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Chapter VII.

The servants of God who were sealed.

After these things Bill's vision was seen standing upon the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that its deliverance should not destroy them, and truth spread upon the face of the waters, and blinking brutes, by their signs, symbols, and common terms, listened to the wireless touch.

2. And amongst them came the man and the hour clothed with the simplicity of a scientific truth, and cried mightily of things that could not be shaken, saying: Within my thoughts and my secret and sweet meditation I have meat to eat that you know not of, and my meat is my strength, and when I am strong I shall do the will of him that sent me, and shall finish his work. And by faith I have endured as seeing him who is invisible, and I speak these things declaring that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me.

3. Hurt no one until the seal of the living God hath branded their foreheads with my new learning, and it was ever true that the spirit of prophecy came not by the will of man, but that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the promptings of the cerebral.

4. The Jews, who were God's peculiar people, ceased to imagine that vain thing, and though a bad lot, there was indeed a miracle, and the leopard hath changed its coat, but some did freely assert that Bill's rod of iron brought about the change.

5. Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand usurers of the sixty per cent. brand, and of the tribe of Reuben and Gad were sealed twelve thousand frauds who dealt in shoddy.

6. And of the tribe of Aser, Nepthalim and Manasses there were sealed a like number of rogues.

7. And of Simeon, Levy, and Issacher there were sealed twelve thousand pawnbrokers let loose without handcuffs upon poverty and distress.

8. And of Zabulon, Joseph, and Benjamin there were twelve thousand hard cases busy circumventing the simple and unwary, and but for the crop that gave the coat also they would have starved. The soil they did not till, and from their brow no sweat did break.

9. After this I beheld things and sticks always with us, and I saw crowds of them which no man could number with more conscience and less cunning, and they were clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, saying: We have seen and considered that psychological substance which was seen and considered by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and sheep and men by their language signs were made high or low.

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10. And they cried from the north, south, east, and west for Bill's new interpretation, which was in human history a turning point and the spiritual evolution of mankind, and they praised God for his guidance into the new age, and likewise the lamb his interpreter, who was indeed the true comforter whom the Father did send when wars did drench the earth.

11. And men looked inwards to the hop, step and jump of their syllogism, and in this act they saw a new heaven and a new earth, and clear it was the world was put right and God had spoken and revealed himself to man.

12. And they did say amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be unto that which we have seen, and that which we have considered, for ever and ever, amen.

13. And one of the elders answered, saying: God hath chosen foolish, weak, base, and despised things to confound the wise and the mighty, and tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King, and doth reign by the realised presence of the son of mere man who stood in their midst, waiting to be cleansed, clothed, and crowned.

14. And these are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in an hard school of experience.

15. And they serve him day and night in his temple, and their quickening spirit doth but feed and fatten upon the just conclusions of other minds furnished with nomenclature of the best, and thus we have the spirit's sword by which it makes war on the natural mind, and hews it into the similitude of the mind of the spirit. Those so fed upon my hidden manna shall serve him day and night in his temple, and he that watcheth shall watch over their rapid operation of muscle and motion, and shall oil its machinery with his pure language, and they shall give the apple of their eye no rest until they find God's middle terra of truth and righteousness. And now it is done and is named, and is seen and is considered, and man is proud indeed that he is entrusted with good and evil, and those so trained shall fear God lest they offend in discharging that responsibility.

16. And they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, and shall be saved by that doctrine which is not mine, but his that sent me.

17. His new conception shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and humanity shall be extricated from that dense undergrowth in which it had got entangled, and that awful fog of doubt, difficulty, and despair, and it shall page 32 be clearly seen that reason, science, and common sense are opposed to miracles and to divine and perfect men, as also to that earthborn essence, the common term in man, living in realms of bliss beyond the skies for ever and ever.