Brothers of Christ,

Following a chat with my local Elders regarding my letter of Adar17, and my accusation against brother Henschel, I re-examined my grounds for this accusation, to make sure, as far as I can, that I am not making a false accusation. And it is possible that rather than his having been sanctified and then not sealed, he may never actually have been sanctified. I discounted this possibility at the time of my writing to you for various reasons one of which no longer obtains, and because it seemed fairly ridiculous. However it no longer seems so ridiculous, and whilst I am sorry that I am not at liberty to disclose how I am deducing these things right now, I am more sorry that I have more than likely incorrectly left the brother with no hope. It does not seem probable that our God would leave a man with no hope at all, although he has done this with Satan, and of course our current doctrine is that he did this with Adam.

For the record and for what it's worth I now favour the latter interpretation, namely that he was never sanctified, and if this is the case, then he does have a hope, the same hope as the great crowd have. And therefore I do apologise to brother Henschel for removing from him this hope, brother I am truly sorry. And my accusation is now that you were never sanctified, and you are not a Jew, a fate which is much better than the second death. This is the same predicament that many found themselves in the 1920s and 1930s when the great crowd was called and later identified. Hereagain if I am wrong may both you and the true God forgive me. It's funny because the scripture says as regards those sanctified that the holy spirit bears witness with their spirit, not with anybody else's spirit, and here I am declaring that it has born witness to my spirit about another man. But thereagain it hasn't born a witness that he is sanctified, it has born witness that he is not, which means that either he has broken his baptism or he was never baptised.

Yours faithfully,

Gordon Ritchie

[Covering letter below - Ed.]

G.S.Ritchie, 11 Guernsey Road, Leytonstone, London E11 4BJ

The Watchtower
25 Columbia Heights
Brooklyn
New York, N.Y. 11201 USA

Tammuz 9, 1994

Dear Todd,

Here is my latest and shortest offering. Please pass this on to the governing body if it is permissable.

Yours faithfully,

Gordon Ritchie