Expositional Lectures

The Beatitudes

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 1-12

Genre: Speech

Track: 071

Dictation Name: RR117A1

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Almighty God our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto Thee that we can come unto Thee in confidence that Thou dost hear and answer prayer. That Thou art mindful of us and of our every move. And so our Father, we commit ourselves unto Thee. We pray that by Thy grace Thou would speak unto us the words that we need, that Thou would refresh us by Thy Word and by Thy Spirit, and grant us Thy peace. In Jesus name, Amen.

Let us turn to the Gospel of St. Matthew, the fifth chapter, verses 1-16. Matthew 5:1-16.

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:

2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

In the Beatitudes, our Lord declares who the blessed or happy ones are. And this is a question which every age has addressed itself to, and concerned itself in turn. Who are the blessed, or, the happy ones? Who are they? In every age various answers are given. One very prominent answer, and a conspicuous one of our day, is that it’s the beatnik. Because the very word ‘beat’, in beatnik, comes from the same root word as beatitudes. And the beatniks regard themselves as the blessed ones, the holy ones, of the true faith. Of a faith in moral anarchism. And therefore, because of their faith in moral anarchism, they separate themselves unto this faith and dedicate themselves to it. Believing that therein is their true blessedness and happiness. The Communists insist that all men who are not Marxist are in bondage, in slavery, and therefore true blessedness, true freedom, is in Communism. In ancient times, for example, the Greeks had various definitions of what constituted blessedness. And the cynic believes that total doubt of all things constitute as blessedness. Whereas among the Romans the stoics held that the happy or the blessed ones were those who accepted the fact that there is no meaning in the universe, there is no life after death, and you grin and bear it, and then when you accept the meaninglessness of all things personal, then indeed are you happy.

Our Lord as He gathered the disciples unto Himself, declared unto them, that the ground, the starting point of happiness is to feel our poverty is {?}.

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, or translated into more modern English, blessed are they who feel their spiritual need. Blessed are they, who as they come face to face with Jesus Christ, feel their poverty of spirit, feels their spiritual need, and look unto Him that they might be filled, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they, as they are confronted with Christ, who mourn over their sin, mourn over their wasted life and turn themselves over to Jesus Christ. For they shall be comforted. This, then, is the true starting point of happiness. And the blessed ones are those who come to Christ and who are regenerated by Him and made citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Now every faith, without exception, requires first of all a separation, and second, a stand at a price. A man must separate himself in terms of his commitment, and to stand for that faith, he must pay a price. The Beatnik separates himself from the rest of men and from morality. And in their stand for moral anarchism, they pay the price of contempt from the rest of the world. And this, they believe, is a necessary thing, because the contempt of the world is meaningless to them. The world to them is made up of squares, people who do not know the truth, and they alone know the truth, and therefore they are ready to pay the price of a loss of respect from people who live according their belief in terms of the mythology of religion and morality. The Communists certainly require a rigorous separation and a firm stand in terms of their faith. This is true of any position, it requires a stand and a separation in terms of it. How dare then Christians seek blessedness, seek happiness, without separation and without a stand? We must most certainly begin by separating ourselves from sin. But we must also separate ourselves from compromise, from false faith, from apostate churches, from organizations such as the National Council of Churches, and from everything which prevents us from separating ourselves unto Christ. And from standing fully and clearly in terms of that faith.

We cannot serve two masters. Every faith without exception, declares, our way to blessedness requires a stand and a price. And Christ declares in the Beatitudes, this is the way appointed by God. This way alone leads to blessedness, therefore hearken unto me and follow me. Become the poor in spirit, feel your spiritual need and mourn. And be comforted, become a member of the kingdom of heaven.

And then, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Who are the blessed meek? Too often, the meek are confused with the mousy, the insipid, the people without any {?} or courage. And there is no comparison between the two. And unfortunately, to often the churches have associated meekness with this kind of lack of character, and unhappily, to often the leadership of the Church, both in the pulpit and lay-leadership, has been made up of these, the gutless type. But the blessed meek are literally the tamed of God. The tamed of God. When I was in Nevada, living in ranching country, wild horses were in abundance in that area, and they were perfectly useless. Of no use to anyone, except that occasionally, because they became a growing nuisance, they were rounded up, sold to a cannery, to be made into dog food. This was their destiny. And any horse that a rancher had that remained on the range and was not caught and remained wild, was also useless to that man. A horse, to become useful, had to have all that power and energy harnessed. He had to be tamed, he had to be broken to harness, or to the saddle. And then he could be directed, and then his strength could be put to use.

And so it is with us. Until we become the blessed meek, the tamed of God, put to harness in terms of His calling, responsive to His Word, when He commands us, we cannot inherit the earth. And it is not the wild ones, the untamed who are to inherit the earth, their destiny, like those of the wild horses I once saw, is to be rounded up for destruction. And this is their destiny as appointed by God. But blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And as the Psalmist adds, and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. This then is our destiny. We have been pronounced blessed by Jesus Christ, the happy ones, because having accepted Him as Savior, having known our poverty of spirit and having been comforted by Him, regenerate by Him, we are now the blessed meek, the inheritors of the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. We are who tamed by God now delight in and respond to, not the call of the wild, but the call of the Master. And it is His Word that we want, and we hunger and thirst after His righteousness, and we are filled, strengthened, and made effective in Him.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Those who proclaim the mercy of God and who exercise it, receive in increasing measure the mercy and the grace of God. And they who are the pure in spirit, the pure in heart, whose heart now is changed, whose purity is not of themselves but of Jesus Christ, the new man, the new heart in them, they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And the peacemakers, the blessed peacemakers, are those who proclaim the peace of God through Jesus Christ, through His atoning work. And we, as we further that work, by our prayers, by our studies, by our witness, by our participation in worship, we are the peacemakers. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. There is a stand required of every faith, and a price. And if we are ready to pay the price for standing with Christ, we shall receive the reward commensurate with that stand.

And blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. And our Lord here clearly declares it, the persecution was not only for the sake of the kingdom of God and of God almighty, but Himself, the second person of the Trinity. And by declaring, for My sake, ye are blessed, He declares the Father and I are one.

Rejoice and exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Then our Lord went on to give two similes, two figures of speech, two comparisons, drawn from everyday life, to illustrate what the true believer and the true Church is. And first of all He declared, ye are the salt of the earth. For us to appreciate the significance of this symbolism, it’s important for us to know what salt meant, in what sense our Lord declared, we are the salt of the earth. Now salt, in those days, was used as a preserving agent. Today, we have refrigeration, and so we are not used to salt in this function, its greatest function throughout history. But in those days, meat was preserved by means of salt. And I can recall, very vividly, how it was necessary, not to many years ago, when I was on the Indian reservation where we did not have, at first, and almost all the way through, modern conveniences, to preserve meat with salt, to prepare a salt brine and to soak meat in it and to preserve it thereby.

But if the salt has lost its savor, wherewith it shall it be salted? The Christian and the Church is called to be the salt of the earth, the preserving agent in society. There is always corruption, there is always evil present in the world, just as there is always around us, every kind of noxious bacteria. Within our body, continually there are all kinds of elements of disease. But as long as health predominates in us, as long we are vigorous, it is as though those things were not. Because our health governs our existence. But when the vigor subsides, then those things take over. And so it in the world. As long the believer and as long as the Church, is truly salt, truly the preserving agent of God in this world, then the world is preserved from destruction, from corruption. But if your salt brine has lost its saltiness, if its salt has begun to disintegrate, then corruption takes over. And so corruption today is overwhelming the world, because Christians are no longer the salt of the earth. And because the Church is, by and large, with rare exceptions, are salt that has lost its savor. And our Lord said, how can you salt, salt? It is thence forth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men. Again, to go back to the use of salt as a preserving agent, what did you do with this salt, after you’ve used it, as I so often did, to salt down several hundred trout, and after time, when you’ve used up the fish and the brine was there, and it was no longer good, it was old and the brine incapable of functioning further as a preserving agent. What did you do with it?

You did not dump it into the garden, because you would destroy the potentiality of growth. So the only place to pour out that brine was on the roadway, on the pathway, where it could not harm life. And so our Lord said, it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men. And so {?}. Its salt has lost its savor, is poured out onto the pathway and the roadway to be trodden underfoot of men. And this, declares our Lord, is the destiny of every false Christian and every false church. They shall be trodden underfoot of men. And so indeed, as we look at them all around us they seem very powerful and imposing, because they are salt that has lost its savor, their destiny is death. And in due time Christ will turn them over to those pathways, to be trodden underfoot of men. While those who retain their saltiness, their faith, shall be continued to be used by God. We are the salt of the earth.

The next comparison our Lord made was to light. Ye are the light of the world, a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Ye are the light of the world.

And the word is in darkness because it is not in Christ. And it is important for us to remember we are the light of the world. And everything that lies outside is darkness. And to often we look at the world in terms of the world and its vision. And we see the imposing power of all the apostate churches, and we see the opposing power of Communism and Fabianism, and as every other source of evil, and we fail to see the greatness of light.

On a totally dark night, the thing that is seen is the light, however small it may be. The smallest lamp stands out in a way that the darkness does not. We are the light of the world. And every light in this world stands out in darkness. And it counts. And so it is that it is not the greatness of the darkness around us that is effectual, but the light of God, the light of Christ as it is revealed in and through us. We are the blessed ones, the happy ones. We’re called by God to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And to inherit the earth. Therefore we are called blessed, therefore we are designated the happy ones, the blessed ones. It is important to remember that. Over the years as a pastor I’ve often wondered if many Christians, all sensible Christians, did not have a misprint in their Bibles at this point. Because they seem to feel that they were called, not to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, but the vinegar of the world and the sour grapes of the earth. And there is no beatitude in that. We are pronounced the blessed ones, the happy ones, because we are the Lord’s and because we are grounded in Him in terms of {?}. Every faith requires not only a separation and a stand, but every faith {?} first of all, that there is an enemy, because of your faith, and then ally, because of your faith.

Here the enemy is the fallen world, and the ally the Triune God.

Our Lord summons them to become the blessed meek. They accept the critical judgment of the world for their faith, rather than the judgment of almighty God. Before faith the favor and approval of the world for the favor and approval of almighty God. And though indeed the stand does require of us sometimes some {?}, some difficulties, yet our Lord made it emphatic, that we are the blessed ones, the happy ones, because this is the true {?} of blessing and happiness. Therefore we are called the blessed meek, the tamed ones, who shall inherit the earth. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank Thee that Thou hast called us and tamed us and made us inheritors of all things. Make us mindful our Father, that power lies not in darkness but in Thee. And that we have been called to show forth Thy light, Thy power, into a world in darkness. Make us ever mindful of how great Thou art, and how great is Thy power, in Jesus Christ. Our Lord and our God, confirm us in Thy Word, and in Thy Spirit, in Jesus name, Amen.

One or two items before we have our questions. In several 1966 science projects, had a future article, ‘Are Chimps Really Animals’, and it had some {?}, fresh from the jungle, where this young woman had spent five years living with a chimp. And Jan Goodall after five years with her jungle friend, tells us that maybe chimps are really people. Now the reason for this is that, according to science, we must define, we are told, human beings as animals that make and use tools.

And so according to Dr. {?}l, we must either redefine man, redefine tools, or accept chimpanzees as man. The reason for this is, she found out, I didn’t think it was particularly new, that chimps use twigs and grasses when feeding on termites. And Jane says ‘this was one of the most exciting discoveries I made‘. The chimpanzee, when he strips leaves from the twig, is actually modifying a natural object to suit it a specific purpose, and he is thus making a tool. Now this is breathtaking news indeed. But this is the way science has of making people wonder, and perhaps, accept their nonsense. First of all, there’s nothing new about this fact {?}, others have reported it, but of course they didn’t have a PhD degree, so chimps didn’t really use twigs until a PhD reported it, now it’s a {?}. Then are we going to say that ants are people too, because they can build bridges? And are we going to say that bees are people to because they can build very complex apartments? Or are we going to say that their definition of man is nonsense to begin with. But only if we have a biblical definition of man can we have any biblical perspective on man. And in terms of that, a chimp is not a human being. And sometimes I doubt whether Dr. {?} and Jane Goodall and some of these others are more than barely human.

Then I was very interested in this, I know from the register, Sunday January 9, 1966, Moscow, a Russian woman who won a heroine mother medal for having ten children, came under fire Saturday, because she had them by ten different men, none of them were her husband. The newspaper Soviet Russia said, {?} won the award because nobody bothered to check up on her. You see they have under population as a native problem, behind the Iron Curtain. So many have starved to death that they are trying to promote population. They’re not worried about population explosion. To continue, one welfare worker became suspicious, they found that Olga had eight of the children in state homes, but the other two were neglected and starving and the unmarried Olga and her current lover was spending their child support money on vodka.

Such a thing cannot be forgiven, the newspaper said, indicating Olga’s medal would be taken away. Thousands and thousands of honest Soviet mothers had been given an unworthy mother to take as an example. Blasphemy has been performed over the sacred word, mother. Well, it seems there are problems with welfare recipients behind the Iron Curtain in a really great society, so we should feel better after hearing that.

Then I thought very significant and indicative of the corruption of our law is this item from the front page of the Oakland Tribune, Sunday January 23, 1966. ‘Court Says Alcoholism No Crime’. Now I’ll just read a portion of a long article. ‘The Federal Appeal Court in Richmond Virginia has moved that a chronic alcoholic cannot be arrested and seized as a criminal because he’s drunk. In a landmark decision Saturday, the US Court Circuit Court appealed upheld that …{?}… against alcohol. The Western half of the ACLU case involved an Oakland man whose battle to date has been a losing one but is expected to get a boost from the Richmond {?}. The {?} is based on the fact that alcoholism is now almost universally accepted medically as a disease the Richmond {?} Court said, and that {?} sentences for drunkenness constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The ACLU attorney Marshal {?} of San Francisco said that in view of Saturday’s decision in Richmond, he will probably try again to get a California Supreme Court to arrange for {?} of Oakland, stating that {?} said he would take {?} US Supreme Court for a national ruling. Bud has been convicted for drunkenness more than fifty times in thirty years, beginning in 1927, and the ..{?}… last month after Oakland police arrested him on a charge of public intoxication. His counterpart in the ACLU fight is Bill Keith {?} fifty-nine, of {?} North Carolina {?}. He’s convicted two hundred times for public intoxication ,‘and so on.

Now of course this is the {?}. They can, step by step, declare any kind of action a disease and remove it from the jurisdiction of the police and from prison sentence, and sentenced people to indeterminate sentences, in a mental institute. And of course people who are conservative can be called victims of a disease, and if any such sentence is indeterminate, they can be confined indefinitely. This is a very, very dangerous {?}.

Now, are there any questions about our lesson {?}. Yes.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Very good question. Clearly, the {?} forces are behind this moral anarchism and behind much of this art, behind much of this modern music and various beatnik type of activities. Why then don’t they commit it in the Soviet Union. The reason is they know this is an instrument for destruction. They’re out to destroy us. Similarly, in Russia, before the revolution you had your nihilism, with its total moral relativism, and this was encouraged by the Marxists. Then after the revolution they encouraged this kind of thing very sensibly. They encouraged the modernistic approach in every area, in every vocation they adopted progressivism for a generation, because they wanted it to destroy every remnant of the past, of any religiously grounded culture and art.

Now having once, they felt, destroyed that by putting the generation through progressivism, to separate them from their fathers faith, they then went back to a very rigorous kind of education, they abolished such art, all such music, because now they wanted to establish something on a statist foundation. So their education became very conservative also.

Throughout the Western world, they are exercising a destructive function. They feel that first of all they have to destroy the foundation. I think one of the most interesting statements made, and no-one reported it, I found it in the text as published by the {?} committee, in the Berkley demonstrations in May, was simply this. That they were not concerned about a political and a military revolution primarily, that would come logically and easily, but the first revolution they said, must be the revolution in the minds of men. And they thought that this was revolution they were accomplishing. And indeed they had. So that today most of the churches, virtually all the schools, both political parties, had in varying degrees a revolutionary stage, it is destructive of any kind of standard based upon God and His Word. This then is their first {?}, and so they use these people, but once having taken over, they will liquidate them, and this they did in the Soviet Union. Some of the elements that were quite far out were used for a number of years, and then were liquidated, ruthlessly. For example, the anarchists, who are brothers to the Communists. They both come from the same revolutionary background, but there’s quite a bit of tension between them. The anarchists were used with tremendous {?}. They were turned loose on the people {?}. They were quite powerful and instrumental in the total Communism of all women{?}. And they were handed over to the anarchistic commune, they were the ones who issued the proclamations. But after a certain period when they felt they had destroyed the middle-classes and the Christians. They then liquidated the anarchy. This is the kind of use these people put them.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, well, there is… Listen to this. Pop-art, by the way, was recently cited by Fact Magazine, which is on the left, clearly, as being the homosexual attack on culture.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The culture they have is not really good, it has the form of goodness, in other words, the art follows the semblance of classical art, and so on. But what is its basic purpose? Its basic purpose is to glorify the State, and so the artists have to follow, as do the writers, the political turn of events. And they cannot say anything or do anything that will contradict what the politicians want. The musicians of course, have had a greater degree of freedom because, apart from giving it a kind of socialistic title occasionally, they can write music as long as it is more or less in the traditional vein, without any power. But the {?}, the painters, the poets, the novelists, all of the artists, must follow the party line very rigidly. Because their purpose of culture is not to glorify God, but to glorify the Soviet {?}. So that it has been used first destructively, and now is being used constructively for the State. And we cannot believe that ours has that function. Its function is God-centered. But our background is so deeply humanistic that is it easy for us to make this mistake, because, as I indicated a few weeks ago, art in the modern era has become a kind of substitute for religion. And we have studied experience, and we have studied inspiration, has been a kind of substitute for the inspiration of Scripture, and this humanistic orientation of course has made it channel quite readily into the Soviet System. So that we can look back and see our ‘good’ art of a generation ago, and we can see the resemblance to the present day Soviet art, and we fail to see that that ‘good’ art was decadent, even though it had some character compared to what we have now.

Now, you can see what happened to art very clearly with the Renaissance and immediately after. I think one of the most telling pictures is one by a student called Ruben. Now Ruben was a great artist and a very fine man, a thoroughly moral man, a very devout Catholic, and a very simple person who, I believe, was a genuine Christian. And yet, because of his simplicity, he …{?}… to an appalling degree. And he had as one of his most magnificent paintings, the {?}, and here you have an ascension scene in which a {?} Venus is ascending into heaven. And it’s exactly as the Medieval ascension {?} was portrayed, except it’s Venus. ..{?}… has taken over. And it was a fitting portrayal especially since it came through the channel of a man who was simplicity and innocence personified. Especially revealing of what has happened to us. And this is happened {?}. We can find much to appreciate in many of these artists of a generation ago, but we have to recognize their basic humanism and how they have led to common effect{?}.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] I don’t believe that that was any problem to them, I believe that {?} was greatly overrated in this country because they wanted to portray the post-Stalin Russia as a Russia of new freedom. It would be official lying, but they had been through a difficult time, which was necessary, and now they had {?}. And so this period of self-criticism was extensively tolerated. And we were given to believe that this meant a change in Soviet Russia. It meant no such thing. It meant that their attitude towards their past was given an official sanction, which the novelists have now made use of.

Actually there is less freedom now than there was ten years ago. The persecution of Christianity in the Soviet Union has never been more savage than it has been in the last five years. But we have through these books that are promoted, a false picture of what goes on there.

Yes.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, I believe that it is nine tenths mythology. Because first of all, the basic fact there is anti-Christianity, and it is anti-Orthodox Christianity. Second, the very slight amount of hostility has been to the old fashioned Orthodox believing Jews who are a very small minority. And they have been given very minor trouble, they are not to many and they don’t think they are too important. But most of it has been propaganda for our benefit. And I believe it is a fearful thing that they seen so much attention given to that and none to the persecution of Christians there. And as the Congress of the United States has gone on record, condemning this persecution of the Jews, which is virtually non-existent, but saying nothing about the persecution of the Christians.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] If the persecution were a reality, in the Soviet Union, then you would find Israel protesting also, and they haven’t protested. They are in very partial diplomatic relations with the {?}. {?} very limited, ultra old-fashioned view of {?} both there and in this country, and very much on the outs with the others.

Is there another question over here?

Yes.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No, what it does is to send them to slave labor camp.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. Much of Siberia is beautifully wooded country. But the slave camps have quite a few millions people in them.

No of course not, definitely. I believe the, some years ago, it was {?} made trips in {?} camp, and was stupid enough to believe that these were work camps and not prisons. But what {?} had referenced to was the cities of refuge. And the cities of refuge were certain designated cities where a man who had committed involuntary man-slaughter, could run to for refuge and as long has he stayed there, and had to work there of course for his living, he was safe from punishment. So it was a kind of prison sentence at no cost to the state, he pointed out. It was not a life sentence because it could, because he had to stay there until the High Priest died. And the death of the High Priest freed him and he could return home. In some instances if the High Priest were young, it could be a life sentence, in other cases it would be a short one. The biblical system of criminology is very different from ours in that it has no prison sentences. The only prisons in the Bible are temporary detention places pending a trial. In the biblical system, you had capital offenses punishable by death, murder, kidnapping, certain forms of rape and other things. Then, you had all other kinds punishable by restitution. Thus every form of theft had to be punished by restitution. If you stole a hundred dollars, you had to refund the hundred dollars plus a hundred dollars, the exact amount you hoped to make. If you stole a cow, you had to restore four. Because the cow could multiply, you restored the one plus four, with sheep I believe it was the one plus five, they multiply faster. Restitution then was required, and there was a form of restitution for every kind of crime. So that when you are found guilty, you immediately had to work out your sentence, at your normal occupation.

There was another aspect of biblical law which prevented, when it was observed, of any great amount of criminality from developing, and that was the law with regard to juvenile delinquency. Now the law with respect to juvenile delinquency was this, if a juvenile were found to be incorrigible in his delinquency, he was then brought up for hearing and if it were confirmed, he was executed. And as a result, the amount of trouble they had was limited. You didn’t breed criminals, in other words. Now this may seem hardhearted, but this is God’s law. And it is actually merciful to all society. And this was clearly the biblical law. This was, by the way, enacted in the colonies very early. They had this law. That’s why they didn’t have the amount of crime we have now-a-days too. And you’d be surprised at how quickly juveniles turn into model children when there’s a law like that.

Well our time is up, and we stand dismissed.