The Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times was founded in England in 1878 by Joseph Spurgeon, cousin of the popular British preacher Charles Spurgeon, and Michael Baxter, an Anglican minister and evangelist. Since its founding, the Herald has combined apocalyptic fervor with an emphasis on social reform. It emphasized the imminent return of Jesus Christ and in the preface of its first American edition boldly declared as its sole purpose: “To keep alive the expectation of his personal return to earth.” There were many articles related to the second coming of Christ and the topic of prophecy. WE Blackstone, an American evangelist and Christian Zionist, and George Muller, an English evangelist who cared for more than 10,000 orphans during his lifetime, were among the magazine's major contributors who focused on end-times prophecy. Aside from its apocalypticism, the Herald was instrumental in the Social Gospel movement. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In early 1879, coincidentally the same year the Mission was founded, the Herald threw its support behind a collective of New York clergy who pledged to preach sermons that blamed the horrible conditions of the homes popular on the Lower East Side, raising awareness from their pulpits of the plight of the poor and underprivileged. Rev. Talmage had previously preached a series of sermons deploring the actions of landowners and expressing generous empathy and solidarity with the poor. Many relief agencies and rescue missions joined the protest. Jeremiah McAuley, who had recently left the squalor and crime of the Lower East Side to become an evangelist, took legal action in an attempt to shut down the filthy homes where the poor were exploited. Clergy publicized and protested these conditions while relief workers directly addressed the plight of slum dwellers. The workers cleaned squalid rooms, provided fuel and food and found housing for evicted or particularly disadvantaged families. This was only the first of many moves with which the Herald's editors would align the magazine. The Herald was initially based in the United Kingdom where it had a wide circulation, and a US edition was published in New York. At that time, 30,000 copies were in circulation in the United States, which was quite good for a religious magazine. While traveling in England in 1889, Klopsch met Michael Baxter, owner of the Herald. After some negotiations, Klopsch took over editorial management of the American edition and subsequently purchased the magazine. Under Klopsch's editorship, the Herald's circulation increased to 250,000 copies, making it the most widely read and influential religious magazine in the world. Klopsch was destined to be a reformer, and his faith and calling were the means by which he lived into his calling. Louis Klopsch was born in 1852 near Berlin, Germany. A year after his birth, his mother died of a lung infection. The following year his father, Osmar Klopsch, a poor doctor, came to the United States with his young son to avoid incarceration by the German government for his activities in the revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848. Louis had only two years old when he came to the United States and spent the rest of his life as a New Yorker. At the age of 34 he married Mary Merritt. Together they had four children. As a young man, Klopsch studied journalism at Columbia University, and after graduation, he honed his editorial and business skills through a variety of ventures. He founded a newspaper,.