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today's dollar-value, in my own business as a magazine publisher's
advertising representative in Chicago.
In 1926 I was provoked and angered into a study of the
Bible--for the first time in my life. I had been brought up by
sincere and upright parents in a respected Protestant denomination.
My family had always been Quakers. My forebears had come to
America from England with William Penn--nearly a hundred years
before the United States became a nation. But, from age 18,
entering the advertising profession, I'm afraid religion was
neglectfully left behind. Advertising absorbed my whole heart,
soul, and interest. Actually, as a boy in Sunday school, I never
really knew what my church believed, or how its doctrines differed
from others.
But when I was goaded into an intensive study of the Bible, in
late 1926, I was shocked to see with my own eyes that the Bible did
not say what I had always supposed--or what most churchgoers
suppose! To my amazement, much supposed "Christian" teaching was
not to be found in the Bible--astoundingly, just the opposite! I
was bewildered, shaken! Simultaneously, I had undertaken a
thorough research into the generally accepted "scientific" theory
of evolution. I began to question the authenticity of the Bible--
even the existence of God!
Did God really exist, after all? Was the Bible HIS Message to
mankind? Now I had to know!
I delved further and intensively into science. I began to
learn things about the laws of radioactivity. I found PROOF that
there has been no past eternity of matter. Matter was CREATED--it
had a Creator! I studied everything on the origin and existence of
LIFE. Of the conservation of matter, force and energy. I sought
PROOF of the evolutionary theory. Instead of proof, I found it
absolutely disproved. By infallible proofs, I found the existence
of God--the divine, all-intelligent, all-powerful, personal
CREATOR--positively PROVED!
That was the starting point.
Next, I determined not to accept the Bible unless PROVED to be
the inspired revelation from God. And patient study and research
brought the PROOF ABSOLUTE! I found it PROVED to be the Maker's
INSTRUCTION BOOK regarding the product He had made--the human
family. I found it to be the very FOUNDATION of all knowledge--the
basic REVELATION of knowledge otherwise utterly inaccessible to
man! The basic FOUNDATION of knowledge is the answer to the
question: WHAT is man? WHY is he here? WHAT is the real PURPOSE
for human existence? Is there MEANING to life, and what is it?
WHAT is the way to happiness, success, and to PEACE between
individuals, between groups, between nations? WHAT are the laws
that produce well-being, continuous interest, prosperity, happiness
and joy? WHAT about the here, and the hereafter?
Science has no answer to these questions. The BIBLE has ALL
THE ANSWERS! The Bible, I found, NEEDS NO INTERPRETING. It
interprets itself! But men, I discovered, jumped the track of