THE appeal of Rutherford and his seven associates was set for hearing and was heard April 14, 1919, by the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals at New York.

A month later (May 14, 1919) their erroneous convictions of the preceding summer were reversed.a (Next year, May 5, 1920, the eight men were completely exonerated when, in open court at Brooklyn, on order of the Attorney General, the government’s attorney announced withdrawal of the prosecution.)b

At Pittsburgh on January 4, 1919, a combination convention and corporation meeting attended by a thousand energetic workers was held to reconfirm the election of Rutherford and the others as officers and directors.

In February, 1919, country-wide agitation was started by certain newspapers for the release of Rutherford and his associates.g

1919​—One Hundred Years Ago

BY 1919 the Great War (later known as World War I), which dragged on for over four years, had ended.

That call has been sounded out since 1919, the year in which the nations fighting in the world war of 1914-1918 signed the peace treaty.

Jehovah’s dedicated people have gotten out of her since the postwar year of 1919 C.E.

But in 1919, less than six months after the end of World War I, Jehovah God did something that corresponded with his restoring of the Jewish remnant from Babylon back in 537 B.C.

12. In 1919 who were of the spirit just described, and how did Jehovah fulfill that prophecy for them?

¹² Because the remnant of his anointed witnesses were of such a contrite, humble spirit after their captivity in mystic Babylon during World War I, Jehovah God condescended to notice their affliction and he delivered them in 1919.

² In fact, at the very time that Christ Jesus was being enthroned as King of the heavenly kingdom in 1914 (Dan. 7:13, 14), Satan was permitted to enforce a grueling ‘Babylonish-like captivity’ upon the anointed remnant on earth from 1914 to 1919.a

During this mercifully extended time of encirclement from 1919 onward, Christ Jesus has painstakingly and lovingly delivered the true Christian remnant out of the control of their earlier Babylonish captors. (Rev. 18:4)

1. Since when have the messengers of liberation gone forth particularly, and what parallel situation does Paul write about that applied in his day?

FROM the year 1919 onward messengers of liberation have been sent out.

This began taking place in the spring of the first postwar year, 1919.

7. In 1919, who made a move to get out of Babylon the Great, and for what reason?

⁷ In the spring of 1919, just some months after the close of World War I, a comparatively small group of dedicated Christians made a courageous move to get out of Babylon the Great.

This reviving of God’s anointed witnesses occurred in the spring of 1919.

8. What led to the cry: “Here is the bridegroom!” and what was it time for anointed Christians to do?

⁸ Then in 1919 something unexpected happened.

Before 1919, discreet anointed Christians had diligently sought to discern God’s will for them, despite their temporary weakened state.

This great King showed goodwill toward his anointed brothers on earth when, in the year 1919, anointed Christians were freed from spiritual captivity and returned to their “land,” their spiritual estate. (Isaiah 66:8; Revelation 18:4)

Just as prophesied, starting in 1919, Jehovah cleansed his people and reinvigorated them to serve him.

And now since the year 1919 C.E., the results have been the same with respect to the reconciled remnant of spiritual Israelites.

3, 4. (a) Since 1919 C.E., the remnant of spiritual Israel showed more appreciation for what relationship, and what covenant had they long misunderstood? (b) What article did The Watchtower publish in 1934?

³ In the twentieth-century parallel of this, the repentant remnant of spiritual Israelites was released from Babylon the Great in 1919 C.E.

He and his seven associates were released on March 25, 1919, and eventually they were exonerated completely.

But the year 1919 was significant for another reason.

In the spring of 1919 the imprisoned representatives of the Watch Tower Society were permanently released from Federal prison, connections with the Watch Tower Society’s branch offices were reestablished, and in 1920 the ban was removed from the Seventh Volume and thus The Finished Mystery was allowed to be circulated again in the United States of America.

Hence, this bestowal of a Biblically supported name upon them in 1931 seemed to come as a reward for having engaged in twelve years of hard Christian work since 1919.

In the spring of 1919 Jesus Christ the King, “the angel of the abyss,” used the key and brought his remnant of anointed followers out of this abyss of spiritual inactivity and reanimated them in God’s service.

The symbolic locusts who were revived in 1919 for God’s service went forth into the postwar world, but not to kill their persecutors, the religious clergy of Christendom who had no seal of the spirit from God.

Before the Paris Peace Conference opened in 1919 the executive committee of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America adopted a Declaration stating that the proposed League was “the political expression of the Kingdom of God on earth.”

32. What record do we have that the Special Commission presented the Declaration to the Paris Peace Conference?

³² Did this Special Commission present the Declaration to the Paris Peace Conference after it opened on January 18, 1919?

⁶ In our day Isaiah’s prophetic words well describe what has happened to “Babylon the Great” since 1919.

¹² Aspects of this prophecy had a fulfillment when God allowed his anointed servants to go into spiritual captivity in 1918 and then liberated them in 1919.

In the first postwar year of 1919 such a call came to them, after they were awakened to the realization that Jehovah God had left them alive in the flesh upon the earth for a vital purpose.

13. (a) What restoration blessings crowned the postwar year of 1919? (b) According to Isaiah chapter 35, by what route did they return to a state of endless gladness?

¹³ The year 1919 was crowned with divine goodness.

4, 5. (a) How did the remnant react to the manifestation of God’s “hand” in their behalf, and what did they appreciate more than ever? (b) The time had then arrived for what other action? (c) How does Isaiah describe this?

⁴ This was no less the case with the members of the spiritual “nation” that was “born” in 1919 CE.

As we read his words set out in Isaiah 66:19, 20, we can call to mind what he has gloriously done since the birth of the “nation” made up of the remnant of spiritual Israelites in 1919 after having ceased to be an organized people during World War I, and entertaining little hope or expectation of surviving that world conflict.