The Signs of John’s Gospel

Sign of Light

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, & Sermons

Lesson: Sign of Light

Genre: Speech

Track: 115

Dictation Name: RR125D7

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

{?} unto thee, O Lord, do we give thanks for the abundance of thy blessings. We praise thee, our God, that day by day, thou dost undertake for us. Day by day, thou dost sustain us with thy mercies and thy providential care. We thank thee, our Father, that our tomorrows are in thy hands, and thou doest all things well, and so in this confidence we come to rejoice in thee, to praise thee as we ought, and to delight in thy word. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture today is John 11:1-45. The Sign of Light. “Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was. Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judaea again. His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him. These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him. Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellowdisciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off: and many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world. And when she had so said, she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee. As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly, and came unto him.

Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, but was in that place where Martha met him. The Jews then which were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She goeth unto the grave to weep there. Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled. And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him! And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?

Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him.”

But some of them went their way to the Pharisees and told them what things Jesus had done.

The story of the raising of Lazarus is one of the most dramatic in all of scripture, and it has commanded the imagination of people through the ages. It has also captured the imagination of some modern writers who are not at all Christian, and as a result, Lazarus has often been the subject of stories and of plays also.

One such dramatic presentation of the story of Lazarus pictures him as a Christian missionary some years later. The Roman authorities command him to stop his activity and offer incense to Caesar. He refused to do so, whereupon the Roman official threatened him with death, and Lazarus laughed. He had already been there and had nothing to fear.

I think that story captures the sense indeed of the victory that Lazarus did have, but this is presented to us as something more as the story of Lazarus. It is one of the signs, the signs and wonders given by our Lord, and this is the sign of light. Jesus was under excommunication. He was also under sentence of death, and he and his disciples had withdrawn from Judea because our Lord had no desire for premature arrest until the time should come that he should deliver himself, and undergo his trial through death.

Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were three very dear friends of our Lord, and Lazarus was sick, and these three prominent members of the Jewish community, living in Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem just two miles out, had often been our Lord’s hosts when he was in Bethany and Jerusalem, and now Mary and Martha wrote to Jesus, appealing him to come. Lazarus was sick, come and heal him, and our Lord’s response to them was, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the son of God might be glorified thereby.” The issue of this sickness, the permanent outcome, will not be death, but life, and the purpose of this sickness is that the glory of God might be manifested. A few days later, Jesus proposed to his disciples a return. “Let us go into Judea again.” To the disciples, this seemed foolish. It was inviting death. Even after he assured them of the consequences and his reason for returning, Thomas said to his disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with him.” This can be the only outcome of a return. Our Lord was bent on returning.

This miracle was a part of the foreordained plan of God. This was a great miracle, a most notable one, and a final witness before his entry into Jerusalem. The people had indeed followed him, but the people wanted him as their Messiah only without any cost They were all for him, but they did not want to incur the wrath of the leaders of the people. He was under excommunication and sentence of death, and if somehow Jesus could set this aside, they would continue to be for him. If he would some way strike down all the opposition, solve all problems, what more glorious leader could be imagined? And we find that mentality today. How many, many millions, if not most Americans are not unhappy about what goes on in Washington, but they voted for it and they’ll vote for it again. They’ll hold their noses and vote for anything and everything to perpetuate what goes on, because they want more of the prosperity that it brings, and they are unwilling to risk anything that might hurt them in the slightest, and so this was to be a final testimony. In the face of the unbelief of these people, and even more to those who believed concerning the nature of their faith.

And so, when his disciples said to him, “His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.” This statement has so clear-cut an obvious one that it is a temptation to pass over it as we often do without grasping the significance, because what our Lord has said here is that seeing is the gift of light. If we were suddenly plunged into total darkness, we could not see. Our eyes, no matter how fine, would be worthless, for a world in total, absolute darkness would be a world in which sight would be impossible.

Our sight, therefore, is dependent upon light, and when we walk in the light we walk in safety. If suddenly we are taken into one of the tall buildings around about here, and the world plunged into absolute darkness, we would find it impossible to get out. How would we find our way down the building from the upper stories? Through the rooms and the maze of furnishings in total darkness? Seeing is dependent upon light, and walking in the light is safety. God is our light, and hence, faith is the true seeing, the true sight. For when we walk by faith, then we have true sight, and our safety depends on the use of light, not venturing out into the unknown in total darkness, but walking in the light. So our safety is to walk in the light, to walk by faith, to walk in Christ, and we cannot despise the light given us and be blessed.

“If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world.” So that when we walk in the light of day, we cannot stumble. Opposition? Yes. Troubles in this world? Yes, but we walk in confidence and in the light and safety of God.

They returned to Bethany, and before our Lord reached the home of Lazarus, Martha, knowing of his coming, went out to meet him, and she said, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” And Jesus said, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha assumed this to refer to the resurrection of the dead at the last, at the end of the world, and so she said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” But “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” This statement has a significance that was far greater to any Israelite of that day than to us, because the name of God was and is, according to the Hebrew, “I am that I am,” or “He who is,” the self-existent one, and when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and began it with “I am,” “I am the self-existent one, I am the source of life, of the resurrection,” he declared himself to be Jehovah, the God, the creator of all things.

Moreover, he said, “I am here and now the resurrection and the life.” What was our Lord saying? For most people, religion has something to do with heaven, with the other world, and many, many people have converted their Christianity into something so other-worldly that it has ceased to have any relevance to this world. They have, as the saying goes, become so spiritually minded that they are of no earthly good, but Jesus Christ declared himself to be the great I am that I am, the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. So that our salvation in Jesus Christ is indeed relevant in terms of eternity. It means heaven. It means the resurrection of the dead, but it has a significance in terms of time and of history. “I am now, here and now, the resurrection and the life. “He that believed in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and “whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” A great confession, but she did not say, “I believe that my brother shall live.” She accepted him as the Son of God. She confessed him to be the Messiah. She and her sister and brother, above even the disciples, had recognized this significance of his coming, and Mary had been the one who had broken the ointment to signify his burial as atonement, his death and burial as the atonement for the sins of the elect, and to signify her faith in his resurrection. Jesus was saying, “My victory is over time and eternity. My victory is in this world now and in the world to come. I am here and now the resurrection and the life.”

Then Mary came to greet him, and fell at his feet, saying unto him, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” The reaction to Jesus at this was, we are told, that “he groaned in the spirit and was troubled,” and then in the thirty-fifth verse we are told that, “He wept,” and in the thirty-eighth verse, that he went to the grave “groaning in himself,” and various scholars in the Greek have pointed out that the word “groaning” there does not convey quite the meaning in English that it does in the Greek, where it has the idea of vexation and indignation, in particular. In other words, our Lord was upset, even angry at their limited faith. He asked to be taken to the grave. It was a cave and a stone lay upon it, and Jesus said, “Take ye away the stone.” At this point, Martha spoke up. “Lord, you are not face to face with the grim reality. Our brother has been in the grave four days. ‘Lord, by this time he stinketh.’” Here is the reality of the world. The reality of death, but our Lord had declared, “I am the resurrection and the life. I am he who made all things and without me was not anything made that was made,” and his death a roadblock to me is there anything too hard for the Lord?

“Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.” Lord, I ask this now as I pray in the public demonstration to these people, now before my end, let them know what they have done when they reject me, and let them know what they believe when they believe on me.

“And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.” The Jewish custom of burying the dead involved not wrapping the whole body as a unit, but wrapping each arm and hand separately, tightly, in a process that involved also a semi-mummification. So that he was firmly bound around each foot from the heal on up to the waist, and the entirely of each arm, and his face bound with a napkin.

“Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.” This was the sign of light. When we walk by faith, we walk in the light, and this world was crated by God, and every condition of this life, including death itself is a part of God’s created plan, and so God summons us to walk in this world in confidence, because in this world we walk when we walk by faith, in the light of God, and indeed, this world is a world of troubles. Our Lord himself said, “In the world ye shall have much tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” And St. Paul declared, facing the grim realities of persecution, “For thy sake we are slaughtered like sheep all the day long,” and yet, in the same passage, he said, “If God be for us, who can be against us? In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

But the Psalmist said it also ages before. In Psalm 46:1, “God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble.” A very present help. We don’t have to wait for heaven to find the Lord near, and of hell. He is a very present help, and when we walk by faith, he is our light and our safety, and faith is our sight. So our God gave unto us this sign, the sign of light, but we cannot prefer{?} the power of God to eternity, or the Last Judgment, and we cannot rule God out of this world by feeling that the conditions of this world are too great for him. He is a very present help, for he is the maker of heaven and earth, and all things therein. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that thou art a very present help, that thou art our sight. So that day by day, as we walk, we walk in the light, knowing that thou who dost know the end from the beginning, who art the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, art our God, our shield and our defender, and so, our Father, in this confidence, we come to thee to cast our every care upon thee, knowing thou carest for us. In Jesus name. Amen.

Any questions at this time? Yes?

[Audience] When a question comes up about the {?} and you say, “Well, God is sovereign.” How do you answer someone who says, “Well, if {?} then everything is foreordained and people puppets, and everything decided for them, so where does freewill come in and that?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Ultimately, there can be no freewill in the absolute sense except for God, and this is where they use language very, very loosely and crudely, because in the final sense, who is free but God alone. You and I are not free, for example, to choose the time of your birth, as I pointed out before. We aren’t free to decide the kind of family we’re going to be born into, the color of our hair and our eyes. We cannot say, and I like to quote this like as I have before, as William Blake, one poet, not a Christian, said, “Oh why was I born with another face?” It wasn’t the one he had planned for himself. We cannot fly. We cannot choose the day of our death and decide we’re not going to die. We are not free. Only one who is absolute and sovereign, God, is free in the true sense, so that freewill belongs to God alone.

Now, this does not mean we do not have a limited freedom. We are responsible under God, and this is only possible and this gets into a great deal of philosophy, and I’ve gone into this in part in By What Standard?, and I shall do so in another work on The Philosophy of History, which is not yet completed, we can only have this measure of limited freedom that is the freedom of man, only because God himself is sovereign, and has ordained all things that come to pass. So that these people really are not being honest with themselves or with you. They are not free and they don’t believe it. If they are free, let them decide to live two hundred years. Challenge them to. It is impossible on any terms for them to have this thing they call freewill. This is a little silly trick they pull on college freshmen and sophomores, and it stays with them throughout their lives, and it floods our generation when anyone, who had any intelligence and studied at all would recognize the idea of freewill is not a tenable concept when applied to man, because men cannot have this other freedom. He is a responsible creature, and responsibility means that he has an element of freedom in relationship to someone. Now, we are never free in the sense that we can do as we please. We are created responsible to God. So, if you want to use the word freedom, you have to say it is freedom under God, with responsibility to God. We do not have the kind of freedom the Existentialists talk about, which it total freedom from God, from nature, from people, from anything and everything, so that we are the world in ourselves. This is total anarchism, and this is what Existentialism espouses, and the sad fact is that some conservatives today are going overboard on Existentialism because they are humanists.

The other day, I heard one of the silliest things I have ever heard from a man who often speaks good sense. He has a program for one of the savings and loans company. I think his name is Nightengale, am I right, Matt?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, and usually he talks excellent sense, but he came out with a long, well, the whole program was pro-Existentialism and how marvelous Existentialism was, because it emphasized the freedom of the individual in a day when we have totalitarianism. Well, there isn’t a single Existentialist philosopher who isn’t a totalitarian. Most of them are Marxists. I’d like to ask him how he reconciles that, but he likes to use this idea of the other freedom because he doesn’t believe in God, apparently. So he came forth with an utterly ridiculous approval of Existentialism. Supposedly this was good conservatism. He stood for the independence of the individual. Well, any independence of the individual from God is radicalism. It is humanism. It is not conservativism, and it is not Christianity. Yes?

[Audience] You talked about Satan’s freedom.

[Rushdoony] Satan’s freedom is the freedom of a creature, so it is totally within the providence of God. Now, Satan was created as a creature, and the essence of Satan’s idea was, “Why shouldn’t I be God also, and why shouldn’t every creature be God? I am going to lead a revolution against God, a war for independence, a civil rights movement. Why should we be under God’s law? Let’s each have our own law, our own way of life,” and this is the essence of Satan’s position. Now, Satan does nothing apart from the providence and the predestination of God, and so even as our Lord was crucified, and before the betrayal, Jesus made it clear that this was happening by the foreordained counsel of the triune God, that not a thing could be done had it not been so ordained.

Now, this does not take away the responsibility of the creature who chooses this course, because he himself, morally, makes this decision. Well, you say, “How can you say that Satan, when he’s been created by God completely, is still responsible?” The same way you can say that I am completely a child of my parents. Everything I have in me, all my aptitudes, were given to me by God, so that they were foreordained by God and by my parents, but I’m still responsible. This is a mystery. We have to insist on the responsibility of the individual and of the creature, including Satan, but also that God determines all things that come to pass. Does that help?

[Audience] {?} there’s a degree there, different from {?}

[Rushdoony] No, he is a creature like the rest of us. Yes?

[Audience] Can one easily understand or is there some way of understanding why God just doesn’t put Satan down in {?}

[Rushdoony] Because he is doing it in the only way possible if you were not to reduce us and all history to puppetry. It is being worked out, and men are going to fight this battle, under the grace of God and in obedience to his word, and triumph. That it is going to be worked out as a real battle in history, and it is being worked out, and we, as responsible creatures, are, each step of the way hammering it out and yet, by the providence of God. Just as a wise parent doesn’t relinquish government over his children, but he governs them in such a way as they develop, and his wisdom is imparted to them and they learn it, and yet they are growing. We are told in Proverbs, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it.” Now, this means two things. First, train up the child. Govern him. Discipline him in terms of your moral government, but in the way he should go in terms of his nature, his ability, so that you have respect to your moral principles, your religious principles, so that he is trained up in terms of them, but then also in the way that he should do in terms of his nature, his abilities, his aptitudes.

[Audience] {?} quotes, I don’t know where, God created sin for his own glorification.

[Rushdoony] Yes, in a sense exactly what we’ve been talking about. The responsibility of sin is the possibility of responsibility. If there could be no sin, there could be no responsible creature, and so sin itself, as it exists and as we see the immensity of what sin involves, rebellion against God, it works to his glory as we turn to him and find ourselves in him, and find our joy and our strength and our peace in him. Yes?

Audience] Isn’t there the same thing in {?} I mean, with respect{?} and predestination?

[Rushdoony] Yes, it does. You’re going into some very, very profound questions that can’t be answered in just a few minutes, but this is the problem of the one and the many, the key problem of all philosophy, and the doctrine of the trinity is what makes possible both the equal ultimacy of the one and the many, and also the possibility of both the ultimate predestination of God and our ultimate freedom under God. The reconciliation of all these things is in the doctrine of the Trinity. That is why the true Christian doesn’t break what seems to be a paradox and say, “Well, I believe just in freedom,” or “I believe just in predestination,” or “I believe just in the oneness of things, or in the many-ness of things.” No, you have an equal ultimacy in the doctrine of the Trinity. That’s such a big subject and I’ve been working on it for four years writing this book, and I’m not through yet, but it is the key problem in all philosophy and the doctrine of the Trinity is the answer to it, clear-cut answer.

Well, I was interested in a little item in a book by Aubrey Menen, a very delightful writer, a satirist who was born in London in 1912, of an Indian, that is, Hindu father, and an Irish mother, and Menen has a gift of taking things and making fun of them in a telling way, and one thing that many people have delusions about, including the English who went to India, was this business of the burning of the widows, the Sati, and they thought it was such a horrible custom, such a monstrous inhuman thing to do to widows, and when they banned it, the thing that shocked them was that they had such a battle with the widows. The widows would claw, and scream, and fight to be burned, and this was destroying family life as far as they were concerned. It was the privilege of only the upper level of women in India. This was not something that anyone could do, only the highest caste and the upper crust of the highest caste could do this, and Menen, as one who is part Hindu in this story, gives us the reason for it, which I think is a very delightful bit.

“Marriage, like everything else, presented no problems in Taxila, (part of India). Women remained faithful to their husbands, and if husbands were tempted to be untrue to their wives, they increased their harems until the desire disappeared of its own accord. Widows burned themselves on their husband’s pyres—though not all by any means. That was not called for. Taxila was a thoroughly well-adjusted society, and in such, an excess of virtue is as unbalancing as an excess of vice. All that was required was that a minority of widows should make the sacrifice sufficient to maintain the moral tone of the community.

“The process of selection was well understood. A young wife automatically proclaimed that she would certain burn herself. This was taken well but lightly by our friend and relations. As the wives grew older or more importantly, as the husbands did, it was thoroughly understood that a large proportion of married women would drop the subject from their conversation. To persist in saying that one would burn oneself was considered in Taxila rather flashy—an attempt to gain credit for being an exemplary wife without going to the effort of being one. For a wife, say at thirty, to remark, ‘May the gods give me courage on the day of his death, for I shall need it for what I intend to do,” would, like, as not, would draw the remark from another woman, “And that day won’t be far off, my dear, if you don’t look to your husband’s diet. He is losing weight daily,’ or by some equally critical remarks about the children.

“But certain genuine devotion and strong will were generally accepted as very suitable to uphold the moral traditions of the country. Certain wives talk little about the day of sacrifice, but everybody knew they would make it. This reflected great credit on their whole family as well as throwing a certain religious glamour over the wife herself. Difficult as it may be for us to enter into this state of mind, we can approach it by thinking of the social effect created when in our time, the woman announces her intention of taking the veil. IN that case, the heroically virtuous woman is soon lost to society. In Taxila, she was still very much still in it. Her opinion on all matters of morality was eagerly sought and always followed. Her criticisms of other women’s virtue had an unanswerable authority, but it was on her husband that her decision had most effect.

“For in Taxila, well-adjusted as it was, there was still sometimes dispute between husbands and wives, but in the case of the wife known to be ready to burn and socially accepted as a burnee, so to speak, the husband was at a deep disadvantage. It is very difficult to argue with a woman who is ready to die for you, not merely in a manner of speaking but on the pyre. (Just think of the advantage a wife had over her husband if she could nag at him with this in mind. Now don’t overeat, dear. Are you trying to burn me up?) In the small matters which count so much in marriage, the husband taking care of his health, for instance, the intended victim had the most powerful if unspoken argument. In bigger matters, the husband could scarcely complain of his wife to his friends without being thought an ingrate.” (So you can see what a disadvantage the men had.)

“A woman of unquestioned moral excellence backed by all the right thinking forces of society can be an overwhelming figure. For this reason, in Taxila, there was the curious situation that husbands, who had normally be proud to have a wife so faithful as to join in on the pyre, often tried hard to dissuade their wives from doing it. Many a husband, especially long-lived ones, after suffering a lifetime from a dedicated wife, had felt the immolation of widows was all or almost all to the advantage of the woman, and in the case of a wife who, after decades of moral authority over her husband, died a natural death before her husband, the unfairness was even more marked.

“Apart from the female pillars of society, there were widows who, from a genuine sense of grief and an equally sense of vanity committed Sati unexpectedly. These cases were rare. Some Taxilian husbands with emotional wives guarded against this by writing a eulogy of their spouses into their wills with the injunction that she not burn herself to prove her virtue since there was no need, but such wills left an awkward feeling behind them. We may take as a parallel the man of our day who requests ‘no flowers’ at his funeral. He means to be modest but leaves the impression that, at the news of his death, the florist will be besieged.”

Now I think you get the general idea. We tend, as a result of humanist indoctrination, to think of life melodramatically, but women are women and men are men, and I don’t believe there is any society in the world where women have been totally crushed and helpless, and these melodramatic pictures you get about women are like in this and that culture, and how these poor widows were burned to death, felt it was a privilege among them and the women who were the burnees had a lifetime of moral prestige in the community, and they lorded it over their poor husbands by reminding them daily of the sacrifice they were going to make some day. So, I think we need to take a great deal of this nonsense we get in anthropology today with a grain of salt.

I think we have time for one question or comment. Yes?

[Audience] I heard about the rumor that Mr. Howard Hughes, is possibly looking for a twenty-year rejuvenation, back in Boston, {?} Do you have anything on that?

[Rushdoony] No, I hadn’t heard anything about it.

[Audience] Can they do something to the gland {?} rejuvenate?

[Rushdoony] They cannot, because the body is a unit and as we grow older, the best thing to do is to grow old gracefully, to accept it, and to realize that good living is the best guarantee against premature aging and death, but this attempt to doctor one gland means you put a strain on all others, and very often, precipitate death.

Well, our time is about up and we stand dismissed.

End of tape