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Contents of the Golden Age
Labor and Economics
Social and Educational
Women Are Killing Off Ostriches
Long Distance Radio Reception . . ,
Finance—Commerce—Transportation
Wall Street Investment Bankers
. Political—Domestic and Foreign
Progress of the American Indians ...... ..... 644
Freedom of Thought in the Next War
Agriculture and Husbandry
Both Ends of Iowa’s Cobn Crop . ......... .
Science and Invention
Only Four Elements Unknown ......
Will Attack the Greenly Ice-Fields
Travel and Miscellany
Air Chamber in the Whale’s Head
COLPORTEURING IN THE ADIRONDACK FOOTHILLS
Religion and Philosophy
The Fallacy or Evolution ............. .
The Ascension of Our Loud ........
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<ihs Golden Age
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Volume VII Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, July 14, 1926 Number 171
Tidbits of Home News
THE following worth-while quotation from an unknown source has been sent us by a subscriber :
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no human effort without error and shortcoming; but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who best knows at the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Dr. Ryan, of the Catholic University at Washington, in an address before the Cleveland Forum made the following remarkable statement :
After more than three centuries, there approaches a return to feudalism. The new feudalism is political and industrial. Not improbably, it will be more or less benevolent. The lords of industry will realize, at least for a considerable term of years, that their position and profits will be more secure if they refrain from the cruder and coarser forms of injustice, and permit the dependent classes, both urban and rural, to obtain a moderate share of the products of industry. The masses will probably enjoy a slightly higher degree of economic welfare than has ever been within their reach before. But they will enjoy it at the expense of genuine freedom.. The mind of the masses will have become a slave mind.
Private Old Age Pension Systems
THE United States Review and Industrial World calls attention to the fact that one hundred of the largest industrial institutions in the country have adopted a system of promises of old-age pensions to employes, but that only something like two percent of them have set aside any funds with which to meet these claims when they fall due, while practically none hav® established their funds on a scientific actuarial basis.
How Surplus Coal Was Disposed Of
rfHE large supply of high-priced bituminous coal which was on hand in the vicinity of New York was disposed of by the very sensible arrangement of all the big users, including the railroads, who agreed to mix it with their anthracite until it was all used up. It took only about two months to work the surplus off by this method.
npiIE Moffat tunnel, which will reduce the rail--*■ road mileage between Denver and Salt Lake City from 600 to 427 miles, is nearing completion. The bore, which is 9200 feet above sea level, is six miles long, and trains through it will be operated electrically. It will open Northwestern Colorado to development, a section which some geologists say has enough coal to last the United States 1500 years. There are also oil shale beds of stupendous proportions. In building the tunnel, the famous Crater Lake, which was supposed to be bottomless, was drained completely dry.
Wall Street Investment Bankers
rpiIAT able journal, Commerce and Finance, J- (N. Y.), in its issue of March 3rd, says: “The modern promoter, as personified in the Wall Street investment banker, not only raises the capital to float a corporation but retains for himself a controlling interest in its affairs by holding control of the voting stock, which is often only a small proportion of the total securities issued, and selling the non-voting stock to the public.” The same journal, after calling attention to the fact that by this means bankers have gained control of industries to an extent undreamed of a few years ago, adds, “Some provision should be made to prevent bankers from issuing stock to themselves at no cost whatever and then allocating to that stock the sole voting privilege/’ In other words, to put it bluntly, some arrangement should be made to prevent the bankers from stealing all the property in the country. Not a bad idea at that.
Ten Thousand Tractors to Russia
THE Ford Company has recently filled an order of ten thousand tractors to Russia., and is about to undertake the instruction of fifty carefully selected Russians in the building and running of these tractors. These men will come to Detroit for a course of training which is expected to make them experts in tractor work on their return to Russia. The ten thousand tractors were shipped to Russia unboxed, and comprised the entire cargo of oij£ of the Ford ships.
HE Indians have been granted American citizenship, which is a joke, as they are the original inhabitants of the country. There are 350,000 of them in the United States, of whom about one-seventh still live in tents or tepees, while the remainder live like the whites; and practically all their children are in school. Pro rata they are wealthier than the whites.
AR beneath the ocean’s waves holes are now cut in the steel sides of sunken ships by a combination of currents of hydrogen gas, acetylene gas and compressed air. The diver takes his cutting apparatus to the ocean bed, cuts a hole in the vessel to be lifted, inserts the necessary tubes, and in a short time sufficient air is pumped into the submerged vessel to make it rise to the surface.
EARLY everybody has a receiving set nowadays. There are ten million of them in the United States. The output of the companies manufacturing radio apparatus has increased from $2,000,000 in 1920 to about $650,000,000 last year. Television is now predicted as a thing of the near future, it having already been many times accomplished experimentally. In a short while radio apparatus may bring heat, light, vision, sound and power. There are 563 registered broadcasting stations in the United States. In New York alone there are more receiving sets than in France and Germany combined, with ten times the population.
Transmission of Power by Radio
ADIO engineers, testifying before the Senate Interstate Commerce committee, have
solemnly expressed their opinion that within a very short time power will be transmitted by radio throughout the length and breadth of the United States. The power, it was suggested, would perhaps be generated in Labrador or other remote sections and transmitted by radio to the point of consumption, many hundreds of miles distant. Quite likely this is all true.
THE International Chamber of Commerce will undertake to place Europe upon somewhat the same degree of efficiency as respects telephony that is enjoyed in the United States in this respect. In the United States telephone conversations between New York and San Francisco are matters of daily occurrence. Equal service in the eastern hemisphere would enable London to talk with Bagdad. Political problems retard development.
Freedom of Thought in the Next War
echariah Chaffee, Jb., Professor of law at Harvard University, after exposing the way
by which propaganda starts and fosters the war spirit and silences all opposition, says:
After the next war, critical thinking in this country will be practically impossible. The tradition of free speech in war time has been shattered. The Supreme Court has shown that it will give no protection to it. The officials will find ample precedents at hand for censorships and prosecutions. Once the war begins, any attempts to have its aims defined in public opinion, except as the government wishes, any attempt to argue that the time has arrived for it to cease, will be perilous indeed. .
Concerning propaganda in the last war Mr. Chaffe continues: . ..
An important German spy, landed- on our coasts by a submarine to disperse large funds and caught spying in our camps, turned out to be a plumber from Baltimore.
Spies caught on beaches signalling to submarines were subsequently released as honest men. One of them had been changing an incandescent light bulb in his hotel room.
A man was arrested and a long story was published about his undoubted intention to blow up . the Canadian Pacific bridges simply because he had in his notebook the address of a personal friend by the name of C. P. Bridges.
THE Manchester Guardian publishes a list which contains the surprising information that the United States navy is the largest in the world. Counting the vessels in building as part of the fleet; the United States has 579 vessels, Britain 479, France 346, Italy 302, Japan 284, Russia 208, Germany 88.
THE United States Department of Agriculture states that the Yukon, Tenana and Matanuska valleys have already demonstrated their adaptability to grain growing and it is leys will do likewise. New hybrids are being probable that the Susitna and Kuskokwim val-produced which are expected to yield better than the Siberian parent wheat used in that area and almost as early. Alaska annually imports $5,000,000 of agricultural products from the States.
Only Four Elements Unknown
OF THE ninety-two elements which go to complete the “Chemical Table” and make up every known combination of earth’s materials, only four now remain unknown; and search for these is progressing earnestly in several parts of the world. After twenty years of research another of the missing elements has recently been segregated at the University of Illinois. It is of metallic nature and has been named H- linium. Its value for any purpose is not yet known. Only a half ounce of the new metal was recovered from 400 pounds of rare earth used in the experiments. Two other substances, claimed to be elements, have also been discovered recently in Europe.
Development of the Oceanoplane
THE New York World has an interesting story of the development in France of an oceanoplane which is called the Sea Flea, because it has the flea’s ability to skip on the .surface of the water. It draws three inches of water at thirty-five miles an hour; at fifty miles it becomes a hydroplane and at sixty it rises from the water in skips as long as sixty-five feet. It behaves well in smooth seas, but whether it can be adapted to rough water remains to be seen.
Will Attack the Greenland Ice Fields
IT IS interesting to know that a company ol scientists will visit Greenland this summer with the avowed intention of trying to blow up the icebergs before they start south. Quite likely some such plan as this will succeed at no late day because the time for it is come.
Women are Killing off Ostriches
"D Y THE simple act of bobbing their hair the J-' women of the world have put the ostriches to death. With bobbed hair there is no occasion for large hats. On the small hats there is no place for ostrich feathers. No feathers, no birds. The ostrich goes the way of the skirt, the high-topped shoe and other things of the long ago.
Mrs. Anita Lois Carey, of Spokane, Washington, is now offering at a bargain a perfectly good lower plate of false teeth which she has used for only thirty-five years and for which she has no further use. Mrs. Carey confesses to seventy-four summers, and now has six new teeth, recently cut, with four more coming through the gums.
DAYTON, Ohio, is stirred by the fact that the parents of a little child tried to get ten doctors of that city to make an emergency call upon their child, who was ill with measles; but that each of the ten refused to come after learn-■ ing by inquiry that the people were poor and could not pay. The child died and was buried at the expense of local charities.
THE St. Johns (Newfoundland) Daily News reports that on an evening in the last of March while a man and a woman were on their way home near a galena deposit at Bryant’s Cove, Newfoundland, they distinctly heard through the air, without the aid of any receiving apparatus! music, the 23rd Psalm, and som® discussion on the texts quoted. The sound seemed to them to come from the east. It was probably from some broadcasting station at St. Johns, or possibly it may have come across the Atlantic. Galena, or lead sulfid, is a detector of radio waves.
Air Chamber in the Whale’s Head
THOSE who know claim that the air chamber in a whale’s head is fourteen feet long, seven feet wide and seven feet high. In it is carried the huge supply of oxygen which the whale needs when swimming long distances beneath the waters. A dog, lost overboard for six days, was recently discovered alive and well in one of these air chambers. There is no doubt whatever that the story of Jonah and the whale is an accurate account of literal fact.
suddenly resumed activity last spring, throwing- driven absolutely crazy by appeals for money”; while another said, “I am becoming more and
MAUNA LOA, the world’s highest active volcano, has poured forth more lava during the past half century than any other volcano on the globe. After five years of quiescence it fountains of glowing lava four hundred feet into the air and descending into the ocean in such volume that the ocean boiled furiously at a distance of hundreds of feet from the shore. A cluster of fifteen Hawaiian homes was destroyed by the outburst, but no lives were lost.
Senator Borah, replying to Bishop Manning and other bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church who opposed ratification of the treaty of Lausanne with Turkey, is reported to have said to them:
The great Christian nations ever since the lesson of the World War still seem to rely wholly upon force and are still expending millions and millions to find some more deadly weapon with which to slay other Christian people. The World War was not the best of lessons to the un-Christian world.
Chicago Preachers Take to the Streets
REALIZING that Chicago has become the crime center of the world, and with the desire to do something to reawaken in the minds of the people the idea that the churches can save the situation, sixty Chicago preachers have promised each other that during this summer season they will inaugurate preaching in the streets. We suggest a text for their opening discourses, namely Isaiah 42:2, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.”
TN A Baptist church at Saugus, Massachusetts, ■T in the month of April, a play was being given in which The Big Medicine Man made an appeal to the Thunder God; when all at once, from the rear of the church, from a Salem woman, a spiritualist, who had gone into a trance, there came a response in what is alleged to have been identified as the Indian language. Our explanation of this phenomenon is that it was the work of demons, devils, and that there is no other explanation possible.
ATA meeting of the Philadelphia Method-ist Conference, held, strangely enough, in a Presbyterian church in that city, one of the ministers made the statement, “We are being more convinced that the Methodist minister is becoming nothing but a financial agent.” In fifty years of world-wide religious work the International Bible Students Association have never taken up a collection nor asked anybody for a cent.
THE New York Times contains a very interesting letter from a subscriber in which the latter says:
There was once a minister of the gospel who never built a church, who never preached in one, who never proposed a church fair to pay the debts with which the church was burdened, who never founded a new sect, who never belonged to any sect, who was known to have drunk wine with sinners, who never received a salary, who never asked for one, who never w'ore a black suit or a white necktie, who never used a prayer book or a hymn book or wrote a sermon, who never hired great musicians or singers to draw-people to hear the Word, who never went through a course of theological study, who never was ordained, who never was converted, whose abiding places were always among the poor, who made no distinction between sinful men and sinful women. Do you know who this stranger preaches was?
The Fallacy of Evolution By C. J. W. Jr.
LIFE, the living principle of assimilation, ejection, and subdivision,'is inherently the same in animal and vegetable organisms. The structure and composition of an animal and a vegetable cell are identical. The difference lies in the functions each performs. These functions have been predetermined and regulated, so that neither of the two classes of cells has the power of impressing any of its characteristics upon the other.
If the “parent cell” theory be true, then we might entertain reasonable hopes of grafting puppies and pears, alligators and apricots, or similar astonishing and novel combinations. But this can never be done; for the laws governing cells are fixed, and so comprehensive as to include even the germs, which are minute animal organisms, and differentiate them from bacteria, which are microscopic plants.
The seeming exceptions to this rule (certain plants with characteristics and odors of decaying flesh, and certain marine organisms possessing plant-like attributes) can be satisfactorily disposed of if one is interested enough to examine the habits of existence of these phenomena and ascertain the causes for the apparent paradoxes.
In the case of the plant, the Carrion Flower (Smilax herbacea), the odor of flesh attracts the flies which it employs as its carrier of pollen. The sea anemones, with their petal-like extremities, use the same in catching and devouring small denizens of the deep.
Kinship between the plant and animal kingdoms is certainly close, and chronologically the plants are much the elder; but that does not go to prove that the animal world was evolved from plantlike organisms.
In their respective responses to outside influences, plants and animals often manifest confusing similarity, unless due consideration is given to the underlying reasons for it. For example, the eyelid of a frog, when touched, closes. So also does the leaf of the Venus Flytrap. Etherize the frog and the leaf, and neither the eyelid nor the flytrap’s leaf will close. When the ether is removed both recover their sensibility.
The above experiment is supposed to prove the close connection or, as some put it, the actual relation of plants and animals. Nothing could be farther from the fact. All plants are sensitive to touch, in a greater or less degree. The plant mentioned in the experiment is supersensitive because its livelihood is derived front! the bodies of insects which are caught and held in its tightly-rolled leaves the instant they alight upon the delicate hairs that line the leaves. The frog, having a good deal of brain and consequent nerve area for an animal of its size, would quite naturally be affected in its most sensitive part, the eyelid.
The effect of the ether on both plant and animal does not prove anything extraordinary beyond the fact that the Venus Flytrap is so very sensitive that the ether fumes entering the leaf pores numb the delicate life-cells therein.
In either case the action is mechanical and does not prove or even indicate any physiological connection between the frog and the plant. They are both alive and, being alive, affected similarly by that which affects life itself; but beyond that the kinship of plants and animals does not extend.
Play a trombone in front of a caged lion or tiger, and the animal will indicate reception and interest in the sounds. Be so courageous as to stand before a massive oak on the Square and play “Sweet Adeline” and you will receive nothing for your pains but the jocose remarks and suggestive looks of passersby.
The cabbage as we know it to-day is a development from a single-leafed vegetable of a form not unlike spinach. But it was not, as claimed, an evolution from, this vegetable. It was bred up to its present form in much the same manner as cattle breeders have bred fancy strains of beef and exceptional milch-cows. But the cabbage has not changed its structure: and in a large field of those plants one may see here and there one specimen of a sprawling tendency or, as the grower puts it, that did not “head up”.
This is merely an indication of the incontrovertible law of Reversion to Species which all the evolutionists in Bedlam can never alter. The fact is there, patently, that the original leafy plant, upon which the compact, close-growing head has been artificially developed, has not been changed, and wants but the cessation of cross-fertilization to revert to its original form.
I do not mean to convey the impression that
to perpetuate cabbages as we know them it is necessary to re-breed them each season; that would surely be too expensive and impractical for such a commonplace vegetable.
The fact is that the plant, through generations, has been so accustomed to the admixture of other strains that it has developed its properties of transmitting these strains with practically undiminished fertility, to the near exclusion of its individual characteristics.
However, in certain seeds not receiving the full proportion of the hereditary admixture, the original strain will predominate; and the resultant plant will be a cabbage that will not “head up”. The process is perfectly logical and according to all approved principles of biology.
Hybridism Not Evolution
MORE wonderful intermixtures are possible with plant cells than with animals. The reason is probably the greater proportionate fertility and greater ease of grafting unrelated species. But note this: There has not yet been developed a hybrid, sport, or any graft upon any wood, that has proven to be perennially self-perpetuating! Some may be able to reproduce for a few seasons, but reversion to species or wild stock is the inevitable rule. As a rule, hybridizations of flowers are practically seedless.
In the case of animals we might observe the frog as a very good example of the groundlessness of all the “Origin of Species” theories. The tadpole, hatched from the egg of the full-grown frog, not evolved from any lower source, has within its makeup the cells which produce legs, and also those with the ability to assimilate the tail, much as a camel assimilates its hump.
There is no reason to believe that the tadpole and frog are different animals, nor the caterpiller and butterfly. It was necessary for the caterpiller to pass through the chrysalis stage while its various organs were re-arranging—a most marvelous feat of nature; but upon emerging from its cocoon, it finds itself equipped with wings, but a caterpiller still. The cells from which the wings would grow at the due time of maturity were present in the egg from which the caterpiller was hatched.
The caterpiller did not have an idea, from watching other flying things, that it wanted to fly, and consequently developed in some unexplained manner a pair of v,rings. Quite the contrary. In the scheme of things allotted to the caterpiller it developed its wings at the proper time, from roots already existent, making no change in the species of the creature.
A new-born human infant has no teeth; but the fact that it develops teeth at the proper age for absorbing solid food, does not indicate that said infant made those teeth appear of its own volition. In fact, from the arduous experiences some of us had in cutting our first teeth, it is more than probable that, if a voluntary act, we should have abandoned the design rather than go through so much suffering to obtain them. It is a significant fact that all the primates, from which mankind is supposed to have developed, are provided with a full set of teeth at birth.
Another handle for the evolutionists is the discovery, which is made from time to time, of small skeletons of horse-like animals. These creatures possess very similar structures to that of our present-day horse; but the hoofs are divided into two, and sometimes three, parts. The whole animal is very little larger than a good-sized St. Bernard.
“This,” say our wise savants, “is the ancestor of the horse, and he lived (figure 1 and as many noughts as will complete the line) years ago. Gradually as conditions changed he grew in size and then, realizing the need of a solid hoof to meet changed pasturage conditions and additional hardships imposed by primitive man, he developed the unsplit hoof. All this of course took several million years.”
The horse has been knovm and used by man ever since his appearance on this planet, and no indications have been manifested as yet of the reversion of any of our breeds of horses to anything but w'ild stock. AVhen they come to that barrier, they stick; and small wonder.
The wild horse, a large and beautiful animal, is the only ancestor of the many kinds of horses in the world to7day. The wild horse, or mustang, has nearly disappeared; but that is through the encroachment by man on its feeding grounds, and not because it has been reincarnated into Shetland ponies or anything else.
The 'mustang, although strong and very active, is slightly smaller than our ordinary draft horses. It is stocky and well-formed, but lacks the grace of a highly-bred race-horse. The small horse-like creatures with cloven hoofs were undoubtedly animals similar to the Andean burro, which did not survive in the struggle for existence when millions of buffalo roamed our western plains.
If man is a development of the higher ape, what caused a cessation of that development, and made possible the continued reproduction of both the ape and the man independent of each other?
Why do we not find, in some remote corner of the globe, a race that is just emerging from its apelike characteristics, but still has a prehensile tail or thumbs on its feet or some other little indication of its ancestry? Ask yourself these questions and try to match the answers with good, four-square logic.
On such an important issue as the origin of man, we cannot afford to hazard mere suppositions. Let us prove everything! We do not know, and never will know, what the “missing link” is, Avas, or is supposed to be or to look like. We do not know why it is that Ave cannot keep apes in the zoo and watch them breed up to human children in time.
We do not know why amoebas are no longer becoming fish, fish are no longer becoming birds, birds are no longer losing their wings and becoming reptiles, reptiles are no longer dropping their scales and growing hair, or why these erstwhile amoeba-fish-bird-reptiles are no longer becoming monkeys and in due course, men!
Furthermore, if the theory of our development be true, then it is equally certain that after the peak of development is attained, degeneration will ensue, Avith consequent rexmrsion to species. If this be true, then of AA7hat use will be the radio, telephone, automobile, painless surgery, hydroelectric poAver, or any other adjunct of civilization be to mere apes ?
Are we not, then, Avasting our energies on producing marvelous inventions and making useful discoveries, to be destroyed in a feAv gen-: erations by our screeching, chattering, apish descendants? WTiy not stop in our tracks and sit quietly by, pondering Avithin ourselves as to the advisibility of ultimately becoming an ape, or possibly, on second thought, a chimpanzee ?
The educational branches of the public school system could all be set aside except calisthenics and gymnasium exercises; and these could be deAreloped to the utmost, thereby saving time and slipping one over on nature by developing better, more acrobatic monkeys than those from ■which vTe sprang.
But A\7e do knoAV that in daily comparison AA'ith discoveries and events, and in careful Aveighing against logical proof, the cleverly propounded theories of the -wise evolutionists do not stand the test. Their reasoning goes smooth-, ly along, in each branch—botanical and zoological—until a “missing link” is encountered, but for Avhi.ch a complete train of events would lead from the kmest protozoa to a banyan tree or a college professor.
Unfortunately, no reasonable guess aauII explain aAvay this obtrusive missing unit; so the break is smeared over Avith rhetoric and millions of years, making a bridge upon Avhich many are AAulling to trust themselves.
Origin of the Evolution Theory
IT1HE logical reason for the presence of the seem-ing proofs of the evolution theory which exist, is to my mind this: That to separate those -willing to acknowledge a Supreme Being as their creator and the fountainhead of all things, from that class of men too puffed with false ego and pride to acknowledge any but their oaati AAmrks, the Creator has constructed these mental sieves, through AA’hich the keen, inquiring minds of His faithful children Avill readily pass, Avhile the ponderous chunks of self-sufficient mentality will be held by apparent evidence.
“The earth is mine,” saith the Lord; not merely a ball of gas, Avhirled into shape by accident. And furthermore, “Let us make man in our image.” It is safe to suppose that a spirit being has no need of a prehensile tail.
With the many positive evidences of a personal Creator becoming more and more convincing each day, let us hope that soon the egoes of those brilliant men Avho have made such masterly defences of a groundless cause, aauII be humbled, that they may see the Lord of Zion in the true light and appreciate the glory of His works.
The hairs of our heads are numbered; our hands, so perfectly made for grasping everything; our feet, balancing A\uth ease our symmetrical, AA-ell-proportioncd bodies — all these the direct creation of an intelligent Being, not the uncertain, hit-or-miss deAmlopment of unreasonable animal instinct.
And most of all, the human brain! Who can
ponder on the immense difference between the brain of man and those of all other animals, and not see a direct model of some infinitely higher and greater Mind? •
The facts, then, are: From a perfect human creature at creation, man by wilful disobedience of his Creator’s laws fell from his high estate of mental and physical perfection, and became subject to outside influences tending to his destruction.
Hence, mankind, at the present time, has descended from perfection, not ascended from primitive beastliness; and shortly, by the grace of our Redeemer, who gave His life for all mankind, we shall again enjoy our former estate, of mental, moral, and physical perfection—forever.
The Industrial Judas (Contributed)
SOME time ago I read in your magazine an article stating that the manufacturers of America are planning to reduce the American workman to a state of slavery. At the time this seemed ridiculous. Something happened to me last week however that throws a little light on your statement. An advertisement appeared in a Pittsburgh daily, and also in our local paper, reading:
Experienced, sheet mill men. wanted. New Mill. Ideal living conditions.
Many men in the mill where I work, including myself, answered the ad. As far as I know I am the only one here who even received a reply. I did receive a letter, telling me that my expenses would be paid if I would come to Pittsburgh for a personal interview. This I complied with promptly.
Applying at the address given I found the words “Manufacturer’s Service Corp.” on the door. I was met by a short, stocky man, evidently a Jew, 'who knew me by name even before I had a chance to introduce myself.
He told me in a very cautious, kid-glove manner what was wanted. They wanted men to do “investigating” (spying), in the mills, factories and shops of all descriptions, throughout the Pittsburgh district. They wanted men who would watch every move the employes make, find out their opinions, meet with them anywhere they congregate, spy upon them (he called it “investigating”), and make report every day to the Pittsburgh office. My name was never to be used in correspondence, I would be known merely by a number; and I was to receive a very handsome salary; an amount that would stagger an ordinary workman like me.
After a little preliminary work I was to be gent to school and further trained in the art of
“investigating”. After that I would be shifted from place to place as necessity called, always working in some shop and at a job such as the “Manufacturer’s Service Corp.” provided as a blind, but with the real purpose of watching my fellow workmen, and reporting everything to the central office. '
I asked this gentleman what concern he represented in particular, and he gave only a general reply, stating that they did business for all manufacturing concerns in the tri-state district.
It is evident that the “Manufacturers’ Service Corporation” is an auxiliary organization, backed by big business to establish an espionage system covering all manufacturing and mining in the United States. I know that they are working among the miners of western Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The capitalists are afraid of their own shadow. The revolution in Russia, the growing Communistic feeling in Europe, and even our own I. W. W. here, have them scared. The growing restlessness of the workers is apparent to them, and they are afraid of a terrible day ahead.
I refused to have anything to do with this espionage scheme. Spying is not in my line. Furthermore, I would seriously jeopardize my chances of being of those who are ushered into the kingdom of our Lord, should I enlist in such an enterprise. A financial reward is not to be compared with what the Lord has in store for those who love Him. “Seek righteousness, seek meekness, it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.” “Blessed are the poor.” Surely any man who toils in these steel mills is poor. The work is hard and the pay none too good.
Air-Pockets
DID anybody ever hear anything about “air pockets” before aviation came into vogue? Since the advent of the heavier-than-air craft we hear of aviators having fallen into what they term “holes in the air”, or air-pockets, as they are now generally designated.
Whoever heard of getting into a hole in the air, while upon a mountain or high building, and having no air to breathe? What is an airpocket? Aviators tell us that their plane dropped into a vacuum or hole in the air which gave them a jolt when it struck the bottom.
These aviators are apparently honest in their conviction that the air above us has holes or hollow places into which airplanes can drop. But did anyone ever hear of void places in the ocean, places where there is no water, places where a vacuum exists, and into which fish might drop and get bumped on hitting the bottom? Are there air holes in the lakes? Is it not just as reasonable to suppose there are void cavities in the ocean depths and lakes as to suppose them to be in the atmospheric ocean above us?
Stand if you please and gaze for a long while at the dense volumes of smoke issuing from the chimney of a factory or mill. Notice how the smoke curls up and down and all around. Now if a paper plate were sailed into, that smudge, and it chanced to enter the space where there is a decidedly downward current of air, it would be forced downward with that descending air until it came in contact with an upward or cross current. That plate might then feel as if it had hit an air pocket or hole in the air, which gave it a bump or jolt at the bottom.
My impression is that “a hole in the air” is a myth. The air pressure upon and all about the earth is so great that no air-pocket could possibly exist. Break an incandescent light globe and note how loud is the sound of air rushing in to fill up the vacuum. Empty a gun barrel of its charge and note the loud noise of the air rushing back into that vacuumized barrel. The noise of a gun shot is not the result of its discharge, but the noise of air rushing back into
By J. A. Bohnet -
that emptied gun barrel. For this reason some airguns discharge silently, because some of the discharge air lingers in the barrel. Create a vacuum in the air by explosion and hear the rebound of air rushing back to fill the void.
Have we ever heard a real scientist holding to the theory that the air has vacuum spaces into which airplanes can fall? I for one would like to see what he looks like. I could imagine him as having elongated ears, if not some faint remembrancer of the tail that Darwin longed so much to see on humankind.
Air-holes? Well, as the Scotchman would say, “I hae me doots.” Perhaps someone has some definite information on the subject and will present it to the readers of The Boldest Age.
Aviators generally agree that the ascent in an airplane gives them the sensation of the earth falling away and flowing backwards, instead of an ascension of themselves heavenward.
When high in the air mile sections seem small as city squares. Novices have been known to ask, Why don’t we go ?” when in fact the flight was over eighty miles per hour. The plane sometimes seems to be standing still if there is a strong air current from the front.
On one occasion an aviator was driving me about the city streets in an automobile. He was manifestly very nervous because of the dense traffic, whereas in an airplane he feels perfectly at ease and is never nervous. He explained that up there nothing bothers ; he can go up or down, to right or left, with nothing in his way; he has the field to himself.
I have been told by some people that when going up in the air for the first time they feel a drawing influence, a desire to jump out of the plane and catch the earth before it gets away from them. How most people do love this old earth, and want to cling to it forever 1 Only the saints aspire to something infinitely better and strive for for it. Some day each class shall receive the desire of its heart.
MY GUESTS
Gallant and gay, in their doublets of gray All at a flash—like the dartings of flame, Chattering Arabic, African, Indian—
Certain of springtime, my swallows came 1
Doublets of gray silk, and surcoats of purple, And ruffs of russet round each white throat. Garmented brave they had crossed the waters, ‘Mariners sailing with never a boat 1
By Edivin Arnold
Sailing a sea than the bluest deep bluer, Vaster to traverse than any which rolls ’Neath kelson of warship, or bilge of trader, Betwixt the brinks of the frozen Poles ;
Cleaving the clouds with their moon-edged pinion® High over city and vineyard and mart;
April to pilot them—May tripping after ;
And each bird’s compass his small stout heart.
Both Ends of Iowa’s Corn Crop By J. C. Neff
THERE appeared in The Golden Age, No.
166, an item on “Iowa’s Huge Com Crop,” which on first thought seemed astounding. But let anyone take a pencil and do some figuring, and he will find that a crib eight feet wide, and twelve feet high has in round numbers thirtyeight bushels per running foot. Multiplying thirty-eight bushels by 5280 feet gives a total of 200,640 bushels per mile of crib. Therefore 8500 miles of crib would contain 702,220,000 bushels.
The state of Iowa contains 56,025 square miles; and by doing some figuring you will find that if one-third the acreage is planted in corn it must produce about fifty-nine bushels per acre to fill the crib. At fifty cents per bushel, the farmers of Iowa last year received $351,110,000 dollars, with which they paid their taxes and shifted along to plant another crop. They are not smiling much about it.
To bring in some ready cash, corn begins to flow into the market at husking time. This money is needed to meet half the farmers’ yearly tax. Sometimes there is danger of the market being glutted, and of course it would not do to close the markets. It would be too rash an act, and would cause controversy; hence the only thing to do is the scientific publicity stunt of somewhere “discovering”, from time to time, the dreaded pest known as the com borer. This gives an excellent excuse for placing an embargo on corn from this or that state or county, to curtail temporarily the inflow of corn.
As a matter of fact the com borer is a pest that has been with us from time immemorial, and is nearly always found in immature corn. But the newspapers and financiers must have something to discover occasionally. It would not surprise me if some of our modem wise men should suddenly announce the discovery of America.
When the embargo is on, many a farmer has to go to the bank and borrow money at seven or eight percent with which to pay his taxes, or meet the penalty of perjury, and be sold out by the sheriff. That is the farmer’s side of the corn subject, and you do not hear him boast about his “banner com state” and prosperity. Then why should the so-called government experts be so hilarious ? Just wait until we look at the other side of the com harvest and we shall see.
The commercial octopus is always agile when’ he sees his prey. The readers of The Golden Age are acquainted with the fact that this giant octopus, is big business, big politics and big clergy, which has various feelers with which he catches his prey, draws it to himself, then sucks the blood. Let us here note one of the many feelers of this octopus which reaches out and gets all farm products for himself.
The giant succeeds in adroitly using as its feeler an important arm of the government, “the Department of Agriculture,” which reaches everywhere, through every state and every country. Then it uses as an appendix the Federal Farm Bureau, whose business is to know exactly how many bushels of everything is being produced. Now that this is accomplished, the octopus easily lays its plans and the sucking of the farmer’s life-blood begins.
Let us see what becomes of the corn which is bought at fifty cents a bushel from the farmer who has labored hard to produce it. I will mention only one form in which it is sold to consumers, besides the three gallons of legal whiskey that are manufactured from a bushel and sold under the Volstead act for medical purposes, and dispensed by official bootleggers at from seven to twenty dollars per gallon.
Politicians, of course, do not drink this; they drink the one million quarts of champagne that each year are imported from France under the eighteenth amendment.
But leaving this phase of the com game, let us consider com flakes. Corn sold in this form costs the consumer one cent per ounce, net weight, or $9.00 per bushel—the same bushel for which the farmer received a meagre fifty cents.
Now 702,220,000 bushels of com at $9 per, amounts to $6,319,980,000. Deducting 351,110,-000 dollars, which the farmers received for this corn, Would leave the nice little sum of five billion, nine hundred and sixty-eight million, eight hundred and eighty thousand dollars for the financiers. The local elevator, of course, receives a small margin of a few cents per bushel, and the residue is mostly pure profit.
“But,” says someone, “much of the corn crop is fed to hogs, cattle and chickens on the farms.” But the octopus gets it after all; for it controls the market on pork, beef, butter and eggs. Da
not forget the big packing house scandal that was aired in The Goldejf Age not long ago.
If corn is actually worth what the octopus collects for it from the consumer, whether it be in the form of cornflakes, meat, eggs, butter or corn whiskey, then for them to pay the producer of that corn only fifty cents simply means that the corn is being stolen from the farmer. The poor farmer is left in rags to buy the necessities of life, while the octopus grows fat. Meanwhile its mouth belches forth “cooperation” and other well-sounding phrases. On first thought cooperation sounds good; but wherever cooperative societies have been organized, they have resulted in a clean steal for Big Business.
What is true of com is true of every kind of product, and what is true in Iowa is true every-•where else. And if you say anything about it you are immediately branded as a “'radical” or worse. The more one considers the present situation the less he feels like singing,
“My country ’tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty,” and the greater the desire to sing, “Jerusalem the Golden, Jerusalem the New'”
The writer is a radical, according to St. James (4:4), and I see no reason for tramping on the soft pedal. A radical is one who goes to the root of things. It is good to be able to announce to the oppressed farmer and laborer that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” The Lord will deliver us from the oppresser. Let us take comfort, then, as we note the fifth chapter of James, verses one to five :
“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you [mental agony]. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered [rotten], and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days [of Satan’s empire]. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth! And the cries of their which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth [armies].”
The octopus now corners the farmers’ produce all the more easily when the farmers join “pools” and “farm bureaus” which gather and turn the produce over to the octopus en masse. But we may be sure that when the financial bubble bursts (as it certainly will ere long), this prophecy of St. James will be fulfilled. Then the rich will have to eat their paper. Stocks and bonds will be worthless, and the rich too will have to begin raising corn. Then
“They shall not plant, and another eat. They shall not build and another inhabit. Every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree.” Everyone will then be self-supporting. None will need to support a class of worthless politicians, preachers and profiteers. None will then need be afraid of being sold out by the sheriff or to be called an undesirable radical.
Soy Beans By J. Loganbill
ALL do not know that leguminous vegetables ■ and cereals are rich in albumen and carbohydrates. The soy bean not only has these substances, but possesses another most valuable food element in which it far exceeds other leguminous vegetables, namely, fats.
The nutritive value of the soy bean, and its completeness of composition, surpasses the most valuable animal foods. Bread and biscuits can be made much superior with soy beans flour. It is good for diabetes, because of the low carbohydrate content.
These beans have an agreeable taste, like the chestnut. A kind of milk can be made from them by soaking them for several hours and then pressing. Cheese made from this milk is very nourishing. This “To-fu” cheese is most nutritious. And a “soy sauce” may be made that looks exactly like meat extract, and also tastes much like it. This makes a pleasant addition to other viands, without the injurious effects of meat extracts and oil tambien.
When allowed to sprout under glass, soy beans do good service as-green vegetables, but the whole bean eaten is poorly assimilated.
Long Distance Radio Reception
STATION WORD, of Batavia, III, with studio in Chicago, is owned and operated by the International Bible Students Association, and is one of the best stations for long range broadcasting in the United States, if not in the world. The following letters, such as are being regularly received by that station, show how its programs are being received in the remote parts of the earth. Radio is being effectively used by the International Bible Students to spread a knowledge of the Bible to a groping world. This Association now operates seven big broadcasting stations in the United States and Canada:
Radio Station WORD
Chicago, Ill.
Gentlemen :
I take pleasure in advising that I get you on the loudspeaker just as beautifully as could be desired. I was listening in on WORD last night at about 11 p. m.
Will you please favor me with the descriptive booklet which you offer to mail those who write you of having listened in on that station?
Thanking you for this kindness, I remain Yours very truly, W. P. Aguero.—Cuba.
WORD Broadcasting Station, Batavia, Illinois.
Gentlemen :
Last evening we listened to the sermon broadcast from your station, and it came in so loud and clear that the roomful of people could understand every word.
I want to congratulate the speaker for the quiet, clear sermon he preached from the Bible. It was not a lecture such as so many ministers give nowadays. The sermon contained these words, which I quote as a verification of the reception: “Christ, driven into the wilderness, wandered for forty days without food or Irink, when the tempter came, saying, ‘If thou be the Bon of God, make these stones into bread.’ ”
We are one hundred and fifty miles north of San Francisco. Our radio is a five tube neutrodyne, built ly my son.
We have had St. Louis, Chicago, San Antonio, Oklahoma, Mexico City and many other stations.
Yours sincerely, Mrs. Edna M. Snertman.—Calif.
Radio Broadcasting Station WORD
Batavia, Ill.
Dear Sirs:
Last night I got station WORD very plainly and clearer on the loud speaker. I heard the Morlock sisters sing “Thy Will be Done” and Mr. Reese play a violin solo. Also heard the last part of the Bible address, but did not learn who was speaking. This seems to me to be pretty good for distance, as it is over 2000 miles. I am using a five tube Fada neutrodyne set.
I would like very much to have a schedule of the dates and time when you will be broadcasting, as I am interested in your work and will be listening to you in the future.
Yours truly,
T. W. Mallory.—Oregon.
Radio Watchtower Station WORD, .
Chicago, Ill.
Gentlemen: .
Although living on a farm in the state of Washington forty miles south east of Spokane, we heard your program Sunday evening, which came in loudly and distinctly.
We hope to hear from you again in the near future.. We have an Atwater Kent De Luxe.
Thanking you, I am
~ Sincerely yours,
Mrs. J. D. Hagan.—Washington.
Radio WORD
Batavia, Ill. ;
Gentlemen :
Your program came in here very clearly last night about 6: 35 our time or 9:35 C. S. T., and continued for some time. We are one hour west of Pacific Standard time, and a thousand miles north of Seattle, Washington.
Your program of this date was especially enjoyed, being quite a contrast to our usual run of programs received here. However we enjoy all of them, but do prefer some to others. I jotted down a few items on your program, hoping to get an Ekko stamp from you.
Our nearest station now broadcasting is about a thousand miles. The one in Juneau, Alaska, has not started the season as yet. We have about twenty hours daylight during the summer, so at that time it would be a useless expense. But in winter we have only about four hours of daylight.
Yours respectfully, .
S. Sheldon.—Alaska.
Broadcasting Station, WORD
Batavia. Ill.
Dear Announcer:
All praise for your splendid program from WORD last Sunday night. '
The night was bad, lightning flashes all about the horizon, but your musical selections came in with such volume on my loud speaker it could be heard all over the house; and as soon as I heard you announce your call letters I left the parlor where I have my receiver and went to a small alcove three rooms distant to look
for my book with, list of the broadcasting stations in the United States. From where I was I could still hear you plainly, what you said, and the music soon after.
My book shows that you are on the air with 2000 watts; and taking into consideration the immense distance from your city to this port, it is miraculous how we got your selections so nicely, even when this high power was used.
. This place is 892 miles south of New Orleans, right tn. the swamps and jungles, heart of the tropics, where it rains every day in the year; but it sure is a great consolation to -hear you every Sunday night. The only religious service we have is what we get from our radio.
Will you kindly send program, showing what nights you are on the air? I would thank you very much.
Yours very truly,
W. E. Godman,
,, Terminal Superintendent,
International Railways of Central America, Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.
Station WORD •
Batavia, Ill.
Dear Sirs:
Last night I had the pleasure to hear your station very clearly on my Radiola Super-Heterodyne, with loop antenna. Yout station is the most distant I have in my record.
Hoping to hear you again, and thanking you very much for your program, I remain,
Respectfully yours,
Dr. A. Ramirez Marini.—Porto Rico.
Watchtower Station WORD
Batavia, Illinois.
Last night we listened to a sermon from your station by a Dr. Read of Chicago. It came in on the loud speaker and could be heard anywhere in the house. The singing and pipe organ music were fine.
We heard you several times last winter on the five tube neutrodyne, and I wrote you at one time; but this was the first we have heard you this year, and I want you to know how we enjoyed it. For the last few days we have been getting many of the far east and far south stations, and are hoping that weather conditions continue so we can get such stations as yours. We have added Honolulu, Japan, China and Mexico to our list of distances. All of those come in frequently with splendid volume. East Pittsburgh and Buffalo work the loud speaker here, but so far we have not picked up your big station in New York.
Again thanking you for helping us pass long lonesome hours in this isolated place at the “top of the world”, I am
Yours very truly,
Mrs. Inez E. Moore,
.Govt. Teacher.—Alaska.
WORD,
Batavia, Illinois.
Gentlemen :
Oh happy days! made me feel my real old days when I was studying in your country; and such a heavenly voice came so good and .so loud that many of us down here enjoyed it well.
Those news items and sermons from Chicago are very important, and really radio ought to expand sama • around the world. I was gratified because, as stated, it reminded me of my old time there.
Too bad I am not a stenographer to copy all you say from my Baldwin loud speaker, and through the Browning Drake receiver I have built.
Will thank you for your acknowledgment letter. The only way to push up radio down here so distant away from you.
Yours truly, Amando Cespedes Marin.—Costa Rica.
Radio Station WORD,
Batavia, Illinois.
Gentlemen :
If this reaches you in time I should like to receive one of those printed programs that you have offered to send to those who heard you this evening.
Your programs are very much enjoyed by us, both at home and in the office, where we hear you frequently. You have many listeners-in from this city and part of the country, besides ourselves.
Thanking you for the pleasure of your programs over the radio, I am
Yours very truly,
0. Milton Litndlie.—Prince Albert, Sask.
Station WORD
Batavia, HI.
Gentlemen : .
Received a nice program this evening from WORD at 6: 30 Yukon Time, which is one hour earlier than Vancouver. I understood, however, the Station was in Chicago.
Reception was good on head phones and at times on the loud speaker.
Many thanks to all.
Sincerely,
T. O. Johnson.—Yukon.
Station WORD,
Batavia, HI.
Dear Sirs:
Last night at about 10: 30 p. m., Intercolonial time, I tuned into your station and heard the program. I am sure you will be glad to know just how far-reaching your program is, as we are at least two thousand miles from Chicago as the crow flies. The solo, “In the Palace of the King,” also your Bible talk, came in clearly, each word being distinct. It was indeed very en-i
joyable and interesting. I am very anxious to have an EKKO stamp from your station.
Respectfully,
Mes. Ruth R. Eaton.—Virgin Islands.
Station WORD,
Batavia, Ill., U. S. A.
Dear Sies:
Just a few lines to congratulate yourself and staff on your long range transmission.
I heard you announce WORD. This was at about 11:10 p. m. E. S. T. Hearing your station in British Guiana, South America, constitutes a record for you, and for me also; your station being the most distant station I have yet heard.
My receiver is a home-made modified Crosely Armstrong, regenerative, three tubes. I have managed to listen in to a great number of U. S. broadcasting stations, but none so far distant as you. I hope to have the pleasure of tuning you in every night now, and listening to and enjoying your programs.
You have a good announcer, as I could understand practically every word that he uttered; and this is more
Bbookltm, N. Y.
than I can say of some of the other U. S. broadcasting station announcers.
I am collecting Ekko stamps, so I would greatly appreciate one from you. Thanking you and hoping to tune you in tonight again,
Yours sincerely, Joseph T. Tasker.—British Guiana, 8. A. ;
Radio Station WORD, Batavia, Ill.
Dear Sir :
On January 19th whilst in the Pacific, on passage to Australia, I listened in to a very nice program broadcast by your station, and wish to express my appreciation of same.
We were in latitude 17° south, longitude 128° west, distance from your station 4500 miles. It is the first time I have ever heard you, and at this distance it was coming in loud and clear. You were broadcasting The Watchtower Radio program.
I thought you may be interested in knowing that you were clearly heard at this distance. With best wishes. Yours faithfully,
Capt. Harding Cartwright.—8. 8. “Karonga,”
The Day of Pentecost
THE Jews entered Canaan thirty-five hundred years ago this spring, in the year 1575 B.
C., at passover time, corresponding to about April first. From the time they entered the land they have been observing certain feasts and ceremonies, the significance of which is not known to them and to but few Christians.
Among the things required of them was that on the fiftieth day after the passover they should wave before the Lord two loaves of bread, made with leaven. These were to be a kind of first-fruits unto the Lord; although fifty days previously an offering of first-fruits, that is, the first grain of the season, had been made.
The Christian, instructed in the real meaning of his Father’s Word, sees in the first offering of first-fruits, which took place on the 16th of Nisan, immediately after the passover, a picture of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was indeed the "first fruits of them that Slept”; and the time of his awakening from the Sleep of death was on the 16th of Nisan, very fearly in the morning. There was no leaven in Him, no hypocrisy, no sin.
And the Christian is also deeply interested in the event which followed fifty days later, when the two leavened loaves were waved before the Lord. He recognizes that this represents what happened in antitype when the holy spirit was poured out upon the little company in that upper room in Jerusalem.
The leaven in those two loaves represents the fact that every member of the true church, which is the body of Christ, has been and is imperfect; while of Jesus Himself it is true He was "holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners”.
The fact that there were two of the loaves, represents that when the holy spirit is imparted to a person God has no prejudice in the matter as to whether the person so blessed shall eventually be of the little flock or, failing to win the prize of the high calling, will fail to receive a full reward and find his inheritance with the greater company which is before the throne, without the crown of glory promised the bride.
The instructions to the Israelites respecting the offering of the sheaf of first-fruits and of the two wave loaves, are given in the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus and in the twenty-eighth chapter of Numbers. The account of what hap* pened “when the day of Pentecost was fully come” is found in the second chapter of Acts. The one is a prophecy, the other a fulfilment.
But grand and glorious as was the fulfilment of this prophecy at Pentecost, this was not the (only end God had in view in instituting the arrangement. The account in Leviticus is followed immediately by references to the blowing of the jubilee trumpets which was to follow on the tenth day of the seventh month.-^-Leviticus 23: 27; 25: 9.
The fiftieth day, the pentecostal day of blessing for the church, is associated with the fiftieth year, the jubilee year, which, in the antitype, is the millennium, the day of blessing for the whole world.
The fiftieth day, the pentecostal day, was arrived at by gathering together seven periods of seven days each, and appointing the next succeeding day as the day to be commemorated. It was at the first f the year.
The fiftieth year, the year of jubilee, was arrived at by gathering together seven periods of seven years each, and appointing the next succeeding year as the year to be commemorated. It was much later in the year.
. In the antitype the blessing of the church appropriately came early and came suddenly, in a single day, while the blessing of the world comes about two thousand years later, and will extend over a long period, represented in the type by the jubilee year.
But even now the antitypical priests are blowing the jubilee trumpets. Even now they are assuring the world that under earth’s new King their long-lost rights shall be restored, their lives be spared, their loved ones recovered from the prison house of death, their enemies be overthrown, and they shall bask once more in the smiles of their God in “paradise restored”. The day of Pentecost is indissolubly linked not only with the blessing of the church but with that of all the families of the earth.
Colporteuring in the Adirondack Foothills (Contributed)
THE territory of Franklin and Clinton counties, New York, had been applied for and assigned to the Watertown class for colporteur work. The nearest boundary line was at least one hundred miles away, and the question was, “How is the territory to be reached?”
Last year, the director of the class-work launched and carried through the very successful scheme of renting a furnished summer cottage on the St. Lawrence river, where twenty-two of our members, with three cars, spent a week canvassing in a remote territory. So the suggestion was made that suitable quarters be secured, and a month be spent camping, in order that they who were farther distant might also receive the message of the hour, the kingdom message.
Volunteers were called for, and a hearty response from the class members followed; several agreeing to spend a longer or shorter period at the camp, according as they could arrange their business or family affairs.
About the middle of August a committee of two went to see about securing a location, but failed to find anything suitable.
Confident, however, that these counties must receive the witness, preparations were soon made and, trusting in the Lord for guidance, a start was made promptly at 8 o’clock Saturday morning, in a Packard touring car and an Essex coach, carrying the friends, together with two Ford trucks loaded to capachj with three tents, boxes of books, trunks, cots, bedding and culinary utensils. In addi lion there were several camp-chairs, loaned us by the leading undertaker of the city, who continues to stand by the Bible Students despite the fact that they everlastingly advertise, “Millions now Living will Never Die.”
Off we started, and all went joyfully along till the larger of the trucks gave out, and a stop was made at a garage in a near-by village for repairs. This, of course, used up considerable of our precious time and spare cash; but nothing daunted, we continued our journey. We had not gone far, however, when down went the truck again! No stopping for repairs this time, as neither time nor our pocket books permitted. , We were yet many miles from the vicinity in which we hoped to find suitable quarters. So not to be outwitted by our adversary, who goeth about like a roaring lion, and who was without doubt doing his utmost to hinder the message of truth being carried into his preserves for practically the first witness, the Packard took the truck in tow. The Essex coach had, meantime, gone on its way, to spy out the land and secure a camping site.
The day was ^wearing on; and the mountain road being unfamiliar, we desired to reach our destination before dark. We were proceeding rapidly when our tow-rope broke, which had to be replaced by a new one. Starting again we had gone some distance, farther ■when we were hailed by a man in uniform who, with an authoritative tone, warned us to “drive more slowly with that load”, pointing to the heavily-laden truck, which it must be admitted was swaying rather threateningly. This person was a “state trooper”, whose duty in part is to regulate the traffic. Wrought up, as we were, with our desire to hasten on to our destination, it would be difficult to say to what extent this warning was heeded.
We passed through village and town, observed by all, as the people noted the aristocratic Packard befriending its more plebeian neighbor, the Ford truck. Truly, this was an apt illustration of how all distinctions of high and low, as generally recognized, vanish away under the leveling power of the gospel of Christ.
Just as the mantle of night began to settle down over the hills and mountains, we pulled into the picturesque village of Chateaugay. The question then arose, “Where is the Essex coach?” According to pre-arrangement, we took the road leading to Chateaugay Lake, the darkness settling down meantime like a pall over the whole district, with the road growing ever more rough.
About four miles out from the village our headlight flashed upon the Essex coach returning to meet us. Then, joy of joys! We received the news that a suitable place had been secured. The road immediately began to appear less rough, and the night less dark and gloomy, as we realized that a haven of rest would soon be reached.
About 8 o’clock we were piloted into the grounds of Mrs. S----, a gentle and kind-
hearted widow, who supplements the income from her small mountain farm by renting a couple of cottages to summer visitors. Immediately all was activity, as everybody turned in to help unload and get settled for the night. The tents were pitched, one serving the purpose of dining room and kitchen, while the other two were used as a dormitory for the men. The two cottages were reserved for the women’s sleeping quarters. All, then, after offering up thanks to our heavenly Father for guiding us to so beautiful and suitable a spot, retired for a much-needed rest.
The next day, Sunday, was spent in further settling, rest, and Bible study, the usual afternoon and evening classes being held. Meantime, another carload of friends arrived from Watertown, to be in readiness for work the following morning. .
Promptly at 6 a. m. breakfast was served. This had been made ready by two of our party who had volunteered to act as housekeepers. After the Bethel service, conducted by our worthy director, all, with appetites sharpened by the pure mountain air, did ample justice to the repast. Directly after breakfast, each went to his or her respective car, where the books required for the day’s work had been placed, together with a box containing the lunch, which we ate by the roadside, drinking from some near-by spring or farmer’s well.
We usually arrived “home” about 7 o’clock’ in the evening, the car often being well-laden with a variety of farm produce—chickens, eggs, apples, potatoes, pumpkins, etc., which had been gladly exchanged by the truth-hungry owners, for the bread of life offered them in our literature. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.”
Next came supper, bountiful and substantial; and how good it tasted I Then early to bed, and the busy day was ended, to be followed by successive days of joyful activity in giving out the witness of the kingdom over hill and valley, town, village, and hamlet.
And so the first week sped by, at the end of which some of necessity, but regretfully, returned home to their “tent-making”, while their places were filled by others coming from Watertown, who also were glad of a season of service for the King.
The weather during the first two weeks was warm and sunny, and no opposition from either nature or man was encountered. During the early part of the third week, however, such a storm of wind and rain came down over the! mountain as threatened to sweep away our little domicile. All hands-were called upon to hold the tents from being blown away; and, as the rain soaking the ground made our kitchen and dining-room rather unpleasant, we decided to enclose the wide piazza of one of the cottages, for use in place of the tent. We were once more snug and dry, and so happy that we wondered if it could be possible to be more happy, even when the fruition of our present hopes have been realized.
One morning during this third week our captain announced that our point of objective for the day was the village of Champlain. Upon arrival, all started in the Master’s work, everything going along apparently as usual when, early in the forenoon, one of our workers was accosted by a person who, with an air of pomposity, forbade her selling and delivering the books the same day, declaring that it was contrary to a town ordinance.
In a gentle and quiet manner, she endeavored to explain that the literature was only for the purpose of doing good, that it was the Lord’s message, etc. This served but to arouse his ire, and he proceeded to warn others of the party, as he ostentatiously displayed his official badge, as chief of police.
Soon word of what was transpiring reached the ears of our director, who immediately sought the judge and the town clerk’s office, to find the ordinance. There he found that no such law existed; and in the presence of several town officials, including the parish priest, he was enabled to make it known that we ■were engaged in a perfectly legitimate work. We learned that the name of this chief of police is Dragon; and the word dragon means devourer. Who said that there is nothing in a name?
The third week ended, and yet much territory remained undone. So it was decided to canvass in widely separated towns and rural sections, in order that the witness might be as far-reaching as possible. In one of these far-away villages, as we were about completing one day’s work, the holiness (?) clergyman, learning what was going on, fulfilled the prophecy of 2 Timothy 3:6, by going to the back door while one of our party was talking to the lady of the house at the front. He called her to him and warned her against purchasing any of “that stuff”, meaning Bible Students’ literature.
Many instances could He recounted where th« clergy endeavored to hinder the work, but apparently without success, as the sale of books continued without interruption; and many wer« the words of appreciation received as we called at home after home.
Promptly at 6 a. m. on the morning of th« last day we all started for Tupper Lake, ninety-five miles away. And such a delightful drive over hills and valleys and up the adjacent mountain, already beginning to don its gorgeous autumn dress! The beauty of the scene filled us with joy beyond words to express.
We found Tupper Lake a village of about six thousand inhabitants, the majority of whom are Roman Catholics, but ready to listen to the kingdom message; for in our four hours’ stay we disposed of two hundred and eight books. How gratifying it is to see this evidence of the veil of superstition and ignorance being lifted from off the faces of the people!
One outstanding incident might be given, illustrating how effectively this is being accomplished. One lady, upon being approached with the message, said she was a Catholic. She was told that this made no difference, as the kingdom blessings were for all. Then, after a little further conversation, in a hushed tone she asked, “What do you think of the pope? Isn’t his a man-made office?” The worker then quoted 1 Timothy 2:5: “There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” She said, “I don’t believe all this ‘poppycock* that our church teaches. I am going to read these books, and have my three sons read them. I should like to talk with you all day.”
As we drove homeward that afternoon we came upon a graceful deer along the mountain pass, which quickly bounded away at our approach. How different when, as a result of the kingdom of peace, “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain”; and when these gentle animals, instead of fleeing from man, will look upon him as their friend and benefactor!
Next day at dawn everybody in our happy camp was astir to pack up and start as soon as possible on our long homeward drive to Watertown. Evening found us at our destination, tired but joyous, as we thought of the 4142 precious volumes that had been disposed of during the month, each carrying the kingdom message of enlightenment and comfort for the people.
Language and the First Man
T HAVE often thought about the beginning of language with the first man in Eden. In regard to Adam and his capacity for speech, it may be suggested that at first he would only speak as he found sounds which conveyed impressions to his senses. Being a perfect man, his endowment in all directions would excel ours. Yet the power or gift of imitation of sounds has been developed by some imperfect men almost to perfection. It is in itself an art, and stands directly related to the construction of language.
In Genesis 2:19, 20 we read: “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.”
Now let us imagine this ancient and imposing zoological procession; a stately cavalcade of beautiful creatures, on grand parade before their king! There was the proud monarch of the forest—the lion, as the English language styles him! As he approached, the air would resound with his vibrant roar! The king of the jungles thus saluted the king of the earth. In a moment Adam, by perfect adjustment of his own vocal cords in imitation, voiced in one sonorous exclamation the distinguishing characteristic of this exquisite creature, which thereafter became the name by which he was known —ARYEH! (Hebrew for “lion”.) It was a task equal to the highest expression of genius. The name is as perfect as it is responsive, and none can gainsay it!
If you will listen to the roar of a lion, and then try to imitate it, you will see that you could find no more perfectly descriptive word to express it than this.
Another illustration that may be cited is tsipporim, the generic Hebrew word for birds. Here again we note a rational and euphonious method of imitating the “zipping” sound of
By Henry Ancketill (South Africa)
winged creatures as they flit from limb to limb.
One could not say that all linguistic expressions in modern or ancient Hebrew, as we now know them, are perfect; because through the centuries much has happened to corrupt and alter them. This has also been the fate of all other languages.
Even as Adam quickly adapted himself to his environment, so with his perfect mental and physical equipment he could readily make distinctions and classifications. This is not difficult to realize when one remembers that infants, prior to the development of their powers of speech, most certainly observe, distinguish and classify persons and objects. This is later proven by the wide knowledge which they exhibit as soon as they begin to speak.
As the “breath of lives” entered Adam’s lungs and oxidized the blood that began to course through his veins, arousing the action of his perfect senses, we can conceive that he arose and surveyed the beauty of his paradisiacal home, and gazed enraptured at the heavens above him. Tutored by the inmost teaching of his “conscience” (that moral but not “spiritual” governor and monitor within him resulting from a perfect coordination of his mental faculties), his heart would instinctively respond in gratitude and praise to the great Creator of it all!
Sounds, words, adequate to express his feelings at that moment, undoubtedly “came to him” as naturally as the breath into his body. We can imagine his heart there giving vent to the sentiments later expressed by the Psalmist David: “The heavens relate the glory of God; and the expanse telleth of the works of his hands. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech, there are no words, their voice is not heard. [And in the glorious beauty of the scene one can imagine Adam, too, spellbound and inarticulate for a time!] Their melody extendeth through all the earth, and to the end of the world their words.”* —Psalm 19:1-4, Leeser.
“An oriole’s nest is swinging low
Where pear blossoms whitened a gaunt gray limb;
Where pear blooms wove a ruff of snow
And scattered themselves in the depths below;
Oh, rocking it is to a lulling hymn I
“The nest is there in the shadows deep
When crickets chirp at eventide; '
The nest is there when the world’s asleep And stars down through the new leaves peep,
An airy bark in an ocean wide I”
The Ascension of Our Lord
IT IS a common saying of theologians that the ascension of Jesus Christ is intended to show that our humanity has been exalted to the throne of God. This, like many of the other statements that come from theologians, is mere rhetoric, mere oratory, and has missed the whole point.
While it is true that the human organism is the most exquisite physical body of which we have any knowledge, yet it is not true that a human body of any kind would be adapted to spirit conditions.
A human body is of the earth earthy. It contains altogether less than a pound of solid matter—carbon, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, sulphur, magnesium, iron, iodine, and bromine. These are all found in the dust beneath our feet. The remainder is made of the gases, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine and fluorine. Most of these gases are in the form of water, about seven pails in a body.
There is no conceivable reason why God would wish to exalt to the throne of the universe a being handicapped by a body which must always carry with it, wherever it goes, these solids and these seven pails of water, when a body of another form is available and better suited to spirit*. conditions.
We know that the angels, good and bad, are alike invisible. The good are all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those that shall be heirs of salvation; but they are never seen. They encamp around about those that fear God, but neither they nor their encampments are visible to men. They are described as outside the range of human vision, like God, of whom it is said that no man hath seen Him or can see Him.
We should expect, therefore, that our Lord, when He finally came into the Father’s presence was “the express image of the Father’s person” and that since we “endure as seeing Him who is invisible”, it would follow that the Lord is invisible, too. In His proper state or condition we do know that our Lord Jesus is too bright and glorious in person to be seen by human eyes. We have the proof of this in the fact that when He appeared to Saul of Tarsus in the way to Damascus He shone with a brilliancy “above the brightness of the sun at noonday”.
What then are we to understand by the vision Which the disciples of the Lord beheld that spring day somewhere in the vicinity of BetKi any? It was not to tell them or to tell anybody the present nature of the Lord’s body. It was to tell them, and to tell us, that He was lifted up, away from the earth, which had been the scene of His sorrows and His humiliations, and is now endowed with powers as far above the human as the heavens are higher than the earth.
There has never been any question about the location of Bethany. It lies on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, a mile beyond the summit, where the road to Jericho makes its sudden plunge downward toward the Jordan valley. Its present name is Lazarieth, a name derived from Lazarus, whom Christ raised from the dead at this place.
This was for years the only home that Jesus had. Here, at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus and Simon the Leper, He rested at night during the last week of His ministry. Here He began his triumphal entry; here Mary wiped His feet with her hair, and broke the alabaster box of ointment upon His head, anointing Him for His burial, as He said.
The East changes little. The homes, the people and the customs remain the same from generation to generation. Bethany is a mean little village. It was probably so in the time of our Lord. While the possession of the alabaster box implies some means, yet its use at once aroused indignation and a mention of the poor, who were evidently all around, as the Lord said would always be the case until the time of the establishment of His kingdom.
But if Bethany had been the cleanest, most prosperous community in the world, it was no longer a fit place for the Lord after His resurrection from the dead, and while He was waiting for the church, which is His body, to be called and chosen and tested for their future place as His bride.
The natural place for the Lord Jesus during the centuries in which He was waiting to receive the kingdom, waiting for the time to come when His enemies would be made His footstool, was in the place which the Father had appointed for Him; namely, at the Father’s own right hand.
This does not mean that our Lord was restricted to one position or to one posture in any physical sense, but it does mean that His place was in the Father’s presence, remote from earth-
ly scenes, for the most part, as far above them as the heavens are higher than the earth. The Ascension meant that the time of Christ’s humiliation was ended, the time for His admission! into the presence of the heart of the universe had come. It would have been inappropriate for the Just One, the True One, the Faithful One, to be elsewhere.
The Ascension does not mean and was never intended to mean the deification or glorification of ten solids and five gases or any possible combination of them. Both God and Christ have all power to make as many such combinations anywhere, at any time, as their wisdom deems best. The thought in the Ascension is far above such trifling considerations.
The Ascension was the passage of Christ Jesus from the earth and its scenes to the presence of the Father. The body in which the Ascension began was merely prepared and used for the occasion only until it had served its purpose of indicating to human beings the importance of the change of environment which was now actually taking place in the Master’s life.
The Ascension was important. It was God’s plan that the holy spirit could not be poured out upon the church until Christ should first have come into the presence of God for us. The tabernacle in the wilderness shows in the type what was fulfilled here in antitype. Nothing could be done with the blood of the Lord’s goat (the church) until the blood of the bullock (Christ Jesus) had been sprinkled perfectly, seven times, (in the form of a cross) upon the mercy seat, representing the presence of God.
Radio Programs
[Station WBBB, Staten Island, New York City.—272.6 meters.]
Sunday Morning, July 18
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10: 00 Violin Duets.
10:15 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
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10: 30 Bible Lecture.
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11: 00 Choral Singers.
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11: 10 Violin Duet.
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11: 20 Choral Singers.
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11: 30 Sunday School Lesson.
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11: 50 Choral Singers.
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12: 00 Violin Duets.
Sunday Morning, July 25
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10: 00 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
10:15 L. Marion Brown, soprano.
10:30 Bible Lecture—Judge Rutherford.
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11: 00 Choral Singers.
11:10 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
11: 20 Choral Singers.
11: 30 Sunday School Lesson.
11: 50 Choral Singers.
12:00 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
Sunday Afternoon, July 18
2: 00 Watchtower Orchestra,
2: 20 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
2:30 Bible Lecture—John E. Dawson,
“All Families of Earth Soon to be Blessed.”
8: 00 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
.3:10 Bible Instruction—Carl Park.
3: 25 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
3: 40 Watchtower Orchestra.
Sunday Evening, July 18
9: 00 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
9: 20 Bible Questions and Answers.
Monday Evening, July 19
8: 00 George Twaroschk, violinist.
8:10 Irene Kleinpeter, soprano.
8:20 Bible Lecture,—John De Fehr. “Who Has Immortality?”
8:40 Irene Kleinpeter, soprano.
8:50 George Twaroschk, violinist.
Thursday Evening, July 22
8 : 00 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
8:10L. Marion Brown, soprano.
8:20.Bible Lecture—R. S. Seklemian, “Idolatry—Juicient and Modern.”
8:40 L. Marion Brown, soprano.
8:50 Watchtower Instrumental Trio.
Sunday Afternoon, July 25
2: 00 Choral Singers.
2:10 Watchtower Trio.
2 : 20 Choral Singers. .
2: 30 Bible Lecture—Eugene D. Orrell, “The Reign of Righteousness.”
3:00 L. Marion Brown, soprano.
3: 15 Bible Instruction—Martin L. Hartman.
3: 30 L. Marion Brown, soprano.
3: 40 Watchtower Trio.
Sunday Evening, July 25
9: 00 Watchtower String Quartette.
9:20 Bible Questions and Answers—Judge Rutherford.
Monday Evening, July 26
8 : 00 Jubilee Entertainers. ■
8: 20 Bible Lecture—II. H. Riemer, “Religion.”
8: 40 Jubilee Entertainers.
Thursday Evening, July 29
8: 00 Professor Charles Rohner, violinist.
8:10 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
8: 20 Bible Lecture—W. E. Van Amburgh, “Daniel the Prophet in the King’s Palace.”
8: 40 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
8: 50 Professor Charles Rohner, violinist.
Saturday Evening, July 24 8:00 Dr. Hans Haag, violinist. 8: 20 Fred Twaroschk, tenor. 8: 30 Bible Questions and Answers. 8: 50 Fred Twaroschk, tenor.
Saturday Evening, July 31
8: 00 Joseph Bonaecorso, violinist.
8:10 Forrest J. Kleinhans, baritone.
8: 25 Bible Questions and Answers.
8:45 Joseph Bonaecorso, violinist.
Comfort for the Jews
[Radiocast from Watchtower WBBR on a wave length of 272.6 meters, by Judge Rutherford.}
THE law required that each fiftieth year be observed as a jubilee. That was the rest and restoration period. The time of desolation being seventy years (in order that the land might have her rest) fixed the total number of jubilees at seventy. What could have been God’s purpose in having this number kept? The answer is that these seventy jubilees were time-markers, marking the total number of years that should elapse until His time for something better to transpire. God was here saying by His law that seventy jubilees (3500 years) would span the time that would elapse until the great jubilee is due to begin.
But what could have been God’s purpose in providing for only seventy jubilees and stopping there? It is quite certain that the things of the law foreshadowed better things to come; that the law was typical; and that when the type ends, that which was foreshadowed must begin.
The promise to Abraham was: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” What blessing is to be expected? There could be no adequate blessing unless man is fully restored to everything that Adam lost by reason of sin and his expulsion from Eden.
The jubilee year, as provided by the law, was for the purpose of restoring to every one that which had been taken away from him. It therefore could foreshadow nothing else than the restoration blessings which God promised should come to mankind. It follows then that the end of the typical jubilee years is the due time for the beginning of the blessings promised, and that these blessings are to be expected during the time of the great antitype.
OW it becomes very important to ascertain, if possible, when the seventy predetermined jubilees began to count and when the seventieth one would end, since this would mark the time for the great jubilee. God is an accurate timekeeper. He never makes a mistake. His law required the children of Israel to begin counting the time from the day they entered the land of Palestine. The children of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, entered the land of Palestine in the spring of the year 2553 A. M. Since seventy sabbath cycles of forty-nine years each are fixed by the Holy Scriptures, and sinca each one of the forty-ninth year sabbaths was to be followed immediately by a year of jubilee, therefore it follows that seventy jubilees, fifty years apart, are to be counted and no more.
The fact that these jubilees were to be repeated every fiftieth year for seventy times proves that the jubilee was a type. Seventy times fifty equals 3500. If we add 3500 years to 2553 A. M., it brings us to the year 6053 A. M. Describing these dates according to our modern method of calculating time it will be found that the Israelites entered the land of Palestine in the spring of the year 1575 B. C., and if to that we add 3500 years, the period of time covered by the typical jubilees which were required to be kept by the law, it brings us to the end of the year 1925 A. D. In other words, 6053 A. M. and 1925 A. D. are one and the same date.
What then should be expected following 1925? This may be determined by reference to the law given to Israel through Moses. That law provided that in the year of jubilee “ye shall return every man unto his possession”. Thus the law states that the jubilee is the time of restitution. Since restitution is the blessing clearly intended by the promise God gave to Abraham, and since every one of the prophets from Samuel to Malachi foretold the coming times of great restitution of all things, it follows that the beginning of the antitypical jubilee marks the beginning of the times of restitution.
Now it is exceedingly interesting to mark what the law required should be done to announce the beginning of the jubilee. At the end of the atonement day of each forty-ninth year the jubilee should be announced in the following manner:
“Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet-sound through all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you: and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”—Leviticus 25: 9, 10.
The sounding of the trumpet was for the very purpose of informing the people that the yea®
of jubilee had arrived. Otherwise stated, knowledge that the time of the jubilee had come was the first thing essential for the people to have, and such they must have before the beginning of restoration of that which had been lost.
Reaching a conclusion from what the law required, it must be seen that the beginning of the jubilee is marked by the sounding of the trumpet. And what did the jubilee trumpet signify? A trumpet is always a symbol of a proclamation conveying knowledge to the people that the time has come for them to look for and expect something and, concerning the jubilee, to expect that which will be pleasing and helpful to them. If the end of 1925 marks the end of the last seventy-year period, then it follows that we should expect the people to begin to receive some knowledge concerning God’s great plan of restoration. The Jews are to have the favors first, and thereafter all others who obey the Lord.
There could be no restoration without knowledge, even as it is impossible to give a man anything unless he knows about it. A gift is a contract, and knowledge is the first and essential element on the part of both giver and receiver.
The blessing of restoration for Israel as foreshadowed in the jubilee feature of God’s law, was further portrayed by Ezekiel, in the prophecy of the valley of dry bones. '
JEHOVAH used holy men of old as His instruments to accomplish His purposes. He made pictures foreshadowing the progressive steps taken in regathering the Jews to Palestine. He caused His prophets to have mental visions of things to be accomplished and then to describe these mental visions and set them down in writing. These mental visions foreshadowed things to come.
Ezekiel was one who loved the Lord God and who was diligent in doing the will of God. He was one of the holy men of old, and God made of him a prophet. Ezekiel records the fact that on a certain occasion the spirit of the Lord was upon him and that the Lord carried him away and set him dovm in the midst of a valley of dry bones. By this is to be understood that Ezekiel was in a trance, and that God gave him a vision in which he saw himself seated in a yalley of dry bones. Then the Lord caused Ezekiel mentally to pass around the valley about him, and Ezekiel observed that there were many bones in the valley and that they were very dry. Ezekiel did not understand the meaning of these many dry bones, which had no life whatsoever in them. Like other prophets of God he made a report of this vision and understood nothing about it except that he was told that it referred to the whole house of Israel. How it represented Israel could not be understood until the subsequent facts Avere known.
God caused His prophets to write prophecy in words then not understandable, intending that in His own good time these visions should be understood by those desiring to know and to do His will. When that due time comes and the prophecy is fulfilled, then the student, in the light of prophecy, and of the physical facts constituting its fulfilment, can understand the meaning thereof. '
Now note the reading of this prophecy.
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, 0 Lord God, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, 0 ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and Cover you vfith skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
“So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and, behold, a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, 0 breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. .
“Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 0 my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, 0 my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live ; and I shall place you in your owm land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord."—Ezekiel 37:11-14.
The Lord propounded to Ezekiel the question: “Can these bones live?” Of course Ezekiel could not answer; therefore he replied: “0 Lord God, thou knowest.” If there is any hope for them thou knowest it/ Then God told Ezekiel that these bones represented the entire house of Israel. The valley represents the grave of the nation of Israel, which went into national oblivion in 73 A. D. The people composing that nation were there scattered through the earth. They have long cried unto the Lord for help. How often have they said: “Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, we are cut off!” For many centuries that people, without an altar, without a sacrifice, without a feast, without a God, have bordered on complete despair. Nothing could more fitly represent them than the valley of dry bones.
But what is the first thing that is said to them to stir up their hope ? The Lord directed Ezekiel to say unto them: “0 ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” The Lord would have Israel recognize that He is God, and that the people should hear His Word and have their hopes revived. Those who do hear the Word of the Lord, and Avho believe therein and respond thereto, have the promise that they shall live. Then Ezekiel was directed to prophesy; and he says: “So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and, behold, a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.”
What could this represent? Of course the language here used is symbolic. Bones constitute the framework of the human body. The human body is often used as a symbolism of an organization. (See Isaiah 52:7) Therefore the bringing of the bones together fitly represents the forming of the skeleton of an organization.
Now note the physical facts showing the fulfilment of this prophecy: About 1878 the persecution of the Jews became very severe in Russia, Germany, Roumania and other places of Europe. There was a great noise and a great shaking up of that people. It was indeed a shaking of dry bones. It created a desire in the hearts of the Jewish people for their homeland. The Lord was causing His Word to be sounded out that some might hear. Then the Lord raised up Theodor Herzl, a Jew who loved his people and who was glad to serve them.
Mr. Herzl said: “The miseries of the Jews was the propelling force that induced the formation of the scheme of Zionism.” It was this noise and shaking of persecution and agitation that caused the bones, to wit, the Jews, to come together and form the skeleton organization looking to their return to Palestine and to the rebuilding of their homeland. A human skeleton is made up of 206 bones. Zionism was organized into a body at Basel, Switzerland, in 1897; and in that congress which perfected the organization there were exactly 206 delegates, the same number of bones that go to form the human body. That was not merely an accident but a physical fact prearranged by the Lord, showing how God looks after the minutest things relative to the recovery of the Jews in bringing them back to Himself. This should arouse the hopes of the Jews and bring them comfort.
A mere skeleton is an unsightly and unattractive thing. Before a skeleton can function it must have sinews and flesh, and it must have skin to make it sightly and attractive. Before the Zionist organization could function effectually it must have energetic men and money, represented by the flesh and the sinews, and must make a proper and attractive appearance before the Jews of the world. The Zionists know better than any others the fight that they have had to induce more men to join their ranks and to induce other men to subscribe money, and to induce such others to properly advertise the movement of rebuilding Palestine and to make it appear attractive and pleasing to the Jewish people. Thus we see how wonderfully the Lord pictured the necessary steps to be taken, looking to the reestablishment of the Jews in their homeland. Then the prophet adds: “And when
I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.”
During the past few years the strenuous efforts put forth by the Jews have resulted in enlisting many men and gathering considerable money and accomplishing some results in the rebuilding of their homeland. But they realize, that there is something lacking. Mr. Leon Simon, writing concerning the significance of Palestine for the Jews, says: “Palestine has not been restored to the Jews. The Jews are not a corporate body of the kind to which a country could be given.”
With all the faithful and strenuous efforts put forth by Jews of brains and money they appreciate the great difficulty of the problem of repossessing their homeland and realize that there is something lacking in the movement. And what is it? The Lord answers the question in this prophecy. The bones, the flesh, the sinews, and the skin are there, but there is “no breath in them”. They have not yet the right spirit. This must be realized before the rebuilding of Palestine can be an accomplished fact. But the Jew should not be discouraged. God’s prophet in this prophecy clearly shows that breath will come into the organization and that God will reestablish Israel in her homeland, because the time has come:
“Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind. Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breath upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”—Ezekiel 37: 9,10.
Breath and wind here mentioned are from the Hebrew word ruach. (Genesis 2: 7) Breath or wind is both invisible and powerful. Man, when created, did not function until God breathed into him the breath of lives. It was the invisible power of God that moved him into life and action. The wind or breath in this prophecy of Ezekiel pictures the spirit or moving cause which induces action; that which must induce the Jews to action before their full desire can be realized. Their spirit or moving cause or motive must be .in harmony with God.
The founder of Zionism says: “The propelling cause for the formation of Zionism was the
miseries of the Jews.” Their present motive or purpose in returning is to seek for themselves a home where they can dwell together in peace. This is a selfish motive, as all must, admit. It is self-interest that is now inducing them to act. Before the Jews can succeed to all their rights and promised blessings in Palestine they must have the spirit of the Lord; that is to say, their motive or moving cause or invisible power that moves them to act, must be like unto that which - induces God to act, to wit, unselfishness. Unselfishness is another word for love.
God’s chief and first commandment to Israel was:
“Hear therefore, 0 Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.”—Deuteronomy 6: 3-6.
Now what is needed amongst the Jews, the next and most important thing for them in rebuilding Palestine, is a new heart. That is to say, they must be moved to the rebuilding of Palestine because of their faith in and love for God, who has been so good to them. Faith in God and in His Word, and love for Him, are of utmost importance. No one can have faith in God without loving God. And any one 'who loves God will have faith in Him and trust Him. The Lord says: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy wTays acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”—Proverbs 3: 5, 6.
In other words, let not the selfish desire ol building a powerful and rich Jewish nation be the moving cause of Zionism; but let the Jews return iii faith to Palestine and rebuild their homeland because it is sacred unto them and unto their forefathers, and because God promised to give it to Abraham, and because they believe God will give it to Abraham and to his children in accordance with that promise. Let them have faith in God and in His promises, and love and worship God as the true and only God, and acknowledge Him in all their wTays; and He wall direct their paths that they may make no mistakes. Thus doing, all the power that
Satan the enemy can bring against them, will be unavailing. They will then ride victorious over every opposition, and in due time will be established in their homeland and be an honor to God, who loves them.
Thus far the Jews have been regathering to Palestine in unbelief. The Lord has graciously held out His hand to them, signifying that His due time has come in which He will again show them His favor. Now the;/ must exercise faith in His promises and rely upon them. They cannot rely upon His promises unless they have knowledge. They cannot have knowledge unless some one calls their attention to the great truths contained in the Word of God. The generation of Jews now on earth are in no wise responsible for the mistakes of their forefathers. The humble, honest Jews now on earth are in no wise responsible for the present-day mistakes of the rabbis who hold forth their owm wisdom and whose wisdom has perished, even as the Prophet Isaiah foretold that it would.—Isaiah 29:10-14; 56:10,11.
Thus far the Lord has brought many Jews into Palestine; and now He will show them something of His love, and there put a new heart and spirit into them:
“Therefore, say, Thus saith the Lord God, I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been, scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof, and all the abominations thereof, from thence. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh; that they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”—Ezekiel II: 17-20.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the faithful prophets had the spirit of God. They obeyed God because they loved Him. They’ were faithful to God, and He was pleased with them because of their faith., God promised Abraham that he and his children should have the land of Palestine. God will keep inviolate that promise. Those faithful ones shall come forth from the graves and be established in the land of Palestine. All those who have the spirit of their father Abraham, who are induced to action by reason of their unselfish devotion to God, all such God will bless with blessings abundant:
“Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 0 my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, 0 my people, and brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live; and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.” — Ezekiel 37:12-14.
Has God spent all these years in an effort merely to establish Israel in Palestine to give her a home? No; that is not the sole purpose. God’s purpose is to regather Israel into that land that she may become a mighty nation, even greater than in the past, and that through her the peoples may be brought back into harmony with God and all the families of the earth receive a blessing through Abraham’s seed as promised. And to this end God has promised to make a new covenant with the Jews.
rpiIE covenant which God made with Israel in
Egypt and which was afterward confirmed at Mount Sinai, was for the benefit of Israel. The most important part of the decalogue is: “Thou shaft have no other gods before me.” Without doubt if Israel had been faithful to this command and had trusted Jehovah implicitly, He would have protected her from the baneful influence of the enemy, Satan the Devil.
In the law given to Israel God enumerated the blessings that should be enjoyed by them if obedient to His covenant, and also set forth the punishments that should be visited upon them if they disobeyed. (Deuteronomy 28th chapter) Let any one read this 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, and by the side thereof read the history of Israel, and see how remarkably close God has kept His promise. The Jews violated their covenant and were dispersed. They have suffered a long night of terrible warfare. Now their warfare is ended, and the Lord is returning them to their own land and there He will make with them a new covenant, even as He promised:
“Behold, 1 will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring, them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and- of their children after them: and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart, and with my whole soul. For thus saith the Lord, Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them.”-—Jeremiah 32:37-42.
Wisdom means to apply knowledge according to the divine standard. Wisdom is learned by hearing and by experience. The Jews have had the Word of God. They have had much experience. The first essential to wisdom is reverence for God. “The fear [reverence] of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments.” (Psalm 111:10) The plan of God has long been a secret to men. It is made known only unto those who love and serve Him. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear [reverence] him; and he will shew them his covenant.” —Psalm 25:14.
Now God has gathered many of the people of Israel into the land of Palestine. As they begin to grow in wisdom by learning the Lord’s Word, by reverencing Him and striving to do His will, God will draw near unto them and make with them a new covenant, as He promised:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made .with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jeremiah 31: 31-34.
The law covenant which God made when He took Israel by the hand and led her out of Egypt, which was confirmed at Mount Sinai, Jehovah kept in every particular. Had Israel been able to keep that covenant on her part, and had she kept it, she would have received all the blessings that God promised. That law covenant ended because the Jews failed to keep it, and they were cast off because of their failure and their disobedience. .
Now God has promised that when He brings back Israel into her own land He will make with Israel and with Judah, thus joining all the Jews in one, a new covenant. This should forever settle in the negative the question as to whether the Anglo-Saxons are the chosen people of God. It is with the house of Judah and the house of Israel, that is to say, with those who are Jews because of being natural descendants of Israel and Judah, and who have faith in the promises which God made to the effect that through the house of Judah should the great Deliverer come —these are the ones with whom God will make the covenant.
What could be God’s purpose in making a new covenant with Israel? In order that Israel might know what is required of her before she can receive the promised blessings, and that by keeping this covenant she may be blessed. And not only Israel but all the families of the earth shall have an opportunity for a blessing. One of the reasons why the Jews did not keep the law covenant was because of their own selfishness and their looking always to their selfish interests. Satan the enemy took advantage of this, magnified their selfish interests, turned their minds away from God, and caused them to worship other gods and violate their covenant.
May not the Devil likewise interfere with the terms of the new covenant and turn the people away from God during its administration? No; because during the administration of that covenant Satan will be restrained that he may deceive and mislead the nations no more. His wicked influence has weakened all the nations of earth. Now the prophet says of him:
“How art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morning 1 How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon..the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the Most High.”—Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:18,19.
Furthermore, the Lord says through the mouth of His prophet Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” Confirming this the Lord said to them through the mouth of Ezekiel:
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.”—Ezekiel 36: 26-28.
The heart is a symbol of the seat of affection, also the seat of motive that induces action. One’s motive is determined by his heart condition. Had Israel loved God with a pure heart, that people would not have fallen to the seductive influence of the enemy Satan. By their long experience they will have learned their lesson. Jews will learn to love God, and therefore their hearts’ delight will be to obey and to do His holy will. Putting forth an honest effort, with a pure heart., to keep the terms of the new covenant the Lord will render unto them all the aid that is required to enable them to keep it. .They will not do things then merely for personal, pecuniary gain, but because they will delight to do the will of God. When the law of God is written in the heart of man then he delights to do God’s will, even as it is written: “I delight to do thy will, 0 my God: yea, ■ thy law is within my heart.”—Psalm 40: 8.
God promised the land to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. They are all dead. They have not had any part in the land. How can these promises be made good to them? If they remain forever dead the promises cannot be made good to them. God has promised, however, to open the graves and bring them up out of the graves even as it is written:
“Therefore prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, 0 my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves.” —Ezekiel 37:12,13.
The dead are not alive in any sense; they are dead, and know not anything:
“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward,for the memory of them is forgotten. . . . Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) “The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.”—Psalm 115:17.
Job believed in the resurrection and testified:
“0 that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again ? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou- wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands.”—Job 14:13-15.
The Jews have always spoken of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the fathers in Israel. When they are brought forth from the dead, under the Messiah, then “instead of thy fathers shall [they] be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth”. (Psalm 45:16) Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and the prophets will be brought forth and be made leaders of the people. We may expect their return soon, because the favor of God has begun to return to Israel. It is “the time of the end” spoken of by the Prophet Daniel, at which time they “that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”. (Daniel 12:1-4) The fact that God made promise to Abraham that He would give to him the land of Palestine is proof certain that in due time He shall fully establish Abraham in that land and make him a mighty one in the earth.
If Jehovah knew that the Jews could not keep the law covenant which was confirmed at Sinai, why then did He make it with them?
The chief desire of every honest man is that he might have life everlasting in a state of happiness. The chief promise that the law covenant made was that they that kept the law should have life. The efforts of the Jews to keep the law and their failure show that only a perfect man can keep that law without the aid of a perfect mediator. The law covenant therefore clearly demonstrates to the Jews and to all others that no man of his own effort can get the coveted prize of life everlasting.
Today the world has many savants, philosophers, scientists so-called, evolutionists and modernists, who claim that by the process of evolution man can get life. The experiences of Israel with the covenant made at Mount Sinai is clear proof that these self-constituted wise men are wrong. Life is a gift from God. It must be accepted and received upon the terms God has provided, and upon no other terms.
The promise to Abraham was: “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” The blessing promised means an opportunity for life everlasting, because no other blessing would be adequate and complete. God through His prophet Isaiah plainly declares that He made the earth for man to live upon; therefore we must conclude that God will give man an opportunity some day to live upon it for ever. (Isaiah 45:12,18: Ecclesiastes 1:4) It is manifest then from these scriptures that the promised “seed” is the Messiah, of whom Moses was a type; and that the Messiah is the channel of blessing and the means of bringing life to the people.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Daniel and the prophets all did their best to obey God. Why then did they not get eternal life? Because they, like all others, were born imperfect and had come under the condemnation because of Adam’s sin. Before they or any one else could get life man must first be redeemed from the judgment of death which came upon Adam, and from the effects of that judgment which brought all the human race under condemnation. Unless God has made some provision for redemption, then there is no hope for man. Since God has made so many promises of giving a blessing to men we may be sure that we will find in His Word a provision for redemption.
Babylon Has Fallen
Reasoning From Effect to Cause
STUDENT at the University of Rochester, humbly expressing his belief in a personal God, after calling attention to the work of modern architects and editors said,
We are necessitated by use of our natural reason to acknowledge as a self-evident fact the principle of causality, and to deny this involves absurdity. Premising, therefore, this philosophical principle, we logically trace the course of being, from the realm of accidents, substance and all dependent entities to the inevitable last analysis, upon which rests the whole order of dependence. This is the ultimate ontological reason on account of which a thing is even possible to exist. It is the source of all perfections and from it flows all potentiality and all actuality. Without this final , cause there is nothing, there can be nothing. This is God.
THE churches seem to be making progress toward destruction. Thus, Dr. Evans, of the First Baptist Church, Kansas City, uses the post bitter language against Noah, Jacob and David and intimates that the accounts of their faithfulness are not fit to be taught. In the Tabernacle Baptist Church in the same city a regular circus calliope furnishes the music, while at the Wilshire Congregational Church of Los Angeles, jazz has replaced the singing of praise to God by a choir. Dr. Me Caul, of the Washington Ave Baptist Church, Brooklyn, says that the churches are supposed to be alive but their real life has departed, while the rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church declares that the whole mass of ideas and ideals for which Christianity at its heart stands has been set aside and our so-called Christian civilization is being paganized before our very eyes. Well! We are moved to inquire what else we could expect of a class of men who will resort to any and every possible expedient, such as calliopes and jazz bands, to get worldlings to come and hear them, and then when the worldlings have come will entertain them by telling them that the Bible is not fit to read.
STUDIES IN THE “HARP OF GOD” ( IUD<CTIEAT'™OOKRD 3 )
With issue. Number 60 we began running Judge Rutherord’s new book, “The Harp of God”, with accompanying questions, taking place of both Advanced and Juvenile Bible Studies which have been hitherto published.
S28Next in order the apostle mentions “the church of the firstborn”. Jesus Christ is the Head of this church, the great King of Glory. Certainly all the body members will be eager to see our wonderful Lord, who redeemed us to God with His precious blood. He is not only our redeemer, advocate, and deliver, but our dearest friend; and now the relationship of bride and bridegroom is about to be fully consummated. How thrilling will be that time! By long and patient continuance in well doing, their experiences, by the grace of the Lord and through His ministration, have perfected every one of the body for this happy time, making each member beautiful. “So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.” Each member of the bride then will be permitted to see Jesus as He is, and will then be like Him. Happy will be that time. (1 John 3:2) Every one of these Christians has had some dear fellow Christian friend on earth. He will be looking for such a one, doubtless, when he arrives in heaven. Of course each one will look for the faithful apostles whom the Lord used to furnish the food to the household of faith. Then they will look for others whom the Lord specially used as teachers, instructors, and servants of the church, wdio were loving and kind and ministered to the wants of the various members and did it joyfully.
nsWe may be sure that of all those who are there every one will be perfected in love; for the apostle says they must thus be. (Ephesians 4: 16; Colossians 3:14) We may expect to see some there wdiom we have loved and may be disappointed in not seeing them; but no Christian will ever see any one of his fellow Christians in heaven except those who have loved their brethren with a pure heart, all of whom have passed through the fiery trials and rejoiced in the experiences that the Lord brought to them. Each one of the members of the divine family will be beautiful; for all will be like the Lord. As star differs from star in glory, so shall the various members differ in that glorious realm. But what a marvelous gathering that will be: 144,000 glorious beings assembling with their glorious Head, Christ Jesus!
671
53OA11 united together with the Lord Jesus, it seems, according to St. Paul, that the next in order would be to grant unto, the church the glory that is promised, by presenting the bride class before the great divine throne of Jehovah. St. Jude informs us not only that our Lorf keeps the members of the body from falling, but that He will present them faultless before the presence of Jehovah’s glory with exceeding joy. —Jude 24.
531The day approaches for the presentation of the bride. In vision we behold an innumerable company of angels assembled before the throne of God, forming a guard of honor. The heralds of heaven with golden trumpets appear, announcing the approach of the Bridegroom with His bride. Music of surpassing sweetness fills the heavenly courts. All eyes are fixed upon the conquering hero, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the great Bridegroom who now approaches with His bride of 144,000 members. The hosts of heaven are singing, “Hallelujah: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.”—Rev. 19: 6,7.
QUESTIONS ON “THE HARP OF GOD”
Who would be the next whom the Christian would expect to meet in glory? 528.
Why will the King of Glory desire to greet the body members in the kingdom? 528.
Describe others in the church for whom the Christian will be looking in the kingdom. *|J 528.
What grace of the holy spirit will be possessed by every one who is in the kingdom? 529.
What will be the appearance of each member of the body of Christ? 529.
After all the bride class is united with the Bridegroom, then what is the next to be expected? 530.
To whom is granted the honor of presenting the bride before Jehovah? 530.
Give a picture based upon the Scriptures of the appearance of the bride with the Bridegroom before th? throne of Jehovah, 531.
The New I.B.S.A. Publication
DELIVERANCE
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A vivid description of the Divine Plan particularly outlining God’s progressive steps against evil and showing the final overthrowing of the Devil and all of his wicked institutions, the deliverance of the people, and the establishment o B the righteous government on earth.
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The desire to have our interested readers supplied early fixed the copies of the first edition both in quantity and price.
Other editions will follow but copies will only ba available in about two months’ time.
Deliverance contains 384 pages. With Scriptural Index of Bible quotations it proves to be a book for ready reference. An exhaustive index locates the reading matter by subjects.
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