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FROM Rome we went on to Paris, and here met with the little

class of International Bible Students in that great city. I report

herewith a brief synopsis of that meeting.

Pastor Russell: I desire to talk to you a little while about the

story we have loved so long, and I am sure we will love it as

long as we remain loyal.

Anything that comes up which I think would be profitable to the

household of faith, you know I try to put before you in the

Watch Tower. The present journey that we have accomplished

thus far around the world has been one of great value from an

instructive standpoint. It has served to confirm various thoughts

that we already had in our minds respecting the heathen and the

Divine Plan. We found the heathen people in practically the

condition we expected to find them. Indeed, we were much

surprised to see a more favorable outlook than we had expected.

I do not mean that we found the people in better condition than

we expected, but that we found some more religious, in a deeper

sense than we had expected. I was telling the friends on the train

about some of our experiences in China--at Hong Kong. The

missionaries there opposed any proposition to hold a meeting,

trying to discourage the Chinese, but the Chinese saw that there

must be some reasons why there was such opposition and they

were independent enough to want to have a meeting. The result

of the matter was that we had four meetings. The first meeting

was for the Chinese only, and we had three Chinese ministers

and a professor of a college--the latter acting as interpreter. The

next night the Chinese wanted a meeting held for them in a little

church, and had a very interesting company of about three

hundred present, including a number of preachers. Then there

were two meetings for the English, which were fairly well

attended. As a result of the meeting we arranged there for the

translation of the discourses delivered and also for the

translation of the First Volume of the Scripture Studies, all to be

translated and printed. We asked the interpreter what he would

charge for doing this work, and to our surprise he said, This is a

work for the Lord, and we will not receive anything for it.

Another Chinese showed us some kindness and after the

meeting asked, When can you speak to us Catholic Chinese. He

said this message is not for Protestants only, but for Catholics

also. We had to tell him that we had no further meetings and

were very sorry for this, but that we would come again. One

result of our journey seems to be this, namely: That English-

speaking people of those countries and all people of Christian

lands have no ears or curiosity even to hear. They seem to be

fully engrossed in business and pleasure and have very little

interest in anything spiritual. We thought of the Master's words:

"Woe unto you who are rich now; for ye shall mourn." No doubt

the Millennial condition will be disadvantageous to them in

many ways, for they will not be able to get the advantage over

the common people. More and more we can see the significance

of our Lord's declaration that prosperity in the present life is not

really favorable to the High Calling. "Not many great, not many

wise, not many rich, but chiefly the poor of the world, rich in

faith," are heirs of the Kingdom. On the contrary, the natives

wherever we could obtain access to them seemed very amenable

to the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom. Some of the

Mohammedans inquired whether or not we could stop and talk

to them, and also some of the Buddhists and Syrians, and

singularly while in Greece many of the average Greek people

had an ear to hear the Truth, but some of the learned scoffed and

showed opposition.

On the whole, we go home with a feeling that the evidences are

in harmony with the time prophecies that nearly all are ready

and ripe, but the Lord seems to be giving the heathen an

opportunity. And as we hear from home we hear of strife in

England, Germany and America. All these things together seem

to be very convincing and corroborate even the time features of

our presentation. I remind you, nevertheless, that if the time

features should prove to be entirely erroneous--if nothing special

should happen in 1915--it still would not overthrow the Divine

Plan of the Ages; it is not

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merely the time we are worshiping and rejoicing in, but the

grand Plan of the Ages, even if it were 500 years ahead. My

thought is that the proper attitude would be to continue earnestly

serving the Lord until our change, whenever that should be. If I

should be here ten years from now, I hope I should be just as

zealous as today. And in line with this we will continue all of

our preparations for further service in publishing and

distributing just the same as though we were not living in 1912,

but in 1900. For instance, we have arranged for several millions

of free pamphlets to be printed in the Indian language, and in the

Chinese, and in the Japanese language. I heard recently that

there has been a shortage of free literature here in France. I am

sorry for this delay, but perhaps it will sharpen your appetites

and cause you to feel your privileges all the more. We are now

proceeding to at once get out more of this literature so that you

will all have plenty to do. We have circulated a great deal of

literature in Germany, Great Britain, Norway and Denmark, but

in France, Austria, Greece and Russia comparatively little has

been done. In Russia it is because we could not get in there. I

have been thinking over these countries and wondered if the

Lord would not open the way whereby they could get

something. The chief difficulty has been that we were not able

to circulate the literature. It seems to me that all those who are

willing to labor ought to have a sufficient amount of

ammunition with which to labor, and so we will see to that

hereafter. Having in view a great activity in the work here we

think of making some arrangements while on this journey for

this very matter, of which you will hear fully shortly.

I want to say again that we have enjoyed very much meeting

with you here and to see the spirit of the Lord manifested. May

the Lord's blessings be with you.

Then followed five-minute talks by various members of the

committee.

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