erald of ((hrists Presence Vou. XXXIV BROOKLYN, N. Y., JANUARY 1, 1913 VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER THIS WONDERFUL PERIOD There never was such a wonderful period! before knew so much or could do so much. perienced an age of equal comfort. was as glorious as this hour. The hundred years behind us are jammed and crammed with achievements that outbalance the sum total of progress since the signing of the Magna Charta. The average mechanic enjoys luxuries that Midas, with all his wealth, could not command. The college freshman has more real information in his little finger than the erudition of the foremost scholar of the Renaissance. We have done more to put existence on a sane, logical and definite basis than the sum total of our ancestors. A mere hundred years ago even the scientist thought that the atmosphere was simply space—that gas was only a smell. The first microbe hadn’t disclosed his identity. Metchnikoff’s announcement of battling hosts in every drop of human blood would have earned him a padded cell. The best illumination George Washington could secure came from tallow dips, lighted by striking a spark from flint and steel. Every piece of fabrie was woven by hand. The only horse-power was four-legged and wore a tail. The steamboat was still building on the ways of Fulton’s brain, and the wheels of the steam engine had only moved in Stephenson’s head. It took Benjamin Franklin two weeks to send a letter from Boston and get a reply from Baltimore. Abraham Lincoln’s angular frame never reposed in a Pullman berth, Garfield called a 20-day ‘‘liner’’ an ‘‘ocean greyhound.’’ It is hardly a year since the father of antiseptic surgery was gathered to his fathers, Electric light, trolley cars, bicycles, automobiles, department stores, skyscrapers, 10-cent collars, tinned salmon, airships, penny newspapers, appendicitis and power cranes are infant ideas still toddling in their diapers. Thirty years ago electricity had never been hitched to a wheel; gunpowder was the most powerful explosive; subways weren’t considered within range of possibility. “‘Tmpossibility’’ is now an old-fashioned word with a definition, but not a meaning, Almost every dream of the past is a reality today. The magic cities and the fairy kingdoms of your grandmother aren’t half so wonderful as the world in which you live—The Cincinnati Post. We never We never exNo part of yesterday * * PRESENT DAY INVENTIONS FOREGLEAMS OF MESSIAH’S KINGDOM The above surely is not exaggeration! What thanks should be rising from all our hearts to God, the Giver of every good and perfect gift! How energetic we all should be to rightly use present blessings and opportunities for our own good, for the good of our families and neighbors—all men! Thinking people cannot help wondering why so many blessings have been crowded into our day. There is but one answer, and remarkably few seem to realize it. Some are disposed to say that all of these blessings come as a result of another onward step of evolution! Is this reasonable? Do we sce signs of excessive wisdom in ourselves or others? How many people do any of us know personally who have ever invented any [5153] great, wonderful or useful article of the many which go to make up our wonderful day? Examining carefully the personality and history of indi viduals through whom present day blessings come, we may well be astonished. We find that very few of them have been men of great education, and many of them are by no means great men in any sense of the word, except in the one particular of their invention. It is by no means sure that the prodigies of today are any more numerous than those of previous periods, but our facilities for knowing about them have increased a thousand-fold. Through the printed page the knowledge of an invention, carried before the civilized world, becomes a stimulant to others, furnishing, perhaps, a connecting link for another invention, Many of our great inventors tell us that they merely stumbled on their invention. Our successful air-brake patent, for instance, is merely the development of the eruder thought that water, hydraulic power, could be used to operate brakes. A still brighter mind caught the thought, and realized that air would serve the purpose better. As an illustration of the fact that mental illumination may be along some one particular line, we remind our readers of “‘Blind Tom.’’ He was noted for his wonderful skill in playing any tune that he might hear. He had no education; in fact, he was almost idiotic, incapable of receiving an edueation. But he had an ear for music which made him famous. Can we claim that we or others of our day stand so high intellectually as to be able to look down upon some of the bright minds of the past? Have we many Shakespeares, many Byrons, many St. Pauls, many Ciceros? Have we many Solomons? or are there many who could compare with Moses? THE MILLENNIUM HAS COME! We must look in another direction, if we would rightly understand and properly appreciate the meaning of the wonderful inventions of our day. They are coming to us because we are living in the dawning of a new dispensation! They are the foregleams of an Epoch so wonderful as to be beyond our most vivid imagination. Evidently God has been gradually lifting the veil of ignorance from the eyes of human understanding. Gradually he has allowed us to see the power of steam—gradually to learn how to apply it. Later he lifted the veil in respect to electricity. Now its marvels are enlightening the world. Shortly chemistry will be accomplishing wonders for us-—— no doubt making unnecessary the mining of coal. From the air that we breathe and the water that we drink we shall doubtless shortly know how to separate the elements necessary to furnish us the light and the heat indispensable to the world’s progress. Everything is getting ready for the Millennium! Not only is it coming, but it is here! We are not, indeed, enjoying its full blessings yet; but what we are enjoying is a foretaste of them. All of our hearts should be attracted more and more to the Lord in thankfulness for his wonderful mercies. More and more we should be studying his divine Word, the Bible. From it we should be coming daily to a clearer understanding of the divine character and plan. This alone will chase away our ignorance and superstition, and bring us love, joy, and peace. The blessings of God now coming to the world will center in Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary. During the past eighteen centuries, His redemptive work has been the gathering of the (3-4)
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