Alexander Hugh Macmillan (June 2, 1877-August 26, 1966), also referred to as A. H. Macmillan, was an important member of the Bible Students, later known as Jehovah’s Witnesses. In his book Faith on the March, published in 1957, he retraces the history of the religious movement. He became a close friend of the movement’s founder Charles Taze Russell, and was an early board member of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, joining that body in 1918.
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Early life
Macmillan was born in Canada. From an early age he had a deep interest in serving God. He said: “When I reached the age of sixteen I decided to be a preacher. I went away to school some distance from home, preparatory to attending a theological seminary. For some reason not clear to me now I suffered a nervous breakdown and had to quit. I came home discouraged and almost brokenhearted, not knowing what to do.”
He decided to journey to America, saying: “…my father was very considerate and kind and did not reprimand me in any way but offered to do anything he could for me. I obtained some money from him and went away to Boston, Massachusetts. Alone in that large city, I was uncertain indeed as to the future. But I intended to look around to see what I could find in the way of a religious life.”
It was shortly thereafter that he first came into contact with the Bible Student movement. Before the age of 20, or about the year 1897, he obtained a copy of the book, The Plan of the Ages, the first in the six volume Millennial Dawn or Studies in the Scriptures series, written by C. T. Russell and published in 1886. He later obtained the second volume in the series, The Time Is At Hand, which had been published in 1889, and referred to the end of the Gentile Times as occurring in 1914. He felt that he had finally found biblical truth and would later use these books as a basis for his theory that he and others would be 'taken home' to heaven in 1914[1].
Beginning His Ministry
It was at the turn of the century that he first met Pastor Russell. In June 1900 Macmillan traveled to Philadelphia to a convention sponsored by the Watch Tower Society. In September of that year, he was baptized in Boston. The following year he realized his dream of becoming a missionary and full time minister in Massachusetts.
In September 1901 he traveled to Cleveland to attend a Watch Tower Society convention there. He said of that occasion: "The convention at Cleveland ended Sunday night and Russell invited me to make my home at the Watch Tower Society's headquarters in Allegheny, though I was not a member of the staff. When I went there to the Bible House (where the headquarters "family" lived and worked) I was in my early twenties. C. T. Russell was very kind to me. I had no home, both my parents having died; so he took me under his wing and made me feel at home with the headquarters family."
He traveled extensively with Russell: "In 1905 I made a nation-wide convention tour with Russell. It was on this trip that I met J. F. Rutherford, whom I baptized in 1906 and who became the second president of the Society."
Additional insight into his steadfast loyalty to the Watch Tower organization, in spite of its numerous doctrinal shifts, can be found in one of his later observations: "I learned that we should admit our mistakes and continue searching God's Word for more enlightenment. No matter what adjustments we would have to make from time to time in our views, that would not change the gracious provision of the ransom and God's promise of eternal life."
Macmillan's Proclamation of 1914
For decades, Watch Tower publications had pointed to 1914 as a significant year. As the year approached, their publications associated 1914 with the "end of the Gentile Times" and the beginning of Christ's kingship. Many were convinced that they would be sent to heaven in 1914. Decades later, Macmillan himself related his perceptions and involvement with the matter at the time, and the immediate aftermath.
THE YEAR 1914 is marked for all time to come. ...we knew this date would usher in the worst time of trouble the world had yet known. ...Opinions as to what, exactly, was to occur varied. Of course The Watch Tower had stated the matter rather clearly, but at that time there was far more independent thinking and private “interpretation” than the Scriptures themselves allow for. ...many of us were thinking more of our own personal, individual “change” than anything else.[2]
This is probably the last public address I shall ever
deliver because we shall be going home soon.A.H.Macmillan, September 30, 1914
"Faith On The March", page 46I was a speaker at a convention at Saratoga Springs, New York, in [September 27-30] 1914. I spoke on the subject “The End of All Things Is at Hand; Therefore Let Us Be Sober, Watchful and Pray.” I believed it myself sincerely—that the church was “going home” in October. During that discourse I made this unfortunate remark: “This is probably the last public address I shall ever deliver because we shall be going home soon.”
The next morning 500 of us returned to Brooklyn, where services would conclude the convention. Quite a number of conventioners stayed at Bethel [Watch Tower's offices and home in Brooklyn]. Friday morning we were all seated at the breakfast table when Brother Russell came down. As he entered the room he usually hesitated a moment and said cheerily, “Good morning, all.” But this morning he briskly clapped his hands and happily announced: “The Gentile Times have ended; their kings have had their day.” Brother Russell took his seat at the head of the table and made a few remarks, and then I came in for some good-natured twitting.
Brother Russell said: “...At 10:30 Sunday morning Brother Macmillan will give us an address.” Everybody laughed heartily, recalling what I had said on Wednesday at Saratoga Springs—my “last public address.” ...In that [subsequent] talk I tried to show the friends that perhaps some of us had been a bit too hasty in thinking that we were going to heaven right away, and the thing for us to do would be to keep busy in the Lord’s service until he determined when any of his approved servants would be taken home to heaven.
Although our expectations about being taken to heaven were not fulfilled in 1914, that year did see the end of the Gentile Times, as we had anticipated. So not all our expectations for that year went unfulfilled. But we were not particularly disturbed that not everything took place as we had expected, because we were so busy with the Photo-Drama work and with the problems created by the war. [3][1]
Macmillan remained committed to the Watch Tower Society despite incorrectly concluding that he and many other members were to arise into heaven in October 1914. In 1919, however, the New York Times characterized Macmillan's address to a meeting of Bible Students as proposing a "new date for the Millennium" in the year 1925.[4]
Watch Tower's board of directors
In Faith on the March, Macmillan describes his private 1916 meeting with the Watch Tower Society's then-president, writing...
[Russell] described to me his physical condition, and I knew enough about physical diagnosis to know that he would not live very many more months unless he had some relief. He said: ‘Well, now, brother, what I wanted to tell you is this. I am not able to carry on the work any longer, and yet there is a great work to be done...' ...After outlining the work ahead, Brother Russell said: ‘Now, what I want is someone who will come in here to take the responsibility from me.'"
The 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses (page 77) concludes its discussion of that and subsequent meetings with Russell by noting, “A. H. Macmillan was placed in charge of the office and the Bethel home.” Russell died several weeks later, on October 31, 1916.
After the January 5, 1918 annual meeting of the Watchtower Society Macmillan joined the Society's board as a director, while Rutherford also became a board member and president. That same year, Macmillan was arrested and tried along with Rutherford and other Watch Tower Society officials, and sentenced to federal prison in Atlanta. They were condemned for publishing and distributing the book The Finished Mystery, which contained material considered in violation of the Sedition Act of 1918, which had succeeded the Espionage Act of 1917. They stood accused, among other things, of urging members to avoid both combatant and non-combatant participation in war efforts. They were released and exonerated in 1919.
During the 1920s, Macmillan traveled extensively on service tours to Europe and the Middle East, both for public speaking engagements and for organizational correction similar to that performed today by zone overseers among Jehovah's Witnesses. Such assignments included Scotland,[5] Denmark,[6] Finland,[7] Norway,[8] Palestine,[9] Lebanon and Syria,[10] Italy,[11] and Sweden.[12]
Macmillan had also traveled throughout the United States and Canada as an appointed "pilgrim", performing twice-yearly visits with local congregations, such as a circuit overseer among Jehovah's Witnesses does today.[13] By the 1930s, based in Brooklyn, Macmillan was a "traveling representative" speaking at congregations and larger assemblies, encouraging individuals to pursue the full-time ministry.[14] Macmillan also met with local law enforcement and government officials, at times explaining the significance of the dozens of then-recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions which were mostly favorable to Jehovah's Witnesses.[15] As a former federal prisoner himself, Macmillan was pleased to be accepted by the director of the United States Bureau of Prisons "as a regular visitor to federal prisons in the United States to care for spiritual interests of young men who were there because of having taken a stand of Christian neutrality" during World War II.[16][17]
Macmillan continued to serve on the board of directors of the Watch Tower Society; after 1942 he was described as "an administrative associate of three presidents of the Watch Tower Society"[18] (that is, Russell, Rutherford, and Knorr).
Later years
| “ | Toward the end of 1955 Mr. Macmillan asked permission to use the Society's files to write an account of his experiences in the ministry. Since he is a trusted member of the headquarters staff, he was granted permission. A few months ago he informed me the work was finished, and at his request I agreed to read the manuscript for technical accuracy. I soon found myself engrossed in the story which the account of his life and association with Jehovah's witnesses had produced. | ” |
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—Nathan H. Knorr, 1957, |
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In the 1950s, Macmillan continued his Society directorship while he personally researched and wrote his "Faith On The March" history of Jehovah's Witnesses. Macmillan was an on-air personality on the Society's radio station WBBR, "answering people's questions, giving them Bible counsel delivered straight from the shoulder",[19] until WBBR was sold in 1957[20] On October 10, 1960, 83-year-old Macmillan was the first speaker at the Brooklyn dedication of the new missionary training facilities for the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. According to the article describing the dedication...[21]
Brother Macmillan related that fifty-one years ago the Society had moved from Allegheny, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn when there were only thirty members in the headquarters family. What a contrast with now! ...Referring to his many years as a special representative of the Society, Brother Macmillan said in appreciation of his privileges: “If I had my sixty years of service to do over again, I would work harder, more diligently.”
Later, Macmillan's increasing health problems caused him such pain and distress that he privately confided an identification with biblical Job in the years leading up to his death on August 26, 1966.[22] Macmillan's funeral services were conducted by Watch Tower president Nathan Knorr on August 29; the interment was at "the private burial plot of the Brooklyn Bethel family on Woodrow Road, Staten Island, New York".[23]
References
- ^ a b Watchtower, ed (1993). Jehovah's Witnesses Proclaimers of God's Kingdom. Brooklyn, New York: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc..
- ^ Faith On The March. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.. 1957. p. 46.
- ^ "Doing God’s Will Has Been My Delight", The Watchtower, August 15, 1966
- ^ "New Date For Millennium: Russellites Now See It Coming on Earth in 1925". New York Times. June 2, 1919. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9D04E6DE1F39E13ABC4A53DFB0668382609EDE.
- ^ "Staying Close to Jehovah’s Organization", The Watchtower, July 1, 1987, page 27
- ^ 1993 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, pages 80-81
- ^ 1990 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 155
- ^ "Norway", 1977 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 206
- ^ Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, ©1993 Watch Tower, page 142
- ^ "Lebanon and Syria", 1980 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, pages 169-170
- ^ "Italy", 1982 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 133
- ^ 1991 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, pages 134-135
- ^ "Development of the Organization Structure", Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, page 222
- ^ "Pursuing My Purpose in Life", The Watchtower, August 1, 1957, page 457
- ^ "Pursuing My Purpose in Life", The Watchtower, August 1, 1956, page 456
- ^ “Objects of Hatred by All the Nations”, Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, page 654
- ^ "United States of America", 1975 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, page 206
- ^ "How We Came to Be Known as Jehovah’s Witnesses", Jehovah's Witnesses - Proclaimers of God's Kingdom, page 152
- ^ Faith On The March by A. H. Macmillan, ©1957, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., page 4
- ^ "WBBR Sold by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society", The Watchtower, May 15, 1957, page 301, "[Watch Tower] Society decided to sell WBBR and did so April 15, 1957. WBBR had served its purpose... People could not ask questions over the radio as easily as they now can through personal contact and study in their homes with their own Bible."
- ^ "Dedication at Brooklyn Bethel", The Watchtower, November 15, 1960, page 702-703
- ^ "Job Endured—So Can We!", The Watchtower, November 15, 1994, page 10, "‘THE Devil is after me! I feel just like Job!’ With such words A. H. Macmillan expressed his feelings to a close friend at the headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Brother Macmillan finished his earthly course at the age of 89 on August 26, 1966. ...His friends rejoiced that Brother Macmillan obtained that [heavenly] reward. In his declining years on earth, however, he was beset by various trials, including health problems that made him keenly aware of Satan’s attempts to break his integrity to God."
- ^ "Announcements", The Watchtower, October 1, 1966, page 608
External links
Full text of Faith On The March
See also
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