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Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 37.

Introducing the Protestant Magazine

Review and Herald

Sep 16, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 16, 1909

Introducing the Protestant Magazine

Have you introduced the Protestant Magazine to the various pastors in your town? Note the following unsolicited testimonial just received from a prominent Baptist minister in the State of Washington: “Dear Editor: Enclosed find 25 cents for this year's subscription to the Protestant Magazine. It is too bad that it can be issued only quarterly. It ought to reach every man and woman in the world. I have not had such a feast of good, old-fashioned Bible doctrine for a long time. God bless and prosper your good work. I received Vol. I, No. 1, for the second quarter, having “Christ or Diana” as frontispiece. Yours prayerfully.” Let our conference officers secure the ministerial lists of the various denominations in their territory and send this sturdy magazine to all the Protestant ministers for one year. The yearly subscription price for ten or more subscriptions ordered at one time, to one address or to separate addresses, is only $1.50. Send $1 for 25 sample copies to hand out or sell to your neighbors and friends, or send $4 for 100 copies. There are thousands of noble Protestants in the land. Let these be searched out and introduced to our magazine.
The Temperance number of the Instructor is still being successfully sold. We have just received an order for 500 copies from Fannie Adams, of Nebraska, who is a successful scholarship student. She says she is having splendid success, and is sorry she has to quit to go to school.

Life and Health Scholarship Sales

“WHILE calling on one of my customers in Boston,” writes a commercial traveler, “a bright young lady dropped into the office, where there are perhaps twenty clerks, to sell your magazine, Life and Health. She said she was selling the magazine to assist her in her education. I, of course, purchased a copy, as you seldom see a traveling man turn a person down. I think they all bought one. I put the magazine in my grip, with little intention of reading it; but one night, a short time ago, I read it. Now, little did I think that by assisting her I was assisting myself, other than by a spiritual feeling. I noticed, however, the article on ——, for which I have doctored for about seven years. I even went to Asheville, N. C., for nearly two years, to seek help, but with poor results. The physicians did me no good, and I paid them hundreds of dollars. Well, to make a long story short, this —— is curing me. Instead of dieting now, I eat just what I want. Thanks to the young lady and your Life and Health. You may use this to assist others any time you wish. Ever gratefully yours.” This letter contains some good pointers for our agents.
R. C. SPOHR, missionary secretary of Indiana, writes: “Last week was the banner week for our scholarship company; 2,890 copies of Life and Health, Liberty, and the Signs were sold. One young lady sold 521 copies alone.”

THE WORK — AND — THE WORKERS

BROTHER D. D. FITCH, of Southern California, has already sent us over 100 yearly subscriptions for the Protestant Magazine. Our young people’s societies in that conference are taking a lively interest in this our newest ten-cent magazine.

A Testimonial for the Protestant Magazine

“I HAVE the Protestant Magazine,” writes a Kansas gentleman not of our faith, “and hope you will be able to show up the crooked ways of Roman Catholicism, the greatest scourge known to Christianity. I have been interested in the second advent of our Lord ever since the year 1842. I am 80 years old. Enclosed find 25 cents for the Protestant Magazine one year.”

Selling the Instructor

OUR members are fast learning the practical value of selling our publications. Here is an example: “Enclosed please find $3.75 in money-order to pay for the 100 copies of the Instructor received last month. I sold 95 copies, gave two copies away, and have three left. I enjoyed doing such work for the Lord, and in doing so I earned money to go to camp-meeting.”

Selling Life and Health

CONSIDER the following excellent report from Norman Strawn, Keene, N. H.: “Last Tuesday I received the 100 copies of Life and Health you sent me, and in just ten hours and fifteen minutes I had sold the last copy. These were not sold on the scholarship plan or by the scholarship arguments, but on the merits of the paper itself. I worked from house to house in the suburbs of this place, where the houses are scattered. I have not been long in the work, as you know, having sold only 250 copies in all heretofore. God has blessed me in this work. I hope to put in good time this winter. I am placing another order with the tract society for more papers.”

A Young Lady’s Canvassing Experience

A YOUNG lady reports 2,700 copies of Liberty recently sold, and adds: “I shall never be sorry that I took up the canvassing work. It has done a great deal for me. I wish all our young people could have some experience in this work.”

Selling the Protestant Magazine

“THE first shipment of the Protestant Magazine came to hand a few days ago,” writes a Michigan agent, “and the second shipment a few days later. I sold four copies in about fifteen minutes. I am a night-watch in a sawmill. I feel confident that I can sell them.”

The Growing Magazine Work

“WE are glad to see the magazine work growing to the proportions that it is,” writes Brother G. C. Hoskin, secretary of the Iowa Tract Society, “and we look forward with pleasure every week to the inside front cover of the REVIEW. This is an interesting department for a great many of our people. I am sure it is so with us in the office here.”

Testimonies for the Church, Volume IX

The last volume of “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume IX, is now ready for mailing. The entire contents of this number will be of great encouragement to every individual who is in any way interested in the special message for today. The one section dealing with “The Religious Liberty Work” will be found of vital importance to the church at this particular time. This one section is of sufficient present interest itself to demand its thorough study by every Sabbath-keeper. Every family of believers ought to be studying this book. Orders may now be placed with the tract societies. Prices, post-paid: cloth, 75 cents; limp leather, $1.25; and thin edition, Bible paper, in limp leather binding, $1.25.

The Open-Flat Bible

Who has read carefully our present notices of our new “Open-Flat Bible”—a book as good in every way as any made? It has India paper, large bold-face type, numbered chapters by books and consecutively throughout. It is a self-pronouncing Bible. It is silk sewed, and it is only 5½ x 8 x ⅞ inches outside the cover, and possesses many other desirable features. Prices: $4, $5, and $6, according to bindings.

Periodical Scholarship Workers

ON August 31 two of our scholarship students ordered 600 copies of the September Life and Health to complete the amount of their scholarships in South Lancaster Academy for the year to come. The periodical scholarship workers seem to be generally successful. As the time draws near for these workers to quit selling periodicals, they invariably express their regrets for having to stop a work they like so well. For every student leaving the field to go to school there ought to be several lay members to take their places during the winter months.

Selling Magazines in Large Cities

SISTER CORA BOWERS, in company with several other young ladies who have been working with our magazines during the past summer, sends us a very interesting report, from which we learn that our magazines can be successfully sold in large cities wherever the worker can gain access to the people. The problem, therefore, continues to be, how to gain access to the people in our large cities. The great bulk of papers and magazines in all large cities is sold from news stands and by newsboys on the streets. Perhaps we shall have to learn more perfectly the science of selling on the streets and the placing of our magazines in the news stands.

Chinese Publications for Present Truth

DID you ever have a desire to place something in the hands of the Chinese which would lead them to a knowledge of the third angel’s message? If you have possessed this desire, you doubtless have been disappointed in your effort to secure anything printed in the Chinese language treating upon present truth. We are glad to announce that our New York House has recently received a large stock of Chinese publications, direct from China. The following is the list received: Gospel Hymn Book, 20 cents; Easy Steps in Gospel Study, 1 3/5 cents; Gospel Primer, 8 cents; Sabbath Poem, 1 cent; The True Sabbath, 3 cents; Know Thy Creator, 1 cent; Love of God, 1 cent; Sabbath Calendar, 1 cent; Second Coming of Christ, 3 cents; Sinner’s Need of Christ, 1 cent; The Resurrection, 1 cent; Treatise on the Sabbath, 3 cents. Would you not like to have a foreign catalogue containing a complete list of all the foreign publications carried by The New York House? Address Review and Herald Publishing Association, 32 Union Square East, New York City, New York.

Editorial

“The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”
“And as he [Elijah] lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.”
There is no more beautiful doctrine in the Scriptures than that of God's care for his children. Through the ministry of holy angels, he saves them from dangers, seen and unseen. Their ministry was not confined to Bible times or characters, but in every age of the church, and as truly in this age as in any other, they are the representatives of Heaven appointed for the ministry of the saints. The knowledge of this ministry should inspire courage, and at the same time impart solemnity. The record of our lives which the angels keep in the books of heaven, must be met by us in the judgment. They become in our experience here the messengers of light, blessing, and power in proportion as we obey God and consecrate our hearts and lives fully to his service.

An Angry Mob Held Powerless

As a Methodist pioneer, Dr. Adam Clarke, of Ireland, author of the “Commentary,” traveled all about Ireland, England, and Wales, and to the Channel Islands. In those days Methodism met the opposition of the established church and of “society,” and the irreligious mob felt itself doing respectable service in assailing the sect everywhere spoken against. On one of these trips, Dr. Clarke experienced so remarkable an interposition of Providence to save his life that he records it in his “Commentary,” as a note on the deliverance of Christ from the mob at Nazareth. Luke 4: 30. Writing of himself in the third person, he says a certain missionary was called to preach in a place where there was much prejudice:—
About fifty people who had received impressions from the Word of God, assembled. He began his discourse, and after he had preached about thirty minutes, an outrageous mob surrounded the house, armed with different instruments of death, and breathing the most sanguinary purposes. Some that were within, shut to the door; and the missionary and his flock betook themselves to prayer.
The mob assailed the house, and began to hurl stones against the walls, windows, and roof; and in a short time, almost every tile was destroyed, and the roof nearly uncovered, and before they quitted the premises, scarcely left one square inch of glass in the five windows by which the house was enlightened. While this was going forward, a person came with a pistol to the window opposite to the place where the preacher stood (who was then exhorting his flock to be steady, to resign themselves to God, and trust in him), presented it at him, and snapped it, but it only flashed in the pan.
As the house was a wooden building, they began with crows and spades to undermine it, and take away its principal supports. The preacher then addressed his little flock to this effect: “These outrageous people seek not you, but me; if I continue in the house, they will soon tear it down, and we shall all be buried in the ruins; I will therefore, in the name of God, go out to them, and you will be safe.” He then went toward the door; the poor people got around him, and entreated him not to venture out, as he might expect to be instantly massacred. He went calmly forward, opened the door, at which a whole volley of stones and dirt was that instant discharged; but he received no damage.
The people were in crowds in all the space before the door, and filled the road for a considerable way, so that there was no room to pass or repass. As soon as the preacher made his appearance, the savages became instantly as silent and as still as night; he walked forward, and they divided to the right and to the left, leaving a passage of about four feet wide, for himself and a young man who followed him, to walk in. He passed through the whole crowd, not a soul of whom either lifted a hand or spoke one word, till he and his companion had gained the uttermost skirts of the mob. The narrator, who was present on the occasion, goes on to say:—
“This was one of the most affecting spectacles I ever witnessed; an infuriated mob without any visible cause (for the preacher spoke not one word) became in a moment as calm as lambs. They seemed struck with amazement bordering on stupefaction; they stared and stood speechless; and after they had fallen back to right and left to leave him a free passage, they were as motionless as statues. They assembled with the full purpose to destroy the man who came to show them the way of salvation; but he, passing through the midst of them, went his way. Was not the God of missionaries in this work?”
In the quietness that followed for a few minutes after the preacher disappeared, the people inside the church also went out and escaped. Then the mob awoke “as from a dream,” and broke the windows and otherwise vented their fury on the house.
The One who, passing through the midst of the mob at Nazareth, went his way, has promised the gospel worker, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” W. A. S.

National Reformism at Winona Lake, Ind.

Forming the Image

THE feature of this National Reform convention which drew the largest audience was the speech by Hon. William J. Bryan, who spoke under the auspices of the National Reform Association in the main auditorium on August 12. The audience was estimated at eight thousand. The theme of the address was “The Price of a Soul,” and the text, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” The address dwelt almost wholly upon material exchange between man and man, the principles involved in such transactions, and the immense importance of the practise of justice and equity in building true character and fitting for the higher life. Many good things were said.
One declaration of the speaker is worthy of consideration for three reasons: First, because it is generally believed; second, because it is not literally true; and third, because it is not in harmony with the principles of the organization under whose auspices he was speaking. Nor can that organization take any credit to itself for differing with Mr. Bryan upon the principle involved, for their opposition to the principle is based upon grounds that are un-American. This seeming incongruity will be understood as we proceed. Mr. Bryan’s statement was this:—
The people have a right to have what they want in government.
That statement is quite generally believed. But it is the majority of the people who decide such matters; and where there is a majority, there is a minority also. It is possible for a majority to pass a law by whose provisions a minority would be despoiled of rights that are truly inalienable. For instance, a law may be demanded by, and passed by, the majority which would require the minority to help support a system of worship in which they did not believe, or to attend worship at the place where or at the time when the majority worshiped, or even to refrain from labor on a certain day, after worshiping on another, because the majority chose to rest and worship on that certain day. No people have a just right to pass such laws, no matter how great the majority they carry with them. The majority may demand a kind of government that would imprison men or put them to death because of their conscientious convictions which could in no way interfere with the equal rights of others. They have no right to make such a demand or have such a government. Equal and exact justice to all men is the only true basis of government; and the government which grants to one class rights which it withholds from another is not founded on that basis. The people have no right to a government which puts a handicap upon any class because of its religious faith and legitimate religious practise.
The National Reform Association does not believe Mr. Bryan’s statement, for they have repudiated the doctrine of majority rule. Rev. J. S. Martin, general superintendent of the National Reform Association, said at this convention on August 14:—
This association proposes that there shall be a recognition made in our nation’s fundamental law of the great fundamental principles that are embodied in this national Christianity; namely, that God and not man is the ultimate source of all civil power and authority; that the Lord Jesus Christ, and not any earthly potentate, is the ruler of nations; that the law of God as revealed through Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land; that these fundamental principles shall be expressed by the nation itself, and that through its highest law, the national Constitution.
That association proposes that the national Constitution shall expressly declare that the will of the majority of the people is not the supreme law of the land; but that the law of God is the supreme law of the land. It is apparent, therefore, that the association can not indorse Mr. Bryan’s position. It is further apparent that such a program would necessitate the transformation of this republic into a hierarchy, with the preachers acting in the capacity of the ancient prophets. If we ask, “How shall the legislators learn the divine will that they may legislate in harmony therewith?” Rev. J. M. Wylie, one of the lecturers at this convention, replies: “The man who speaks for God shall proclaim God’s will concerning this department of the kingdom. . . . God’s spokesmen shall utter his will. The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and kings were compelled to consult them.”
Under such a régime there is no question as to who would be master of the situation. No law would be passed without submission to the clergy, who, when they spoke, would be speaking for God, speaking ex cathedra, as does the Pope of Rome; and any refusal to submit to that authority would be considered both a mortal sin against God and treason against the government. Now in the analysis of the papal form of government and the form of government proposed by the National Reform Association a most striking similarity appears. They are both diametrically opposed to our present form of government. The Roman hierarchy has declared that this government is no government at all. The National Reform Association holds that the government never can be right until the Constitution is completely remodeled. Roman Catholic spokesmen declare that this nation must be made Catholic, that its citizens must have a master, and that there is no one competent to act in that capacity save the Roman Church. (See “Brownson’s Essays,” pages 380-383.) Says the National Reform Association: “The law of God as revealed through Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land,” and “God’s spokesmen shall utter his will,” and “the kings were compelled to consult them.” The Roman Church also says, in this connection: “The state is only an inferior court, bound to receive the law from the supreme court [the church], and liable to have its decrees reversed on appeal.”—“Brownson’s Essays,” page 284.
The papal system sets up one ultimate authority, dictating to prince and people alike in spiritual and temporal things. The National Reform Association proposes that this government shall establish an authority which shall be ultimate in spiritual as well as temporal things—not a single individual, but a clerical group who shall hold in their hands the legislation of the country, and so shape the spiritual and temporal destinies of the people. All that spiritual Rome did was what the logic of purpose will make it necessary for these to do. What they propose to establish in this country is what Rome did establish wherever she had the power. This is the image of that. If that was the beast, of what is this the image? C. M. S.

What Doest Thou Here?

THIS was the question asked of Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, twenty-five hundred years ago. God had set him as a watchman unto his people. By his hand the Lord had brought judgments upon the nation, and had also wrought for them great deliverances. Elijah had been shielded by divine power from the wrath of King Ahab and his more wicked wife, Jezebel. The Lord had highly honored the faith and word of the prophet in the memorable events which occurred at Mount Carmel, resulting in the death of the prophets of Baal and in giving the generous rain which came to water the famine-stricken country.
But now, as the result of Jezebel's threat to take away his life, his courage had forsaken him, and he had fled to the wilderness. Utterly dejected and discouraged, he cast himself down upon the ground and wished for death. God graciously sent his angel to strengthen him and to supply his temporal needs, and then after Elijah had penetrated still farther into the desert solitude, the Lord himself spoke to him. Twice did the Lord address to his servant this question, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” It was a poor answer that Elijah had to give. He had traveled a long journey on his own initiative. He had left the charge committed to him. Instead of remaining as a light to Israel, instead of trusting God to deliver him from Jezebel as he had delivered him for three years from Ahab, Elijah felt that he must flee away from the influences which confronted him. The Lord sends him back again to his work. He says, Go, return, and on thy way anoint Hazael to be king over Syria.
At the present time in the history of this movement, this same question propounded to Elijah might properly be asked of some who have left the work given them of God, and traveled off into fields of their own seeking. In this closing message, God has set his children as lights to this dark world. Hehas not congregated them in one great center. Here and there, in different sections of every country, in dark, out-of-the-way places of the earth, as well as in the more densely populated sections, has God raised up men and women to act as standard-bearers. How sad it is to see some of these forsake the places assigned them by God's providence, lower the standard of truth, leave their particular fields without representatives of the message, and for the sake of greater convenience or an easier time, move to some large church.
In many instances where this has been done, responsibility that had been carried in the smaller church has been entirely thrown aside, and instead of becoming workers and burden-bearers in the large congregation, they have settled back into a state of indifference and inactivity. We believe that, should the Lord speak to our churches as he spoke to Elijah of old, he would say to many families in our large congregations, What doest thou here? Why have you left the post to which I assigned you? Why have you permitted to go out in darkness the light which I kindled in your neighborhood, around which your neighbors might rally, and which should have been a nucleus for the upbuilding of a greater work? This is indeed a practical question which many should settle with the Lord.
We appreciate the fact that there may be conditions and circumstances which require that some of our people should leave the smaller companies, or their places of isolation, and connect with some of our larger churches, but while the providence of God has called one to do this, there are many others who have done it wholly on their own responsibility, and in consequence they have lost that spiritual vigor and spirit of missionary labor which they enjoyed while in the way of duty. Let each one carefully consider his relationship to God and to his work. If he stands alone in his locality, let him consider well if God has not placed him there in his providence as a savor of life unto his fellows; if he is one of a great company, let him inquire if God would not have him go out into the great unentered fields and raise up a standard for the truth where none now exists.
Every believer should determine, first, if he is where God wants him, and second, if he is doing the work God gave him to do. If he knows that he is meeting the purpose of Providence, let him earnestly persevere in his labor. If, however, he is led by prayer, study, and counsel, to see that he has missed his way, let him use due diligence in returning to the post of duty.
Every one should seek to know the right way. Each for himself, in prayer to God and in counsel with his brethren, must settle the question of personal responsibility. Hence, let none judge others, but let each seek to determine his own duty before God and to his fellow men. Then will the Lord lead as he led Elijah of old, and in Israel to-day, as in Israel then, we shall see his arm made bare to save, and his truth brought to a speedy triumph. F. M. W.

France and the United States

Two Periods of History Contrasted

In this time when there is such a tendency to exalt reason above revelation, a lesson from history may be profitable. We go back only a little more than one century to the frightful scenes of the French Revolution. The seeds of infidelity had been sown broadcast throughout the kingdom. In the effort to break the yoke of the monarchy a false idea of liberty was fostered—a revolt from all restraint. The success of the Revolution made its leaders almost insane in their endeavor to obliterate the religion of the Bible, and the execution of Louis XVI led on to the crucifixion of Christianity and to the deification of Reason. The story is told by H. H. Northrop, in “The History of the French Revolution,” from which we make the following quotation:—
The Convention decreed the service and worship of Reason alone. On the twentieth of December [1793] the new worship, of human vanity adoring itself, was inaugurated at Notre Dame. The Convention, the Commune, and all the authorities of Paris marched amid the sound of cannons, beating of drums, and martial strains, to the cathedral. A great throne had been erected in the nave. An actress, and it is said a prostitute, was borne in upon the shoulders of several men. She was Mademoiselle Maillard. The seat which she occupied was composed of oak branches. She was dressed as the Goddess of Reason. The atheists shouted with joy, while clubs, societies, fraternities, and female bands danced in hideous orgies around this new idol. Ancient pagan rites and ceremonies were restored to celebrate the reign of Reason. The dancing infidels raised before this new goddess a vast torch as emblematic of the light of philosophy. Pages knelt and waved incense prepared by Chaumette at her feet. The whole assemblage defied and mocked the name and worship of God, while hymns of liberty rent the air. In this way was the reign of the guillotine inaugurated. The terrorized Bishop Gobel was compelled to be present. Trembling and subdued, he could not prevent the tears rolling down his aged cheeks at the awful profanations and indecencies which he beheld. The same horrible mockeries through the power of the atheistic republic, were enacted throughout France, though Robespierre and Danton took no part in these scenes. The madness and anarchy of the people under the rule of the committees, the Commune, and the temporary sway of Hébert, now became yet more excessive. Not satisfied with prisons full of their enemies, as they termed them, and the daily falling of heads under the knife of murder, the anarchists resolved to profane the graves of the historic dead of France. What a spectacle of license and blind hatred!
The Convention decreed the destruction of the tombs of the kings of France in St. Denis. The Commune changed the decree into digging up the dead, casting away their bones, and out of their leaden coffins molding bullets. Could fanaticism go further? The beautiful gates of bronze in the church of St. Denis were broken up by the ax. Those gates had been presented to the church a thousand years before, by the great Emperor Charlemagne. Gratings, decorations, roofing, historic statues, all were dashed to pieces. Crumbling flesh, bones, skulls of kings, of queens, of princes, of the great warriors and statesmen, and bishops of the past, were dragged from their resting-places of centuries, and cast, profaned and pulverized, into the common sewers. . . . With every excess of atheistic and demoniac hatred and contempt, revolutionary France sought in wild frenzy to obliterate all vestiges of her historical and monarchical past.
Such insanity of revolution was never before manifested, and never since. Jacobin Paris and France, in 1793, alone present such a revolting spectacle. Atheism, dethroning God and destroying his churches and worship, endeavored to obliterate the resurrection by annihilating the dead of the past great ages.
The eye of God was on it all. The ear of God heard it all. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” and only a few months were to pass before Chaumette and Hébert, Danton and Desmoulins, even Robespierre and Couthon, the whole dreadful band of atheistic or deistic tyrants, were to realize this truth.—Pages 534-536.
At the very time when France was indulging in these excesses of atheism, the new republic, the United States, was just “coming up out of the earth.” Familiar with the direful results of a union of church and state in the Old World, the builders of this nation, with a true appreciation of the rights of conscience and the essence of true religion as a voluntary service, left the church free from the control of the state. The results have abundantly justified this action, and this republic has set an example to the nations of the world.
There are now, however, strong indications of a change in this wise policy, and we may again draw the contrast between France and the United States. After a century under the concordat made with the pope by Napoleon in 1801, France has repudiated this old bond between the state and the church, and is now giving equal opportunity to all forms of religious belief. At the same time an influential body of religious teachers in this country is clamoring for a union of religion with the state, while other leaders of thought are refusing to accept revealed truth, and are making reason their guide in the search for truth, and philosophy their interpreter.
What will be the outcome? Will this nation follow in the footsteps of theFrance of 1789-95? Will the terrible lessons of that period of history be disregarded? Will Christianity again be crucified? It is time to spread the warning message, and to call upon all dwellers upon the earth to “fear God, and give glory to him.” Reason should be subject to revelation. W. W. P.
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