April 1931
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wings, and, therefore, it is actually a “land shadowing with wings.” T h e Two K ings — of B easts , and B irds I should like to compare that thought with Ezekiel 38:13. Here you have an allusion, as many believe, re ferring to the British Empire: “Sheba and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil ? hast' thou gathered thy company to take a prey ? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?” “Tarshish and the young lions thereof”— that means that Tarshish is the old lion, or England, and that the colonies of Great Britain are the young lions. During the war, three times I saw that in picture form. It occurred in your magazine, Life. There was a picture there of an old lion followed by a group of young cubs, ranging in size. The old lion was labelled “England,” the next cub was “Canada,” the next “New Zealand,” etc., naming the various colonies of the British Empire. Just as the British Empire is symbolized by a lion, the king of beasts, so the United States is symbolized by an eagle, the king of birds. Therefore, I ' cannot help thinking that this passage refers to the United States. Is E gypt to be L inked w ith th e U nited S tates ? Now let us see if there is any connection between Egypt and the United States. I believe there is a very intimate connection. Perhaps the origin of your eagle was the winged disc. I do not know that that is the case; it may be so. I know how you got your flag, but I do not know how you got your national-emblem, the eagle. You will remember the first discovery of America by the Norsemen. They sailed from Greenland at a very memorable time in the world’s history. They went just at the end of the first thousand years after Christ, and that was a very memorable time. It was a period of great expectation, because men had got into their minds that it was the close of the age; that the world was coming to an end. Therefore, there was a great deal of excitement. In that very year, the Norsemen sailed away from Green land and came over to Massachussetts and to Canada. The records show that, when they came to this continent, they found it was inhabited. Where did the inhabitants come' from? The human race began in the Garden of Eden, somewhere in the region of Mesopotamia, and it is very easy to see how they spread all over Asia, Europe, and Africa. But how did the people ever get across the 3,000 miles to America ? And yet there they were! You remember that in 1492, about five hundred years later, Christopher Columbus, after great difficulty, found the means and the way by which he could try and seek, as be expected to find, India, by way of the Atlantic Ocean; but he landed in Central America. When he ar rived, he found the country inhabited. Where did these inhabitants come from? Some have thought they came from Asia. Some thought the American Indian was a product of the Mongol race. But I differ from that opin ion myself, and I want to show you what I think about the origin. You know there have been traditions that there was at one time a great island where the Atlantic Ocean now stands, and that that island was known as the Island of Atlantis. Plato refers to it again and again. He had received the belief by tradition. There was a very remote (Continued on page 158)
Gardens To me a garden brings An ecsatsy that sings, A stirring as of wings; Beauty of the breeze, Companionship with trees, And quiet peace—all these A garden means to me; And yet, 0 Christ, to Thee It meant Gethsemane!
WM—Martha Snell Nicholson.
this land is the land of Egypt. Yet I have tried to show you that it does not seem as though Egypt could possibly fill the bill in the present day; and the time to which this chapter refers is a time that is very near at hand. T h e E agle w ith S pread W ings as a S ymbol Believing that it refers to Egypt primarily, let-us see how this bears' upon the United States. Perhaps I ought to say that this prophecy does, to my mind, refer to the United States more probably than to Egypt. What is your national emblem? It is the eagle with spread wings. Everywhere you go in the United States you see this symbol. If the inference is right that it refers to the winged disc, it certainly refers much more to the eagle’s spread wing than it does to the winged disc. I asked one good Christian man what he thought of this expression, and he said it might possibly refer to air planes. If it did, you would have possibly the best claim to the fact, because it was here that the airplane, through the genius of the Wright brothers, was made useful; it was they who brought it to its present state of perfection and made it utilizable. Certainly the United States has the right to claim, as far as practicability is concerned, the invention of the airplane. I believe the expression refers to the spread eagle. While other countries have the eagle as their national em blem, no other country has, as far as I know, an eagle with spread wings. Mexico has an eagle with closed wings; Germany has an-eagle with closed wings and a double head; Austria has an eagle, but there again it has closed wings. The United States has an eagle with spread
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