Golden Age, May 5, 1937
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The Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
in this issue
TRAILING
THE SINGING HARLOT
TO THE ASH-CAN
EXPOSED
(D)
WHY SALTER LOST HIS JOB
DISOBEDIENCE DESTROYS
THE REWARDS OF OBEDIENCE
every other
WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy
one dollar a year
Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XVIII - No. 460
May 5, 1937 CONTENTS
TRAILING THE SINGING HARLOT
TO THE ASH-CAN—Isaiah 23:16 483
Trotting True to Form 483
The United States Is in Line 484
The Primate Business 484
Prayers for Prosperity 484
Wells' Indictment of the
Church of England 485
Misgivings Here and There 485
The Agreement on Hell 486
"God Was Good to This Child" 487
Dodging Hell—and How! 488
Souls Quoted at a Dollar Each 488
Praying and Preaching
Stud-Performances 488
Trying to Get the Swing of the Ax 489
The Button Department 490
The Most Experienced Liar 490
"Moratorium Would Be Godsend" 491
"World Churches Unite
to Fight" 491
After the Bonus Money 492
Strange Words from Methodists 492
Baptists Also Stirring Uneasily 493
The Political Swill-Barrel 493
The Unbelief Department 494
Would Be Imprisoned and Shot 494
Televiak Picks on the G. A. 495
Hierarchy a Habitation of Demons 495
Blasphemy and Demonism United 496
EXPOSED (D) 497
WHY SALTER LOST HIS JOB 498
The Letters Were a Scream 498
Despicable Methods, Judas-like 500
That Brings Up Subject of Money 500
Access to Stenographic Report 501
Who Wants a Disorganizer? 502
Enlargement of the Gall Bladder 502
Hatred for His Benefactor 502
Disloyal to God's Organization 503
No Confidence in The Watchtower 503
Upsetting the Faith of Others 504
Painful to Call a Man a Liar 504
PERSONAL STATEMENT
REGARDING SALTER 505
THE AMERICAN MEDICAL
LIBERTY LEAGUE 507
Those Terrible Cartoons 507
DISOBEDIENCE DESTROYS THE
REWARDS OF OBEDIENCE 508
Jadan Proved His Authorization 508
Another Act of Obedience 509
Seduction by a False Prophet 509
A Lion Was God's Executioner 510
Jadan Loses His Life 510
PERSECUTION OF HERETICS APPROVED 510
RUSSIA 511
CARTOONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
The second-hand candidate
for Hierarchy orders 483
Exhorting the doll 487
"The way of the transgressor is hard" 489
The instrument of 20,000,000 stops—
stop, we heard that one 491
Lost 493
Paying tribute to the Devil 495
Truth 504
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The Golden Age
Volume XVIII | Brooklyn, N.Y., Wednesday, May 5, 1937 | Number 460
Trailing the Singing Harlot to the Ash-can — Isaiah 23:16
ENCOURAGED by the clergy to do so, Protestantism has ceased to regard the Bible as the Word of God, or as having any particular significance, and is relying more and more on forms, ceremonies and outward pretensions. As The Watchtower for November 15, 1935, puts it:
Today there is no longer in existence a Protestant organization that is in fact a protest against the Catholic Hierarchy. Protestantism is dead, and its leading lights have become in fact a part of the mighty Catholic Hierarchy organization.
A writer in The Christian Century reports a dealer in religious goods as saying recently:
An astonishing thing is taking place right here in my store. A few years ago I used to sell candles, incense and embroidered chasubles to Roman Catholic priests. Their people would drop in and buy a prayer book or a rosary. Protestants would pause briefly before my window, glance at it disapprovingly and then walk away. But, what a change today! That gentleman with the clerical collar and black rabat who just left the store is a Lutheran. He bought a whole carton of pure beeswax candles, a pound of Jerusalem incense, and there is a richly embroidered green cope in the glass case upstairs that always catches his eye. Episcopalians not only buy beautiful prayer books, but lately they are buying rosaries and even plaster images of the blessed virgin. A Methodist parson, also dressed in clericals, came in last week and bought a brass cross for his altar. Two of the most recent Methodist churches in this city have real altars with crosses on them. I sold a pair of seven-branched floor candlesticks to a Presbyterian church a month ago, and a processional crucifix and a censer to a Lutheran. Nowadays when a man in clericals comes in, he may be a Roman Catholic priest, or an Episcopalian, or a Lutheran, or even a Methodist, or a Presbyterian.
The second-hand candidate for Hierarchy orders
Trotting True to Form in Canada
In the Toronto Daily Star, Reverend R. E. Knowles, of the United Church (formerly a Presbyterian), is granted a column and a half to report an interview with the gentleman whom he addressed as "my lord", that is, Bishop O'Hara, of Montana. That Roman Catholic gentleman, at Reverend Knowles' request, informed him that communism is the menace of the hour, the Catholic church in Italy and France is as strong as it ever was, it was a disgrace that Al Smith could not be elected president because he was a Catholic, that Protestants are coming to admit that the Roman Catholic church is the true church, "and that the church, and not a book, is the final authority on spiritual truth",* that neither the Greek nor the Anglican clergy have valid "orders" and they cannot change the bread and wine actually into the body and blood of the Lord, and that the cures at Lourdes and elsewhere are really cures. One of the closing paragraphs of the interview follows:
"Are the popes, as a rule, men of great mental force?" I asked. Yes. Always. Of great intellectual power—through the years they are growing ever more and more equipped for their great office. Beyond all the lines of secular rulers in history, they stand pre-eminent. In culture, in wisdom, in devotion—and in outstanding knowledge of their times and the problems these times present.
* Reverend Dr. Knowles' own proposition and belief.
--Reverend W. A. Cameron, B.A., minister of the Yorkminster Baptist church of Toronto, in a sermon November 15, stated his three great reasons for admiring the Roman Catholic church are (1) that it inculcated the habit of going to church, (2) that the church stands open all day and every day in the week, and (3) it has great numbers of monks and nuns living in complete poverty, chastity and obedience to the will of the church. It is extremely interesting that not one of these reasons is a Scriptural reason or has any foundation in the Word of God.
The United States Is in Line
For several years now a trinity composed of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergymen have been traveling up and down the United States to try to prove to the people that all is well. It is like an alligator, with a couple of undigested fish in its stomach, trying to calm the fishes' fears by smiling.
Dr. Charles M. Sheldon, the 80-year-old Congregational author of In His Steps, advocates a merger of all Protestant, Catholic and Jewish churches. Poor man! That "religion", when ready to serve to the hungry sheep, would be more uncertain, would look as bad as and smell worse than the famous Heritage Hall hash of a bygone era. But the point is, Sheldon wants it. He craves union with the "Singing Harlot" Hierarchy, sharing the general "Protestant" hopes.
The Baptists and Catholics at Raleigh, N. C., have no trouble in getting along together. They are really one and the same, at heart. Thus, the Catholic parochial school meets in the Sunday-school room of the First Baptist church while its own building is in process of construction. The Protestant church not only no longer protests, but is proud of the fact that it is, in truth, no longer Protestant at all.
Dr. Frederick B. Fisher, pastor of the Central Methodist church, Detroit, Mich., senses the value of the trappings which constitute such a large part of the stock in trade of the Hierarchy. In his "church" he has a boy in a robe bearing a cross, another hooded boy bearing a Bible, then 200 youths in white vestments, then a youth bearing an American flag, and finally himself, at the tail end of the procession.* He depends on this show to get the children to drag their parents out in all kinds of weather.
The Primate Business
In the Church of England the clergy have a lot to say about primates, the same as in the Hierarchy. An archbishop is a primate. The dictionary is pretty good on this. One of the definitions is:
The order of mammals consisting of man and the apes, monkeys, marmosets and lemurs.
One primate is just "Primate of England", while another is "Primate of All England", and there is a "Primate of Ireland" and a "Primate of All Ireland". In considering the above definition, and applying it, you might as well leave out the "man", and divide the rest to suit the skirts.
Since Christmas the "girls" in the Canterbury cathedral have put away their white surplices, and the latest fashion notes say that now they are wearing white linen albs, girdles with tassels, stoles over their shoulders, maniples on their left arms, and chasubles over all. Also their vestments and copes will be of different colors at different seasons. By their clothes the girls make up for what they lack in knowledge of the Bible and in common ordinary horse sense. The situation is confused because the girls insist on wearing masculine pants and men's shoes.
The Right Reverend H. A. Wilson, bishop of Chelmsford, England, stated it would be a good thing if somebody would shoot some of the clergy and a few bishops. He seems to have the right idea as to their value to mankind.
Prayers for Prosperity
At hand some advertising literature of "Christ's Church by-the-Sea", Broad Channel, New York, Rt. Rev. Arthur W. Brooks, bishop. The literature says, "PROSPERITY is going to return to the people of the United States of America." It is to be obtained by many repetitions of a prayer which is supplied in printed form and reads, in part,
. . . that our land may once more become a place where there is plenty of opportunity for sound industry; that all may honestly earn their living and
* "The prophet that teaches lies, he is the tail."—Isaiah 9: 15.
reap the benefits of their labors in whatever vocation and occupation they may engage, with gladness.
Those who have read Judge Rutherford's book Riches will smile quietly. They will not be surprised that the bishop knows not what are the true riches; they will not smile at that. But they will smile that the bishop seems to honestly think that Jehovah God will hear "for their much speaking" those who already, according to His Word, have "more than heart could wish" and yet want more and ever more.
British vicars may now sell their castles and get down off their high horses and live like other people. A spokesman said:
Many vicarages have as many as twenty bedrooms, acres of land, and require a big staff. Vicars' wives are literally killing themselves in trying to keep these big places up, and the vicars and rectors themselves are doing the work of gardeners and handymen instead of doing the work of their parishes.
The disadvantages of having no useful occupation were illustrated in the Isle of Wight, where the Reverend George Garrett, of the Anglican church, chained four dogs to the rear of his motor cycle and speeded down the road with one of the dogs being dragged because he could not keep up with the race. When Garrett's wife came up to remonstrate with him he hit her with the dog that had been dragged. Besides hitting his wife with the exhausted pet the "Reverend" used language that may not be printed. The "Reverend" was fined £10 and forbidden to hereafter keep any dogs. As he had nothing to take up his mind previously, and now has less than nothing, he is in a bad way.
The Reverend H. G. Proctor, curate of St. John's Parish, Long Eaton, Derbyshire, England, graduate of Keble College, Oxford, and Cuddesdon Theological College, decided that he is not a Christian, and does not believe in Christianity, and will take up sheep farming. Now, if all the other dominies will only follow his example, the people will get a chance to know something of what the Word of God teaches and what it is really for.
Wells' Indictment of the Church of England
H. G. Wells, himself a member of the Church of England, is pretty well disgusted with the hypocrisy of the whole thing. He wrote:
In our public life, in our social life, in our educational affairs and at universities, the Established Church is still capable of great mischief. And it does great mischief if only by warping our mental integrity and deadening down our intellectual quality. Manifestly also it is a reservoir of poisonous bad taste. Is it not time we put an end to this dingy incubus?
What Wells said was well said, and it is well to remember that while he had the Church of England specially in mind, the same goes for the Church of Rome, and then some.
Dr. George B. Cutten, president of Colgate University, thinks that "the time is ripe for a religious Hitler". In his heart he must have been wishing for Ambrose Ratti to dominate the earth.
Misgivings Here and There
At the second inauguration of President Roosevelt the invocation was offered by Reverend Phillips, chaplain of the Senate. That official presumed to approach Jehovah God without the mediation of anybody or anything, and merely said "Amen" to his own pronouncements. The benediction, made by Reverend Ryan, of the Catholic University, terminated courageously with the words, "Through Christ, our Lord. Amen." Shame on the so-called "Protestant".
Methodists are beginning to see, and will yet see more clearly, that Fascism is Catholic Action. The following is a statement of the Methodist Federation for Social Service:
The latest press statement from the Vatican on its anti-Red campaign does not mention atheism. It speaks of "foreign policy". On political issues the Vatican has taken its stand. It is with Franco, Hitler, Mussolini and Japan just as certainly as though it had signed the agreement or entered the understandings between those forces. That these agreements mean a joint offensive against democracy and particularly "people's front democracy", because it leads to "communism", is triumphantly proclaimed in the Nazi press. . . . The Vatican is one of the international triumvirate lined up to destroy democratic government and restore autocracy.
Remembering the cucumbers and garlic of happier days for salvation peddlers (Numbers 11:4, 5), the Reverend Nance Kivell, minister of the City Temple Church of Christ, Sydney, made the sad-eyed confession:
If we could put hell into some church members and into some ministers and those who speak from the pulpit, we would get somewhere.
Just to help out the Reverend Kivell's argument, The Golden Age gently suggests where he would get, and where his hearers would get by such a course. The Lord explained it all in Matthew 15:11-14, which reads as follows: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man ; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone : they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
The Agreement on Hell
Catholicism and Protestantism have one point on which they are at agreement. The agreement between the two is that Jehovah God, the great Creator, lied when He told our first parents that if they ate of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, or even touched it, they would surely die; and that the Devil told Eve the truth when he told her to the exact contrary, "Ye shall not surely die."—Genesis 3:4.
To be sure, the Son of God, Christ Jesus the Savior of men, stood for the truth on the subject, and denounced Satan as a liar because of what he said to Mother Eve (John 8:44). But to one who has been "regularly ordained" by the Devil, or by one of his mouthpieces, it would look like a very little thing indeed to deny point-blank a statement made by Jesus Christ. Thus, Jesus said of the dead that they "are in the graves".—John 5:28.
The Lord could have gone into detail, had He seen fit to do so, and explained that "there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest" (Ecclesiastes 9:10) and that "the dead know not any thing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5) and that in the very day that a man dies "his thoughts perish" (Psalm 146:4), with every scripture in the Bible in exact corroboration, but all this would mean nothing to a clergyman. He would still stand by the teachings of his "church", and his father, the Devil. A nice illustration of the loyalty of the clergy to their father follows:
In a sermon delivered just before he was ordained, Reverend Abram H. Bergen, Blumenhof, Saskatchewan, Canada, was heard to say, "Mit Recht hat der Feind gesagt: Ihr werdet mit nichten des Todes sterben." Translated into English this says, "Truthfully the Devil said, Ye shall not surely die." This clerical testimony on behalf of the Devil, who ordained him (John 8:44), was doubtless much appreciated by the Old Boy.
The Official "Low-Down" on Hell
Maybe you have wondered what it is like in the ecclesiastical hell. This hell has no relation to the Bible hell—not the least. It is just as opposite to it in statement, in thought, in purpose, in effect, as it can possibly be. But, boys and girls, as a money-maker it has the Bible hell pushed off the boards.
The Protestants have a hunch that something is a little bit decayed about it, and so they don't have much to say on the subject. All they insist upon is that Jehovah God and Christ Jesus are liars and that the Devil tells the truth. But the Roman Hierarchy is not so squeamish. They figure that if you are going to sell anything, the thing to do is to put it in the store window and then loudly declaim its virtues.
So here is an official statement on "The Sight of Hell" (published by Duffy, in Dublin and London), supplied to Roman Catholic children by the Roman Catholic clergyman Reverend J. Furniss, C.S.S.R. Reverend Furniss was not talking through his hat. He was laying down the proposition, so he says, "Permissu Superiorum."
In other words, the bishop of his diocese guarantees that the following is an exact statement of facts about the Roman Catholic and Protestant hell. Read it thoughtfully, in the light of the 26 verses in Psalm 136 which repeat the assertion that many times concerning Jehovah God, that "his mercy endureth for ever".
"Little child, if you go to hell, there will be a devil at your side to strike you. He will go on striking you every minute forever and ever WITHOUT STOPPING. The first will make your body as the body of Job, covered from head to foot with sores and ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a HUNDRED MILLION OF YEARS WITHOUT EVER STOPPING? Perhaps at this moment, seven o'clock in the evening, a child is going to hell. Tomorrow evening at seven o'clock, go and knock at the gates of hell and ask what that child is doing. The devils will come back and say—'THE CHILD IS BURNING.' Go in a week and ask what the child is doing. You will get the same answer—'IT IS BURNING.' Go in a year and ask. The same answer comes—'IT IS BURNING.' Go in a MILLION YEARS and ask the same question. The answer is just the same—'IT IS BURNING.' So, if you go forever, and ever, you will always get the same answer—'IT IS BURNING.'"
"God Was Very Good to This Child"
The Reverend Mr. Furniss wanted to make a hit with the Roman Catholic children on this subject of hell, and so he went a little more into detail about the 'goodness of God', that is, his god, the Devil. You will be charmed when you get down to that part. To a clergyman it all looks so lovely, so reasonable.
If you get the idea that any of them are ashamed of this line of salesmanship, and that that is the real reason why they don't stand up like men and debate such issues with Judge Rutherford, over the radio, so that all may hear, then that shows that you haven't got "faith", that is, faith in the Devil and in his spokesmen, the clergy. And if you haven't got such faith, here is what you get (maybe you are more than 16, but you get it anyway!):
'See! on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl; she looks about sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. She has neither shoes nor stockings . . . Listen! she speaks. She says: I have been standing on this red-hot floor for years. Day and night my only standing-place has been this red-hot floor. . . . Look at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let me go off this burning floor for one moment, only for one single short moment. . . . The fourth dungeon is the boiling kettle. . . . in the middle of it all there is a boy. . . . His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames come out of his ears. . . . Sometimes he opens his mouth and blazing fire rolls out. But listen: there is a sound like a kettle boiling. . . . The blood is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones. . . . The fifth dungeon is the red-hot oven. . . . The little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor. . . . God was very good to this child. Very likely God saw that it would get worse and worse, and would never, never repent, and so it would have to be punished much worse in hell. So God in his mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood.'
Exhorting the doll
The Monitor, to which The Golden Age is indebted for the above "gems", gives two more along the same lines (from the pen of John N. Quinn). The first is from "Father" Hippolytus, who knows all about the worms, and the second is from "The Child's Pathway to Glory". Oh, how happy the child will be in glory when she knows about the other children in hell! is the thought:
"The fire which is unquenchable and without end awaits the unrighteous, and a certain fiery worm which dieth not, and which does not waste the body, but continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment."
"There is nothing but misery in hell. You would nevermore have one moment's ease; for there is nothing but pain there. Put together all you can think of that is miserable, and painful and terrible, and it is all nothing to what is prepared for those who go there; and that not for an hour, or a day, or a year, but for an eternity. . . . The frightful and cruel devil may torment them as much as he pleases—they are made strong to bear it."
A Texas preacher told his congregation that, because they had not paid anything to their orphans' home for two years past, they all had about as much chance to get to heaven as a celluloid doll. One lady was very much grieved, because she was too poor to pay. What the preacher was covertly trying to put across was to picture what would happen to a celluloid doll if it landed in the ecclesiastical, money-raising, hair-raising hell which is the only alternative to heaven of which he has ever told his flock.
Dodging Hell—and How
Two advertisements for stray goats attract attention, as published in local newspapers:
LOST—100 Protestant Episcopalians. Finder please return to St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Hood River, Palm Sunday, April 5th at the 11 o'clock service. [Hood River (Oreg.) News.]
Notice: Lost, strayed or stolen—Fifty Baptists, when last heard from they were going in all directions. If perchance as you read this notice you have seen, heard or housed any of these Baptists, please notify the pastor of the Fairhope Baptist Church, or return them to the church and receive your reward. You may know them by the wandering look on their faces. [Mobile (Ala.) Press]
At La Fayette, Ind., the theology of Reverend Robert Knight, pastor of the First Christian church, got the best of him. Maybe thinking deeply on the text, “So fight I, not as one that beateth the air,” he started practicing on his wife Leota, pummeling her on the chest, arms, face and back. He bruised her jaw and possibly injured her spine. No doubt he is a strong believer in the eternal torture deity, who is the Devil. At last accounts he was out on $500 bail.
Arrested for kicking a cripple and knocking him down, the Reverend L. Craig Long, pastor of Calvin Presbyterian church, 647 Orange St., New Haven, Conn., denies that he knew the lad had infantile paralysis. He states in defense that all he did was to throw the boy over a hedge. He did not know that the boy, twelve years of age, was the son of a New Haven policeman, or that he was wearing a sustaining belt at the time.
Anyway, this was not as bad as what John Calvin, FOUNDER of the Presbyterian church, did. He sat by the window enjoying the scene while Servetus baked for five hours in front of a slow fire. Calvin believed in the doctrine of eternal torture and tried to show that he was like his father and its author, the Devil.—John 8:44.
“Religion” struck new levels when T. G. ‘Curley’ Evans, of Hot Springs, testified before an Arkansas house of representatives committee that he was a Hot Springs policeman in the daytime, a dice dealer in a gambling house at night, and a “Holiness” preacher on Sundays.
At Flint, Mich., a lad of nineteen years of age, convicted of breaking and entering and car theft, was sentenced to go to Sunday school regularly for three years, so he might have “benefit of clergy”.
The Bible says not to use vain repetition in prayer, and that “God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few”; therefore it is of some interest to know there was recently a praying contest at Brisbane, Australia. The winner was Reverend T. A. Haslam, 85 years of age, who prayed continuously for three days and nights.
Souls Quoted at a Dollar Each
Maybe you didn’t know that the souls for which Jesus gave himself a ransom are quoted at a dollar apiece, but that is what Evangelist E. Howard Cadle, Cadle Tabernacle, Indianapolis, seems to think in the following letter:
Would you give one dollar to lead one soul to Christ? For each dollar we are spending at the Cadle Tabernacle, we are leading a soul to Him, either here in the Tabernacle, at the one-night revivals, or in the homes with our radio program. Last year we led more than ninety thousand souls to Christ. In addition, millions have been brought closer to the Lord, broken homes rebuilt, divorces and suicides diverted and thousands of little boys and girls have been kept from becoming orphans and thrown out into the cruel world without a dad or mother. The old Gospel has not lost its power.
I am asking you frankly, where else could you spend one dollar that would lead one soul to Christ? Don’t you think our work deserves a gift from you? The only money you will ever meet in heaven is the money you have spent to advance God’s kingdom. We are terribly in need of funds to carry on.
I am enclosing a self-addressed envelope for your gift. Remember, one dollar means one soul for Christ; or ten dollars, ten souls for Christ. The night is soon coming when we cannot work. Won’t you hurry with your gift? Thank you.
Ten dollars endows a chair in the Cadle Tabernacle with your loved one’s name engraved on a brass plate on the back of the chair.
At Chillicothe, Ohio, Cadle told his audience they had to come across with $155 before he would start his sermon. First he sold 10 copies of his book at $5 each, then 105 promised contributions of $1, and finally they passed the collection plates and he went ahead with his sermon.
Praying and Preaching Stud-Performances
The Great Commission Prayer League, 808 North La Salle St., Chicago, Ill., issues a nice piece of advertising matter calling for a nationwide spiritual renewal or revival of the American people.
It names five days when all Americans should assemble for prayer for this blessing from God, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Watch Night, Good Friday, and Easter. Not a single one of these is mentioned in the Word of God. Thanksgiving Day is fixed by the president, not by the Bible; Christmas was not the day of Christ's birth; Watch Night is the night that ushers in one of the years as ordered by Pope Gregory; Good Friday is purely an invention of the Roman Catholic cult; and the only place where "Easter" occurs in the Bible it is a mistranslation of "Passover".
Does it not seem that if the promoters of this nation-wide revival hope to get anywhere with their pleas to God it might be a good idea to pick out just one item mentioned somewhere in the Scriptures and have it correct according to that standard? But perhaps they prefer to be 100-percent wrong on all counts, so that they can confess that they are indeed miserable sinners unworthy of divine notice. The scriptures cited are also misapplied in every case. They are Romans 13:1, 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Hosea 6:1-3, Psalm 90:16, 17, Deuteronomy 28:1-6, 2 Chronicles 15:2. None of these scriptures may be properly applied to a wholesale revival of the American people. They apply quite differently.
Not having noticed in the Revised Version, the Emphatic Diaglott, and all other modern versions of the Bible, that the last 12 verses of Mark's gospel are not in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts of the Bible, a "Holiness" preacher at Jonesville, Va., allowed himself to be bitten by a copperhead moccasin and by a rattler, and died as a result. If he had known that Mark 16:18 is really no part of God's Word, and that its inclusion in the Scriptures is not a mark of piety, but of impiety, the Reverend T. Anderson would be alive today. A doctor was called just before he died, but could do nothing; the poison was all through his system.
"The way of the transgressor is hard"
Alfred D. Weaver also tried it at Bartow, Fla., and died from the rattlesnake's bite. The city council passed an ordinance forbidding any like shows at evangelist performances hereafter.
Dr. C. F. Aked, pastor of All Souls' church, Los Angeles, Calif., is still in the headlines. His text on Sunday morning, February 14, 1937, was taken from the saying of Abraham Lincoln, "If we call a dog's tail a leg, then how many legs does a dog have?" After this inspiring spiritual talk Dr. Aked recited Lincoln's farewell at Springfield and his Gettysburg address and all who had come to hear him went home feeling that they had heard what they came to hear. Meantime, the population of the country's insane asylums grows by leaps and bounds.
Trying to Get the Swing of the Axe
At St. John, N. B., Reverend A. G. Philpotts, preacher at the Alliance Tabernacle, brought an axe into the pulpit and gave the congregation one week to come across with the long green or a week later he would smash the pulpit to kindling wood. Probably if one could look into the inner recesses of Reverend Philpotts' mind he would see that the "Reverend" knows the jig is up, and he will soon have to chop wood for a living anyway, and the time has come to begin practice for his life work. Nobody should be too hard on this rooster for trying to get the swing of the axe.
A report of the Committee of Evangelism and Social Service of the United Church of Canada calls attention to a booklet published by the United Church Tenth Anniversary Celebration Committee. Among other things, the booklet declares that the church will have to grow in honesty during the next ten years, and then says:
She [the church] will continue to condemn what may remain of the capitalistic system, but she will do it in full recognition that she is involved in and is a party to that system, not only in her endowments and investments, but her congregational revenues and incomes, all tied up with and dependent upon the process of profit-making.
At Quincy, Ill., Reverend E. M. Jeffords asked the question, "Of what earthly good is the church?" But why bring that up?
At Chattanooga, Tenn., the new South St. Elmo Baptist church was having its first services in the building when it was flattened by a storm that affected no other building in the city.
Undismayed and uninstructed by what has happened to the League of Nations, whether it be in the field of disarmament, or narcotics, or Manchuria, Ethiopia or the Rhineland, the General Council of Congregational and Christian Churches of the United States voted yet once again in favor of the entry of the United States into that body. It still thinks man a big success.
There has been a great victory for something or other at Thomasville, Ga. A Sunday movie was to have been shown for the benefit of tornado sufferers. The ministerial association got wind of it and caused the arrest of the proprietor. 335 people paid to see the show. The ministers were sore because they thought if anybody should give up money on the first day of the week, they certainly should give it up to the ministers and not to tornado sufferers.
E. C. Finkbeiner, Pennsylvania, says that the Reverend A. P. Wenger was to have preached on "The Dardanelles of the Soul" and then wants to know just what part of the soul that is, and if everybody has one of those things, or if it is a sort of malignant growth found only on preachers. Now, was that nice of Finkbeiner?
The Button Department
The Bermondsey (England) Saint James Church Parish Magazine published a gentle hint: "Worshipers who are kind enough to contribute buttons to the collections are requested to bring their own and not pull them off the hassocks." Seems reasonable enough. Other churches in the neighborhood are closed except when somebody can watch the poor boxes. In some Australian churches the collection plate is covered with a grid.
In Brooklyn an Episcopal church official got in a hurry and threw away 200 "church" envelopes without opening them. Boys gathered them out of an ash can, and, according to reports, spent about $25 of it for candy and ice cream.
The Golden Age acknowledges receipt of a nice pink dodger advertising a pig race on the baseball diamond for the benefit of the Huntsville (Md.) M.E. church, under the committee management of Mrs. and Mr. Percy Holmes, Mrs. and Mr. Isaac Queen, Mrs. and Mr. Jesse Thompson, Mrs. and Mr. Thomas H. Cooper, Mrs. Isabel Martin, and J. E. Johnson, chairman, and Ernest Forrest, manager of the pig race. Thank you so much, Percy, and all the rest. P.S. How is it that the dames, Effie, Henrietta, Leona, Malinda, and Isabel, were mentioned ahead of their hubbies? Are women better pig-chasers than men? Or—perish the thought—having already caught the two-legged ones, are the four-legged ones thereafter the more important?
Charles J. McCollough, private secretary to Roger W. Babson, statistician, made an investigation and reported that 8 percent of those listed as belonging to churches are dead. The others, 92 percent, including the preachers, have no faith; so it would be best to make the number 100 percent and call it a day.
The Most Experienced Liar
Bloomington, Ill., has an unusual social feature. Once a week, Tuesday noon, at the Young Men's Club, there is a contest to see who can tell the biggest lie. The Bloomington Daily Pantagraph claims that the biggest liar on February 2 was the Reverend Ralph G. Carson, but to spare his reputation the prize for the day was given to another man.
Newspapers laugh at Voliva (Dowie's successor), and can hardly well help it, because of the fact that Zion City, Ill., had its heaviest rain of the year three hours after Wilbur Glenn "prophesied" no more rain would fall for the rest of the year, which then had 3,460 hours yet to go.
Following the Catholic Eucharistic bread show, and the Republican convention, Cleveland felt it ought to do something to redeem itself; so it held a Bible marathon, the object of the game being to read the Bible through in 72 hours, with the inevitable result, on the face of it, that, read in that way, it would not result in a particle of benefit to anybody.
Reverend Benny Benson, pastor of Reformed Presbyterian church, Greenpoint, N.Y., became peeved the other Sunday night because in a building built to comfortably seat 700 only 39 came out to hear what he had to say. Benny took out his displeasure on the 39 who came, by burning his Bible in the pulpit. But why burn a perfectly good Bible that had hardly been used at all?
"A Moratorium Would Be a Godsend"
Reverend Doctor Frederic S. Fleming, rector of Trinity Parish, New York, is peculiarly well qualified to speak for the Episcopal church. In the "Trinity Year Book" he explained that the Parish has $32,000,000 in income-producing assets; which may all be true, for at one time it was admitted to be the largest and the worst landlord in the country.
He mentioned that the salaries of the clergy on the regular staff were $125,073, and an additional $38,379 went to associate pastors called "parish visitors and lay assistants". All together, that makes about $163,452 worth of preaching. Assessing the value of this the Reverend Fleming says, "The gospel of Christ for us has lost its sureness, its courage and its authority"; which is certainly true, and that despite the price. He says further:
There is practically no preaching worth the name to be found. Frankly, a moratorium would be a godsend, heartily hailed on both sides by the pulpit and the pew.
There is an offset to this rather gloomy but undoubtedly correct appraisal. The sextons, assistants and engineers pulled down earnings amounting to $46,781, and the music, organists and choirs licked up another $77,959, making a total of $124,740, so that the total annual bill for uplift was only a paltry $288,192, and for this amount the people actually got something, and Reverend Fleming himself says so.
The instrument of 20,000,000 stops—stop, we heard that one
He says that "the ringing of the chimes between 5 and 5:15 every afternoon except Saturday" is "a subtle message of sympathy and understanding, a touch of inspiration bringing new courage and hope to workers homeward bound". Ah! That's it. For only a little over a quarter of a million dollars a year the people can hear the old chimes.
Dr. Fleming hastily goes on to say, however, that a new set of chimes should be installed, and indicates that it would be a good idea for the public to cough up the price. Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!
Reverend Dr. William H. Foulkes, of Newark, in an address at Philadelphia, made the statement that "the Church today needs a baptism of fire". He is right. The "church" he is thinking of will get the baptism of fire he is not thinking of, in Armageddon; and when that baptism comes it will burn it up, root and branch, and be the best thing that ever happened to the glory of God and the good of mankind.
"World Churches Unite to Fight"
That is a happy headline in the London Daily Herald, "World Churches Unite to Fight"; and the more the caption is considered, the more truthful and reasonable it all sounds. Just to start thinking: "The church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven" (Hebrews 12:23), and the "world churches" are opposites. The rest of the caption seems self-explanatory.
The human family makes progress. A generation ago there was once in a while a dad that would whip a boy with a strap. But now see. At Texarkana the Reverend E. W. Morris, formerly with the Salvation Army in Texarkana and Shreveport, but of late conducting a mission in his home, was arrested for clubbing a boy with a piece of automobile spring. Rather than return to the “mission” the boy (variously estimated as ten to fourteen years of age) pleaded that he might be sent to prison.
Such of the public as still have a sense of humor are getting a big kick out of seeing the bishops once more begin to churn for war, realizing that if it comes the bishop himself is liable to get hit with a bomb. The old job of cheering young men to go out and kill somebody loses much of its charm when an airplane directly overhead looses a 2,000-pound bomb.
The Kansas City Star contains the pictures of three graduates of the Ouachita Baptist college at Arkadelphia, Ark., who are taking a course in military training at Fort Leavenworth before they start their work of preaching “Blessed are the peacemakers”, “Love your enemies”, etc.
After the Bonus Money
M. E. Dodd, pastor of a Baptist church at Shreveport, La., had a big advertisement in the Shreveport Times in which he said, in part:
I was with the boys in the tents, in the ‘bull pen’, in the mess halls, on the march, on the ships, in the hospitals, in the dugouts and trenches, speaking, praying, talking, distributing papers, selling cigarettes, chocolates, et cetera. And because I was in the uniform of a welfare worker instead of a military man I cannot claim any part in the bonus. But on the basis of my service, I venture to make a suggestion to you about your part of the bonus. Do not forget that one-tenth of your income (bonus included) is sacred to God. There are many worthy causes challenging your charitableness and worthy of all support. Among them you would consider your own church first of all.
The advertisement occupied a space two columns wide and 10 3/4 inches high and was set with a black border around it. Not a bad idea, putting it in mourning; for if any of the soldier boys are so foolish as to part with their cash to any of these institutions calling themselves “churches” (the sole object of whose existence is to dishonor the name of Jehovah God), they will do well to mourn their folly.
Strange Words from Methodists
Hitherto, when there was a chance for war, the Methodist church has always been strong for it, but in the Epworth Herald a writer, after dismissing the conscientious-objector course as unsatisfactory, proposed:
Stay out of jail—why thus separate yourself from the masses? Why thus let yourself be put out of the game? Accept the draft, take the drill, go into the camps and onto the battlefields, or into the munitions factories and transportation work—but sabotage war preparations and war. Be agitators for sabotage. Down tools when the order is to make and load munitions. Spoil war material and machinery.
Let all fair-minded people take note of these words and observe that they are not the words of Jehovah’s witnesses, who never have given such counsel and do not now give it; yet Jehovah’s witnesses, and not the Methodists, are the objects of direct Hierarchal and therefore indirect governmental wrath in time of war and in time of peace. Like their Master, Jehovah’s witnesses are peacemakers, peace-lovers, and, if you choose, “pacifists,” but they are not and never will be saboteurs or traitors.
Seven hundred Methodist ministers in Britain are pledged not to participate in any future wars. Their spokesman, Reverend Leslie Keeble, went on record as follows:
All war is contrary to the spirit, teaching and purpose of Jesus Christ, and our conscience forbids us ever to take part in it or its preparation. It is incredible to us that the appalling wickedness and mass murder of modern war should be contemplated as a possibility by any sane person.
Bishop F. J. McConnell, of the Methodist Episcopal church, telling of an Austrian conscientious objector (very likely one of Jehovah’s witnesses) who was shot dead because he would not fall in to go to the battle front of the World War, says, reflectively:
The manifest heroism of the conscientious objectors is the spearhead today in the fight against war, their bravery being of that extraordinary type that knows nothing of artificial excitement produced by the uproar of battle itself. I bow more profoundly to the conscientious objectors than to any other heroes of the last war. Oh, don’t cease to be gentle, gentle reader, at this! I mean the conscientious objectors who took and take the consequences. Not the writers, myself included, who have written, and continue to write, without any special risk.
In southern California the Methodist Episcopal church quoted with approval a statement of the Presbyterians that:
“Christians owe an allegiance to the kingdom of God that is superior to loyalty to their own country, and that in any matter in which the laws of their country conflict with the commands of God, they must assert their duty and right ‘to obey God rather than men’.” And then, on their own account, the Methodists said:
"We hold to be utterly un-American the growing tendency to infringe upon the right of free speech and free assembly of minority groups in this state in violation of constitutional prerogatives, and call upon officials and individual organizations to refrain from the use of extra-legal methods in dealing with labor problems and groups."
"We also hold, in the words of the General Conference, 'that our country is benefited by having as citizens those who unswervingly follow the dictates of their conscience.'"
The Methodists also asserted that:
"The present industrial order is unchristian, unethical, and antisocial because it is largely based on the profit motive which is a direct appeal to selfishness. Selfishness is never morally right, never Christian, and eventually never benefits anybody."
Baptists Also Stirring Uneasily
The Western New York Baptist Young People's Association, discerning the readily apparent fact that there are many more people than there are jobs, passed resolutions advocating the establishment of a more adequate number of birth control clinics and competent counsel on the subject. The usual remedy is war.
At Broken Hill, Australia, Reverend W. J. Wiley, Baptist clergyman, under his own name in Barrier Daily Truth made the following startling confession:
I would like to speak to the war lords and warmongers. In 1914 we undertook the experiment on a large scale of waging 'a war to end war' and 'to make the world safe for democracy' . . . . The World War created far more causes for new wars than it settled of old ones. . . . These slogans are slogans of death. You ask us to go on doing the same thing. Remember, we gave you everything you asked for and yet you failed. We gave the men—yes, and women and little children, too. . . . We gave you money. . . . We gave you materials. . . . We gave you our right to freedom of speech. . . . Ministers were forced out of their pulpits or silenced when they undertook to teach 'love your enemy'. You wrote our speeches for us. We spoke the words you wanted us to say. You dictated the editorials and inspired the propaganda. . . . We gave you our schools. They were turned into training camps. . . . We gave you our churches. They were turned into recruiting stations. . . . We gave you our religion. We threw its sanctity about your damnable experiment. We blessed your war and your instruments of war. We prayed for the success of your armies. We invoked God to curse your enemies. We even gave the sacred name of our Redeemer as an example of the good of human sacrifice. . . . What have you given us in return? You have given us imperialism, nationalism, despotism, destruction and destitution. You have given us Hitler, Mussolini, and other strutting demigods. . . . Never again will we give up our allegiance to Jesus to serve war lords.
Lost
Abbotsford, B. C., has an unusually bright dog. He realized that the two-legged folks were praying for peace and arming for war, and that some of the prayers were wrong anyway, so he sneaked into the church, grabbed two of the prayer books and headed for the door, probably intending to bury them where he had buried several others; but this time the constable caught him.
The Political Swill-Barrel
Reverend Hunt, in the Raleigh (W. Va.) Register, showed the beginners in the preaching business the right methods to pursue if they want to get their feet into the WPA or any similar trough. Of President Roosevelt he said (sic as in Register):
He is our salvation to the voters of our nation. When we were in despair he reached his hand and lifted us from industrial slavery as Jesus Christ lifted the yoke of bondage when there was no hand of pity, the way was dark and the road was closed between God and man he prevailed to open the seven seals that man might have a right to the tree of life, so did President Roosevelt prevail to break the chains of industrial slavery between labor and capital.
As man has the right to communicate with his heavenly Father through Jesus Christ so do we by the stroke of the pen of our great president give us the right to collect and bargain as employees. I feel that we should not go back to those dark days.
As we have the right to free speech and to our own choice of our own organization as Christ said we may serve him under our own vine and fig tree as that stands good today so our organization stands. Let us not go back neither look back for he has said he hath taken hold of the plow handle and look back is not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. I say that we must see the same in our government affairs as they cried at Pilate's hall—"away with him."
The millionaires and billionaires are crying today "away with him." Were their cries at Pilate's hall because of the bad deeds He had done? Or were they because He was a friend to the poor? They said that he was too kind, so in this nation do they cry because of his misdeeds. I say it is because of his reaching down his loving hand to the poor. What shall we do with him? Shall we say "away with him" or shall we say "he is my salvation"? It is up to you and me and to all voters of our nation.
Reverend Albert J. Mitchell, Negro, presiding elder of the African M.E. church, Baltimore, Md., showed wonderful interest in the clergy under his care just before election. He sent out 400 letters advising them to support the Landon-Knox ticket, and admits that many of the letters contained each a $5 check, to accompany the advice. The checks were signed by the chairman and the treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee. The gentlemen who contributed the money are now in mourning.
Sensing the objective of the Papal new deal for taking over the United States, lock, stock and barrel, and unwilling to be bribed, the Chicago Church Federation, representing twelve hundred Protestant churches, refused to participate in the WPA project to finance recreational and educational programs through the churches. Commenting favorably on this manly stand against clandestine union of church and state the Los Angeles Examiner said:
. . . the rights of conscience are beyond the just reach of any human power; . . . they are given by God, and cannot be encroached upon by human authority.
The Unbelief Department
At Newport News, Va., Reverend Robert Lee House was eager to undermine the faith of his congregation in the Bible. In a sermon on "Things I Do Not Believe" he mentioned, among others, that he did not believe in all the Bible, did not believe that inspiration or revelation is confined to the Bible, did not believe in the second coming of Christ, did not believe in the Millennium, did not believe in the coming of God's kingdom, and did not believe in sanctification. At this distance it looks as if about the only thing he really believes in is the "Reverend" Robert Lee House.
Doing what lay in his power to help the young men of the Y.M.C.A. at Santa Ana, Calif., into infidelity, the Reverend Edwin O. Colbeck, in an address entitled "The Bible, The Book Which Led the World Astray", denied the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures and stated that he had on file over a hundred mistakes. He was very eager that the young men to whom he talked should not believe Jesus' statement, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." He desired that they should have great respect for the clergy, not the Bible.
Reverend Dr. Albert Joseph McCartney, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, Washington, D.C., is not more ashamed of the Savior than the Savior and His followers are of him. In his prayer to the newspapers, given at the Republican Convention at Cleveland, he did not mention Jesus in any manner, nor did any other of the clergy at that convention.
Would Be Imprisoned and Shot
Dr. Winnington-Ingram, bishop of London, in an address at St. Paul's cathedral, London, said of Jesus, were He to appear again in the flesh:
Let Him stand up in Italy and denounce the use of poison gas and He would be at once imprisoned and probably shot as a traitor.
Sometimes the fleecers are themselves fleeced. A thief visited the trustees of the First Parish Unitarian church of Concord, Mass., to inspect the gold leaf on the steeple. He said it needed a little fixing at one place, and was told to go ahead and fix it. After some days he left, and it was found $500 worth of gold leaf was gone also, while in its place was some gold paint that is now already grayish green. The thief left the steeple, setting the clergy an example of moderation.
A dispatch from London says there were no services at the Church of the Holy Ghost because an enraged bull refused to permit the worshipers to enter. It is not polite for candidates for the ministry to act like that.
A dispatch from Juneau, Wis., says that it took two weeks to remove all the skunks from the Lutheran church there, and then services were resumed. That might be all right in Juneau, but there are congregations elsewhere from which, if all the skunks were removed, they would have to sell the church.
Special garments are now being made for firemen and non-elect Presbyterians. They are woven out of asbestos. They also have a market among backsliding Methodists of a bygone era.
Televiak Picks on the G.A.
M. J. Televiak, pioneer, gets off down in San Antonio, Tex., far from the scene of his encounter, and then, seeking the G.A. as a soft place to alight, writes thusly:
While working in Rushford, Minn., I called on Mr. O. A. O. Moen. He denounced the Watch Tower, stating that we were selling books and that this work was a big racket, etc. Enclosed you will find an outline of a commercial organization of which Mr. Moen is secretary and treasurer. Perhaps The Golden Age would be interested in this.
Examining the four-page prospectus which Televiak thus so seductively introduces, it is found that the Christian Benevolent Society, of which Moen is the guiding star, aims to “assist those who have been bereft of loved ones” with an “approximate $1,000 protection” and “costs less than 3 1/2 cents per day”. It is “organized not for profit, but for benevolent purposes”. Oh, yeah? And the board of directors consists of four persons: besides Moen, Reverend C. F. Geiger, president, Box 25, Chatfield, Minn., Reverend Hugo Bersell, vice president, Houston, Minn., and Reverend M. Vanderbeck, special representative, and evangelist, Rushford, Minn.
Probably Televiak wants The Golden Age to insinuate that neither Moen nor Geiger, nor Bersell, nor Vanderbeck, is on the level, and that in the long run it will be found that they have principally been the ones “assisted” because, at some stage or other in their lives, they “have been bereft of loved ones”, and that the whole outfit is merely one more oily scheme to separate “Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Congregational, Brethren, Baptist, Nazarene, Mennonite, Christian and others” (mentioned in the prospectus) from some of their mammon of unrighteousness before the coming of the final showdown; but nothing doing. If Televiak wants anything of that kind done, let him leave San Antonio and hark right back up into Rushford, and argue it out with the directors.
Paying tribute to the Devil
The Hierarchy a Habitation of Demons
Revelation 18:2
(American Revised Version) says of both Roman Catholic and Protestant organizations (unitedly opposed to the pure truth of God’s Word): “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit.” It therefore becomes necessary to set forth a few facts, taken from the current news, which plainly show that all modern and ancient “churches” are into demonism up to their necks.
The magazine The † Sign unwittingly shows the close relation between the “Singing Harlot” church and demonism in an article by Mary Welcome entitled “The Soul in Ecstasy”. The article shows “St.” Alphonsus Liguori, one of the alleged great theologians, speaking of the soul as being torn from the body and carried away with violence a million miles in an instant.
The article admits that this state of ecstasy is not incompatible with sin.
It tells of "St." Thomas of Villanova as being suspended twelve hours in the air, and of Catherine Emmerich as being blown about like a soap bubble, during which time she swept down humanly inaccessible cobwebs and even decorated the cornices of the church. It tells of "St." Joseph of Cupertino, who, if you will believe it, "raised a heavy cross that ten men had tried in vain to lift" and, still more, "three times when raised in ecstasy . . . dragged one of his companions into the air with him."
With all respect for Miss Welcome, this is just too bad for the reputations of Mr. Liguori, Thomas of Villanova, Miss Emmerich and "St." Joseph of Cupertino; for it is very apparent that these were all spirit mediums who conveyed to the minds of those about them ideas implanted in their own minds, ideas of happenings which by no stretch of the imagination ever happened at all, but were solely the "works" of demons.
Reverend G. Maurice Elliott, late Episcopal vicar of St. Peter's, Cricklewood, England, is reported as saying, "I have seen the materialized forms of spirits, many of them friends who have passed over." The "Reverend" is mistaken. What he saw was cooked up for him by the same evil angels so often cast out by the Lord Jesus throughout his ministry.
The London Sunday Referee claims that the spirit medium that Queen Victoria consulted was Robert James Lee. It was Lee (who died in 1931) who saw in a trance the features of the London surgeon who was the famous "Jack the Ripper" of a half century ago. "The Ripper" went mad through vivisection of helpless creatures, and finally ran amuck among humans. He died in an asylum unknown to the asylum keepers except as "Murderer No. 124".
During her lifetime the people were not let into the secret that Queen Victoria frequently consulted the spirits. The statements now made agree with the claims of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy that she died a Roman Catholic; for the two are one and the same.
With not a word from the clergy to explain that each and every one of these manifestations is that of demons, devils, seeking to convey the false impression that the dead are alive, British papers abound in stories of impersonations of Horatio Lord Nelson or others long dead, of dead brides appearing in their wedding garments, of the spirits of dead cats, of dead hands coming up through the floor, of beautiful women passing through cobwebs in a belfry, etc., etc.
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