# ******Water, water everywhere

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Posted by AF - Add'l Info [AF] on November 06, 1999 at 08:50:19 {p8g/8h8r5Q1EwaxRomAMdaOt1gg/Zk}:

In Reply to: *****Water, water everywhere posted by Friend on November 05, 1999 at 17:12:18:

Here is something that a friend who is heavy into JW history forwarded to me:

According to Russell's sister, he was baptised by immersion in 1874 - when Charles would be 22. In 1908 at the Put-in-Bay convention Margaret Russell Land gave a lengthy testimony about her brother (which was reprinted in Memoirs of Pastor Russell (published 1923), pages 179-183. In this she said:

"About 1874 the true mode of Baptism and its import was discerned by him, and he and father, together with a number of others, including myself, symbolized our baptism into Christ by water immersion."

This is only a tiny part of her account, she wasn't making any great point here, and it is a little vague as to the date, but taking her testimony at face value, CTR, his sister and his father were all baptised as adults by immersion around the same time.

So where did the family belong in 1874?

They appear to be part of an independent Bible study class that some would assume to be part of the loosely affiliated Advent Christian Church movement. (Remember that the Advent Christian Church was refused access to an 1878 New York conference because it was not yet recognised by some as a denomination, so their groups were still very loosely organised accepting speakers from various fringe elements).

So you could say that Russell was ultimately baptised by his own group, which some might view as being baptised by the fledgling Advent Christian Church of the day.

The key to the Advent Christian connection is a man named Clowes. Clowes was a former Pittsburgh-based Methodist who was probably expelled from that church for Adventist views in 1871 and who then joined the Advent Christian Church. (See 'The Advent Christian Story' by Clarence Kearney page 42. Kearney does not actually give the year of Clowes expulsion, but the context suggests no later than 1871).

George Storrs' 'Bible Examiner' journal relates how Storrs (now an independent having helped found the Advent Christian Church and then its close spin-off Life and Advent Union) visited a 'little group in Pittsburgh' in May 1874 as guest speaker. In his report he mentions a preacher "formerly of the Methodists" - this was probably Clowes. At those same meetings with Clowes was Joseph Lytel Russell, CTR's father. Joseph Lytel's letter of thanks to Storrs for the visit was printed in the December 1874 issue of Bible Examiner. Then in Bible Examiner for November 1875 there is an Elder G.D. Clowes writing a letter to Storrs about a "Brother Owens labouring with us". In the same issue, Joseph Lytel Russell also wrote about the same visit of Brother Owens.

So Joseph Lytel Russell and Elder Clowes attended the same meetings.Whether these were the meetings of "a few friends and business associates" that CTR remembered when he wrote his own history in the 1890s, or were something else again, is not known. But these meetings that Russell's father still attended were sufficiently formalised to have an 'elder' and were probably still viewed as Advent Christian Church meetings in some attenders minds - even though the group were in regular touch with ex-ACC members like Storrs.

Storrs of course was a big influence on the Russells. Throughout the 1870s issues of Bible Examiner, 'Joseph L. Russell and son' are often mentioned. Charles Taze Russell as a separate individual is first mentioned in the July 1875 issue of Storrs magazine. CTR's first known published article is in Storrs' magazine in October 1876. Storrs also reviewed Russell's 'Object and Manner of Our Lord's Return' ('Bible Examiner' March 1878). Shortly after Zion's Watch Tower started it carried an obituary for Storrs and printed one of his articles 'The Doctrine of Election' in June 1884.

The Advent Christian Church connection persisted throughout the 1870s. In 1879 CTR conducted George Stetson's funeral at Edenboro, Penn., as reported in 'The World's Crisis' of November 5, 1879, and in 1877 the ACC journals warned readers about the ministry of Barbour, Russell and Paton -obviously because ACC people were being targeted by it. (Barbour had previously been as good as disfellowshipped from the ACC by the Springfield Camp Meeting - see 'The World's Crisis', March 31, 1875, page 100).

As the ACC became a denomination it exercised more control over its groups, and various independents had to decide where they wanted to belong. Many affiliated with the new Zion's Watch Tower magazine from 1979 on, and the rest is history.

But if Charles Taze Russell was baptised by immersion in 1874 it would likely be by an independent group in Pittsburgh, which had Second Adventist connections.

AF

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