The New York Herald for 15 August 1881 carried a column on page one, entitled CHURCHGOERS ASTONISHED.
(Transcription)
CHURCHGOERS ASTONISHED.
Fifty-four Thousand Copies of a Remarkable Pamphlet
Distributed Among Them.
One week ago yesterday an attempt was made by persons
then unknown to have several thousand copies of a pamphlet entitled “Food for
Thinking Christians: Why Evil was Permitted, and Kindred Topics,” distributed
at the doors of all the large churches in Newark. Men in carriages left
packages containing 100 copies or more at the churches, with the request that
they be given out to the people. At some churches they were distributed, but in
most instances the sextons showed them to the ministers, and were told by the
latter to keep them, which they did. At the Park Presbyterian Church the
pamphlets were left on the stoop, and were then taken to the Second Precinct
police station. No clergyman could find out from whom the pamphlets came.
Yesterday morning messenger boys appeared at all the
churches where the books had been left, and said they were directed to obtain
them and give them out to the people. The Rev. H. Goodwin of the House of
Prayer (Episcopal) sent back word by the messenger that he would not give them
up until ownership was proved. Mr. Goodwin had intended to burn the books but
concluded he had no right to do so, and still holds them. From the pulpit
yesterday morning he referred to the matter, and said that he admired the zeal
of the owners of the books, and thought their impudence was grand.
The messenger boys reported that they were able to
distribute only a few of the pamphlets. At several churches they were told that
there were no books there, and when they undertook to give them out at other
churches they were hustled away, or “booted off,” as some of them expressed it.
It was learned yesterday that the pamphlets at the police
station had been claimed and taken away by some one signing his name as A. M.
Bergner. Mr. Bergner was found at his house in Newark. He frankly said he had
been engaged in circulating the pamphlets, and was willing to talk on the
subject. Being ushered into the dining room, the reporter observed that a
religious meeting was in progress in the parlor. Mr. Bergner is about 40 years
old, with a fair face and light hair and beard. He is of medium height, and has
clearly cut and rather handsome features.
“I belong,” he said, “to a company of Christians who have
no common name. We are not Second Adventists, as has been inferred from the
pamphlet, and we are not the ‘Holiness’ or ‘Higher Life’ sect. We have members
all over America, England, Australia, I think, and probably in Germany. We
commenced our meetings in Newark about nine months ago, and hold them every
Sunday and during the week here and at Mr. Sturtevant’s house in Jenkins
street. The meetings are for devotional and Bible study. We are opposed to the
teachings of the churches on several points. What they teach about hell and
immortality is nonsense. There is no hell. There will be eternal life for those
who serve God; the wicked will also be resurrected and have a second probation
during the millennium. But you can’t understand our doctrines unless you read
the pamphlet about which so much fuss is made. It was written by C. T. Russell
of Pittsburgh, and 500,000 copies are to be distributed in this country at an
expense of $30,000. Six thousand copies were sent out here last Sunday, and
only 20,000 copies are to be given out at church doors in New York. The
ministers will say, ‘Burn them!’ and will be like the Romans who used to burn
the Bible. This fuss caused an inquiry for the book. To-day I went to the Park
Presbyterian Church and the Belleville Avenue Congregational with 120 copies,
and the people eagerly took every one. I went to the Park Presbyterian because
of the minister’s audacity in putting them out on the stoop last Sunday without
first reading one. I can’t tell you how many books reached the people last
Sunday. I am told that in the Sunday school of the Fifth Baptist Church the
superintendent wrote on the blackboard: ‘Food for thinking Christians. Take
one,’ and the children received them.”
Mr. C. T. Russell, a medium-sized, well-built, and
shrewd-looking person dropped in upon the officers of the American District
Telegraph Company in this city on Wednesday afternoon. He was turned over to
Superintendent Jackson, of the Circuit Department. Mr. Russell said that he
desired to have distributed 100,000 copies of the pamphlet. Mr. Russell said
that he was going to different cities to engage people to distribute the
pamphlets.
Yesterday morning 54,000 copies of the pamphlet were
distributed among the different branch offices of the American District
Telegraph Co. below Twenty-third street. Four boys, each carrying a heavy
package and dressed in the uniform of the Messenger Company, stopped at the
front gates of each of the churches below Twenty-third street and proceeded to
tear off its coverings. It made no difference whether the church was opened for
services or not, they stayed and distributed the pamphlet. Every churchgoer got
one if he or she would take it. Every pedestrian was given two or three.
Persons in carriages got a larger number. The boys cheered as they passed that
their boss wasn’t mean. If they wanted more copies, all they had to do was
write to him. No attempt was made to stop the distribution by the police
officials.
Footnote on A M Bergner from Separate Identity
volume 2 page 398.
Agustus M. Bergner was born in Stockholm about 1839, according to the 1880 Census. He is listed as a “cutlery dealer” in the census and in a 1900 Newark City Directory. He was briefly president of the Women’s and Children’s Mutual Benefit Association, which offered inexpensive life insurance. It failed to meet New Jersey State requirements and was closed by order of the New Jersey Secretary of State. (City and Suburban News, The New York Times, May 20, 1884.) He seems not to be mentioned in Zion’s Watch Tower, but his wife Jennie Bergner is. [See the article “Out of Darkness and into His Marvelous Light,” Zion’s Watch Tower, August 1, 1893, page 238.] Bergner served in the Navy during the Civil War, as Mate on the Natasuket. The name Agustus M. Bergner appears in a list of “soldiers and sailors” whose address was sought. The last known address for him in the list was Brooklyn, New York. (See The Washington, D. C., National Tribune, March 30, April 6, 13, 20, 27, 1899.) He was a mate on the American Navy’s screw frigate USS Wampanoag during its first sea trials. – Naval Intelligence, New York Herald, April 18, 1868. He died January 22, 1890, in New Jersey.
