“Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,
and Princes shall rule in judgment.” (Isaiah 32:1)
Coming events cast their shadows before. Startling shadows are all about us. A great change in the affairs of men is indicated and acknowledged by all thoughtful, intelligent people. The world’s pace during the past fifty years astonishes everybody. New conditions meet us on every hand. The majority of books written half a century ago along scientific lines are considered rubbish today. Rules and customs and theories of the past, supposed to be immovable and absolute, are abandoned as worthless ─ in chemistry, in manufactures, in art, in finance and commerce. All these changes necessitate a new view of social conditions and a re-examination of the relationship of religion and the Bible to man and his conditions, as seen from the present viewpoint.
The business and social world have been compelled to keep pace with the steps of progress; some of them have yielded gladly and some of them reluctantly. But religionists have been placed in a most awkward position. Religion and moral sense constitute the backbone and fiber of the best progress in civilization. The perplexity of religious thought, and its manifest inability to adjust itself to the changed conditions, is working a serious disadvantage to all disposed to look to the Almighty for guidance in life’s affairs.
The increase in worldly wisdom, the improved human conditions, the advancement along scientific lines, in material prosperity, have turned many of the world’s brightest intellects away from God and from the Bible. Many of these, still professing Christianity in an outward, formal manner, have really abandoned it in favor of a theory of “civilization.” They have wandered from the Divine Revelation, the Bible, into paths of speculation ─ their own and other men’s. They have cogitated that the reverse of the Bible statements is the Truth ─ that instead of man falling from the image of God into sin and death, he is rising from a brute or monkey plane upward, gradually, to Divine heights. Instead of looking for a great Deliverer, Messiah, Savior, Life-Giver, they are hoping to be let alone by any outside influence, that certain fancied laws of Evolution may help them upward and onward to glory, honor and immortality.
The result is that religious thought today everywhere and in all denominations, is chaotic. The whole of Christendom has practically become agnostic ─ admitting that they do not know the Truth nor how to adjust their reasoning faculties to present conditions. They are in an expectant attitude ─ seeking light. Nevertheless many fear the light lest it make manifest cherished errors or selfish hopes and ambitions which must be abandoned. But they are still pretending to know many things which we and they know that they do not know. Daily the strain becomes more intense. Gradually everybody is recognizing that a great crisis is impending along every line ─ that the people are awakening and thinking, and will no longer receive errors, as formerly.
CONVERTING THE WORLD TO GOD
Fifty years ago Christian people, full of faith in the Bible, which they seriously misunderstood and read with sectarian spectacles of various colors, were fully agreed that God had given His Church the commission to convert the whole world and to establish Messiah’s Kingdom, when the nations would learn war no more, but beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Zealous Christian people urged that the heathen were going down to a hell of eternal torment at the rate of ninety thousand every twenty-four hours.
Noble men and women sacrificed their earthly interests for the assistance of the heathen ─ to prevent that awful catastrophe, to help the very program of God which some other Christian people of an earlier day had declared was predestinated and foreordained as unalterable. Good was certainly attempted ─ we trust that some good was accomplished. We know that some harm was done, in that fallacious conceptions of the character and plan of the Creator were promulgated amongst the heathen, which have hardened and embittered some of them.
But by and by, practical people sought for statistics, and now know that there are twice as many heathen in the world as there were a century ago. Of course, there are unthinking and unstatistical people who refuse knowledge, and who are today claiming with a com-mendable zeal, but a reprehensible ignorance, that large contributions of money would enable them to capture the whole world for God. Nevertheless, the masses no longer see the matter as they did, and can no longer be swayed to the same extent. Thinking people refuse to believe that God for centuries has sat calmly viewing the situation, allowing millions to go to eternal torment. They refuse to believe that their hearts and sympathies are more tender than those of their Creator.
Even the heathen are getting awake to the inconsistency of what has been given them under the Gospel label. They are finding out that the word Gospel signifies “good tidings,” and that what has been preached to them is the most awful message conceivable ─ that all of the heathen and the majority of their civilized neighbors and friends and relatives have been decreed, sentenced, foreordained, to eternal torture because of ignorance, because of a misbelief in respect to which they were thoroughly honest. Perplexed, the missionaries ask, What shall we preach? The message of Damnation does not sound good to the heathen, and they do not run after it nor feast their souls upon it.
The question comes to the ministers and professors of colleges throughout Christendom, and they are perplexed what answer to give. The majority of them have become Higher Critics and no longer accept the Bible as the Word of God; they are Evolutionists and no longer believe the Gospel which the Missionary societies were organized to proclaim. They are in perplexity, and many of them are prepared to abandon the former theory of Missions, and to continue their work henceforth merely along humanitarian lines. Indeed, within the last twenty-five years missionary effort has turned gradually to secular education and medical practice in the interest of the heathen, with little religious doctrine ─ and so much the better.
Everybody is agreed that the Kingdom of Messiah cannot be brought about by the wholesale conversion of the world. And logical people see that larger numbers have been lost to Christianity in civilized lands during the last twenty-five years than were ever claimed to be converted amongst the heathen. We say lost to Christianity, because why should any one be called a Christian who has lost all faith in the Bible ─ in the Law, the Prophets and the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles?
The great cloud of bewilderment which encompasses Christendom is realized by all earnest people ─ churchmen and others. And no wonder there is a certain dread associated with the dark cloud! People are wondering what kind of a storm will result? And what will be the effect upon the great religious systems of civilization? It is to join hands against these ominous conditions that the clergy of all denominations have aroused themselves in favor of Church union, or Federation. But the people feel comparatively little interest in the proposition, which they will not oppose, however.
The difficulty with the present situation is that we have stupidly and blunderingly misread the Bible. We have twisted what we did read and picked out certain portions which best pleased our fancies and supported best our various creeds. We have neglected the honest, truthful study which we should have given to our Heavenly Father’s Message. The confusion of Christendom is the result. This confusion and perplexity the Scriptures portray, assuring us that we are in the midst of a great falling away from faith in God and in His Revelation. We see fulfilled all about us the wonderful prophetic and symbolic picture of Psalm 91. A thousand fall at our side and ten thousand at our right hand ─ only the “Israelites indeed,” in whom there is no guile, will be kept from stumbling in this evil day. The chaos, which we already see everywhere in evidence, is only beginning.
GOD’S GREAT REMEDY AT HAND
The fault of Christendom has been the rejection of the Divine Plan and the acceptance instead of a human plan. The Church was going to convert the world ─ going to “conquer the world for Jesus” and present it to Him as a trophy! Alas! we have not been able to convert ourselves, which is the particular work the Master gave us to do. Greater humility would have shown us our folly long ago.
Bible students do not need to be reminded that all through the Old Testament Scriptures God’s promises abound, telling Israel and all who have ears to hear of the glorious reign of Messiah and of the success of His Kingdom, and how the result will be that “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess to the glory of God”; how “all the blind eyes shall be opened and all the deaf ears shall be unstopped”; how the blessing of the Lord will be with Israel, restored to His favor, and operate through Israel to the blessing of all peoples. We remember the prophecies which picture earthly governments and show us their termination and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on their ruins. We remember the Jubilee picture repeated by the Israelites every fiftieth year, proclaiming liberty for the people, and typifying restitution of all that has been lost through sin, and which is to be restored through Messiah's Kingdom.
Bible students know also how the New Testament abounds with references to the Kingdom! the Kingdom! the Kingdom! Nearly all the parables that our Lord gave were in illustration of something connected with the Kingdom or the class called out of the world to inherit the spiritual Kingdom. All such know, too, that the Great Teacher proclaimed that Kingdom and taught us and all of His followers to pray, “Thy Kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven!” They all know, too, that all of the Apostles refer to that Kingdom and point the Church to its establishment for the realization of her hopes ─ the time when the “marriage of the Lamb” will take place ─ the time when God's New Covenant with Israel will go into effect. The time when He who scattered Israel will also gather them, and when the Law shall go forth from Mt. Zion, the Celestial Kingdom, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, the Capital of the earthly Princes. God’s remedy is just what humanity is coming to realize it needs. In its establishment, as the Scriptures declare, “the desire of all nations shall come.” (Haggai 2:7)
Bible students are more and more coming to see that this Gospel Age is the time in which Messiah is selecting from amongst men ─ of Jews and Gentiles ─ a saintly class, and is testing and proving their loyalty to God and to righteousness. These are to be Messiah's assistants ─ the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife. As Abraham typified the Heavenly Father, so the Messiah was typified by Isaac. And Messiah’s Bride and joint-heir and co-laborer in His Kingdom was typified by Rebecca. Thus seen the great Plan of God has progressed well.
Our neglect of the Word of God and our study instead of the Talmud and the Creeds of the Dark Ages have been our undoing. Under all this wrong influence we have failed to cultivate the fruits of the Holy Spirit ─ meekness, gentleness, patience, longsuffering, brotherly kindness, love. Instead, we cultivate pride, ambition, selfishness. We have done those things which we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done. Our help must come from God. According to our understanding of the Scriptures, help is near, but coming in an unexpected way. Pride and selfishness have blossomed and brought forth a fruitage of strife. The bad example set by Christian people has extended to the world, and has been thoroughly appropriated. It has become the spirit of the world ─ of all classes.
THE GREAT DAY OF WRATH
Now, as faith in the Bible is waning and respect for God and His Word is proportionately waning, what could we expect but that which the Scriptures declare is at hand, namely, the “time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation?” The selfishness which both rich and poor, learned and ignorant, have cultivated will, in that Time of Trouble, be represented in conflicts between labor unions and capitalistic trusts. The Bible declares that then “every man’s hand will be against his neighbor” ─ all confidence will be lost ─ the bond of human sympathy and brotherhood will be utterly snapped in riotous selfishness.
The Scriptures identify this trouble with Messiah’s taking to Himself His Kingdom power and beginning his reign (Daniel 12:1; Revelation 11:18). Thank God! The intimations of the Scriptures are that the conflict of that time will be short. It must, however, last long enough to teach humanity a lesson never to be forgotten ─ that God and His arrangements must stand first and must be obeyed, if blessing is sought.
When it is remembered that Messiah's Kingdom is not only to bless those living at the time of its establishment, but gradually to awaken the dead from the slumber of the tomb, and to give all of our race a full opportunity for attaining life eternal or death eternal, then it will be seen that the Kingdom must be a spiritual one. Then, too, Messiah’s Kingdom of Light is represented as superseding Satan’s Kingdom of Darkness ─ both spiritual. With this thought our text is in full accord ─ “A King shall reign in righteousness.” (Messiah will be that Great King, His Bride being associated with Him.) And “Princes shall execute judgment in the earth,” carrying out the decrees and regulations of the Heavenly Messiah. This is the meaning of the Lord's promise to Israel, “I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning.” (Isaiah 1:26)
The Princes who will execute judgment will all be Israelitish and all perfect men ─ tried and approved of God. They will be the Ancient Worthies ─ Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Prophets. These men, great in faith and obedience to God, will be known to the Jews as the “fathers,” as the prophecy respecting them declares, “Instead of the fathers shall be the children, whom Thou [Messiah] mayest make Princes in all the earth.” They will be the children of Messiah in the sense that they will derive their resurrection life from Him, the Great King. Indeed, the Scriptures assure us that eventually the whole world shall receive new life from Messiah, in offset to the life received from Adam ─ forfeited through sin. Thus amongst the various titles of Messiah mentioned by the prophets we find that He will be the “Age-lasting Father,” as well as the “Prince of Peace” and mighty Elohim and the wonderful Counselor. “Of the increase of His Government and Peace there shall be no end.” (Isaiah 9:6,7)
(What Pastor Russell Wrote for the Overland Monthly, pages 318-321, 1909)
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IMMINENCE OF CHRIST’S KINGDOM
“Behold, I will send you Elijah, the Prophet, before the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord; and He shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5,6)
Knowing that we are teaching the imminence of the establishment of Christ’s Millennial Kingdom, some are inclined to doubt the possibility of its establishment until first Elijah, the prophet, or teacher, shall be sent of God and recognized in the world. We are queried on the subject, What do you believe respecting Elijah? In what direction should we look for the promised Elijah? We reply that no human being fills the picture, the demands, the requirements of the prophecy. The fulfillment must be looked for on a much larger scale, a much grander scale.
JOHN THE FORERUNNER OF JESUS
In order to gain a comprehensive view of the matter, we look back to the Lord’s First Advent, and there see John the Baptist doing a work in the Jewish Church, introducing to it Jesus in the flesh. Jesus said of John the Baptist, “This is the Elias, if we can receive it.” (Matthew 11:14.) That is to say, John the Baptist was acting among the Jewish household of faith in the power and spirit of Elijah, who was to follow. His relationship to the future Elijah, the greater Elijah, was very similar to the relationship of our Lord Jesus to the greater Christ. By this, we mean that our Lord Jesus at His First Advent presented Himself to the Jews as the Messiah, knowing in advance that He would be rejected by them; knowing that He would be crucified; knowing that He would be raised from the dead on the third day, and forty days later would ascend up on high to appear in the presence of God on our behalf; knowing that He would be absent from the world for more than eighteen centuries; knowing that in this interim the Holy Spirit would select from both Jews and Gentiles a “little flock” to constitute His associates in the Kingdom ─ a little flock as the Bride of Christ, or otherwise known as the members of His Body, of which He is head; knowing that when the full number of members had been selected the Second Advent would take place, accompanied by the glorification of The Christ, Jesus and His members, and followed by the establishment of the “Kingdom of God under the whole heavens,” blessing all the families of the earth.
Our understanding is that the work of John the Baptist at our Lord’s First Advent was merely a foreshadowing, or illustration, of the greater work of the greater Elijah, whose ministry is to introduce the Second Advent of Christ and the Church in glory.
We have seen that John the Baptist served the purpose of Elijah to as many of the Jews as were “Israelites indeed” ─ so many of them as could and did receive Jesus as the Messiah; but the work of John was far from accomplishing the great things predicted of “Elijah, the Prophet,” mentioned in our text. Nevertheless, in every particular there was some measure of likeness between John and the true antitypical Elijah. For instance, he failed to establish unity and harmony in Israel as respects the relationship of the people to their God; he failed to do a mediatorial work except for a few. The masses were not prepared by his message, and as a consequence there came upon that typical nation a judgment of the Lord, a Time of Trouble such as they had never previously had. This foreshadows also the fact that the antitypical Elijah will similarly fail to establish peace and harmony and righteousness and relationship between God and man in the earth, and that consequently this Age will end, as did the Jewish Age, with a Time of Trouble.
THE CHURCH IN THE FLESH IS ELIJAH
We wish to lay before your minds a word-picture of the great Elijah mentioned in the text. It is the Church in the flesh this side the veil ─ even as the Church in glory the other side of the veil ─ is The Christ. We make the statement first and give the demonstration of its truthfulness afterward. Christ in the flesh, the Apostles in the flesh and all the faithful of the Lord’s people throughout the Gospel Age during their earthly career and their living representatives now in the world are fulfilling the work ascribed to Elijah. They have been endeavoring to bring about harmony, reconciliation and fellowship between God and His people. God Himself has laid the foundation of the reconciliation in the sacrifice of His Son, and the Apostle declares that He has made us “able ministers” of His Word as though God did beseech men by us to be reconciled to Him. Our Lord Jesus began this work while in the flesh, and He personally was the Head of this great Elijah, His Church in the flesh, which during nearly nineteen centuries now has been laboring together under His supervision to bless the world, to reconcile the world for so many as were willing to hear and to heed.
It was not prophesied that Elijah would have success. On the contrary, the mere statement that if his labors were not successful in bringing about reconciliation this “curse” would follow, implies the probability of the latter. Other Scriptures, other prophecies, show us most distinctly that the Lord had foreknown and foretold through the prophets that the great Time of Trouble would surely come. Note, for instance, the words of Zephaniah, the prophet: “Wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until I rise up to the prey, for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them Mine indignation, even all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy” ─ the fire of Divine anger, the just punishment for the wrong course taken by those who had been so highly favored of the Lord in respect to knowledge of the Divine character and plan. This figurative declaration of the intensity of the trouble with which this present Age will terminate, and which will inaugurate the new dispensation, fully agrees with the statement of our text, that if Elijah’s message went unheeded, did not succeed in converting mankind, then a curse, a great trouble, would be sent upon them by the Lord, with the view to teaching them the necessary lesson which they would not learn otherwise.
That the curse, the trouble, the fire of that day, will be effective and will yield blessed results is distinctly shown by the same prophet, Zephaniah, for through him the Lord immediately adds: “Then will I turn unto the people a pure language [a pure message], that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent.” (Zephaniah 3:8,9) The scourging, the curse, the Time of Trouble, the symbolic fire, will accomplish for mankind in short time what the message of Elijah failed to accomplish.
A TIME OF TROUBLE
Daniel the prophet (12:1) also refers to this “curse,” or Time of Trouble with which this Gospel Age will end. He speaks of it as “a time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation,” and tells us that it will occur at the Second Coming of Christ, when He shall “stand up,” assume authority in the beginning of His reign. The same thought is given us in Revelation, where we are distinctly told that our Lord will take unto Himself His great power and reign, and at that time the nations will be angry and God’s wrath will come upon them, and that they shall be broken in pieces as a potter’s vessel under the rule of Messiah’s “iron rod” of inflexible justice (Rev. 11:15-18). The Apostle Paul also notes the coming of this “curse” as a sure thing, and declares that our Lord, at His Second Advent, shall be revealed “in flaming fire, taking vengeance” ─ symbolic fire, it is true ─ a symbol of the destructive force which will be exercised against everything that shall oppose the laws of Messiah’s Kingdom. Again he tells us: “The fire of that day shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” (2 Thes. 1:8; 1 Cor. 3:13)
The Apostle James, also guided by the Holy Spirit, foreknew that the Elijah class would not be successful in its endeavor to bring about a reconciliation, and that the result would be a “time of trouble.” The Apostle Peter also tells us of this great curse which shall come upon the world in the end of this Gospel Age because of the failure of the mission of “Elijah” ─ because the antitypical Elijah, the Church in the flesh, fails to establish righteousness and love on the earth, fails to bring about reconciliation.
As we look out into the world we are surprised how little has been accomplished by the Lord’s faithful followers. Their work has merely gathered the Elijah class and witnessed to the remainder of the world. And this, indeed, was all the Lord intended for this Age, as various Scriptures show us. He foreknew the meagerness of results that would follow all our efforts.
“EVERY MAN’S HAND AGAINST HIS NEIGHBOR”
We do, indeed, see a spread of the humanitarian sentiment throughout the world. We are glad to note that a larger number of people than ever before possess some measure of sympathy for one another, evidenced by the hospitals and public homes and public schools and infirmaries, etc. Neverthe1ess, if we were to credit all these to purely Christian sentiment we should probably err. On the contrary, we are bound to assume from the knowledge we have on the subject that a measure of selfishness runs through all these various benevolences.
As for the hospitals, there is more or less pride on the part of medical men in connection with their estab1ishment; and as for the support, it comes largely through the public purse ─ through the appropriations of the State Treasury; and as for the benevolent sentiments which lie back of such appropriations for buildings, maintenance, etc. we are not toforget that the politicians who vote the moneys pay comparatively little of the taxes, and that they are influenced in large measure by a desire to curry favor among a majority of their constituents, and to some extent by architects and builders, who hope to make some profit out of the contracts, and by some who hope to obtain for themselves positions of influence or advantage in connection with the administra-tion of benevolences.
Thus, while wishing to give all proper credit for the benevolent spirit of our times, which is very great, we see that it would be a mistake not to notice that selfishness also has a hand in the benevolences. Besides, we live in a day when many wealthy people have more money than they know what to do with, in a day when some who profess Buddhism and not Christianity, are giving millions for the endowment of schools, the building of libraries and supplying church organs. We must remember that the mental organization of the natural man contains the organ of benevolence and also the organ of approba-tiveness, and to such it would be but the natural thing to use money in such a manner as would bring comfort or advantage to others and honor to himself.
But as we look out over the world, we not only see that it is not converted after nearly nineteen centuries of the preaching of the Gospel, with more or less admixture of error, but we see what is still more discouraging as respects the conversion of the world, namely, that the one-fourth of the human family, accredited with being of Christian faith, furnishes probably nine-tenths of all the murders, suicides and crimes of every character committed in the world.
IS THE WORLD’S CONVERSION HOPELESS?
We are not claiming that this is the result of Christianity; we are not claiming that the false teachings of the sects favor any of these misdoings. What we do claim is that these facts prove that the knowledge of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, affects favorably only a small proportion who come in contact with it, and that among that favorably affected portion a comparatively few are saints, who in their earthly life are members of the great antitypical Elijah, whose lives are devoted to the promulgation of the Gospel, and doing all in their power to turn men from sin to righteousness, to harmony with the Lord.
Those who tell us that the world is rapidly being converted and that soon the Lord’s Prayer will be fulfilled, which says, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven” ─ these dear friends are surely closing their eyes to the plain facts of the case. Can they not see that if God’s will were done as fully in all parts of the earth as in the most moral and law-abiding cities in the world ─ the condition would still be far from that described in the Lord's prayer? Is God’s will done in any city as it is done in Heaven? Surely not! If the Elijah-class, the Church in the flesh, could accomplish such a conversion of the whole world as would bring all to the condition of the citizens of any community, the world would still be in the very condition which would call forth the great curse, the Time of Trouble, as necessary to the ushering in of the Kingdom of God's dear Son.
But not only so: Cast your mind backward to where the Gospel first was preached. Look at Jerusalem; look at Antioch; look at the cities of Asia Minor, at Corinth, at Rome, where the Gospel was first successfully planted, and what do we see? We see that almost every spark of true religion, true Christianity, has died out in all these places. What, then, could we hope for in respect to the world in general? If we could establish Christianity in every quarter of the globe, in every city and town and village and hamlet, not only would they still be far from the condition mentioned in Our Lord’s prayer, but we have no assurance of their remaining even in that moderate condition for any length of time.
No; what we need is the Second Coming of our Master and the establishment of His Kingdom, not only in great Glory, but also in great power ─ the forcible establishment of righteousness in the earth. The world will need what the Lord has promised for that glorious Millennial Reign, namely, that full assistance will be granted to all who will then desire it ─full Restitution power to lift up again out of sin and degradation, mental, moral and physical, and to bring back to original perfection all who will.
ELIJAH IN PROPHECY
Not directly, but indirectly, Elijah is shown in the New Testament to have been a type of the Gospel Church, his experiences typifying our experiences. For instance, he was persecuted because of his fidelity to the Truth. The Church also experiences such persecution.
Elijah’s principal persecutor was Jezebel, the wicked Queen of Israel, who is mentioned by name as the type of the enemy of the saints (Revelation 2:20). As Jezebel's persecuting power was exercised through her husband, the king, so Papacy’s persecuting power was exercised through the Roman Empire to which she was joined. As Elijah fled from Jezebel into the wilderness, where he was miracu-lously nourished by the Lord, so the true Church was led symbolically into the wilderness of isolation, but was miraculously sustained by God and her life was not permitted to be utterly destroyed. As Elijah was three and one-half years in the wilderness ─ and during that time there was no rain and a great famine prevailed ─ so the Church was three and one-half symbolic days, or 1,260 literal years, in the wilderness condition, during which time there was a spiritual famine and thirst because of lack of Truth, the Living Water, the Bread of Life.
As Elijah, at the close of the three and a half years, returned from the wilderness and manifested the errors of Jezebel’s priests, so the true Church at the close of the 1,260 years again came into prominence, since which time a great blessing of refreshment has come to the world, and Bibles at the rate of millions of copies every year are spread broadcast.
King Ahab and his people at first rejoiced that Elijah and his God were honored, but the spirit of Jezebel remained unchanged; she again sought Elijah’s life, and he again was compelled to flee into the wilderness. So with the corresponding blessings here: the world in general does not recognize the Lord’s hand in them. The Jezebel principle and spirit, not only in Papacy, but also in Protestantism, will doubtless, as soon as the Federation now proposed shall be effected, persecute the Lord’s true followers, the Elijah-class, and cause them again to flee into the wilderness, as did Elijah their type.
As Elijah's career ended by his being taken from the earth, so when the saints shall all have been changed from earthly to heavenly conditions, this will be the end of the Elijah-class. Its work will have been accomplished in its own development and in the witnessing it has done before the world. How it has witnessed, and what its Message in the world has been, and what its work as the Christ on the other side of the veil will be, we leave for consideration at a later time.
(What Pastor Russell Wrote for the Overland Monthly, pages 322-326, 1909)
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LETTER OF GENERAL INTEREST
Dear Marjorie,
Since “the field is the world” that’s where I’ve been. Just returned from Kenya. When I read that Emily was gone from us, my heart hurt. She was such an inspiration to me. Her cheering me on in my fight against anti-semitism was special. I never got to hug her in person. One day I believe that I shall!
Our love to you, Frank Eiklor (CALIFORNIA)