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(288-291) representatives of Israel were unready for the invitation was not permitted to hinder. ond our Lord, through his disciples, subsequently extended the invitation to another class, The tral of the nation 2s a whole. represented by its leaders. ended at Calvary, or rather five days before Calvary. when our Lord rode on the as. and wept over the city of Jerusalem, saving, “QO Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that aie sent unto thee: how oft would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wines. and ve would not! Behold, your honse is left unto vou desolate!” As a nation, as a people, vou have rejected the divine invitation te the great feast, and as a nation von cannot taste of it. Nevertheless according to divine intention and promise thronch the prophets, God extended mercy to various individual, of that nation, after the nation as a whole had proven itself unworthy of the kingdom privileges The apestie. were sent to gp: ther prot the nation, but such individuals as were of humble mind. to share in the feast. and this calling of individuals. instead of the nation of Tsracl was responded te exitusnely by those who realized their own unworthiness.—the Jame, the halt the blind, who confessed that they were not pertect. but who desired per fection and who rejoiccd in the call to partake of the kingdom privileges and gledivy torsook all else for it. Amongst them we are assured there are vot manv wise not many great. not mary leerned dnt chiefly the poor fer although the poor are not alwavs humble by any means, vet amonget them proportionately more were found who were of acceptable character: amongst the rch and the great humility would appear to have heen at all times correspondingly scarce. This second invitation to the poor, the halt and the blind, in the streets and lanes of the city, as a picture would be very difficult to appreciate in our dav of hospitals and almshouses, ete.. provided by genera] taxation: but in the dave of our Lord it would be very easy indeed to have collected a large crowd of indigent and infirm in short order. It will he observed that both of these first calls belong to the city—that is, Israel. the nominal kingdom of God. But the two calls failed to find the sufficient number which God had predestinated should constitute the kingdom class. He could indeed have induced others to come in, but, on the contrary, he purposely put the invitation to the feast in such a form as would repel those who were not of the right attitude of heart—in such a form as would attract Israelites indeed. who felt and acknowledged their own unworthiness, and who would he glad, on entering the feast. to have on the robe provided for the guests (symbolical of Christ’s righteousness), to cover the filthy rags of their own imperfection. But now, because a sufficient number was not found in Israel to complete the elect number. the message must be sent outside the city, outside of Judaism.—to the Gentiles; and thus the third message was, “Go ve into the highways and whosoever you meet. compel them to come in.” The word “compel,” however. gives a wrong thought here: it should properly be rendered, urge, persuade, And thus it has been that throughout the Gospel age, since the bringing in to the Gospel favor of as many Jews as were ready for it. the message has heen turned to the Gentiles, “to take ont of them a people for God's name,” to partake of the great feast with the remnant of Israel. As the Apostle Paul said to some of the Jews in his preaching: “It was neces sary that the word of God should first have been spoken to ZION’S WATCH TOWER ALLEGHENY, Pa, you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles; for so the Lord hath commanded us.” (Acts 13-46, 47) They showed themselves unworthy of this great blessing or gift, in that they were interested more in the things that perish than in the glorious promises of the everlasting future. The Apostle Paul calls attention to this fact in Rom. 9:27: “Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant [only] shall be saved.” The Apostle further shows that the call of the Gentiles to be sharers in the kmgdom is merely the continuation of the original call, and that we are called in to take the places of those who neglected so great salvation and privilege. He illustrates this by the olive tree, saying that the natural branches were broken off that we. who by nature were wild, might be grafted in and become partakers of the root and fatness of the olive—Rom. 11:17. This third call to the great feast of the kingdom blessings and privileges has progressed throughout this Gospel age. and to our understanding is now nearly complete—nearly all the places at the table have been provided with guests; only a few are yet vacant: and so soon as these places are filled, the great feast will begin, and we shall indeed enter into the joys of our Lord, and not only be privileged to feast ourselves, but to carry of its bounties and blessings to all the families of the earth. The same matters which hindered the Jews, under the first call, from accepting this invitation, have hindered to a large extent also many of the Gentiles who have heard the third eall. It is impossible te be thorough-going business men, wealthy, influential, ete., and at the same time follow in the footsteps of Jesus, giving all of our hearts, talents and energies to the Lord in acceptance of his invitation to this feast. The acceptance of the invitation to this feast means a deep interest in it, beyond everything else, so that all other matters, whether houses or lands, father or mother. wife or children, shall be secondary to the interests of the kingdom, and to our responsibilities to the terms and conditions of the invitation. Consequently, what was true respecting Israel has been true as respects the Gentiles, viz., that the call to the kingdom has been generally. rejected by those who had a considerable measure of this world’s blessings and advantages— those who are rich, either in honor of men or social position or talents or reputation or money, have found it difficult to leave these all to follow Jesus in the narrow way: and, consequently, the Scriptural assurance 1s, not only that those elected in the end of the Jewish age were chiefly the poor and lowly. but that the same has been true amongst the Gentiles, and is true today: “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble;” but chiefly the poor of this world, rich in faith—I Cor. 1:26; James 2:5. This does not debar those who have riches of any kind, but really gives them all the greater privilege and opportunity; for they have that much greater talent which. if thev will, they may sacrifice, and thus the more fully demonstrate their appreciation of the invitation and of the feast, and be correspondingly appreciated by the Host. Let us all, like the Apostle Paul, lav aside every weight, every hindrance, every besetment, everything precious to us of an earthly kind, that we may run with patience the race set before us, in response to this invitation to the great feast of joint-heirship with our Lord in the kingdom.—Heb. 12:1, 2; Rom. 8-16-18, 12:1, 2. Vou. XXI ALLEGHENY, PA., VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER THE BIBLE TRIUMPHANT Evidences corroborative of the Rible’s truthfulness accumulate Genesis notes Nimrod as the founder of the Chaldee or Babylonian empire before Abraham’s day. (Gen. 10:8-12) These and other features of the narrative have been doubted and considered mvthical; hut explorations in Babylonia seem to confirm the Bible 1ecord at every point. We have already mentioned the exploration of the ruins of ancient Nippur, once the royal capital, commenced some years ago hy the representatives of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S. A. The past vear. it seems, has been a very fruitful one, the ruins vielding to the searchers vast literary treasures.—the once National Library of Chaldea. The Bibha gives the following interesting description of the find: — “The most surprising feature of the discovery is that the persons who collected the tablets and placed them originally in the pot was an old priest, who lived previous to and during the time of Belshazzar, and who was evidently a scientist of no OCTOBER 1, 1900 No. 19 ——3 mean discrimination. The pot was, indeed, his archaeological museum, not portentious in size, but the first museum known to man, and therefore more important for the bearing it had on the history of civilization than any of the great museums in existence today. Among the articles found in it were the following tablets: “1, One of Sargon, which gives his titles. This particular piece of baked clay may give information concerning the doings of centuries. It was the custom in those days for each king to inscribe a memorial tablet not only with an account of his victories, but with his pedigree, showing where he was born, who were his anc stors, the god he worshiped, and in fact, anything else that might serve to impress posterity with his personal glory. These tablets, therefore, reveal the names and origin of many of the writer’s contemporaries, predecessors, and, as the accounts of the successive kings dovetail into one another, they will all in the end constitute an unbroken history of this early civilization. There are, however, compara [2702]