The other, George Storrs, was publisher of the magazine Bible Examiner, in Brooklyn, New York. Storrs, who was born on December 13, 1796, was initially stimulated to examine what the Bible says about the condition of the dead as a result of reading something published (though at the time anonymously) by a careful student of the Bible, Henry Grew, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Storrs became a zealous advocate of what was called conditional immortality—the teaching that the soul is mortal and that immortality is a gift to be attained by faithful Christians. He also reasoned that since the wicked do not have immortality, there is no eternal torment. Storrs traveled extensively, lecturing on the subject of no immortality for the wicked. Among his published works was the Six Sermons, which eventually attained a distribution of 200,000 copies. Without a doubt, Storrs’ strong Bible-based views on the mortality of the soul as well as the atonement and restitution (restoration of what was lost due to Adamic sin; Acts 3:21) had a strong, positive influence on young Charles T. Russell.

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George Storrs—“A Friend and Brother”

C. T. Russell felt a sense of indebtedness to George Storrs, who was some 56 years his senior. Russell had learned much from Storrs about the mortality of the soul. So when Storrs lay seriously ill late in 1879, Russell offered to print in the “Watch Tower” a statement of Storrs’ condition. “Our brother,” Russell wrote, “so long the editor of ‘The Bible Examiner’ is known to most of our readers; also that he has been obliged by severe illness to discontinue his paper.” In Russell’s estimation, Storrs had “much reason to thank God for being privileged to spend so long a life and one so consecrated to the Master.” Storrs died on December 28, 1879, at the age of 83. An announcement of his death appeared in the February 1880 issue of the “Watch Tower,” which said: “We mourn the loss of a friend and brother in Christ yet, ‘not as those who have no hope.’”

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George Storrs