Opening the Door of “Newspaper Gospelling”

By the end of the 19th century, the world was crisscrossed with telegraph lines. Telegraphic communication was inexpensive and fast; it revolutionized the press. News could be quickly transmitted over long distances and printed in newspapers. In the early part of the 20th century, C. T. Russell and his associates saw newspapers as an effective way of reaching large numbers of people. Russell later said: “The newspaper has become the great factor in the daily life of the civilized world.”

The December 1, 1904, issue of the Watch Tower announced that sermons by C. T. Russell were appearing in three newspapers. The next issue of the Watch Tower, under the heading “Newspaper Gospelling,” reported: “Millions of sermons have thus been scattered far and near; and some at least have done good. If the Lord wills we shall be glad to see this ‘door’ keep open, or even open still wider.” The door of “newspaper gospelling” did open still wider. In fact, by 1913 it was estimated that through 2,000 newspapers Russell’s sermons were reaching 15,000,000 readers!

How, though, did Russell manage to get a weekly sermon printed even when he was traveling? Each week he telegraphed a sermon (about two newspaper columns long) to a newspaper syndicate. The syndicate, in turn, retelegraphed it to newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Russell was convinced that the Lord had pushed the door of newspaper preaching wide open. During the first decade of the 20th century, the Bible message that Russell and his associates proclaimed became widely known through such newspaper sermons. A publication called The Continent once stated concerning Russell: “His writings are said to have greater newspaper circulation every week than those of any other living man; a greater, doubtless, than the combined circulation of the writings of all the priests and preachers in North America.”

[Pictures on page 58]

It was estimated that one year, through 2,000 newspapers, C. T. Russell’s sermons were reaching 15,000,000 readers