It is reputed that some followers of CTR gathered at a bridge in Pittsburg for the end of the world.
It is also alleged that CTR was there in white robes.
CTR,Pittsburg,1878
by badboy 13 Replies latest jw friends
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dorothy
Funny you should mention that. I was having dinner with a dubbie this weekend and she told me they all gathered on the Brooklyn Bridge in white robes, thinking they were going to "ascend to heaven." Not sure of the date, but I assume it was in 1914. Boy, they must have looked dumb. Does anyone else know anything about this?
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czarofmischief
It was the Sixth street Bridge in 1874, on Easter Sunday, and CT later denied being there.
CZAR
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sf
http://www.watchtowerinformationservice.org/russellprophet.htm
A portion, as you scroll:
Storrs predicted Christ’s second coming for 1870. Its failure motivated Charles and 5 others to start a separate study class.
In Rochester, New York, N.H. Barbour, former gold-digger in Australia turned prophet, predicted Christ's coming for 1873, then 1874, finally 1875. When all failed he claimed that Christ had returned invisibly in 1874. In 1876 Charles’ group, now numbering 30, amalgamated with Barbour’s sect of 100 Second Adventists.
From Barbour Charles learnt about the "Gentile Times". (6) In The Bible Examiner (October 1876) Charles predicted:
"The Gentile Times will end in A.D. 1914."
By this he meant that Israel would be restored and ruled by resurrected Hebrews to whom all nations would submit, giving world peace by 1914. Barbour also convinced Charles that the living Saints", which included themselves, would rise physically to heaven in 1878.
This expectation caused Charles to curtail business activities and preach on soap boxes, outside churches, and in parks. He called a meeting of all the Christian ministers of Alleghany and Pittsburgh to convince them of Christ's 1874 return and of the imminent miraculous ascent. The result?
"All of the ministers of the two cities refused to believe. " (7)
This repudiation marked the start of Russellism’s, hence Jehovah’s Witness, estrangement from conventional Christianity.
The haberdashery business of Charles and his father, which had increased from one store to 5 valued at $300,000, now began to be dissipated. Barbour, for example, required new printing equipment.
1878 arrived. One Pittsburgh newspaper reported that Charles, draped in white robes, spent Passover night on Sixth Street Bridge. Charles denied it, adding:
"However some of the more radical ones might have been there." (8)
Charles re-examined the Bible and concluded that the dead saints were raised that night. The living saints would ascend in 1881. This conclusion evidenced "the Lord’s continued leading." (9) The ploy of arguing that the date was right but the event expected wrong, was to be used again and again through 15 prophetic failures. Barbour rejected the "plain simple solution" (10) and after further disagreements Charles withdrew.
In 1879 Charles started "Zion’s Watch Tower". The high initial circulation, 6,000, was possible because H.B. Rice, a Second Adventist prophet of California, had to close down for lack of finance and so donated his subscriber list to Charles. Charles’ sect was now an independent entity.
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Faith on the March - chpt. 2
... That was Charles Taze Russell, later globally known as Pastor ... of the Morning are
discouraged because 1874 has passed ... with Miller and the Lord didn't come then ...
www.e-cepher.com/books/fotm/2faith.html - 38k - Cached - Similar pagesA portion, as you scroll:
MAINTAINING THE MIND OF THE LORD Expecting the Lord Jesus to come in 1878 to catch them up miraculously to be with him in heaven, some who had been Second Adventists (including Barbour) were disappointed when that miracle did not occur. Russell, though, "did not for a moment feel cast down," but "realized that what God had so plainly declared must some time have a fulfillment"; and he "wanted to have it just in God's time and way." 19
On one occasion while talking with Russell about the events of 1878, I told him that Pittsburgh papers had reported he was on the Sixth Street bridge dressed in a white robe on the night of the Memorial of Christ's death, expecting to be taken to heaven together with many others. I asked him, "Is that correct?"
Russell laughed heartily and said: "I was in bed that night between 10:30 and 11:00 P.M. However, some of the more radical ones might have been there, but I was not. Neither did I expect to be taken to heaven at that time, for I felt there was much work to be done preaching the Kingdom message to the peoples of the earth before the church would be taken away."
It was right at the time of this disappointment, as Russell shows, 20 that a permanent breach began between Barbour and Russell. Paul's words at I Corinthians 15:51, 52, were being wrongly construed, Russell had pointed out. There, in Paul's statement, "We shall not all sleep," the word sleep is not synonymous with die, though some had so understood. Rather, here sleep means state of unconsciousness of those who in death must wait for Christ's second coming to awaken them out of such sleep. 21 Russell showed how Paul clearly meant by his words that those alive on earth when Christ returned would not need to go into such sleep of death to wait for a future awakening, but at the instant of their death they then would be "changed" or resurrected immediately, to be with Christ in heaven as spirit persons. This harmonizes with Paul's words in this same chapter, verse 36: "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die."
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sKally
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johnny cip
in the book kingdom of the cults; under jw's it speaks about how on easter sunday 1881 how russell had called a pittsburg newpaper. to a bridge in pittsburg to photograph russell and some others dressed in white robes raptured into heaven . i don't have aq copy of kingdoms of the cults but i did read it , and remember they gave the name of the newspaper and the article about it. maybe some can look it up. john
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sf
Heya johnny...
Check it out:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Kingdom+Of+The+Cults
And this search yields some interesting hits:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Kingdom+Of+The+Cults+newspaper+russell&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
sKally
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funkyderek
Storrs predicted Christ?s second coming for 1870. Its failure motivated Charles and 5 others to start a separate study class.
What? Doesn't that mean he was running ahead of Jehovah's organization? Why didn't he wait on Jehovah instead of leaving the congregation and starting his own apostate religion?