Russell's History

Our next project is a history of Zion's Watch Tower from Russell's early days to 1887. This is an ambitious project if we tell it in the same detail we present in our just released Babourite history. [Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's Forgotten Prophet is available on lulu.com]

The basics of Russell's early life are found in scattered Watch Tower articles. His relationship to his mother interests me. It's complex, tender-hearted and it influenced his later view of himself and his ministry. None of the material we've found on this is new, though I think we have a new way of approaching it. More on that later over on our history blog.

There is considerable detail out there on Jonas Wendell. We've exchanged emails with Wendell descendants, and they've added little bits of material. How Wendell converted to Adventism is known as is something of his earlier years. Russell met him in 1871. Wendell discusses his visits to Pittsburgh.

Wendell was a non-Trinitarian Adventist, and helped Russell unlearn past errors. The best introduction to Wendell's brand of Adventism is a small book by another associate, H. F. Carpenter, entitled The Scripture Question Book. It's a sort of catechism. We discuss elements of Russell's interactions with Wendell in our current book. Carpenter is profiled in a chapter about the Worchester Conference of 1872, and he was briefly a partisan of Barbour's.

Between 1872 and 1874 Russell read Second Advent related material widely. We know some of the authors because he tells us their names. We profile one, William Thurman, in our current book. Thurman wrote numerous tracts and two books. Seiss and others were read.

Russell and his father attended the small union congregation in Pittsburgh. It seems to have been made up of Advent Christians, Restitutionists, and members of the Life and Advent Union. It wasn't uncommon in those days for this to be so. The congregation Barbour attended while living in New York City from 1864-1871 was similar in make up. (Read about that in our new book).

Russell and his dad wrote letters and met others in that movement. His dad was more closely identified with Adventists than Russell was. Russell was cautious and studious. Of all the reasons to respect Brother Russell, I think this is one of the greatest.

Russell started studying Restitution in 1872, and by 1875 he had settled views. He and those with him adopted the two-stage, initially invisible, presence views of Seiss and others by 1874. They started studying prophetic time in earnest at the same time. They rejected Adventist efforts, but as he explained, he felt that the nearness and time of the advent could be known in no other way.

He met Storrs. Storrs was great friends with Joseph L. Russell. Joseph and George liked each other, and Storrs came to see Charles as a sort of son. There were sparks between Harriet Storrs and C. T. Russell, though you won't see that reflected in any issue of Zion's Watch Tower. Harriet approved of Paton's turn to Universal Salvationism.

Russell put close and careful questions to all the visiting Adventist evangelists, and he came to know many of them. He and his family were baptized in 1874. We've speculated on the influence of the recently released booklet on Consecration written by H. L. Hastings. Russell and Hastings knew each other, and Russell patterned many of his articles and tracts on Hastings' publications, though the content differed. He published one article by Hastings. Barbour was influenced by Hastings too. [See our book].

This is just a brief outline. Much of this is hard to elaborate and our research is on-going. Visit our blog and browse. Some of this is on there.

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