A brief biographical sketch is in order as to the Society’s second president, Joseph Franklin Rutherford.k He was born November 8, 1869, in Boonville, Missouri, of parents who were Baptists. He was 16 years old when his father consented to his attending college to study law, provided he would earn his own way, since his father was merely a farmer and could not afford to assist him. After completing his academy education, he spent two years under the tutorship of Judge E. L. Edwards and finally at the age of twenty became the official reporter for the courts of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit in Missouri. At 22 he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law at Boonville, becoming a trial lawyer for the law firm of Draffen and Wright. Later he served four years as public prosecutor for Boonville, and still later, as Special Judge in the same Fourteenth Judicial District of Missouri.l For 15 years he practiced law in Missouri.

In 1894 he came in touch with Watch Tower Society representatives and twelve years later, in 1906, dedicated his life to Almighty God, thus becoming ordained for the Christian ministry.a In 1907 he became the Watch Tower Society’s legal counselor at the Pittsburgh headquarters, to handle its court cases, and at the same time he was sent out to give public talks as a pilgrim representative of the Society.b In 1909 he was admitted to the New York bar as a recognized lawyer for that state; in the same year (May 24, 1909) he also was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, D.C. He traveled widely as a public Bible lecturer in the United States, speaking at many colleges and universities by special request and before packed-out public audiences in this country and throughout Europe. He also visited Egypt and Palestine. In 1913, accompanied by his wife, he visited Germany, where he spoke to audiences totaling 18,000.c In 1915 he won a series of Bible debates in Los Angeles, California, against the “Rev.” J. H. Troy,d a Baptist, representing the clergy of southern California. In 1916 Rutherford was chosen to deliver the funeral talk at the death of his long-time, warm friend C. T. Russell.e

(To be continued)

St. Charalampus Punished for Neglect!

Many are the superstitious peasants who take their “saints” very seriously. However, seldom do they take them so seriously as did a certain Cretan, according to the following press dispatch: “HERAKLEION (Candia), Crete 24 (Our Correspondent’s Dispatch) Geo. Emm. Tsaggarakis, a resident of Jerapetra (Crete) went to the nearby village Murnies and, having entered Saint Charalampus church there, gathered together behind the outer gate the various church books, the leaves of three inner doors and many other effects, and then set a fire to them, causing serious damage to the church. Being arrested and examined, he admitting starting the fire and stated that he did so because . . . although he had prayed to Saint Charalampus for two years to heal him, he had noticed no improvement in his health. His illness is said to be of a nervous nature.”—Eleftheria, Athens, Greece, May 25, 1954.