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INTERESTING LETTERS

1. M. L. MCPHAIL, Illinois

DEAR FRIEND AND BROTHER:—It was through a recent letter received from Mr. C. T. Russell that I obtained your name and address. And I now take pleasure in penning you a few lines.

You do not know—O yes! I think you do,—but certainly only a few can know, what exceeding blessedness has come to me through my brief acquaintance with Mr. Russell and his works. And how I long for more!

I am a middle-aged man of 40. I was brought up a Christian from my mother’s knee.

Eleven years ago (about), I lost my sweet wife, after a marriage of 2-1/2 years. She was a devoted Christian, so good, so beautiful, so true; for her sweet sake I could willingly have died. But God took her from me, leaving me with no children, no cares, but a crushed spirit, a broken heart and almost a rebellious inclination. But these extremities set me to thinking as I had never thought before.

I have long felt that Christian religion ought to be a great deal more or a great deal less than that usually presented either by pen or pulpit. I accordingly went into the ministry in the Methodist Church. And while I enjoyed working for my Master according to my limited knowledge and ability, I learned to feel more and more that the Methodist Church did not mean business: did not believe what it presented nor try to present what it did believe.

After working hard for 2-1/2 years I was obliged to stop from nervous prostration. And really, the teaching of this church is enough to prostrate the nerves of anybody who is honest enough to work consistently in harmony with such views. Thus I left the pulpit: but I could not leave off thinking. Last winter I advertised in the Chicago Record for truth, thus,—

PERSONAL NOTICE

Correspondence wanted from any one who is a candidate for absolute and abstract truth. Address: Box 142, __________, Ill.

This ad was echoed and enlarged by the Tribune, and I received many answers: among them VOL. I. of MILLENNIAL DAWN, a copy of the WATCH TOWER and “What Say the Scriptures about Hell?” These were sent me by a brother Dixon, of Iowa, and this was the first that I ever heard of the good people at Allegheny. But I have feasted on it since that time.

Then it was, upon inquiry concerning who and how many accepted this interpretation of the Word, that I learned of the little band so near as Chicago. Now it so happens that I expect to spend two or three days in Chicago some time in September (perhaps before the middle). I have a number of friends in and near the city, and I think I would like to meet some of you people and have a nice long talk with you personally, if it be agreeable to you.

I am Yours in Christ,

R. W. LOVERING

California

DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—Quite accidentally, the other day, I became acquainted with a miner, returned to these parts from Alaska. He has done fairly well there.

I found that he did not believe in “One word of the Bible, not one word from beginning to end of the book!” I told him there was a surprise in store for him, and gave him two TOWERS and lent him VOL. I. of MILLENNIAL DAWN. A few days after I saw him again before he had finished VOL. I., and he said: “I am going back to Alaska early in March, and want to take all those books with me!” I am sure he is now well on the road to grasp the truth.

Will these be the first of the DAWNS to go to the Arctic Circle? If so please let the TOWER readers know that Mr. Walker has the honor of God to bear the Light manifested at the close of the Gospel age into the Arctic regions.

Yours very truly,

ALFRED R. PEARSON.

Tennessee

DEAR BROTHER RUSSELL:—I write you that you may know how the Lord’s few are getting along at this place. We have had six meetings from place to place since I wrote you last, and had a soul refreshing time at each gathering. But as our homes are so scattered over the neighborhood that house to house meetings are very inconvenient, I have fitted up a good house on my place, at the edge of our little town, to be used as a meeting house for God’s people. To-morrow will be our first gathering at our new meeting place. I pray the Lord may bless us in our effort.

Last Saturday the Baptist church, which is three miles from here, held a meeting in which they proposed to discuss among themselves what they call the Russell doctrine. The questions were asked through a question box. Three important questions,—”To what extent does the atonement reach?” “How far does the Redemption extend?” “Is there to be a restitution of all things?”—were assigned to one Burl. Henry, said to be the ablest minister in the Baptist Northern Association. Mr. Henry answered those three questions in broad terms as taught in the MILLENNIAL DAWN. Then they all rose up and told Mr. Henry that he would have to stop advocating such doctrine, or they would turn him out of the church; but Mr. Henry frankly told them that he did not care if they did turn him out of their church, that they could not stop him from preaching this Gospel of the Kingdom, except they stopped his breath. Thus it is, one by one, they keep coming as the Lord’s sheep to his bountiful provisions.

May the Lord bless you in your every effort to spread the truth.

Yours in Love and Christian fellowship,

G. E. TOLIVER.

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— September 1, 1897 —