“In 1877 Pastor Russell called a meeting of all the ministers of Allegheny and Pittsburgh, showed them the Scriptures which indicated our Lord’s presence and urged them to investigate and proclaim the message. All of the ministers of the two cities were present; all of the ministers of the two cities refused to believe. In the same year he determined to give up secular work and devote his entire time and fortune to the work indicated in the Scriptures as incident to the close of the Gospel Age and change of dispensation impending. As a means of determining whether his course was in harmony with the Scriptures, and also as a means of demonstrating his own sincerity, he decided to test the Lord’s approval as follows: (1) Devote his life to the cause; (2) Invest his fortune in the promulgation of the work; (3) Prohibit collections at all meetings; (4) Depend on unsolicited contributions (wholly voluntary) to continue the work after his fortune was exhausted. In 1881, 1,400,000 copies of _Food for Thinking Christians_ were distributed free at the doors of the Protestant churches in the United States, Canada and Great Britain on three consecutive Sundays, by A. D. T. messenger boys.”—Obituary. As to his education we quote his own words: “As respects my education in Greek and Hebrew: Not only do I not claim very special knowledge of either language, but I claim that not one minister in a thousand is either a Hebrew or a Greek scholar. To be able to spell out a few Greek words is of no earthly value. Nor is it necessary longer to study these languages in order to have knowledge of the Bible. Our Presbyterian friends have gotten out at great cost Young’s Analytical Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and English Lexicon Concordance, which any one may procure. And our Methodist friends have issued a similar work—Strong’s Analytical Concordance and Lexicon. And there is a still older one entitled Englishman’s Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and English Lexicon and Concordance. Additionally, Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon is a standard authority. The prices of these are not beyond the reach of the average man. By these works scholarly information respecting the original text of the Bible is obtainable. I have all four of these works and have used them faithfully. Very few college professors, even, would risk to give a critical translation of any text of Scripture without consulting these very works of reference, which are standard. Additionally I remind you of the many translations of the Bible now extant—all of them very good. I have all of these and find them useful in comparison and study of any text—one sometimes giving a thought which another may not. The other day, for curiosity’s sake, I counted Bibles in different translations, etc., in my study, and found that I have thirty‐ two.”—Z. ’14‐286.