By The Editor
To My Readers
Russellism
I HAVE had many letters, some so blasphemous that I could not print them, others so abusive that their only place is the waste-paper basket. These letters have been mostly concerning what has appeared in this magazine on the subject of eternal punishment. The writings of the man who, when he was alive, called himself Pastor Russell, are full of the most dangerous blasphemy on this and other subjects. The world is being flooded with his books, and their contents can only be described as “doctrines of devils,” and the writings of “seducing spirits.” He said when he was alive, in one of his addresses, that he could get as much money as he liked, because he told people there was no hell. He tells us the “second death” is extinction: that death, extinction of being, is the wages of sin. He denies absolutely all that our blessed Lord has ever said about eternal punishment. He and his followers declare that “neither the Bible nor reason offers the slightest support to the doctrine that eternal torment is the penalty for sin, unconfessed and unforgiven.” It is called by them, “a fiendist doctrine of the dark ages,” and “is calling people to despise Christianity and the Bible.” Russellism says about our blessed Lord Jesus Christ: ―
“The man Jesus is dead, forever dead.”
“The man Christ Jesus never rose from the dead.”
“The man Christ Jesus suffered in the most absolute sense of the word everlasting destruction.”
“We know nothing about what became of Jesus’ body―whether it was dissolved into gases no one knows.” Speaking of God, Russellism says: “God is a solitary being, from eternity unrevealed and unknown. No one has existed as His equal to reveal Him.”
These awful doctrines (I have only cited a few) are being received into millions of homes in England and elsewhere. If people will not buy the books containing these doctrines they are given away in many cases. It is a vast scheme of Satan against the Lord Jesus Christ. Russell and his followers are the advance agents of the anti-Christ. I implore every reader I may be able to reach never to read a book, printed and disseminated, that contains these doctrines― “doctrines of devils.” The whole spirit of the age in which we live is anti-Christ.
We can but humbly pray to be delivered from anything that touches the honor of our blessed Lord.