The Finished Mystery

The March 1, 1918, Watch Tower was a special printing of The Finished Mystery, with a number of illustrations that remind one of the later Golden Age magazine. In the pictures that follow, note the special message printed (over-printed?) on the front cover of the magazine, to get the contents into the hands of those at the front.

George Swetnam

George Swetnam (1904-1999) was a writer who led a full and eventful life. His obituary in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (April 7, 1999) outlined how he was an author of a dozen books, mainly on history, and was also a Presbyterian clergyman. He had been a newspaper editor, a member of various historical societies, and for two years of his life, a hobo. His obituary states “he claimed to have ridden more freight trains than any other Ph.D alive.” He is probably best remembered today for co-authoring A Guidebook to Historic Western Pennsylvania.

He is of interest here because he wrote about Charles Taze Russell from time to time.

In 1958 he wrote Where Else but Pittsburgh, and part of one chapter has six pages on CTR. It is written in popularist style, and while one can easily nitpick some of the erroneous details, it could be called a tribute and a sympathetic portrait.

Swetnam became a columnist and feature writer for the Pittsburgh Press. At least two of his pieces featured CTR. The first in the Pittsburgh Press Sunday magazine for October 6, 1963, was about the demolition of the old Bible House as part of the North Side redevelopment scheme.

The second was an article, again in the Sunday magazine section of the Pittsburgh Press for January 25, 1967. This was about the Watch Tower Society’s burial site with a pyramid monument in the center.

Swetnam listed the names found on the pyramid, but was obviously struggling. The weathering of the stone and the way the light hit the monument could make decipherment difficult. He listed eight names, CTR himself and then seven others.

There were actually nine names inscribed. He missed out the name John Perry, and some of the names he recorded had glitches. Grace Mound was actually Grace Mundy, who died in a fire in 1914. Chester Elledge could only be a drastic misreading of John Coolidge, which is strange because his grave marker is the only one (other than CTR’s) to still survive today of those named. Swetnam said that the oldest who died was Miss Cole, aged 78. Flora Cole actually died aged 70, but it IS hard to decipher the lettering. But she wasn’t “Miss” she was “Mrs” – her son James Cole was the inventor of the Dawn-Mobile featured in a Watchtower article for February 15, 2012.

The other thing this article did was to remind the public that there was a treasure trove of old publications buried inside the pyramid. They appear to have survived until 1993 when the pyramid was finally broken into and the contents stolen.

Not by any reader here I would hope.

Further attacks on the pyramid and the ravages of time eventually made it unsafe, and it was finally taken down in 2021.

German Bible Students in World War 1

With grateful thanks to Bernhard who provided the graphics and nearly all the original information for this article on the situation faced by Bible Students in Germany during the First World War.

There are a number of articles and at least one book that deal with how Bible Students coped with conscription during World War 1. Prior to the war, their magazine had given this advice on joining the military. From The Watch Tower for August 1, 1898 (reprints page 2345) CTR wrote:

"If, therefore, we were drafted, and if the government refused to accept our conscientious scruples against warfare (as they have heretofore done with "Friends," called Quakers), we should request to be assigned to the hospital service or to the Commissary department or to some other non-combatant place of usefulness; and such requests would no doubt be granted. If not, and we ever got into battle, we might help to terrify the enemy, but need not shoot anybody."

How could you avoid shooting anyone? Perhaps you could do this by shooting over their heads? In The Watch Tower for July 15, 1915 (reprints page 5728) CTR expanded on this:
"In Volume Six of SCRIPTURE STUDIES, the friends are instructed to avoid taking life. If they were ever drafted into the army they should go. If they could be sent to the Quartermaster's Department to take care of the food, that would be desirable, or into the hospital work. They should endeavor to get such positions. They could not be expected to do service in the way of killing. If they were obliged to go on the firing line, they could shoot over the enemy's head, if they wished."

The problem for Bible Students dealing with this well-intentioned advice would only come to the forefront if and when conscription was introduced. So it came to the fore in Britain in 1916 and in America in 1917 when the draft was introduced. In Germany however, universal conscription was there from the start of the war.

There was a German Watch Tower magazine that gave some details of the situation and also gave the names of many of those involved. The two images below are from the issues for July and August 1915.

This explains that more than 200 brothers were now in the military and lists many of their names. They are on land, on sea, some in garrisons, some in hospitals. One of them was Max Freschel who we will come back to later.

The numbers increased as the months went by. From the November 1915 German Watch Tower:

Translated it reads:

From our brothers on the field (i.e. the battlefield)

“It is of interest to all brothers and sisters to know that there are currently about 350 of our brothers in the military. As a result of close correspondence with many of the loved ones, we receive many evidences of joyful faith and trust and patient perseverance in many difficulties. Some brothers wrote us that they feel strong knowing that so much is being thought of in prayer.”

The article then details the deaths in “the theater of war” of two Bible Students, Fritz Kownatzki from Zollernhöhe, East Prussia, and Johannes Finger from Barmen.  Fritz was 23 and Johannes was 33.

The article concludes: “Both brothers had written to us with expressions of love until shortly before their deaths, from which we could see that these dear ones sought to walk with Jesus ......”

Little is known about how individual Bible Students coped with being in the military while striving to adhere to their principles. One experience though is found in the German Watch Tower for June 1915.

In a letter August Kraftzig wrote: “I'm not directly at the front, but in the baggage (stores?) and consequently by God's grace not directly involved in the war.”

Years later in 1938 August became Branch overseer in Austria. He died in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1940.

As noted above, one name in the lists of Bible Student conscripts was Max Freschel. Freschel was an Austrian of Jewish parentage. (The area is now part of Poland but was then Austria). At the outbreak of war his parents were in Switzerland while he was in the German Bethel. Max chose to stay in Germany, but this meant that, with universal conscription, he was called up for the German army.

In 1915 he wrote to CTR at least twice. We don’t know what he wrote but there is a letter in the German Watch Tower for October 1915 from Fred Leon Scheerer from Brooklyn. Friedrich Leonhardt Scheerer was a German Bible Student responsible for the German foreign work and he translated Max’s letters so that CTR could read them.

Max Freschel moved to America in 1926 and lived for the rest of his life in Brooklyn Bethel. He changed his name to Maxwell Friend. He would become heavily involved in radio dramas for the Society’s Station WBBR, and was one of the first instructors at Gilead School. When dramas were introduced to convention programs from the late 1960s onwards, many readers may remember his voice playing various patriarchs.

His life story appeared in The Watchtower in April 15, 1967, and is well worth reading. However, he does not cover the war years. All he basically says is that when everything was revived after the war in 1919, he was too.

Tom Hart and Jonathan Ling

Two of the stalwarts in the early history of Bible Students in Britain were Tom Hart and Jonathan Ling. Both were based in London and both worked for the railroads.

Both names are mentioned in the 1973 Yearbook history of Britain, and a photograph captioned with Hart’s name is in the 2000 Yearbook history. Using this material along with a reference from Tony Byatt’s book on the history of Bible Students/Witnesses in London, the following two paragraphs were put together in the book Separate Identity volume 2.

The combined information reads:

(quote) Thomas A Hart was born in Calcutta, India, in 1853. At the time of the 1881 Census he had moved his family from the Islington address to 5 Lavinia Grove, Middlesex, London. He was “a carman” for one of the railroads. In another place he called “a railroad shunter.” He and his wife had three children, two sons and one daughter, all under the age of four.

Jonathan Ling was born in Blaxhall, Suffolk, early in 1858. The 1891 census has him as a railway guard at Islington, an occupation he still had in 1901. He was married Elizabeth, maiden name unknown, and they have seven children, ranging in ages from one month to 17 years old. He died June 20, 1922. We lack an exact date for Ling’s conversion, but it appears to be early. Ling’s daughter Ruth remembered that their meetings were held in the common room of the King’s Cross hostel, a layover spot for railway workers. (end of quote)

As a result of contacts via Ancestry, I was eventually able to make contact with one of Ling’s great grand-daughters, Elizabeth. Although the census return referred to above gave Jonathan Ling seven children, it appears he eventually had ten. His wife, Elizabeth, was originally Elizabeth Moody and lived to be 100. The modern Elizabeth’s branch of the family did not remain with the Bible Students.

Great grand daughter Elizabeth (from the line through Jonathan’s son, Lewis Charles Ling) kindly supplied the two photographs below, and gave permission for them to be reproduced.

This leaves one question. The picture of Tom Hart in the 2000 Yearbook (and elsewhere) looks very much like Jonathan Ling. Putting the younger Tom next to the older Jonathan, this is the result.

The reader may come to a different conclusion. Perhaps Tom and Jonathan looked quite alike. Or maybe an old file with both their names on it contained a photograph that somewhere back in history has been miscaptioned.

The Great Divide

A particularly distressing time in Watch Tower history was after Charles Taze Russell died and Joseph Franklyn Rutherford was elected as president of the Watch Tower Society. It resulted in splits in ecclesias and even families at times, as people had to decide whether to stay with the Watch Tower Society in the path it now trod, or stay with a view of the ministry of CTR that had now come to an end by his death. As detailed in all histories, some chose to cease association with the Watch Tower Society or International Bible Students Association (IBSA), from 1917 onward.

One can imagine the divided loyalties some individuals faced.  Did they hope for reconciliation between the Society and those who left it? No doubt. And no doubt some who left, later returned to the IBSA fold as is documented in the St Paul/New Era Enterprise newspaper.

An immediate problem facing those who left association with the IBSA was that people just couldn’t agree what to do. Fragmentation in various ways continued quite quickly.

The original split came from supporters of the four directors who were replaced in summer of 1917.  This resulted in a group called The Pastoral Bible Institute (PBI).

As well as gradual adjustments in theology, the Watch Tower Society was soon promoting vigorous evangelism for all. In the mind of one loyal Watch Tower Society adherent, John Adam Bohnet, this was a key difference in the mindset of the two groups. He gave his opinion on the differences in the New Era newspaper for August 21, 1921. His letter was headed “God Blessing the Society” which sort of nailed his colors to the wall:

But the Pastoral Bible Institute was to provide no united alternative to the Watch Tower Society.

Almost immediately after the PBI was formed in 1917-18, Paul Johnson’s group (later called the Layman’s Home Missionary Movement) broke away to emphasize his self-view, which others refused to accept. When he as his movement’s special “messenger” died, his group soon fragmented further. Then going back to 1918 the Standfast Movement also broke away from the IBSA. They set up communes, but then fragmented as these failed, leading to other groups like the Elijah Voice Society. As early as around 1920 the PBI began questioning the date 1914 for the end of the Gentile Times and started promoting a date in the 1930s. This led to further splits. There was a group called the Eagle Society that is mentioned in passing in the St Paul/New Era Enterprise. Then there was The Watchers of the Morning that later split from the PBI. When in 1929 an attempt was made to bring all seceding groups up to that time together at a Pittsburgh “reunion” convention, the introduction to their report mentioned yet other groups that then existed.

So did a “reunion convention” reunite them? The short answer was no. All that happened was that yet another group appeared as a result - the Dawn. They wanted to proselytize, whereas the PBI were not keen - hence attempt to unite the Dawn and PBI foundered. At one point there were two rival groups hiring space in the old Bible House Chapel in Allegheny in the late 1930s, and for good measure, they also welcomed a Universalist Concordant Bible Society speaker (who was himself a former IBSA adherent). So Concordant was yet another group that seceding Bible Students gravitated towards. Throw into the mix all those who had sided with Henninges, McPhail and others from the 1909 “new covenant” controversy, who were still very much around, and it is even more a tale of division. And as soon as any group tried to question or update CTR’s theology and chronology there would be yet more splits.  And that is just America!

When J F Rutherford presented a resolution for a new name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in 1931 one of the reasons explained in the full resolution was to clearly show the difference between those supporting the Watch Tower Society and the groups who had chosen elsewhere who continued to split and split.

Obviously individuals could do whatever they chose. No doubt some shopped around, and as noted above, no doubt some ultimately returned to the Watchtower Society which, unlike its rivals, would prosper and grow.