As The Twig Is Bent...

Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), American religious leader,

There are prophets self- appointed and those who think God set them up for a special mission. Under which category Charles Taze Russell belongs you may decide for yourself.
Prophets no matter what message they carry, begin in the household earthly parents. They show their upbringing no matter how bizarre or luminous their messages might be.
Russell began helping his father who had a chain of clothing stores. Naturally a man born to affluence and of his mercantile class would know how far one dollar would go. In 1911 the Brooklyn Eagle charged the "Pastor" with profiteering in the church's sale of "miracle wheat" to members, who were told it would produce fantastic yields. Once touched by filthy lucre it is not difficult to see what motivates these self appointed prophets. They may claim a church of faithful adherents but the heart is in the money-box. Naturally he also founded a sect, known as Russellites or Millennial Dawnists, which provided the nucleus for the Jehovah's Witnesses sect.
As for the quality of a prophet’s message is inescapably enmeshed with his or her early upbringing. Russell’s parents awed him at an early age with grim tales of hellfire and damnation. While helping his father build the family's chain of clothing stores, Russell began to question the validity of including the concept of eternal damnation in Christian dogma. Bible study, fascination with the Millerite, or Adventist, movement, and his own inability to reconcile hell with the Christian concept of mercy caused him to develop a personal theology, which he began to teach others. Russell believed that Christ's Second Coming might be invisible. When others were disappointed because Christ's much-predicted advent did not seem to occur in 1874, Russell always had an answer. Did God put it there we may never know. Only that he had a ready answer. Russell believed it had happened invisibly, and he wrote The Object and Manner of Our Lord's Returning.
benny