‘NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST YOU WILL SUCCEED’

‘NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST YOU WILL SUCCEED’

During all the years that faithful colporteurs and other Bible Students zealously proclaimed the good news, Satan the Devil never relaxed his hand and halted efforts to crush and destroy them. He would have accomplished this, too, were it not for the divine protection they enjoyed. (1 Pet. 5:8, 9; Heb. 2:14) They realized the truthfulness of God’s promise to his people of ancient times: “Any weapon whatever that will be formed against you will have no success, and any tongue at all that will rise up against you in the judgment you will condemn.”—Isa. 54:17.

Jesus Christ was persecuted, and his followers can expect the same treatment from practicers of false religion and the world in general. (John 15:20) Sometimes, however, Satan’s attack has been an internal one, originating with unscrupulous individuals within the Christian organization, stemming from incidents involving persons really “not of our sort.”—1 John 2:19.

It will be recalled that in the 1870’s C. T. Russell disassociated himself from N. H. Barbour, publisher of The Herald of the Morning. This he did because Barbour denied the Scriptural doctrine of the ransom, which Russell staunchly upheld. Then in the early 1890’s certain prominent persons in the organization unscrupulously tried to seize control of the Watch Tower Society. The conspirators planned to explode veritable “bombs” designed to end Russell’s popularity and bring about his finish as the Society’s president. After brewing for nearly two years, the conspiracy erupted in 1894. Mainly, the grievances and false charges centered around alleged dishonesty in business on the part of C. T. Russell. Indeed, some of the charges were very petty and betrayed the accusers’ basic intention—the defamation of C. T. Russell. Impartial fellow believers investigated matters and found Russell to be in the right. Hence, the conspirators’ plan to “blow Mr. Russell and his work sky-high” was a complete failure. Like the apostle Paul, Brother Russell had experienced trouble owing to “false brothers,” but this trial was recognized as a design of Satan, and the conspirators henceforth were viewed as unfit to enjoy Christian fellowship.—2 Cor. 11:26.

This, of course, was not the end of C. T. Russell’s trials and difficulties. He was yet to be touched in a very personal way, by circumstances arising in his own household. During the trouble in 1894, Mrs. C. T. Russell (the former Maria Frances Ackley, whom Russell had married in 1879) undertook a tour from New York to Chicago, meeting with Bible Students along the way and speaking in her husband’s behalf. Being an educated, intelligent woman, she was well received when visiting the congregations at that time.

Mrs. Russell was a director of the Watch Tower Society and served as its secretary and treasurer for some years. She also was a regular contributor to the columns of Zion’s Watch Tower and for a time was an associate editor of the journal. Eventually, she sought a stronger voice in what should be published in the Watch Tower. Such ambition was comparable to that of Moses’ sister Miriam, who rose up against her brother as leader of Israel under God and tried to make herself prominent—a course that met with divine disapproval.—Num. 12:1-15.

What had contributed to this attitude on Mrs. Russell’s part? “I was not aware of it at the time,” wrote C. T. Russell in 1906, “but learned subsequently that the conspirators endeavored to sow seeds of discord in my wife’s heart by flattery, ‘woman’s rights’ arguments, etc. However, when the shock came [in 1894], in the Lord’s providence I was spared the humiliation of seeing my wife amongst those conspirators. . . . As matters began to settle down, the ‘woman’s rights’ ideas and personal ambition began again to come to the top, and I perceived that Mrs. Russell’s active campaign in my defense, and the very cordial reception given her by the dear friends at that time throughout a journey . . . had done her injury by increasing her self-appreciation. . . . Gradually she seemed to reach the conclusion that nothing was just proper for the WATCH TOWER columns except what she had written, and I was continually harassed with suggestions of alterations of my writings. I was pained to note this growing disposition so foreign to the humble mind which characterized her for the first thirteen happy years.”

Mrs. Russell became very uncooperative, and strained relations continued. But early in 1897 she became ill and her husband gave her much attention. This he gave cheerfully and he felt that his kind care would touch her heart and restore it to its former loving and tender condition. When she recovered, however, Mrs. Russell called a committee and met with her husband “specially with the object of having the brethren instruct me that she had an equal right with myself in the WATCH TOWER columns, and that I was doing her wrong in not according her the liberties she desired,” wrote C. T. Russell. As matters turned out, though, she was told by the committee that neither they nor other persons had the right to interfere with her husband’s management of the Watch Tower. Mrs. Russell said, in substance, that though unable to agree with the committee, she would try to look at matters from their standpoint. Russell further reported: “I then asked her in their presence if she would shake hands. She hesitated, but finally gave me her hand. I then said, ‘Now, will you kiss me, dear, as a token of the degree of change of mind which you have indicated?’ Again she hesitated, but finally did kiss me and otherwise manifested a renewal of affection in the presence of her Committee.”

So the Russell’s ‘kissed and made up.’ Later, at Mrs. Russell’s request, her husband arranged for a weekly meeting of “The Sisters of the Allegheny Church,” with her as its leader. This led to further trouble—the circulating of slanderous remarks about C. T. Russell. However, this difficulty also was settled.

Eventually, though, growing resentment led Mrs. Russell to sever her relationship with the Watch Tower Society and with her husband. Without notice, she separated from him in 1897, after nearly eighteen years of marriage. For almost seven years she lived separately, C. T. Russell providing a separate home for her and also making financial provision for her support. In June 1903 Mrs. Russell filed in the Court of Common Pleas at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a suit for legal separation. During April 1906 the case came up for trial before Justice Collier and a jury. Nearly two years later, on March 4, 1908, a decree was issued that was styled “In Divorce.” The language of the decree is: “It is now ordered, adjudged and decreed that Maria F. Russell, the Libellant; and Charles T. Russell, the Respondent, be separated from bed and board.” “Separated from bed and board” is the language of both the decree and the docket entries made by the clerk of the court. This was a legalized separation and there never was an absolute divorce, as some erroneously have held. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary (Banks-Baldwin Law Publishing Company, 1940) defines the action as “A partial or qualified divorce, by which the parties are separated and forbidden to live or cohabit together, without affecting the marriage itself. 1 Bl. Com. 440.” (Page 314) On page 312 it says that it “may more properly be termed a legal separation.”

C. T. Russell himself fully understood that the court did not grant an absolute divorce, but that this was a legalized separation. At Dublin, during a 1911 tour of Ireland, he was asked: “Is it true that you are divorced from your wife?” Of his answer, Russell wrote: “‘I am not divorced from my wife. The decree of the court was not divorce, but separation, granted by a sympathetic jury, which declared that we would both be happier separated. My wife’s charge was cruelty, but the only cruelty put in evidence was my refusal on one occasion to give her a kiss when she had requested it.’ I assured my audience that I disputed the charge of cruelty and believed that no woman was ever better treated by a husband. The applause showed that the audience believed my statements.”

What took place at C. T. Russell’s funeral at Pittsburgh in 1916 also is significant along these lines. Anna K. Gardner, whose recollections are similar to those of others present, tells us this: “An incident occurred just before the services at Carnegie Hall that refuted lies told in the paper about Brother Russell. The hall was filled long before the time for the services to begin and it was very quiet, and then a veiled figure was seen to walk up the aisle to the casket and to lay something on it. Up front one could see what it was—a bunch of lilies of the valley, Brother Russell’s favorite flower. There was a ribbon attached, saying, ‘To My Beloved Husband.’ It was Mrs. Russell. They had never been divorced and this was a public acknowledgment.”

One can but imagine the heartache and emotional strain C. T. Russell’s domestic trials brought upon him. In an undated handwritten letter to Mrs. Russell at one point in their marital difficulties, he wrote: “By the time this reaches you it will be just one week since you deserted the one whom before God and man you promised to love and obey and serve, ‘for better or for worse, until death do you part.’ Surely it is true that ‘experience is a wonderful teacher.’ Only it could have persuaded me thus of you, of whom I can truly say that at one time there could not have been a more loving and devoted helpmate. Had you been other than that I am confident that the Lord would not have given you to me. He doeth all things well. I still thank him for his providence toward me in that respect, and look back with sensations of pleasure to the time when you kissed me at least thirty times a day, and repeatedly told me that you did not see how you could live without me; and that you feared that I would die first . . . And I reflect that some of these evidences of love were given me only a year and a half ago, though for a year previous your love had been less fervent—because of jealousy and surmisings, notwithstanding my assurances of the ardor of my love for you, repeated a hundred times, and still asseverated.”

Russell did feel that the great Adversary then had a “very firm hold” on his wife. He said, “I have prayed earnestly to the Lord on your behalf,” and he also sought to aid her. Among other things, he wrote: “I will not burden you with accounts of my sorrow, nor attempt to work upon your sympathies by delineating my emotions, as I from time to time run across your dresses and other articles which bring vividly before my mind your former self—so full of love and sympathy and helpfulness—the spirit of Christ. My heart cries out, ‘Oh that I had buried her, or that she had buried me, in that happy time.’ But evidently the trials and testings were not sufficiently advanced. . . . Oh, do consider prayerfully what I am about to say. And be assured that the keen edge of my sorrow, its poignancy, is not my own loneliness for the remainder of life’s journey, but your fall, my dear, your everlasting loss, so far as I can see.”

NOT IMMORAL

As though the strain of Russell’s marital difficulties was not enough, his foes stooped to making scurrilous charges against him to the effect that he was immoral. These deliberate falsehoods centered around a so-called “jellyfish” story. During the trial in April 1906, Mrs. Russell testified that a certain Miss Ball told her that C. T. Russell had once said: “I am like a jellyfish. I float around here and there. I touch this one and that one, and if she responds I take her to me, and if not I float on to others.” On the witness stand C. T. Russell emphatically denied the “jellyfish” story, and all this matter was stricken from the court record, the judge saying in his charge to the jury: “This little incident about this girl that was in the family, that is beyond the ground of the libel and has nothing to do with the case.”

The girl in question came to the Russells in 1888 as an orphan about ten years old. They treated her as their own child and she kissed both Mr. and Mrs. Russell good night each evening when retiring. (Court Record, pages 90 and 91) Mrs. Russell testified that the alleged incident occurred in 1894, when this girl could not have been more than fifteen years old. (Court Record, page 15) After that Mrs. Russell lived with her husband for three years and was separated from him for about seven years more before filing suit for separation. In her bill for separation no reference was made to this matter. Though Miss Ball was then living and Mrs. Russell knew where, she made no attempt to procure her as a witness and presented no statement from her. C. T. Russell himself could not have had Miss Ball present to testify because he had no notice or intimation that his wife would bring such a matter into the case. Furthermore, three years after the alleged incident, when Mrs. Russell had called together a committee before whom she and her husband discussed certain differences, the “jellyfish” story was never even intimated. In the suit for separate maintenance, Mrs. Russell’s attorney had said: “We make no charge of adultery.” And that Mrs. Russell actually never believed her husband was guilty of immoral conduct was shown by the record (page 10). Her own counsel asked Mrs. Russell: “You don’t mean that your husband was guilty of adultery?” She answered: “No.”

Throughout the trialsome period of Charles Taze Russell’s domestic difficulties and the related hardships, Jehovah sustained him by means of the holy spirit. God continued to use Russell during those years, not only to write material for Zion’s Watch Tower, but to discharge other weighty duties and to pen three volumes of Millennial Dawn (or Studies in the Scriptures). How encouraging this is to Christians today as they go on doing the divine will though beset by various trials! Especially heartening to Jesus’ faithful anointed followers are these words of James: “Happy is the man that keeps on enduring trial, because on becoming approved he will receive the crown of life, which Jehovah promised to those who continue loving him.”—Jas. 1:12.

MIRACLE WHEAT

Foes of C. T. Russell used not only his domestic affairs but other “weapons” against him. For instance, his enemies have charged that he sold a great quantity of ordinary wheat seed under the name of “Miracle Wheat” at one dollar per pound, or sixty dollars per bushel. They have held that from this Russell realized an enormous personal profit. However, these charges are absolutely false. What are the facts?

In 1904 Mr. K. B. Stoner noticed an unusual plant growing in his garden in Fincastle, Virginia. It turned out to be wheat of an uncommon kind. The plant had 142 stalks and each bore a head of fully matured wheat. In 1906 he named it “Miracle Wheat.” Eventually others obtained and grew it, enjoying extraordinary yields. In fact, Miracle Wheat won prizes at several fairs. C. T. Russell was very interested in anything related to the Biblical predictions that “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” and “the earth shall yield her increase.” (Isa. 35:1; Ezek. 34:27, AV) On November 23, 1907, H. A. Miller, Assistant Agriculturalist of the United States Government, filed in the Department of Agriculture a report commending this wheat grown by Mr. Stoner. Throughout the country the public press took note of the report. C. T. Russell’s attention was drawn to it, and so in Zion’s Watch Tower of March 15, 1908, on page 86, he published some press comments and extracts from the government report. Then, in conclusion, he commented: “If this account be but one-half true it testifies afresh to God’s ability to provide things needful for the ‘times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began.’—Acts 3:19-21.”

Mr. Stoner was not a Bible Student or an associate of C. T. Russell, and neither were various other persons who experimented with Miracle Wheat. In 1911, however, Watch Tower readers J. A. Bohnet of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Samuel J. Fleming of Wabash, Indiana, presented to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society the aggregate of about thirty bushels of this wheat, proposing that it be sold for one dollar per pound and that all the proceeds be received by the Society as a donation from them, to be used in its religious work. The wheat was received and sent out by the Society and the gross receipts from it amounted to about $1,800. Russell himself did not get a penny of this money. He merely published a statement in The Watch Tower to the effect that the wheat had been contributed and could be obtained for a dollar a pound. The Society itself made no claim for the wheat on its own knowledge and the money received went as a donation into Christian missionary work. When others criticized this sale, all who had contributed were informed that if they were dissatisfied their money would be returned. In fact, the identical money received for the wheat was held for a year for that purpose. But not one person asked for a refund. The conduct of Brother Russell and the Society in connection with Miracle Wheat was completely open and aboveboard.