Textual Index. There is nothing very glamorous about a textual index; it contains a large number of statistics, and it represents a great amount of tedious and painstaking labor. Yet a good index can be a very helpful item and a big time-saver for anyone doing research, especially over a span of 45 volumes of a periodical such as our Standard Bearer. Such an index (1970 issue), covering the first forty-five volumes of our magazine, has been prepared by Mr. T. Elzinga. By a rough estimate, there are close to 4000 entries in this textual index. The references are from all but one book of the Old Testament and all but two books of the New Testament. This not only gives the reader an idea of the range of Scripture passages covered in these forty-five volumes of The Standard Bearer, but also an indication of the value of a textual index for anyone who possesses part or all of these past volumes and who wishes to check up on what has been written on a given passage of Scripture. What is more, brother Elzinga is offering copies of this type-written index free of charge to those requesting such copies of him. For those interested, here is his address: 

Mr. T. Elzinga

567 West 19th St. 

Holland, Michigan 49423

Graduation. 

No, there was no seminary graduation this year; but this is written with a view to future seminary graduations. For there must have been several young men throughout our Protestant Reformed denomination who graduated from high school this year. Congratulations to you (and to the young women, too!) if you were among those graduates! But this is not really my point. Briefly, my point is to remind our young men to consider seriously whether the Lord directs you to prepare for the ministry in our churches. If you find that this is the case, then I urge you to lay some careful plans as to your future schooling,—whether you intend to take all your pre-seminary training in some college and to get a degree, or whether you intend to take at least part of your pre-seminary training in our own Protestant Reformed seminary. Find out what subjects you need in order to qualify for admission to the seminary. Consider the possibility of taking part of your pre-sem training in our seminary. Consult your pastor, or correspond with the seminary faculty. If you are curious about our seminary, write for a catalogue and/or “talk things over” with some of our present students. But I urge you: if you are looking toward seminary, plan your program of pre-sem work now!

Publication News. As announced earlier, the next big publishing project on the docket of our RFPA Publications Committee is a reprint of Rev. Herman Hoeksema’s 10-volume Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism. Work has been completed on correction of the typographical errors in the first three volumes of this work, and we will soon be ready to go to press with the first new volume. This first volume of the reprint will contain the first three volumes of the original set, namely: In the Midst of Death, God’s Way Out, andThe Death of the Son of God. This volume of approximately 700 pages will cover Lord’s Days 1-16 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Publication is scheduled now for early fall. We hope to follow this as soon as possible by Volume Two, which will include Volumes 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the original set; and Volume Three, which will include Volumes 8, 9, and 10 of the original set, will follow as soon as possible thereafter. When this is completed, this entire valuable set will again be available. Plans are to sell these at as reasonable a price as possible. Watch for further announcements and for a pre-publication sale!

Survey Suggestions. At our recent annual Staff Meeting our Survey Committee reported on the results of the mail survey of our readership which was taken this spring. Among the several valuable suggestions made by our readers were two which occurred several times. One was that The Standard Bearer should have a Question Box, and the other was that we should have an Open Forum. The staff is in favor of both of these items. But we also wish to remind our readers that we already have both of them. The difficulty is that there is only one group of persons able to activate these departments in our magazine, namely, YOU, THE READERS. A Question Box must have questions sent in before there can be answers. Please send them; we will do our best to answer! An Open Forum must have contributors; and these, too, are welcome—of course, within the rules of journalistic ethics and within the limits prescribed in the masthead in the inside front cover of every issue. Hence, it is up to YOU!

In this issue we welcome back to his old post in the Meditation Department the Rev. M. Schipper, after an absence of a few issues due to illness. We are thankful to the Lord that He has restored our brother to his labors in our churches and in our Standard Bearer.