The Wilmington morning star., 1940-08-09
JehOvaheS
Witnesses
BY WALTER
NEA Service Special
CORRESPONDENT

a strange warning that the enc
of the world is at hand.
Unless the door slammed shut
he opened a portable monograph,
played recorded speeches that were
burning denunciations of religions.
churches, governments, business.
and the flag of the United States
as symbols of Satan's power or
earth.
Most Americans hold at least one
of those in reverence. So Jeho'
vah's Witnesses, who revere none
of them and never hesitate to say
so, have been a storm center, espe'
cially with patriotic feelings rising
higher because of events abroad.
The American Civil Liberties I'm
ion has listed at least 40 mob at.
tacks on them in a few recent
months. They have been beaten,
stoned, jailed. Their literature has
been burned, their children barred
from schools for refusal to salute
the flag, themselves cut off relief
rolls for refusal to pledge ale
| glance to the United States.
IN GERMANY,
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Under persecution, partly invited
by their wv uncompromising in
tolerance of all other beliefs, they
have grown in 50~~years from an
obscure little sect into a full-fledged
religious movement that is per-
haps the most militant and aggres.
sive in the world. In America they
are attacked as Nazis, as Com
munists, as fifth Columnists," In
most other nations they have been
banned as subversive influences.
In Germany they toll in concen-
tration camps by thousands.
Their belief is simply a literal
Interpretation of the Bible as pro-
phecy rather than history.
At any moment, they say, the
great Battle of Armageddon will
begin, in which the forces of Satan
will be pitted against the forces Of
Heaven. Satan's forces will be de-
feated, and every human who has
failed to accept Divine protection
will be killed. Then the dead Of
all past ages will return to earth,
and be judged. Those who had no
opportunity in life to accept the
Truth may be pardoned. The 9TH
ers will die again, permanently.
All persons now living who have
accepted the true belief, however,
will never die, but live on through
countless ages in an earthly para
disc. in which there will be no
sin, no poverty, no toll, no death.
Two prophets have leo h e m.
Founder was Charles Taze Russell,
a Pittsburgh haberdas sherry store
owner. From boyhood he was OBJ
sessed with an abnormal fear Of
an old-fashioned hell of fire and
birthstone; when he was II he went
about Pittsburgh on Saturday eve
nlngs writing with chalk on walls,
warning all persons to attend
church neyt morning.
For a time he became an infidel,
and then after profound study de-
clded the Bible threatened no such
punishment as he had grown to
fear. He became pastor o. a small
local group, eventually pastor of
1900 congregations of his converts.
PASTOR RUSSELL
OFTEN IN COURT
Pastor Russell wrote voluminous-
ly, supplying most of the material
for two bi-monthly magazines with
a total distribution of so, 900, 900
copies were sold, a weekly sermon
syndicated to newspapers, with an
aggregate circulation If IS, 900, 900.
He engaged in prolonged court
battles. One grew out of his ad-
tilted sale of miracle wheat" for
planting at sec a bushelwheat
supposed to have come from seed
discovered in an Egyptian tomb of
Bible times. another vas the long
an %sensatinal divorce suit
brought by his wife. He said she
wanted too much of her own writ
ing published in his magazine; she
charged him with numerous and
s Gifted immoralities with f i r
members If his congregations, EN-.
ploye~, and others.
Pastor Russell predicted the end
of the world would come in the
fall of 1914. When it did not he
said his calculations had been in
error, and it would come in 1918
instead. Latest prediction was that
it would Legin with Al.nageddon
in 1922, be completed by the spring
of 1926. Since then no dates have
been set, and followers of the be-
lief now insist it is a long, slow
process, going on today, but imper-
ceptible to the eyes of any except
the initiate.
Counsel for defense in the Rus
sell divorce hearings was Joseph
Franklin Rutherford, a Missouri
lawyer who campaigned with Will
liam Jennings Bryan in 1896. rose
rapidly in the Russell movement.
Since Pastor Russell died in 1916,
| Mr.. Rutherford has been the sole