in 1876. Ada was followed by Alice (b.1878), Joseph (b.1880) and May F (Thelma) (b.1886).

Alice married Fred Williamson, and May (Thelma) married Carl Kendall. Both couples allegedly worked at Bethel at one point.

Benjamin Land was born in Penn. (as were his parents) around 1849, and was apparently a cabinet maker. He and his family later lived in Tampa, Florida.

The reason for the query is an interesting note in George Storrs’ Bible Examiner for June 1874, page 288. Storrs had just returned from a two week visit to Pittsburgh in early May where he first met Joseph Lytel Russell. (Storrs would subsequently publish letters from Joseph L and other Allegheny and Pittsburgh residents, like William Conley and George Clowes).

Hot on the heels of his return, Storrs obviously had requests for literature, and so on the aforementioned page 288, he published this note:

Parcels sent to May 25 – Wm H Conley (2 parcels), G D Clowes Sen., B F Land, J L Russell and Son (by Express). 

Conley, Clowes and Russell were all contacts from that recent visit. But there in the middle we see that a parcel was also sent to B F Land. Is it a stretch of the imagination that he also was an Allegheny or Pittsburgh resident at this time? And that he was to marry CTR’s sister? And that maybe their meeting was in connection with the One Faith meetings and activities of that era?

It’s just a footnote of potential human interest.

 

What we know ... What we need.

From August 1878 to July 1879 Paton traveled, lecturing in various places. Some we can guess. Two we know. Barbour says Paton preached in Rochester. So we know that. Thanks to Ton who sent the file, we know he preached in Cleveland, Ohio.

We would like a more complete record. I'm at a loss. Ton is our super finder of newspaper articles. If he can't find it, I certainly can't. Anyone want to tackle this?

We need scaned (or originals) of anti-Russell booklets published in his life time. We have some. We need others. This may seem strange to some of you, but we've found interesting details in these booklets. One by a former Barbourite gave us interesting detial. We don't  have Eseek Wolcott's (associate of Wendell) booklet. So if you have anything like this, even if you think it's pretty much worthless, contact us.

We're still researching the last chapter of volume one. And we're working on edits and corrections and slight addisitons to the other chapters.

More detail would be nice. Anyone?

More files from "Ton" - Click to View Entire File

With thanks to "Ton" who sent the files - click the image to view entire

Where Oh Where

From World’s Hope notices throughout 1890 (volume 8)

 

Many rare historical materials have not survived because they were in newspaper format and so viewed more as ephemera at the time of publication. A classic example of this is George Storrs’ Bible Examiner for 1871-73. The two years it was a weekly paper do not appear to have survived – which is a great pity since those years might have yielded useful historical information. Once Storrs’ paper became a monthly magazine in 1873 and bound volumes were offered to the public, then it survived.

So where oh where have John Paton’s World’s Hope magazines gone? Above are advertisements found in issues throughout 1890 (volume 8) offering bound volumes to whoever would buy them for all but the first year (which we know has survived).

But whatever happened to the other volumes listed above? Have they all failed to survive? Is there anyone out there who can shed light on any further sources other than the Detroit library system that likely has volumes 1-2, and the Almont library system and Aurora University library that have some later issues?  Many early associates of ZWT were attracted to Paton’s theology and wrote letters to his magazine. The earlier years should therefore be a useful historical source – if they still exist.

 

Muddying the Waters

by "Jerome"

Since the introductory essay published in a post below strongly attacks the concept so favored by many writers, that CTR’s Bible Students were an Adventist offshoot, it seemed a good idea to republish an article that originally appeared on blog 2 about eighteen months ago. This is featured below without any revision or updating.

 Today, with all the documentation available to us, we can see more clearly the connections and differences between various developing views in the 19^th century. If you lived at the time – particularly if you were an onlooker – it would be very easy to lump a number of disparate groups together under one label. Sometimes the groups in question didn’t help matters by the terms they used. The article tried to illustrate the problem, which can cloud judgments today.

 

At the outset, I must warn readers that this has little to do with CTR’s actual history. If it supplies anything at all to the project it will only be a footnote. However, it has often been erroneously stated that CTR’s main inspiration came from Adventism, whereas it has now been established on this blog that the Age to Come movement was far more influential. In view of this, it is interesting (to this writer at least) to see how the distinction between Adventist and Age to Come both evolved, and yet at times was blurred, in the latter 19^th century – long after CTR had gone his own way.

Even researchers who acknowledge Age to Come believers have lumped them together as Adventists. A typical example is the thesis by the late David Arthur of Aurora University, ‘Called Out of Babylon,’ which discussed people like Marsh and Storrs under the chapter title ‘Age to Come Adventists.’ Storrs would not have approved.

As the Advent Christian Church became a denomination with a specific statement of belief, so Age to Come adherents found associating with them more problematic. Ultimately, people who had fellowshipped together – albeit uneasily – increasingly divided into separate parties.

A letter in The Restitution for July 28, 1880, called Adventists “half brethren”. Reading through some Restitutions for the 1890s, they weren’t even being awarded that backhanded honor by then.

And yet...

 

On the ground, there remained some confusion in the public consciousness as to who was actually who.

However, first – to illustrate how feelings within the Age to Come community became increasingly anti-Adventist, a few choice quotations from the Restitution from the 1890s:

From the pen of W.H. Wilson in Restitution for July 8, 1896, page 1: “There is a marked distinction between Adventists, and true members of the Church of God, who believe and obey the gospel of the Kingdom. With regard to communing with Adventists, I would say, what fellowship can obedient gospel believers have with those who destroy the gospel? We must be firm in the faith, yet kind and gentle to all men.”

Being a little more specific, one Ira R. Hall wrote in Restitution for August 12, 1896, page 1: “I had rather go into a place where they have never heard anything, than to go into a Crisis’ Advent community.”

A Crisis Advent community would of course be their former associates, the Advent Christian Church.

Such negative feelings were mutual. Another complaint from The Restitution for May 20, 1896, page 2: “We have a church here. They style themselves Adventists, but do not fellowship (with) us, so we cannot worship with them. They reject the glorious doctrine of the age to come.”

And yet...

For the public not directly involved with the protagonists, Age to Come people were still often lumped together with Adventists. A report from evangelist A.H. Zilmer preaching in Indiana in The Restitution for March 2, 1898, page 3, makes the comment “there is much prejudice against the Adventists, AS WE ARE TERMED (capitals mine).”

It may be that just preaching about the return of Christ was sufficient to confuse the masses, but there was also the problem of nomenclature. Surprisingly (for this writer at least) some Age to Come congregations still chose to call themselves Advent Churches into the 1890s.

A letter from J.S. Hatch in The Restitution for April 15, 1896, page 2, bemoaned the plethora of names in current use amongst Restitution readers: “I find in my travels in one locality they call themselves the Advent Church and in some the Church of the Abrahamic Faith, and in another Church of the Blessed Hope, and still another Soul Sleepers, the name the enemies of God call us, and some take the name of the One Faith. Is that right, brethren? Come, let us have one uniform name in all localities.” Hatch then makes a vigorous argument for them all to stick with the title Church of God.

What was this? Age to Come congregations calling themselves the Advent Church? Yes. One such congregation might have been one based in Philadelphia that was regularly advertised in The Restitution in the latter 1880s as The Church of the Second Advent. (For example, see The Restitution for December 5, 1888, page 4.)

Another culprit (if that be the right word) was a familiar name to this blog, John T. Ongley, who had been active in CTR’s home area in the 1870s. Ongley received a special mention in The Restitution in 1897 (August 4, page 4) in a letter from the Leader and Secretary and Treasurer of a newly established group. The letter reads in part: “We had the pleasure of a visit from Elder J.T. Ongley of Crawford Co. Pa....Before leaving he organised us in a body of ten members under the following rule of faith: - We the undersigned...identify ourselves as the Church of God, called SECOND ADVENT, in Batavia NY, organised this date, July 2, 1897, by Elder J.T. Ongley (capitals mine).”

Funeral reports from this era sometimes have Age to Come preachers speaking in what is called The Advent Church, but whether this was their own fellowship or as guest speakers for the occasion in Advent Christian Churches is not made clear.

Ultimately, time took care of the confusion. The different titles for congregations thinned down – at least slightly – and “Advent Church” slipped off the Age to Come radar. By 1903 The Restitution for January 28, page 1, could use the term Advent Church and define it with the comment “whose views of Bible teaching, is voiced, in the main, by the World's Crisis and Our Hope” – clearly now referring to the Advent Christian Church alone. The term Advent would be left with those who had embraced it from the start. As the Evangelical Adventists faded away, Advent without a Seventh Day prefix would generally refer to the Advent Christian Church and its papers like The Crisis and Our Hope.

During this time, CTR’s movement continued to grow – drawing fire from his former Age to Come associates, with any connections long since overlooked and forgotten. And CTR’s background was obscured by a lack of biographical information in his own writings. So, being charitable, perhaps some of the past researchers who did not have The Restitution paper available for consultation can be forgiven for missing out on the nuances of the situation.
 

Mr. Schulz's introductory essay

This is, of course, first draft and unrevised. But I like it, and he said I could post it as is. Comments welcome

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 miss-represented 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 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.

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 claim 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 associate him with Adventism.

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 article from the 1890 Zion’s Watch Tower with some additions from Alexander Hugh Macmillan’s Faith on the March. There is a consequent failure to grasp key events in the growth an independent religious movement. And there is a significant misdirection, because of the very narrow and contracted view of Watch Tower history found in the Russell’s 1890 article.

            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 as literal. 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. We will detail other differences between the two movements.

            There are several reasons why this part of Russell’s history is miss-represented.. 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 did not. They saw themselves as distinct doctrinally. The decade of the 1870s was a transitional period for the Advent Christian Association. It was rapidly transitioning from a lose association having belief in the near return of Christ and 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 Millennairan) 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 plainly 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 un-reasoning 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. The 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. One of our goals has been to tell the real, historically verifiable, story.

            We believe our research restores detail. In doing so, we believe that a clear 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 1883 Russell could report fourteen thousand subscribers. 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. He died with fewer than a thousand adherents by his claim, and 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 their prayerful (or skeptical) estimations of themselves and others. 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 fraud. We tell that story here as much as possible from 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. So, while we recount what his mother said, we keep it in the context of real, verifiable events. Others can put these events in the context of their belief systems, and we may hold to belief systems of our own. But we only tell the story as we can verify it, and we do that largely through Russell and his contemporary’s own words supplemented with documentary evidence.

An endless amount of incorrect material is out there. That it exists is a personal irritant. In many ways, writing this history has been a salve to my irritation derived from the misguided, sometimes purposely incorrect, and incurious approach of others. I do not care if you hate or adore Russell. I do not care if you see any of the descendant religions as God’s authoritative voice to humanity. We’ve written this book to present accurately research history that meets academic standards. Our goal is to tell the history in detail so that all the trends, events and outcomes make sense.

            Mythology replaces history when lack of curiosity is coupled by lack of thorough research. Among Russell’s modern-day friends this is especially pronounced. 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 are 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 nay sort of depth. Lack of curiosity is a prime one. Past 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.

The other 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 they wish 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. One person of 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. Truth is never embodied in his human servants simply because they are human.

            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 the more easterly American cities. 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 very much 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 there 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 was 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 decision, 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

           

 

 

 

---

[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.

Edward P. Woodward

A some-time associate of Barbour's who later opposed Russell.

To answer a question ...

If you were at the Cedar Point Convention in 1919 ....

you may have come home with this

The Emphatic Diaglott and the Watch Tower Society (revised)

by "Jerome"

(Note: I have been advised by the blog owners that an influx of new readers recently showed some interest in an old article of mine on Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott,, first published here back in 2011. That article was actually abridged from an original that only appeared on blog 2. So I am reproducing below the complete article. It has also been updated to document a known discussion between Wilson and a ZWT adherent that came to light since the original article was written.)

Although the Emphatic Diaglott and its publication by the Watch Tower Society come a little later than the period being researched on this blog, this translation had a major role to play in the early history of the Society.

This article will review that history briefly, but is mainly written to reveal who actually obtained the plates and gave the copyright to the Watch Tower Society in 1902.

Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott was first published in one volume in 1864 after being issued as a part-work starting August 1858 with Wilson’s journal The Gospel Banner. The version published by Fowler and Wells of New York was widely used by various Adventist and Age to Come groups, and the main Age to Come newspaper The Restitution partly grew out of The Gospel Banner. Wilson had been a friend of John Thomas, founder of the Christadelphians, but the two ultimately had doctrinal differences and split. While Thomas founded the Christadelphians, Wilson – although strongly anti-organization - had a major role in the founding of the Church of God of Abrahamic Faith. Today, the descendants of his group are usually called the Church of the Blessed Hope or Abrahamic Faith – a faction who did not join the Church of God General Conference in 1920.

Its connection with our history starts when one of Nelson Barbour’s readers, Benjamin Keith, hiupon Wilson’s translation of the Greek word “parousia” as “presence” rather than “coming”. This set minds working on an apparently failed prediction for Christ’s second coming in 1874. If the coming was an invisible presence (although that was not how Wilson would understand the matter) then their expectations had actually been fulfilled – but invisibly. This view ultimately became a major part of Charles Taze Russell’s belief system. (Hereafter abbreviated to CTR).

Once established, Zion’s Watch Tower Society highly endorsed the Diaglott. In Old Theology Quarterly for April 1893 “Friendly Hints on Bible Study and Students’ Helps” pages 9 and 10, the Diaglott is highly recommended as “another of God’s special blessings for our day...While we cannot say this work is perfect, we can say that we know of no other translation of the New Testament so valuable to the critical student – and this includes all to whom we write.”

Early copies had a note pasted in the front entitled A Friendly Criticism, which detailed some doctrinal differences between CTR and Wilson. While praising the work highly, the note drew attention to certain issues such as a personal devil, the pre-human existence of Jesus and his resurrected state - where the actual interlinear and Wilson’s own English version were not thought to harmonize.

At the same time, The Restitution paper carried an advertisement for the Diaglott each week for several decades.
 

Wilson died in 1900. Shortly after, in 1902, the copyright to the Diaglott was obtained for the Watch Tower Society, and they became its publisher for the next one hundred years. Anyone who wanted to obtain a Diaglott now had to contact the Watch Tower Society.

The journal “Christadelphian Tidings of the Kingdom of God” for January 2009 in its article “Reflections” commented on how some erroneously thought the Diaglott to be a product of Russellism. It explained that “the confusion probably arises because the copyright for The Diaglott was purchased in the early 20th century by an anonymous buyer who then donated it to the Watchtower Society.”

The article viewed the Watch Tower Society’s publishing the work as “a sad, ironic twist of history.” It stressed there was no evidence that Wilson ever came in contact with Millennial Dawn.

This conflicts with a claim made in Consolation magazine for November 8, 1944, page 4 which states “Mr Wilson knew of the truth, and it is reported that he at one time attended some of the meetings of Jehovah’s people, but disagreed on certain fundamental issues.” It must be said that this is unreferenced information written decades after events, and the words “it is reported” do not necessarily bode well.

What CAN be easily established today is that Wilson would certainly have known of Millennial Dawn and CTR. Wilson wrote for The Restitution almost up to the time of his death in 1900, and The Restitution regularly reviewed CTR’s works and activities. Wilson was also a special contributor to The Millenarian when it reviewed CTR’s Divine Plan of the Ages in February 1887. And a nephew of Wilson wrote a booklet attacking CTR’s theology.

There is also an account of several meetings between Wilson and ZWT Pilgrim J A Bohnet in 1892. Bohnet wrote up the experience many years later in an article on the front page of the St Paul Enterprise for April 4, 1916. He described how CTR had provided Wilson’s address, and how Bohnet visited Wilson several times at his home in Sacramento, California. Amongst other things they discussed CTR’s Friendly Criticism paste-in mentioned above. It was obviously amicable, but there was no meeting of minds – they remained divided on a number of issues including their understanding of the ransom and the pre-existence of Christ.

What does come out from their conversations as recorded by Bohnet is that reports that Wilson objected to CTR using his work so extensively were denied by Wilson. He was also asked point blank whether he was a Christadelphian? His answer was, “No, I am a member of no organized denomination.”

 

Much misinformation has been circulated over how the Watch Tower Society obtained the rights to the Diaglott.

The book “Jehovah’s Witnesses – A Comprehensive and Selectively Annotated Bibliography” published by Greenwood Press in 1999, is one such example. On page 61 it relates how Benjamin Wilson (or as it calls him, Professor Wilson) wanted to sell the rights to the Diaglott because he got into serious financial trouble, but blocked CTR’s attempts to buy them. CTR then used a third party to keep his name out of it, so that Wilson couldn’t stop him. When Wilson discovered CTR had obtained the rights by such a devious method he publicly claimed there were numerous errors in the Diaglott anyway and he was going to produce a revised edition. No supporting references are given for this story, there is no record of anything of the sort in The Restitution – as already noted above, this was a paper with plenty to say about CTR on other issues - and history records that Wilson had been dead for a couple of years when the rights changed hands. We can safely discount such anecdotes as fantasy – with an obvious agenda.

Returning to the above quotation from “Christadelphian Tidings”, their reference to an anonymous buyer harkens back to the Society’s own description of the event. The Proclaimers book on page 606 made the comment: “That same year (1902), the Watch Tower Society came into possession of the printing plates for The Emphatic Diaglott...Those plates and the sole right of publication had been purchased and then given as a gift to the Society.”

The original reference comes from the back page of the Watch Tower for December 15, 1902 (which is not in the reprints). In offering the Diaglott as part of a list of available publications, the blurb stated:

“For several years a friend, an earnest Bible student, desirous of assisting the readers of our Society's publications, has supplied them through us at a greatly reduced price; now he has purchased the copyright and plates from the Fowler & Wells Co., and presented the same to our Society as a gift, under our assurance that the gift will be used for the furthering of the Truth to the extent of our ability, by such a reduction of price as will permit the poor of the Lord's flock to have this help in the study of the Word. REDUCED PRICES.--These will be sold with ZION'S WATCH TOWER only.”

So who was this earnest Bible student, anonymous friend and benefactor?

The answer was established in a court hearing in 1907. And it is not rocket science to guess who it really was.

In 1903 Maria Russell initiated court proceedings against CTR for what ultimately resulted in a divorce from bed and board – an official separation, but one where neither she nor CTR were ever legally free to remarry. Much hinged on the issue of financial support, and in April 1907 testimony was taken on CTR’s financial situation. Maria tried to establish that CTR still had considerable funds, whereas CTR testified that, bit by bit, he had already donated his assets to the WT Society. CTR was questioned at length about his financial affairs over previous years.

The Bible House had been turned over to the Society in 1898 and other properties subsequently – including the house Maria had lived in up to 1903. Now they were in 1907, CTR testified he had a small bank balance and an arrangement for board and lodging for the duration of his natural life.

However, the court testimony shows quite clearly that, back in 1902, and for a little while thereafter, CTR still retained direct control of funds in his own name. And in the details of this testimony he explained quite openly just how the Society obtained the Diaglott.

He stressed that the aim had been to allow as many as possible to obtain the Diaglott, and so had made it available on a not for profit basis.

Quoting from pages 204-205 of the transcript of the April 1907 hearing, CTR said (and CAPITALS MINE):

“We publish also a brief New Testament, with an interlinear translation in English, and the marginal translation. It was published originally and for many years, for 30 or 40 years, by Fowler and Wells, of New York. THE PLATES WERE PRESENTED TO THE SOCIETY BY MYSELF. The Society had certain corrections made in the new plates etc., as they were considerably worn, and the edition which Fowler and Wells retailed at $4.00 and wholesaled at $2.66 – 2/3 the Society is now publishing at $1.50 per copy, and it includes postage of 16 cents on this, and as they are nearly all purchased by subscribers to the Watch Tower it goes additional with each volume, and in his subscription to the journal; that is to say, that the Watch Tower for the year and this book that was formerly sold for $4.00 go altogether, with postage included, for $1.50, WITH THE VIEW OF INTERESTING PEOPLE IN THE WATCH TOWER PUBLICATION, and permitting the Watch Tower subscribers to have the Diaglott in every home possible.”

So before CTR donated his remaining assets to the Watch Tower Society, he was able to donate the plates personally to the Watch Tower Society.

The repairs to the plates extended the life of the Diaglott, and the new price made it more accessible to the public. In addition, throwing in a year’s Watch Tower subscription as part of the deal was adroit proselytizing. For instance, any newcomers to the world of The Restitution who wanted a Diaglott (or wanted just to replace a copy), now had to approach the Watch Tower Society for one. It was perhaps not surprising that attacks on CTR’s theology intensified in The Restitution in the early 20^th century.

However, this leaves us with the question: Why did CTR chose to remain anonymous, referring instead to a nameless benefactor?

It is here this writer is on shaky ground, because we have no direct way of knowing. But I can suggest two reasons why CTR might have done this.

First, there are his comments in the booklet A Conspiracy Exposed and Harvest Siftings published in 1894.This detailed CTR’s recent difficulties with certain individuals. One was an Elmer Bryan, who made certain accusations against CTR and brought two other brothers (H Weber and M Tuttle) to see him to apply the steps of Matthew 18:15-17. As recorded in the booklet, Brothers Weber and Tuttle heard both parties out and came to the conclusion that Bryan’s accusations were ridiculous. One involved the use of the pseudonym Mrs C B Lemuels (of behalf of Maria Russell) in advertising material some years previously. In dispatching this criticism, CTR said on page 45: “Besides, I bring my own name as little into prominence as possible. This will be noticed in connection with everything I have published – the O(ld) T(heology) Tracts, the DAWNS, etc.”

 
Looking at the tract series and early editions of the Dawns (Studies) one would be hard put to discover the author. CTR indeed kept quite a low profile. In some respects this was to change when the newspaper sermon work got off the ground. Newspapers wanted personalities and CTR reluctantly became one. But that was further down the line.

But that basic desire to keep a personal name out of matters may have influenced CTR’s decision to donate the Diaglott without claiming personal credit.

A second related reason may be tied to another comment from A Conspiracy Exposed, this time page 40. In connection with a business matter, CTR made the comment that he “preferred to avoid any unnecessary notoriety.” Had the world known that CTR had bought the plates and the rights from Fowler and Wells, there could have been uproar in certain quarters. This writer would theorize that if various Age to Come groups who used the Diaglott knew for certain that CTR had personally brought their baby under his control – and now would only make it available with a year’s worth of his journal – promoting his brand of heresy as they saw it – then cries of “Foul” and “Unfair” would ring out loud and clear.

There would be rumbles whatever happened, but no name – no direct blame. An anonymous benefactor leading to a publishing organisation generously providing the volume at reduced cost to all was far better P.R.

 
In fact, CTR did the public a great service. He rescued the Diaglott from potential oblivion with the state of the plates as they were. Then that reduction from $4.00 to $1.50 was well worth having. And for around a hundred years thereafter, the Watch Tower Society made this translation readily available to all. Ultimately the copyright expired and the Society’s inventory dwindled. Since 2004, groups like the Abrahamic Faith Beacon Publishing Society published their own version and viewed the translation as “coming home”. Interestingly, the modern versions published have retailed at a far higher price than the Watchtower Society ever charged, even when they did have a fixed contribution for literature.