BIBLE STUDENTS IN BRITAIN

The Story of a Hundred Years

A. O. Hudson

Bible Fellowship Union 11 Lyncroft Gardens Hounslow Middlesex 1989 0900166 12 6 Printed by Remous Ltd., Milbourne Port, Sherbourne, Dorset.

PREFACE

A would-be humorist once defined history as "the consolidation of doubtful legend into indisputable fact." This is perhaps hardly applicable to the present case; the author enjoys the advantage of having been closely connected with the events he relates insofar as the latter seventy years of the story are concerned, and for the earlier thirty-five, possession of records supplemented by notes of reminiscences related to him in bygone years by early stalwarts who have long since departed this earthly scene. So there emerges the history of a fellowship which conducted a remark-able Christian work during the early years of this century, survived the sad interlude which imperiled its future, and rose above the threat to continue its witness, albeit in lower key, into the present. This is a story, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, of the "Harvest of the Age."

1 EARLY DAYS

THEY CAME off the boat at Southampton, that autumn day in 1881, two American evangelists, J.C. Sunderlin and J. J. Bender, commissioned by Pastor C.T. Russell to plant in Great Britain the message he was assiduously preaching in the United States.

They set foot on these shores with the enthusiasm of men entering upon virgin territory. The States had known this evangel for two years past; it was as yet unknown in this country. The time had come to proclaim it.

This understanding of the Divine purpose, telling of a coming era of life, peace and security destined for the human race, was being proclaimed in the United States by the widespread free circulation of a fairly massive booklet entitled "Food for Thinking Christians" and a great deal of interest was being thereby generated. The old orthodox theology of gloom and doom was superseded in its pages by a conception of God and his attitude to mankind which stressed the inevitable super-session of the injustice, misery, disease and death inseparable from this world as it now is by an everlasting world of justice, happiness, health and life under the oversight of the Lord Jesus Christ, Man has made the world what it now is; God will remake it to the world of his wish, and all who elect to come into conformity with that wish will eventually come into this world and enjoy it for ever. All this leaves untouched the heavenly expectation of Christians who have lived their lives in expectation of Christ in the heavenly realm after this life. The conception was that of two worlds, a celestial and a terrestrial, in each of which those best fitted for either will find themselves at the end—and be perfectly satisfied, living each in their own environment yet in eternal communion with each other. That was the vision which inspired these two men as they made their way to London.

Their mandate was to have some three hundred thousand copies of "Food for Thinking Christians" printed in London and have them distributed at church doors in some of Britain’s principal cities. Unfortunately Sunderlin was taken rather seriously ill soon after arrival and had to return hurriedly to the States, leaving Bender to carry out the distribution by himself. This he did, starting out by having one hundred thousand distributed in London alone, by boys of the National Messenger Service—long since defunct—at church doors all over the Metropolis after Sunday evening service. He traveled north, personally distributing the book in the same fashion, in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Darlington, Huddersfield, Hull, Nottingham, Leeds, Carlisle, and Manchester. He then returned to the States, leaving the seed to germinate.

The green shoots were not long in appearing. From all of the cities visited came inquiries for more information; some enquirers became readers of Pastor Russell’s magazine, "Zion’s Watch Tower." The bulk of the inquiries came from London, Glasgow, Nottingham, and Manchester, for ever afterwards the principal centers of the new faith. The salient feature of this understanding was that the long-promised Second Advent, usually visualized as a fiery descent from the skies to execute judgment, was in fact already in progress as a winding up of the present social order in preparation for the setting up of a Divine government on earth which would effect world conversion and the elimination of evil with all its concomitants, oppression, disease, death. Such new order would afford a full and complete opportunity to all to amend their lives in accord with the principles of truth and equity, so that earthly affairs would be conducted along line of justice and peace into all perpetuity. An increasing number of people caught the light of this bright vision; this "Food for Thinking Christians" found its way into towns far removed from the points of distribution, and quite soon an appreciable response was forthcoming.

So far there was no suggestion of organized meetings. Russell’s intention and desire was to initiate an interdenominational interest among members of existing churches, not to form a new sect. It was inevitable, however, that groups of people drawn together by interest in this new understanding of Scripture should wish to congregate for mutual discussion and progress.

This was already happening in the States. Now, in June 1882, little more than six months after the distribution of the booklet in this country, a dozen people in Glasgow, chiefly men folk, commenced to hold a regular meeting for the study and discussion of the Bible in this light. This was the first Bible Students’ meeting in this country, so far as records and recollection can tell. Rather appropriately, perhaps, it was a humble beginning. The organizer and leader of this initial meeting was apparently a man in a lowly walk of life—his name is lost to history—and the meetings, as described by one who joined them a few years later, were held in a "tiny, dingy hall in a poor locality," which reminds one of Russell’s own description of his entry into vital Christian faith when he "quite by accident, dropped into a dusty, dingy hall in Allegheny where I had heard that religious meetings were held, to see if the handful who met there had anything more sensible to offer than the creeds of the Churches."

So be it; some of those in Glasgow who spearheaded the faith in such lowly circumstances were to witness, almost thirty years later, five thousand turned away, to hear the message that had captivated their own hearts in these earlier years. As in the days when the Christian faith was young and the Apostles went out preaching, "so mightily grew the Word of God, and prevailed."

That, though, lay yet in the future. Of the first ten years or so this little meeting three names only have survived, a Mrs. Hodge and two men destined in later days to become well known in the growing fellowship. William Crawford and Robert Cormack were two of these pioneers, and Crawford at least had much to do with later events. At the moment, though, they studied and discussed quietly with that little group in that "tiny dingy hall in a poor locality."

During that same period events were happening elsewhere.

Solitary individuals, in some cases two or three together, were in communication with Pastor Russell, asking questions and querying what they could do to make the message known in their own areas. Apart from the continued free circulation of "Food for Thinking Christians" there was little else to feed the growing demand for more information; the real handbooks of the movement, Russell’s six -volume series "Studies in the Scriptures," had yet to be written and published, and the wonder is that these interested inquirers held on so long on so little. But hold on they did; all over the country, to the tune of some three hundred individuals by 1885 who were assiduous readers of "Zion’s Watch Tower;" in the light of this they made progress in what later became generally referred to as "Present Truth." (It has to be admitted that this term has also been used in the same sense by other Christian communities, before and since.) Already in two other areas, Nottinghamshire and London, individual Christians found others in their own localities following the same line of thought, and joined up to form little groups for study and discussion. In East Kirkby, a Nottinghamshire mining village, Thomas Smedley, the village chemist, round about 1890 put a notice in his shop window, "Bible Class held here" and immediately a group was formed; Smedley in after years performed yeoman service almost up to his death, travelling the country preaching the faith he had accepted. The Nottingham area has been an important center of the Bible Students ever since.

At the same time activity was manifest in London. Since the first distribution of "Food" in 1881 there had been a number of interested individuals in touch with the Pastor and it was in the year 1883 that a study group to discuss these things was commenced in the North London home of a rather remarkable woman and her husband.

Elizabeth Horne was the type of person, who having acquired an exposition of the Divine Plan which resolved all her theological doubts and misgivings, must needs tell it out to others. Within a few years she, in common with others in her group, was conducting open-air meetings in Hyde Park—perhaps the very first of the "public meetings" which became so pronounced a feature of the fellowship in later years. It is recorded that this redoubtable lady preached in the Park for three hours at a stretch, to "attentive, respectful crowds of orderly, thoughtful looking people gathered to listen," to quote the records. At a slightly later date, 1891, she organized the meetings for the first visit of Pastor Russell to this country, entertaining him at her home, from which she appears to have been as good an organizer as she was a preacher. This Elizabeth Horne must have been quite a girl!

Like the sister group at Glasgow, this was apparently a small and inconspicuous company of earnest students—names that have survived are those of Samuel Bather with wife and daughter, John Brookes, Arthur Carey, but nothing very definite. As a company it grew in numbers until it was ultimately absorbed by the larger meetings which developed in London in later years.

But, as with Glasgow, it lit the flame, in humble surroundings, which was destined to burn brighter and clearer in coming years, until eventually the London congregation was the largest Bible Students community in the world, with the largest church building in which to worship.. The little Glasgow meeting continued in its quiet way for fifteen years before the enlargement associated with a well-known family name, the Edgars, came upon the scene. The London meetings continued for fourteen years before the work associated with another well-known family name, the Guards, had its rise, and in the meantime other London groups were started, Ealing in 1890, Stoke Newington 1891, Crouch End 1892, Lewisham 1894, Surbiton and Forest Gate 1896, and Kensington 1899. The growth of the Bible Student faith in what from the start has always been its two principal centers, London and Glasgow, commencing with the lowly and unnoticed, well illustrates the principle of the Divine operation: "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts."

All this was to change. The year 1891 saw a sudden acceleration of the witness. Pastor Russell made his first visit to these shores.

It was a hurried visit. It would seem that this visit to Europe was more of a personal and sentimental one for he spent most of his time in Ireland.

(Although a third or fourth generation American, he was ultimately of Scotch-Irish descent.) Landing at Queenstown, he did visit various interested people in Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Londonderry and a few other places. His purpose in Ireland accomplished, he came to London, where he arranged with the North London group to establish a London depot, for the storage and distribution of Bible Student literature, under the supervision of one of the North London elders, Thomas Hart. (By this time the first three volumes of "Studies in the Scriptures: had been published and were eliciting widespread interest.) He ministered at several meetings arranged in London by Elizabeth Horne, where a hundred and fifty gathered together, left for a brief visit to Glasgow to meet the interested there, thence to Liverpool for the same purpose, and so back to the States. Very few people know he had been in the country at all. At Liverpool he met Charles Elam, an interested man who was minister of a small mission hall where a hundred and fifty gathered to hear him.

Charles Elam became the founder of the Liverpool church of Bible Students whose history runs from this date, with starting membership of forty. Already there had been meetings established at Manchester, Hucknall in Notts, and the Surrey village of Penshurst where the local stationmaster, one Pearson, had electrified the village with the message. 1891 saw Nottingham, Liverpool, and Dublin come on the scene and by 1892 Bristol, Edinburgh, Sheffield, followed by Belfast in 1895 and by Birmingham, Leeds, Middlesbrough, dundee, Dumfries; and by Sevenoaks and Chatham in Kent. (Kent, not having any big cities, was noteworthy for its proliferation of small groups.

Most towns and a great many small villages possessed a local community from a very early date.) These possessed a local community from a very early date.) These groups were usually commenced by the zealous labors of some active individual such as Arthur Riley of Bristol, James Bright of Belfast, John Green of Sheffield, William Raynor and William Drinkwater of Nottingham, George Mullens of Sevenoaks, —names which lingered long among the national community.

With some forty regular meetings established and an increasing number of people all over the country becoming interested, it was deemed desirable that someone from the States should come to England and organize the work of proclamation of the message on a systematic basis. The man selected was one S. D.

Rogers, who arrived at the end of 1893 to show the British brethren how to preach the Gospel. His assignment was to organize a system of colporteuring, viz, the going from door to door advocating and endeavoring to "place" the "Scripture Studies" volumes. Since there had been for quite a few years past a fair amount of this work going on, this became largely a matter.of preaching to the converted. It soon began to become apparent, however, to the brethren of the London church, with whom he was billeted, that there was another side to S.D. Rogers. He began to advocate a plan whereby he himself should be supported financially by the Brethren so that he could go from town to town as an itinerant preacher, being given free board and lodgings at each place, the necessary halls and facilities being provided at local brethren’s expense. This proposition and attitude, so alien from the tenor and spirit of Pastor Russell’s principles and practice, which relied entirely on unsolicited gifts for the support of his work, alarmed the London church. The outcome was that Elizabeth Horne communicated with the Pastor to say that the London church felt it necessary completely to reject S.D. Rogers and his ideas, and to ask for guidance.

Eventually he returned to the States and so far as the UK was concerned the matter was closed.

During this period there was a considerable amount of "public witness" carried on, consisting not so much of public meetings but the patient distribution of tracts and pamphlets from door to door, and the provision of the book "The Divine Plan of the Ages," being Volume One of "Scripture Studies," to those who evinced sufficient interest. Men were thus brought into the ambit of the brethren who afterwards became doughty champions of the faith.

It was thus that in 1893 Frederick George Guard, an open-air evangelist and leader of a local evangelical choir, became possessed of a copy of the "Divine Plan of the Ages." Its contents gripped and persuaded him. He found that some of his acquaintances had also seen and read the book. A resident of Stratford, East London, he was ignorant of the established group in North London. He did the obvious thing; in collaboration with his friend William Thirkettle of Forest Gate he established, in 1896, a group in his own home in Stratford. This was the beginning of the later well-known Forest Gate Church. With an initial membership of 18, Thirkettle was appointed to organize a massive program of tract distribution and open-air preaching. In the next twenty years that congregation came to number more than four hundred. London was shaping up for the greater things yet to come. The Metropolis was seeing the beginning of a process which was to lead to class meetings scattered all over the city and its environs, and a work of evangelism which ultimately resulted in meetings crammed to capacity at the Royal Albert Hall, London’s leading auditorium.

This infusion of new blood into the capital with the coming of Forest Gate in 1896 was paralleled by a similar development in Britain’s second city, Glasgow. For some years a certain Mrs. Hodge, a member of the original Glasgow group, had been trying to convert her own sister, Sarah Ferrie (known to later generations of the fellowship as "Aunt Sarah"). After reading the first three volumes of the "Scripture Studies" in 1897 Sarah Ferrie was convinced. Being a person of positive convictions and apparently limitless energy, she commenced a week-night meeting in her own business premises in 1898 and promptly proceeded to evangelize her customers and business contacts. An illustration of her unconventional methods was related many years later by an observer who was with a party of Scottish brethren in 1906 on the railway station seeing off an American visitor. As the train stood in the station Aunt Sarah approached the engine-driver, leaning out of his cab waiting for the starting signal, handed him some tracts, and bade him "drive very carefully, for one of the King’s sons is on the train." The engine-drivers’ immediate reaction is not recorded, but the longer term consequence was that he came into the Truth and was present at the big Glasgow convention two years later when Pastor Russell visited the city. One is tempted to surmise that this Sarah Ferrie was perhaps a Glasgow version of London’s Elizabeth Horne!

William Crawford and Robert Cormak, of the existing Glasgow group, began to attend this meeting in addition to their own. By 1899 Dr. John Edgar, senior surgeon at a leading Glasgow Hospital, had become a member. John’s father and one of his sisters had espoused the faith something like ten years earlier; now, within a few years, five more of the Edgar family embraced the truth, and with them another couple, Alex Tait and wife, thereafter to be active workers with the Edgars. These, with Crawford and Cormack, constituted a formidable team which set the Glasgow church on its feet. Records are silent as to the history of the original group dating from 1882 but it is virtually certain that they merged with the Edgar effort and so all the brethren in the city presented a united front.

The year 1899 marked another circumstance which was to have a marked effect in later years. Jesse Hemery, of Eccles, near Manchester, paid his first visit to London in the interests of the expanding work. Brother Russell first met Jesse Hemery on his first visit to Britain in 1891. A young man of twenty-seven, he was in trade as a baker and confectioner in Eccles. He must have been among the earliest in this country to become interested, manifesting considerable zeal and enthusiasm for the cause, and spending considerable time in the north of the country to interview people becoming interested. He was in fact the decisive factor in the conversion of Sarah Ferrie of Glasgow, so setting in motion the sequence of events which brought the Edgar family into the faith, with the consequent implications for the future of the Glasgow church. Brother Russell had formed a high opinion of his capabilities and now had him visit London to assess the progress of matters there. Hemery made his visit—not a very long one—spending most of his time with Federick Guard and the incipient Forest Gate church, by now numbering some seventy-five, where he conducted five or six meetings, followed by a quick run round London to look up various individuals.known to be interested. He apparently did not know of, for he did not visit, the group associated with Elizabeth Horne, nor any of the other older established meetings in London. He returned north, not having achieved much, except to forge a link with Guard and his group; the visit would have had little significance were it not for the fact that Jesse Hemery later became Brother Russell’s representative in London and so of nation-wide influence.

With the increasing number of regular meetings and something like fifteen hundred vitally interested people scattered over the country constantly writing to Brother Russell, the Pastor judged the time was ripe to centralize British activities in Britain itself.

In May 1900 he sent one of his co-laborers, E.C. Henninges and his wife, to England for the purpose of setting up an office and depot in London from which all future work in the UK should be conducted. (It should be explained that this work comprised the import, storage and distribution of the Pastor’s Publications, tracts, books, etc, and was not in any sense an effort to control or direct the organization and individual work of the British groups.

At all times each such group was completely independent, managing its own affairs and linked to the Pastor only through the medium of the common faith.) The office and depot was set up in Gipsy Lane, Forest Gate, London, and Henninges entered into friendly co-operation with the Forest Gate Church. Joint efforts resulted in the acquiring of a hall for their meetings in Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate. A system of wholesale tract distribution, public meetings, "pilgrim visits" (a capable brother visiting outlying incipient groups to encourage and instruct them) and "colporteur work," (involving calling house to house to interest occupiers in the "Divine Plan" book) was established, and Henninges traveled the length and breadth of the country suggesting and encouraging all who wished to have part in this organized outreach of instructed evangelism.

The first few months’ work, from June to November, resulted in three thousand copies of the "Divine Plan" and a quarter of a million booklets being distributed, 50,000 of the latter in London alone. Thirty-nine British towns so far untouched by the message now heard it for the first time. So far as London was concerned Forest Gate took a prominent part in what was going on and early in 1901 Brother Henninges was unanimously elected Pastor of the Forest Gate Church. That year, 1901, saw a one hundred per cent increase in the circulation of literature and general activity. A change in oversight, however, was imminent. In November of that year the Pastor recalled Henninges for briefing in a new sphere of activity in Germany and appointed Jesse Hemery to take his place.

Thus Jesse Hemery became manager of the British office of the Society, a position he retained for most of his life. He inherited the Gipsy Lane depot. He was also unanimously elected Pastor of the Forest Gate Church in succession to Henninges. During the next twelve months the circulation of literature increased again, to nearly three-quarters of a million copies, and twenty thousand volumes of "Studies in the Scriptures." All of this involved quite laborious door-to-door work at a time when the number of active workers could not have exceeded fifteen hundred. In 1902 a representative of the Pastor, J. Hope Hay, coming to England on a business mission, spent some time travelling the country visiting some of the centers convenient to his commitments; he managed to consult with the existing groups in some other cities, reporting a definite upsurge of interest in Ireland, largely due to the efforts of James Bright of Belfast, responsible for starting the meeting there. C.H. Houston had achieved considerable progress at Edinburgh and a newcomer to the field was Dan Murray of Dundee; the group he founded there endured until 1965.

1902 was the end of the day of small beginnings. The following year was to see a fantastically rapid growth of the movement commencing with a visit of Brother Russell, his tour of the principal city centers where meetings existed, and well attended conventions in London and Glasgow. The next fifteen years was to witness what was afterward, and correctly, termed the work of harvest, the "Harvest of the Age." A fundamental aspect of Brother Russell’s views was that the end of the present era, which he believed to be imminent, would be signaled by an unprecedented clarification of theological views regarding the purpose of God in creation, and a realization of the time, manner, and nature of the Second Advent clearer by far than that of the previous few centuries. He pointed out that the idea of a Harvest of the Age is implicit in the teachings of Jesus and that the gathering together of Christians of all denominations and of none to an understanding of these things, and a living faith that the Presence of the Lord was an accomplished fact, was in itself a harvest in this sense. The fact that the message was going forth world-wide and receiving enthusiastic acceptance from all quarters served to buttress his faith, and that of those, too, who accepted these views from him. The story of the next twenty years shows how well-founded was the general outline of that belief.

There were now about sixty regular group meetings existing in the UK, ranging in membership from fifteen to several hundreds, a total membership of active supporters approaching twenty-five hundred. Additional to these there were many interested attendants at the meetings who did not go so far as to join in the active work.

Early in 1903 the father of John Edgar died. He must have been one of the first in the United Kingdom to accept the message and throw in his lot with it. He saw the seed sown and he saw the promise of a rich harvest. It was left to his sons, John and...Morton, and their sister Minna, to play their part in the stirring events that were to follow.

2 HARVEST OF THE AGE

A DISTINGUISHING feature of the Bible Student movement was its insistence that the early 20th century was to witness a "Harvest of the Age," a period during which the sum total of all Christian evangelical work effected during the two thousand years of Christian history would head up into a climax heralding the fact that the Second Advent, so fervently anticipated by many ministers and laymen of every denomination during the 19th century, had now become reality. There was, however, a fundamental difference. The old-time orthodox view of the event looked for a humanly visible appearance of the returned Christ in the upper skies with attendant angels, coming to earth to conduct a twenty-four hour Day of judgment, in which dead and living are to be summoned before him to be adjudged worthy of everlasting life or everlasting punishment—in older times the terrors of a fiery Hell, although this aspect was becoming increasingly rejected in the present. The Bible Student position was that the Advent covers a period, that its initial stage is one in which the returned Christ is present, although unseen, overruling the actions and affairs of men so that the powers of this world will, by the ordained time, yield to his rule and from then on this world will be under his benevolent administration.

This was the vision, and when compared with the more somber and even terrifying outlook on things theological which it was set to challenge there is small wonder at the zeal and energy with which the early converts set about proclaiming the message, nor the interest aroused and the acceptance it received. "Good tidings of great joy" they insisted, and so it was. The salient principle, that none—whether unbeliever, unreached heathen, or reprobate—could be eternally lost without first being brought to a full "knowledge of the truth," to use the New Testament phrase, thus solving all enigmas of those who in this world have died without even hearing of the means of eternal life, had been widely discussed in Christian circles for half a century past. It was left to Charles Russell to point out that this precisely is the purpose of the coming Millennium and because of his conviction that the Millennium was at the doors he was bound to lead this world-wide proclamation.

So, in the year 1903, Pastor Russell landed at Southampton to commence a series of visits in which he became as widely known here as in his native America. (His first visit in 1891 was a preliminary one to "get the feel of the country," so to speak.) There was a sizeable number of enthusiasts waiting to greet him.

The principal London church, which had existed since 1883, . now numbering some 400, were his hosts as at his 1891 visit, and there was the younger Forest Gate church of about 125.

These between them arranged the first London Bible Students convention, a function which has continued more or less without intermission since; on this initial occasion the attendance at the five sessions started at 400 and reached a maximal at the last session of 800. After a short trip in Scandinavia the Pastor returned to visit Glasgow, where the comparatively small church there had gathered a thousand interested people to hear him.

(This established their fortunes; within the next eight years their church membership had increased to 500.) Of the fifty or so other local churches which had by now been established in the UK he was able to visit seven and address public meetings with audiences up to 600. A final visit to London to find, in conjunction with Jesse Hemery, a more convenient London office for the expanding work, in succession to the existing one at Gipsy Lane, Forest Gate, duly acquired and opened at 24 Eversholt Street, Kings Cross, in central London, and he was away.

This set the pattern for the next ten years. In 1905 he sent one of his co-workers, M.L. McPhail, to conduct the first of what became known as "pilgrim visits" throughout the country. The function of a "pilgrim," always a mature brother in Faith, was to visit each local church on a planned route, stay with them one or two days, conduct meetings of the church at which features of the Faith could be more fully discussed, address a public meeting if such had been arranged, and put them in touch with other adjacent churches of who existence they had not heretofore been aware. This was the commencement of a close acquaintanceship and co-operation between local churches which has always been characteristic of the movement. The members regarded each other as brethren in Christ and in fact this word "brethren" became a common and much-used descriptive epithet. In this particular instance McPhail was able thus to visit forty-eight of the seventy churches existing at that time, ranging from Brighton, Portsmouth and St. Leonards on the South Coast, through Chatham, Maidstone and Sevenoaks in Kent, to Greenock, Glasgow, and Dundee in the Scottish lowlands, with Belfast and Dublin in Ireland. During the next few years more pilgrims followed, Benjamin Barton in 1906, A. E. Williamson in 1907 and 1908, and Frank Draper in 1911, by which time the number of individual churches had increased to at least 120.

In all of this the UK brethren had by no means been idle. During the seven years 1903-1909, still not much more than 3500 strong, they had distributed by hand more than twenty million large four-page folders and twenty-seven thousand volumes of "Studies in the Scriptures." Much of this work had been done by individual brethren; the institution of Saturday afternoon "tracting efforts" whereby parties freed from daily occupational obligations gathered to distribute folders and tracts door-to-door over a prescribed area, leaving the seed thus sown either to bear fruit or wither by the wayside, as the case might be, became a practice which subsisted through the years. There was always the element of light relief, as for instance when a somewhat surly-looking individual, taking the proffered tract, demanded "What are you, socialists?" "No, Bible Students!" "H’m, just as bad!"

The work was onerous, the tracts were not like those of modern times, a few inches each way in size, but were the dimensions of newspapers and relatively heavy to carry in quantity. The younger members of the fraternity adapted their bicycles (cars were few and not possessed by many in those days and certainly not be teenagers to carry the heavy weights of tracts; thus loaded they pedaled their way somewhat uncertainly at imminent danger to life and limb to strategic points from which the distributors would replenish their stocks from time to time. The writer distinctly remembers, when thus loaded, coming a cropper on the tramlines in the Old Kent Road, South London, on one such occasion at a much later date, with considerable damage to the bike and some to the rider. What happened to the tracts in not remembered.

An appreciable part of this activity was carried on by colporteurs, a term meaning an itinerant distributor of religious literature. From time to time, various brethren in a position so to so, gave themselves to this work, travelling from town to town and calling on householders to introduce what by this time was being called "the Truth." The ordinary literature was free but a nominal charge of one shilling (5p today) was made for the "Divine Plan" which for a clothbound book of 350 pages was not bad even in those days; this was to avoid frivolous acceptances and give some assurance that the book would be valued and used. In the earlier years, 1887 to 1903, there was not so much of this in evidence. C.H. Houston of Edinburgh traveled fairly extensively in Scotland and on one occasion disposed of 420 volumes in fourteen days. By 1900 there were four colporteurs in regular service and in that year a quarter of a million books and tracts were placed in thirty-nine towns. In 1901 that output was doubled and in 1902 attained 700,00. But the real day of the colporteurs was from 1910 onwards, when public awareness of the Bible students was becoming general and the generally more or less Christian outlook of people in general facilitated acceptance and a hearing ear. The visits of the Pastor to this country and the public meetings addressed by him were evoking much public interest and the itinerant colporteurs found much to encourage them in their work, self-sacrificing though it was.

Going from town to town, they had to find lodgings where they could, sometimes, but not always, with brethren of like faith.

More often, when in country districts, they did find themselves at times like the Master they served, having nowhere to lay their heads. When it is realized that between 1910 and 1915 the brethren of this country had succeeded in distributing fifty-four million pamphlets and three-quarters of a million volumes of "Scripture Studies" one has to accept that the achievement meant sheer devotion to what was universally accepted a the work of Harvest—the Harvest of the Age.

Much of the work of these colporteurs is of necessity incapable of being put on record. They served, in the main, largely in the background, rarely able to attach themselves to a regular meeting and only able to fellowship with their brethren when operating in a town where a meeting existed; the nature of their calling meant that in the main they worked in areas where there were no meetings. It was largely in consequence of their endeavors that new groups were formed and regular meetings commenced. The colporteurs were of all types and from every strata of society, having this one thing in common, the burning passion to give themselves to the proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

There was Archibald Rock, ex-military man, still erect and stiff as a ram-rod, who could be seen in the period 1907-1916 in the towns and villages of South-East England and the Home Counties. There was his brother Robert, converted prize-fighter, still bearing physical signs of that life, who could chill the blood with occasional reminiscences of his victories and defeats in the prize ring and experiences on the more seamy side of London life—yet now as gentle as a child and utterly persuasive as he went from door to door with tracts and books. Down in the far South-West was Mabel Coombes, a diminutive semi-crippled lady of uncertain age and the heart of a lion. Until sheer old age compelled her to stop, she dragged herself from door to door and more than one group in Devon and Cornwall owed its inception to her labors. And when she could do no more she retired uncomplainingly to an old peoples’ home and went quietly to meet her Lord in 1951. Lily Blake, not very tall, looking as if a puff of wind would blow her away, trudged from door to door in central England through rain and shine, unperturbed and quietly confident. Her irrepressible sense of humor comes to the top when she recounted how on one occasion the Rector of the parish had warned his flock in his parish magazine to "beware a little lady with a silver tongue who is going from house to house in the village seeking to interest people in Millennial Dawn."

For ever afterwards Lily was referred to among the brethren as "the little lady with the silver tongue." Albert Lloyd, whose origin was a bit of a mystery—he used to say that he was born in the gutter and brought up in the gutter—brought his natural exuberance of spirit to bear upon his work in the North of England, as for example when upon one occasion, receiving no answer to his knock but feeling certain that there was someone inside, and noticing a butcher’s cart in the road, he reasoned that the butcher would soon be calling. He rapped again and called through the letter-box "Meat! Meat!" and sure enough the lady came. "Oh, I thought you were the butcher!" "So I am, madam, and here it is. Meat in due season, for the household of faith." Whether the lady recognized the Scriptural allusion is not recorded, but at any rate Albert disposed of another Divine Plan.

Victoria Wright, statuesque and every inch a lady, impressed all upon whom she called with her reasoned and dispassionate exposition of the Divine Plan. Thomas Stracy worked the South Coast and half a dozen groups in Southern England owed their inauguration to his work. And despite the discomforts and hazards, the colporteurs maintained a serene happiness which stemmed from the fact that they were preaching a happy gospel.

The Lollards of the Middle Ages were known in their time as "God’s glee men" because they went about with happy faces singing praises to God. The colporteurs were something like that.

They had a message for all who would listen, a message of hope and happiness, good tidings of great joy for all people, and it had to shine out from their faces. In these later more prosaic times it must be difficult for anyone who never knew those days to visualize the spirit of spontaneous joy which animated these who went out with the news of earth’s coming glory.

In 1894 there was one colporteur in full time service, in 1900 there were four. By 1913 there were ninety-three and every part of the country was being covered. The modest book depot which had been started in North London in 1891 under the supervision of Thomas Hart, one of the elders, had long since been outgrown by successive moves, first to Forest Gate an then to Eversholt Street; by 1911 it was in more commodious premises at Craven Terrace, Paddington, and the demands of the colporteurs for more and more supplies were taxing even those facilities. A major portion of the 130,000 volumes of "Scripture Studies" which went out in that year were placed by the efforts of the colporteurs, not to speak of several millions of pamphlets on various subjects which also went into the hands of the public.

It was inevitable that the fervor of the brethren, coupled with their steadily increasing numbers, should begin to call for the holding of conventions in the principal cities, usually lasting several days and at a public holiday time, at which the tenets of the Faith could be expounded from the platform coupled with exhortations to Christian living and reflections on the signs of the times in connection with proclaimed expectations of the imminent Millennium. Such conventions remained, and still remain, a feature of the fellowship. After the memorable London and Glasgow conventions associated with Brother Russell’s second visit to this country in 1903 the pattern was set; national conventions were held year by year in London and Glasgow, and commencing in 1907, Manchester, which by then boasted more than three hundred members with a considerable number of small groups located in adjacent towns. What had by now become an accepted feature of church life in the growing community was maintained by similar conventions in 1908 and.1909, and thus the ground was laid for what was probably the most momentous year in the history of the movement—1910.

1910 became legendary. It was the year of the Royal Albert Hall meetings at which Brother Russell, on his fifth visit to England, caught the imagination of the British public. Nothing like it had ever been seen before; nothing like it was ever seen again. The conventions of that year were associated with public meetings attended by thousands of people, and the brethren caught the infection. Public meetings there had been previously, from 1908 onwards, in cities like Bristol, where Brother Russell spoke to a thousand people on "The Overthrow of Satan’s Empire," at St.

Andrews Hall, Glasgow, to nearly five thousand on "The Return from Hell," and in four or five other cities with a combined attendance of eight thousand. It was in 1908 that a somewhat humorous episode occurred when A.E. Williamson, one of Brother Russell’s colleagues accompanying him, was giving a similar public lecture at Otley. Otley was a small mining village not far from Bradford, and in the early 1900s six Methodist ministers and lay preachers in the vicinity had all accepted the Truth and commenced a group. This coupled with the visit of the American preacher, evoked the villagers’ interest, and the local reporter, making the usual inquiries appropriate to his calling, misheard the appellation "Millennial Dawnists" as "Aluminum Dawnists," by which name the brethren at Otley were, locally, for a long time subsequently known.

This activity continued throughout 1908 when Brother Russell addressed three thousand at Manchester after the Manchester brethren had distributed 150,000 leaflets advertising the meeting, another two thousand in the City Hall, Glasgow, twenty-five hundred in Edinburgh and twelve hundred in London. All this was only a "run-up" to the most eventful year of public meetings the brethren were to know.

In May of 1910 a party of American brethren arrived in England with Brother Russell—his fifth visit—for the purpose of conducting a planned series of public meetings all over the country commencing with the Royal Albert Hall in London. The party was preceded by one of his co-workers, G.C. Driscoll, who was also an official of the USA press Association; his presence was for the purpose of enlisting the co-operation of the British Press. A month later the main party, which had been on the Continent, arrived and were met by a hundred brethren of the London community, headed by one of its most active elders, John Gentle. The church had put out three-quarters of a million large four-page leaflets advertising the Albert Hall meetings and were ready for the fray.

The first meeting at the Albert Hall was on May 8. Seven thousand five hundred people packed the auditorium to hear Brother Russell. The occasion was a somber one, for King Edward VII had died the previous day and the nation was in mourning. The advertised subject was "The Great Hereafter" and the mood of the people was to listen.

The Chairman of the meeting was Brother (Colonel) Sawyer, a bluff old soldier who had known the Truth for a number of years and had the habit, in private conversion, of referring to Brother Russell as "the Archbishop" and to Jesse Hemery, now manager of the London literature depot as the bishop of London." After the opening hymn he introduced the speaker, "Pastor Russell, of Brooklyn Tabernacle, New York, a well-known preacher of the Gospel, and author of ‘Studies in the Scriptures’." Pastor Russell, he said, "magnified and illuminated the majestic Plan of God, the mind and purpose of God in creation, the fall, the redemption, the restoration, perfection and salvation of the human race, through the name and merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Before commencing his address, the Pastor referred to the death of the King the previous day, and expressed his sympathy. He suggested that as a mark of respect his hearers should stand silently for a minute. The entire concourse rose in their seats and stood, quietly, until the voice of the Pastor was heard unpraised in prayer, and then, the tones of the great organ pealing what was said to be the deceased King’s favorite hymn, "Nearer, my God, to thee."

Only then did Pastor Russell commence his discourse, to which the vast audience listened with marked attention. At its end, and after the closing prayer and the benediction, the audience started for the doors. Their progress was suddenly arrested. The organist, Brother Thomas Stracy, commenced to render the "Dead March in Saul," a final tribute to the late King. The entire concourse stood still with bowed heads until the music died away, and then, as it was recorded at the time, remained still "in a silence so profound that it was necessary to pronounce the benediction again in order to disperse them." So ended the most momentous witness to the coming Kingdom that has ever been known in the history of the movement.

Two more meetings were held in the Albert Hall on the two following Sundays, with attendances of 6000 and 5000 respectively, to hear the Pastor speak on "Millennial Refreshing" and "The Overthrow of Satan’s Empire."

Five months later he returned to England to address a second series of Albert Hall meetings. The response was equal to that of the first occasion. For three Sundays in succession he faced increasing audiences; 4000 to hear "God’s Message to the Jews," 6000 for "God’s Message to Christendom," and 7600 for "The Great White Throne." Public interest was such that nearly seven hundred British newspapers carried reports of the meetings, quoting his words at greater or lesser length. It was obvious that something more had to be done and so six further meetings were advertised for local areas in London; the Pastor addressed these at Acton Baths, Alexandra Palace, Bermondsey Town Hall, East Ham Town Hall, and Woolwich Town Hall. The attendances at these local meetings ranged between six hundred to twelve hundred at each venue.

All this activity gave reason for holding a national convention of the brethren in London, which, in order to accommodate the numbers who would be attending, was held in Whitefield’s Old Tabernacle in City Road, Central London. Here Pastor Russell addressed the conventioneers from the pulpit in which both George Whitefield and John Wesley had preached in the 18 th century.

The rest of the country was not neglected. Between these two sets of meetings Brother Russell toured the country, meeting with enthusiastic responses both from the brethren and the public at each place he visited. A convention at Glasgow mustered five hundred brethren and over 3000 at the public meeting; Manchester, now a rapidly growing community, contributed four hundred brethren and two public meetings of over one thousand at each. Some half dozen other Midland cities together with Belfast and Dublin were visited with public meetings at each place, and so a memorable year came to its close.

One of the consequences of the 1910 meetings was the onset of the "newspaper work." The noticeable increase of public interest in the message and work of Pastor Russell soon brought the daily Press to the doorstep and it was indicated that the British newspaper world would by no means be averse to featuring his sermons in their columns. The consequence was that a syndicate was set up with an office in the Strand, London, fulfilling the function of receiving the sermons as they were preached in USA or England, and distributing them to every daily and weekly newspaper in the scheme.

Commencing in 1910, by the end of 1911 no less than three hundred national dailies and provincial weeklies were publishing the sermons at length as a regular feature and the combined number of copies of such papers reached a maximum of twelve millions annually which implied that virtually every newspaper reader in the country came into contact with the message. Many thousands of inquiries were received in the London office in consequence. The onset of the 1914 war with its paper shortages began to limit the scale of this witness, but it continued during the ensuing ten years in diminishing volume, eventually developing into a system whereby local churches and individuals found local paper editors who were willing to accept news and details of their activities and special functions for their columns and this practice continued for many years thereafter......It is impossible to say how many people thus received and believed the message without avowedly throwing in their lot with the Bible Students. The number of known active members of the movement bears no relation to the number of those who believed, attended meetings when they could, and carried the vision with them to the end of their days. Workers in later years frequently came into contact with such, who had the "Scripture Studies" on their bookshelves and still avowed belief. The fruits of the Harvest were by no means confined to those who became "members of the brethren." There were many thousands of others.

The euphoria created by these events was now to give rise to a significant proposal. The London Church was the largest and most influential in the country. It comprised eight mutually independent self-governing churches in various parts of the Metropolis. Brother Russell was now to suggest that they combined forces to establish an impressive congregation in a appropriate building in Central London—and so events moved forward to the opening of the London Tabernacle.

3 The London Tabernacle

THE RISING tide of enthusiasm in this country, especially in the London area, following the Albert Hall meetings, led Brother Russell to consider the merit of establishing a central London church of repute which should stand as a visible symbol of the Faith and a rallying point for those in Britain who had espoused it. The two principal centers were London and Glasgow, followed closely by Manchester. As the national capital, London was the obvious choice, and one object of the Pastor’s visit in 1911 was to find and acquire such a church and see it established. By now the London brethren numbered in all something like three hundred at Forest Gate and eight hundred spread over the eight area groups affiliated together as the London Church, —Lewisham alone is known to have exceeded 100 in 1911, and while the original North London group was still the largest, most of the others did not fall far short of Lewisham.

The meeting at Eversholt Street where the Society now had its headquarters was the smallest but had outgrown its capacity; altogether London had the largest congregation of Bible Students of any city in the country.

So Jesse Hemery found himself accompanying the Pastor on a tour of London in the search for a suitable building. Jesse himself must have felt some satisfaction at the turn of events.

Eversholt Street was by no means in the most salubrious part of London and he may well have embarked upon the quest with visions of a fine church building in a high-class quarter with himself as pastor-in-charge. If there were any such dreams they were rather rudely shattered when the Pastor found a place which he thought would be an admirable choice for the purpose.

That building was the Ring at Blackfriars, south of the Thames, in an area compared with which even Eversholt Street would seem palatial by comparison. The Ring was a large circular building built and used for boxing tournaments, and at the relevant time was apparently up for sale. Why it took the Pastor’s fancy is a bit of a puzzle maybe its circular shape reminded him of the Albert Hall, but there the resemblance ended. As a solution to the problem it was entirely unsuitable; the fact that it was on the south side of the river and all the main line railway terminals save one were on the north side would have made access very difficult. Jesse Hemery lost no time in steering the Pastor to a more congenial area, the West End.

Here they met with better fortune. Craven Hill Congregational Chapel was for sale. About a mile west of Marble Arch, adjacent to Hyde Park, it was in the center of Bayswater, at that time a favored residential area for the "higher up." Better still, the mansion adjacent to the Chapel, 34 Craven Terrace, was available for lease, an ideal location for the Society’s headquarters. Negotiations were entered into and quite soon the building was acquired and renamed the London Tabernacle.

Built, it is believed, about 1750-1800, the Tabernacle (it is not there now) was a typical Nonconformist place of worship of the period. The seating capacity was 1200. Three short flights of steps led up from the street to three arched double entrance doors. The center one gave access to an inner vestibule from which two doors led into the Tabernacle proper. The doors on right and left led into lobbies giving access to the interior and also to two stairways each, one leading up to the gallery, which surrounded the auditorium on three sides, and the other down to a lower storey known as the "schoolroom" extending over the whole area of the tabernacle. One lobby also gave access to a long room flanking one side of the building, useful for auxiliary purposes. Below ground, similarly flanking the schoolroom, there were other rooms, store-rooms, kitchen premises and other amenities, and a baptismal pool. At the front end, below the pulpit, the auditorium widened out at each side into two flanks furnished with seating at right angles to the center portion, the gallery following suit. The pulpit, raised fairly high, projected from the front of a semi-circular alcove large enough to seat ten or twenty people, (as often happened at conventions) approached by a stairway. Thus the officiating minister was surrounded by his congregation on three sides, and sometimes by a fourth at his rear.

The London ecclesias—with the exception of Forest Gate-fell in with the suggestion that they closed down their separate identities and amalgamated to form one congregation at the Tabernacle for weekly worship. This meant that instead of eight distinct churches, each having its own affairs, there was one single and much larger ecclesia incorporating all the elders and deacons of its constituent fellowships. Sunday evening meetings were still held in several suburbs for the benefit of those who could not travel to the center and there were a number of week-night meetings in various suburban districts associated with the Tabernacle. The intent was to gather a large and impressive congregation associated with a well-appointed b building in a superior part of London to facilitate the work of spreading the good tidings.

It is to be feared that in the enthusiasm of the moment the brethren failed to remember the Apostle’s warning against "making a fair show in the flesh," that development into a large and powerful organization with vested interests can bring its own problems. Five years later some of them began to wonder if it had been such a good idea after all.

Forest Gate did not join in the coalition. The Pastor tried to talk them into it and seemed unable to grasp their argument that to uproot an established Church of three hundred people in order to attend another Church on the opposite side of London to the detriment of their evangelical work in their own district was hardly the wisest use of their resources. It was left to one of the elders, Alex Guy, to try the diplomatic approach. He suggested that Brother Russell accompany him on a trial journey from Forest Gate to the Tabernacle. The Pastor fell right into this one.

By the time he had traveled by bus from Forest Gate to the nearest Underground station, thence to the City, a longish walk to the Bank Tube station, thence by Central London line to Lancaster Gate, and walked round to the Tabernacle, Brother Russell was completely exhausted. "I had no idea London was so big" he told Alex Guy. "I quite agree with you that your brethren could not be expected to make such a journey every Sunday." So London henceforward possessed two main centers, Forest Gate for East London and London Tabernacle for North, West and South. (It has to be admitted that many of the South London brethren had even longer journeys to the Tabernacle; for some it meant two hours or more, morning and evening.) The inaugural meeting of the newly opened church was held on April 3rd, 1911, Pastor Russell being the preacher. He had already, in 1910, been invited by unanimous vote to become the Pastor of the London Church and now the Tabernacle was to be the seat of that Church and now the Tabernacle was to be the seat of that Church and his Pastorate. In view of his commitments—he was already Pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the New York City Temple—he expected to be in this country only for two periods in each year. This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to the London Church which already had plenty of able elders available to conduct the meetings and guide their destinies. Brother Russell’s Pastorate was very largely an honorary one.

The British Press was interested in this development and gave it good publicity. The national "Daily News" of April 18th, 1911, came out with a full-page account on page 3 with pictures of the Tabernacle and its Pastor. Under the caption "Timely interview and statement from Pastor Russell, London and Brooklyn" the leader-writer said, in part, "On Easter Sunday, in the London Tabernacle, Pastor Russell, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and a figure of international reputation and influence, became the official head of a large London congregation of Christians, thus securing an admirable center of proposed religious activity...At the Sunday morning session, Pastor Russell formally accepted the pastorate of the London congregation...following this, Pastor Russell delivered his Easter sermon on ‘The Resurrection’ ..." Both the words of acceptance, the Easter sermon, and his answers to the interviewer’s questions respecting his message and work, were reproduced in full, covering the complete page of seventeen by twenty-four inches, the usual size of daily papers in those days, seven columns wide. The interview, thus widely disseminated over London and the country, rendered the London Tabernacle well known overnight.

The "Daily Graphic" of April 8 said "Pastor Russell, who for a number of years has been a frequent visitor to our shores...has accepted the pastorate of the London Tabernacle. The advent of Pastor Russell brings to this city an country a man of international reputation who is known almost as well in Great Britain as he is in America...Reputed to be the most popular preacher in America, it is noteworthy that he should become prominently identified with religious effort in England...We see the wonderful opportunity for doing good enjoyed by Pastor Russell, and there is every prospect that Londoners will be greatly benefited by his coming..." Said the "Daily Chronicle" under the caption "American Spurgeon; Pastor Russell’s new work at Paddington Tabernacle."

"Pastor Russell, of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, known as the ‘American Spurgeon,’ has accepted a call from the congregation of the London Tabernacle, Paddington...It is hoped to make the Paddington church the center of carefully organized and sustained evangelistic effort for the metropolis on the lines which for many years made Spurgeon’s Tabernacle in south London one of the largest and most powerful agencies of religious endeavor and social reform in this country..." The "London Globe" with a heading "American minister for London" had this to say: "Pastor Russell, of New York, has accepted the pastorate of the London Tabernacle, located at Lancaster Gate, W, and is to officially assume his new duties on the 16 th inst....".The "Christian World" contributed "Pastor Russell, of Brooklyn Tabernacle, ... has accepted the pastorate of the London Tabernacle, Paddington, which will be the London headquarters of his work...Mr. Russell will give as much time to his work in London as his other engagements permit."

And just so that America know all about it, the London representative of the "New York Herald" cabled an account of his head office in New York which appeared in the issue of April 17. He said, in part, "Brooklyn Pastor in pulpit of the London Tabernacle. The Rev. Charles Taze Russell begins Pastorate in British City." "The Rev. Charles Taze Russell, known as Pastor Russell of Brooklyn, has accepted the pastorate of the London Tabernacle. Mr. Russell, who is now here, hopes to make the Paddington church the center of a great religious effort on lines similar to those of Dr. Charles Spurgeon, the famous Pastor of South London Tabernacle. Mr. Russell occupied the pulpit of his new church this afternoon, preaching on the subject of the Resurrection..." With all this publicity, coupled with the effect of the Albert Hall meetings of the previous year, which at that time had also been fully reported in the newspapers, the London Tabernacle got off to a flying start. The congregation, which amounted to about eight hundred at the start, increased fairly rapidly and by 1916 was the largest congregation of Bible Students in the world, approaching the fifteen hundred mark. In that later year there were nineteen elders and over fifty deacons serving the varied interests and undertakings of an active community. The 1200 seating capacity of the Tabernacle—fifty per cent greater than Brother Russell’s own Brooklyn Tabernacle—also made it the largest Bible Students’ church building in the world, then or since.

One of the earliest projects of the new amalgamation was a kind of intensive seminar on Bible archaeology within the precincts of the British Museum. One of the London deacons, Wordsworth Jones, Oriental prizewinner of Durham University, held an official position at the Museum, and was able to initiate and carry out a scheme whereby all who would of the congregation could be conducted around and have the exhibits explained from the Biblical standpoint as they went, in a much more thorough and detailed fashion than was afforded by the usual public conducted tours. By way of a start he selected six able deacons and gave them a thorough briefing on the technical aspects of the subject. They in turn conducted successive parties of brethren round the Museum to the satisfaction of all concerned.

Something like three hundred brethren enjoyed this facility during 1912 and the practice continued in lessening degree for four or five years thereafter. It is true that some of the co-relations of exhibits with Bible history have proved unjustified in the light of discoveries of half a century later, but this was, even then, no new phenomenon, neither it is now. The value of Wordsworth Jones’ initiative was in its effect of relating the discoveries of science to the historical aspect of the Bible, and interpreting them in the light of the then modern knowledge, all of which constituted them an invaluable aid to faith, one which many Christians ignore or disparage to their disadvantage.

The continuing increase in the volume of work handled by the London office of the Society, now located at 34 Craven Terrace, adjacent to the Tabernacle, necessitated a corresponding increase in managerial effort; there was more to be done than Jesse Hemery with a few assistants could handle unaided. The establishment of the tabernacle therefore became the occasion for Brother Russell to appoint two co-managers to constitute a managerial triumvirate of three, to reside at 34 Craven Terrace and administer the work from there. His choice for the two new managers fell on two well-known and respected brethren, William Crawford and Henry Shearn. These two were to figure very prominently in later history.

William Crawford had been a member of the first Glasgow church, established in 1882—he probably joined it about 1885—and was an elder of the enlarged Glasgow church when the Edgars came on the scene in 1897, until 1911 when he left that city to take up his new duties in London. Henry Shearn, a London business man, first came into contact with the "Divine Plan" in 1906 and entered into close correspondence with Brother Russell; he entertained the latter at his home on that time of contact retired from his business, donated money to the Society to further its work, settled his family in a Somerset cottage, and took up full-time colporteur service traveling the country spreading the message. During this period he held office as an elder in the Bristol church. Now, in 1911, he came to London to reside with his family at 34 Craven Terrance, and found himself fully occupied supervising the Pilgrim work among the brethren and the Newspaper work, the publishing of articles and sermons on the faith in daily and weekly newspapers all over the country.

The acquirement of the London Tabernacle brought to the surface various legal questions regarding the holding of property; in order to resolve these questions and others connected with a work of increasing magnitude, a British organization to be called the International Bible Students Association was created. This name had been used to some extent in an informal fashion in the United States since 1910 to denote work carried on by individual churches as distinct from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, which legally was a purely business organization under US law for the publishing and distribution of Biblical literature.

The International Bible Students Association was to serve the same purpose under British law and it was formally incorporated in London on 30 June 1914 under the Companies Act of 1908..Its officers and trustees comprised C. T. Russell (President), J. Hemery (Vice President), H.J. Shearn (Secretary) and W.

Crawford (Treasurer). The practical effect was to put the entire work in Great Britain under British control with the paternal oversight of C. T. Russell and the Society providing literature. In practice, of course, since there was no dissent from the leadership of Brother Russell, the UK and USA, organizations worked together in perfect harmony and the IBSA became looked upon as an adjunct to the main Society.

Brother Russell’s last visit to this country was in 1914. After this year public lectures were organized by practically every local church in their own vicinities with varying degrees of success.

Through the years of the first World War conditions were obviously not conducive to this kind of activity and it was very largely scaled down. After the war it was renewed and at first was as effective as in former times. In London a highly organized campaign of sets of four successive weekly lectures followed by the endeavor to establish a regular local meeting in the area resulted in such local meetings in north, south, and west London sheeting up from eighteen upon the establishment of the Tabernacle in 1911 to over sixty in 1916. These public lectures were often not without their humorous side, as for instance when Hubert Thackway was due to address an audience of a thousand at a large West London cinema (cinemas did not open on Sundays in those days hence were always available, at a price, for public meetings). Upon arrival at the venue, the appointed Chairman found to his dismay that there was no platform. The screen came down sheer to the floor with a space in front bounded by a brass rail six feet high carrying a blue curtain behind which the orchestra sat. (In the days of silent films an orchestra or pianist, according to the size of the cinema, lout of sight of audience, played appropriate music as the film proceeded.) A hasty search of the premises yielded nothing more than a kitchen table and a rather rickety chair. There was nothing for it but to make use of the materials available and hope for the best. At the time of opening the meeting the audilence sat, gazing at the blue curtain surmounted by a white screen. There appeared, just above the rail, a head—a head, incidentally, acutely conscious of its position. A moment’s lapse, and then, rather uncertainly, due to the rather uncertain state of the chair, the head rose several feet into the air to reveal the upper part of its associated body. The customary procedure ensued, the audience was introduced to Mr. Thackway, who unfortunately was not visible because he was down below, behind the curtain.

Another head appeared, surveying the, by now, rather bemused, audience impassively. A short interval, and the relevant body.

For the next hour and a half Hubert Thackway had to remember that he was not on a platform but on a kitchen table which threatened to go to pieces under his not inconsiderable weight at any moment.

The lecture ended, the body disappeared, followed by its head.

The first one appeared again, and then its body. The usual things were said; it was hoped the audience had enjoyed the evening’s proceedings—they probably had—and would those who would like to know more leave their names with on eof the ushers at the doors. Then the body disappeared, and the head. The chair held out gallantly to the last.

This was the kind of incident that provided light relief at subsequent Sunday meetings when the faithful enquired "how did the lecture go?"—as for example when Theodore Seeck went to a village hall on the outskirts of London with his chairman, again to find there was no platform and only a table the condition of which rendered it a dead cert that if put into use the lecture would certainly experience a premature and catastrophic conclusion. The only other solid object available was a dead palm tree in a large pot. The chairman concerned, being at the time still technically a teenager, had no hesitation in ripping out the tree from its pot and standing his speaker on the earth, in the pot, behind the table hidden by a table-cloth. The speaker was under the unfortunate necessity of standing as stiff and as still as a statue during the entire course of his lecture and all would have been well if the pot, halfway through, had not begun to wobble.

The chairman h ad to take remedial action for the rest of the meeting by kneeling on the floor, behind the pot, below the speaker, hidden by the table-cloth, hold the pot firmly to avoid a catastrophe. It is uncertain who was the more exhausted at the end of the lecture, speaker or chairman.

These public meetings were approached and carried through in a spirit of light-heartedness because the message they proclaimed was one of joy and happiness. There was no "flee from the wrath to come" element in the proclamation, no threatening the terrors of Hell for the non-believer. The evangel was one of hope and comfort, one which exalted both the Love and Wisdom of God, and extended a hope to all mankind, one which made sense of the apparent paradox that a world of evil and disease and death can exist contemporaneously with the existence of an all-loving and all-powerful God. Plenty of people came to these meetings and went away with a new hope in their lives even if they did not there and then throw in their lot with the Bible Students. Plenty looked out for the announcements of these public meetings and went to them time and again. The enthusiasm of the brethren and an increasing response on the part of the public combined to make the years from 1910 to 1916 the best ever. Attendances in the larger towns of the size of, say, Plymouth, Tunbridge Wells, Cheltenham, Hull, York, Stirling, were recorded from one thousand to fifteen hundred, the small towns registered five hundred upwards. Glasgow in 1913 had a meeting attended by six thousand with over eight hundred enquiries at its close for further information and contact. In the same year over three thousand crowded into Manchester Hippodrome, many of whom.stood for two hours listening to the speaker, even then hundreds were turned away.

The light relief continued. A meeting at Nottingham towards the end of this period was being addressed by one J. Faulds Ross who possessed the distinction of having been a professional actor before he came into contact with the Truth. He brought his dramatic skill with him and it colored his style of delivery so that the brethren in Nottingham know what to expect. Now one of the sisters possessed a small son who was renowned for mischief—a not unusual trait. He wanted to come to the meeting—most of the speakers had a style free from the sanctimonious which rendered them appealing to the very young as well as to their elders. He was allowed to come after the exaction of a promise that there would be no mischief. So the meeting opened in the usual manner and the speaker warmed to his subject. He came at length to the point where he dwelt up the sufferings endured by men of God in Old Testament times memorable passage in the Book of Hebrews, he told how their relentless enemies pursued and harried them from place to place, tortured them and put them to death; "they were stoned" he declaimed, striking a characteristic pose" they were sawn asunder, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. They wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth!" He stopped for dramatic effect and fixed his gaze on his spell-bound audience, and there was a great silence.

And into that silence, from high up at the rear of the gallery there came a clear, incisive voice, reaching to all parts of the building.

"Villains!" it said..

And the spell was broken.

There is no record of what happened when the small boy got home. He must at any rate have been listening intently to the lecture.

A variant style of meeting was initiated by the brethren in South Wales. They were mostly miners in the coal fields and not sufficiently endowed with this world’s goods to engage large halls with all the outlay for extras entailed. They took to the mountain-sides outside the villages and held open-air meetings, night after night, with crowded audiences. For many years afterwards every South Wales town and village had its local community of Bible Students.

To some extent this great accession of public interest would have been due in part to the imminence of the widely proclaimed year 1914 which was expected to witness the commencement of the period of transition from the world as it now is to the world presided over by the Lord Christ at his Advent and the coming of the Millennium. Although the faithful were led to expect this transition to be effected over a much shorter period of time than has proved to be the case, the fact that the initial phase, the onset of devastating world war, predicted thirty years earlier, did occur right on time, had a profound effect; even the scoffers were temporarily silenced, and interest in the message continued relatively unabated during the dark years of the war, limited only by the effect of war conditions upon such functions as public meetings. Looking back from the vantage point of the closing years of the century, it is realized that C.T. Russell was correct enough in his expectations except that the program has taken, or more correctly taken, or more correctly is taking, a century to work out instead of the expected ten years. No one familiar with his writings can deny that the world, politically, religiously, economically, and ecologically, is in just that state he foresaw nearly a century ago.

At this time, from about 1915 onward, there came what was called the "Class Extension Work". This was a planned arrangement directed to organize new regular group meetings particularly in the suburbs of the cities. By 1911 there were about a hundred and fifty regular groups meeting in "classes" or "churches" aggregating nearly five thousand brethren and the effect of the 1910 meetings was such as to inspire all these to follow that up by a further concerted evangelical outreach.

The general system was to hold a series of four or five successive weekly Sunday public meetings in a suitable hall at which salient features of the Faith were propounded. At the end of the series announcement was made from the platform asking if anyone present was prepared to offer their home for a regular discussion group on these themes—half a century later some of the established denominations tried the same innovation and have met with much the same successful outcome. Almost always an offer—sometimes two or three—would be forthcoming and all interested were invited to attend. Several of the mature brethren would be present at the start to organize and direct the general trend of such a meeting; after perhaps a year or so the attendants would be sufficiently mature to take over the oversight themselves. This was always the objective and so a new fully-fledged fellowship was born. Most of the larger city churches embarked on this activity on a fairly large scale with eminently encouraging results. Four fellowships on the North-East coast in the Newcastle-Hartlepool area held fourteen sets of such meetings in 1912 and in consequence twelve new fellowships were formed having a total new membership of over two hundred, some of these in later years grew to memberships of a hundred or more each. To advertise these meetings nearly half a million pamphlets were distributed, more than three thousand people attended and nearly a thousand "Divine Plan" volumes were taken by the more definitely interested of these.

Glasgow a year later had much the same experience. Seventeen sets of meetings attended by three thousand people in response to a leaflet distribution of three hundred thousand yielded six new fellowships. London conducted these Class Extension meetings on a generous scale; throughout 1915 to 1920 they were always being held in one area or another of the Metropolis, the scale of London suburbia offering plenty of scope. By 1917 there were more than seventy local weeknight meetings in North, West, and South London affiliated to the London Church and something like fifteen in East London with the Forest Gate Church. The effect of Brother Russell’s 1910 visit and the Albert hall meetings was still in evidence.

The newly converted often caught the infection and started out on their own on a basis of enthusiasm untempered by experience.

An infant fellowship in a Hampshire town round about 1922 resolved to pass on the good news themselves in a neighboring village and appealed to London for help by providing a speaker.

Came an urgent message from the office to one of the London elders on a Saturday afternoon requesting him to go to the village concerned the next day to deliver said lecture, arrangements in the hands of local brethren. Never having heard of the place, recourse to appropriate works of reference revealed it as located in Hampshire. It had a railway station and the service was once in three hours. It was a January day, bitterly cold, and the snow was on the ground. When the hapless elder got out of the train he looked around and saw no village, just snow-covered fields, snow-covered trees, and one snow-covered cottage, bearing the magic sign "teas". Enquiry at the cottage revealed that the village was a mile away. On the basis of the sign further enquiry elicited that the only available beverage was Horlick’s Malted Milk. On the principle that beggars cannot be choosers the same was duly furnished and consumed. Then came the walk to the village, which when reached presented the usual collection of cottages, a church, and inn, and a village hall, all shut and no sign of life anywhere. There was, however, a notice on the village hall door announcing the meeting, so the—by now rather cold—speaker knew that he was in the right place. But no sign of any brethren. And still a couple of hours to meeting time.