literally covered the earth with their witnessing.” Then after giving a report on the great quantity of literature distributed the writer continues: “It may truly be said that no single religious group in the world displayed more zeal and persistence in the attempt to spread the good news of the Kingdom than the Jehovah’s Witnesses. . . . No modern Christians make a more constant use of scripture, or memorize it in greater quantities than the Witnesses. To argue successfully with them on scriptural grounds, one must know his scriptures better than most members of even the fundamentalist churches do today.”—Charles Samuel Braden, These Also Believe, 1950, pages 370, 380.

It is very true Jehovah’s witnesses do know and talk the Bible. They must know their Bibles if they are to bring glory to God. With Bible knowledge they are overturning strongly entrenched things, overturning reasonings and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and with it they are bringing every thought into captivity to make it obedient to the Christ.—2 Cor. 10:4, 5, NW.

“Nothing earthly is capable of influencing the human mind to such an extent as the spoken word,” said Edwin G. Lawrence. “Therefore, it stands to reason that educated speech is the grandest weapon possessed by man.” And the purpose of speech “is to convey thought from one mind to another, and, in a broader sense, to influence the person addressed.”

That is precisely the purpose of Christianity. With its right, hopeful speech it will influence some toward righteousness and life. To share knowledge of God and his kingdom with men of good will is the highest and most noble cause for living at this time. May you share in this happiest reason for living.

Are You Bible-starved?

Almost all the world is. Some people never wake up to this fact. Some do. In Scotland’s national newspaper, the Daily Record, for September 17, 1955, Robert McMahon, in the weekly feature “A Faith for Saturday,” asks the question: “Why has the Book closed?” He answers: “A minister in Perth complains bitterly that other ministers know as little about church business procedure as they do about the Bible. He throws out the second part of his charge with the confidence of a man who knows he cannot be contradicted. And how right he no doubt is. At the same time as (a) the Church has grown progressively weaker, (b) the Bible has become less and less read in Scotland. And it occurs to me that (a) may be more the consequence of (b) than the other way about.

“I can speak with authority on this, for I must count myself among the great Bible-less multitude, in the sense that I find myself sear and yellow with hardly any grasp of the Book’s contents—and to tell the truth, I’ve only recently recognized the fact. . . . But if ministers are themselves in almost as great ignorance of the Bible as the rest, who is going to lead the blind? . . . I look at the titles of the books in the second half of the Old Testament and realize that I’ve never read more than snippets. And, of course, a difficult New Testament book like Revelation is best left alone—ministers do that all right. . . . We are Bible-starved.”

Jesus called the religious leaders of his day “blind guides.” The Son of God then drew the only logical conclusion: “If, then, a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”—Matt. 15:14, NW.