The following article is extracted from Pastor Russell’s posthumous volume entitled “The Finished Mystery,” the 7th in the series of his Studies in the Scriptures and published subsequent to his death.  Pastor Russell held the distinction of being the most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical subjects.  In this posthumous volume, which is called “his last legacy to the Christians on earth,” is found a thorough exposition of every verse in the entire book of Revelation and also an elucidation of the obscure prophecy of Ezekiel.  The book contains 608 pages, handsomely bound in embossed cloth.

Pastor Russell used to publish a two-column sermon in some hundreds of Sunday newspapers, together with a presentment of his features—­solemn, stiff, white-whiskered, set off with a “choker” and a black broadcloth coat.  There are five million such faces in America, but if you have an impulse to despair for your country, remember that it produced Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, as well as Pastor Russell and the Moody and Sankey hymn-book.  I quote one passage from “The Finished Mystery”, in order that the reader may know what it means to “hold the distinction of being the most fearless and powerful writer of modern times on ecclesiastical subjects.”  Pastor Russell does not approve of the Methodists, and he quotes twelve verses of Revelation, line by line and phrase by phrase, showing how the evil course and downfall of the Wesleyan system were divinely foretold.  Thus: 

“But that they should be tormented five months.”—­In symbolic time, 150 years—­5x30=150. (Ezek. 4:6.) Wesley became the first Methodist in 1728. (Rev. 9:  1.) When the Methodist denomination, with all the others, was cast off from favor in 1878 (Rev. 3:14) its powers to torment men by preaching what Presbyterians describe as “Conscious misery, eternal in duration” came to an end legally, and to a large extent actually.—­Rev. 9:10.

P.S.  A few months pass, and while this book is going to press, “The Finished Mystery” is suppressed by the government and several score “Bible Students” are landed in jail for sedition.

#Koreshanity#

Such are the beliefs built on the Bible.  But there are other ancient writings with strange nomenclature and ritual and symbolism, calculated to impress the unlettered; also our prophets have imaginations of their own, and can invent nomenclature and ritual and symbolism never seen in heaven nor on earth before.  Thus there is Dr. Newo Newi New, who called himself “Archbishop of the Newthot Church,” and gathered about him a harem of devoted females in San Francisco, and was landed in jail for using the mails to defraud.  Or there is “Oahspe, the Cosmic Bible,” a work of brand-new revelation with a brand-new view of the universe and all things therein: