home front So let us not forget the patient outworking of such lives over the years. While perhaps not so spectacular, yet these trials and persecutions can be very trying. The sharpest daggers that can be plunged into the heart of man are those propelled by loved ones of his own household, but even they are not able to turn Jehovah’s dedicated servants from faithful service!

16. What comfort is there for those who have lost families because of their stand for the truth?

¹⁶ Are there any now reading these lines that have lost their families because of the truth, as in the two cases above mentioned? Are you like them? Do you think you have lost a family? If so, just look and see your new brothers and sisters of the New World society united with you in Jehovah’s service, and as you look realize that you are experiencing the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise: “No one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not get a hundredfold now in this period of time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, with persecutions, and in the coming system of things everlasting life.” (Mark 10:29, 30, NW) And it is not just the dozen or hundred brothers and sisters around you now in your local congregation that you have gained. No, but there are hundreds of thousands of them all over the earth, ready to receive you with open arms, open doors, and, above all, with open hearts. And this great theocratic family circle will not be broken by nagging, by fussing, by fighting, by rebellion or by godlessness, for it is a family united under Jehovah God and his King Christ Jesus, and every member in it is intent upon maintaining unending theocratic conduct within this joyous family circle! May Jehovah help us to do so always!

Questions From Readers

● Isaiah 54:1 says: “More are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife.” Who is the married wife here mentioned?—M. F., United States.

“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith Jehovah.” The account continues with a call for the desolate woman to enlarge her tent and prepare for increase because the shame of her youth and her widowhood is to be forgotten: “For thy Maker is thy husband; Jehovah of hosts is his name.” In wrath Jehovah had hidden his face from her for a moment and for a small moment he had forsaken her, but now with great mercy and loving-kindness he takes to himself this desolate one who was like a widow and blesses her with numerous offspring, making her more blessed in this respect than the married wife.—Isa. 54:1-8, AS.

Paul spoke of these two symbolic women and likened them to Sarah and Hagar: “It is written that Abraham acquired two sons, one by the servant girl and one by the free woman; but the one by the servant girl was actually born in the manner of flesh, the other by the free woman through a promise. These things stand as a symbolic drama; for these women mean two covenants, the one from mount Sinai, which brings forth children for slavery, and which is Hagar. Now this Hagar means Sinai, a mountain in Arabia, and she corresponds with the Jerusalem today, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: ‘Be glad, you barren woman who does not bear children; break out and cry aloud, you woman