shall not perish from the earth, but will continue as long as the sun shines and will give an abundance of peace as long as the moon endures. The King, Christ Jesus, will judge among many peoples and rebuke strong nations, and swords will be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks, nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures throughout all generations. By him God opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing, because then every living, breathing thing will be praising Jehovah. He will bring in health and cure for the people, and wipe every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither mourning nor outcry nor pain. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all that blessed new world, because the former things of this old world will have passed away and will have been forgotten after Jehovah makes all things new.—Ps. 72:7, 8; 145:13, 16; 150:6; Isa. 11:6-9; Jer. 33:6; Mic. 4:1-4; Rev. 21:1-5.

So we must shun the false guides of men and their false religions, babbling psychologists, wordy psychiatrists and polluted politicians, all of which have built up such tremendous reputations as colossal failures. Look at the messes they have made, know them by their rotten fruits, reject them for their fruits. Know God as a guide by his fruits, and accept him because of those fruits. Would you like to be guided into the new world as surely as the stars are guided in their orbits? Then make their Guide your Guide. Would you like to be guided as surely as the birds are guided in their migrations? Then make their Guide your Guide. Would you like to be guided in your preparations to pass through the symbolical winter of Armageddon just as surely as birds and animals and insects are guided in their preparations to pass through literal winters? Then make their Guide your Guide.

Christians Shun Political Ambassadors

ON OCTOBER 20, 1951, the president of the United States appointed General Mark W. Clark ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the State of Vatican City.

Sharply reflecting public reaction were the thousands of letters that the White House, members of Congress and the public press received, protesting the appointment. Among the reasons given for protesting was that the appointment preferred the Roman Catholic Church above all others. A letter which made this point, but did so with a sense of humor, was published by the Washington Evening Star, October 25, 1951:

“Now that President Truman has appointed an Ambassador to the Vatican, I suggest that he also make the following appointments while Congress is in adjournment: Gen. Vaughan, Ambassador to the Methodist Church; Mr. Boyle, Ambassador to the Baptist Church; Mr. Finnegan, Ambassador to the Presbyterian Church; Mrs. Merle Young, Ambassador to the Church of Alaska (fur country); Senator McCarthy, Ambassador to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church; Gen. MacArthur, Ambassador to the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church; Dr. Jessup, Ambassador to the Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise Church.”

Much has been and can be said and written regarding why the appointment of a United States ambassador to the Vatican has neither policy nor principle to support it.a Certainly informed circles do not attach much weight to the argument that the Vatican is a good “listening post”, and as for its aid in fighting communism, one only needs to look at Italy, where 99.6 per cent of the people are born and raised Catholics and where such Catholics are supporting the largest Communist party outside Russia itself.

The appointment’s being made to the State of Vatican City instead of to the Holy See surely was a mere subterfuge to make legal the preferring of one religion above the rest. Nor can the fact that the United States sends ambassadors to other nations whose rulers are also heads of religion justify the Vatican appointment, because such ambassadors are sent in spite of the fact that the political ruler is also a head of religion whereas the Vatican appointment was made solely because the ruler of Vatican City is the head of the Roman Catholic Church. And while the United States did have a representative to the Vatican up to 1868, the pope then was a bona fide political ruler of the Papal States consisting of some 16,000 square miles and of some three million inhabitants and at that time there was no other United States ambassador in Rome. And finally, the mere fact that other democratic nations send representatives to the Vatican does not justify the United States’ doing likewise, for they do not have a constitution which erects a ‘high and impregnable wall of separation between the church and state’, as does the United States.

THE SCRIPTURAL POSITION

But what is the Scriptural position regarding a religious organization having political ambassadors? Suppose the Constitution of the United States did not prohibit union of church and state, would the various religious organizations claiming to be Christian then be justified in having political relations with the government, as is the case in the democratic and Protestant countries of England and Finland?

According to the Scriptures, the true Christian congregation is a chaste virgin who has been promised in marriage to Christ Jesus. (2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7, NW) She must therefore follow the example that He set regarding friendship and relations with the political rulers of the world. Christ Jesus refused the Devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world on the Devil’s terms; he refused to let the Jews forcibly make him their king; he said that he was not of the world and that neither were his followers; it had hated him and would hate them. Plainly he told the political ruler before whom he was being tried: “My kingdom is no part of this world.”—Matt. 4:8-10; John 6:15; 15:19; 17:16; 18:36, NW.

And the words of the apostles and other disciples of Jesus show that they clearly understood this matter. They admonished Christians not to be conformed to this wicked system of things; not to get entangled with it; not to become spotted by it, for this world is passing away. Friendly relations with the world they condemned as spiritual fornication and adultery. “Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a