a success. There is so much of the sensational placed before the general reader that we do not have a fair start; we are handicapped, and are forced to continually extol our virtues as an antidote for the poisonous lies which any sensationalist can give wide circulation. Shakespeare revealed an understanding of this very same tendency in human nature when he made Marc Antony say: "The evil that men do lives after them."

But even this necessity in advertising has a great value. It helps to keep us up to a very high point of efficiency. Almost every advertisement which we put out calls forth expressions of criticism. A man out in Missouri or Oregon or some other place reads that advertisement. He remembers some experience wherein he considers our performance has not lived up to the promise in our ad, and he writes in and calls attention to what he considers is our insincerity. He usually winds up with some such remark as this: "If you would pay less attention and less money for advertising, and more attention to your service, it would be better."

We welcome just such letters. We need to know when our product is falling below the standard we claim for it. Unfortunately, we are not manufacturing a product which can be inspected when it is finished and before it is placed upon the shelves for sale. We cannot see it, we cannot measure it with calipers to know that it comes up to the specifications, and therefore we welcome an honest statement from the man who knows that something is going wrong.

It has been said a good many times, but I must repeat here, that the corporation which I have the honor to represent and which spends large sums of money each year in national advertising, does not do so with the direct object of inducing people to subscribe for telephone service. Our President, Mr. Vail, has said to me over and over again: "You must keep out of your advertising anything in the nature of an invitation to purchase

telephone service; get away from the commercial idea." Well, that is a pretty hard thing to do, but we have conscientiously tried to do it.

We advertise in a national way because we serve a nation-wide public, and we want that public to know all about our business. We have intricate problems; we want the people to understand them. We have lofty purposes, and we are entitled to have them known. We have high ideals as to civic service, and you can readily understand that a corporation doing business in some 70,000 places in the United States needs some measure of sympathy from the public it is trying to serve, with its tremendous difficulties. We believe in some great fundamental principles as applicable to our business, such as the necessity for one policy as regards the general use and protection of every telephone in the United States. We believe in one system, because we cannot conceive of a nation-wide service being performed by numbers of unrelated companies. We believe in universal service, because the ultimate benefits incident to telephone service obviously cannot be given or received in a restricted territory.

Perhaps the one great test that can be applied to our national advertising is to consider whether or not it has made these problems, purposes, ideals, difficulties, principles and policies known throughout the United States. If it has made them known, and to the extent it has made them known, our national advertising has been a success, but if we have spent these large sums of money without that result, our national advertising has not accomplished the purpose we have had in mind.

Our national advertising campaign began in June, 1908. We will assume that the advertising has affected only the number of Bell telephones as shown in the annual reports of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The stations of our connecting companies, private line stations, etc., have been omitted in mak

ing up these figures.

For the 5 years of 1904 to 1908, inclusive, we gained 1,690,078 subscribers, and this gain was 1.72 telephones for each 100 of the total population of the United States. That was before our advertising campaign began.

Now let us take the period from 1909 to 1913, inclusive, omitting, as you will note, the years 1914 and 1915 in order to avoid the effect of abnormal conditions due to the European war. During these five years, while our advertising campaign was in progress, we gained 2,199,964 stations and that gain was 1.95 telephones per 100 of the total population of the country, so that during the period covered by our national advertising the gain in telephones was .23 of a telephone in every hundred of the total population of the United States greater than during the period when we were not advertising. If you will apply this .23 of one telephone in every 100 to the total population of this country, you will notice it represents a large number of telephones. And this gain was made in spite of the fact that the possibilities for new business were considerably less in the latter period than in the former period.

Suppose we consider a moment a comparison between the gains in Bell telephones during the five-year period contemporaneous with our national advertising, and the gain in telephones in the more important systems in Europe having government ownership during the same period. Let us take the years 1909 to 1913 inclusive. During that five-year period France gained 133,947 telephones, or .34 of a telephone per 100 of the population of the country. Switzerland in the same period gained 27,502 telephones, or .61 of a telephone per 100 of the total population of the country. The German Empire gained 568,781 telephones, or .75 of a telephone per 100 of total population of the country, while, as we have seen, in the United States the gain in Bell telephones alone was 2,199,964 telephones, or 1.95 telephones per 100 population, the gain in

Bell telephones in the United States. was over two and one-half times the gain in the German Empire, over three times the gain in Switzerland, and almost six times the gain in France.

Now, you may account for this difference in any way you choose. It would probably be impossible for anybody to assign all the causes both for the difference in the gain in the two periods which we have noted, and also for the differences in the gain between this country and the countries in Eu

rope.

I am going to venture to add just one more line of statistics to those I have already given you. All of you have probably been made aware that we have built a transcontinental telephone line extending from New York to San Francisco. It has been advertised in a national way by many different mediums, and this has had a very remarkable result on our long distance telephone business. In the past year the average length of haul of all the messages carried over the lines of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company has increased nearly twenty-five per cent. Is this not a truly remarkable result of the education which the people of the United States have received through advertising the invention and development of the necessary facilities for long distance telephony? There are probably few national advertising campaigns wherein it is as difficult to trace direct results as in that conducted by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, but the above facts speak for themselves.

Not only is it true that every article offered for the consumption of the human race must be advertised, but every great cause in which we are interested demands that same treatment. The intricate modern methods of production, transportation and communication and consumption have brought men closer together in mutual interests than ever before in the history of the world, with the result that that which affects one class of men or one nation or one locality of the world also af

fects every other class of men, every other nation, every other locality, and this makes necessary an accurate, complete knowledge of great causes and great events, no matter how far they may seem to be separated from our immediate environment.

our

We are in trouble in Mexico. It is necessary that some policy be adopted which will protect the people living along our southern borders in life and property. What shall that policy be? It is the duty of national Administration to advertise the reasons for the decision as it is to make the decision. We are so closely bound together in this country that we have the right to know the aims and purposes of the forces which are chasing a bandit, and it is necessary to advertise those aims and purposes in order to secure our cooperation.

What have the warring nations in Europe done in the last two years to convince their own people, the rest of the world, and God Almighty that the individual causes for war in each ration were the only just and righteous ones? It has been a matter of great moment to each of these governments to convince the people of the United States that each of the several national causes is the righteous one.

And how have they each tried to do it?

These governments, as you very well know, have all advertised. They have bought newspaper space, they have inspired magazine articles, and have sent out news-slips to individuals. Could there be a more striking example of the universal need for advertising? This certainly is national advertising, with the accent on the "national."

One of the objects of national advertising is the formation of public opinion. There is no autocratic government to-day. No government on earth would dare to enter upon war without feeling sure it could in some measure justify the act in the court of public opinion, and that is the reason for the tremendous investment which has been made in the advertising propaganda of foreign governments in this country.

National advertising secured the Panama-Pacific Exposition for San Francisco after all other methods of persuasion had been tried and a rival city had practically grasped the coveted honor.

National advertising has secured hundreds of manufacturing plants for cities which have made known in this way their advantages as manufacturing centers.

National advertising has improved methods of doing business in hundreds of different ways. It has taught many firms to know more about their own business in order that it might be intelligently advertised.

It is high time that the people of the world came to a realization of the tremendous scope of the advertising business of to-day. No longer is advertising to be considered as a superficial gloss upon business. It rather has to do with the very fundamental principles of every business. There is co-operation in this age-yes-but in order to share in the benefits of cooperation, every business man must cooperate. He must join this great university. He must adopt your method for the diffusion of knowledge. He must embrace your idealTRUTH.

MASTE

"That by two immutable things (His Word and His Oath), in which is was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the Hope set before us; which Hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil."-Hebrews 6.18, 19.

HERE is but one Hope set before the Church, says the Apostle in our text-the Hope presented in the Gospel of Christ. It is very important, then, that as Christians we understand what Hope is. Once we had such confused ideas respecting our Heavenly Father and His glorious Plan that we could not understand what constituted our Hope. Many supposed it was a Hope set before a few and a threat set before everybody else—the threat of endless torment. How we misunderstood "the God of all Grace and the Father of Mercies!" Now we can see that there is a glorious Hope for all who will come to love righteousness and hate iniquity, although the world's hope is not the Christian's hope.

The Hope set before the Church is the hope of reigning with Christ, as His joint-heirs, His Bride. (Romans 8:17, 1 John 3:2; 2 Peter 1:4.) It is the hope of attaining the Divine nature. This hope has been held out in advance of the blessings which will be proffered to the world later. The Church has no part in the hope of the world. But we have the admonition of our Lord and of His Apostles that

we "follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." We are enjoined to put off the works of darkness-anger, malice, hatred, strife and all other works of the flesh and of the Devil-and to put on meekness, gentleness, patience, brotherly kindness, love-the fruits of the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit.— Hebrews 12:14; Galatians 5:19-23.

First Intimation of Church's Hope.

The first intimation that God would raise up a class who would roll away the curse from Adam's race was given to Abraham. God said: "Abraham, I will call you My friend because of your faith." He could not call Abraham His son; for there could be no sons of God amongst the fallen race, because all were condemned to death in Adam. Not until the death sentence should be lifted from Adam's posterity could any of them become sons of God. Therefore, there were no human sons of God from Adam's day until our Lord Jesus came to earth a Man. He was the first human son of God after Adam. since the time when our Lord died a Sacrifice for human sin, a special class of humanity have been given the great privilege of becoming sons of God, as St. John tells us.-John 1:12.

But

had pronounced that curse, the Eternal One declared that it should be rolled away; for when He promised that a blessing should come to mankind, He implied that the death penalty should be removed.

It required great faith on Abraham's part to believe God in this matter. But he felt that in some manner God would roll away the curse. Put yourself into Abraham's place, and you will realize how remarkable this was. He knew that the death penalty was upon the race. After God had said that mankind should die, it was not easy to see how He could reverse His own sentence and declare that man should live! Would He say one thing at one time, and then two thousand years later say another? For a time there must have been great perplexity in Abraham's mind. But he appreciated God's promise.-Genesis 12:3; Romans 4:3.

And now, four thousand years after Abraham's time, we are proclaiming that same great Promise; for it has never yet been fulfilled. God promises to bless the whole world through Abraham's Seed. That Seed, the Apostle Paul assures us, is Christ and His Church. (Galatians 3:8, 16, 19.) The hope of being this Seed is the great Hope to which St. Paul refers in our text and its context.

Abraham's Two Seeds.

This Hope is based upon a comprehensive Promise; first, that the world was to be blessed; second, that this blessing was to come through Abraham's Seed. God showed that there would be two different seeds of Abraham; for He said, "Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven and as the sands of the seashore"-a Heavenly and an earthly seed, though the Heavenly was to be the Seed of blessing. -Genesis 22:15-18.

Four hundred and thirty years later, God said to the children of Israel, in substance, "You know that I promised your Father Abraham that through his Seed I would bless the world. As his natural seed, are you

ready to have that Promise fulfilled in you? If I bring you up out of Egypt, will you appreciate My will and do it?" And they replied: "We will." Then the Lord said: "I will give you My Law. If you cannot keep My Law you cannot be proper teachers and blessers of the world. I have promised to bless all mankind, and I will do it. As the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are you ready to be heirs of that Abrahamic Promise ?"

You remember that Moses read the Lord's Message of the Law to the people; and that they heard the blessing that should come upon them if they would keep the Law, and the condemnation that should come upon them if they failed to do so. Then the people said, "All these things will we do."Exodus 19:1-8.

God designed that the whole world should come to a knowledge of the fact that no fallen human being could possibly keep the letter of the Divine Law; for it is the measure of a perfect man's ability. But He dealt with the Israelites just as though they could do it. They had typical sacrifices. For sixteen hundred years they tried to keep that Law; yet year after year they failed to do so, and hence they failed to be the Seed of Abraham which was to bless the world. As St. Paul shows us, "By the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight." (Romans 3:20.) God was merely teaching them, and through them all of His intelligent creatures, that it is impossible for sinners to justify themselves in His sight. Therefore, it was impossible for any of them to bless the world.

Then, in due time, God sent forth His First-Begotten Son, the Logos, His great Mouthpiece. To Him the Father had made the proposition that if He would become a man, live awhile on earth amongst sinners, and accomplish a great work for mankind, He should afterwards be received back to greater glory than He had before He undertook this mission.

The Son knew that if the Father