So much for sightseeing. The oncoming evening was available for a final meeting with the brothers at their Kingdom Hall, for the following morning the vice-president had to be off early for Calcutta. At the agreed time, 6:30 p.m., the brothers eagerly came together, thirty-nine of them, and their visitor from Brooklyn addressed them on the thoughts contained in Psalm 96:1, 2, New World Translation. The listeners were absorbed with deepest interest in this stimulating array of facts marshaled before their minds in clear, vivid detail, to enable them the better to “sing to Jehovah a new song.” One and all sat with rapt attention for about ninety minutes and were sorry it had to come to an end. Finally the audience were instructed to get to every meeting including the theocratic ministry school. This, the speaker said, will help us to sing the “new song” without cracked voices, thus causing no obstacle to people’s listening. The meeting was fittingly closed with singing the musical number “The New Song!” The little congregation also asked the vice-president to take a message of love along with him to our brothers in Calcutta and to all others along the way clear back to Brooklyn, New York.

His final material meal of the day Brother Franz ate thereafter in true Indian style, with the usual rice, meat and chapatties, thus enjoying the hospitality of one of the kind families here who have taken their stand for pure worship, even setting aside their big room for the Kingdom Hall. The Delhi congregation then had an average of thirty-four congregation publishers together with seven pioneers, making a total of forty-one for the local group. They were part of the brothers throughout India who worked for an increase of 9 percent in the number of Kingdom publishers during the past year.

The alarm clock went off at 4 a.m. Thursday, December 27. But none too soon for the missionary home servant, Brother Stephen Smith, to prepare himself to take the morning train out for Bombay, twenty-four hours’ riding to the south, traveling third class, to attend the assembly there at which the Society’s president, Brother Knorr, was to serve. Also the vice-president made it in time to the distant Paalam airport to catch the 7:45 a.m. plane for Calcutta. Pleasant converse was held with another group of the friends before he boarded the plane, enriched with blessed memories of his short visit with the brothers in northwestern India. Soon his plane was aloft, bearing him southeastward toward the delta of the Ganges 850 miles away.

(To be continued)

Questions From Readers

● My husband possesses a book, The Chaos of Cults, by Jan Karel Van Baalen, and, on pages 218, 219, that book states regarding Pastor Russell: ‘His boldness was so extraordinary that he calmly announced in the opening pages of his Studies in the Scriptures that it would be better to leave the Bible unread but read his comments than to omit the latter but read the Bible.’ My question is, did Pastor Russell really state or have written such a statement in the book or books Studies in the Scriptures?—E. N., United States.

In view of the reputation enjoyed by the Bible Students in Pastor Russell’s day and that being enjoyed by the witnesses of Jehovah in our day for knowing their Bibles, which reputation is justly deserved, there must be something wrong with what Van Baalen says in his book. There is.

In the first place, let it be noted that the two disciples on the way to Emmaus were Bible readers and yet did not understand why God had allowed Jesus to be put to death. The scribes and Pharisees read God’s Word continually and yet failed to appreciate that Jesus was their Messiah. The Ethiopian official that Philip met was reading the prophecy of Isaiah but did not understand what he was reading. Obviously, merely reading the Bible is not enough; we need help to understand it. That is why God provided apostles, prophets, missionaries, shepherds and teachers.—Luke 24:25-27, 32; John 5:39; Acts 8:30, 31; Eph. 4:11-15, NW.

As for the statement made by Van Baalen, neither it nor anything even remotely similar ever appeared in any of the six Scripture