JWs in white on bridge waiting 4 the Rapture in 1800s, anyone have quotes? (page 2)

johnny cip

if i recall the story correctly. it was russell that called the newpaper, to document his rapture in to heaven . on that easter sunday. i'm pretty sure the exact reference can be found in the book " kingdom of the cults" john

Atlantis

Juni:

WOW! Thanks Juni! It's comments like yours that help us old-timers keep posting and trying to do what we can to help! You just made my day! Thank you so very much. And I thank the members of the board for overlooking my many mess-ups!

Cheers! Atlantis-

RR

You know that in 1878 Russell was a "nobody" in the Adventist circles. He worked with Barbour who was pretty much ostracized by the Advent community as being a radical.

So unless the papers list his name and being interviewed, it's going to be a hard sell.

RR

Atlantis

RR:

I will be amazed if they can even find such an article. However, it sure would be nice if they could. Russell did call some of the "other" ones "radical" in his statement above in "Faith On The March". You are right though RR, to prove such statements "Russell's" name would need to appear in the newspapers article.

Thanks RR!

Cheers! Atlantis-

Justin

I think that incidents, both rumored and actual, which were associated with the Millerite movement in the earlier part of the nineteenth century may have later been reappropriated and applied to Russell by his detractors.

William Miller's biographer, Sylvester Bliss, in The Memoirs of William Miller, writing shortly after Miller's death, notes reports of fanaticism in connection with the disappointment of October 22, 1844, when Christ's advent failed to occur. He states (emphasis added):

All reports respecting the preparation of ascension robes, &c., and which are still by many believed, were demonstrated over and over again to be false and scandalous.

Continuing, he admitted (emphasis added):

The most culpable incident, which had any foundation in fact, was in Philadelphia. In opposition to the earnest expostulations of Mr. Litch and other judicious persons, a company of about one hundred and fifty, responding to the pretended vision of one C.R. Georgas, on the 21st of October went out on the Daryby-street bridge, and encamped in a field under two large tents, provided with all needed comforts. The next morning, their faith in Georgas' vision having failed, all but about a dozen returned to the city. A few days later the others returned. That was an act the report of which was greatly exaggerated. It met the emphatic diapproval of Mr. Miller and the Adventists generally, and this folly was promptly confessed by the majority of those who participated in it.

What needs to be asked is whether there was a repetition of this sort of event 34 years later (in 1878), or did someone merely find it convenient to report what was by then history as a recent even involving another religious group.

jwfacts

Very interesting Justin.

Russell did believe the hype about 1878 as seen in the following quote.

Zion’s Watch Tower 1906 July p.230 "Harvest Gathering and Siftings.”

“We did not then see, as we now do,* that that date (1878) marked the time for the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of God, by the glorification of all who already slept in Christ, and that the "change" which Paul mentions ( I Cor. 15:51 ) is to occur in the moment of dying, to all the class described, from that date onward through the harvest period, until all the living members ("the feet") of the body of Christ shall have been changed to glorious spirit beings. But when at that date nothing occurred which we could see , a re-examination of the matter showed me that our mistake lay in expecting to see all the living saints changed at once, and without dying--an erroneous view shared in by the whole nominal church, and one which we had not yet observed or discarded.”

Justin

Yes, Russell had expected to be raptured in 1878, but the question under discussion has been: Was he waiting for the rapture in a white robe on the Brooklyn bridge? Is that a true story, or is it apocryphal?

By the way, Russell's early expectation, as he stated, was to be raptured or caught up just as fundamentalists expect today. It was the failure of this expectation that led him to the thought of being "changed" instantaneously at death which, as far as I know, is unique to Bible Students and Jehovah's Witnesses (in the case of the "anointed"). This differentiated the Russell tradition from that of the Adventists, who expect all believers to sleep in death until the resurrection. But according to Russell, while this was true prior to Christ's presence, it is no longer true from a certain point onward.

Hope you find a definitive answer to your question.

Butters

Uh, well I'm surprised they didn't jump off the bridge when their leader was wrong, yeah, maybe if professor chaos was there, it might have happened, yeah.

Leolaia

I suspect the 1914/Brooklyn Bridge story is merely a displaced version of the original 1878/Sixth St. Bridge story, which may well be itself based on the Miller 1844/Daryby St. Bridge story....sure smells like urban legend to me.

BTW, the nation's papers in those years were rife with "ascension robe" stories about the Second Adventists. Were they true? Or entertaining yarns that made good anecdotes?

jwfacts

Great quotes Leo, it shows that the Adventists had a continual string of predictions for the end, and the JWs have just followed on with the tradtion. Shame they havent listened to the advice in the article and "be satisfied to wait until the Lord is ready to take them".

I love this bit; "He has made not ascension robe for his wife, however thinking that she is to remain and be destroyed."

JWs in white on bridge waiting 4 the Rapture in 1800s, anyone have quotes?

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