The question is, “When a man sets out to be a priest, he must know that it’s not literal after years of study, and yet he teaches it?” Well, my dear, I think that is true of almost every profession, that man discovering the limitation of his own profession and finding himself beyond the point of changing professions, and living in a world of Caesar where rent must be paid and food bought, he continues to live the little lie. On the other hand, if you have all of this from above, from above the world of Caesar, you dare not violate it or you’ll be silenced forever. So they cannot, they cannot go out and be unfrocked. Many of them are. We don’t publicize how many people leave the church, you know, we only publicize the converts. But more people who become priests and ministers of the Protestant faith and rabbis leave it than remain in it. But they are never publicized, that’s the hush-hush, because why publicize it? Some become violent. A chap came to me in New York City and he was a priest here in this state for fourteen years. That night that he came he brought a raft of people with him, all whooping it up because he had left the Catholic Church and became violent in his opposition. Well, I didn’t approve of that at all. They were all for it, because they were opposed to it, too. And they were…I will not mention the “ism” that they joined— they were not Catholics—-but they were so glad that a Catholic priest would do what he did that they all sponsored him. They came in with rocks that big. They had all the wealth of the world hanging on them, and they were all behind him. Well, I didn’t approve of it at all. I told them that you’ve never heard Christianity and from the platform I taught. After the meeting he said, “I never heard this before.” I was speaking that night on forgiveness. Well, he had been forgiving people for fourteen years as a priest, but he had never known the art of forgiveness. Every time he saw them on the street thereafter he knew exactly what they confessed the day before or a year ago. He never changed any attitude in himself relative to the one that he supposedly forgave. He heard their confession and gloated in it; and then for all these years he remembered exactly what they said so he could hold it against them. He hadn’t once changed himself. So at the end of fourteen years he went berserk, drank like a fish, and that night that he came to the meeting he was really loaded. Came back the next night, came four times, then he sent me a book that he wrote. I won’t mention his name, because, undoubtedly, you’ve heard of the book. But that I don’t call…that is not Catholicism. If one hears the story and really believes it, you could be in any denomination in this world. I was reading today the great Disraeli and Disraeli was Prime Minister of England—- one of the greatest that England ever had—-and he became Lord Beaconsfield. Disraeli said that Christianity was the flower of Judaism. Well, here is the great Jew making that statement. He went beyond both and saw the whole thing as an unfolding drama in the mind of man. That was Disraeli. He never gave up Judaism, any more than Paul gave up Judaism. Paul never gave up…he saw the flower appearing on the tree. What is the purpose of a tree but to bear fruit. If it is a flower-bearing tree, a flower should appear; if it is a fruit-bearing tree, the fruit should appear. So here is the tree…well, what is the purpose of the tree? To either bear fruit or bear the flower. And Christianity is the bursting of the flower of all that was promised in Judaism. So if a priest doesn’t understand it…not everyone understands it…you’re taught it in a certain way and, alright, you believe that this thing is secular. It isn’t secular history at all, it’s salvation history. So I don’t condemn the priest who teaches it after he happened to discover it. Maybe he is too old to start afresh, he can’t get out. But many of them leave it and lose themselves in the crowd, many of them do. A few, like Luther, well, he became the symbol of the breaking through of all things. Luther is the giant in the Christian world. He reached the point he couldn’t take it and he broke through and left his mark behind him. But not everyone has the fire of a Luther to break through. They will just simply adjust themselves to the world. Any other questions, please?850 ¶51