which were fully examined in our previous part (8) of this history. As a restored Christian community they immediately confessed their sins of compromising, also their taints of false religion. They repented of their former course, expressed a desire to change their ways and prayed for Jehovah’s forgiveness. Organizationally they remembered their sins, such as compromisingly cutting out pages 247-253 of The Finished Mystery, their seventh volume of Studies in the Scriptures, to please would-be censors,c The Watch Tower encouraging its readers to set aside May 30, 1918, as a day of prayer and supplication as requested by the American Congress on April 2 and as proclaimed by President Wilson May 11,d their tendering of compliments to governments of this world,e and their dabbling in nonreligious enterprises.f As a body they confessed, “We have sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly.” “Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not Jehovah? he against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk, neither were they obedient unto his law.”g (Ps. 106:6; Isa. 42:24, AS) The stirring Watch Tower articles of August 1 and 15, 1919, entitled “Blessed Are the Fearless,” dispelled the grip of the “fear of man” restraining the faithful remnant and they began to go forth as a forgiven people, a cleansed organization, a new nation freed from the Devil’s old-world organization. They rejoiced that now the brief interval of Jehovah’s displeasure was ended, that his anger was turned away from them, and that their service to him in the future would be acceptable.—Isa. 12:1.

Prophetically what do the Scriptures have to foretell about this period of restoration? Previously we have studied how Zion, Jehovah’s universal organization, without organizational pains, violence or troubles, gave birth to, or successfully produced in 1914, the male-child Kingdom of heaven, a new government embodied in Christ Jesus. (Dan. 7:14; Isa. 66:7; Rev. 12:5) However, following this event the prophecies say that Zion travails or ‘is pained’ with respect to the persecutions, troubles and scatterings of her anointed witnesses on earth (1914-1918) to produce in connection with them a “land” and a “nation.” (Isa. 66:8) The “land” produced in the “one day” of Jehovah refers to the restoration of the free position of Jehovah’s worshipers on earth, for building a theocratic New World society, which was thus founded in 1919.h (Isa. 51:16) A “land” or earthly condition or position must have inhabitants, and the first ones to inhabit this new earthly situation, the “Beulah” land, were those of the remnant of anointed ones of “spiritual Israel” comprising the holy “nation” that was restored to true worship in 1919.i (Isa. 62:4) Later, strangers, those of the “other sheep,” were to be gathered into this new theocratic “land” or situation. Thus a spectacular “new earth” crowd of inhabitants is gradually developed amidst a dying corrupt old world.—Isa. 66:20-22.

Following these remarkable births in 1919 of Zion’s new offspring, the “nation” in the “land,” a literal period of 1,260 days is provided by the great “eagle,” Jehovah, for the safe development, spiritual nourishment and strengthening of these new children. (Rev. 12:6, 14, NW; Deut. 32:11, 12; Ex. 19:4) So for three and one-half years up to 1922 Jehovah gave special eaglelike protection to his organization in the new theocratic “land.” This enabled the first arrivals, the remnant of spiritual Israel, to get settled in the new theocratic land, become spiritually fed and built up, and get acclimated to the pleasant conditions of divine favor in it.

In ancient time there was prophetic meaning to the literal restoration of the remnant of faithful Jews in 537 B.C., when they were brought from literal Babylon and restored as righteous inhabitants to the “promised land” of Israel where they again became, pictorially, Jehovah’s “holy nation” under a theocratic system of things, rebuilding the temple of Jehovah’s pure worship.j So, too, from A.D. 1919 the Christian anointed remnant found themselves in “Beulah” land, commencing the work of restoring Jehovah’s true worship.

That which Jehovah’s forgiven people now were to experience was similar to that which the ancient Israelites experienced at the time the theocratic kingdom, first of Saul and then of David, was established over them. No longer could ‘each one be accustomed to do what was right in his own eyes’ as he did in the days before there was a reigning theocratic king. (Judg. 21:25, NW) Now that since 1914 Christ Jesus was ruling as theocratic King of the newborn heavenly kingdom, it meant no longer a loose community of witnesses here on earth. Rather, a new organizational arrangement had to be set in motion that would be wholly theocratic, centralized in and bound closely to the King himself in structure and service. So in 1919 the restoration of the witnesses of Jehovah was not to what they had been enjoying for forty years before their 1917-1919 crisis. Instead, it was restoration to theocratic organization such as existed in the time of the early congregation.

(To be continued)

Manifesting the Spirit of Cain

THE clergy of Jesus’ day manifested the same spirit as did Cain. Like him, they ostensibly worshiped Jehovah God, but they let envy get the better of them. They became murderers, as did their prototype Cain, joining hands with the anti-God pagan Romans to get Jesus out of the way.

In Eastern Germany today there are some clergymen who manifest this same spirit of Cain. Noting God’s blessing on the activity of Jehovah’s witnesses, instead of endeavoring to ascertain why and then bringing their own worship in line, these clergymen oppose the witnesses and report them to the Russian overlords. Certainly in this they are without excuse, for they know full well the anti-God position of the Communists and how devoted Jehovah’s witnesses are to God’s Word.

Thus a young Christian woman who recently entered the full-time ministry of Jehovah was visiting the people in one village after another in Eastern Germany with nothing but her Bible in hand. The Lutheran clergyman of the town of Lohm/Westhavelland, reported her to the Communist State Security Service (SSD). As a result she was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. She, however, continues to keep integrity by preaching behind the prison walls.

In another town in the Soviet zone, one of Jehovah’s witnesses was asked to make a few remarks at the graveside of a funeral of one of Jehovah’s witnesses. The evangelical clergyman interfered, stating that the Communist police had phoned that no witness of Jehovah was to be permitted to speak at the funeral. Checking with the county police it was found that not they, but the clergyman, had phoned, who reported the witnesses and elicited from the Communists their ban on a funeral by Jehovah’s witnesses. However, in spite of Communist threats the funeral discourse was given at the graveside, to the enlightenment of those who attended. In almost six thousand years, hypocritical worshipers have not changed, and always their envy exposes their hypocrisy.