No. 247
Another year gone – with scientific advancement occurring at a speedy pace. Probably the outstanding feat of the year was the United States and Russian astronauts meeting in outer space and visiting with each other for a number of days.
In agriculture also tremendous progress. One of our acquaintances in Michigan told us he secured 159 plus bushels of corn to the acre; and Michigan is not considered as one of the corn-producing states. When we were a boy on an Ohio farm fifty bushels per acre was considered a sensational yield.
IN FINANCE
In contrast to the foregoing, the financial condition in many countries is deteriorating perhaps more rapidly than science is advancing. In England, the financial center of the world prior to 1914, there is now 22% of the people unemployed, with heavy trade deficits occurring regularly. In Italy 25% of the people are out of work. Here in the United States (written Nov. 4, 1975) a number of the larger cities are insolvent, with New York City being the outstanding spectacle, and Detroit running a close second. This situation has developed because of the bungling management and thievery of past politicians. For more than fifty years we have had firsthand reliable information about the thievery that has been perpetrated; and the wonder of it all is that some of these cities have not collapsed years ago. This brings forcefully to mind the words of St. Paul: "They shall perish... they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed." (Heb. 1:11,12)
Inflation – This condition has now advanced far out of control; and no amount of financial ingenuity can cope with it. Labor has priced itself out of most markets. In Detroit we are personally acquainted with a carpenter who receives $9.85 per hour, with double time for Sundays and holidays. Thus, on one holiday his wages amounted to $157.60; and he told us he just could not afford to pass that up, much as he would have preferred to spend the holiday otherwise. To secure the services of a plumber, the price is $20 per hour from the time he leaves the shop until he returns; but he requires the services of a helper at the same rate. Thus, $40 per hour for a house call. And this goes double time for Sundays. We know of one business man who had to have some work done on Sunday – two plumbers and two helpers at $160 per hour. He told us that these men took a coffee break in the forenoon, another in the afternoon; that those two respites cost him just $120. It is little wonder that such expense will be tolerated only under the most demanding conditions.
It is no longer possible to reduce wages. Not only so, but labor is constantly crying for even higher wages. Thus it is impossible to reduce costs; and reducing cost is the only way prices can be lowered. Recently on a downtown street in Detroit we were accosted by a beggar with the request: Can you spare me a dollar for a bowl of soup? A good pair of shoes cost $12 sixty years ago; now that same brand, with the quality reduced, costs $75.
Elevator operators in New York City are currently paid $30,000 per year; and trash pick-up men receive $19,000 per year. Interest alone on the United States national debt is now thirty-five billion dollars per year. The interest item now in our national budget is almost equal the entire budget in 1958. Along with such situations unemployment is on the increase. In the County of Los Angeles, California, there are 870,920 people on welfare; and this staggering load must be borne mostly by business. The US Department of Health, Education and Welfare now requires eighty-one billion dollars a year to operate; another item that must be borne by business. Very few of our politicians have ever had any real business experience; and they are therefore disinclined to sympathize with our businesses.
One financial publication carries this item: "In 1965 (just ten years ago) about 480,000 people were on welfare in New York City; a decade later the figure is 1.2 million. In 1974 the Welfare Agency accounted for $3.4 billion of the city's $12 billion budget – more than education, more than hospitals, more than anything else. (It is important to remember, however, that 50% of the welfare outlay is reimbursed by the federal government, and 25% by the state.) The agency served 263,000 meals a month; kept 28,000 people in foster homes; it bought 35,000 gallons of liquid detergent, 48 tons of powdered soap, 10,000 mops and 18,000 brooms to clean up its 5.5 million square feet....... " Nobody can agree on the extent of welfare fraud (an especially sticky point with bond buyers), or on whether it makes any sense to try eliminating what fraud there is, or on how to go about doing it. And according to the US Commissioner of Welfare, the Human Resources Administration continues to misspend about $600 million a year by giving welfare to people who shouldn't be getting it and by giving incorrect amounts to people who should."
In another direction one financial expert has this to say: "It is important to recognize what has and what is happening here if there is ever to be a return to a reasonable degree of price stability. Much of the inflation now being experienced by industrialized nations has originated in the way governments have taken more out of the economy to finance their programs, than the economy had to give. The central banks in making up the difference by expanding the money supply have progressively diluted the value of the currencies WHOSE FUNCTION WAS THEIRS TO PRESERVE.............
"The assumption that the Fed will go a long way toward making new money available underlies the present expectation of resurgent inflation through 1976. As US Treasury Secretary Simon said: 'We hardly ever do anything in Washington for the long-run good of the country; most everything we do is aimed at the next election.'"
Surplus Intellectuals – "What do we mean by surplus intellectual? Surplus in the sense of there being far more intellectuals than there are employment opportunities with income and prestige and duties appropriate to the self-evaluation of those of us who are intellectuals. There are not enough jobs of the kind that we believe ourselves to have been created to fill, at incomes we believe appropriate to our true worth.... The intellectual finds it reassuring to say that the businessman gets his money by luck, or monopoly, or exploitation, or dishonesty, or what have you."
All central banks in industrialized countries will have to obey their political masters, the welfare statist governments, which are desperately spending what they do not have and can only get by creating money from thin air through monetary expansion. It has been wisely stated by some pundits: Listen carefully to what the politicians have to say; then do just the reverse, and you will win most of the time. As we have often remarked in the past – The American dollar is a promise to pay NOTHING. One writer has put it this way: "Further strength in the US Dollar can be expected during the next few months (written Aug. 1, 1975). However the inevitable weakness will reappear in 1976 that will launch the dollar on a downward path climaxing in collapse."
Germany - Says one publication: "Thanks to the Keynesian-age bred bureaucrats in Western Countries and the disastrous influence of Washington on German economic planning, West Germany is suddenly becoming the 'sick man' of Europe. The West German government, faced by a continuing recession, plans to start a $2 billion program of public works. Despite a $6 billion tax cut and $24 billion in deficit financing by federal, state and local governments, there are still more than one million unemployed. Forum readers are not surprised to see the chancellor of West Germany running to French President Giscard D'Estains for help. France has the strongest economy in Europe.
"The west Germans are so desperate that they started talking about a sort of NEW DEAL building schools, bridges, railroads – anything to pump money and jobs into the economy. Last month the German Central Bank lowered reserve requirements on foreign liabilities, adding another $600 million to the funds private banks keep available for lending. To cap it all, the Central Bank lowered interest rates to 4½%. What happened to the German economic miracle? The same as that which happened to the U.S., Canadian, or any other welfare statist Keynesian economy. Government 'tuned' economy does not work."
Capitalism – Continuing along the foregoing lines: "The Free Market economy of the post World War II of West Germany was turned and turned and tuned in the sixties into a welfare statist 'managed' economy – the poison of capitalism. We have reached the stage now, in this fast deteriorating world economic picture, when more and more people question the survival of capitalism. These critics of capitalism largely control the world of the academy, the news media of the pulpit and of the stage. The greatest enemy of capitalism – provided by capitalism itself – are the intellectuals. It has nothing to do with whether you are bright.... The intellectual's main chance of asserting himself lies in his actual or potential nuisance value."
Said the French President concerning the United States: "It is unbelievable that the most important economic country in the world has no economic leader in the Government." It requires no great intellect to agree with this appraisal. The prime intellects of the country are engaged in operating the businesses of the country; and, as we have observed on occasion: If the businesses of the country were run like the politicians are running the government, capitalism in the United States would have been down the sewer years ago. The capitalist countries of the world seem absolutely unable to manage their economic and monetary situations. And the financial genius that exists in such countries is never given chance to furnish such supervision. Says one commentator: "The State of Illinois is going broke. The extravagance of the demagogues is crucifying the taxpayers and rendering the public treasury penniless."
Follows now a summation from another publication: "It is this world that produced the New York City crisis. Those who wanted 'theirs' with no regard to the ability of the city to pay. Greedy politicians who wanted only one thing – to be reelected and then to move on to higher office with a parting cry of 'apres moi le deluge.' Greedy bankers who satisfied the frantic cravings of the politicians for more and more and more money through short-term loans that were death to the city but fabulous profits for the money-lenders. Greed and material selfishness were the ingredients that make up all of the characters of this modern American tragedy and the people who lived for 'now' and who mortgaged tomorrow with the cynical knowledge that their children would pay, are now trapped by tomorrow that arrived off schedule too early.
"Tomorrow is today, and New York City is dying, and so are tens of other urban communities; and soon it will be the states, and after that the federal government bowing before the law that knows no repeal – one cannot indefinitely pay out more than comes in, no matter how insatiable the greed, the passion for material wealth, the craving for 'more.' The disaster is compounded by the frightening reaction to it. A total unwillingness or inability to sacrifice, to cut the living standards to which we have become accustomed and which always were unreal and mad. Unions refuse to consider pay freezes, and bankers turn a cold shoulder to lower interest rates. A city is dying and its population prefers that to an unilateral sacrifice. And more. We have seen the reaction of the police who were laid off. They openly broke the law, blocking traffic just as the demonstrators they, only yesterday, so brutally beat in defense of 'law and order.' They smashed cars, and their ugly hating faces were chilling reminders of how shallow democracy is. Indeed it is at the mercy of an empty pocket, and civilization is an army that marches on a full stomach. Woe unto it when that stomach is empty.
"The economic crash that is coming with its unemployment and despair will join the political, psychological and social crisis that grips the country. It is the Jew who will be the primary target of the anger, frustration, fear and hate that will come as a tidal wave across the country, sweeping before it the vaunted system. Now! Now is the time to go home."
Italy – Akin to the foregoing is this about Italy: "Italy has a shortage of coins, so bills in taxis and restaurants often are rounded – up, of course. Some shops and highway toll booths give hard candy or chewing gum as change. In 1974 there were 200 crimes – reported crimes – per hour. That is one per year for every seventh Italian family. Purse snatchers on motorcycles are responsible for many of the hundreds of daily thefts from tourists in Rome. The national crime rate is rising ten per cent a year, uninhibited by a court system that can take ten years to come to trial.
"Some cotton firms have quit supplying gauze bandages to the 1,300 government-run hospitals which owe the firms $47 million in bills dating back to 1967. The government health insurance program owes the hospitals about $5 billion which, when the bureaucracy pays it, will help the hospitals pay some of the more than $1 billion they owe creditors.
"The French newspaper LeMonde has said, 'Italy is the only country besides Tibet in which it is impossible to communicate through a postal service.' That is an exaggeration, but many Christmas cards from the U.S. arrive at Easter, and letters can take six months to get from one Italian city to another. Many Italians who live near Switzerland drive there to mail letters to Rome. Last year some enterprising mail man sold 400,000 pounds of mail to a processing plant as scrap paper."
During the past year the Communist party in Italy has made substantial gains, polling almost as many votes as the Christian Democrats, which is the largest party in Italy and sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church. This has caused the Church much more concern than meets the eye, and here is what one paper says about it: "Communism holds as one of its prime doctrines the elimination of all aspects of religion. Therefore, it has been understood for years that one of its objectives is the destruction of the Roman Church. Because of the economic turmoil in Italy, which could lead to complete chaos, the Church authorities have good reason for their contingency plans for the relocation of the Vatican."
IN POLITICS
The erosion in the American political arrangement has proceeded very markedly during the past year; and the future holds little hope for improvement. In fact, things figure to take a decided turn for the worse in the year ahead. Vice-President Rockefeller has already declared he has had enough; and, while much has been said about his reasons for such decision, we venture an opinion of our own along this line: If we can rely on press reports, he is presently worth about one-third billion dollars; and his annual income is ten million (in tax-exempt bonds). Inasmuch as he was governor of New York State for sixteen years, we may be certain he is heavily involved in the securities of the State and the City. With our President adamant that he is not going to bail out the City, it is quite probable that Mr. Rockefeller will be badly pinched in the squeeze that is certain to follow. In fact, according to reports that are coming to us, it is just impossible to obtain any kind of a bid for New York securities.
A similar situation existed during the depression. We recall very clearly that in 1931 the City of Sarasota, Fla., did not even make provision for payment of interest on their bonds in their annual budget, because, said they, the city had no money with which to meet the payment, so why show it in the budget at all. At that time the bonds they had sold at $100 could be purchased for $20. We are not familiar with the final disposition of the obligation.
However, not all is criticism for our politicians. When the Cambodian Communist pirates grabbed the American ship Mayaguez from the high seas, it was an act of piracy of the rawest sort, and President Ford speedily dispatched sufficient force to recapture the ship and crew intact. Similar seizures were taken by the Tripoli Pirates right after the War of Independence; and this is what history says about it: "For exactly forty years after the Declaration of Independence the United States engaged in a tortuous series of negotiations with the piratical despots of North Africa and at last learned that the only effective argument with a buccaneer was force. In the end, the United States set an example to other maritime nations by exacting at the point of cannon a lasting peace from the corsairs."
But the peace above mentioned did not come until military force was applied. For a number of years a politician by the name of Col. Lear tried negotiations with the Barbary Coast raiders, actually paying them huge sums of money to free our shipping from molestation; but those pay-offs brought only more demand for further payoffs. All of this was clearly seen by soldier General William Eaton, but his advice was not followed until the American government learned from grueling experience that the payment of money only whetted the appetites of the pirates for more money; and it is recorded that General Eaton became so disheartened with the mess that he came home and drank himself to death over the folly of the politicians. Being familiar with American history, Mr. Ford was probably fully aware of the North African affair, and profited by it in his handling of the Cambodian pirates.
Another black mark against our politicians is to be found in the following statement: "Thousands and even millions of people are now beginning to realize that the Vietnam war was scientifically lost. We were defeated on purpose of the design of men of authority in our own government. Veterans of that war are now coming back telling their neighbors and their friends how they were told, during the Johnson regime, to bomb empty swamps and unpopulated areas – to create the impression of fighting a war." A similar situation prevailed in the Korean war in 1953, when President Truman ordered General MacArthur not to oust the North Korean raiders. The dissension over this matter became so heated that the General was summarily dismissed, which evoked the statement from him, when he addressed the Congress: "In war there is no substitute for victory." The present unsound condition in Korea may be placed directly at the feet of the politicians. Had the General been allowed to proceed in a sound military manner, that country would now be a peaceful unity.
Follows now a statement from another writer: "Politics has nothing in common with morality. The ruler who is governed by morality is not a skillful politician; therefore, is unstable for public office. He who wishes to rule must have a recourse to cunning and make-belief. Great national qualities, like frankness and honesty, are vices in politics, for which they bring down rulers from their thrones more effectively and more certainly than the most powerful enemy.... In order to operate with satisfaction it's necessary for us to hold in high regard such characteristics as rascality and slackness which produce instability in the population and create a lack of capacity to understand even the status of its own welfare. We must never forget that the mind of the mob is blind, senseless and unreasoning. The blind cannot lead the blind without bringing them into the abyss."
As the great Gladstone once said, when asked what essentials are necessary to be a successful politician, that one major item was that he must be a man without self-respect. This is not universally true, of course, because President Lincoln was known as Honest Abe – and properly so. One of the things that has engraved his name in the history books is that he was just an honest man. During the Civil War, when things looked very bleak, one of his cabinet officials said, I hope the Lord is on our side; to which Lincoln replied, I would rather hope that we are on the Lord's side.
IN RELIGION
The same moral decay is to be found in many religious systems and individuals. Note particularly this quotation: "I groaned and wept when I read a statement from Billy Graham; who has pyramided himself into the reputation of being America's leading evangelist – when he issued a statement to the effect that he would not object to the ordination of men who are homosexuals if they were properly trained for the ministry. Sex perversion among men and women has taken on such epidemic proportions that literally millions of people are using this perverted practice as a substitute for matrimony. One ordained preacher, who confesses that he is a sex pervert, organized a church in Los Angeles not long ago to which hundreds of perverts have flocked, and he gives the community to understand that he wants to limit the members of his church only to homosexuals and lesbians."
A Point Of Law – As is well known to most of our readers, various religious systems have been very determined in securing public tax money in support of their own schools; but others are just as determined that this shall not be so. Says one publication: "In a landmark decision of sweeping significance, the United States Supreme Court, on May 19, 1975 ruled unconstitutional two of the few remaining plans for providing public support for parochial schools. In a 6-3 ruling in the case of Meek V. Pittenger, the Court invalidated a $26 million per year Pennsylvania program of providing instructional equipment, materials and auxiliary services' to parochial and private schools. The Pennsylvania parochiaid laws were passed in 1972 after the Supreme Court had held the state's 'purchase of services' parochiaid plan unconstitutional in 1971, and Americans United and other groups had gone to court to challenge the state's tuition reimbursement parochiaid law."
RELIGION AND MONEY – "Lutheran Agency hit by financial crisis." Under this news heading then appears the following: "A very severe financial crisis, similar to that facing the Lutheran Council in the USA, has hit the Lutheran council in Canada. At its eleventh annual meeting here in early February, the LCIC was informed by the Lutheran Church Synod that its financial grant for 1975 will probably be $25,000 instead of the requested amount of $46,443, a difference of $21,443. The Council's operating budget for the current year totals $173,500."
At Last The Truth Comes Out! Serious involvement of the United States began under Roman Catholic President Kennedy, and we follow with a quotation from another publication: "While the United States supported the French in Vietnam, our country's deep involvement began when our support was placed behind the dictatorship of Ngo Dinh Diem, a protégé of the late Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York. Under the Diem regime, the small Catholic mandarin class held most of the political power, top government and military jobs, and wealth, and received a disproportionately large share of American aid. Repression of the Buddhists resulted in Diem's overthrow in 1963. Diem was eventually replaced by another dictator, General Nguyen Van Thieu, also a Catholic, whose corrupt regime was so unpopular that without American assistance it collapsed like a house of cards when attacked earlier this year by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong....
"The century of church-state entanglement under French rule was largely responsible for the 1946-1954 Vietnam war, which this country helped to pay for. Cardinal Spellman and other Catholic Church officials were deeply involved in getting and holding US support for the Diem dictatorship following the defeat of the French. For 21 years after 1954 our country spent the lives of its young men and billions of dollars to support an inept, corrupt dictatorship which represented not the people of South Vietnam, but very little more than one faction within one small, non-indigenous religious group ....
"Nor was Vietnam the only time that clerical interests influenced or tried to influence American foreign policy. Elements in the leadership of the Catholic Church tried to involve the United States in civil wars in Mexico in the 1920s and Nigeria in the 1960s. They failed, but their efforts in the 1930s were influential in preventing our country from doing anything about the clerical-fascist insurrection in Spain that turned out to be prelude to World War II.......
"And now it has become known that the Catholic dioceses of Milwaukee and Brooklyn, and perhaps others, require parochial school teachers to sign statements pledging their commitment to Catholic values and the Catholic philosophy of education."
The Roman Catholic Church – In further detail on some of the foregoing, we offer this quotation from another writer: "This church demands support from the taxpayers, but refuses to tell the taxpayers what it already has. But the taxpayers are not alone. The members of the Roman Catholic Church themselves receive no financial reports from their church's headquarters. It is a well kept secret. The Vatican which houses the central authority of this church has vast wealth and far-flung investments of its own throughout the world. The $75 million Watergate Towne in Washington, D. C., and the projected multimillion dollar Italian Center in San Francisco are examples .....
"The Vatican hides its assets and operations behind a veil of secrecy, and in this it provides an example which is followed by its American branch. A spokesman for the New York archdiocese has even asserted that no record exists as to the total assets and revenues of the 149 Roman Catholic dioceses and archdioceses in the United States...... It is abundantly clear, however, that this church has tremendous financial resources which belie its cry of poverty. What makes the totals vastly more impressive is the fact that all its wealth and income are tax-exempt. All religiously used real estate is exempt and all church business profits escape tax even though they may be totally unrelated to the work of the church. Since a corpus can easily double or triple in a generation if it can only escape taxes, it is no surprise that the wealth of the Catholic Church is increasing at about the rate of $3 billion a year... Some of its assets and revenues are as follows:
Religiously used real estate $54,000,000,000
Passive income (stocks & bonds) 650,000,000
Active business income 1,200,000,000
Grants from governments 4,500,000,000
And this is the organization that is crying for the taxpayers to pay its bills."
It needs no great stretch of the imagination to believe that the Communists in Italy are well aware of all the foregoing, and that they are only waiting for the opportune time to seize control. This is vividly forecast in Rev. 18:21: "A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea (a picture of the anarchistic masses of humanity), saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all."
Jehovah's Witnesses – This organization has had a meteoric rise from a small beginning of about 40,000 in 1917 to about two million staunch supporters now. This has been due mainly to two of their teachings: One, a doctrine of fear – proclaiming that all who do not join them will be annihilated in Armageddon; and they have been preaching impending Armageddon for more than fifty years now. Two, by telling their converts what they want to hear; namely, by joining them they will not die, but live through Armageddon into the coming Kingdom. Of course, very few people went to die, so they are being told what they want to hear; and this makes it much easier for them to believe this "strong delusion." (2 Thes. 2:11)
But along with their increase in numbers has come a great increase in the errors they are promulgating. The first general public false teaching was produced about 1920: "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" – after 1925. Most of their followers don't know anything about that; and those of them who do remember do not wish to be reminded of it – like the Roman Catholic Church does not wish to hear about their own evils of the Dark Ages, etc. Just forget the past, they say, and take what we are telling you now. The Witnesses adopt the same technique. However, their present teachings on this related subject are showing open sores of decay, because quite a few of their most earnest "dedicated" devotees have died even before Armageddon has arrived; and this requires some slippery explaining. Necessity has forced them to modify this teaching. But they are still adamant in their teaching that all who fail to join with them before Armageddon will be forever lost – that is, be annihilated in Armageddon. So even if they increase their membership to four million – twice the number they now have – by Armageddon, then there will be quite a large number of people who will die in Armageddon, with no prospect of a resurrection, according to them, with only a small number of Witnesses to survive. Gospel means Good Tidings, but their "gospel" is bad tidings indeed to several billion people living today.
In their technical gymnastics of the past fifty years they have almost totally lost the chronology, which they received from their so-called founder – Pastor Russell. About 1920 they made a praiseworthy defense of the correct chronology against some of the deflectors from that chronology, who were advocating a 19-year mistake for the Gentile Times, claiming those Times would not expire until 1933. Of course, time itself has proven that the change was in complete error; however, we wish to be fair with the Witnesses by stating they still do teach correctly that the 2520-year Gentile Times began in the Fall of 607 B.C. and ended in 1914. We agree, of course, as this is correct chronology; and we are in full agreement that Armageddon is imminent, although we have set no date for it. However, we emphatically disagree that to survive Armageddon one must join with the Witnesses or join with any other religious group. There will be some from all religious groups, as well as some who are not affiliated with any religious group, who will survive Armageddon – and we predict there will be many times more of these survivors than there are Jehovah's Witness survivors.
For some years now the Witnesses have been giving 1975 as the date for Armageddon's beginning; but since 1975 is now almost gone (written Nov. 12), they must once more produce another alibi. They quote Matt. 24:36: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." This text does not say that no man would ever know. We know from the Scriptures that Jesus later did know; and the Prophet Daniel (12:10) tells us that "in the time of the end (the time in which we are living)... the wise shall understand." However, they hold to the Truth that the end of the Gentile Times is 1914, a prediction made by a man – That Servant – thirty years before that date arrived; and Matt. 24:36 was quoted, prior to 1914, from many pulpits throughout Christendom to condemn him although the events of 1914 fully vindicated his prediction. In one breath they admit that a "man" who derived this date from the correct chronology, did know the end of the Gentile Times; but in the next breath, to alibi their erroneous prediction for Armageddon, based on incorrect chronology, they tell us "no man knoweth"! "Consistency, thou art a jewel." Thus, once again they are proving themselves "unstable as water." (Gen. 49:4)
General – Big city buses are being held up in the tradition of old-time train robberies. About a half dozen such have occurred in or near Detroit in 1975. Also, crimes are being committed so rapidly in the United States the police departments cannot even process the reports. In the one-time beautiful and valuable office buildings in Detroit the tenants are now working behind locked doors, with peepholes to determine if the visitor should be admitted. Also in Detroit bank robberies have increased 50% over the previous year. Indeed, the prophecy of Ez. 7:23 comes vividly to mind: "The land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence."
Among the more cheering items of recent times there has been the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls, which establish the authenticity of the Old Testament book of Isaiah. It has been hailed by some as the greatest discovery of modern times.
Due to extra heavy work and some illness, we have not made acknowledgment, and expressed our thanks and appreciation, of the Holiday greetings, good wishes, love and prayers received from many brethren. We now gratefully acknowledge these greetings and heartily reciprocate to all. All here at the Bible House join in wishing our readers cordial good wishes for your good health throughout 1976 – both spiritually and physically. "For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." (Psa. 84:11)
Sincerely your brother,
John J. Hoefle, Pilgrim
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LETTER OF GENERAL INTEREST
Epiphany Bible Students Ass'n
Dear Sirs: Would you please provide me with information about any literature you may publish. I am also interested in the background, the history, and the doctrines of your organization. Any information along this line will be appreciated.
Sincerely yours ------- (SOUTH DAKOTA)