look plain and simple, Russell made the proclamation that the end would come in 1914 and that this was God's date not his. That is a prophecy and so he was a false prophet. There is NO evidence that God appointed Russell to do anything. Russell like many others in his day were self appointed men not satisfied with the religion of the time and they started their own. The problem is he left orthodox Christianity and thus became an apostate of Christianity.
Any attempt to whitewash his establishment of the the WT organization is just that a whitewash. Fact is he did establish it and if he really wanted to stay away from organized religion he should have left well enough alone because he was the one that gave birth to the beast known as the WT bible tract society that since has enslaved millions in its false religious, publishing world empire. Lilly