In 1876, Russell met with Seventh-day Adventist Nelson H. Barbour, who claimed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ had occurred in the fall of 1874. Barbour, who was the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Midnight Cry, later renamed The Herald of the Morning and published in Rochester, New York, declared that Christ had already returned to earth, only invisibly, and that believers would be raptured to heaven in three and a half years.

Russell began to use the profits received from profitable men's clothing stores to finance the magazine "Herald of the Morning".

In 1877, Russell, together with Barbour, published the book "Three Worlds", where 1914 is called the year of "the end of the time of the pagans". However, the author was Barbour, and Russell only lent him money for publication, without, of course, refusing to co-author. Grateful Barbour appointed him in July 1878 assistant editor of the Herald of the Morning.

Joint activity to save "lost" humanity brought them closely together. In July 1879, the first issue of Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, which is also the Herald of the Morning, was published in July 1879 to alert the world's population to the approaching end of the world.

After a while, Russell disagreed with Barbour on the issue of atonement. Barbour believed that Christ died only for Adam, but according to Russell, all mankind was redeemed by Christ's sufferings. Apparently, the failure to fulfill the Adventist false prophecy published in the journal Herald of the Morning about the Second Coming in 1876 also played a role in the rupture.

At the same time, Russell created his own sect. In 1881, Zion's Watch Tower 42 Tract Society was founded. In 1884, Russell officially registered the society as a non-profit organization. In 1896, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society appeared. Of course, Russell was its rightful owner, and those people who are considered by later generations of Jehovah's Witnesses to be the Board of the Watch Tower Society were in fact employees, which was not hidden: "Since by December 1, 1893, we have 3705 voting shares out of a total of 6383 shares, Sister Russell and I, of course, elect the employees ourselves and thus control the Society; And this is fully known to the directors from the very beginning. It was quite clear that how useful they were would be revealed in the event of their death."43

In 1893, the first congress of the sect was held in Chicago (Illinois). Since 1909, the society has been headquartered at 17 Hicks Street in Brooklyn, New York (it came to be known as the "Brooklyn Tabernacle"). The move to a new place was due to Russell's desire to avoid paying alimony to his wife, awarded to her by a court decision.

The personal life of the creator of the sect was generally quite scandalous. In 1879, Russell married his follower, Mary F. Ackley, who had assisted him in publishing the magazine during the Pittsburgh period. Eighteen years later, on 09.11.1897, a family break occurred, as a result of which the wife left him, motivating her departure by the immoral behavior of her husband. Earlier, in October 1886, Mrs. Russell had resigned as assistant editor of The Watchtower. The divorce proceedings lasted a long time. His wife, who in her time was the first to call the founder of the sect "a faithful and discreet slave" (Matthew 24:45), now called him "a wicked slave and a slothful one" (Matthew 25:26). However, she remained one of the directors of the Society until February 12, 1900. It was not until 1906 that a court decision was officially made to divorce Russell and Mary F. Ackley in connection with his adultery. The court found proven the existence of an indecent relationship between Russell and a woman named Rose Ball and awarded his ex-wife compensation of 6036 US dollars. An interesting fact came to light at the trial. Russell, having taken possession of 990 out of 1000 shares of his "Society", began to manage its finances alone. At the same time, following the advice of his friends, he managed to donate most of the "jointly acquired" property with his wife before the court decision was made, so that she would not get it. Russell's interests in the divorce proceedings were defended by his future successor, "Judge" Rutherford 44.

Diligent study of the Bible, apparently, did not interfere with the development of the commercial talents of the "pastor". The income from the publishing house no longer suited him, so a new business was found, because of which Russell suffered. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle exposed his fraudulent attempt to sell ordinary wheat as miraculous at the hefty price of $60 a bushel (32.5 liters). In addition, the newspaper accused the "pastor" of "fraudulently depriving his wife of income from her dowry; in the fact that his name is associated with the names of other women; trying to pass himself off as a representative of all denominations, when he is not connected with any of them and rejected by all of them; in the stories that he preached to great crowds of people in certain places, while he did not utter a word; that he tried to involve some clergymen in reckless transactions; that it is associated with lead, asphalt and turpentine companies; in pressuring the sick and dying to make their wills in his favor; that he arranged for the sale of property worth $35,000 for $50 in order to defraud another person."45 In 1913, Russell sued the editors of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, but in the end the information given in the newspaper publication was found to be reliable.

This was far from the last trial in which the founder of the sect appeared. Pastor J. J. Ross, in his pamphlet, accused Russell of being utterly ignorant of the languages of the Bible, and also reported that the latter's assertions were "contrary to logic, contrary to science, contrary to the Bible, and contrary to Christianity, constitute a lamentable perversion of the gospel of the beloved Son of God." This, of course, did not please Russell. Regular court hearings followed. Russell took a false oath before the court that he could read Greek, but it turned out that he did not know a single letter. At the end of the trial, he was forced to admit that everything said about him in Ross's publication was true, i.e. the founder of the sect "did not even receive a secondary education, knows practically nothing about philosophy, systematic and historical theology, and is completely ignorant of ancient languages."

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russell made a large number of missionary journeys, including the territories that were part of the Russian Empire at that time. In 1908, he appeared in Romania and Finland. During the same period, he was caught in another deception. In 1912, a certain sermon by Russell in Honolulu (Hawaiian Islands) was widely advertised. But as a result of the investigation, it turned out that "... he did not make any speeches."48 The same happened with the sermons in China and Japan.49

By this time, the year 1914 began to appear in Russell's prophecies more and more often. "... by the end of 1914 what God calls Babylon will be completely gone, and people will be Christendom..." 50," he wrote. True, these calculations were also based on the study of pyramidology. Russell took every inch of the size of the various inner corridors of the Great Pyramid of Giza in one year and, based on the figures obtained, predicted that the believers would be raptured in 1910 and that the world would end in 1914, as mentioned above.

The First World War began. It was interpreted by the Rasselites as the beginning of the End of the World. Sectarians began to conduct active anti-war propaganda. In 1914, Russell was expelled from Canada because he and his supporters had become too insistent on opposing the mobilization of troops.

The most important of Russell's works is the seven-volume Millennial Dawn Scripture Studies. He himself considered it more important than the Bible. "The six volumes of my book, A Study in the Scriptures, are practically a bible, organized into themes, each of which is supported by biblical texts. It can be called a thematic Bible. In other words, it is not just a commentary on the Bible, but the Bible itself... Not only are people unable to understand God's purpose without my book. Even if a man has read the Study of the Scriptures for ten years, if he has learned to understand the Bible properly and puts down my book and tries to read only the Bible, then experience shows that in two years he will be in complete darkness. On the other hand, if he reads only the Study of the Scriptures and the references that are given there, then, even without opening the Bible, he will be in the light in two years, because he will see the light of the Scriptures," Russell wrote shortly before the outbreak of World War I. The first volume was published in 1886 under the title "The Diuine plan of the Ages". Then came the second and third volumes, "The Time is at Hand" (1889) and "Thy Kingdom Come" (1891). The Day of Vengeance, later retitled The Battle of Armageddon, was published in 1897, followed by The New Creature (1899) and The Atonement between God and Man (1904). The seventh volume, The Finished Mystery, also attributed to Russell, was published in 1917, after his death, under the new President Rutherford.