Dear Diary,
Can you imagine devoting yourself - heart, mind, body and soul - to a "worthy" cause and then have it prove to be an utter lie? Then, the ultimate insult to your already unsustainable injury: you are told that the reason for the defeat of your cherished cause is - YOU! Well, at the very least, your expectations were misplaced! I realize you may not be able to fathom the bizarre nature of egomaniacal human behavior, DD. To witness the wholesale takeover of a collective man's mind from my historical vantage point - the brain boggles. How can it have happened? Wm. Schnell said [Thirty Years a Watch Tower Slave] about 1925 and the return of the OT princes:
"This expectation was fanned by every publication of the Organization of that time and it left a deep imprint upon our minds. In fact, it virtually made irrational crack-pots out of many of us." (p.33)
The year 1925 came and went - no Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Rutherford's clever explanation to disappointed members of Bethel [CHRISTIANS AWAKE!, W.J. Schnell, p. 68]:
"'Boys, you do not want to go to heaven now when the Lord has so much work for us to do. Let us print books and go with them into the highways and byways and:advertise, advertise, advertise, the King and kingdom until the end shall come.' He talked two hours that night and when he was through, he had talked us foolish ones out of going to heaven."
DD, if you can believe it, there is still more. The foundation of lies, deceit and glaring inconsistencies between words and practice. I wish I could spare you the details of this awful tale....
And a few years earlier, in the theatres of war: George Butterworth, English composer, died at the age of 31, as an infantryman. "Two English Idylls for Small Orchestra," currently playing. The battle in which he took part was, ironically, successful. Better to die for one's country than for a lunatic visionary.
CoCo