JANUARY
The Watchman.
Magazine
An Interpreter of the Times
The New Year
Soul-Searing World Events
Wanted: Discipline and Guidance in the Home
A Theory That Dethrones God!
Why Does Not God Do Something?
A Handful of Dust
Through the Silence
The Work of Alcoholics Anonymous

TEN CENTS
THE NEW YEAR
By Martha E. Warner
“ I now forgive. If any have offended Through ignorance or malice, be it known
The debt is canceled and the matter ended,
There's nothing to atone.
E TRULY wish for our friends a Happy New Year. We sincerely hope that for them the year will be happy from the first day clear through to the last; but we know that such will not be the case, for so many unexpected things can happen in a year. So many unexpected things can happen in a day.
Yesterday my friend was alive, and well and happy. Today she is dead, and her three daughters are saying, “Why,—why, —why?" And their hearts are filled with bitterness, and crushed with grief. Wishing them a Happy New Year would not ease the ache or take away the bitterness. Only God can do that.
In the year that is stretching out before us there are bound to be many happenings that will make our hearts ache, for the scraps of conversation which come to us from groups of people wherever they are gathered, is of war,—war as it is fought across the waters, and in the waters, and as it will be fought if, and when, it comes to our shores.
War does not spell happiness. Men and women from all walks of life are taking sides; and while they argue, silently and stealthily there creeps into their hearts a satanic spirit of bitterness and hate, which if allowed to go unchecked, will grow in strength until this world is plunged into utter chaos.
Right here I seem to hear some good soul affirm that in his heart there is no room for hate or bitterness. Which is all very well and good, but I would like to ask a few questions.
Tell me why you and your neighbor are not on speaking terms. Tell me why you and a certain brother in the church will not serve on the same committee. Tell me why you duck around the corner rather than meet a one time friend. Tell me why you have forbidden your home to the young daughter who was secretly married some months ago.
I will tell you why. It is because you have not learned to forgive. It is because you have forgotten that after “Give us this day our daily bread," comes the line,
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
If you have ever seen an electric crane pick up scrap metal and the like, you may have noticed the great disc which hangs at the end of a rope with a wire connected with it. When it is desired to pick up anything, the current is turned on, the disc magnetized and then it will lift huge masses of scrap. But as soon as the current is turned off, down drops the load.
In a way, cannot this same principle be applied to all of us? When we are magnetized by the Holy Spirit, when our hearts are filled with the love of God, then His power flows out through us and draws other souls to Him. But when the current is turned off, and we forget God, then our power for good is gone and we scatter, not seeds of kindness, but seeds of fear and hate, which yield a harvest of untold sorrow and suffering,—and all because we have not learned to forgive.
Oh, my friends! Let us start the New Year right by forgiving all who have wronged us; ever remembering that unless we forgive, we are not forgiven. Let us take for our own the words of Bonnie Day's poem, and say them over and over again.
New Year’s Eve
By Clarence Edwin Flynn I’m finishing the 'page tonight, Confessing it is mine.
In a few moments I will write The final, faltering line.
“I’ll write a model for the years. There shall he no mistake,”
I said, hut there are blots and smears I never meant to make.
The page completed, it shall he Forever put away.
Its failures shall not hinder me Upon a future day.
A firmer hand, a better pen, Perhaps a clearer light,
May help me to do better when I shall have more to write.
“I now forgive, my thought goes out in blessing,
And love erases every trace of wrong.
Father, what lifts the weight that has been pressing
So sorely, and so long?
“ Child, 'twas the weight of your own condemnation,
The self-inflicted load that burdened you,
By your own act of reconciliation,
You are forgiven, too.
uFor while you held your brother as a debtor,
Your bitter thinking shackled your own soul,
The self-same act that broke for him the fetter
Has made you free and whole."
Did 1941 Fail?
By Claude E. Holmes
IN A New Year’s message to the medical profession, the editor of the Illinois Medical Journal (January, 1941) revealed his hope for the future:
“During the new year we hope to see the overcoming of hatred, banishment of suspicion, rejection of the theory that force creates right, abolition of economic conflict, and eradication of world egoism whereby states violate the liberties due their citizens.”
This was a heavy program for one year. In fact, six thousand years have failed to accomplish such results. You can draw your own conclusion as to the extent to which it was realized during 1941.
Medicine has made tremendous strides in the past one hundred years. It has conquered many diseases, stamped out epidemics, and attained a marvelous skill in surgery. But with all its genius and efficiency it has not discovered a serum that will make man immune to the fever of hate; it has no antidote for the poison of intolerance; it has no painkiller for an aching heart, no balm for an accusing conscience, nor yet a stimulant to bolster up a heart that is failing because of the sights in the world today.
Physicians and patients need to know that the word of God is still the greatest healer of humanity’s sufferings, both physical and spiritual. If its principles are learned and lived, they will lay the foundation for a long and happy life.
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine” (Proverbs 17: 22) and “perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4: 18) are scientific facts as well as religious truths. We are assured by no less an authority than the Great Physician Himself, that if we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and work for the freedom of the oppressed, our “health shall spring forth speedily.” Isaiah 58:6-8. The Word is full of the most efficacious remedies that may be found in the world.
Vol. LI
JAMES EARL SHULTZ, Editor
JANUARY, 1942-No. 1
Magazine
An Interpreter of the Times
H. K. CHRISTMAN, Circulation Manager
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Page TWO
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
SOUL-SEARING WORLD EVENTS
By Donald W. McKay
ORLD events are moving more rapidly than ever before. Never has a war like the present one been witnessed at any time. And for the first time in history war has lost its romance. Active and imaginative boys of another generation used to read about the Persian invasions of Greece, the decline and fall of Rome, the Crusades, the Hundred Years’ War, the Spanish Armada, the Revolution, and the Civil War; they used to read about those grand historic episodes when fighting was going on every day, and any boy could expect to grow up and be a hero.
But war has changed. Instead of men fighting against one another on battlefields far removed from cities, defenseless women and children are the targets of huge air armadas that drop their cargoes from the sky. The Bible prophecy of distress among the nations, “with perplexity; . . . men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on
the earth” (Luke 21:25, 26) is being fulfilled.
And nations in their frenzy to arm are working their scientists overtime. New devices and instruments of war are rolling off production lines. We are engulfed in a crisis of speed and communication. Each nation realizes, as never before, that superior mechanized equipment, rather than manpower, is the deciding factor in gaining victories. The Old Testament prophet, Daniel, foretold in the Scriptures twenty-five hundred years ago that just preceding the second advent of Christ fast modes of travel, with their accompanying flood of knowledge, everywhere would be in evidence. “Thou, 0 Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” Daniel 12: 4.
Christians who have been carefully studying their Bibles have been proclaim-
* Here is a close-up of one of Britain's newer tools of war, a Matilda tank. Only those who fought with the tanks of World War Number One can appreciate what a far cry from those lumbering obstacles are these movable fortresses, the product of our soul-searing world events.
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ing that the current world crisis, with its soul-searing events, would take place. The present unparalleled mad rush for arms was foreseen even centuries before the birth of Christ. Of this time in which we live, Joel wrote: “Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.” Joel 3: 9, 10.
Then the prophet adds this significant sentence, “Thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, 0 Lord.” Verse 11. Whereas man had been allowed to fight out his battles to a conclusion in the past, there will come a time, and it cannot be far off, when God Himself will intervene, once for all, to cause “wars to cease unto the end of the earth.” Psalm 46: 9.
Another prophet, the beloved apostle John on the dismal Isle of Patmos, looking into the future, saw in vision that “the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the East might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” Revelation 16: 12-16.
Here is brought to view the last great conflict of the world’s story of strife which will have its focal point in Palestine, for “Armageddon” consists of a triangular plain in northern Palestine, twelve by eighteen miles in extent, lying southeast from Mount Carmel. Armageddon is also known as the Valley of Megiddo, the Plain of Esdraelon, and the Valley of Jezreel.
The prophet Joel states that in the last days the heathen will be “wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat.” Joel 3: 12. He writes, “Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about.” Verse 11.
The “heathen” referred to by the prophet are the non-Christian millions of the East according to Revelation 16:12-14. The Bible says they will be awakened for war. Even now we can see that it is not outside the bounds of possibility that some power will marshal the forces of China, (Continued on page 5)
JANUARY, 1942
Page THREE
This is the first of a series of articles furnished by J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. It first appeared in the Union Signal, which graciously permitted its republication. The remaining articles in the series will, however, appear in The Watchman for the first time.
lowed adolescent minds to take a downward direction which can lead only to destruction.
I believe that a prime factor in the disregard by youth for law lies in an equal or greater disrespect for law and order on the part of the adult of our generation. Seek to evade it though we may; seek to apologize; seek to excuse ourselves; nevertheless, upon the shoulders of grown-up America rests the burden for this condition. We may allege that youth has made a hero of the gangster. I insist that no youth ever developed a heroic ideal that this was not first centered about his father or his mother, and when the youngster begins to show disrespect for law and order, you can be sure that he learned something of that attitude at home, or because those in his home failed to keep him in the right company and isolated from bad examples.
Bad Homes Influence Criminal Trend
Let us try to trace the growth of a criminal. True, there are instances where the following conditions do not apply. Their divergence, however, only proves the rule. All too often, we find that the 18-, the 19-, the 20-year-old offender has come from a family of incompatibility leading to the divorce of the parents. It may be that parents are concerned only with their own pleasures, leaving the youth to drift as he will. Or, it may be that they are poverty-ridden, ignorant people, not realizing their responsibilities. No matter what the foundation may be, it is almost inevitable that the influence of the home had a great bearing upon the attitude of the young criminal.
We find that he has mixed with street-corner gangs at an age when his every attention should have been upon the furtherance of his education. Without remonstrance, he was permitted to gather in surroundings and companionships which bore no other possible future than that of outlawry. The saloon, the tavern, the pool hall, the gang at the corner, are places prohibited to the average youth, and infraction of these rules should receive well-deserved punishment. So long as we allow our child-guidance to be dominated by sentimental theorists who believe that if a child is chastised it may develop an inhibition which will affect its later self-expression, so,long as we fail to recognize that discipline is an essential part of human development, just so long will we
IVERY 22 seconds, a serious crime is committed in our supposedly civilized land.
I Every day, from dawn to dawn, 33 of our citizens are murdered.
Last year nearly 1,500,000 serious crimes, such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault, and 13,000,000 lesser crimes, such as frauds, forgeries, embezzlements, vice, and other assaults, were committed.
To be even more realistic, this means that one offense occurred for every nine persons in America.
It is most disturbing to realize that crime in some form or other will visit at least one out of every four homes this year unless drastic steps are taken to stay the onslaught of our forces of lawlessness. There are in America more than three and one-half times more criminals than there are students in our colleges and universities; for every schoolteacher in America there are nearly four and one-half criminals.
Crime and Education Costs Compared
Our annual crime bill is fifteen billions of dollars, or about $120 for every man, woman, and child. This represents 400 per cent more than we annually spend for education, it equals our annual food bill, and exceeds the amount annually paid in Federal, state, and municipal taxes. Our homes and our lives are threatened by an
* In custody of two court officers, Raymond L. Woodward, sixteen years old, is shown entering the Massachusetts state prison at Charlestown. He is en route to the electric chair, having confessed the slaying of a schoolgirl. What led to his delinquency? Let Mr. Hoover answer this question.
army of the lawless numbering more than 4,750,-000 individuals.
Today 20 per cent of our crime is the work of persons who have not yet reached the voting age. This means that one fifth of all murders, arson, thievery, robbery, and other malignant outrages against our commonwealth are committed by persons of immature bodies and immature minds, persons who should be reaching the threshold of useful life. This 20 per cent falls tragically short of the ideal of American citizenship. It is not a pleasant picture. It is not a healthful outlook. It is not a normal condition when a nation such as America must bow under the disgrace of a set of circumstances in which one fifth of our most deadly outlaws, our murderers, our machine-gunning desperadoes, are little beyond childhood. It becomes incumbent upon all of us, therefore, to recognize and admit the causes for such scandalous conditions, and, reaching beyond, to search for the means by which they may be remedied.
We have youth in crime because we have failed to provide youth with proper outlets and upbringing. Only in the rarest instances of diseased minds can we say that the first offender commits crimes out of sheer anti-social sentiments. Children are driven to crime because of deep-laid faults in society, such as poverty, degeneracy, and because their elders neglect them.
When youth commits a crime, generally it is because older persons have committed a greater crime; it is because of laxity in early discipline; because of apathy on the part of parents and neglect by those of the community who should help the helpless; because of distorted views held by those who should know better and who have al-
WANTED: Disciplin
Page FOUR
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
Guidance in the Home
By J. Edgar Hoovar, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
have an aimless, directionless milling of the herd which can result only in mental panic and a thorough disregard for the rights of society.
It is time for America to resurrect that standard of discipline which did much to give this country its rugged, stalwart honesty of purpose, its determination, its achievements. I refer to that parental discipline and guidance which did so much to create law-abiding, successful, and forward-looking citizens. Too long has that old-fashioned standard been transformed into the wine card of the cocktail bar; into the sapient belief that an immature mind can be granted utter freedom of action without disastrous results. Its lesson has been supplanted by the dangerous one of the roadside tavern, the parked automobile upon a lonely road, by the constant apathy-engendered desire to get what it wants by fair means or foul.
If the parents of America cannot realize for themselves that a lack of kindly guidance, of unswerving vigilance, has had much to do with the tremendous rise of crime among the young, then youth must teach parentage this lesson. It would be a shameful yet nevertheless eye-opening experience for a number of our parents if the youth whom they have betrayed were to
assemble facts and were to display to them the numerous ways in which they have failed to do their duty to their offspring.
The parent who allows any child to run willy-nilly through life obeying every selfish impulse, following the wild ravings of any agitator who orates from a soap box on the corner, is not only doing a foolish thing, but is doing a manifestly unfair and unkind act to the child. It is not generous for a parent to turn its offspring free from all fetters and allow it to run wild in a world which contains as many jungles of criminality as does ours. It is unfair to that offspring to believe that an immature mind can perceive the hundreds of pitfalls which may lie ahead in the tangles of multi-sided existence, yet, unfortunately, that is what thousands upon thousands of neglectful parents have done in allowing what they so blithely call the freedom of youth.
The most unfortunate axiom which America possesses is that our crime all too often starts in the cradle and that our greatest aids to criminality are the fatuous father and mother who believe that, while there may be problems for other children, their offspring can do no wrong. There is need that youth tell age the truth which youth knows so well. Youth must be
taught everything it knows: taught to walk, to eat, to converse, and to obey the laws of civilization. These acts do not come about through any magical workings of the brain. They arrive through the old law of cause and effect. If a child is unhampered in any of its desires, then indeed is it unfair to say the child is a criminal. Rather, it has been the father and the mother who allowed this child to tread any path it chose who have done the criminal act and yet it is youth which must suffer through the fact that of every hundred persons who fall into the hands of police seventeen are boys and girls.
From the High Chair to the Electric Chair
Thirty million homes hold the solution. If the younger generation is properly trained and the proper examples set before it, the safety of tomorrow is assured. The time has come for America to resurrect that standard of parental discipline and guidance which did so much to create law-abiding, successful, and forward-looking citizens in the past. Criminals develop in our homes through errors of commission or omission. The course is from the high chair. It is up to the parents to see that the end isn't the electric chair. The American home holds the ultimate solution to our crime problem.
Soul-Searinq World Events
0Continued from page 3)
India, and other Oriental countries, and bring them against the West.
These world forces will eventually clash at Armageddon, the scene of so many sanguinary struggles in the past.
Who will win? No one. Instead, the struggle will be cut short by the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords.
The brightness of His return will destroy those of every nation who have not prepared themselves in heart and life for the kingdom of heaven. (2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 11:18.) But those who have been redeemed by the power of God and the surrender of their lives to Him will be delivered, to become citizens of a better world than this,—a world wherein “dwelleth righteousness.” 2 Peter 3: 13. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9.
Very soon the clock will chime the closing note of probation’s hour; men will (■Continued on page 18)
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* Three students ranging in ages from fourteen to sixteen being taken to court in Bel Air, Maryland, to be arraigned before the magistrate on a charge of murder. The sixteen-year-old lad was charged with having slain a man who had given him and his two schoolgirl companions a ride while they were out hitchhiking. Mr. Hoover points out that such conditions do not ordinarily arise from contact with other criminals but from wrong influences at home.
Page FIVE
JANUARY, 1942
A THEORY THAT DETHRONES GOD!
By H. F. De Ath, London Correspondent
  OT long ago W. J. Brown, General Secretary of the British Civil Servants’ Clerical Association, gave a very remarkable and significant broadcast to B.B.C. Home Service listeners, on the origin and development of Nazism and like movements in Europe.
These sinister modern movements, he told us boldly, grew out of the idea of a “mechanistic universe”—a universe governed by what men call natural law, which is a blind force based on the survival of the fittest.
Of course, this idea, as Mr. Brown pointed out, is by no means new. On the contrary, it is as old as the hills, and is essentially pagan. But Charles Darwin, by the publication of his book, “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,” in 1859, not only revived this ancient theory of the universe, but also laid the foundation of the modern and so-called scientific theory of evolution, so universally held today.
To the ordinary mind, the reasoning of Darwin and his contemporary exponent of the hypothesis of natural selection, Alfred Russell Wallace, is so tortuous and involved as to leave one in a perfect maze of scientific jargon and human speculation. So the British Encyclopaedia has tried to put the theory more simply, as it relates to man and his ancestry. But even this attempt leaves something to be desired; so we have summarized the matter as follows:
The fact that man has a backbone, a brain and nervous system, a heart and blood vessels, digestive and other systems of organs almost identical with those of animals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, shows that man, with all these, sprang from the same common ancestors, who were probably half fish and half animal.
That, in a nutshell, is the theory. Such a conclusion from such a premise is totally unwarranted; the theory is fantastic, and the reasoning on which it is based specious and unsound. We positively reject the conclusion that because man is physiologically and substantially similar to the lower animals he and they must have had the same common ancestors.
That it does prove that both animals and man had the same common Creator is a far more logical and consistent conclusion, which we heartily endorse.
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* Bewildered, this Ukrainian woman stands in front of her home, which was sacrificed to the god of war. Such are the tragic results when men forget God and teach that religion is only an opiate for the ignorant.
Page SIX
After all, evolution is but a theory, and neither Darwin nor Wallace claimed any more for it. Succeeding generations, however, have presumptuously exalted it into a “proven fact,” which it certainly is not.
Let us glance briefly at the Victorian age in which this astounding theory took root. It was essentially a religious age. The Christian religion was far more firmly believed then than it is today. That religion, in common with Judaism, has always stood solidly for a universe created and upheld by an all-wise, all-powerful Creator, who was at the same time operating with the universal Father of all mankind.
So when the theory of evolution was launched upon them, in its new “scientific ” dress, many able Victorian stalwarts of the Christian religion opposed it stoutly, both here and in America. They were not slow to see that it struck at the very root of the Christian faith and teaching. Men like W. E. Gladstone, the grand old man of that age, were severely criticized for refusing outright to accept the so-called “findings of science.” Of him Lord Morley declared, “He locked himself up in the citadel of tradition.” If John Morley had said that William Gladstone had locked himself up in the citadel of truth, he would have been nearer the mark.
Today there are scientists of the highest repute who reject, lock, stock, and barrel, the theory of man’s origin, as held by evolutionists. They are for the most part Christian men who are jealous for the faith, as well as eminent scientists. These
are bravely carrying on the battle so nobly waged by Gladstone in England, and William Jennings Bryan, the able American, in the United States. All praise to such men who see clearly the implications of this impious theory.
The German people swallowed the idea most greedily, and have since carried it to its logical conclusion. Their doctrine that “might is right” is the natural outcome of the belief that man is but a transformed ape who has fought his bloody way upward by striking down weaker opponents that lay across his path to power and dominion.
Mr. Brown courageously admitted in his broadcast that this ignoble theory was a root cause of the present degenerate state of our war-torn world, and he urged that we get back to the primitive faith in God, in the righteousness of His law, and in the gospel of Jesus, His Son, as found between the lids of the Bible.
One of the greatest tragedies of the age has been the supine acquiescence of organized religion to the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Wallace. That this fatal surrender to a pagan theory has lamentably weakened the churches goes without saying. It was, in the very nature of things, bound to do so. If man has fought his own way up from the primeval slime, through reptile, fish, animal, and ape, to his present status, what becomes of the fall of man from primeval perfection in the beginning? If there was no fall, but only a steady evolutionary process of development, based on the survival of the fittest, what need is there of the gospel of regeneration as taught by Christ and His apostles? If there is no law but that of the jungle, what becomes of the Ten Commandments as the standard of human (■Continued on page 18)
t'Actm
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
WHY WILL CHRIST RETURN?
By Jesse C. Stevens
ESUS is coming again to fufilll the promise He made to His disciples on the night of His betrayal, when He promised, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14: 2, 3. That the promise in effect embraces the righteous of all ages is evident from the thrilling words of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4: 15-18. And in his second epistle to the same church, referring to the same coming of Christ, he says, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our
JANUARY, 1942
Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him.” 2 Thessalonians 2:1.
The apostle here teaches plainly that the saints, both the resurrected ones and the living, are gathered together to meet the Lord in the air, and Christ referring to the same event, says, “And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds,” that is, from all parts of the earth. (Matthew 24: 31.)
Now surely Christ does not remain in the air with His redeemed people. No, He takes them somewhere. Paul writes, “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede [go before] them that are fallen asleep.” 1 Thessalonians 4:15. A.R.V. The word precede shows that the saints are going somewhere; for he says that the living shall not go before the sleeping saints. They are going to be resurrected, and then they all go somewhere.
Where do they go? Where does Christ take them? He promised, “I go [to My Father’s house] to prepare a place for you. And if I go ... I will come again, an
* Fortunate is the American youth who stiU is permitted the privilege of hearing the word of God explained, especially those promises of our Lord which also indicate why He will return to claim this earth as His possession.
^
receive you unto Myself; that where I am [where I go and where I am when I am absent from you], there ye may be also.” John 14:2, 3.
Where did He go when He left them, when He ascended from Olivet? He left the world: “I leave the world, and go to the Father.” John 16: 28. He departed “out of this world unto the Father.” John 13:1. He “went to God.” John 13: 3. He ascended to His Father. See John 20: 17. He ascended “up where He was before.” John 6: 62. He ascended “up to heaven.” John 3: 13. He went “into heaven.” 1 Peter 3: 22. He “ascended up on high.” Ephesians 4:8. He entered “into heaven itself.” Hebrews 9: 24. He was “received up into glory.” 1 Timothy 3: 16. He sat down at the Father’s “right hand in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 1:20. It must be plain from all these scriptures that Christ promised to take His people at His second coming to heaven, to fulfill the promise He made and makes to them.
Christ came the first time, and by His death paid the penalty of man’s sin (Romans 5:8), so that man, accepting His vicarious death, might have the forgiveness of sin, and consequently be saved instead of being lost. Salvation is threefold, —salvation from the guilt of sin, salvation from the power and domination of sin, and salvation from all the effects of sin. The first two phases we may experience now, but the experiencing of the last awaits the second coming of Christ, and without it salvation is not complete. Christ will come the second time for this purpose. Hence we read, “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Hebrews 9:28. And Christ Himself said, “He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Matthew 24: 13.
Jesus came the first time and on the cross of Calvary tasted “death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9) so that man, accepting His atoning death in his behalf, might escape “the wages of sin” (Romans 6: 23) which is the “second death” (Revelation 2: 11), and instead have eternal life. When one accepts Christ and is converted, the Holy Spirit endues him with life, “which is the earnest [pledge] of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” Ephesians 1:14. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,” we read in John 3:36. But this is conditional upon one’s retaining Christ; for if he should renounce Christ, or crucify Him afresh, (see Hebrews 6: 4-6) he would no longer have eternal life. Such an one could look forward only unto judgment and the fiery indignation of God. (Hebrews (Continued on page 13)
Page SEVEN
$1 THE* NEWS* INTERPRETED *	*	*
outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” 1 Peter 3: 3, 4.
If the mothers of daughters will set them an example in this regard, perhaps there will be a revival of interest in other virtues, so that there will not be an increase of ten per cent in the number of women convicted as criminals next year. It may even arrest the rising tide of intemperance among the women of our country. Is it not worth trying?
■¥■ American Marines and British Tommies work shoulder to shoxdder in Iceland, constructing 'prefabricated huts to house expected additions to the American forces on that American outpost in the Atlantic.
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Lipstick For Defense
ecently a great American weekly in a full-page advertisement m a metropolitan daily said, “Yes, millions of them—not in the form the ladies know so well—but lipstick-holders that are tipped with lead, not with make-up! For the machines that produce the ‘ cartridge ’ for the lipstick are adaptable to munitions—with results that are even more devastating. This shift from lipstick-holders to defense production is a symbol of change in America today—change in the living habits of every man and woman —change in almost every business and in every American’s outlook.”
This was not the first we had heard of the probable disappearance of the ugly lipstick which has cheapened our American womanhood and made us almost blush with shame as we beheld the gaudy make-up. We had heard that a government agency would begin the education of our womanhood away from the tawdry habit so that the “cartridges” could be saved for defense and the machines which made them employed in defense production, but when this great American weekly’s advertisement capitalized upon it to interest new readers, we began to query: Is it really true that “this shift from lipstick-holders to defense production is a symbol of change in America today”?
And then a justly proud mother of a beautiful daughter came and told us that her daughter, who is a junior in a large high school, had been chosen as a member of the students’ council. She came home
insisting, “And, mother, they chose me even if I never use rouge, flaming nail polish, and lipstick! You were right, it does not take those things to make one popular.” We pondered that statement of experience, 'wondering if the threat of war had brought the world to its senses, that here was at least one good by-product of war.
Today we mingled with a great group of educators, representing one of our largest states in this nation. Young women were in the vast majority. What interested us? To know whether or not those who next to the mothers in this country of ours determine the course of the future of our young womanhood were evidencing “this change in America.” Very few of those whom we saw had either painted lips or nails. How refreshing!
Perhaps the editor of the “Women’s Section” of the same great metropolitan daily had visioned this new appreciation of real worth when, in writing the caption for a beautifully posed maiden, she said, “Women are so much prettier when they can achieve a natural look. That glued-down appearance is not nearly as popular as it used to be.” “Glued-down,” that is a happy expression for a very unhappy condition. How far “down” only the victims can ever know, but if the day of deliverance is dawning it calls for another J. D. Sherman to write a popular “glory, hallelujah” song to commemorate it; for after all, the grand old fisherman, the Apostle Peter, in speaking to worthwhile women gave capital counsel when he said, “Whose adorning let it not be that
"The Fool Hath Said”
(WINDER the title “The Fool Hath Said ItliE *n His Heart,” the Liberty magazine of November 1, 1941, printed a very illuminating editorial on present-day trends. That a change has come about in men’s thinking is clearly evident by the statements which follow:
“From the Bureau of Census in Washington, D. C., comes an astonishing report.
“Within two years the production of fiction stories in the United States dropped fifty per cent.
“During the same period the sale of the Holy Bible increased by two million five hundred thousand copies. . . .
“The trend revealed by the Census Bureau reflects a hunger for nourishment of the human spirit; a revolt both from the illusion of sugary romance and from the disillusion of 1 realistic’ skeptics; a flight back to pure truth. . . .
“Threat to human dignity and freedom everywhere, is the ultimate triumph of that cult of sheer reason which for more than fifty years we have been calling materialism. . . .
“The materialist is forced to argue, man has no moral responsibility, unless he invent for himself a system of ethical culture. And we now see that such a system cannot restrain the lawless from doing their worst. With no moral responsibility, man is free to attempt any deed which he thinks he can get away with. Might becomes right. The fittest survive over the graves of the weaklings they slew. Such is the law of the jungle. . . . We see that law carried by fire and sword from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, materialism in full cry, atheism at last with its prophet made flesh.
“Upon the hideous spectacle mankind looks and knows it is wrong. . . . While materialism runs its course like a plague over the world, the earth still turns in its mysterious revolutions, obedient to an established and perfect rhythm. . . .
“Once it looked as if rationalism would empty the churches under those spires— as if the faithful would forsake the altars
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The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
• a • THE 3 NEWS * INTERPRETED !!
of mercy to bow before the golden calf. But the people have seen what comes of paying tribute to the idol in the market place. They watch with horror the march of the Philistines. No more than the materialist can they see God, but in blood and death they can feel His presence; in agony they find that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
“So we are not reading so many frivolous novels and we are buying more Holy Bibles. We are turning back to the white spires.”
If the present world conflict makes these changes permanent, then the bloodshed, suffering, and sacrifice of earth’s teeming millions will not all have been in vain.
Mare Bibles
romoted by the American Bible Society, endorsed by the President of the United States and the governors of the various states, December 14 is designated Universal Bible Sunday throughout the nation. It will remind the American people that it is their responsibility in this dark hour to see that the Bible is kept circulating in the world.
In this year 1941, which marks the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights, the American people will do well to recall that it was the teaching of the Bible which led our forefathers to contend for the rights of the individual, which is the basis of our democracy. In this time, when the very existence of democracy as we have always known it is being threatened, we should not forget the important role which the Bible has always played in our civilization. Calvin Coolidge once said, “The foundations. . .
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of our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings should cease to be practically universal in our country.”
The American Bible Society, which has for years sponsored this annual observance, says that last year over 25,000,000 copies of the Sacred Scriptures were distributed in the world. Refugees in internment camps, war prisoners, and other victims of the wars are crying out for this book that brings hope and courage to men in whatever language they read.
Has every enlisted man that has gone from your community into one of the nation’s services in these past months been supplied with a Bible? The Bible has always been popular with American soldiers and sailors. What an appropriate way to celebrate Universal Bible Sunday—to supply the lads from your church, your street, your community with their own copies of the word of God.
Reducing Living Casts
resident Roosevelt has been asked to restrict the manufacture of hard liquor and beer for the duration of the national emergency, thus to release the millions of bushels of grains and other ingredients now being used by those industries to be processed by the food industry. The appeal was made in an open letter sent by Henry M. Johnson of Louisville, Kentucky, President of the American Business Men’s Research Foundation.
Mr. Johnson’s letter called attention to the fact that housewives are finding it increasingly difficult to feed families wholesome meals in the face of increasing food prices, and said that turning the millions of bushels of grains now consumed by the
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liquor industries into wholesome food products will go a long way toward relieving this situation. Since the distilleries have a reported 500,000,000 gallons of whisky in storage, the equivalent of a five years’ supply, curtailment at the present time would not involve any loss of taxable revenue, Mr. Johnson insisted.
Explaining the reason for the letter, Mr. Johnson said: “Since food is just as essential in national defense and in helping our Allies in their life-and-death struggle as guns and munitions of war, the Foundation feels that the President would be acting wisely and in the best interest of the people of the United States to restrict and place under priority regulation consumption of grains and other ingredients by these non-essential [liquor] industries.”
Mr. Johnson’s Foundation insists that “every dollar of the $50,000,000,000 (fifty billion dollars) spent for relief and defense during the past eight years, could have been paid without appropriating a single cent from Federal or State treasuries if the money spent for alcoholic beverages and paid out to meet the cost of liquor-bred crime, accidents, disease, and premature death in the United States during the same period had been contributed directly by the people to the government for these purposes.”
Liquor’s 101 months’ “return” to the people of the United States in taxes, licenses, wages, costs of raw materials, transportation, and upkeep is estimated at approximately $20,008,150,636.
Subtracting liquor’s “return” to the government, from the gross cost of alcoholic beverages (legal and illegal), the Foundation finds that the net cost of the alcoholic beverage trade to the people of the United States is $30,367,017,960.77.
If the people of the United States had followed the findings of science, national prohibition during the past eight years would have proved one of the greatest boons to American industry that legitimate business could ever experience.
* Somewhere in Russia. Bodies are taut as the German soldiers warily advance toward this tank after it was stopped by the first salvo. Notice the soldier in the center holds a hand grenade which he is about to hurl at a vulnerable section of the Russian tank to continue the work of demolition.
JANUARY, 1942
Page NINE
WHY DOES NOT GOD DO SOMETHING?
By Claude E. Holmes
HO is not appalled at the frightful massacre of men, women, and children going on in the earth today? Great structures, requiring years and fortunes to erect, are being leveled in a moment. Millions of free men are suddenly being transformed into serfs of intolerant dictators. Art, culture, and religion are being cast into the discard.
Our times are not unlike those of Judah in the days of King Asa. Of them the Prophet Azariah said: “There was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the countries. And nation was beaten in pieces of nation, and city of city.” 2 Chronicles 15:5, 6, margin.
In the face of this world calamity there is heard the appealing cry, “ Why does not God do something? ” We believe that God is doing something, and that in a short time He is going to surprise the world by His “strange act.” Isaiah 28:21.
The Scriptures are filled with evidences of God’s continual superintendence of world affairs. They furnish abundant proof that when men think they are carrying out plans by their own power and wisdom, in reality they are fulfilling God s purposes.
“History is not a chain of events following each other in logical sequence,” declares Pierre Van Paassen, the distinguished journalist. “At every turn one finds mysterious and inexplicable incidents ‘ not the result of hazard or of personal initiative and which seem to be ‘injected by the creative force of spiritual currents.’”— “Days of Our Fears,” page 491.
These mysterious spiritual currents are no doubt the forces of the Almighty. Said Benjamin Franklin: “The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men.”
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To see God’s overruling providences in the movements of the nations is to understand the real philosophy of history. Only God can weigh the nations in the scales of justice and equity. He alone discerns the motives and hidden schemes of rulers and peoples, and the way in which they lift themselves up “against the Lord of heaven.”
God is no respecter of persons or nations. He drove out the wicked nations of Caanan and established His people in their places. He made them a nation, and gave them good and just laws. When they failed to appreciate and practice those divine principles, then they, too, were driven out and scattered among the nations.
God commandeered Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, a “hammer” of the earth,
page TEN
to execute His judgments upon the city of Jerusalem. For centuries the nations round about had respected that great and glorious city. They recognized that a Power above their gods protected its battlements, and that from its temple and sanctuary there went forth messages of truth and justice.
Its downfall came as a surprise. In lamenting its destruction, the prophet Jeremiah cried out in anguish: “The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.” Lamentations 4: 12.
The fall of nations today equally may be a surprise to the inhabitants of the world, but “the curse causeless shall not come.” God knows the records of the nations. And who can stay His hand?
God sought to teach Nebuchadnezzar that He was the real ruler of the nations. But the king would not accept such an idea. He rebelled against it. He would not believe that his kingdom would come to an end and be followed by a lesser power.
After rejecting several divine messages sent to him through the prophet Daniel, he was stricken by the lightning of God’s judgment. See Daniel, chapter 4. He was driven from his throne, to dwell with the beasts of the field. He lived there for seven years, where he discovered that there is a higher Power. In his humility he confessed that there is One who could depose him and give his kingdom to another:
“All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” Daniel 4:35.
There are many professed Christians today who have not yet learned the truth taught Nebuchadnezzar centuries ago— that God rules in the kingdom of men. They read the newspapers and listen to broadcasts over the radio, instead of prayerfully studying the Bible and listening to the voice of God speaking through its pages.
They fail to recognize the hand of God in the movements of the nations. They have it all worked out according to their own ideas and leave the Creator out of the matter. As a result influential persons and religious bodies are taking sides against this nation and that one, and against one ruler in favor of another. But the “word of the holy ones” testifies to God’s superintendence of world affairs:
“This matter is by the decree of the
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■¥■ While preparing for defense against foreign totalitarianism, the American government is not forgetting the religious influence necessary in the army for a high morale. Shown is a post chapel constructed for the use of the soldiers at Randolph Field, Texas.
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men .” Daniel 4: 17.
The church of God should be watching events, to be ready to take advantage of every opening of God’s providence. They should acknowledge this message that God sets the basest of men over kingdoms. It is not for anyone to judge His ways, for no one fully discerns the powerful temporal and 'spiritual forces of the enemy which are at work in the world. These powers are the fountainhead of wars, famines, pestilences, and death. It is for all to sit in the watchtower and see God working behind the scenes to do His good pleasure.
There were cruel and base tyrants in the days when Daniel recorded the above message from God. In recent years their palaces have been excavated. Their terrible exploits were written, inscribed upon the albaster slabs on the walls. Now they can be read. Said one king:
“I captured many of their soldiers alive; I cut off the hands and feet of some; of others I cut off their noses, the ears, and the fingers; I put out the eyes of many soldiers. I built up a pyramid of the living and a pyramid of heads. On high I hung up their heads on trees in the neighborhood of their city. Their young men and their maidens I burned with fire. The city I overthrew, dug it up, and burned it with fire. I annihilated it.”—“National Geographic Magazine” February, 1916, page 147.
The time came when the cruel Babylonian kingdom filled up its cup of iniquity. Then the “hammer” itself was broken.
“A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!” Jeremiah 50: 22, 23.
This came about in the days of Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Belshazzar. Belshazzar and his court had an opportunity to see a little of how a nation’s account is kept in the record books of heaven, and what is written there. This view is also for us today.
The army of Cyrus the Persian was outside Babylon’s impregnable walls. The king and his people felt perfectly safe. To show their disdain for the invading army outside, Belshazzar prepared a great feast for a “thousand of his lords.” They worshiped their idols and insulted the God of heaven by drinking wine before them, out of the golden vessels taken from the sanctuary of God in Jerusalem.
Suddenly the curtain was drawn aside, and that drunken company saw an unerring scribe recording the history of the final hours of their once great kingdom. The fingers of a man’s hand, writing like the flash of lightning, moved along the wall of the palace. “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” were the words; numbered, weighed, and divided, was the interpretation. “Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. ... In that night was Belshazzar the king . . . slain.”
Historians give their explanations of the rise and fall of nations, but only the prophets of God reveal the real truth regarding the forces behind the events. More than a hundred years before Cyrus was born, the prophet Isaiah gave his name and told how he would capture the city of Babylon: “Thus saith the Lord to
His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” Isaiah 45: 1.
Among the royal treasures excavated in the East is a “cylinder of Cyrus.” This is a record of how Cyrus took the city of Babylon:
“Cyrus, king of Anshan, he [Marduk, the god of Babylon], called by name; to sovereignty over the whole world he appointed him. . . . Marduk, the great lord, guardian of his people, looked with joy on his pious works and his upright heart; he commanded him to go to his city Babylon, and caused him to take the road to Babylon, going by his side as a friend and companion. . . . Without a battle he permitted him to enter Babylon.”— “ National Geographic Magazine” February, 1916, page 161.
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In commenting on this statement, the writer in the Geographic says: “In other words, the priests of Marduk intrigued with Cyrus, inviting him to advance against Babylon at first, and then on his arrival delivering the city into his hands.”
While the deductions of the writer quoted may be true, that “the priests of Marduk intrigued with Cyrus,” thus acting as we would expect the modern “fifth columnists,” yet Herodotus, Greek historian called the “father of history,” who was born only fifty-four years after the fall of Babylon (see the Americana) and Xenophon, Greek historian and general, born only 104 years after its fall (see the same encyclopedia) attest to the fulfillment of Isaiah 44: 24-28 and 45: 1-18, a prophecy uttered more than a hundred years before the birth of Cyrus. Says Humphrey Prideaux, in his “Old and New Testament Connected,” printed in two volumes, by John J. Harrod, Baltimore, 1833, “This account Herodotus and Xenophon both give of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus; and herein they exactly agree with the scripture.”—Vol. 1, Book 2, page 137, paragraph 2. We quote from that account:
“He [Cyrus] sent up a party of his men to the head of the canal leading to the great lake above described, with orders, at a time set, to break down the great bank or dam, which was between the river and that canal, and to turn the whole current that way into the lake. In the interim, getting all his forces together, he posted one part of them at the place where the river ran into the city, and the other where it came out, with orders to enter the city that night by the channel of the river, as (Continued on page 17)
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■¥> A medium tank, MS, which has been constructed for our government in preparation to meet aggressive totalitarianism. As men behold the havoc wrought throughout the earth, natural is the question, “Why does not God do something?” By reading Mr. Holmes’s article it will be clear that God has His own plans for the future of this world.
Page ELEVEN
JANUARY, 1942
* Landing exercises by Britain's new “Commando” forces which have been trained for invasion service some 'place in Scotland. King George recently visited the forces and observed their maneuvers, including their landing from these sea barges.
A HANDFUL OF DUST
By Edward J. Urquhart,
Far Eastern Correspondent
N THESE days when theories are being taught as truth and creeds exalted above Scripture, when real values are largely obscured by the fog of skepticism and the dust of evil propaganda, when the enemy of souls is urging his cunning philosophies upon mankind with the desperation of despair and the energy of the crazed, it behooves us to know for a certainty what is truth and to choose unimpeachable values.
The very times in which we live—so alive with momentous questions, so immeasurable in aspect, so crucial in import, and yet holding within their grasp possibilities so utterly incomprehensible— provide the background for speculative thinking that leads to erroneous deductions and utterly false theories. Thus to many men and women, the present is so overwhelmingly big that it eclipses everything else. Therefore past values lose their worth and the future is enshrouded in impenetrable blackness. Nothing counts but the important present. These deluded ones reason that the future holds nothing worth striving for and the past nothing worth salvaging. “ Nothing more to do or dare; nothing more to guard or keep.”
It seems to the writer that the following verses present just such a theory :
“A handful of dust, that is blown by the wind,
Page TWELVE
That is sporting with whatever stuff it may find,
It goes swirling and whirling and scattering on
Till it puffs into nothingness; then it is gone—
A handful of dust.
“ It may be a king who of old held his rule
O’er a country forgotten; it may be his fool
Who had smiles on his lips and had tears in his heart,
But the king, or the fool—who can tell them apart
In this handful of dust?
“It may be some man who was mighty and proud,
Or a beggar, who trembled and crept through the crowd;
Or a woman who laughed, or a woman who wept,
Or a baby—but centuries long have they slept
In this handful of dust.
“It may be a rose that once burst into flame,
Or a maiden who blushed as she whispered a name
To its ruby-red heart—and her lips were as red—
But no echo remains of a word that she said,
In this handful of dust.”
Some would stop where the writer stops and conclude that a handful of dust represents the end of all endeavor, the reward for all striving, and the inglorious finale of human existence.
We believe with the writer that life ends in a handful of dust. (“Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” “All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again.”) And this handful of dust when scrutinized by human eyes and studied by scientific analysis is identical with every other handful of dust. But there the likeness ceases and the comparison ends. If we take these handfuls of dust and place them under the searchlight of God and examine them in the test tube of inspiration we find a vast difference in them. To human eyes and finite understanding it may be only dust, but to God it holds the possibilities of life, endless life. We read that the time is coming when they that “sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Daniel 12:2. Jesus Himself declared, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear (Continued on page 15)
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
THROUGH THE SILENCE
By William E. Videto
HEN you consult a spirit medium for information, you suppose the information is furnished by some loved and trusted friend or relative from whom you have been parted by death. But the Bible tells us that we cannot converse with the dead; for of the dead it is said: “His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low; but he perceiveth it not of them.” Job 14:21. Also, “The living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing.” Ecclesiastes 9:5.
If it is not, cannot be, our dead friends who respond to the call of the medium and bring us messages, who is it that the devotees of spiritism meet at the seance?
To this also the Bible has an answer. When nearing the border of the Promised Land, ancient Israel was seduced into grievous sin by her neighbor Midian. The psalmist says: “They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.” Psalm 106:28. Moffatt translates: “They joined the Baal of Peor, and ate food offered to the dead.” The explanation as round in verse thirty-seven of the same psalm reads: “Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.” They thought they were in contact with the dead, but really they were communing with devils masquerading as their dead friends. Moffatt thus translates Isaiah 8: 19, 20:
“When they tell you to consult mediums and ghosts that cheep and gibber in low murmurs, ask them if a nation should not rather consult its God. Say, 'Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? Consult the Message and the Counsel of God! ’ But that will only be their cry when there is no dawn of hope for them any more.”
Paul tells us: “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against . . . spiritual wickedness [wicked spirits, margin] in high places.” Ephesians 6: 12. The Apostle John speaks of “unclean spirits” going forth to the kings of the earth to incite them to war, and then plainly calls them “spirits of devils.” See Revelation 16: 13, 14.
While spiritism is an ancient cult, it had its rebirth in recent times in the experience of the Fox sisters, Margaret and Kate, at Hydesville, New York, about a hundred years ago. Very appropriately one of the sisters named her familiar spirit “Old Splitfoot.”
Spiritism has grown and spread, and its devotees have multiplied rapidly. We must judge it by its teachings as well as by its fruits. The Scripture says: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is beeause there
JANUARY, 1942
is no light in them.” Isaiah 8: 20. Spiritism has shown a marked hostility to the law of God, asserting that man needs no law, and is not fettered by any restraint.
A near relative of the writer was in the habit of attending seances. She said she once conversed with the spirit of an Irishman who told her of his disappointment and rage when, for seven years after death, he vainly searched the universe to find Jesus Christ. Such are the subtle ways by which spiritism has sought to destroy faith in the Saviour and in the Bible.
Sometimes, the covering that screens the real god of spiritism gets thin, as shown in this prayer to Lucifer, (Satan) appearing in the Banner of Light, leading spiritist paper, some years ago: “0 Lucifer, thou son of the morning, who fell from thy high estate, and whom mortals are prone to call the embodiment of evil, we lift our voices to thee.” In the same paper, at another time, appeared the following dialogue: “Question: Do you know any such spirit as a person we call the devil? Answer: We certainly do. And yet this same spirit is our god, our father.”
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Shall we dismiss spiritism as mere fraud and trickery because there has been fraud in connection with it? If it is all deception, it has at least deceived some of the greatest and keenest minds of modern times, such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Lady Conan Doyle, writing after the death of her husband, relates the following: “I have seen all the sights of Pentecost in our upper room on a Sunday,—a rushing wind, the tongues of fire, a great voice from above, prophesying something to my husband which it was impossible for anyone in the world to know would happen, and which did happen within twenty-four hours of the seance.” “The night before the last Japanese earthquake (1923) we were told of it in our own home seance, no outside medium being present.”—Lady Jean Conan Doyle.
An old frontiersman, whose truthfulness no one who knew him would question, told me he once attended a seanoe at which a spirit, supposedly that of an Indian, appeared. He stated that the instant the Indian was seen he “smelled Indian.” Such a thing, for which human ingenuity could scarcely provide, would not tax the resources of the Prinee of Darkness.
Spiritism is dangerous because it is an open channel through which the hosts of darkness can contaminate the human race,
through which they can pour out their hatred and venom and spite upon a distraught world. A prominent newspaperman visited a United States Senator in Washington. The Senator referred to “my favorite medium” as though, as a matter of course, he would have such contacts. Mediums abound in Washington, and their influence is certain to be felt in national legislation.
The Prince of Darkness compassed the ruin and death of Saul, ancient king of Israel. He knows just as well how to lure the curious schoolboy who consults the planchette board, as the mature men and women who eagerly pay their money to consult a clairvoyant or a medium. The road to En-dor has been made easy but it has not been made safe. As Kipling has written:
“Oh, the road to En-dor is the oldest road And the craziest road of all,
Straight it runs to the witch’s abode,
As it did in the days of Saul.
And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store
For such as go down on the road to En-dor.”
Why Will Christ Return?
(Continued from page 7)
10: 26, 27.) So the purpose of Christ’s second coming is to “render . . . eternal life” (Romans 2:6, 7) to those who have been faithful unto the end, who have now eternal life by faith and are in “hope of eternal life.” Titus 3: 7.
Jesus came the first time, died and rose again, that He might bestow immortality upon those who believe on Him so that they should die no more. (Luke 20: 36.) The purpose of His coming is to change the righteous from mortality to immortality. This great change will take place at the second coming of Christ: “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-54.
He arose from Joseph’s tomb a conqueror of death and the grave so that those who, believing on Him, die before He comes again may have a resurrection unto immortality and eternal life. (John 5: 28.) This resurrection brings realization of eternal life in its fullest sense. Christ said, “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this (Continued on page 18)
Page THIRTEEN
THE WORK of ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
By William J. Murdoch
HE scene is a hospital room. On the bed, his face drawn and gray, lies John Doe, sick in mind, body, and soul. He has been here before and deep down inside he knows he will be here again. He is alone and frightened, mired deep in the slough of despair and despondency. He is an alcoholic, recovering from the ravages of another siege of the bottle.
Two strangers enter the room. John Doe is not surprised, for at this stage he expects almost anything. For all he knows he may have killed someone and these men are police officers.
But his visitors are not policemen. They smile and introduce themselves as George Smith and Bill Jones. A mutual friend told them he was in the hospital and they stopped in to see how he was feeling.
They talk of one thing and another, and then the conversation switches to drinking. George tells of the shame, disgrace, and unhappiness he has brought upon himself and his family through his drinking. He goes into detail, telling of his utter helplessness against the habit, and revealing how he had tried cure after cure and had found no permanent relief. But he tells this with a smile, as though it’s all in the past.
John Doe rather likes this man, George Smith. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s sympathetic. He understands that sometimes a man gets drunk without meaning to, that often he intends to take only one drink but ends up in a protracted orgy.
And then Bill Jones tells a story that is much the same. He speaks of the jobs, the friends, the opportunities, the love he has lost through his attachment to drink. He lists the numerous devices and methods he practiced in an effort to curb his alcoholic appetite, and he adds that they all fell far short of accomplishment. But, like his friend, he manages to smile about it.
“That’s how it used to be,” he says. “I’ve been sober for three years now.”
“And I haven’t had a drink in two years,” George adds. “What’s more, I’ll never drink again.”
John Doe looks from one visitor to the other, wondering.
“Have you ever wished you could stop drinking?” George asks casually. “For good?”
“Yes!” John Doe replies instantly and fervently.
And then is unfolded the first chapter of the amazing story of Alcoholics Anonymous, for George Smith and Bill Jones are members of that organization and they
have sought out John Doe—a man they never saw before—to help him to save himself from the curse which is fast reducing him to the status of a mad beast. They have nothing to sell, no fees to collect, no dues to assess. They bring a gift, the deliverance of the victim from the alcohol habit through divine aid.
As formulated by its founder, Alcoholics Anonymous offers a comparatively simple program through which John Doe can free himself from alcoholic slavery. Briefly, it is as follows:
First, John Doe must admit that he is an alcoholic—that he can never hope to take one or two or half a dozen drinks and stop there. He must acknowledge a complete lack of control over his life in this respect.
Next, he must believe that all hope for future happiness and freedom lies with a Being greater than he.
Then, after acknowledging his mortal weaknesses and shortcomings, he must seek the help of God through prayer and spiritual contact, so that he can be given the strength to carry out God’s will. He must try to make amends to all those persons injured in the past by his selfishness and thoughtlessness.
Finally, having received God’s help, he
must in turn aid other victims of the alcohol habit, and he must try to carry the spirit of this program into other phases of his life.
And it works. The program is a success. Founded only a few years ago by an eastern man, himself an alcoholic who in utter desperation turned to God for the solution to his problem, the movement has spread until today there are local units of Alcoholics Anonymous established in cities scattered throughout the East and Middle West. It is difficult to estimate the number of persons whose lives have been changed by this organization, for not only are new branches springing up almost constantly, but many individuals, having read or heard of the A. A. creed, successfully practice it without benefit of organized fraternity. Unofficial estimates, however, place the organized membership total at 6,000.
(§)
Perhaps the greatest single factor responsible for the almost unbelievable expansion of the A. A.’s sphere of influence is the ex-drinker’s knowledge that in order to help himself he must help others. Members of A. A. realize that in finding new recruits for their army they are substantially increasing their own strength.
And more often than not, the recruit is willing to listen to the story the A. A.’s tell because he knows he is talking to men whose experiences have been the same as
* This notched stick is the log of one of the boats of a torpedoed ship ivhich was carrying supplies to Iceland. The stick was used by Chief Mate H. J. Bjerrejaard to mark off the twenty days that he and other survivors drifted about in Arctic waters before being rescued. The notched stick also recounts the grim tale of three of the six who died and were buried at sea. Would a log kept by alcohol1 s victims show a less tragic result?
Page FOURTEEN
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
his. From them he learns conclusively what he has known all along but has lacked the courage to admit to himself: that alcohol holds no solution to any problem, whether it be one of finances, family, or health. From them he learns positively that alcohol, far from simplifying, actually intensifies those problems a hundredfold. And, most important of all, from them he learns that there is only one real hope for salvation, and that is in the help of God.
So, in the case of John Doe, he readily admits his desire for help, and he goes with George Smith and Bill Jones to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Here he meets all types and classes of men and women, for Alcoholics Anonymous is an absolutely democratic fellowship which has only two entrance requirements. Its followers must be sincere in their desire for sobriety, and they must believe in God. He meets bankers, housewives, clerks, truck drivers, salesmen, executives, and on some he sees scars which bear mute evidence of attempted suicide as the victims’ desperate choice of a final way out of their problems. But all have the mien and bearing of men and women free from the grip of alcohol, and in a very short time John Doe learns that these people honestly seek to help him gain that freedom, too.
They talk with him. They call on him at his home to school him in their program. Perhaps they will invite him to their homes, where he can rest and meditate. He attends the regular meetings of A. A. and listens to the experiences of exdrinkers. Finally, the alcoholic fog begins to lift from his brain and he realizes that he is in the act of establishing a spiritual contact stronger and more real than any he has experienced before. He feels a Presence within him, a Strength and Will greater than he has ever known. John Doe is on the way back. In a few weeks or months his strength will be such that he can set about helping others.
Now, what if John Doe had refused help that day at the hospital? George Smith and Bill Jones would have gone away, but not before they had left their names and addresses with him and the assurance that he could call on them at any time for help. In the middle of a working day and in the middle of the night, Bill Jones and George Smith and countless numbers of men like them have gone out to help their fellow men when the call came. They would have gone away, but they would not have given up. They would see and talk to John Doe again, and perhaps the next time he would be ready.
The men and women of Alcoholics Anonymous do not pretend to be miracle workers. They are mere mortals attempting to solve their common problem, and while they have enjoyed much success they also know the bitterness of failure and disappointment. Usually the newer members of A. A. find it hard to break away from the habit which has plagued them for so many years, and sometimes they slip and veer away on an alcoholic tangent.
JANUARY, 1942
Is the A. A. through with them? Decidedly not. Older and more experienced hands come to their rescue, and through discussion the errant are shown where they turned from the help of God. Often this one slip has a beneficial result in that it proves to the alcoholic that he cannot for one minute relax his vigilance against the vicious habit, and it demonstrates conclusively that the spiritual contact must be one of twenty-four hours’ duration in every day.
There are, regrettably, a few total failures, but these for the most part are suffered by those who were really not interested in ridding themselves of the drink habit. Like any other group, Alcoholics Anonymous attracts a certain number of curiosity-seekers, and when these idlers have satisfied themselves as to the aims and purposes of A. A., they drift away and pick up their old habits where they left off, usually making up for lost time.
But for the person who sincerely and honestly wishes to be delivered from the curse of drink, Alcoholics Anonymous offers a sound, substantial program. Doctors, ministers, and educators have endorsed it. The thousands of lives, marriages, and
Warts on the Feet
What is the best means of removing warts from the bottoms of the feet? L. J. M.
Warts, or papillomas, on the bottoms of the feet may be removed by applications of certain caustics and then soaking the feet in hot water daily until they can be peeled out. Bichloracetic acid is sometimes used for this purpose; but care must be exercised in protecting the adjacent skin with vaseline so as to avoid burning the skin. The quickest and surest way is to have them removed by peeling them out with a knife under a local'anesthetic and then dress them so as to keep the pressure off the wound while they are healing. This simple operation is best done by a doctor.
Asthma
For the past five years I have been suffering from asthmatic attacks, which prevent me from sleeping at night or working when they are upon me. What can you recommend to prevent these recurring attacks?
Sensitivity to various pollens, foods, animal products, or dust, is the most frequent factor in the production of bron-ohial asthma. Skin tests may be taken which will demonstrate which specific substances are responsible for the sensitivity. Avoidance of contact with these substances will clear up the attacks. Symptomatic relief may be obtained by inhaling the smoke of burning Stramonium leaves.
families that have been snatched from the brink of destruction by Alcoholics Anonymous are the greatest testimonials to its worth. There are no dues, no fees of any sort. The drinker is asked to pay only one thing—heed to the word of God.
A Handful of Dust.
(Continued from page 12)
His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” John 5: 28, 29.
Thus eventually the seemingly inanimate dust will burst into life—it will reveal its holdings and declare its worth. The only thing that man can take with him into the grave and out again on the other side—character—will stand naked and unadorned before God. Man thus will meet his Maker face to face to receive the reward for things done in the body.
The divine fiat will go forth: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous (Continued on page 17)
Preparations of this may be obtained on the markets under various trade names, such as Asmador, etc.
For a person who has frequent attacks, a small inhaler may be purchased which will produce a fine mist of adrenalin solution, one to one hundred. This mist may be inhaled through the mouth at the very onset of an attack and will usually prevent the attack from developing.
Mole on the Face
Is it advisable or safe to remove a mole from the face (nose, to be definite)? How may it be done?
Moles may be safely removed, if the job is done thoroughlymby the use of the electric needle, or by wide excision with a knife. If the mole is on the nose, the use of the electric needle would be preferable, causing the resulting scar probably to be smaller. The chief danger of removing moles is inadequate removal, leaving parts of the roots in place. The irritation produced by the removal of a portion causes enlarged growth in the remaining portion, and sometimes produces changes which cause the mole to develop into a cancer. When a mole has been removed, the wound should be checked by the physician at monthly intervals for three months, and again at the end of six months to make sure that no recurrence has developed.
The DOCTOR REPLIES to HEALTH QUERIES . ..
Medical and hygienic information of value to the general reader is given here by Owen S. Parrett, M. D. Inquirers may address the doctor in care of this magazine.
Page FIFTEEN
TWO HOMES
By May Cole Kuhn
“Home! The bit of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter place than all the rest”
iSOWN the village street a lean, scant, sallow-faced child hurried with the air of one who knew where she was going, and what she wanted when she arrived. Her mouth was set and her great hazel eyes were dark with bitterness. She was running away from something she did not like, and toward something she needed.
Passing a row of houses with neat lawns and staid picket fences, she clipped across a broad square o£ grass that lay between the road and a comfortable-looking, cream-colored cottage, and going to the back porch entered without knocking. Wiping her feet carefully, she pushed open the kitchen door and walked in upon a newly scrubbed white pine floor,—spotless, since custom and tradition would have it so.
A plump, gray-garbed figure in a rocking chair by the west window turned to welcome the visitor with,
‘‘Oh, good afternoon, Lida Lee.” “Hello, grandma,” answered the child. She sat down, put her elbows on the shining table and surveyed the white-petti-coated bird cages hanging in the east windows. Then her eyes dropped to the pots of red geraniums which could be seen
Page SIXTEEN
sitting between the white sash curtains.
On the floor in front of a great shining range, Dingo, the yellow dog, stretched with never a care in the world. On top of the stove a big black iron teakettle hummed an air which anyone would recognize as “Home, Sweet Home.” On the mantel over the sink an ancient clock ticked the slow, comfortable hours away; and ten-year-old Lida, succumbing to the peace and quietness of the atmosphere, just sat and absorbed hope, and trust, and confidence in life. Of course she didn’t know she was filling her soul with food and strength, but that was the case.
Somehow, grandmothers understand; and Grandmother Gilman sat silently rocking to and fro, apparently oblivious of the small girl across the room.
Presently Lida got up and went into the sitting room. There she sat down by the big square piano and began to play. From the bay window came the fragrance of heliotrope; and red and blue gloxinias breathed out a fainter, but no less pleasing, fresh sweetness.
Lida played some of the old songs her grandmother loved—“Blue-eyed Mary,”
* “One is dominated by a deary unselfish old lady who loves her family above every earthly thing.”
“Robin Adair,”—and then she played a few hymns.
Now she can hear her Grandaunt Lydia tripping down from upstairs. Will the stately lady come through the front parlor or from the long hallway that also leads to the sitting room?
Aunt Lydia enters from the hall.
Tall, straight, rosy-cheeked, her hair shining black as jet, she addresses Lida courteously, and seats herself in an easy chair beside the banks of potted flowers in the bay window. Now Grandmother Gilman comes in and sits in a chair opposite Aunt Lydia’s.
Having obtained the required permission, Lida repairs to the pantry where an enormous jar holds a* treasure of ginger and molasses cookies, caraway-seed cookies and—just plain cookies. Choosing as she will, she goes again to the sitting room, curls up on the couch, and listens, listens, hour on hour, as Aunt Lydia reads to Grandmother Gilman from some book or other she has found in the city.
Dusk settles down over the room. The birds in the kitchen are silent now. Grandmother goes out to cover them for the night. A knob clicks and Cousin Eugenia comes in from a trip to see her mother in town.
Eugenia, too, is ten years old. She lives with grandmother and loves it. Lida wishes sometimes that she, too, might live here where everyone seems happy.
Now comes sober, serious, Uncle John, home from his work; and Uncle Fred from the legislature session; both are bachelors who love home too well to leave it. Aunt Grace and Aunt Alice drop in, too, everybody glad to see grandmother, and everybody glad to be home.
Lida walks toward the kitchen door. “Well, good-bye, Gram; bye, everybody. Guess I’ll go home. Good-night,” and away the child goes, through the gathering shadows, toward her own “home,” on down the village street, a comfortable feeling of security in her heart. The bitterness has gone from her eyes, the tight, set look has left her face. Not much has been said at grandmother’s, but there’s something, something there that puts courage, and hope, and strength into a person, even a small person like Lida.
Somehow Lida’s steps lag as she turns into the yard of her own home. Her father and mother are sure to be in a hectic discussion over some problem. At the supper table there will be sharp words and sarcastic remarks. It makes the food choke in one’s throat. It has always been like that as far back as Lida can remember. No wonder she would like to live at grandmother’s.
“Why, even father is different at grandmother’s,” Lida thinks. She sighs and goes into her “home,” which she feels, even now, is not a home and never will be.
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
It is just a place to stay out of the rain, and mud, and cold, and heat.
What is the difference in the two places? One is dominated by a dear, unselfish old lady who loves her family above every earthly thing, and who never has counted anything too costly to give up for her brood. Never a second thought has come when she has heard a call to sacrifice; her desires, her wishes, her hopes are in her children, her home. In the other home neither father nor mother is willing to sacrifice for the happiness of the other. In a home that is a home self must be put aside, and both father and mother must lay themselves on the altar, whether they wish to or not, for the good of their family.
Like produces like. One happy home usually brings forth another; and the cornerstone of the happy home is the Founder of that household in the garden of Eden, Jesus Christ. Wherever home and heart are opened to Him freely, there will be peace, and comfort, and joy; and where He dwells, there truly will be a confident, peaceful, hopeful home; for, if the home life is inharmonious, nothing can go well. The root of all life is home; and unless home is wholesome and firm, the flower will be poor, the fruit bad. Let us learn again the infinite importance of keeping the peace at home, and the need of cultivating the nobler qualities.
A Handful nf Dust
(Continued from page 15) still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Revelation 22:11.
“And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in: naked, and ye clothed Me: I wTas sick, and ye visited Me: I was in prison, and ye came unto Me. . . . [For] verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” Matthew 25: 32-36, 40.
“Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave Me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in: naked, and ye clothed Me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not. . . . [For] verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.” Verses 41-45.
Happy indeed is that man or woman who is able to see beyond the overwhelming bigness of the present to that immeasurable largeness of the future;
JANUARY, 1942
SOCIAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED
★
By Arthur W. Spalding------
When a Boy Goes Courting
When your boy of fourteen years sits with his arm around his best girl of thirteen years, what do you do? They want to sit in church together; they think they are quite grown up and should be allowed adult privileges.
What do you do? You smile at the girl; you don’t frown at her. And afterward you explain to your son that this just isn’t done in our family. In our family the boys grow up to be men before they start courting; and whether he thinks so or not, this is courting, or its imitation. And a man is aged twenty-one. Tell your boy that the love of the child, like apple blossoms, is beautiful; and that the love of early adolescence, which is his age, is the apple blossom turning into apple, but it’s a little green apple as yet, and little green apples aren’t good to eat. Wait for the sun and the rain of knowledge and experience to develop it, and the good ripe apple is just fine; that’s when he is twenty years old and up. If he bites into his little green apple now he will spoil it for ripening, and will never get its full benefit. Premature
amorous love unfits for successful and happy marriage later. Of course you ought to have taught that lesson to your child before ever he came to adolescence; possibly you just can’t get it over now, especially as there are so many twelve-year-olds around him playing at love; but, anyhow, try.
Don’t banish girls from his company, but make group activities. Make friends of your children’s friends of both sexes, give them good, vigorous, interesting activities, in nature observation and revelation, hikes, swimming, camping, gardening, household arts, decorative arts, occasional parties, and various recreations. Some church or community co-operation is needed in directing the social activities and forming the social ideals of all ages. Get the parents together and study correct social principles, enlist their common efforts to make the social life of the children normal and natural. It’s a socially sick group, and tending toward an immoral group, that has its immature adolescents prematurely engaged in love affairs.
who, sensing this truth, sets things in their right relationship, and by strong resolution and the help to be derived from Heaven, drives his chariot of life straight toward the pearly gates, realizing that thoughts, words, and deeds create character, and character, destiny. For soon, very soon, worthy endeavor will be crowned with eternal reward, and unworthiness with death, eternal death. Then the Land of Tomorrow and the Kingdom of our God will spread its fair acres beneath the feet of the redeemed and the beauties of that land will gratify the sight of the saints, while sin and sinners will be no more, for “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9.
Dd Something?
{Continued from page 11) soon as they should find it fordable. And then, toward evening, he opened the head of the trenches on both sides the river above the city, to let the water of it run into them. And, by this means, and the opening of the great dam, the river was so drained, that, by the middle of the night, it being then in a manner empty, both parties, according to their orders, entered the channel, the one having Gobrias, and
the other Gadates, for their guides; and, finding the gates leading down to the river, which used on all other nights to be shut, then all left open, through the neglect and disorder of that time of looseness [‘the fourteenth day of the month Tammuz. ... on this day of all days the women took part in the horrible rites.’—William Hayes Ward, D.D., in ‘Sunday School Times,’ Vol. XXV, No. 42, pp. 659, 660], they ascended through them into the city; and both parties being met at the palace, as had been concerted between them, they there surprised the guards, and slew them all; and when, on the noise, some that were within opened the gates to know what it meant, they rushed in upon them, and took the place; where, finding the king, with his sword drawn, at the head of those who were at hand to assist him, they slew him, valiantly fighting for his life, and all those that were with him. After this, proclamation being made, of life and safety to all such as should bring in their arms, and of death to all that should refuse so to do, all quietly yielded to the conquerors, and Cyrus, without any farther resistance, became master of the place.”—Vol. 1, Book 2, pp. 186, 137. See also “Seven Great Monarchies,” George Rawlinson, M.A., Vol. II, pp. 255-257.
God knows all about the movements of nations, armies, and the other influences good and bad that are at work. He used the very fifth columnists of Babylon—the
Page SEVENTEEN
priests of its own god—to fulfill His purpose. He can do the same today. Watch the mighty work of God among the nations, for we are rapidly approaching the time when God will perform His “strange work.”
War, destruction, death, disease, famine, and other evils will not continue forever. God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world. He has a final account to settle with those who “destroy the earth.” Revelation 11: 18.
“The Lord hath a controversy with the nations, He will plead with all flesh; He will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth.” Jeremiah 25:31-33.
Hosea gives an itemized account of the reasons for this controversy:
“The Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood.” Hosea 4: 1, 2.
The final judgment upon men will be the seven last plagues. They will be the most awful scourges ever known. Because they are unmixed with God’s mercy, they are termed a strange act:
“The Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, He shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act” Isaiah 28: 21.
Yes, God is going to do something soon! Will you be among that company in that day who will look up, when He comes in the clouds of heaven, and say: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us”? Isaiah 25: 9.
Why Will Christ Heturn?
(Continued from page 13) is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6: 39, 40. Plainly Christ teaches that even
those who believe on Him are dependent upon a resurrection at the last day. Paul teaches the same truth, that if there is no resurrection at the last day “then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ ar e perished” 1 Corinthians 15: 18. Therefore the resurrection is the only hope of future life beyond death and the grave. Christ must raise the dead; otherwise His resurrection fails. He is coming again to do this. What a day it will be! It is indescribable!
Jesus died and was resurrected to redeem our bodies. One purpose of His coming is to bring this fully about. The Apostle Paul says, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” “For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it might be conformed to the body of His glory.” Romans 8: 22,23; Philippians 3: 20, A.R.V.
Jesus made possible an eternal reward to all those who believe on Him. He is coming again to bring this reward. Jesus Himself says, “And, behold, I come quickly; and My reward is with Me, to give every man according as His work shall be.” Revelation 22: 12. Again He says, “And thou shalt be blessed; for they [the poor] cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:14. Again, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works.” Matthew 16: 27. And the Apostle Paul, just before his death, exclaimed, “ For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4: 6-8. Peter had the same hope: “When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” 1 Peter 5: 4.
A Theory that Dethrones God
(Continued from page 6) conduct? These questions are not answered by miserable and futile attempts of theologians to adapt the evolutionary idea of the universe to the teachings of the Christian religion.
Whatever plausible excuses organized religion may offer for its acceptance of the theories of Darwin and Wallace, the fact remains that those theories cannot possibly be reconciled with the majestic simplicity of the opening words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Much less can they be reconciled to the words of the fourth commandment: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” Exodus 20: 11. Back to God and the Bible we must go, urged Mr. Brown, in his remarkable broadcast, if we would visualize a better world, and build here a solid foundation for human society.
Human effort and human enterprise are futile and destructive unless linked up with the law of God and Christian faith. Mr. Brown, in concluding his broadcast, solemnly and impressively reminded his hearers, in the words of Holy Writ: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” Psalm 127: 1.
Saul-Searing World Events
(Continued from page 5) still “run to and fro,” not knowing in which direction to turn to find the comfort their souls crave. (Amos 8: 12.) Their inventive genius—great though it be—will avail them nothing in the final judgment hour.
Men of themselves cannot save the world. The key to this world’s present perplexities is in the prophecies of the word of God and the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
To everyone today comes the insistent pleading of the Holy Spirit: “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” Isaiah 55: 6, 7.
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Page EIGHTEEN
The WATCHMAN MAGAZINE
PLEASE TELL ME
Whence Came Sunday Keeping?
In Daniel 7: 25 we are told that the times will he changed. Was this the change of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday f If so, was it made by man or Godf R. H.
By reading Daniel 7: 25 you will observe that this attempted change was made by man; but since God made the Sabbath in the beginning, it is quite clear that man could not change that day unless he were greater than God. Although he was to attempt it, he would only “think” to do it. Dr. R. W. Dale, Congregationalist, speaking of the Ten Commandments, said: “It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devoutly we may spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath. . . . The Sabbath was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such command for the obligation to observe Sunday. . . . There is not a single sentence in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday.”—“The Ten Commandments,” Hodder and Stoughton, pp. 106, 107.
Said Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Christian Union: “The current notion that Christ and His apostles authoritatively substituted the first day for the seventh, is absolutely without any authority in the New Testament.”—Quoted from the Christian Union, June 26, 1890.
Said the great historian, Neander: “The festival of Sunday, like all other festivals, was always only a human ordinance, and it was far from the intentions of the apostles to establish a divine command in this respect, far from them, and from the early apostolic church, to transfer the laws of the Sabbath to Sunday.”—Rose’s Translation, page 186.
The Roman Emperor Constantine, who was reputedly converted to Christianity, in his edict of March 7, 321 a.d., ordered: “Let all judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun, but let those who are situated in the country, freely and at full liberty, attend to the business of agriculture, because it often happens that no other day is so fit for sowing corn and planting vines, lest the critical moment being let slip, men should lose the commodities granted by heaven.” You will notice that he does not call Sunday the Sabbath but the “venerable day of the sun,” for it had long been devoted to sun worship. You will also observe that although this law prescribed that those in the city should keep Sunday, it provided that those who lived in the country should be free to work, to plant, or to harvest, lest they might otherwise lose their crops. That was the first official effort of man to change the Sabbath from Saturday the seventh day of the week, to Sunday the first day of the week.	:	^ )
We read: “Sylvester, bishop of Rome, 314-337 a.d., officially changed the title of the first day, calling it the Lord's Day.”—See uIIistoria Ecclesiastica,” by M. Ludovicum Lucium, cent. 4, cap. 10, pages 739, 740, edition Basile, 1624.
At the Council of Laodicea, held about 364, the Catholic Church declared: “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [Sabbath, original], but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day [Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing [keeping Saturday as the Sabbath], they shall be shut out from Christ.”—11A History of the Church Councils,” Rev. Charles Joseph Hefele, D.D. (Roman Catholic), 326 to 439 A. D. (Vol. II, p. 316). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1896.
Says the Episcopal Church in “The Sabbath: or an Examination of the Six Texts,” by Sir William Domville, page 291, published in London, Chapman and Hall, 1849: “Cen-
JANUARY, 1942
turies of the Christian era passed away before the Sunday was observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of Constantine, a.d. 321.” Concerning this legislation, Professor Hutton Webster, Ph.D. (University of Nebraska), in a book entitled, “Rest Days ” page 122, published by Macmillan & Co., New York, N. Y., says: “This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in his capacity of Pontifex Maximus [his position as high priest of paganism], was only adding the day of the sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in the
Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred calendar.”
The Catholics themselves have said: “Seventh-day Adventists hold to the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, which, as we know, was celebrated on the seventh day of the week. They reject the Christian Sunday. In this they are more consistent than the other Protestants, who profess to hold that the Bible interpreted by their private judgment is the rule of faith. For against these Adventists other sects arc unable to explain their Sunday observance. This rests on the authority of the Catholic Church.”—Quoted in 11 The Messenger of the Sacred Heart,” published at 5151 E. Fordham Road, New York, November, 1927.
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1. lion. David Howcs-Lyon, youngest son of tin* fourteenth Karl of Strathmore. and brother of Queen Elizabeth of Britain, heads the Press Department in the Ministry of Economic Welfare in London. 2. (general De Gaulle, leader of the Krce French forces, reviews his ^uurd of honor at Beirut in Syria. 3. William G. McPhail, son of the president of National League pennant-winning Brooklyn Dodgers deft), with Phillip Vi illkie, son of
Wendell L. Vi illkie, former Hepiihliean candidate for President, being sworn in as apprentice seamen in the l nited States Naval Heserve on hoard the U.S.S. “‘Vi heeling.” 4. (ierman and Italian submarine crews leaving a British battleship as prisoners of war. 3. Joseph K. McWilliams, who ran for Congress on the American Destiny Parly ticket in 1910, must serve a suspended sentence for a renewed attack upon the Jews.