With the nationalistic fever that swept the world during the first world war, a new weapon was found for use against the Bible Students. The enmity of Protestant and Roman Catholic religious leaders could be expressed behind a front of patriotism. They took advantage of wartime hysteria to brand the Bible Students as seditious—the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul by the religious leaders of first-century Jerusalem. (Luke 23:2, 4; Acts 24:1, 5) Of course, for the clergy to make such a charge, they themselves had to be active champions of the war effort, but that did not seem to bother most of them, even though it meant sending young men out to kill members of their own religion in another land.
It was in July 1917, after Russell’s death, that the Watch Tower Society released the book The Finished Mystery, a commentary on Revelation and Ezekiel as well as The Song of Solomon. That book roundly exposed the hypocrisy of Christendom’s clergy! It was given extensive distribution in a relatively short time. Late in December 1917 and early in 1918, the Bible Students in the United States and Canada also undertook the distribution of 10,000,000 copies of a fiery message in the tract The Bible Students Monthly. This four-page tabloid-sized tract was entitled "The Fall of Babylon," and it bore the subtitle "Why Christendom Must Now Suffer—The Final Outcome." It identified Catholic and Protestant religious organizations together as modern-day Babylon, which soon must fall. In support of what was said, it reproduced from The Finished Mystery commentary on prophecies expressing divine judgment against "Mystic Babylon." On the back page was a graphic cartoon that showed a wall crumbling. Massive stones from the wall bore such labels as "Doctrine of the Trinity (‘3 X 1 = 1’)," "Immortality of the Soul," "Eternal Torment Theory," "Protestantism—creeds, clergy, etc.," "Romanism—popes, cardinals, etc., etc."—and all of them were falling.
The clergy were
furious at such exposure, just as the
Jewish clergy had been when Jesus exposed their hypocrisy. (Matt.
23:1-39; 26:3, 4) In Canada the clergy reacted quickly. In January
1918, upwards of 600 Canadian clergymen signed a petition calling on
the government to suppress the publications of the International Bible
Students Association. As reported in the Winnipeg Evening
Tribune, after Charles G. Paterson, pastor of St. Stephen’s
Church in Winnipeg, denounced from his pulpit The Bible
Students Monthly, which contained the article "The Fall
of Babylon," Attorney General Johnson got in touch with him to obtain a
copy. Shortly thereafter, on February 12, 1918, a Canadian government
decree made it a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment to have in
one’s possession either the book The Finished Mystery
or the tract shown above.
From the 1993 edition of "Kingdom Proclaimer's", a Jehovah's Witnesses publication...
See the Rock of Offence CD poster