Diary of A J Eychaner,
reproduced by kind permission of Jan Stilson
First my apologies for the reference to The Lone Ranger. It gives
away my age somewhat. But it’s a way of raising an important question on
identity in a given situation.
At the head of this article is a most interesting historical
document. It is two pages from the diary of A J Eychaner from 1895. As a later
hand has indicated with comments and highlighter, Eychaner talks of C T Russell
speaking at a conference at Marshalltown, held over August 15-25, 1895. This
was the Church of God’s Iowa State Conference for that year. Andrew James Eychaner
(1842-1936) was a long time preacher for the Church of God – a combination of
congregations that used such names as Abrahamic Faith/One Faith/Age to Come.
They were eventually united as the Church of God General Conference in 1921.
Charles Taze Russell (hereafter referred to as CTR) had connections
with this group in the early days. Because they would often fellowship with
Advent Christians on a local level (before the latter body became an official
denomination) this has muddied the waters somewhat about the little fellowship CTR
first met with at Quincy Hall in Allegheny. The Church of God’s main paper, The
Restitution, advertised Barbour’s Three Worlds book, and CTR’s first
independent work, Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return, was given away with this
paper in 1877. These connections are discussed at length in Separate Identity Volume
1, and also past articles on this blog such as Charles Taze Russell and the Restitution,
and 1874-75
Allegheny-Pittsburgh – Adventist or Age to Come?
It would appear from the diary above that, although ZWT was
well-established by 1895 and the Watch Tower movement was achieving its “separate
identity”, CTR still appeared on a Church of God platform. This matter was
discussed on the closed blog about four years ago, when the accuracy of the diary
entries was questioned. (For any who are gluttons for punishment and want all
the references and do not have access to the closed blog, by all means feel
free to contact me back-channel).
But reviewing the basics of the argument, there appeared to be conflicting
evidence for whether it really was our Charles Russell who appeared on the same
platform as A J Eychaner.
There were two main reasons for raising questions.
First, when The Restitution advertised the conference, it billed a
C W Russell as the supporting speaker, and he too was a Charles. Charles W
Russell was a regular assistant to Eychaner at this time. He moved to Iowa from
Chicago and received his teaching certificate in July 1894. Over the next year,
his name was regularly linked with Eychaner’s in tent work. Years later, in
1912 he was still preaching for the Church of God.
So it would be logical for C W Russell to appear at the Marshalltown
conference. People would be expecting him, not CTR. Hence he is clearly billed
in The Restitution for August 7, 1895, which gives the complete conference program
with speakers.
Second, relations between our CTR and
the Church of God had soured considerably by this time. CTR’s writings had
attracted severe criticism as Restitution readers were warned about him. Some of
the choice epithets he’d already garnered by this time included “blinded by his own invention,” “abominable
trickery,” “want of faith,” “lead away from God,” “deceive,”“false prophet,”
“fraud,” “folly” and “poison.” The fact that ZWT adherents had targeted Church
of God believers with tract work (see The Restitution for December 5, 1894 for
example) left the latter singularly unimpressed. Which at least raises the
question - would CTR really have been invited to share a Church of God platform
for over a week? And had he done so, would he really (as the diary relates) have
accepted a dollar for expenses?
Having raised these questions, I believe that had CTR been
invited, he would have accepted. He was keen to share his beliefs wherever he
could. He would get involved in well-publicized debates with clergy of the day
– although a debate with two clearly defined opposing viewpoints was a little
different to being invited as a guest speaker. But with strong attacks on his
theology in The Restitution, would such an invitation still be given at this
late date? And assuming it had been, how would that be received when news got
out? Restitution readers were more than capable of complaining when anything
less than the truth as they saw it was preached to them. But in extant copies
of the paper, there is silence.
And yet one cannot escape the fact that the diary clearly states
it was C T Russell who attended and spoke. And a diary has to be a primary
source – of more probative value than a newspaper.
When I wrote on this subject four years ago I was – I admit – a tad
dogmatic. When deciding to re-use this material for a new article, I decided it
was more reasonable to now leave the question open. So really, this article was
to be a cautionary tale on how historians are often faced with conflicting
information. It still is. We don’t have literal observers to talk to. And even
if we had, you would probably still have to deal with conflicting accounts
given in all honesty by eyewitnesses. So a researcher has to make a judgment. And
however much one might argue as above, you cannot get away from it – Andrew Eychaner
sat down in the closing decade of the 19th century, dipped his pen
in the ink, and wrote down C T Russell. Three times. The diary is a primary
source.
And that would have been how the article ended.
BUT THEN...
But then quite remarkably, after nearly 120 years, in a moment of
serendipity, further evidence has come to light. Eychaner wrote a report on
what he had accomplished in the year 1895-96. It may even have been intended
for publication in The Restitution – but sadly that file is incomplete. But his
original handwritten report has survived. No doubt he used his personal diary
notes as source material at some points. And below is reproduced the relevant
page from this report in Andrew Eychaner’s own hand.
Report of A J Eychaner,
used courtesy of Jan Stilson from material donated by Lois Cline, great niece
of A J Eychaner
A transcript reads:
As your
evangelist for the past year I submit to you the following report of work done,
money received and amounts paid out in necessary expenses.
From Aug 15
to 25 I was with you in the conference at Marshalltown. I came on the 14th
and brother Prinner arrived on the 15th. We found much to do in
order that the conference might have a pleasant meeting. There was a lot to
secure, water to arrange for with the city and ground to clean, tents to set
up, and other necessary things to do. On Friday Aug 16 Brethren began to arrive
and the meeting began at 8 o’cl. by brother C W Russell preaching the
introductory sermon. During the meeting I helped along as I could in preaching
5 sermons and taking part in social meetings, Bible readings and business
meetings. I think it was the best time we...
(last line indistinct)
So no matter what he wrote in his diary, when it came to an
official report, we are back with C W Russell.
A J Eychaner’s account paints an entertaining and rather touching picture
of those days. He didn’t just preach, he organised water, he put up tents, he
dealt with the wind and the rain, he coped with local thieves who stole from
his tent, and straight after the conference in question he mentions C W Russell
again:
On Thurs Sep 5 I went to Lanark to assist in the conference of the
State of Illinois, and again left C.W. Russell in charge of the tent. That eve
there came up a severe storm and altho Bro Russell did all he could yet the
wind damaged the tent considerable. I spoke six times at Lanark and preached
one funeral discourse at Union church, returning to Laurens (?) and the tent
Mond Sep 7, after an absence of only 4 days. Spoke on the life eternal through
Jesus. That night thieves entered my tent and stole two chairs.
Later the conference made provision to fund this
same Brother Russell for evangelistic services for the next six months.
So what do we have here? Three different sources and a conflict of
information.
To review:
First, from The Restitution
for
August 7, 1895, page 2. This was the advertisement to
get readers to attend. It was obviously the same conference that
Eychaner described in his diary, even though there were some changes between the
planning and the reality. (It appears that some billed speakers didn’t show,
and those who were there had to fill in for them). Note that the first day of
sermons was to be Friday August 16th, and C W Russell was billed to
give a sermon.
However, when Eychaner wrote his diary, it now
became C T Russell giving the sermon on Friday, August 16th.
But later when he wrote up his full official report,
it reverted to C W Russell giving the opening sermon on Friday, August 16th.
CWR to CTR and then back to CWR again. What explanation can there
be for this discrepancy?
I can only think of two possibilities. The first is deliberate
misdirection. CWR was advertised, but CTR switched places with him. Then A J Eychaner
put in his official report that it was CWR. And hoped that no-one would blow
the whistle on the substitution.
Personally, I would find that hard to believe, if for no other
reason that Eychaner was an honorable man. He might have been a bit of maverick
at times, but that very point means that if he’d wanted to do something
controversial, he would have stuck to his guns. He wouldn’t have falsified
records to cover it up.
The other possibility is what we might call, for want of a better
expression, a Freudian slip. The name of CTR wasn’t foreign to Eychaner – he had
previously written about him in The Restitution.
We have all made such slips. Where I live there is someone who we
shall call Debbie Richards. A relative of mine must have been influenced by
Singing in the Rain, because the first time he met her he called her Debbie
Reynolds. And for the last dozen years of his life, he couldn’t shake this –
his synapses insisted that she was Debbie Reynolds – I mean Richards – and that
was it. Had he written a diary, I am sure the error would have been there.
An historian who has examined the original diary in the archives
of Atlanta Bible College has commented that the ink seems to indicate that it probably
wasn’t a diary written day by day, but rather this whole page was likely written
out in one go – maybe from other notes. So one slip writing CTR could easily be
repeated on the same page.
If readers can suggest further possibilities, then please do so in
the comment trail.
So in conclusion - does it really matter? We know there were links
between CTR and the Age to Come movement in the early days. We know they became
strained as CTR’s theology developed and ultimately were broken. The
Restitution even promoted a book by W H Wilson (nephew of Benjamin) entitled Cunningly
Devised Fables of Russellism.
It is just a matter of timing.
Perhaps the main point is the original intent of this article – which
is that you cannot even automatically rely on a diary. Normally it would have
trumped a current newspaper account hands down. But some readers may feel that a
carefully thought-out report in the same hand can then trump a diary. We are
all human, we all make mistakes. We don’t expect people to pore over our words and
rough notes as if they were Holy Writ over a century later.
Caveat lector – let the reader beware.
Personal
comments by Jan Stilson, Church of God historian and author – written in March
2015
The question
of whether or not C.T. Russell was a guest preacher at the Iowa Church of God
Conference in August, 1895, seems to have been settled once and for all when
papers furnished to me, a Church of God historian and author (J. Turner
Stilson. Biographical Encyclopedia: Chronicling the History of the Church of
God Abrahamic Faith ISBN 0-615-46561-6), finally came to light.
An elderly
local member, a great niece of A.J. Eychaner, had donated a box of historic
papers prior to her death in 2014. With my husband’s illness and other pressing
matters, I had set them aside for later review. As the question of Elder
Eychaner’s mysterious diary entries re-emerged, I sat down one day to review
the issue. Something had fallen out of a file folder next to the chair. In
reaching for it I realized it was a hand written report of Eychaner to the Iowa
Church of God Conference amazingly dated 1895-96. In these pages Eychaner
several times had clearly written the name of Bro. C.W. Russell (of Chicago)
who had been hired as evangelist for 6 mos.
How Eychaner
managed to write “C.T. Russell” in his diary and “C.W. Russell” in his report,
remains a mystery. Perhaps we can chalk it up to a lapse of memory, a “senior
moment”, or some other lapse on Eychaner’s part. Jerome has said that discovery
of the conclusive evidence at this particular time was “serendipity”, but
perhaps it was more than that. Perhaps the Lord himself wanted this question
settled, and made it so. The matter of unusual or conflicting facts is a major
problem for historians working from scant or scattered documents. Even editors
in The Restitution and The Restitution Herald, the Church of God’s succeeding
title, could not agree on spelling of pastor’s and reader’s names from issue to
issue. One might see “Uncle John Foor” in one issue and “Foore” in the next.
And if John Foore named his son John Foore, well, the problems of determining
which generation was being discussed were often serious. So, such an error on
Eychaner’s part can perhaps be forgiven by historians. It certainly has made
for an interesting dialogue. Thank you to all scholars for pursuing the matter.
– Jan Stilson, Oregon, IL.
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