One brother recalled from a meeting in Göteborg: “During his presentation, Brother Rutherford said: ‘I offer 1,000 dollars to anyone in the audience who can prove that man has an immortal soul.’ Nobody took up the challenge.”

Brother Arthur Gustavsson, 11 years old at the time, said: “I can clearly recall Sunday, August 2, 1914. My father was conducting the meeting in Göteborg when outside we heard a newsboy cry out: ‘World conflagration has begun!’ The brothers in the hall began looking at one another. Some of the things we had been proclaiming about 1914 were beginning to come true.”