lifts the theme to a higher key, but with a variation in the harmony and, while you are listening entranced, the solo violin with its rich notes goes soaring away, unbelievably high and inexpressibly sweet, while the accompaniment sinks to a breeze that scarcely stirs the forest leaves, yet still with that change of harmony, leaving you with a delightful feeling that its possibilities are by no means exhausted and there is much yet to be enjoyed. So it will be at the close of the thousand-year Kingdom rule. Jehovah’s treasures will never be exhausted.

Meanwhile, as the apostle says, God has now revealed by his spirit many wonderful things, which you can enjoy by actual experience. (1 Cor. 2:10, NW) Now is the time when you can see and hear and enter into those things that prophets and righteous men of old so greatly desired to see and hear. Now is the time to be busy in heeding and extending that invitation to “anyone that wishes” that they, with you, may “take life’s water free.” (Rev. 22:17, NW) If you are actively sharing in these things your ears and eyes are indeed richly blessed.

What Statistics Do Not Tell

The accuracy of religious statistics is a subject of perennial ill-natured discussion in the United States. Because of this the Roman Catholic national weekly, Our Sunday Visitor, April 11, 1954, regretted the fact that the head of the United States Commerce Department overruled the president at the time of the taking of the 1950 census, as the president was willing to go along with the religious groups by having questions regarding religious affiliation on the census. However, one thing those statistics could not have told would have been the quality of the members.

For example: The Catholic magazine America, July 30, 1955, told of two Catholic seminary students taking a poll among Catholics in Washington, D.C., in an article entitled “Lights and Shadows of the Parish Census.” They interviewed a late middle-aged man who invited them into his room, and after they had ascertained that he had been christened, confirmed and married in the Catholic church he was asked:

“‘Mass regular?’ ‘No.’ ‘How long has it been?’ A pause, the man was hesitant, then: ‘Oh, about twenty-five years.’ ‘Any particular reason why you do not get to the sacraments?’ ‘No, nothing in particular,’ the man offered. . . . ‘What about getting back to the Mass?’ ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you men, I don’t want to.’ ‘Well, would you mind if one of the priests from the parish came over? No harm in that.’ ‘No, don’t send him over,’ the man objected. ‘I won’t let him in.’” Yet by statistics this man is a Roman Catholic, for according to the Roman Catholic Canon Code all christened Catholics remain Catholics unless debarred from their church by proper ecclesiastical authorities. Yes, statistics do not tell the whole story.

Redeeming The Time

● Choir boys should be heard, not seen, according to Vicar John Nicholls of Carlton, England. He prefers to have choir stalls out of sight so that the boys may read “wholesome Christian books and periodicals” during his sermons. When sermons are based on politics and other mundane fads of the day, as they so often are, better that choir boys read, especially, the Bible. Might not parents also get more from Bible reading than from such sermons?