<^e Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

in this issue

WILLS AND TESTAMENTS

■ FOREST FIRES

THE DRUG MENACE

EUROPE AND PEACE

RECONCILIATION

Its ministry, the real commission of the true church; broadcast by Judge Rutherford

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Volume X <• No. 244   .                     January 23, 192 9

Contents

Labor and Economics

Items or Interest . . . .

Class Consciousness . .

Social and Educational

Nuncupative and Written Wills ............. 262

Practical Lessons on the Great Pyramid .......... 269

Man the Weaker Sex ....

Finance—Commerce—Transportation

Now That Flying Has Come

It is Better to be Cautious

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Hungary Suffering Because of Anti-Semitism

This Happened in Saskatchewan (Maybe) ....

Showed the Veil at the Right Time ....

Communism .....

Europe in Time of Peace ...

Agriculture and Husbandry

Western Forest Fires ................ . 265

Science and Invention

Possibilities of the Milikan Rays ............. 259

From a Boston Newspaper  

Television        ................

Home and Health

The Ditua Menace  .................. 274

Two More Aluminum Sackh'ices  

Religion and Philosophy

The Jian at the Top .......

“Open to Considerable Argument’’

The Cardinal's Mistress ....

Blessings of the Service Work

“Blessed are the Peacemakers” .

Faith no Longer Necessary (?)   .........

Ministry or Reconciliation ............... 277

Bible Questions and Answers .............. 286

The Children’s Own Radio Story ............. 287

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Golden Age

Our Debt to Radium Workers

WHEN confronted with radium signs at night, including the dials of our clocks, let us not forget that this convenient form of sign has caused the death of many persons. Among these deaths is that of the inventor of the signs, Dr. von Soehocky.

Big Business as an Entertainer

SEVEN hundred theaters are expected to be included in the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation for joint production of talking pictures by radio, with television entertainment the ultimate probability. It is evident that the time is at hand when virtually all the industries of the world, and even the entertainment of the people, will Toe in the hands of a very few men. The whole thing will be done by machinery.

Possibilities of the Millikan Rays

SPEAKING of the newly discovered Millikan rays, Professor Owen D. Young in a recent address at Albany said: “A microscopic speck of yeast under proper conditions will produce 75 tons of edible food in ten days. What blessings may not the electron and the cosmic rays some day confer on a perishing race when their incredible hidden energy is tapped and brought under control.”

The Man at the Top

THE man at the top is to blame because the people read trash, listen to jazz, swarm to prizefights, make millionaires of men that are unworthy to be polishers of the shoes of honest men, and because millions of them .are now ’disheartened, discouraged, disillusioned and sore. The man at the top is the Devil. Get him out of the way, and get his religion out of the way, and the man below is a good man, disposed to treat his fellow man as he should.

Parents in China Selling Children

T N THE famine district of China, 'which is A now much larger than heretofore supposed, parents are selling their daughters. The price for the pool- creatures runs from $200 in gold downward. Bubonic plague has broken out in the famine-stricken area.

President Gil’s Program

‘PRESIDENT Emilio Portes Gil of the J- Mexican Republic has announced as part of his program that every able-bodied citizen of the republic must work at some gainful occupation eleven months out of every year. If he is able to put this program across it means that plenty of religious and other loafers will have to get out and do some common, ordinary honest work; and oh, how that will hurt them I

Asiatic Reformers Experience Trouble

ASIATIC reformers are experiencing trouble in putting their reforms in operation. Six Persian officials have been killed by Arab tribesmen who did not wish to wear trousers, and Afghanistan farmers resent having their ’wives have any liberty; and so it goes. However, the Afghan women have laid off their veils in the capital of the country, and it is certain the veils will never go back on.

Hungary Suffering Because of Anti-Semitism THE Hungarian Minister of Education has appealed to his fellow citizens to cease their attacks upon the Jews and to give them equal opportunities for education, advancing as a reason for a more enlightened course the fact that Hungary is now discredited in the eyes of the world because of her unjust treatment of the Jewish people, and as a result can not obtain for herself in international conferences the consideration which she desires.

Mechanical Machine Watcher

IT IS claimed that a new invention is of such a nature that it can be attached to a machine, without the knowledge of the operator, and will faithfully report in the office whether or not the man has been away from his job, and for how long, and how many articles have been turned out.

Heavy Taxes of Farmers

THE claim is made that in 1914 the farmers paid in general property taxes in the United States a sum which was roughly equal to two-fifths of the entire wheat crop that year, but that ten years later they paid in general property taxes a sum equal to the total wheat crop.                                            .

Highways Only Started              -

IMPROVEMENT of the highways of America has started, but it is only started, after all. There are even now 2,900,000 miles of recognized highways in the country, but only some 200,000 miles, or about seven percent, are in the national system, with another three percent included in the total of state roads. Nine-tenths of our roads are still mere wagon tracks.

Sixteen-Foot Lens at Pasadena

ONSTRUCTION will begin shortly on a lens for a telescope that will be two hundred inches in diameter. The lens of this telescope, more than sixteen feet in diameter, will be made in Massachusetts and polished near Pasadena, where it is to be installed. This lens will admit four times as much light as any telescope now in use.

Plenty of Work to be Done

EVER fear that humanity will run out of work. There are permanent homes to be built, better and wider roads, bridges by the thousand, electricity must be put in all city and country homes, sanitation must be made a reality, grade crossings must be eliminated, heating and refrigeration are in their infancy, the deserts and rock-strewn wastes must be tamed, and possibly some of the ocean currents may need to be modified. The latter project, contemplated off the shores of Newfoundland, is the greatest task in sight. It has for its objective the detouring of the Labrador current, so that it can nevermore chill the North Atlantic coast.

Ramie Suits Look Like Silk and Wear Like Iron T N A few years now the man who wants to have an elegant-looking suit that will wear indefinitely will ask for ramie cloth. Ramie resembles a good grade of linen, but has a silken luster. It is known that a shirt made of this cloth will last for ten years. The plant grows abundantly in Louisiana.

Insanity in Michigan

INSANITY has increased at such a rate in

Michigan that the state is now $20,000,000 behind in its equipment for caring for the insane and about 2,000 insane and feeble-minded persons who have been committed by the courts to the state hospitals are at liberty because there is no place for them.

Vaccinating New-Born Infants

T T WILL be a shock to some to find that the vaccination craze has now gone so far that Doctor Calmette is vaccinating new-born infants against tuberculosis. Some of the harderheaded ones will wonder why the completion of the job of making human beings ready for the world should have been left in the hands of those who have serums to sell.

One Thousand Kinds of Gas

THE Hague Peace Commission announces that whereas only thirty different kinds of gas existed in the World War, there are now over one thousand. The commission has abandoned all hope of protecting civilians by the use of gas masks, because of the difficulty of making civilians wear them and of the impossibility of fitting all faces.

Must Have Been in the Trenches

NEWSPAPER man in Hattiesburg (Miss.) who must have been in the trenches during

the World War said recently: “When there is a war it is the statesmen who arrange it. The old men quarrel and oblige the young men to fight it out. What a hideous mess 1 Men must abandon their businesses, leave their homes and families, go into filth and vermin and slaughter and die or be butchered alive for thirty dcuars a month apiece, because statesmen haven’t sense enough to get along with statesmen. What about letting the chaps who decree the wars do the fighting?”                           ■

Landlord for 30JDOO Families

LONDON has a landlord for 30,000 families.

This landlord buys old houses a block at a time, repairs them, paints them, installs dressers and ironing boards, teaches his tenants how to care for them, paints the interior walls instead of papering them, and rents them at a profit at as low as $3.25 a week for a five-room flat.

The Way of the Gadarene Swine

T)bime Minister Baldwin, in a speech in A London in behalf of the Kellogg Pact, made the following remarkable statement: “The alternative before us in Europe is very simple and the choice ought to be easy. We must either keep faith with the spirit of the pact we have signed, or in time we must go down the steep place altogether like the Gadarene swine and perish eternally/’ .

Charities of the City of New York

A FTER deducting from the total amount ex-AL pended for charities by the City of New York the sum of about one and a half million dollars which is expended in miscellaneous ways, and is apportioned among the various institutions for help and expenses, there remains the sum of $6,894,900.00 which was actually and directly apportioned to the various charitable institutions of the city. The nine Protestant institutions received a total of $107,100, or about $12,000 each. The twenty-three Jewush institutions received a total of $1,074,000, or about $47,000 each. The thirty-seven city institutions received a total of $1,872,300, or about $50,000 each, and the forty-four Catholic institutions received a total of $3,841,500, or about $87,000 each. Each of eleven of the Catholic institutions received over $120,000, or more than all the Protestant institutions put together.

The Billions of Cigarettes

NOBODY, unless perhaps it might be an advertising man employed by one of the tobacco companies, would claim that the smoking of cigarettes is other than harmful; yet in this country last year there were consumed about ninety-eight billions of these coffin-nails. That means about a thousand cigarettes every year, for every man, woman and child in the country.

The Anglo-French Pact

THE Anglo-French secret pact is virtually an agreement between France and Britain aimed at the United States. It substantially agrees that Britain will back to the limit France’s ambitions for conquest by land while France will back to the limit Britain’s domination by sea. All this is in the face of the four thousand million dollars wrung from the American people and loaned to the French people since the war, and shows the absolute hypocrisy and devilishness of both the French and British governments.

Wheeling and Martin’s Ferry

WOULD you think that in Wheeling the police would drag from the platform a man like Scott Nearing who, with other speakers, was advocating the election of candidates not acceptable to them or to their masters? Would you think that in the nearby town of Martin’s Ferry they would use tear-bombs to accomplish a similar purpose? How hard the police of some cities try to show that at heart they are anarchists and try to prove to all lawabiding men that, in their judgment, that is the only way to get what you want. One would think the police in both these cities would have carefully guarded the halls to make sure that no evil-minded persons should do just what they themselves did.

“Open to Considerable Argument”

npHE editor of the Greensboro (N. C.) Baily

News was somewhat peeved because the preachers of his vicinity abandoned the preaching of the gospel (they did that long ago, but he did not know it) and spent their time and energy preaching against Al Smith. Anyway, here is what he said, after election:

A traveling salesman putting over his line is a thousand times more dogmatic than, the preacher who “sells” the gospel. Even when the preacher comes to you to collect the subscription on his salary, he does not admit that he has given you a run for your money; he merely says “A preacher’s got to live”, a statement which seems to be open to considerable argument.

Nuncupative and Written Wills

A NUNCUPATIVE will is a will made orally in the presence of witnesses and not supported by any written documents, but it is valid in court and is a recognized form of legal disposition of property. Such wills are often made by soldiers and seamen, sometimes when they have but a few moments to live.

Lawyers do not make their living from nuncupative wills; but they do make a large part of it from the other kind; and some of them, it is to be feared, enter the legal profession, or remain in it, looking for the day when, in the disposition of a good-sized estate, a considerable part of it may fall into their hands.

There are as many honest lawyers, probably, as there are honest men in any other profession or business; yet there have been instances where men have gone to lawyers to make their wills and those wills have been so drawn that at the conclusion of the legal proceedings which followed, the lawyer who drew it, or other lawyers, got all there was, and the widow got nothing.

One woman who had been stung by a lawyer remembered him in her will. She said: “I leave to rny faithful lawyer—that he was NOT—a lock of my hair.” The lawyers who participated in the settling up of the Jay Gould estate had the nice little sum of $2,703,635.56 to divide up between them.

It is a difficult piece of wrnrk to write a will so that it will stand all tests; and yet some of the best 'wills are very brief. Nine words on a soiled piece of cardboard, “I leave all my money to my children equally,” proved to be satisfactory in every respect.

Courts are not particular what wills are written on. They have been written on eggshells, coal-bins and bedposts. In one instance a will is said to have been tattooed on the shoulder of an heiress, and remained valid. But the court does want to know that the testator was sane.

An unusual condition came up in connection with the will of an inmate of a Massachusetts state insane hospital. For fifty-three years he had conducted a candy business and done bartering for his fellow inmates and accumulated $8,000. When he attempted to dispose of this sum by will, the point was raised that he was not legally sane, and had paid the state no board; and there was talk that the state might confiscate his life’s earnings.

As everybody knows, the fights over wills are endless. First, there are forged wills to contend with; and then there are wills the provisions of which are never carried out. No doubt many of our readers have inherited lawsuits or opportunities for such.                    ‘

Hundreds of the descendants of the Edwards, Gilbert, Jennings and Anneke Jans families are vainly trying, after the lapse of a hundred and fifty years, to get back property which was leased for ninety-nine years or otherwise got out of their hands in the heart of New York city back in the eighteenth century. They have about as much chance of getting it back as a man has of having a successful flight over the ocean after his plane has been blessed by the pope.

Regard for the Physical Tenement

It is common for testators to indicate some interest in what is to be done with their remains. Joseph, nearly his whole life an Egyptian, and possibly influenced by the Egyptian customs, left a bequest that his body should be Carried back up into Canaan. The heavenly Father showed a regard for the body of His faithful Son. Not a bone of it was to be broken, nor was it ever to suffer corruption. We do not know what became of it.

Lord Byron left bequest that his interment should be in the same vault with that of his faithful dog and without any ceremony or burial service whatever. Requests for cremation are common. Some ask that the ashes be spread on clean ground; a lawyer asked that they be thrown into the waters of the Connecticut River, ‘on which I passed many happy hours in my boyhood.’

Vanity has caused men to leave all their money for monuments to themselves. The same motive caused Queen Anne of Brittany to leave her heart to the city of Nantes, France; . and two museums of that city have a pei _ ^ual quarrel as to who shall have possession. Our ¹ advice is to throw it into the garbage and substitute chicken gizzards; maybe it is a chicken gizzard they are fighting over anyway.

It is not uncommon for men and women to leave thousands of dollars for the care of animals. One man left hundreds of thousands for such a purpose. A Wisconsin woman left $1,500

for the care of one cat. Another woman wrote in her will, "It is my dearest wish that my children be kind to animals.”

Bequests to Relatives

As only one in ten of the human family accomplishes much in the accumulation of property, it is not to be wondered at that each person who dies and leaves anything worth while has about nine needy relatives who are hoping they will not be forgotten when he comes to "shuffle off this mortal coil”. The wife naturally comes first, and deserves to do so.

A jealous man willed $100,000 to his widow provided she stay single. Gouverneur Morris showed his greatness of soul by a provision in his will that if his wife remarried she was to have double the income she would have otherwise. Many men make tributes to their wives in their wills. The term “My Beloved Wife” is one that often appears in such documents.

Some mean men remember the meanness of their wives and go out of their' way to give them a rap. A New York man who gave $17,000 to his housekeeper requested that his wife and son remain away from his funeral. But he remembered them in his will as follows: "I give my wife $1. I make only this provision for her for reasons well known to her and all our friends, and because during our entire married life she has brought me little but unhappiness, and has utterly failed in the realization or performance of the duties and obligations of a wife. I bequeath to my son one penny, to show that I did not forget his presence in the world and because he has proved himself an unduti-ful son.” Did a man with a soul so small deserve to be buried at all?

On the other side of the story is that of ah aged California man. When found dead in a hotel room he had clutched in his hand a bit of verse: "When he is forsaken, withered and shaken, wdiat can an old man do but die?” His will showed that he had been abandoned by his children and left to a lonely old age. He gave $3,500 to he distributed to needy old men. ■

Sometimes a man thinks he is forsaken when he is not. A laborer of Newark, N. J., who thought he had been disinherited by his father, a wealthy Australian rancher, had only to sign his name to a piece of paper to be richer by $38,000. This present reached him on a certain Friday the 13th.

A "woman who disobeyed her grandmother and had her name legally changed to a more euphonic one had her bequest cut down from $30,000 to $500. “What’s in a name,” eh? There was $29,500 in this one.

A man who had been unfair to his wife received a fortune of $45,000 from his sister, but must lose every cent of it unless he returned to his wife. Another sister thought enough of a brother to leave him $10 ‘to buy him a good meal’.                                  ’

A woman left her nephew, 39 years of age, $2,000. to be used for his education. A mother left a six-room house to be divided between a daughter and a son. The daughter was to receive four rooms, and the son to receive two rooms and the lot on which the house stood.

A Boston ■woman left a fortune for her grandchildren; but all were debarred from contracting marriage without the consent of a majority of their parents, brothers and sisters. The forfeited shares were to go to Harvard University.

Bequests to Servants

Why should a man remember his blood relatives and take no interest in those equally near to him, equally needy, and who, perhaps, have been much more faithful and trustworthy than his relatives? George Washington, and many other Southerners, freed their slaves at death, showing that at heart they did not endorse the custom of slavery.

A fifty-five-year-old spinster left her entire estate of $650,000-to her forty-year-old chauffeur and life-long friend. Bequests of various sums to family servants are proper parts of the will of every person of means. Dr. Abbe, famous American surgeon, left $50,000 to his secretary. A New York wholesale grocer left $30,000, to be divided among as many of twenty-two employes as should gather at his grave on the first Memorial Day after his death. Evidently he intended to be remembered one year anyway.

The papers mention a lady who befriended a beggar for twenty years, not knowing that the begging business in America is not such a bad industry. At his death she came in for a bequest of $10,000. An orphan asylum in San Francisco took in a little lad of ten years of age. Fifty-four years later, a successful business man, he gave the institution $2,000,000 in his will.

Dr. E. E. Tull, a former New York surgeon, took a kindly interest in a little eight-year-old girl in Maryland, the daughter of a poor farmer. He wished to adopt the child, but the parents objected. When he died, his entire estate, valued at $1,250,000, was left to the child, with the exception of certain annuities left to faithful servants.

Bequests to Religion

It is well known that “religion” (the practice of certain forms and ceremonies supposed to honor the Creator, but really designed to furnish jobs to those who prefer easy work) would die out instanter except for the money wheedled out of the sick and dying. Women are easy victims of this scheme.

Once in a while the pressure put on the dying is so raw and done so crudely that the courts step in and undo it. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin upbraided as “ghoulish” the work of Methodist ministers in that state who induced Francis C. Walker, of Douglas County, to change his will just before his death and leave his $40,000 estate to a Methodist Hospital at Rice Lake instead of to his relatives.

A priest in Connecticut was rebuked at the same time for a similar piece of work done in the Nutmeg State. Practically one-half the $3,000,000 fortune of John Whalen, lawyer, banker and former corporation counsel, was left to Cardinal Hayes. The will was made three days before the death of the testator and was signed by his mark, he being too weak to sign his name. The priest who got away with that was certainly on to his job and deserves to be made a Bish Hop. Maybe he is, by this time; for that was a year ago.

Thomas Paine, although commonly considered an atheist, bequeathed his soul to God. A Spanish writer, Don Francisco Maslleria, said : “I will it to the devils, if they want it and are clever enough to get it.”

A Briton who died last year, and who must have had some bitter experiences with the English church and surely had a glimpse of the truth, said in his will:                      .

I strictly forbid my body or ashes to be taken into any church, chapel or other so-called place of worship whatsoever, and I also strictly forbid any so-called religious service to be said over my remains . . . I solemnly charge my wife, who failing, my executors, to see to it that none of my children are ever confirmed according to the rites of the English Church under the age of 21 years, after which they can decide for themselves as to their religious views or procedure. I am profoundly convinced that the presentday religious beliefs and teaching and preaching are not only erroneous, and, in fact, pernicious, but a blasphemy upon the Name of the great Architect of the Universe, and calculated to lead children especially astray ... I sincerely hope that no well-meaning but misguided individual will waste any time in praying for me as a lost soul, because I die perfectly happy as to my future, knowing that God is a loving, just and merciful being, not a monster of vengeance, jealousy, and pettiness, as the parsons portray him to be.

The best will ever made -was the nuncupative will of the Savior of men: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” What better legacy could anybody have than that?

This Happened in Saskatchewan (Maybe) By Tlws. C. Milliken

A JEW by the name of Isaac became converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The priest said to him, after sprinkling him with holy water and pronouncing some Latin words, “Thou shalt from henceforth no longer be called Isaac, but Maclsaac.”

Some time afterward the “holy father” decided to visit his new convert. It was a Friday morning. Upon entering the house, “his reverence” began to sniff. “What are you cooking, Maclsaac?” said he.                    .

“Fish,” said Maclsaac.

The priest took a few more sniffs and then, walking deliberately to the oven, opened the door and beheld a duck half cooked. Turning to Maclsaac he said, “How dare you violate the rules of our holy church by eating duck on Friday?”

“Oh,” said Maclsaac, “I sprinkled some holy water upon it and said a few Latin words over it and then said, ‘Thou shalt from henceforth no longer be called duck, but haddock.’ ”

I can not remember what happened next, but if I am not mistaken the priest had dinner at that house.

By J. A. Bohnet

.’/hat is a forest fire ? It must He seen to be appreciated. It can not be adequately described, unless one should term it a “hell’s afire”; for nothing short of that expression could rightly impress the mind. It is woods afire many times multiplied and magnified. It is terrible; beyond expression; dreadful beyond comparison; dangerous, destructive and costly. Its roar can be heard five miles away.

When a forest fire just breaks out and is seen from a distance of ten to twenty miles, a dense yellowish dark-brown smoke arises thousands of feet in huge volume above the forestry, making an enchanting sight to behold as it steadily increases in volume and density, spreading itself over miles and miles of territory until it effectually darkens the air and land and hides the sun.

As this cloud of smoke goes farther and farther to leeward it changes to blueness and evenness over all the land. One can not then see the distant wooded hills and mountains. The snowcapped peaks are lost in the blue haze. The air looks as blue as the natural sky in normal times. One now sees only those objects within two miles’ distance, and these more or less indistinctly. The tourist is disappointed, yet knows not what he missed. He can go back to his eastern home and tell his people what he did not see.                       .

Now, as to the forest fire: Imagine a sea of fire ranging from two to ten feet in height and a line of it extending from half a mile to ten or twenty miles sweeping everything in its path except rocks and 'water, often climbing forty or fifty feet up the bark of a dead tree trunk and staying with that snag until it falls to earth and is consumed or partly consumed by the fiery element.

One could not penetrate that wall of flame sheathed in wet blanket. Its intense, heat would turn you back, if indeed the dense smoke and deadly fumes did not suffocate ere you had yet gotten to it.

During the mad rush through the fallen timber-land its heat current lifts aloft blazing embers that are carried by the breeze far in advance of the roaring fireline, only to start another fire which in turn rushes up the timbered mountainside at a terrific rate and sends on ahead of it other fiery embers to ignite yet more places for destruction.

Talk about fighting such a demon of devasta-

tion! Far, far in advance men are clearing a wide path in the hope or expectation of halting the fire on that line. At times the effort succeeds. At other times the wind carries a fire brand beyond the cleared path, or back-fire, and a desperate effort is put forth to check the blaze before it assumes uncontrollable proportions.

The fire-fighters are in imminent danger of being cut off or surrounded by fire and of suffocation by the smoke. They are men of experience, trained for the work, and are usually poorly paid for the service. It is no child’s play to battle a forest fire. Here and there a blazing tree comes tumbling upon them if they are not watchful.

There is no water obtainable for quenching the irregular line of flame. The work must be done by trenching and clearing the debris in the path of the onrushing fire, and this in the smoke it sends ahead persistently.

Deer, elk, bear, cougar, and all manner of smaller animal life and birds go rushing past the fighter. He sees, but heeds them not; neither give they heed to him—safety first.

There are settler’s slashings through which the fire goes with a mighty roar; flames a hundred feet high. What could check them? In places there has been not a drop of rain in the past four months. In other places none in three months. And in no place has there been any rain in the past two months. '

Yet fruit and crops are not much retarded by this lack of moisture from above. Fruit in these regions is not suffering from drouth, neither is the land croppage in most places. But irrigation is in places depended upon for the crops. In most places there is no irrigation, however.

On many high points are stationed foresters, watchmen, day and night all through the summer months, to report any fresh fires they may discover. There are airplanes, too, but what can fliers do in the dense smoke pall? Very little. Still they are useful for quick reporting where there are no phone lines.

Rain is not expected before some time in September or early October, and none is desired by the fruit growers. Prunes and plums are injured by rains. Oat harvest is on at this time, and also hay-making. There are wild berries in abundance.

Several large sawmills have been destroyed by the forest fires. These mills are equipped to turn out a million feet of sawed lumber daily and are running full force along the streams of water, lakes and oceanside.

The logs are sometimes five feet in diameter and forty feet in length, but mostly from two to three feet in size and twenty feet long. These are chiefly of Douglas fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock. There are some hardwood logs, of course; but these are less plentiful in the big timber districts.

I saw a squared stick of timber four feet by forty, and a piece of timber squared eighteen inches by 154 feet. It is a pity to have such timber destroyed by forest fires, which often start from carelessly discarded cigar and cigarette stumps by thoughtless smokers.

The Cardinal’s Mistress By H. L. Philbrick

I HAVE just waded through this book by Mussolini, written when he was but twenty-six years of age. In it he denounces the clergy as

“Pagans of the decadence masked under the hierarchy of Catholic Christianity—the men who wasted the wealth which the brutalized people had accumulated by their long years of labor—a smile of satisfaction on their sensual lips.”

Then with some caustic descriptions of the gentry who have long professed to be the vicars of Christ in the earth he says that they are as handsome as all this x “Lords with irregular faces, flat foreheads, these old legates who represent two senescent institutions, the papacy and the Empire.”

To the latter we can say truly, openly, loudly, AMEN. The Papacy and the Empire have grown old, very old; and today they are living on stolen time. They are wholly out of order. The question naturally arises: Will the man who knows no competitor for his honors one day rise up and cuff that girl Jezebel so rudely that she just won’t recover? But then, who cares? She is going to expire somewhat ungracefully anyway.                         <

Blessings of the Service Work

IT IS impossible to overstate the blessings that come to those who at this time go out in the service work regularly, provided only that their motive is one of single-hearted desire to do God’s will, to glorify His name, and to sound His praises abroad. Just a few per......sonal experiences.

Out in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, two hours before sundown, the Ford starter broke and all efforts to move the car were futile. It was one mile to the nearest house, and beyond that seven miles to the next one. A careful examination of the state and national maps showed that even if a telephone could be located it would be impossible to tell anybody how to find us. Bears and panthers are occasionally shot in the vicinity.

It was finally agreed that one should go to the nearest house in the hope that the head of the home could diagnose and remedy the trouble with the Ford. As soon as he was out of sight both began praying for help, because the two hours of light were done, and twilight was falling, and no cars passing.

Inside of three minutes a Ford came from each direction, each with two men in it, one the partner who had gone for assistance. In the group of now five persons was an expert mechanic. He removed the starting mechanism, took his pay in books and said he would read . them at once as he was on his way to the mountains for a week-end holiday. He was a Catholic.

The others said, “It is a good thing we came along. This road comes to a blind end. All the farms along it have been bought by the Spring .........Brook Water Company, and there is no traffic over it except to the reservoir. We work for the company and just happened to be here.”

How the Lord Manages Blessings

On another occasion his partner was leaving books in every home, but for some reason the ____editor made no sales. As the afternoon wore away he came to feel sure he would sell no more .__fbat day. There remained one lone man who

Fad promised to take the hooks, but even hope of his keeping the promise had fled. (How the Devil does like to get you down on your back, and roar softly in your ear that vou are licked!)                                  '

The road was excessively rough, even for Pennsylvania. The Ford went in, shivered and came back out, with the report that it was probably not passable..

Meantime, however, we learned that there was an old widow down there, and that she has a radio and listens in to WBBR and enjoys the Judge’s lectures, but that ‘it would be of no use to go to see her, as she would not buy¹; so in we went, knowing from past experience that, when warned not to go to a place, that is a place that must on no account be missed.

The old widow we found to be unquestionably a child of God. She had seen some of the booklets previously and recommended them to her children and grandchildren. She was delighted to have all the books and to provide entertainment for the night. That evening, spent in talking about God’s plans and purposes, was one of the very chiefest blessings of a lifetime.

And then there was the day when we found four farms in a clearing in the midst of a great forest. Two of the families were atheists, poisoned by each other. “Evil communications corrupt”; and it is so. The central home in the community was presided over by a fine type of young woman.

When the books were shown to her she selected The Harp and Deliverance, saying, “I would rather have these than the others, I have heard so much about them over- the radio.” The Lord sold those books and placed them where He wanted them, right where they would counteract the evil influences being scattered by the power of darkness.

Bboobxtn, N, y,

And Finally Grandpa Lyman

And now on the last trip we came to a farmhouse where resides T. B. Lyman, Watch Tower and Golden Age subscriber, and reader of all our literature for twenty years. He was born in 1840, but has no trouble keeping step with the march of present truth. We did not know he was there, but the Lord knew; and when we asked the Lord to send us to the right place to stay over night, it was into his hospitable home that we went. Such entertainment and such a happy home to be in! What a blessing!

We tried to get him out to make a few calls in the service work. He is in favor of it all right, and when he has worked up a little more courage and the weather gets better we hope to have him have a share of the blessings that all may now have.

Understand now, Grandpa Lyman has, been letting his light shine in his neighborhood, and he is not nearly so big a coward as the editor, not nearly, and we feel sure that he only needs a little gentle prodding to get him going. This is the prod, in a way of speaking. We do not need to provoke him to love. He is good at that. We are just provoking him a little along the line of some more good works.

Grandpa Lyman believes in using his head. He has invented a definition of civilization, and because it is a good one, and a novel one, and one to make one think, we reproduce it. “Being civilized is being taught to submit to robbery without resistance.” And if that does not show that Grandpa Lyman has a clear view of the Devil’s organization and the way they do things, please send us a better.

From a Boston Newspaper

IN THE year 1867 a Boston newspaper published the following interesting editorial. It speaks for itself, and it makes us wonder what the people sixty-one years from now will think of the hyenas that butchered Sacco and Vanzetti just because they had made up their minds to do it:                                              .

A man about 46 years of age, giving the name of Joshua Coppersmith, has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires so that it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls the instrument a “telephone”, which is obviously intended to imitate the word “telegraph” and win the confidence of those who know of the success of the latter instrument without understanding the principles on which it is based.

Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires as may be done with dots and dashes and signals of the Morse code, and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value. The authorities who apprehended this criminal are to be congratulated, and it is hoped that his punishment will be prompt and fitting, that it may serve as an example to other conscienceless rogues who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow creatures.

Practical Lessons on the Great Pyramid

A YEAR or two ago the newspapers carried an item to the effect that an international convention of spirit mediums had been called ’ to be held in the “king’s chamber” of the “great pyramid” of Egypt. At the time this seemed like a peculiar act of sacrilege or blasphemy; but in view of recent unfoldings of the truth, as set forth in The Watch Tower, it was quite the normal thing to expect. Why lull yourself to sleep with the exploded dreams of the past?

Years ago the suggestion was made that the unfloored apartments over the “king’s chamber” had some reference to spirit beings. The suggestion may be true, and that the reference is to evil spirit beings, the guides and mentors of all clairvoyants and spirit mediums. The in-habitiveness (desire to live in one place) of ) spirit beings is a matter of common knowledge. Z More recently we had the prognostications ' of one Adam Rutherford, of Glasgow, backed by John Kuehn, Dr. Leslie W. Jones, Dr. A Thornton and a few others, that Armageddon "......would land atop of us May 28 (subsequently

postponed to October 3), and all because Adam claimed to have taken some measurements in or about the “king’s chamber”, which measure.. ments could not be wrong. Why follow men who have shown that they possess a real gift ' for coming to wrong conclusions? The “great pyramid” has made these men seem more foolish than usual.         .

■ - Then came Dr. Mansfield Robinson, spirit medium of London, who made a monkey of himself by paying the British Government to broadcast a message to his big-eared lady - friend, Miss or Mrs. Oomaruru, of Mars. When he sent the dispatch he notified the world that “This is the greatest event in the history of . the human race. It is the big thing foretold in the message of the pyramids.” Unfortunately, he advertised that the Oomaruru dame would send a reply that would startle the world, but it seems that her ear was in the pillow at the time the British Post Office shot out the 18,700-meter wavelength in her direction, and the pyramid slipped another cog.

We do not like to say anything about Morton Edgar. We are sure that for a long time Morton meant all right; but he had the publishing bug and naturally wanted to sell his books. When he tried to ingratiate himself with the Anglo-Israelite crowd by intimating that Almighty God is particularly interested in that humbug, that is where we parted company. Morton has been wasting his time for, lo, these many years. We blame the pyramid.

And now comes a letter to us from “Carl, Doctor Spiritual Mediumship, A Student of the Unknown”. He sends us some of his poems and encourages us to print them by saying, “I have written many philosophies that came and are coming true. I have thousands of newspaper clippings to back them up. I write things and they happen after.”

On his letterhead Carl says: “The Great Change in Progress: The Undeniable Truth: Written in the Silence by a Spiritual Medium: The Eternal Source in spiritual poetry—most wonderful messages ever written. Truth. Something for the World to Think About.” The letterhead contains a picture of Carl floating around in space supported by a couple of rather unstable-looking wings, and down below him the sources of his inspiration, the Sphinx and the pyramids.

Carl tells us confidentially respecting his poems that “I can not find any outlet. My work has been silenced”. All this is very sad, and we mourn too for Adam Rutherford, Morton Edgar, John Kuehn and the three skidders that sport the title “Doctor”; but in bad weather it is better to keep on the chains: you may need them before you get to the top of the hill,

Showed the Veil at the Right Time

Mount Etna said that the cataract of lava was much lower and was evidently slowing up. What a splendid time to get out the veil I

We wonder that the newspapers that print this silly stuff about statues and veils’ stopping volcanic eruptions are able to go to press with

it. One would almost think the presses would be so nauseated they could not run, to say nothing of the effect on proofreaders and copyholders; but still the humbug goes on from generation to generation and is called “faith”.

If there is anything to these statues and veils, why do they not work every time? Why is it that, with such valuable volcano-stoppers in existence, the government allows the volcanoes to erupt? Why not pitch the statues and veils right into the craters when, the volcanoes first show signs of being uneasy and stop it all at the first? Why wait until homes and orchards and villages and towns and cities have been destroyed, and until experts have decided that the volcanoes are slowing down anyway, before trotting out the marble and the silk?

Communism By 'J. Ramsay MacDonald [Reprinted from the New York Times]

COMMUNISM is the native growth of reactionary soil; it is the scraggy and spiky bush that grows up under the political condi-■ tions of dictatorship of an elaborate police and spy system, of exile and political prosecution _: and persecution. Communism in Russia is czar-dom with the victims on the seats of authority, 1 using both Cheka and Siberia for their own pur! poses. As the responsible Government settles r down to handle the practical problems of admin-L istration it departs from this, but the irresponsible revolutionary high priests of Communist doctrines who control the Third International have abandoned no delusions which possessed them when they overthrew the Russian Gov-eminent ten years ago.

This origin of Russian Communism goes down to the roots. Democracy and it can not go together. When its ballot boxes and press ^! and courts of justice are open, it may continue ’ its name, but its spirit and its methods will have changed.

First of all, what can not be done by the ballot box can not be done by a revolution; and, secondly, what is sought to be done by a rev: olution can not be done even if the revolution succeeds. The social and economic problems which ths revolutionist has to face so soon as the revolution has given him power are just those that the successful democratic politician has to face, and they call from the revolutionist the same diplomatic and creative skill as they call from the politician. The Russians found that to be true when they decreed the nationalization of land. The peasants would not have it, and no revolution could impose it upon them. Also, later on, they had to adopt a new economic policy because no revolution could readjust the economic laws of exchange and markets.

Communism here teaches the absurdity that whoever has power can use it just as he likes. .

Communism as a way of effecting social change is a vain show. It brings suffering which it can not compensate; the paralysis which it effects while engaged in its revolution is not followed by a new life; it has to retreat upon the old economic order so that it may begin its creative reconstruction.

It is also curious how the Russian parentage of communism is stamped upon the features of every Communist party in the world. Its method is the revolutionary method under the Czar. Policies have to be plotted in the dark and worked out on secret instructions given to small groups known as “nuclei”. These must be obedient to orders. The Moscow Committee is like the “Secret No. 1” of all conspiracies whose word must be obeyed.

Communism is essentially a conspiracy. The allegiance of the Communist is not to the colleagues with whom he is working, nor to his own judgment. It is to his headquarters. No one, therefore, can work with him comfortably because no one knows what he is. In his pocket are his secret instructions. He is a tool, and tools are impossible colleagues. He is am alien using his enfranchisement in obedience to his foreign control, and an alien puppet can only be cast out.

The old Russian revolutionists of the Kropotkin and Stepniak type were men who took their lives in their hands, .and who accepted the conditions of conspiracy under the shadow of the executioner. Their surrender of liberty was of the heroic kind and the moral reaction was sublime.

That is not the case when the secret plot is against men who live in the open and with whom one is supposed to cooperate. Conspiracy under the conditions of freedom of discussion reacts toward a mean and debased lack of scruple and honor. It selects its tools from the most worthless. The generosities of common action are stifled; the conspirators cease to care who their masters are, provided they find employment, and they use any weapon by which they can do their work.

In stressful times like these they use misery to make more misery and lead their followers to knock their heads against stone walls. They cover their failures by hot words and keep the pursuit after something not yet found by raising will-o’-the-wisp after will-o’-the-wisp. Where they have been trusted with administration they have invariably let their organization down or have fallen back in their impotence upon moderate policies which they gained influence by attacking.

Man the Weaker Sex By H. D. Pitzer

ITEM No. 11, in the News of the Day column of The Golden Age No. 239, on Men’s Abominable Clothing, I read with much amusement. It called to my mind very vividly an experience that I had three or four years ago.

I had noticed that the young ladies were getting away from wearing heavy clothing. I also noticed that they seemed to be getting along a great deal better without it. Whenever I would see a young lady going down the street with low-cut shoes and waists, thin silk stockings, and no other visible protection from the weather, and then take a look at my high-top shoes, heavy undenvear, heavy shirt, heavy suit of clothes, and on top of all this an overcoat that would tax the strength of a mule, it made me feel like a poor weak little consumptive who was about ready for a sanitarium. So I decided that I for one was not going to be outdone by the weaker sex. I decided it, but I changed-my decision. And I will tell you why.

It was on one of those chilly October days. The sun was shining, but its rays were entirely void of any warmth whatsoever, and there was a chilly wind blowing. An aunt of mine had died and was to be buried that afternoon, I hadn’t received word soon enough to arrange to attend the funeral services at the house (as she was being b^wed from h^r home which was several miles aw, _z; so I went to the cemetery and waited for the funeral procession to arrive.

I had to wait for about a half hour; and I want to tell you that I could almost have enjoyed a little trip to a Fresbyterian hell for a while after that half hour was up. Yes, I had left that overcoat at home. No, I hadn’t put on the heavy underwear yet. Yes, my teeth were playing all the popular airs of the day. At last that long-looked-for string of machines came into view. My experience from the time they stopped until they started again was humiliating beyond description.

I found.myself the center of attraction. My knees were playing “Yankee Doodle”; my teeth were playing “My Country ’Tis of Thee”; and every bone and nerve in my body was playing a little tune of its owm. To tell you the truth, I would willingly have changed places with the corpse. There were uncles, aunts and cousins too numerous to mention, all wanting to know if I was sick. They were more or less concerned lest I had suddenly become afflicted with some of the ailments that go with the winter season.

Some wanted to let me have their overcoats; some wanted to take me home in their warm machines; some advised going to a drug store and getting a little peppermint; and all that I could do was stand there like a fool and say “N-n-n-n-n-n-no” to their pleas.

Now, Mr. Editor, when it comes to standing heat, I am there. I have worked in places so hot that if one of the buttons on my jacket were to touch my chin it would almost leave a blister (this in all earnestness and sincerity); but when those chilly little zephyrs begin playing hide-and-seek up and down my spine, I begin to draw up like a toad, and sometimes I get cramped. If there is a mortal (not immortal) being on this earth that hates, to wear an overcoat, I am that one. But I have never gotten up courage enough to try going out without it in cold weather since that memorable day three years ago.

Possibly you might have some suggestions to offer as to how we big healthy men might compete with the fairer sex in putting a boycott on the clothing industry. You know that it costs us more to dress than it does them; and yet we shall have to acknowledge that they generally put on a better appearance than we do.

I trust that this may be a warning to some who are thinking of trying to cut down on their winter clothing bill.

Class Consciousness By A. Bertsch®

VIEWED from a political standpoint, there seems to be a decrease in the ranks of the left wing. Twenty-five years ago large numbers attended the various meetings of the proletarian type. Today the attendance is very small. In 1920 over 5,000,000 people were out of employment, and conditions seemed ripe for a social crisis. The people, however, even in their voting, acted conservatively, and there was no apparent growth along radical lines.

Undoubtedly the war for a time forestalled the impending battle of the classes. Production of war materials gave employment to all, and with a market for her goods America prospered materially. This inflated production is now no longer necessary and America is once more forced to find markets for her surplus products. As unemployment grows America becomes more imperialistic and unjust in her relations with -weaker nations.

Modern machinery, so much used in America, has reached the point where it has become a menace to labor, under our present capitalistic mode of production. Conditions are very bad in parts of the country. In parts of the West the government has found it useless to try collecting taxes.

With the increase of unfavorable conditions of the laboring class there comes a question. Why is the laboring man so conservative? He does not attend meetings that espouse his cause. He votes for men who care nothing comparatively about his welfare. He works under conditions that are prejudicial to his well-being.

There seem to be several reasons for his passive state. In the matter of voting, it is quite generally known that in some places the refusal to vote a certain way leads to a dismissal. The refusal to listen to revolutionary speeches seems to be because of a new spirit among the Workers.

In the past, when the employer had a grievance against his help the result was strikes and lockouts. Today the boss understands psychology, and employs it to the worker’s detriment. A single case may be illustrated to show how this works out. The worker is allowed to buy stock in the company where he works. He then becomes in his mind a capitalist. He cares nothing about anything that will affect his dividends.

If necessary to safeguard his interests along this line, he will suffer a reduction in wages. The result is that in some cases, the reduced wage, together with his dividends, just makes the amount of the wages he received prior to his becoming a capitalist. This is a subterfuge practised by the boss to keep the 'worker quiet and on the job. The worker with Iris few shares of stock still has to work for his daily wage, and his chances of being independent of his job are just as far off.

In view of the fact that with the great unemployment of 1920 there was no crisis, it might be thought that the worker will always act the same. This thought is not justified, and a single illustration of the past will show it wrong.

Conditions in the world today bear a close similarity to those of the period preceding the French Revolution. This revolution was brought about by the workers, who could no longer tolerate the social regime. In other words, regardless of whether there was class consciousness or not, the evils of society forced the people of France to act.

Today there is an increasing number of conflicts between capital and labor. The struggle grows more keen, each side fighting every concession. America, with seeming prosperity, is unstable. The surface manifestation of the unrest among the wage earners is seen in the increasing crimes and suicides.

The worker of today, dissatisfied as he is, can not be credited with class consciousness.

That there will be an awakening among the peo-. pie that will precipitate a conflict seems very probable. The careful student of the capitalistic mode of production must see that under it war is inevitable. Just what will set off the torch of revolution is noi al this time apparent. There seem to be a great many causes working toward this end. We may be assured, however, that when the Lord predicts an Armageddon, then it will come to pass.

Television Bt/ A. Berry (England)

DURING the last century many wonderful scientific inventions have been brought forth, particularly, we might say, during the last fifty years. If our ancestors could come back from the sleep of death and see us travel by motor car, bus, or aeroplane, or if they could see us as we listen in, while sitting by our fireside, to music or lectures being broadcast to us from many miles distant, they would exclaim, “It is indeed a new world!”

But science promises us still another wonder, that of television. One writer describes it thus: “Television, to put it briefly, is a reproduction of sight. It enables us to see the image of any object on a receiving screen just as it would appear to the eye of an actual observer on the spot. Seeing by wireless is the popular title given to it, but television means seeing by telegraphy, either with or without wires.”

Is not this latest wonder still another evidence that we are living in a new ■world? It is said that for fifty years scientists from various countries have tried to solve the problem of television, and according to an article in a London paper, the problem has now been solved by Mr. John L. Baird, an English scientist of thirty-five years of age.

The same newspaper states that within a few months television sets will be on sale for home use at the cost of about £30 each. It further states that every claim made by Mr. Baird has been proven beyond doubt, and also that it is possible, by means of the televisor, to see any object or person in to. ' Erkne? .

The above statement brings the thought to the intelligent mind that “the hidden things of darkness” can be revealed in more ways than one. Not only is the gross darkness of the Devil’s empire being made manifest by the light now being shed abroad through the returned Lord, but literal darkness can be penetrated, too. All this brings us back to the great fact that we live in the days of the second presence of Christ, and that His lightnings are enlightening the world.

Mr. R. F. Tiltman, writing on television, states that we shall “look in” upon our television screen and witness scenes and events at a distance. Simultaneously we shall be able to “listen in” to the radio and “see in” on our television to the scene we are hearing of or the speaker we are listening to.

Surely these -wonders are being shown to man for his use in the golden age, which is now being ushered in. When that age of blessing is fully come, we can well imagine the peoples of the earth “listening in” and “seeing in” with rapt attention, while Abraham, Isaac or Jacob or other of those faithful men of old, who will then be appointed by the Messiah as princes in all the earth, expounds the .law of God and instructs them in the way that leads to life and happiness in harmony with Jehovah.

All those who hear and obey will obtain perfect life on earth, and every creature in the universe, whether in heaven or in earth, will render thanks and praise to Jehovah for His loving-kindness to the human race, His earthly creation, when that glorious age is complete.

Now That Flying Has Come

£)ON’t worry. Relax, settle back and enjoy life. If there’s any worrying to be done, let the pilot do it; that’s what he’s hired for.

The pilot always takes off and lands into the wind. Be patient while the plane taxis to the corner of the field before taking off. The luxury of flying doesn’t appear until you begin to use the third dimension.

The pilot always banks the plane when turning in the air. Just as a race track is banked at the corners, so an airplane is tilted when making a perfect turn. Take the turns naturally with the plane. Don’t try to hold the lower wing up with the muscles of the abdomen—it’s unfair to yourself and an unjust criticism of your pilot.

The atmosphere is like an ocean. It supports the plane just as firmly as the ocean supports a ship. At the speed you are traveling, the air has a density practically equivalent to water; to satisfy yourself, put your hand out of the window and feel the tremendous pressure. That ever-present pressure is your guarantee of absolute safety.

The wind is similar to an ocean current. At flying levels it is usually as regular as a great, smooth-flowing river. You can study its direction by watching the shadows of clouds on the country below, or the smoke from chimneys. Once in a while the wind is gusty and rough, like the Gulf Stream off the coast of Florida. These gusts used to be called “air pockets”, but they are nothing more than billows of warm and cool air and nothing to be alarmed over.

The air-pressure changes with altitude. Some people have ears that are sensitive to the slight change in air density at different altitudes. If so, swallow once in a while, or breathe a little through the mouth, so that the pressure on both sides of the ear-drums will be equalized. If you hold your nose and swallow, you will hear a little crack in your ears, caused by the suction ofi air on the ear-drums. Try it.

Dizziness is unknown in airplanes. There is no discomfort in looking downwards while flying, because there is no connection with the earth; only a sense of confidence and security, similar, perhaps, to what birds feel. Follow the route on the map, and identify the places you pass. Owing to the altitude, you may think you are moving very slowly, although the normal flying speed of the Stout-Ford plane is 95 miles an hour.

When about to land, the pilot throttles the engine, preparatory to gliding down to the airport. The engine is not needed in landing, and the plane can be landed perfectly with the engine entirely cut off. From an altitude of 2,500 feet it is possible to glide with engine stopped, to any field within a radius of 4 miles. Under no occasion attempt to open the cabin door until the plane has come to a full stop.

The Drug Menace By Walter F. Lineberger, M. C.

JT IS hardly necessary to point out to you that this problem is challenging all nations and has become serious and urgent. Take the situation in America, for instance. In 1919 the special survey of the Treasury Department reported the number of addicts in the United States as exceeding 1,000,000, and increasing. In the February, 1925, issue of Current History, Fred A. Wallis, Commissioner of Corrections, New York city, says, “Of all the plagues visited upon our land, drug addiction is by far the most horrible and the most deadly. . . . The increase in narcotics has been accompanied by an increase in crime. . . . Heroin changes a misdemeanant into a desperado of the most vicious type. . . . Sixty percent of the inmates in all penal and correctional institutions of New York city are users or sellers of drugs. .. . There must be in the greater city of New York close to 200,000 drug addicts of the underworld type. . . . There are many more of whom nothing is officially known.”

The health officer of Chicago, investigating cause of crime there, found drug addiction alarming among the youth of both sexes. Last year the Assistant U. S. Attorney-General reported that more than forty percent of all prisoners being convicted in Federal Courts were addicts and that the number is increasing. Judge McAdoo of the New York City Courts estimates that of the thousands of addicts who have appeared before him, ninety-eight percent were below the age of thirty and ninety-eight percent were heroin addicts. The heroin addict is inherently a recruiting agent and soon recruits a gang. The members of this gang in turn soon start recruiting other gangs.

It is Better to be Cautious

A GIRL in Ohio, not realizing Jiat a railroad train at sixty miles an hour traverses eighty-eight feet every second, foolishly wagered a companion as to ■which could remain longer on the track in front of an onrushing train. She won the bet, with a broken collar-bone, a fractured rib and internal injuries from which she may not recover.

Europe in Time of Peace By E. Roffe Thompson [Reprinted from the magazine John Bull, London.]

SIX weeks ago the representatives of fifteen nations met in solemn conclave in Paris, and, with a golden pen, signed the Peace Pact. They put their signatures to a declaration that defied quibble or wriggling:

The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts, of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.

Six weeks ago—and what has happened since? France is going to spend £12,200,000 more on armaments in the next twelve months than she did last year.

She spent £73,000,000 last year. Now she is going to spend £85,200,000. The French Minister for War declares that France will match Italy’s frontier fortifications “gun for gun”.

All along the German frontier she is going to build a great concrete and steel wall, with subterranean store-rooms, nests of machine-guns and batteries of anti-aircraft guns.

Only six weeks ago—and Germany is testing a new device to make towns invisible from the air by creating artificial clouds of fog. The Pact was America’s own idea—yet in America preparations are being made to force a big programme of naval construction on the country.

We ourselves have just had all the feverish activity of mimic warfare and sham battles before the ink of Lord Cushendun’s signature to the Peace Pact was barely dry.

Listen to Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and dare to say that he is not speaking God’s own truth:

The history of 1906 to 1914 is rewriting itself. Every negotiation which has taken place since 1924 had been between nations each one of whom assumed that war was going to break out and no one of whom was going to give anything away which would worsen its position in the event of war.

Generals and admirals, military and naval experts, all the people whose jobs depend on keeping war alive, are sent to Geneva to talk peace! What an unholy farce I

All the time military and naval preparations go feverishly on, armaments are steadily accumulated, and war is being prepared with all the old poison of diplomatic “understandings”, and secret commitments and agreements.

Any idea of disarmament has been definitely abandoned. There have been 407 meetings—■ and they have produced nothing.

On all. hands the production of cruisers, submarines, aeroplanes, tanks, and poison-gas is being speeded up by the nations who have agreed to seek by none but pacific means the solution of all disputes of whatever nature and whatever origin.

Two More Aluminum Sacrifices

en crock; apple pie baked in tin plate. Other food consisted of coffee boiled in granite pot, bottled milk, bread, butter and grape jelly.”

It will be seen from the foregoing that the principal item of food for the family was beef and cabbage boiled in an aluminum kettle. We wonder how many more of these “mysterious poisonings” there must be; how many fathers and mothers made ill; and how many babies slain before the government takes a hand in this thing and prevents this unnecessary slaughter. We wonder, too, how much chance there is of the government’s ever taking a hand in the thing so long as the principal officers and stockholders in the aluminum trust are such an important part of the government itself and have such power to control its activities.

“Blessed Are the Peacemakers”

NO ONE can have any respect for a man who was a coward and hypocrite twelve years ago and •who now comes out and denounces the cowardice and hypocrisy of those times without shamefacedly admitting that he was one of the guilty ones. The remedy for cowardice and hypocrisy is courage and honesty.

We do not know where Rev. Dr. Karl Rei-land, of St. George’s Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, stood during the World War, but we can guess; and therefore we are interested in but not impressed by his address to the students of Yale University, November 18, 1928, in which he is alleged to have said:

Newspaper reports of Armistice Day sermons last week furnished a striking contrast to the pulpit utterances of a dozen years ago. During the war Jesus was a militarist and the Bible was a manual at arms. “Fight the good fight with all thy might,” and “The Son of God goes forth to war” were the hymns appropriate to enemy hate, lying propaganda, liberty loans, conscription and the damnation of the pacifist.

Jesus was made a general in the army or was given a uniform, a belt of cartridges and a gun and conscripted to bless the whole undertaking from all sides.

Last week, however, revealed a radical reversal of the ministerial militancy of that decade. -The peace pact of Paris seems to have been the favorite theme for discussion, with its proposal to abolish war and settle international disputes by pacific means.

It is a remarkable thing to have happened in ten years. And now that the governments have taken action, the church, with its customary faculty for coming up when it is all over, will second the motion.

Another strange thing is happening. The pacifist is being made honorable. During and since the war a prominent ecclesiastic made a great many speeches in which he referred to the pacifist as one who “dispenses poison gas from the rear”. It was not a very elevating reference to a profession now being elevated to honor. One of the great beatitudes is now becoming a preferential text: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. ’ ’

We add a few words. Because they could have prevented the World War, and did not, the clergy are responsible for the death of ten millions of the flower of earth’s manhood. Thus, in God’s sight, they are the greatest murderers that ever lived. By far the greatest. And “No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him”.—1 John 3:15.

During the World War they wanted the government to murder the pacifists; and even now they would murder those who were then pacifists and who are now teaching the truth about the Devil and the Devil’s organization, of whom the clergy are the duly chosen ministers and official representatives.

How shameless now for them to intimate that they are now and always were faithful followers of and ministers to the Prince of Peace!

• Faith No Longer Necessary (?)

ON NOVEMBER 4, 1928, at Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Russell Evans, 30, of Republic, was ordained a minister in the Christian Church. He is the first man in the history of Christianity to be elevated to the ministry without theological cross-examination.”

According to the statements of those 'who “elevated” him: “Such questions as to belief in the virgin birth of Christ, the divinity of Christ and the inspiration of the Scriptures are not fair questions and should not be asked.” The further statement was made that “unquestionably, other young men will be ordained in this church. Tonight we broke a precedent of all Christendom. We shall not step backward. We will not ask questions that we know before asking can not be answered.”

It is just as •well that these institutions should admit that they have no faith, that they stand for nothing, and that they have no requirements for either the ministers or the people. It had to come to it sooner or later, and it might as well be now as any other time.

It seems that in this case, “Evans was admitted to the ministry, after adequate academic preparation, upon the knowledge of his own Christian character held by the elders of the church, and his own sense of an inner call to the ’ mistry.”               •

Unuv ■‘‘hose circumstances it would seem that a good Jew, Mohammedan, Confucian, Buddhist, Shintoist, Brahman, Animist or Atheist would be eligible for the Christian ministry and that annointments are now in order.

2T3

Ministry of Reconciliation

[Broadcast from Station WBBR, New York, by Judge Rutherford.]

IT IS my privilege this morning to resume the series of lectures concerning reconciliation of man to God. Briefly I refer to the subjects heretofore considered in this series that my audience may more readily comprehend my argument this morning. .

God created Adam, the first man, a perfect creature. He told Adam that to obey God meant to live, and to disobey Him meant death. Adam disobeyed and was sentenced to death. While undergoing the sentence his children were born; therefore all men have been born out of harmony with God. If man is ever to get peace and happiness he must be reconciled to God. God has permitted a long period of time to elapse between the creation and the restoration of man. In that time men have had the opportunity of learning by experience the effects of evil. They must now learn the great good resulting from obedience unto God.

God promised redemption and reconciliation of man to Himself. As a basis for such reconciliation there must be a vicarious atonement. There must be a voluntary sacrifice of a perfect human being. The Son of God was made a man for this purpose, and by His death and resurrection became the Redeemer of all mankind. God then takes into this covenant by sacrifice with His beloved Son the faithful and obedient followers of Christ Jesus. Christ and His body members became the instruments of God to bear His message of reconciliation to the people.

This morning we are considering particularly the subject, the Ministry of Reconciliation. This specifically involves the question of the commission of the church while on the earth.

Jehovah’s expressed purpose is that all men shall in His due time be brought to an accurate knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. 2:3-6) This must be done after the ransom is provided by the great sacrifice of Jesus. During the time that others are being taken into the covenant by sacrifice a testimony of the truth is given. When that covenant by sacrifice is finished even a greater testimony will be given, that all may have opportunity to know the truth.

During the period of time from the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus until His second coming and kingdom what has been and is the will of God concerning the work that is to be done by Christians on the earth? That question is an important one and finds full and complete answer in the Scriptures alone. If an answer given is not supported by the Scriptures it will be confusing and harmful.

Confusion

The true mission of a Christian on earth is stated by the apostles in plain phrase. Those faithful followers of Jesus Christ adhered to the teachings of Christ and that which God gave also through His holy prophets. Had all professed followers of Jesus pursued a like course there would have been no confusion at this time. Seeing that Satan the enemy has caused men to misrepresent the fundamental doctrines of God’s Word, it might be expected that Satan would cause confusion as to the proper duty and course of the Christians while on earth. This is exactly what has come to pass.

The Roman Catholic church claims to be the church. In brief, it teaches that all men fell under sin and are headed for eternal torment; that the mission of the church is to save souls from that terrible fate, and that to do so the church was organized; that through the work of the clergy in the sacrificing of the mass and by prayers and by penances souls are released from purgatory and saved from torment and eventually taken to heaven, and all others not thus saved must spend eternity in torment.

Certain companies of Protestant systems, by and through their clergy, hold and teach that some people are elected to salvation and happiness and all others destined to eternal torment; that even those who are elected to salvation must exercise some faith and that such faith comes by reason of hearing a message deliv-v oy the 'lergy; and that the mission of the church is to warn even the favored ones to escape eternal torment and to tell the*others who are less fortunate what is their fate.

Another branch of the Protestant system teaches that there is a great controversy on between God and the Devil as to which one will get the greater number of the human family; that God is, and for centuries has been, agonizing with sinners to accept the message delivered to them by the clergy and be saved and taken to heaven; that all others who do not thus hear and obey must spend their eternity with the Devil in torment.

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I iij Other professed Christians hold that Chns-il'il tianity is a religion distinguished from other illjl religions; that while some may be saved by other religions, the Christian religion is the best; and that the mission of the Christian church is to send out preachers to preach to the people the doctrines taught by the church, that the people might be brought into the church 1and thus be saved. They teach that millions of heathen who have died without ever having heard of the Christian religion will be saved in some way, they know not how. They further teach that if those heathen who do hear should refuse to heed and obey the message delivered by their professed Christian church, they will be lost. When asked to explain why, then, they take their message to the heathen, if the heathen might be saved without hearing it and are certain to be lost if they do not heed, they are at a loss to give any explanation.

A fair sample of what the churches and their preachers claim to be the mission of a Christian i while on earth may be had from the following statement written by a distinguished clergy-I || man, and appearing in Volume Two, Standard j American Encyclopedia, under the title “Christianity”, to wit:

। Christianity is preeminently the religion of redemp-' I tion and of the Redeemer. It has introduced to the 'I world the great reparative influence of a victorious I love, inaugurating in Jesus himself an unceasing struggle; for that reparative influence must' struggle constantly against the powers of evil which are not ! magically suppressed. But this reparative work cannot consist alone in the salvation of individual souls; to be worthy of God it must strive to restore all that the original fall has blighted or destroyed—to make the fallen creature realize all its lofty destiny—that is to say, to reconstitute in man all the greatness kept | in store for him, and to give him up without reserve ^! to God, making the regenerating spirit penetrate into _; । every sphere of his activity as into all his faculties.

Hence the wide mission of Christianity to purify and I raise everything that is human in the most diverse spheres of society, from the institutions which regulate the relations of men to each other to the highest I culture of the intellect.

This restoration of man after the divine type is the j continuation and application of the redemptive work ;j { of Christ which, after having had for its first intent iij to form in the church a society of believing souls, li| pardoned and saved, called to work directly for the ill salvation of all that is lost, next radiates outward into Ji all the departments of human activity. It is in this ill enlarged sense that we must understand the kingdom of God which the Savior came to found in our sinful world, and of which the progress goes on only at the price of incessant struggle which will continue to the end of time. But this general advance of the kingdom of God in its widely human extension is always proportionate to its internal development within his church, which keeps and cherishes the central hearth of the divine life whence emanate all light and heat.

By the time a person considers all these conflicting claims he is so confused that he does not know what to believe. Babylon is one of the names applied to the Devil’s organization. It properly applies to every part of his organization, as well as to the whole. The term therefore is sometimes applied to so-called organized Christianity, which misrepresents the Lord and confuses the people. Jesus thus spoke of this unholy system, designating it as “Babylon”, and states that it has become the habitation of devils and the hold of every foul spirit, and calls upon true Christians to come out therefrom.—Bev. 18:2-5.

Many clergymen, because of their inability to harmonize these conflicting claims when confronted by an inquirer, reply: ‘Believe what you please. It makes no difference, just so you belong to the church. Our mission is to develop character that we may be ready to go to heaven, and you can do that as well in one church as you can in another.’

It is manifest from these confusing statements of the clergy that they have no conception whatsoever of the mission of the Christian while on earth. Instead of having the right understanding they have used Christianity for a selfish purpose. These denominations fight amongst themselves and yet they all unite to fight against the truth. It is manifest from.the facts, in the light of the Scriptures, that these confusing statements are not an expression of divine wisdom but that they proceed from the Devil. “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.”—Jas. 3:15-18.

The fact that the claims made by the clergy concerning the mission of a Christian are numerous, conflicting and confusing, and not un-

JANUABT 23, 1929 derstandable, is conclusive proof that what they answer does not proceed from God but emanates from the enemy Satan. “'For God is not the author of confusion.” (1 Cor. 14:33) Every sincere Christian should earnestly desire to ascertain what is God’s will concerning a Christian while on earth, as well as hereafter. He will find that wisdom which proceeds from the Lord is pure, peaceable, gentle, and full of good fruits.

True Mission

A Christian is one who is anointed by Jehovah through Christ Jesus and who is therefore a follower of Christ. Jesus Christ is the Head of all true Christians, and therefore the true Christians constitute members of His body. (Col. 1:18) “Church” means called out ones. Jesus is the Head of the church. It is God who has set the members of the church in the body as it pleases Him; and it is God who clothes the church with authority, both the Head and the members thereof. (1 Cor. 12:12-14) It follows then, that the only way to ascertain what is the proper work of Christians while on earth is to ascertain what work Jesus did while He was on. earth and what He commanded the body members to do.

Many have claimed to accept Christianity because they believed it to be better than some other religion. In this they have been wrong. Christianity is not a religion. Religion is an outward form or ceremony by which man indicates his recognition of the existence of a supreme power. All peoples have some kind of religion. True Christians are not given to forms and ceremonies, but seek through God’s Word to ascertain His will and, learning it, they do His will without regard to time, place or conditions. When Jesus was on the earth He never indulged in formalism nor performed any ceremonies. He ate the passover, not as religious formalism, but for the purpose of showing the picture which foreshadowed the reality of the great sacrifice, which sacrifice He made of Himself. His followers observe annually the memorial of His death, not as a formalism, but to keep in memory the purpose of His death. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their outward formalism.—Matt. 23:13-29.

Even in these latter days, when consecrated ones have learned that the doctrine of eternal torment and kindred doctrines are false, even as Satan himself, they look upon the heavenly calling of a Christian from a very narrow viewpoint. They say: ‘How glad we will be when we can escape the trials and woes of this wicked world and be taken to our eternal home in heaven, there to bask in the sunshine of God’s love? The faithful performance of their divinely-given commission is scarcely ever thought about. They say: We must develop character and get ready to go to heaven.’

There is no record in the Scriptures that Jesus ever bemoaned His condition on earth or claimed He wanted to get away from the trials and woes of the wicked world and go to heaven. Never at any time did He say anything about developing character that God might take Him to heaven. It is true that He prayed to His Father to glorify Him with the glory which He possessed before He came to earth, but that was after His work on earth had been completed. He did not even request the great reward of immortality. It is true that the Christian has the hope of immortality set before him and rejoices in this hope; but if that alone constitutes the inducing cause for him to be a Christian he is coming far short of that which God purposed for him.

Jesus said He came to earth because His Father sent Him. “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the wi¹¹ of him that sent me.” (John 6:38) am comt in my Father’s name.” (John 5:43) He did not come to magnify His own name nor to shine amongst men. (John 5:20) He came to earth to work’ and He was always diligent in doing that work. He said: “I must work the works of him that sent me.” (John 9:4) Furthermore He said: “The Son of man came not to be ministered] unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”—Matt. 20: 28.

The clergy claim to be ministers, but they always desire some one to minister to them. God foretold this through His prophet. (Isa. 56: 10,11) Jesus «said He came to minister. A minister is one who is clothed with power and authority to represent a higher power or authority and who attends to the duties of his office and renders service. He is the representative of a government or power. He is an ambassador performing service in his official capacity. His authority is limited by the commission received from the one appointing him. Ministry means the act of serving in harmony

with the delegated power or authority. It is the act of performing the duties or functions of the office of a minister. Ministry of the Christian therefore means the act of serving in harmony with the power and authority delegated to such by the great Jehovah God.

The Commission

Those whom God anoints with His spirit He commands to do His work. The commission of authority which He bestows upon Christians is *set forth in His Word: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”—Isa. 61:1-3.

Jesus read this commission in the presence and hearing of others and applied it to Himself. (Luke 4:18-21) All the body members receive the same anointing through the Head and are called upon to do a similar w’ork to that which Jesus did. (2 Cor. 1:21;-1 Pet. 2:21) When Jesus had finished His work on earth and was about to take His official departure from His disciples, He said to them: “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” (John 20: 21) “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy spirit.” (Matt. 28:19) This proves that God has a work for Christians to do while on earth, and they can not be idle and yet please the Lord. That work consists in telling the truth concerning God and His plan for the reconciliation of man to God.

After Jesus had ascended into heaven the apostles realized that they had a work committed to them which they must do. They immediately set about to seek some one to put in the place of Judas who had been given a part in the ministry and who had forfeited that right. (Acts 1:17, 25) Later Paul was chosen as one of the apostles to bear the name of the Lord before the nations. (Acts 9:15) He did the w’ork committed unto him even though there was much opposition. He said: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” —Acts 20:24.

Paul was anointed as a member of the body of Christ. All true Christians are likewise anointed by the spirit of Jehovah as members of the body of Christ. All such are called to the heavenly calling. Addressing these Paul says to them: “Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.”—Heb. 3:1, 2.

That admonition is to the effect that Christians while on earth are to give attentive heed to the things which Jesus did and go and do likewise. The fact that the apostle calls upon Christians to consider Christ Jesus, is of great importance. Jesus was on earth charged with the ministry of God’s Word.. He was God’s Apostle and Ambassador. Pie declared that the Word of God is the truth and that He must tell it to Those who wmuld hear. He said: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (John 18:37) That which the Apostle ■ Paul emphasizes in connection with the ministry of Christ Jesus is that He was faithful to God, who appointed Him as His minister. (Heb. 3:2) When He had finished His work on earth He received the high title, “The Faithful and True Witness.” (Rev. 3:14; 19:11) Those who will gain the prize of joint-heirship in heaven must likewise be faithful unto God in the performance of the work given them to do.—Rev. 2:10.                                                   ;

Ministers of God                                  !

The anointed ones are God’s ministers, there- j fore God’s servants. Each one is a servant or : steward, and all the faithful ones collectively j constitute the Servant of God, of which Christ Jesus is the Head. (Isa. 42:1) Many a man has been turned away from God and from His faithful service because he thought more highly of himself than he should think. That was due to f Satan’s interference. That enemy plants seeds of pride in the mind of man. Man becomes im- I pressed with his own importance. He begins J to desire and receive the plaudits of men. He forgets God and looks upon himself and deems himself important. He then becomes haughty, austere and proud. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Prov. 16:18) He soon falls to the blandishments of the enemy and ceases to be God’s minister.

Then others coming to a knowledge of the truth are induced to look upon men who have preceded them as great. They look forward to the time when they themselves may be great and receive the praises of men. Tjiey praise men who have been their leaders and forget God and their obligations to their covenant to do ' God’s will. Seeking honor and glory.for self or glorifying men, they fall into the snare of the Devil. They begin to think their personal appearance is important, to wear a special garment to attract the attention of others, to sit on the platform and fold the hands and strike an attitude of devotion to be seen of men, to assume a pious face and sanctimonious voice to be seen and heard of men. To do such things is to forget one’s real commission and to fall into the snare of the enemy. To sing the plaudits of men who are teachers or leaders tends to turn the mind away from God and from His service. The attempt to be man-pleasers leads one into the snare of the enemy.

The true servant or minister of God seeks always to faithfully represent God and to please Him. Paul did not sing the praises of other men, nor did he seek to exalt himself in the eyes of men. He said: “Let no man glory in men.” “Glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 3: 21; 6: 20) Concerning himself and the ministry committed unto him and to his fellow servants he said: , “Do we begin again to commend ourselves¹? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to , think any thing, as of ourselves; but our suffi-i ciency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit give th life.” “Therefore, seeing we i have this ministry, as we have received mercy, ’ \ we faint not; but have renounced the hidden - things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, t nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but ■ by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”—2 Cor/3:1, 5, 6; 4:1,2.

Every true Christian is a new creature. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” (2 Cor. 5:17) A creature consists of a mind, will, heart and organism. The organism of the new creature in Christ is the body of human flesh. It is weak and imperfect. It is this new creature to whom is committed a part of the ministry of reconciliation; therefore the apostle, in speaking of this ministry committed to him and to his brethren, refers to it as a treasure. It is indeed a treasure, because a very important mission. He said: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”—2 Cor. 4: 7.

Some have erroneously used this scripture to show that a new creature is something separate and distinct from the man who is a Christian, and is inside of him and must be developed. This is not what the apostle meant at all; but what he did mean is that the new creature in Christ has committed to him this ministry, and he being an earthen vessel and imperfect, God has it thus arranged in order that the excellency and the power may not appear as from man, but may appear, as in fact it is, from God. It is this valr, de thing or great treasure, namely, the mini .ry, which Jesus referred to as the talents, the kingdom interests, committed to His followers on earth.

What, then, is the ministry which God has given to His anointed ones ? The answer is that it is the ministry of reconciliation. Those who have been brought into Christ have become new creatures. Before becoming new creatures they must be reconciled to God by justification. As new creatures they are given the commission that was given to Jesus because they are members of His body. Their work on earth, therefore, is to tell the people of God’s gracious plan for the reconciliation of man to Himself. Upon this point the apostle’s argument is: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation ; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”—2 Cor. 5:17-19,

The gist of the apostle’s argument here is that all things proceed from Jehovah; that He has reconciled the church to Himself by Jesus Christ; and that to the members of the body of Christ He has committed the ministry of reconciliation; that God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself; and that His body members are ambassadors for Christ and as -such must perform the office of an ambassador.

Ambassadors

An ambassador is one appointed by a higher authority to represent that higher authority in a foreign country. Jesus was the great Ambassador of God, His Father, when He came to earth to do a work in His Father’s name. God was then and there speaking through Christ His message of reconciliation, telling the people how man can be reconciled. Jesus laid down His life in death, which constitutes the basis for reconciliation. His death provided the ransom price, which ransom price presented as a sin-offering constitutes the atonement or expiation of the sin of man. The ransom price, however, and the sin-offering do not constitute the reconciliation of man. The terms “ransom”, “sin-offering” and “reconciliation” should not be used synonymously. To be sure, there could be no reconciliation without the ransom price’s being provided and presented as a sin-offering, but what would that great ransom sacrifice avail man if he knew nothing about it? He must first have knowledge. It is the will of God that all men be saved and then brought to an accurate knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. 2:3,4) The ransom and sin-offering open the way for reconciliation, and then the truth of this great fact must be brought to man and man be given the opportunity of accepting the gracious provision or rejecting it. In support of this the apostle says: “Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”— Rom. 5:18.

There could not be a gift unless the party to “whom the gift is made has knowledge of the offer. A man is in great need of money. Another offers him a gold coin, but the man is blind and deaf and does not know of the offer. The gift fails for that reason.

The human race is in great need of life. God is the source of life. Tife is a gift from God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ (Rom. 6:23) To be reconciled to God means life to man. God is the great Giver and He gave His beloved Son that man might live. Man must be brought to a knowledge of that fact. Jesus as the great Ambassador of His Father told His disciples and others who had hearing ears of God’s purpose to reconcile man to Himself. When Jesus was leaving His disciples He appointed them to be ambassadors to carry the same gracious message of truth to the people. (John 20:21) Peter says, “He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in Kim shall receive remission of sins.”-Acts 10:42,43.

But how could man believe without some knowledge upon which to base that belief? He can not believe the truth until he hears the truth. In support of this conclusion Paul wrote: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things 1”—Rom. 10:14, 15.

This means that the ambassador of the Lord is to preach the truth as set forth in God’s Word and not to express man’s wisdom. All true Christians who are therefore anointed of God are appointed and commissioned as ambassadors of Christ and of God to tell the people the truth concerning God’s plan. Having been themselves reconciled to God and brought into Christ they have become a part of God’s organization. They are no longer any part of this world, which is the Devil’s organization. The enemy’s organization is a foreign government in opposition to Jehovah’s organization. While the Christian is in that foreign and enemy government the Christian must faithfully represent God’s organization and keep himself separate and distinct from Satan’s organization. If he becomes a friend of the world he becomes the enemy of God. This proves that the clergy who have joined forces with the political and financial powers of this world have become God’s enemies. (Jas. 1:27; 4:4; 2 Cor. 6:15-17) The vocation of the ambassador of God and Christ is to tell God’s truth. He is not to exalt himself nor make the people believe that he is giving out his own message of wisdom. He is to tell the truth as set forth in the Scripfares, that the people may know that Jehovah is God and that Christ is the great Redeemer and Deliverer of man.

Perfecting of the Saints

Jesus said: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48) Do not these words prove that the chief work of a Christian while on earth is to make himself perfect? Therefore is not the chief work of a Christian to 'develop character’?

It is true that the Christian must be made perfect if he would be a joint-heir with Christ Jesus in glory. But how is he to be made perfect? Jesus said to the young man who wanted an answer to that question: “If thou wilt be perfeet, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matt. 19: 21) Those words of the Master mean that the Christian must be completely and fully devoted to doing God’s will. Jehovah God is perfect and holy, therefore all His ways are right. (Ps. 18:30) The Christian must be made perfect by following the right course of action, which course of action is marked out in God’s Word. No one can even begin to take that right course until he has made a full consecration to do God’s will. He must completely forsake Satan’s organization and become a part of God’s organization. That is what Jesus meant in telling the young man to sell his all and come and follow Him.

The Logos was perfect. He became a man and He was perfect as a man. It is written of and concerning Jesus Christ: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all ■ them that obey him.” (Heb. 5:8, 9) He was made perfect through the things that He suffered. (Heb. 2:10) It was after His complete consecration and after His anointing that Jesus was made perfect, which perfection was accomplished by that which He suffered. The suffering here mentioned could not have been His death. What is meant, then, by being made perfect by the things He suffered?

, God had promised Him the highest place in the universe next to Himself. Before granting His-beloved Son that great prize, the Son must be put to the severest test and His loyalty, faithfulness and devotion to God be proven by that test. Being subjected to that test caused Him great suffering because He was opposed by the Devil and all of his instruments. Under this fest He learned to be completely obedient unto God’s will. He suffered because of His obedience unto God’s will. He suffered because of His faithfulness and loyalty as God’s ambassador in telling the truth. He always told the truth and refused to compromise with Satan or any part of his organization. His course of action and complete devotion to God brought upon Him the reproaches that had previously been heaped upon God by Satan. “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” (Ps. 69: 9) When Jesus came to earth these reproaches fell upon Him because He was the Son and faithful Ambassador of God. By reason of His unswerving devotion to the course of righteousness under the most adverse conditions He proved His faithfulness and loyalty and devotion to His Father, and God therefore raised Him out of death and gave Him the prize of immortality and made Him the author of eternal salvation unto all them that follow in His steps. —Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:8,9.

It therefore logically and Scripturally follows that all His body members must be made perfect in a like manner. Each one must prove his faithfulness and loyalty as the representative of God. Such devotion and faithfulness is required of each one who is a steward of the Lord. “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.” (1 Cor. 4:1,2) Such faithfulness and devotion brings reproaches upon the Christian.—Rom. 15: 3.

The clergy have not been willing to preach Christ and Him crucified and to faithfully represent God. They have preferred to compromise with the Devil’s organization and receive the approval and plaudits of men of this world. For this reason they are disapproved. Many who have started out to be the true followers of Christ have fallen into the same trap of the enemy. The true Christian delights to tell the truth, and because he tells it faithfully and joyfully he is the target of the enemy and is subjected to all manner of reproach and persecu-

tion at the Hands of Satan the Devil and the clergy who represent the Devil. That is the reason why humble and faithful Christians are persecuted and suffer as Christ suffered. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.” (1 Pet. 4:12-14) That such is the means that God has chosen to perfect the saints the Apostle Peter further testifies: "But the God of all grace, ... after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”—1 Pet. 5:10.

Jesus stated the same thing, in substance, to His disciples in the parable of the vine and the branches. The substance of His statement is that Jehovah God is the husbandman, Jesus Christ the vine, and His body members the branches. (John 15:1-10) He then stated that the Lord is pleased with those who bring forth much fruit. The fruitage which He sought was not the saving of souls for heaven, nor was it ‘character development’. The fruitage was and is a people to do His work on earth at the time He intended it to be done, and to do it joyfully. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not burdensome.”—1 John 5:3, Diaglott.

Jehovah did not appoint somebody else as the husbandman; but He is the one who looks after His vineyard, and His true and faithful servants do His service joyfully and to the honor of His name. The chief office of a vine is to bear fruit, that by its product it may cheer God and man. (Judges 9:13) Jehovah planted The Christ, Head and body, that His name might be glorified. (Isa. 61:3) Being faithful unto God as His ambassadors in loyally and faithfully keeping His commandments is pleasing to God. Bearing the message of God’s plan of reconciliation and telling men of His loving-kindness brings cheer to man. This is the real fruitage. “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.”—1 John 2:5.

The perfection of the new creature is gained by continual, faithful and joyful devotion to

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God in declaring the' message which God gave to him to declare and to do that unto the end.—-1 John 4:17,18.

Saving Souls

God has not been attempting to save souls for heaven, nor has He commissioned any one to save souls in order for that one to go to heaven. During the period of sacrifice, or Christian era, God has been taking out a people for His name. (Acts 15:14) Those so taken out become God’s people for a purpose, and that purpose is the vindication of His name and showing forth the glory of God by telling the people the truth concerning Him.—1 Pet. 2: 9,10.

The importance of the second coming of Christ was stressed by Jesus and by His apostles. The first period of His second presence is a time of preparation to gather together those who have been taken into His covenant by sacrifice. (Ps. 50:5) When Jesus ascended on high He must wait until God’s due time for Him to take His power and reign. (Ps. 110:1) The physical facts show that God’s due time arrived . in 1914 and that then He set His beloved Son upon His throne. (Ps. 2:6) That time was marked by the anger of the nations of Christendom and the great World War. That was the legal end of Satan’s world and there ouster proceedings against Satan began. (Rev. 11:17, 18; Matt. 24: 3-8; Ps. 110:2-6) Then the Lord, as foretold, came to His temple for the purpose of judgment: first the judgment of His professed people, and then of the nations. (Ps. 11: 4-6; Rev. 11:17-19; Mal. 3:1-3; Matt. 25:14-30) The physical facts show the fulfilment of this prophecy by the Lord’s coming to His temple in 1918. Following that time the ambassadors of God and Christ must give a clear and bold testimony to the truth that the people might know that Jehovah is God, that Christ is King, and that they might know of God’s plan of reconciliation of man to God.

Since that time in particular the great issue before the minds of the people of earth is, Who is God? Satan the Devil has turned the minds of the people of the world away from the true God. Now Jehovah is saying to His faithful ambassadors who have been gathered into the temple condition: "Ye are my witnesses . . . that I am God.” (Isa. 43:10,12) These faithful ambassadors must bear witness to the glory of God’s name. God will have this witness given before He dashes to pieces Satan’s wicked organization, and His faithful ambassadors, in obedience to the Lord’s command, must give the witness—Matt 24:14,21,22.

Since 1918 faithful Christians on earth, known as the International Bible Students, have been engaged in giving a vigorous witness to God’s plan of reconciliation because the time has come for that testimony to be given. The present work of Christians on earth is to be the faithful witnesses unto Jehovah of and concerning His goodness and His plan. That is the only reason or excuse for a Christian to be now on the earth.

On coming to His temple and taking account with His servants who have been brought into the covenant by sacrifice, Jesus Christ found some faithful and some unfaithful. (Luke 19: 12-28) Those whom the Lord found faithful a ⁴ approved He designates the “remnant” becaus they obey God’s commandments. (Rev. 12:17) A great number of these who have been less faithful go to make up that unnumbered multitude of Christians who are saved to life as spirit beings and become servants before the throne of Godin heaven. (Rev. 7: 9-17) Many of these are now held as prisoners in the denominational church systems. The prison-keepers are the clergymen of the various denominational systems. Each clergyman is, as he claims, a watchman of his own congregation. (Isa. 56:10,11) By threats and coercion and false statements ■ these clergymen, as prison-keepers, hold the timid Christians in their prison-houses. These timid ones are put in fear of the clergymen and are thus held in the enemy’s snare.-Prov. 29: 25.

In all denominational church systems there are doubtless sincere Christians. They see that the clergymen and their leaders have departed from the Word of God and teach contrary to His Word. They see that the nations which claim to be Christian are anything but Christian and are saying, Where is Goel?’ God foreknew the condition of these prisoners and caused His prophet to foretell that condition and to give expression to the heart’s sentiments of the prisoners in these words: “0 remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us; for we are brought very low. Help us, 0 God of our salvation; for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name’s sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight, by the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed. Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die.”—Ps. 79: 8-11.

These are spoken of as prisoners who are appointed to die because they were taken into the covenant by sacrifice, having consecrated themselves to do God’s will, and were called in the hope of being a part of Christ. (Eph. 4:4; Ps. 50:5) They must die as human beings in order to be resurrected as spirit beings.

There must now be given a witness for the benefit of these prisoners that they may have an opportunity to separate themselves from the denominational prison-houses and to take their stand on the side of the Lord. The faithful remnant class who are the ambassadors of God and Christ upon whom the spirit of the Lord rests must give this testimony. To such servant class God says: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” (Isa. 42:1, 6, 7) This work must be finished before God proceeds with the work of reconciling the world in general.

The faithful ones composing the remnant class have been taken into the covenant by sacrifice and are now gathered together as God commanded. (Ps. 50:5) As ambassadors of God and of Christ amongst other things they must now declare the day of the vengeance of our God. It is the time for the vindication of His name. (Isa. 61:1,2) These prove their love and devotion to God and are made perfect therein by continued faithfulness in boldly testifying to the truth in this day of judgment. (1 John 4:17,18) Continuing faithful therein unto death, these will receive the crown of life. (Rev.' 2:10) It is therefore not the duty of the Christian on the earth to convert the world nor to save souls to God. God has a better way of doing that and He will do it under another covenant. That covenant we will consider next Sunday morning.

Bible Questions and Answers

from laboring for his own benefit and will turn ■ his efforts to the praise of the Lord.               ;

But some one may ask, Should not the Christian observe some kind of rest now? Yes. The Apostle Paul speaks of a different rest for the Christian from that period given to the Jews, and concerning which there can be no doubt. In Hebrews 4: 8-11 we read: “For if Joshua had given them [the Jews] rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that • rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief [as did the Jews].”

He who enters into God’s rest has made the Lord’s work his chief concern; and as a result he ceases to please self, and lives pleasing to the Lord. Jehovah has entrusted the completion of His work into the hands of His dear Son i Christ Jesus as the chief executor; so the Chris- ■ tian should trust to Christ Jesus the direction of what he is to do in the Father’s great work. _t Every day, therefore, is a rest day for the Christian, because he is not concerned primarily in serving self, but has set his heart upon the Lord and bends his efforts to the doing of God’s work.

Question: Was King Herod a Jew?         :

Answer: No. Herod was an Edomite, a descendant of Esau and not of Jacob.              :

J

Question: Does Matthew 10: 28 show that the soul is something separate from the body?

Answer: In this verse Jesus tells us that both soul and body can be completely destroyed, i. e., cease to exist. In this text the Lord refers to the present diseased and dying condition of the " body, which, from the divine viewpoint, is all ? that it is, because it is on the road to death and [ will shortly terminate in death; and He refers ■■ to the future life, which is brought about by the ransom sacrifice of the Redeemer, as the real soul or being. Therefore, Jesus warned His hearers, especially the scribes and Pharisees ? and hypocrites, to fear Him (Jehovah) who is . able to terminate not only the present dying ex- -istence, but to completely destroy for ever all ¹ hope of life on any plane.

The Children’s Own Radio Story By G. J. W:_} Jr.

Story Twenty-Two

THE people of Capernaum and all the countryround about believed on Jesus because of the way in which He rebuked and cast out the devil that had possession of the man in the synagogue.

While Jesus was still in Capernaum He did several other wonderful things: He cured the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, at whose house He stayed while in Capernaum. The woman had a terrible fever; but, when Jesus stood by her and rebuked the fever, it immediately left her, and she became well and went about her household duties as usual.

Many people brought their sick and afflicted to Jesus that evening, and He laid His hands upon all of them, and they were made well. He chased evil spirits out of many, too, who cried out with loud voices as they left the person, "Thou art Christ, the Son of God.” The Bible says of these things that Jesus, “rebuking them [the evil spirits], suffered them not to speak, for they knew that he was Christ.”

One day Jesus stood upon the shore of the lake of Gennesaret, in Galilee. Many people had gathered there tb hear Him preach the Word of God. There were two boats drawn up on the beach, and the fishermen who owned them were nearby, cleaning their nets.

Jesus entered one of the boats, which belonged to the fisherman whose name was Simon Peter, and asked that Simon would sail a little way out into the lake, for the gathering of people upon the shore was very great.

So Simon moved the boat a few yards from shore, leaving a clear space between Jesus and the multitude, and then Jesus sat down, and preached to them out of the ship; and we can imagine that His voice carried well, for sound travels to advantage over water.

When He was done speaking for that time, Jesus turned to Simon, and said—but there! The account as we find it in the Bible itself is so interesting and so well told that we should only spoil the story if we tried to give you an idea of it in our own words. This is the Bible narrative of the miracle on Lake Gennesaret:

“Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.

“And Simon, answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.

“And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them.

“And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter [the fisherman] saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man. 0 Lord.

“F he was astonished, and all them that were vith him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:

“And so were also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.”

Jesus’ statement here meant that by becoming His followers, and preaching and teaching as He preached and taught the Word of God, Simon and James and John would become fishers of men, catching all those who believed in the name of Jesus; catching them away from fear, and ignorance, and superstition, into the light and joy of the glorious Word of God.

Then the Bible account of this wonderful fishing trip closes with these words: “And when they [Simon, called Peter, and James and John] had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.”

Now when Jesus was in a certain city of Galilee, shortly after the above occurrences, a man badly afflicted with leprosy approached Him and, falling upon his face before Jesus, said:

“Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”

And Jesus, touched by the man’s complete expression of trust and belief, immediately put forth His hand, and said, “I will; be thou clean.” And the leprosy left the man that instant.

And Jesus told the man to tell no one of his cure until he had first gone to the priest in the temple of God and offered proper sacrifices for his cleansing, as Moses had commanded according to the Jewish law.

ON ONE OCCASION

when Jesus was talking to his disciples he told them about God’s plan to end all oppression, sorrow and sickness, make everybody happy and contented and give them everlasting life on earth. He told them of Jehovah’s purpose not only to give these wonderful things to those living at the time, but also to bring- back out of their graves all who had died and to let them have a new start The disciples, very much interested, asked Jesus how people would know when the time had arrived for these things to take place. He then told them about the World War, with its revolutions, famine and plague of flu, . and how that war would suddenly be stopped. He mentioned the fruitless. efforts that would be made to establish world peace, such as Versailles, Locarno, Kellogg; and, as if the things which he had mentioned were not enough, he gave them, an absolutely infallible proof of the imminence of God’s kingdom on earth. “So sure a sign,” said Jesus, as that ‘everybody is sure that spring follows wintertime’. In

You’ll enjoy the program over the Watchtower network, io to n Eastern Standard Time, every Sunday morning.