the coming of spring. How often I tended my father’s sheep in green mountain pastures!

I am still tending “sheep” right here in the harbor, for my heavenly Father, Jehovah. Jesus himself found many a meek, sheeplike hearer along the water front of Galilee. Nineteen centuries has brought bigger ships than Galilee’s little fishing boats—and bigger worries. Humble sailors still love the good news that God has a Kingdom government that will restore paradise to earth. With such a happy message and so many eager listeners, you can imagine why I am looking forward to next Sunday morning when, with Bible and witness bag, I shall head for my fascinating pulpit.

Questions From Readers

● What is the significance of the characters on the lower right-hand corner of the cover of the book “Let Your Name Be Sanctified”?—B. P., U.S.A.

On the lower right-hand corner of the front cover of the book “Let Your Name Be Sanctified” appears an impression of an open Bible, with the Tetragrammaton reproduced in four different styles of Hebrew lettering. The first style is shown on page 113 of the book as occurring on the Moabite Stone. The next style, which appears underneath in Phoenician or Palaeo-Hebrew letters, occurs in an ancient recension of the Septuagint Version of the Minor Prophets, containing parts of Habakkuk, a page of which is reproduced on page 424 of Volume 5 of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. The third style of lettering, appearing at the upper right in the impression, is the style that appears in the text of ancient Greek versions, such as are listed on page 413 of the Appendix of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Volume 5, and as also found illustrated in the footnotes of Volume 3 of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, beginning with footnote “c” on page 295. The fourth lettering of the Tetragrammaton is that of the modern block style and may be seen on page 3, or the title page, of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in its revised edition of A.D. 1961.

● Is there no hope at all that one of the “great crowd” who dies now before Armageddon will be reunited with his marriage partner as that one’s mate in the new world and share in the fulfillment of the procreation mandate?

Hope is based upon God’s Word, not on sentimentality. The stark Bible truth remains: Human marriage is dissolved by the death of one of the married partners. (Rom. 7:1-3) For this reason, the Christian dying now has no right to bind his surviving partner to stay single in the hope that in the resurrection they may be reunited.

The surviving one is not proving unfaithful to his dead marriage mate by afterward marrying someone else. As long as the departed mate was alive, the surviving one gave that one the fullness of his love, loyalty and devotion and did not prove unfaithful therein. So on this score the departing one has no fault to find.

The survivor, however, has to live a normal life after the death of the beloved marriage mate. Circumstances and developments may dictate that he remarry according to the Scriptures. He is free to do so. The deceased one has no strings attached to him, for the deceased one cannot give the surviving one the marriage dues during the interim between now and the resurrection of the dead. God makes no exceptions with regard to this law that dissolves marriage by the death of one of the marriage mates. He would be doing so if he allowed for former marriage mates to be reunited as man and wife by means of the resurrection and to take part with Armageddon survivors in fulfilling the procreation mandate.

This is correspondingly true of Christians who are not of the “great crowd” of “other sheep” but who are Christ’s spiritual brothers