HARVEST GLEANINGS III

New York Times, November 1, 1916

PASTOR RUSSELL DIES IN TEXAS TRAIN

Canadaian, Texas, October 31 Charles Taze Russell, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle and known all over the country as "Pastor Russell" died from heart disease at 2:30 o'clock this afternoon on an Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train, en route from Los Angeles to New York. He complained of feeling ill after leaving Los Angeles, his secretary said, and gradually grew worse. The end came while the train was stopped at Pampa, Texas, near here. His body is being sent to Kansas City, Mo.

Pastor Russell, who was President of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, of the International Bible Students Association of London and the Peoples Pulpit Association of New York, was in his sixty-fifth year. He was an independent minister and was born in Pittsburgh, receiving his education from private tutors. Pastor Russell began his work as an independent minister in 1878, in Pittsburgh.

At the time of his death he was pastor of churches all over the country from Maine to California, devoting the greater part of his time to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Pastor Russell traveled nearly 30,000 miles each year in pursuance of his pastoral duties, including a trip to London, Eng., in connection with the work of the London Tabernacle congregation, of which he was pastor.

He always disclaimed being the founder of a new religion and he interpreted the punishment of the Bible as eternal death and not eternal torture.

Pastor Russell first came to this city in 1900, when he removed from Philadelphia and bought the old Bethel Chapel, at 17 Hicks Street, under the Brooklyn Bridge, in Brooklyn, and called it the People's Church. Not long after [HGL873] his congregation overflowed this little edifice and he rented the Brooklyn Academy of Music for his Sunday services.

In addition to being pastor of many congregations. Pastor Russell's Sunday sermons were published in about 2,000 newspapers. He was the author of a series of books of "Studies in the Scriptures," of which more than 700,000 copies were published each year since 1886. Pastor Russell was also editor of The Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, a semi-monthly journal of large circulation.

He received much publicity for several incidents of his life. One of these was in connection with the "Miracle Wheat," which was supposed to give wonderful crops and which was said to come out of the Tabernacle by some mysterious process. There was a certain amount of scandal connected with this, and Pastor Russell sued The Brooklyn Eagle for $100,000 damages for a story published about it in that paper. During this suit it was brought out that the millennium was due in the Fall of 1914 at about the time the European war started.

In addition to other things, Pastor Russell came into prominence when his wife sued him for divorce and on June 8, 1900, he paid her $6,000 alimony following a court order handed down in Pittsburgh. When he first arrived in Brooklyn, Pastor Russell attracted favorable attention by abolishing Hell. In this doctrine he said that he was only indorsing the belief of "Honest Abe" Lincoln, the martyred President.

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