Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), “Chapter 5: Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914)”
“C. T. Russell, though, felt that to withdraw from the Herald was not enough; the ransom doctrine must be defended and Christ's presence must be proclaimed. Hence, in July 1879, Russell began publishing Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Russell was the editor and publisher, with five others originally listed as contributors to its columns. The first issue had a printing of 6,000 copies.”
The chapter is the organisation's standard modern life of Russell: born at Allegheny 16 February 1852; a partner in his father's clothing business at eleven; repelled by eternal torment; steadied in 1869 by hearing the Adventist preacher Jonas Wendell; indebted to George Storrs and George W. Stetson; persuaded by N. H. Barbour in 1876 that Christ's invisible presence had begun in 1874; separated from Barbour in 1879 over the ransom.
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Provenance and verification note for Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (1993), Chapter 5: Proclaiming the Lord's Return (1870-1914)
Confidence note. Whole chapter read on the Watchtower Online Library; the document’s own citation code is “jv chap. 5 p. 42 – p. 60” and the quoted sentences straddle the page marker for 48. The chapter contains no mention of the Ross prosecution, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle litigation, Miracle Wheat, or the marriage and its court proceedings.
Notes. The chapter quotes Russell's own disclaimer: “Our work … has been to bring together these long scattered fragments of truth and present them to the Lord's people—not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord's.”
Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-ctr-jv-1993-ch5-life