Elder Jonas Wendell (December 25, 1815August 14, 1873) of

Edinboro, Pennsylvania Edinboro is a borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Erie, Pennsylvania, Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area. As home to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, it is a ...

, was a zealous

Adventist Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher Wil ...

preacher following in the spirit of William Miller. Following the "

Great Disappointment The Great Disappointment in the Millerite movement was the reaction that followed Baptist preacher William Miller's proclamations that Jesus Christ would return to the Earth by 1844, which he called the Second Advent. His study of the Daniel 8 p ...

" Wendell experienced periods of weak faith, as did many Adventists. He eventually recovered his faith after renewing his study of

Bible chronology The chronology of the Bible is an elaborate system of lifespans, 'generations', and other means by which the Masoretic Hebrew Bible (the text of the Bible most commonly in use today) measures the passage of events from the Genesis creation narra ...

(historic and prophetic) and began to preach extensively throughout

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, Pennsylvania, the Virginias, and

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. By the late 1860s he had been studying the chronology of the Bible, and was encouraged by conclusions showing Christ's return would occur in either 1868 or 1873/4. In 1870 Wendell published his views in the booklet entitled ''The Present Truth, or Meat in Due Season'' concluding that the

Second Advent The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on mess ...

was sure to occur in 1873. Unknown to him, attendance at one of his presentations restored

Charles Taze Russell Charles Taze Russell (February 16, 1852 – October 31, 1916), or Pastor Russell, was an American Christian restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and founder of what is now known as the Bible Student movement. He was an ...

's faith in the Bible as the true word of God, leading to Russell's ministry.

Coverage of disputed charges

In 1871, the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

circulated a story that Wendell had been arrested in Pennsylvania on the charge of "improper intimacy" with a 16-year-old girl. No evidence of impropriety was ever produced, and Wendell publicly denied not only the charges, but that he had ever been arrested.

Obituary

The magazine ''The World's Crisis'' in the September 10, 1873 issue offered an

obituary An obituary ( obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Ac ...

written by fellow

and personal friend,

George Stetson George Washington Stetson (September 12, 1815 – October 9, 1879) was a Christian pastor, earnest Bible student, and writer for various religious periodicals. Biography George Washington Stetson, son of Reuben and Lois (Smedley) Stetson, was bo ...

. A brief summary appears below: In Memory of Elder Jonas Wendell "He was born December 25, 1815, and fell asleep August 14 1873. Age fifty seven years, seven months, and fourteen days. ... "He had settled on 1873 as the year in which "the hope of seeing Jesus and being made like him" should be realized by a waiting and expectant church, and set forth the reasons for his hope in a little work entitled, "Present truth," or "Meat in Due Season," ... "... on Wednesday evening, 13 August, by request, in absence of the pastor, he led the prayer and conference meeting, and much edified all present by his unusual fervency in prayer, exhortation, and singing. "What a friend we have in Jesus" was the last hymn he ever sung with us. On Thursday the 14th, he went to the Sabbath School picnic in most excellent spirits, and seemed to be very happy in the Lord. When time for adjournment arrived, he got out his horse to return home, but seeing a lad in trouble from a fickly horse, he went to his assistance, where he overtaxed his physical strength, and returned to his own buggy quite exhausted. But he got in and took the lines from his niece, to start home, but immediately loosened his hold, dropped them, and fell over backward in his seat, dead. He gave but two slight gasps for breath, and all was over... "On Saturday, 16 August, at 2 P.M. his funeral was numerously attended at our chapel, when all the clergy of our village came to observe his obsequies, sympathize with his bereaved family, and participate in the services of the occasion... Medical opinion is divided between apoplexy and heart disease as cause of death.

Works

*''The Present Truth or Meat in Due Season'', 1870
The Present Truth or Meat in Due Season
' by Jonas Wendell

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wendell, Jonas 1815 births 1873 deaths 19th-century apocalypticists American Christian religious leaders American evangelicals Adventism Millerites Religious leaders from Pennsylvania