Part Third

THE VEIL LIFTED FROM THE ABRAHAMIC NATIONS

"If I have told you of earthly things, and ye believe not. how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things" -- Jesus.

CHAPTER I

LOST ISRAEL AND THE FIRST OVERTURN LOCATED

The fact that a great nation, composed of ten tribes of the posterity of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is lost, or unidentified, among the nations of the world is well known to enlightened students of the Old Testament. This truth has been a source of such great mystery that it has both puzzled the minds and engaged the interest of men to such an extent that many of them who are the intellectual peers of the world have bent their best energies to the work of hunting for this lost nation.

Thus, for many years, devout minds have been inves­tigating secular and sacred history, as well as sacred prophecy, which must have become, or which must yet become, history. These men have carefully traced, not only the perfectly connected outlines, but also the de­tails of history. Hence they confidently assert there are no missing links in the chain of racial and national events.

A large per cent of the men who have been thus engaged are eminent in religious, historic and scientific research. Men who have called to their aid chronol­ogy, astronomy, archeology, ethnology, pyramidology and philology. Indeed, they have used any and every science that could throw any possible light upon this subject; for they have been irrepressible in their search after facts, and are men who purpose, for the truth's sake, that the Word of God shall be forced to stand every test, be it ever so crucial, that its own internal matter demands.

It is the consensus of opinion among this class of men, the number of whom is increasing daily, that the once-lost ten tribes of Israel are found. Be they right or wrong, we are sure of this one thing -- namely, that there is a race of people here amidst other races, who do not know their ancestral origin, and who possess all the distinguishing marks whereby the Scriptures declare the lost house of Joseph shall be found and recognized, not only by themselves, but by the rest of the nations of the earth.

Still, be this as it may, there is nothing for us to do now but to take up the thread of our story, which is a "scarlet" one and pertains to those members of the royal family whom we left on the throne of Israel, and who were holding the sceptre of David de facto, instead of the one to whom it belongs de jure, and to whom the Lord will give "it," and not the Sceptre which belongs to some other royal family, race or kingdom.

While dealing with the breach which occurred in the royal family -- which had been prophesied of, not only in the words which were uttered by the midwife, but by the peculiar manner of the birth of the Judah Tamar twins, which also had been used as a prophetic type or symbol -- we said nothing about the three over­turns which are a part of Ezekiel's prophecy concern­ing some of the chief details of this same breach.

One reason for this omission was that we could not give the proof concerning the location of that "goodly land" to which the royal branches, i.e., Judah's prince and David's princess, were carried, and in which they were "set," without making many points in proof of the present whereabouts of the still preserved seed, and the perpetuated Crown, Throne and Sceptre of David. For it was not our desire to give any such proof until we should first prove that the building and planting which Jeremiah's commission involved, had been ac­complished, and that the transfer of the crown had been made, that the high branch had been dethroned, and that another branch -- one equally high by birth, but "low," only in the sense of non-ruling, and be­cause of the law of primogeniture -- had been exalted by being enthroned.

Now, since we have shown that the Word of God emphatically declares these things to have been accom­plished, we are prepared to show that the three prophetic overturns took place, and that they took place in connection with these same royal ones, together with their succession, whom we have followed to a new country.

It is not possible to follow the history of these over­turns, nor to follow further the history of that branch of the royal family which came into power when the breach was made, and to do so independent of lost Israel; for it was to Israel that Jeremiah fled with the "king's daughters" -- the same people with whom the royal line of Zarah had been for more than a century prior to the time when Jeremiah joined them, and since that time. Nationally speaking, the fortunes and history of the Sceptre and Birthright have become one.

We must remember that the place where this prince and princess were planted was in the "Height of Israel"; that it was all the trees in the field of Israel that were to know the low tree had been exalted; that it was Israel, the dry tree, which is made to flourish, and that has been dry hitherto for lack of royal honors and royal blood, but now that a prince and princess of the blood are on the throne, the once dry tree doth flourish, but the former green tree, the Jewish king­dom -- not the nation -- is dried up.

We must remember that Israel is the ten-tribed nation, the Birthright people, whose ancient capital was Samaria, whose representative name is Ephraim, the second son of Joseph, to whom pertains the birthright; and that his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, were to "grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth," that they were finally to separate, Manasseh to become a great nation," and Ephraim to develop into many nations, a multitude of nations, or a company of na­tions, as it is variously given.

The first of these overturns is the one whose history we have essentially given while dealing with the pres­ervation of King Zedekiah's daughters, and is the overturn of the kingdom from Palestine to that goodly land, by the side of great waters, where it took root, grew, flourished and became a spreading vine.

A ripple of holy joy went pulsing through our heart when we found that the prophet had, in his riddle, used the expression, "spreading vine" in connection with Israel. The Hebrew word, sawrakh -- spreading, as here used, is defined in Strong's Exhaustive Concord­ance, "to extend, to spread, to stretch exceedingly, to extend even to excess." Thus this new country, this strange and unknown land, in which the royal remnant found the cast-out people of Israel, is the place from which it is declared that they shall spread out, that they shall exceedingly extend their borders and so fulfill their national destiny.

How perfectly this harmonizes with the promises concerning the "place" which the Lord made to David in connection with the promises concerning the per­petuity of his seed, throne and sceptre, and which was given at the same time, as follows: "Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime."

At this juncture we feel impelled, for fear you will not think it out for yourselves, to point out the fact that the Lord had cast Israel out of her land, and cast her afar off; and while going to that far-off land she was to be "sifted through the nations as corn is sifted in a sieve; but after they have reached their far-off destination, their God-appointed place, then they are to move no more. For it is in reference to this same casting out of the Ephraimic nation that Hosea de­clares: "The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince." But now, with this prophetic riddle fulfilled, their king is with them, and the monarchy of Israel is flourishing as a green, or living, tree.

Our next effort will be to find this far-off land, whose history has been one of spreading out -- yea, spreading out exceedingly, even excessively.

The very fact that the Jews have a record of the birth, call and commission of Jeremiah, and the his­tory of the execution of the first part of his commis­sion, i.e., the tearing down, rooting out and plucking up of the house and throne of David -- this, considered in the light of the fact that they can give no account of him after his sudden disappearance from among them, is evidence that he neither died nor completed his God-ordained task among them. And all the civ­ilized races of the world know that he did not build that seat of power, nor plant those royal scions among the Jews.

But since we find it on record that Jeremiah's work has been accomplished, we know that it must have been he who did it; even if his name is not mentioned in the Scriptural account of the doing of it. For God would not permit some other man to do that work, after having sanctified Jeremiah before he was born, and brought him into the world for that purpose. We must bear in mind the fact that the sacred account of the building and planting is in the form of a riddle or parable, and that metaphors instead of names are used for those concerned; the high and the low, the en­throned and the dethroned, the young twigs and the tender twigs, the planted and the planter. But we must remember also that the name of "Israel," the special national name of the ten-tribed kingdom, is mentioned as the receiver of the planted and enthroned pair. And since the historic testimony declares Jere­miah's work to have been accomplished in Israel, it is only in Israel that we may hope to find evidences of that fact.

This necessitates the finding of Joseph-Israel, and they shall be found, for God says they shall; and when they are found, manifestly, there must be found with them a branch of the Judah-Davidic family, who are their sovereigns.

Since the East is left in such utter darkness, not only as to the fate of Jeremiah and his little Royal Remnant, but also as to the destination of "the dis­persed" ten tribes, who had been lost, even to the Jews, so long before Christ came, that some of them thought that no person except the Messiah could go to them, or might even know where to find them, we must look elsewhere. Also, because of their lack of historic data concerning the completion of Jeremiah's work, and because his disappearance was almost as marvelous as was the translation of Elijah, they were ready to say that the Christ was Jeremiah, (Matt. 16:14). Their thought was, no doubt, that Jeremiah, like Elijah, was still alive, and that God would yet use him in connec­tion with the building and planting anew, or the res­toration of the kingdom among them, to which they looked forward with great anticipation and hope.

But, as we were saying, since there is no light in the East concerning these matters, let us scan the pages of prophecy to see if there are any straws which point West. And since it is said of straws that they show which way the wind blows, it will be well for us to know that Hosea gives a prophecy concerning Eph­raim, in which he declares: "Ephraim, followeth after an East wind." As an East wind is one which blows from the East and travels to the West, this makes it certain that Ephraim did not travel Eastward. For had he gone in an Easterly direction, he must needs have gone facing an East wind; then he surely went WEST. And since he was "cast afar off," he must be in the far-off West.

When Jehovah confirmed his promise to David con­cerning the perpetuity of his kingdom, throne, sceptre and house, and took oath by his holiness that he would not lie to him, he said: "I will set his hand [scepter] in the sea." The clues which the prophet Ezekiel gives in his riddle, as to the location of Israel and the royal pair, are, that it is "a land of traffic," that it has "good soil" and that it "brings forth branches"; that is, that it is fruitful and populous. We are told it has a "city of merchants," that "fowl of every wing dwell under the shadow of its branches," i. e., mixed, or various people dwell under the protection of its rulers; and that its location is by "great waters," which, for reasons that will become more and more apparent as we proceed, we affirm to be the Atlantic Ocean. For the Lord gives a message to Ephraim through Jeremiah, saying: "I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first born. Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him." In this declaration we find that the far-off home of Ephraim-Israel is in, not an island, but "the isles," i.e., a group of islands. Thus Ephraim, also, is located in the sea, in the isles afar off.

The prophet Isaiah, in the forty-ninth chapter, ad­dresses these same people, saying: "Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people from afar . . . . Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will [still in the future] be glorified." And when speaking, in the twelfth verse of this same chapter concerning the future return of this same people to Palestine, their former home, at which time he will be more fully glorified in them, the Lord causes the prophet to make proclamation: Behold, these shall come from far off, and lo, these from the north and from the west."

In the Hebrew there is no compound word for northwest as we use it; hence the expression north and west. There is a group of isles out in these "great waters," which are just as directly north-west from Palestine as the lines of latitude and longitude can lay them, namely, the British Isles. And we may just as well jump into the midst of our proofs at once, since that is the place where Ephraim-Israel shall chiefly be found. If not there, it is because they have "spread out," from these VERY ISLES, for it is a well-authenti­cated fact that Jeremiah went to Ireland, where he died, and that his grave is one of the well-known and proudly-named spots of that country, whose history is one of the mysteries of the world.

It is a well-known fact that the history of no coun­try on the face of the earth has so puzzled historians as that of Ireland. There is both a sacred and secular reason for this. The secular reason is that Ireland steps into the arena of history with a monarchical king­dom running in full blast, and men do not know how it got there. The sacred reason is because God has issued a mandate, saying: "KEEP SILENCE before me, O islands, and let the people renew their strength," (Isa. 41:1).

In the next verse the Lord asks the question: "Who raised up the righteous man from the EAST?" Then in the fourth verse he answers his own question, say­ing, "I the Lord, the first, and the last; I am he," and in the eighth verse of the same chapter, still addressing the dwellers in the isles, he says: "Thou art Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth." i.e., literally, from the rising of the sun, from the beginning, or from the East.

This statement, coming from such high authority, forever settles the question as to the origin of the peo­ples who dwell in those far-off northwest isles.

We have read many authors on the subject of the Hebrews in Ireland, who claim to have searched care­fully and critically through all available chronicles, records and histories and they all agree that a perusal of these various authorities is not only heavy reading, but that they are very obtuse, and that they are actually confusing, bewildering and tormenting to all who do not take the word of God as an ally in the work of unraveling their mysteries; for, all of these authorities do agree in stating the following facts:

1. About 585 B. C. a "notable man," an "important personage," a patriarch, a saint, an essentially import­ant someone, according to their various ways of put­ting it, came to Ulster, the most northern province of Ireland, accompanied by a princess, the daughter of an eastern king, and that in company with them was one Simon Brach, Breck, Brack, Barech, Berach, as it is differently spelled; and that this royal party brought with them many remarkable things. Among these was the harp, an ark and the wonderful stone called Lia­fail, or stone of destiny, of which we shall have much to say hereafter.

2. This eastern princess was married to King Herre­mon on condition, made by this notable patriarch, that he should abandon his former religion, and build a college for the prophets. This Herremon did, and the name of the school was Mur-Ollam, which is the name, both in Hebrew and Irish, for school of the prophets. He also changed the name of his capital city, Lothair -- sometimes spelled Cothair Croffin -- to that of Tara.

3. The name of this Eastern princess is given as Tea-Tephi, and it is a well-known fact that the royal arms of Ireland is the harp of David, and has been for two thousand and five hundred years.

Ezekiel in his riddle, when speaking of the coming of the female passenger who came to that land in the second vessel, whom he afterwards proves to be a princess, speaks of "the furrows of her plantation." It is a truth, and, to us, a marvelous one, that the prov­ince of Ulster used to be called the "Plantation of Ulster," as any one may know if they will take the trouble to consult Chamber's Encyclopedia on the word Ulster.

Further, the crown which was worn by the sover­eigns of that hitherto unaccounted-for kingdom in Ire­land had twelve points. Who shall say that "the king's daughter" was not planted there; and that the first of the three of Ezekiel's prophetic overturns was not from Palestine to Erin?