The Fundamentals - 1917: Vol.4

CHAPTER IX MILLENNIAL DAWN

A COUNTERFEIT OF CHRISTIANITY BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM G. MOOREHEAD, D. D.,

UNITED PRESBYTERIAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, XENIA, OHIO Six rather bulky volumes, comprising in all some 2,000 pages, are published by the “Watch Tower and Tract Society” of Brooklyn, N. Y. The author of this work is Mr. Charles T. Russell. Formerly his publications issued from “Zion’s Watch Tower”, Pittsburgh, Pa. They then bore the some­ what ostentatious title, “Millennial Dawn,” (1886). The vol­ umes now bear the more modest inscription, “Studies in the Scriptures”, (1911). Why the change in the title is made can only be conjectured. Some rather severe criticism and stric­ tures of the views advocated in these books have brought Mil­ lennial Dawn into disrepute in the minds of many people, and accordingly we think the former title has been dropped and the later and less objectional one substituted for it. Some color is given to this conjecture by the fact that certain evangelical terms are applied to the movement of which Mr. Russell is the head, as, e. g., “People’s Pulpit of Brooklyn”, “International Bible Students’ League”, “Brooklyn Tabernacle”, “Bible House and Tract Society”, (Our Hope , Feb., 1911). The later title and the various names now freely used tend to allay suspicion and to commend the propaganda of Mr. Russell and his followers to the Christian public. In the introduction to the first volume we are told that “our Society, realizing the need, is seeking to do all in its power to . . . lift ‘the Lord’s standard for the people '. It has prepared six sets of Bible studies for Christian people of all denominations. . . . These are supplied at bare 109

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker