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INTERESTING QUESTIONS ANSWERED

TOTTEN’S ONE YEAR MINISTRY

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Question.—Please state in what respect Prof. C. A. L. Totten is in error concerning the length of our Lord’s earthly ministry?

Answer.—One of the points made by Mr. Totten is that the lamb must be of the first year; and on this he builds his conviction that our Lord was in his first year at the time of his death; at the same time you (and so far as we know he also) reckon that our Lord did not die in his first year, but in his second year; that is to say, that his ministry, beginning in the fall, lasted at least for one and a half years. We, with many others, claim three and a half years, on the evidences. In any case it was not the first year, except in the way in which we regard the matter; viz., That our Lord’s sacrifice was made when he was exactly thirty years of age: this was his first year, and the very beginning of it. According to our understanding that was where the sacrifice was made and completed. There the human nature, typified by the bullock, was slain in the sense of consecration, by the new creature, typified by the priest. The subsequent work in the three and a half years of ministry was in the types represented by the taking of the blood into the “Holy,” the offering of the incense there, while the fat was being burned in the “Court,” and the offal outside the Camp, and all this sacrificing ceased when our Lord died at Calvary. But the point is that his death was reckoned to him from the very moment of consecration, just as it is the case with us: “Reckon ye yourselves dead indeed.” This is the only sense that we know of in which our Lord can be shown to have been the Lamb of the first year.

SATAN’S POWER OVER INSECT LIFE

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Question.—In an old WATCH TOWER the suggestion is made that Satan possesses some special power relating to insect life, etc. Are we to infer from this that your thought is that he has power to create life? and if so, by what authority?

Answer.—We had no thought that anyone would understand us to mean that Satan would have life-giving power, or power to create something out of nothing. The thought which we wished to convey is that just as a mule is hybrid, or a cross between the horse and a donkey, so various mixtures and conglomerations are possible, especially in the lower forms of life—insects,

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etc. Satan is probably much better informed on many of these than is mankind, and yet mankind has learned how to develop life in varied forms, and this is one of the studies amongst doctors, scientists, etc. They find various kinds of bacilli, for instance, and learn now that they can propagate these various species, and to some extent modify and alter them under various conditions. For instance, it is claimed by the best scientific men of the schools, that nearly all the diseases to which humanity is exposed are the result of evil species of animalculae. Similarly diseases in plant-life are caused frequently by little creatures, so small as to be only discernible with high-power microscopes.

We suggested that many of the insects of modern times, the pests which so greatly annoy farmers and gardeners, are probably developments of these infinitesimal or microscopic animals—developed into larger kinds and species, along lines which our adversary thoroughly understands.

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— September 15, 1902 —