Human Nature In Its Third Estate

The State of Grace

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 5-20

Genre: Speech

Track: 25

Dictation Name: RR131N26

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Our Scripture is Ephesians 2:1-6. The state of grace. Ephesians 2:1-6. With particular emphasis on verses 4-6. The state of grace. Ephesians 2:1-6.

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

The state or covenant of grace is that condition of man wherein he is free from the burden of sin and guilt and the penalty of death. And he moves in the freedom of grace. The state of grace can be, perhaps, simply illustrated by a little story.

Some years ago I talked with a European who had been in the thick of Word War 2 from the earliest days. All told he was in action 8 years. It was a fearful experience. Part of the time as a prisoner of war, part of the time as an escapee, part of the time again in action. And his life during that time was one of routine horror and routine tension.

After the war that tension continued for a time. Nightmares were commonplace, in which he dreamed of being under attack and ready to be bayoneted. And one night he woke from a nightmare shaking and trembling and turned on the light and said to himself, the war is over. It’s over. And suddenly it seemed as though the nightmare dissipated. It was finished. And he passed from one world to another. Now this experience had a double aspect. First there was the objective reality, the war was over, it was ended. Second there was the subjective freedom when this fact came home to him, when he realized that indeed this had happened.

Thomas Boston a few centuries ago said the state of grace is the state of begun recovery of human nature. Man being dead in sins and trespasses and born again in Christ, begins the recovery, and the state of grace is that state of begun recovery. The work of reconstruction is begun in man. And man having now a new principle of life begins to grow and to be remade in knowledge, righteousness, holiness and dominion. Before as a sinner he creates and created disorder and destruction. Whatever his desires, however much as a sinner man hopes for something better, the net result of his activities is to create disorder and destruction, because it is written into his being. One contemporary poet, Margaret Elizabeth Austin, in the opening lines of her poem, put it this way. Man is the only animal that keeps a place for everything, with nothing in it. Vainly he yearns for order. Chaos creeps higher around his body by the minute.

Now here is a writer, not a Christian, sensing the schizophrenia of modern man. The destructiveness inherent even in their urge for order. And this is inescapable. But in the state of grace, instead of being ruled by this destructive sadomasochistic characteristic, man’s life instead is characterized by life and growth. There is the ability to grow.

Now personal and social growth are not normally desired by men and civilizations. As a matter of fact, by and large they want to continue {?} in the present or return to the past, or, if they claim to be working for an ideal future, as the Marxists do, it has to be static and unchanging. They want an order that is fixed and permanent. They do not want growth. So that growth does not characterize the sinner nor his social order.

This was the characterization of Puritanism that gave it so much vitality. I have called attention to the fact that Puritanism did not talk about the old time religion. It was the high church {?} in the Church of England then who talked about the old religion and the good old day, and the old time faith. The Puritans always emphasized sing unto the Lord a new song. And they emphasized the newness, that is the freshness, of the Gospel, they emphasized the fact that it was the principle for growth. And they declared that if preaching did not point men to the future, to growth, that it was faithless to the Word of God. It was not the proclamation of Scripture. This is why the Puritans won.

Consider, for example, the words of one very prominent person, very high church in fact, with secret sympathies for the old Roman Catholic days, John Aubrey. John Aubrey writing during and immediately after the Puritan era of Cromwell, is a very likable and a winsome person. He’s a joy to read. A very sweet personality. And yet a failure. He was past oriented. Which is even worse than being present oriented. A lower class person is present oriented. And Aubrey, being past oriented was not only incompetent when it came to the business affairs of the day, but a very good estate that his father had left him, he came from a prominent family, through his incompetence and bungling he laid waste.

He tried to recoup it, if I may digress a bit, by marrying an heiress and so bungled things with her that she ended by suing him and he was out some more money. And he spent his later years living off some of his friends, lords of the realm, who took pity on him and gave him house room and would loan him money which was never repaid.

Now this is Aubrey talking about the good old days in England. “Then the Crusadoes, (the Crusaders) to the holy wars were most magnificent and glorious. And the rise I believe of the adventures of knights errant and romances, the solemnities of processions in and about the churches and the perambulations in the fields, besides their convenience were fine pleasing diversions. The priests went before in their formalities singing the Latin service, and the people came after, making their good meaning responses. The reverence given to holy men was very great, then were the churches open all day long, men and women going in and out hourly, to and from their devotions. Then were the consciences of the people kept in so great awe by confession that just dealing and virtue was habitual. There were no preschools and the boys were educated at the monasteries. The young maids, not at hackneyed state schools and etcetera to learn pride and wantonness, but at the nunneries where they had examples of piety, humility and modesty to imitate and practice. Here they learned needlework and the art of confectionary, surgery, anciently no apothecaries are surgeons, the gentlewomen did cure their poor neighbors, their hands are now to fine. {?} writing, drawing, etcetera. The lords, then lords indeed as well as title lived in their countries like petty kings, adjuraregalia{?} belonging to their scenorias{?}. Had their castles and boroughs and sent virgises{?} to the lower house, had gallows within their liberties where they could try, condemn, hang and draw. Never went up to London but in Parliament time or once a year to do their homage in duty to the king. No younger brothers then were, by the custom and constitution of the realm to betake themselves to trades, but were church men or retainers or servants to great men, rode great good horses now and then to Capurse{?}, and their blood that was bred at the good tables of their masters was upon every occasion freely let out in their quarrels. It was then to common amongst their masters to have feuds with one another, and their servants at market or where they met in that slashing age, did commonly bang one another’s bucklers.

The poor maids did turn the spits and lick the dripping pans and grew to be huge lusty maids. In those days the gentry begot their own servants and {?} tenants, the custom of lying with the bride the first night. No ale houses nor inns yet unless upon great roads, where they had a mind to drink they went to the friars, and when they traveled they had entertainment at the religious houses for three days. Such joy and merriment was every holiday, which days were kept with great solemnity and reverence. In those days besides the jollities already mentioned, they had their pilgrimage to several shrines, as chiefly hereabouts to St. Josephs, and the roads were several houses of entertainment built purposely for the pilgrims.” Unquote

Now I’ve cited that at great length because I think it is very revealing of a dead soul. What is he interested in? The pleasing diversions of the past, by his own words. He looks backward only, he is dead. There was no faith in anything he said about the Church or about Christianity. Only of the good old days and how beautiful everything was when lords were really lords and the poor maids were in their place. Now his was a conservative mentality, and it was a dead one. It was reactionary. This is why the Puritans triumphed because they were in the state of grace. And they defined it as the state of begun recovery. It meant therefore growth. It meant that the Word of God was perpetually new, and as one of them who was a pastor to the Pilgrims said, there is every new life to break forth from the Word of God. In other words it is always a guide for the future. You never exhaust its meaning, you never exhaust its relevancy for the future. This is the state of grace. This is oriented to the future, to growth.

But the characteristic of death is decay. Of life, growth, of death, decay. The regenerate man will grow. St. Paul spoke of it as a growth from regeneration when you’re a babe in Christ and were fed milk, to maturity and to meat eating. In 1st Corinthians 3:1-2, and in Hebrews 5:12-14. He speaks of the necessity of growth. From babyhood and milk, to manhood and meat. And says, if not you remain babes, and the word he uses in the Greek is idiotes, which in English we have as idiots. A babe that never grows up in an idiot. But those whom God, rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sin have quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. And raise us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Now what do the Puritans think of that? Why, we are not only to grow but we are to rule. Those who are in the state of grace and the state of begun recovery are to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus and in time and in eternity this means the rule of the world. They were right. This isn’t some abstraction. This isn’t something the reference of which postponed until the end of the world, then it is in its fullness. Even now the government of all things is in the hands of Christ who reigns in heaven. And we reign there with Him, and we are to apply that reign here and now, in our personal lives, in our domain, and progressively in the world. This is what it means to be in a state of grace. It means to govern ourselves, it means to grow and progressively extend the rule of grace, the rule of God and His Word, to every realm.

The revolutionists want a fixed order, an unchanging one without growth, because they are dead, and they long for a dead social order. And too often conservatism is not Christian and therefore it longs for the past, like John Aubrey, and it too is dead. Can you look back and think of all the dead causes that conservatives fought for? And fought for futilely in the fifteen, twenty years? A rear guard action? Why? Because it has been insistently secular. Talk to some of the top conservative leaders and they don’t want Christianity brought into the picture. That would confuse the issues, they say. And so they are going to continue to fight a rear guard protest action. And like John Aubrey look to the past rather than to God’s future. Because they do not reign in heavenly places together with Christ Jesus since they are not in the state of grace. Man in the state of grace is more conservative than all the conservatives in the world because he knows what is God given in the past and he is more radical than all the radicals because he know that the things that are must be shaken so that only the things that cannot be shaken may remain. He has the true principle of growth, of change and progress in terms of the unchanging Word of God. And therefore he can assess things better.

I was interested, this week I was reading again in the biography Thomas Scott, written by his son. Now Thomas Scott was in the eighteenth century, one of the great clergymen in the Church of England, and a great commentator. In fact generations of people in the last century and a half, almost two centuries, grew up studying his commentary which was called ‘Scott’s Family Bible’. It was very wonderful. As a matter of fact it was the first commentary I read and it had a very powerful influence on me. And I was interested in reading something in Scott again, to find that when the War of Independence broke out in the colonies, Scott did not want the colonies to be independent. In other words, he was not on our side.

But, this is interesting, because he viewed everything in terms of the Word of God, he said the future is in America. Why? Because the American colonies are God fearing and in a state of grace. The Word of God rules in the hearts of men and in the counsels of the colonies. And so, he said, because of the moral state of its inhabitants, his very words, they will be the power in the future. Now we can say he was on the wrong side, but he knew the future. Why? Because he saw it in terms of the Word of God. He saw in terms of the fact that the state of grace, the state of the begun recovery of man, is the only state that offers any hope for man and his culture. And so the countries of Europe, his own country England, because there was not a comparable faith, was not going to have the future that America was going to have. It was that simple. It wasn’t because he was a great historian or a philosopher or that he had any special insight from God, he had the Word of God and he judged in terms of the state of grace. And you can make assessments about the future in terms of that same fact.

The state of grace reveals itself in man by a delight in the Word of God, a readiness to grow therein, and an ability to endure the hot sun of adversity, in terms of the parables of Matthew 13, and to grow stronger in the faith in the face of that adversity. The state of grace also manifests itself in true freedom. And the glorious liberty of the children of God, as St. Paul declares. Now the unregenerate talk much about liberty, but as we saw last week, by liberty they mean freedom from God and His law. Beyond that they are lovers of tyranny. One psychologist witnessed against himself when, in analyzing what Scripture has to say about predestination and the effect it has had on men. He said, and I quote, “The real issue is not between determinism and freedom, it is between determinism and internal anarchy. In a law abiding universe personality cannot be other than law abiding.

There is a pseudo freedom which is the opposite of the genuine sense of freedom. It is the freedom of the person who insists that he should be permitted to express his anger or his sexuality or any other impulse without consideration of the rights and welfare of others or what such behavior will do to him. There is a false freedom of the person who feels the compulsion to hurt another under the guise of being helpful. There is a false freedom of the individual who tries to throw off all external restraint. These freedoms are illusory. A genuine sense of freedom, a positive sense that one is able to so order his life that he may achieve a higher degree of joy for himself and others, is a mark of a well integrated mature person. Freedom and responsibility are the function of an every maturing self.” Unquote.

Thus we have someone who does not share our faith witnessing to the fact that the Puritans and the writers of Scripture who talk about the eternal decree of God and freedom and predestination produce free people, because they were law abiding people. People who knew the absolute law of God and moved in terms of it. But when men talk about law apart from God they convert it into tyranny.

Law is an aspect of the nature of God and therefore it is inescapable in the nature of man who is created in the image of God. But sin perverts this law expression in man and it comes out as power to inflict and to degrade and as total control over man. So that freedom is now seen by scientists as a threat. I was interested, in the last few days, to see that a book has been published that develops this thesis. That freedom is a threat. You recall I mentioned at a symposium in northern California two or three years ago, chaired by senator Bradley, I was told by a public school teacher I was deluding the people with talk of freedom because in the modern world freedom is obsolete.

In a scientific society you cannot have freedom because a scientifically planned society cannot conduct a valid experiment if there is freedom. Just recently in the San Anna{?} register there was this article, and I quote a portion of it, “Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote that if some great power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, he would consent to being turned into a sort of clock and being wound up every morning before I get out of bed. Mr. Huxley left us to soon. There are men now who would gladly accommodate him. Suddenly 1984 is just 4500 days or so away and George Orwell’s timing it appears, was not that far off. Within fifteen or twenty years says Dr. Marvin Carlins{?}, human behavior control techniques will be advanced to the point where we can control anyone. In a new book, ‘Requiem for Democracy: An Inquiry into the limits of behavior control’, Carlence{?} and his co-author Louis Andrews tell us it’s already happening. Transmitting signals to electrodes implanted in a charging bulls head, Yale’s physiologist, Jose Delgado, caused the bull to halt in mid-charge and walk away, presumably in search of a cow. It also was Delgado who caused mother monkeys, under the influence of electrical brain stimulation, to savagely attack their young. It’s also possible to take one’s persons memories and transfer them to another person, explains Andrews, a Ph. D. candidate at Oxford. It has been done with worms. Scientists taught one worm to crawl through a maze then they chopped it up and fed it to another worm which crawled through the maze. Andrews said that memory is a chemical agent and scientists are now trying to discover how to transfer memory in higher forms of life. Most think it will be done in the form of a pill, he said. We take the position that behavior control can be used for good or bad purposes, Andrews said, there are two ways to control people. The first way would be very rigid and in effect turn people into robots. Theoretically this is possible but it would be very inefficient because of the amount of time involved. In the second way a person could be condition to do certain kinds of things. He would be in effect sent along a path and know where he was going. The problem posed by behavior control is not external tyranny. On the contrary, the real problem is the threat of freedom. If we recognize that a perfected behavior control technology is within our grasp then for the first time in history we are truly responsible for our destiny.” Unquote.

Now there’s a number of things to be said about this article and the book, first of all, it needs to be added, that they have already begun implanting electrodes in the brains of men, in mental institutions. This has been admitted as far back as 1962.

Second, the experiment with memory transfer, feeding one worm that had learned something to another worm, was of very dubious quality and it’s definitely not proven. In fact it is the fundamental thesis of cannibalism. That if you want somebody’s qualities you eat him.

Now third, if such controls are good, as this author says they are, there’s a very simple answer. If he believes they are good, then let me have an electrode planted in his brain and let me control him. He will think twice about it then. When he says they are good what he means is, it is good if I control all of you, it’s bad if you control me.

But fourth, the heart of the matter. His comment that the real problem is the threat of freedom. Now that brings {?}. Years and years ago William the tenth observed that men will either be ruled by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants. And it was not a new remark when he made it. Why? Because if men are not in the state of grace they are not growing, they are dead. They have no capacity for freedom. The dead love order, graveyards are very neat, orderly places. Nothing ever rumples, but they stay in place, all the inhabitants of a graveyard. And of course what those who are spiritually dead have always worked for in every age of society from the tower of Babel to the present is a graveyard society.

A graveyard society is their goal. Because they are dead. Only those who are in the state of grace are capable of growth. Because they alone are alive. When Scripture says that the sinner is dead in his sins and trespasses, it literally means that there is an entire dimension of his life that is dead. It’s not just a simile. When it says we are born again and are now in the state of grace it means that there is a whole dimension of life to which we are awake. So that that graveyard society which is the goal and the ideal of other men, is to us anathema. What we want is the glorious liberty of the children of God. The state of grace therefore is markedly different. This is why it is unmistakable. By their fruits shall ye know them. It doesn’t rest in the ability to say, on such and such a date I had an experience and I was saved, and do you know of a date when you were saved? No. Our Lord said by their fruits shall ye know them. Do they reveal the marks of grace?

Now the state of grace is also called the covenant of grace. By which it is clearly set forth that it is not only a state but a community. It is life in fellowship. Community first of all with Christ and then with one another in Christ, and there is no community in sin. Because in sin man being dead is not capable of community. There is neither community nor is there true individuality apart from the state of grace. Thus {?} and the brothers {?}, which I’ve quoted before and is worth quoting again and again, said at one point, and I quote, “The isolation that prevails everywhere above all in our age, it has not yet fully developed, it has not yet reached its limits. For everyone strives to keep his individuality as apart as possible. Wishes to secure the greatest possible fullness of life for himself, but meantime all his efforts result, not in attaining fullness of life, but self destruction.

For instead of self realization he ends by arriving at complete solitude. All mankind in our age have split up into units, they all keep apart, each in his own groove. Each one holds the {?}, hides themselves, hide what he has from the rest, and he ends by being repelled by others and repelling them. He eats up riches by himself and thinks, how strong I am now, and how secure, and in his madness he does not understand that the more he eats up the more he sinks into self-destructive impotence. For he is accustomed to rely upon himself alone, and to cut himself off. He has trained himself not to believe in the help of others, in men and in humanity, and only trembles for fear he shall lose his money and the privileges that he has won for himself.” Unquote. But the root cause of it {?} goes on to say, is in unbelief. And the fact that in unbelief men are dead. But all men in the state of grace are men who are not dead but are born again. All such men are in favor with God and are blessed by Him and are endowed with the qualities and dispositions of a regenerate person. God to them is a gracious God who says to them as He said to Abraham in Genesis 17:7, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. To be in a estate of grace means to glorify God and to serve Him. St. John said, and hereby we do know that we know Him, if we heed His commandments. Our Lord in Matthew 7:21 said, not everyone that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

The West Minister Confession defined the state of grace thus. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God and a state of salvation, which hope of theirs shall perish. Yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love Him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before Him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.

Since grace is God’s work in the life of man, God neither undoes His work nor can man undo it. Those whom God has saved who are in the state of grace are eternally in the state of grace. Those who are in the state of grace hear the word of God, respond to it, and delight in it. Now when we speak of the state of grace we must remember that regenerating grace leads men to hear the Word of God, to respond and to be converted. So that grace is even prior to conversion. The term used by the theologians in ancient times was prevenient grace. The grace which goes before. Which opens the heart of an unbeliever to hear the Word and to be saved. To change his heart and to be converted. Today therefore, as we live in a graveyard society, let us remember that these men of the graveyard society are dead men and without hope. And that the future belongs, as always, to God and to His saints. Because God having redeemed us when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved. And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And Christ Jesus ruling in heaven today over time and eternity makes us co-rulers and co-heirs with Him of all things. He summons us to occupy until he comes and to reign in His name.

Let us pray. Almighty God our heavenly father we give thanks unto Thee for Thy sovereign grace. We thank Thee that Thou hast called us out of the death of sin, out of the backward look, out of the graveyard society, into the kingdom of God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Teach us so to hearken to Thy Word that we may ever grow, every be used by Thee and ever magnify Thy name. Reigning over ourselves in our calling, and setting forth the standard of Thy Word and Thy kingdom in every sphere of life. Bless us to this purpose, in Jesus name Amen.

Our time is very limited, so that we have time only for one or two urgent questions, and then I have a couple of announcements to make.

Are there any urgent questions about any point here…yes.

[Audience]…{?.}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. An interesting point there. The U.S Constitution according to a study made by Edward Corwin, who was not a Christian, presupposed and did {?} presupposed, always the higher law of God. The whole amendment process, the whole limitation on the power of the state, presupposed the fact that the real growth was not to be on the level of the state but on the level of the people. So it was deliberately an extreme limited document of limited power, because the area of growth could not be there, it had to be in the lives of the people. It was not a statist oriented document. Well first of all I’d like to announce that next Sunday, September 19th. Immediately after our meeting here, you are all invited to a luncheon which will be furnished by the women of the Chalcedon guild at no charge, at the home of Janette and Bill Maxwell, 11401 Chenault. Just a few blocks from here. And if you don’t know the way over there, you can follow some of the rest of us.

And we urge you all to plan to be there. Would you like to have a hand count, Gloria, of those who are coming? Could you raise your hand if you do plan to come. And we do urge you all to come. We’d very much like to have you. And if there’s any problem of transportation getting home afterwards, we will see to it that someone will swing by your home and take you there, if you have a transportation problem.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] 11401 Chenault.

Then I’d like to report on a meeting I attended last night. Every now and then some of the meetings I go to are of such unusual interest that I think they merit repeating. Or reviewing. During the past couple of months I have been meeting with someone who lives in San Amonica{?} and has a couple of Chinese restaurants, Mr. {?}, a very fine and superior person. And he has been very concerned about the situation that has been developing in San Francisco in the China Town. The attempt to bust the Chinese children out of their community, in order to break up the control of the Chinese family and the Chinese community on its children. Now we’ve had some meetings together and we cut a tape to be sent up to San Francisco suggesting what could be done. And these meetings were held together with Dorothy and myself and the Reverend and Mrs. Robert L. Thoburn{?} when they were here, also subsequently in meeting with Trent and Carol Wilson of the Fullerton{?} Christian School.

Well last night we flew up there, Trent and Carol Wilson and myself, to meet with them, late afternoon and evening, we got back at 1:50 this morning. A very remarkable meeting. Of course I had worked in China Town at the Presbyterian church there for three years at the end of the thirties, three or four years at the end of the thirties and beginning of the forties, so it was interesting to me to go back there, very much changed. there was a population of 15,000 then and it’s 70,000 now.

The Chinese community school which is going to be a product of this, and there were three other proposed schools, white schools in the community, also represented there to get some ideas and to look over some of Thoburne’s{?} materials and to get some know how, all starting from scratch. The remarkable thing about this Chinese community school is that there’s a slip of a, well, she has three daughters but she’s a very young thing in her twenties, a slip of a girl, she really is, {?} is her name, who’s heading this up. After talking to {?} and others, she decided that something’s got to be done, so she announced she’d be ready to start school. The protest is coming there, not from the wealthy Chinese Americans who’re second and third generation American born, but from the refugees from Red China. These are the poorest of the poor, they’re living in one and two room apartments, 75% of the parents who are enrolling their children in this school cannot speak English. They are forcing the entire Chinese community to cooperate with this to the extent of providing some of the buildings, and incidentally, when they plan {?} the board of education went in and started securing leases on all buildings in the community that could be used for a school, to forestall any such efforts. However I think they’re going to get some class room space in a number of buildings in the community. {?}. But these people who could not speak English that have been here, most of them for very a short time, were telling their Chinese relatives and neighbors, don’t you see what’s happening? We’re seeing everything in this country as we saw it in China. The state is taking over more and more and it’s going to take over our children and it’s going to destroy the family. It’s the same thing, even though it is slower and they’re being nicer, but they were nice to us {?}. And through interpreters they’re telling this to America. And these people have virtually no money to pay five or ten dollars a month, to put their children in school is a big thing for them.

And the teachers will be working for nothing or for a few dollars a month, they have eleven hundred children already registered. The waiting list is six hundred, as soon as they can get class room space in some other buildings for more, and when I was there the phone was ringing steadily with Chinese parents having some who knew how to use a telephone ring up {?} and say their children were to be in the school. Now in any American community the reaction of people under such a circumstance, would be to start a school in just two, three weeks with such short notice, without any money, for people who have no money, is impossible. But it is being done. And it was really a staggering thing to see what they are doing. So it is creating quite a bit of fuss, it is focusing a lot of attention and what they have had to do every time they have a meeting is to try to have somebody stand at the door to keep out the press and the photographers and the TV camera men. {?} wanted to do a story of it, the politicians are all trying to get in on the act to interview them, but they found out already that their only purpose is to get into the publicity angle of it, and then to walk off doing nothing. The governor’s supposed to be there next week, but there won’t be a door open to him, by this time they’re fed up with that routine. So it has been quite interesting working with them, and it will be interesting to see what comes of this.

Are there any other announcements that need to be made? Alright. Let us bow our heads then for the benediction.

And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.