Little Charlie Russell's mother died when he was nine. Death knew his family well. Only two of five survived of children born to her.
Scottish Presbyterians one and all, no doubt, saw life and death as Calvin had described. Predestination was Jehovah's plan for man. To heaven or to Hell you were assigned.
How troubling this must be!
Wondering where in wise Jehovah's plan your mother spent eternity; a bright and sensitive lad might ruminate at night on matters weighing heavy on his heart; why babies died and mothers went away and what might be your destiny in God's grand scheme of things.
The ironies in life! Unfathomable and dark they are with only God to light your troubled path.
Read the bible, go to church, pray to god and trust the Lord; like tolling bells these admonitions filled young Russell's ears!
How heavy was the hand of church on man! Presbyterian hands might shape the clay without a word that you might say mattering at all.
You were a thing, a tool, a game piece to be moved and little else.
Young Charles at thirteen fell away; he fell away; apostacy!
But, why? Had nothing good from family and Presbyters filled up his youthful cup?
Indeed, they had! Presbyterians emphasize an education for their boys establishing such colleges as Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and Amherst!
So, Charles had been embued with learning from an early age and shaped into a vessal for God's use.
But, something caught young Russell's eye, some error intervened. Some mote had lodged and troubled him transforming into beam.
AUTHORITY! AUTHORITY!
It gnawed upon his very soul, it did. It wore away his loyalty. It wore away his faith in Presbyterian resolve.
But, where, oh where, is good or better: best?
He found himself now Congregational.
The issue was AUTONOMY. Each separate and singular of churches ruled their own autonomous and indivdidual souls.
The stumbling block was now removed that wounded Russell's conscience pure: ORGANIZATION. An affront to man and god, it was, to be commanded by a group of men above who placed themselves between you and your god!! False Christs they were, these mere mortals who might dictate what opinion should be "true". The TRUTH was private and secure! Between believers and the church the spirit spoke, not through an organized and temporal voice, but; only through the word!
Russell would not listen if authority envoked some rude formality of outside fallacy. Congregations from the time of Jesus floated free! The CHURCH of Rome was simple Apostacy! Luther knew it to be true and Wesley too; the Lollards and a chain of souls unOrganized holding but a bible in their hand.
Of one thing Russell was convinced, true Christianity was lost between apostles and the Pope by nothing less than bold Authority.
And so, while still a boy, he chalked his warning verses on the sidewalks of the town and warned the dangers of a burning Hell!
Calvin whispered in his ear; his destiny young Russell now beheld. A vessal, he must preach and warn and shake the very sensibility of Truth away from mere Authority.
But, conversation and conviction often prove to be affliction when intelligence meets logic on the path. Questions came he could not answer; it ate away at faith, this cancer of doubt eroding every trace of certainty.
From his Apostacy of Presbyterian faith he had transformed. And now, again, from Congregational simplicity a new apostacy!
At sixteen he lost all faith! He lost his destiny. He lost his hold on heaven and hell and struggled with his soul.
What falls away and what remains? Again, the tolling bell refrains:
Read the bible, go to church, pray to god and trust the Lord; like tolling bells these admonitions filled young Russell's ears!
He plunged into a turmoil like a drowning swimmer in the tide amid such books and tomes as great minds can provide. Philosophy and Buddhist books; the wisdom of great men. Yet, always back to Scripture did he return again.
Another man named Miller had trod this path before and every form of bible secret for two years he had explored. The answer to this sacred secret? Jesus comes by 1844! The preaching of this second coming split the churches into armies of the ardent and the skeptic and the fools. Contrarians would turn their back on Organization rules.
Congregational autonomy would take a shine to Advent talk because it flouted wisdom of the rank and file.
The disappointment, Great as it was, could not disprove the essence of belief. Jesus would return or had returned or somewhere in between, the details should not get in the way!
How many drunk on End Times wine would stagger to the tune of such allure?!
Suddenly apostate Russell was assured!
Adventist ministers could catch his ear, allay the fear and somehow clear away the doubts and mental blocks which shocked his soul.
Georges Stoors and Stetson raised the curtain and uncertainty became a hollow doubt. Russell listened, yes, he listened and conviction like the summer to a winter landscape, faith a warm rebirth unfurled.
Charlie Russell was reborn! All by 1874 this renewal comes. Faith, Apostacy, Congregational autonomy, apostacy, longing and a search had led him to Adventist certainty. He was rebaptised, renewed, replaced in the traces with new fields to plow. He was 24 now.
His father's haberdashery success provided him with wealth and soon he'd publish views with dollars from this source. He entertained Adventist views from Nelson Barbour who could prove the world in four years would most certainly die!
But, like Miller's disappointment, Barbour's date was but a lie and Russell sought to sound a call to eager ears: date certain.
Newspapers jeered as thousands waited on the bridges and the rooftops for their Christ.But, like his Lord, Russell never bothered to appear. He slept a restful sleep and dreamed of publishing his Truth; His destiny somehow to make Truth clear.
1878 must be replaced by better chronology. 1914 now would bring the end.
Irony of Ironies from Presbyter to Publisher autonomy in congregations was his creed. Of Organization--no need!
Thus, was born the Russell Paradox. The most organized religous group would from this seed now spring.
He preached of pyramids and Jesus' return unveiling every sacred secret in his wake. Invisible this Kingdom power until the tolling of the hour Armageddon's doom began its quake.
Congregational autonomy? When Russell died it joined him in his funeral box.