This video is about a good fish landing site in the Philippines. It has many uses for the fishers, fish traders, vendors, processors, and other residents. The Community Fish Landing Center, or CFLC, is a project of the country's Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, or BIFAR. A CFLC is managed together by local fishing communities and the local government, having all services in one place can be helpful for the fisherfolk. The CFLC is a well-positioned, multi-purpose building that aims to give better access for fisherfolks to proper post-harvest facilities such as fish stalls and a loading area, among others. This will reduce post-harvest fish losses and with the end goal of improving the livelihood of poor fishing communities. The annual volume of loaded and unloaded fish and other by-catch in the CFLC during the last six years ranged from 300 to 500 metric tons. Based on the 2022 data, the CFLC benefits more than 3,000 municipal fishers, 800 municipal and commercial fishing boats, 58 fish retailers, and several traders. The construction of CFLC, of course, was supported by the BIFAR by providing all the necessary criteria for an ideal site for the fish landing site. BIFAR provided the design of the CFLC, which is also the design of all CFLCs constructed all over the Philippines. A good fish landing starts with an ideal location and a practical design. The one in Bingalan is a major jump-off and landing point for local fisherfowl and commercial fishers in the area. It can easily be accessed by concrete roads. The CFLC is mainly made of concrete, from its slab rooftop to its large posts. It also has a riprap or cemented loose stone that faces the ocean to protect the structure. The building is strong enough that even a Category 4 typhoon that hit Bingalan in 2020 did not damage it. The front part of the building is an open area for fisherfowl to sell and trade their catch. At the rear side of the building is one office room and comfort room with electrical and water connections provided by the Bingalan Water District. Local regulations have been passed to support the creation and management of the CFLC. These regulations provide the legal basis in the imposition of fees, co-management and profit sharing arrangements, as well as the administration of the day-to-day operations. Also, the beach area in front of the CFLC has been declared as the main landing and docking for local fisherfolk and commercial fishing boats. Other local regulations cover the transporting of fish and other aquatic products outside of the municipality and making sure their prices are affordable for the citizens of Bingalan. To make sure that the CFLC is well-managed, the local government has created the Fish Port Management Committee, or the FMC, through a local ordinance. The FMC is composed of representatives from both the public and private sectors, including the provincial office of the BIFAR. It is headed by the mayor. Here at the Community Fish Landing Center, there are different organizations involved. First is the local government, along with the retailers and business enterprises involved in fishing, as well as our fisher folks and boat owners. It is important to have a smooth relationship among them. If the community understands the benefits of having this site, they will follow the rules of the Community Fish Landing Center. The role of the FMC is to provide overall direction of its management. It approves long-term and short-term plans, recommends approval and disapproval of contracts, manages the staff, and develops CFLC day-to-day operation guidelines. But the day-to-day operations of the CFLC are handled by a small group of people. In our co-management, two groups take charge of the site. First is the local government unit. It has a manager, cashier, security personnel, and caretaker. We also have a cleaner. This ensures that the CFLC is clean every day. The collection for docking or loading and unloading are remitted to the office of the treasurer of the local government. The facility has many uses for fisher folk. Aside from docking for municipal, commercial, and passenger boats, the CFLC is an ideal place for post-harvest needs of fishers. These include unloading a fish from fishing boats, placing a fish on stainless steel tables, weighing a fish, loading of the fish to delivery trucks, selling and displaying seafood products, parking, and use of the rooftop. An open area of the second CFLC building has a venue for trainings and other activities. Reasonable fees ranging from 19 cents of a US dollar to 1 US dollar and 44 cents are collected for boat docking. 0.096 cents of a US dollar for the first 50 kilograms of fish and 0.0038 cents of a US dollar for every excess kilogram for loading and unloading a fish catch. 0.0019 cents of a US dollar per kilogram has transshipment fee or fee for loading a fish from the CFLC to a vehicle that will travel to a market outside of the town. And two US dollars and 88 cents per stall per month for stall rental for fish selling display and others. But the use of water for cleaning and use of the public toilet are for free. The second group that co-manages one of the two CFLC buildings is the Dingalan Fisherfolk Federation. It is made up of smaller fisherfolk associations and has around 10,000 members. Many of whom are fishermen who dock at the CFLC. The Federation makes sure that the transactions between the fisherfolk, the traders, and the CFLC management are smooth. Their goal is to acquire full management of the CFLC in the future. The Federation and the associations are very thankful for having the CFLC in our town because the docking of fish boats happens in just one area. So, fishing boats are not scattered when they unload their fish catch. We can call for buyers right away. Out of the total fish caught by a boat that arrives here, say 1,000 kilos, 10% of the catch is left for the Federation to sell to the local residents or to other buyers from neighboring towns as stated in one of our local regulations. That is why it is a huge help to us small-scale fishers. Another organization that benefits from the CFLC is the Dingalan Fish Vendors Association. Now, with over 100 members, they sell the fresh catch of the day in stalls between the first and second CFLC buildings. The fishers leave 10% of their catch, especially the small fish, here at the CFLC. Because the fish are already here, we no longer have to go elsewhere to look for fish. We can buy fish in bulk here. We can share the catch among ourselves. We don't need to travel far. All of us vendors are just in one place. The CFLC has been a big help to us. We get our regular source of fish here. Because of the CFLC, we no longer have to spend on fuel just to sell in other places. We no longer need to run after the fishermen. We also no longer need to beg the traders to spare us good fish. Here at the CFLC, we can buy fish in bulk even with very little capital. Whatever we used to spend for loan interest or cost for transportation now goes to our income. That is the big help that the CFLC has given to us. The CFLC management also encourages traders to be legally registered in the local government. They can also get a local transport permit at the site so that they could bring their fish to markets outside of Dingalan. The good site, together with a good management of the CFLC, has attracted six traders to use it for their processing operations. The CFLC has been a great relief for us because we could now load our fish in just one place. And the paperwork for transporting our fish can also be processed there. The management of the CFLC has also been very organized. They have taught us how to take care of our fish and to preserve its freshness as we bring it to the markets. Our work has become lighter because of them. The third people's organization known as SUKMIP, made up of wives of fishermen, are the sole users of the second building of the CFLC. They use it for their processing of fish products. The second building was awarded to Dingalan with funding from the Senate of the Philippines because of the outstanding performance of the management of the first CFLC building. SUKMIP handles the day-to-day processing operation, while the CFLC management handles costs for the electric bill, maintenance of equipment, and additional manpower. The CFLC has been a great help, especially our building here for the processing of various types of fish. The good thing about where we are is that we are near the docking area for the fish. After the fish are unloaded there, it's just a short walking distance of five meters. We can already get the fish that we will use for processing various types of sardines and tuna and other processed fishery products. We have a lot of equipment given by the government, such as a fish band saw, vacuum sealer, and freezers. It's now easier for us to process fish. Now, we earn 60% more than when we started in 2016. This has become an additional source of income for our family. On average, it takes about US$2,500 per year to run the Dingalan CFLC. According to the report from the management of the CFLC, it earns about US$2,000 per year, enough to cover its maintenance expenses. The rest of the cost of staff salaries is covered by the local government. To recap, a good fish landing site must have several qualities in order for it to benefit the local fishing industry. Aside from these, the site must be in an ideal location that can be easily reached by the community. It must also be made with strong materials, such as concrete, and be designed to make unloading, selling, and even processing of fish easy for the fisherfolk. It serves as a venue for monitoring boats and fishing gears, which discourages illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing activities. It also serves as a venue for various activities for fisherfolks. And lastly, it helps to easily record the fish species' landed and seasonality of parts. But to make sure that it becomes truly successful, there must be a good relationship between public and private organizations. Different government offices and fisherfolk organizations must work together to create regulations and systems to make sure that all parts of the facility are used well. This would help prevent fish losses, improve the income of fisherfolk, and help boost the fishing industry of a locality.


In business news, the federal government says it spent $1.68 billion on food importation from January to September last year. The Central Bank of Nigeria announced this in a report on sectoral utilization of foreign exchange for the third quarter of 2021. According to the CBN, the government spent $163.60 million, $197.73 million and $171.05 million in January, February and March respectively, while $156.30 million, $135.72 million and $213.58 million were spent in April, May and June respectively. The report further revealed that $184.69 million, $188.88 million and $271.59 million were spent in July, August and September respectively. During the bankers' committee retreat in Lagos recently, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Gadrin MFULA, said Nigeria could produce enough to feed its citizens, so the government was ensuring the diversification of the economy.


Gweld ydych chi'n gweithio ar y glas, a gweithio y 25 deilas o fynd ym 8 o'r cloch hefyd yn Londra. Rhywodd fel gyflawni gyda'r cyfraith cyflawni, ac mae hefyd yn cymryd ym mhwy, ac mae gennym ni'n gwaith o'r cyflawni gyda'r cyflawni gyda ymlawni gyda'r cyflawni gyda'r cyflawni gweithio. Rhaid oedd yn dod o'r gweithio, rhai ar gyfer y trogymniad, rhaid o'r amser yn ei ffordd i'r ysgol yn y maen nhw, i'r ynwedig i gael iechydig yn eich cyfrifodig, mae'n cael ei fod yn oed yn ei gws i'n mynd. Mae'r hyn yn lle i'r cyfrifodig, i'n cael ei gws i'r cyfrifodig iawn, ac i'r cyfrifodig iawn yn gweithgaredd, yn nid yw i chi mennyn i'r 150e handl, yr unbartho'n cyfrifodig i chi. Rwy'n cael ei gws i'n cyfrifodig iawn o'r cyfrifodig, a byddwn i'n gweithio'r cyfrifodig iawn mae'r cyfrifodig iawn yn y cael ei gwasg ddwyno, iawn. Ac hynny'n gwybod ni'n gwybod o'r ddau o'r cyflwydd, ac yn gwybod yn gwybod i'r rhan o'r fflusio'n gwybod a'r aww ddau yn gwybod o'r ddau, yn ystod o'r ymdilygu ar y pic. Rwy'n golygu o'r ddau, mae'r golygu o'r ddau o'r ddau o'r ddau o'r ddau o'r ddau i'r sefydig yn y ddysgu'r hanes yn y ddweud i'r fflusio yma ar y ddau oed. Er mwynhau fânwydau ar gwellachonau'n ddigodech gyda'r newydd Eran hynny'n hynny'n dweud gyda'r newydd yr hynny oherod oheron sy'n cael eu miliadau a gyda'r newydd gynnigau ar draws ofnol oheron oheron. Mae'r newydd oherwydd i'w daeth eich ddweud i'r newydd yn rhan, Gwyl pwysig i gydig o'r ddau sydd yn y gynllun yma i'r mynd i gydig oherwydd yma'r teimlo yn yr M20 a'r eich gweithio'n amser oedd Trump ac G yn ymweld. Ymddangos yn gwneud.  That has helped us to push higher. Wether we have a bit more room to go will come onto, but decent push here for Gold. I know that certain people, certainly at Ampify, will be happy to hear that. I know that Tomasso was in along and Will was in for a while. Let's have a quick look over that chart here.  Dwi'n gweithio yng Nghymru ar y 13 o augas. Mae'n gweithio'r llwyddo yn llwyddo yn llwyddo yn llwyddo yn y 2016 o'r 2017. felly gallai weithio yn defnyddio y fwnnedd yn ei bod yn ei ddweud mewn gwahanol. Mae'r drwy gwell yn y gweithio'r hwn dan o'r gweithio'n radiol yn y defnyddio'r reineidio'r gweithio sefydliadol i gael yng Nghaerran Gwunasol. mae'r d Arduino wedi'u cyhoesio cyhoesio, mynd i'ch bobl yn ei dda newid uch chi'n ddweud mae'r berthyn nhw'n dnat oha o'r lyrdegoedd yng nghymprigol, ac mae'n ddweud o'r tyni ac yn y Llywodraeth 2016 o-vr-e-n-dyn. The highest since May 2013 overnight, we're now trading on August 2013 levels on the futures. You can see just a few more dollars above and we'll be at that key level. Where do we go? Can we continue to push higher? I think there's going to be a number of factors determining that. If we have a look at the calendar for today just to identify possible moments where the dollar or otherwise may move. Certainly not in the morning. Then you've got Richard, Richmond Fed at three. I wouldn't be looking at that for gold, to be honest. So with Trump, any tweets on the Fed, another attack on the Fed yesterday helping to weak the dollar will come on to his tweets in a moment. But what is quite interesting here is looking at the speakers today. You've got quite a few from the Fed. You've got, looking here, 145, you've got Fed's Williams, you've got then Bostich, obviously Powell, which will be, for me, the second most important one before we go on to barking and then Bullard, the loan dissenter from last Wednesday's meeting speaking overnight, 11.30 scheduled here. Now those two there, Bullard and Powell, I think, could absolutely give us an opportunity to see where this market goes, not just the gold but the dollar in general. We have had some weakness certainly over the last few trading sessions and whether that continues or not, we may get a bit more of an indication here. Powell, who I mentioned speaking at six o'clock, is speaking at a council, sorry, on foreign regulations according to reports. He is expected to talk about big picture events, like the broader challenges of the Fed. So any comments regarding that will be key. He'll move the markets if he comments on what it is that policy makers are looking to determine whether they're going to cut in July or not. So certainly if you're trading the US dollar, come six o'clock, I would be, to be honest, unless it's a new, a relatively old trade, I would be looking to exit position certainly ahead of that. Bullard, who I do think could have more of a chance of moving things, he's speaking obviously later on and scheduled to speak at a round table dinner organised by MNI News. Without a specific topic, Bullard will be free to talk about whatever he wants and what data other members will be looking at when they make their interest rates decisions. So that will be something to focus on. Certainly as we go into the back end of the session, other than that, the calendar is relatively quiet. So it could be in not just those two that I mentioned, but you've got speakers from ECBs to Gwyn Dost in, well, just coming out now. So if anything comes out of significance, I'll let us know. He's just coming out here. Banks profitability prospects could dust be dampened. Yeah, nothing of note really for the euro. Just keeping an eye on that pivot as we are seeing a bit of a reversal. But then you've also got the multitude of Fed speakers and then ECBs per just 15 minutes after Powell as well. The main headlines overnight, certainly the one that will catch the attention is the new sanctions that have been placed on Iran. Previously, and we know this already, that the U.S. has sanctioned more than 80% of Iran's economy according to State Pompeii, who was mentioning this yesterday, who is visiting Saudi Arabia and the UAE to rally a front against Iran. I mean, if we just will come back to the headline here, but if we just have a quick look at at the markets here, you've got stocks at all time highs. Yes, we, I mean, you could argue from the high of today 58, we've done 11 points to where we're trading, you know, cash open does that. It's not the biggest reaction that we've seen. T-notes higher in the morning, but you know, nothing, you know, half that move has already been done and we're actually pretty much flat for the day given, you know, a few ticks here or there. Gold has been pushing higher and of course then you could then argue that it is a clear risk off move, but you've got the weakness of the dollar as well and what recovery by the way at six to only put us 15 bucks up for the day. So is this headline a game changer? For me, not quite yet. For me, not quite yet, but it will grab attention and certainly looking at stocks and safe havens, the continuation strategy if the highs or lows were to break could be the way to look at it. I just wouldn't be aggressively selling stocks right now, you know, rather let in the market, tell me what's what's going to go on. Trump has coupled his maximum pressure campaign of sanctions with invitations to sit down with Iranian leaders, so saying how they want to do a deal and they're willing to talk, but then going and placing the sanctions as well is quite ironic, I guess, from the US president and around didn't take to this too kindly saying you cannot start a dialogue with someone who is threatening you, who is intimidating you. Certainly we've heard that in similar talk from China as well and whether the G20 meeting goes ahead or not, this could help way on stocks into the back end of the week. This Iranian situation at the moment, I don't necessarily see escalating for now. Having a look at oil price as well, it is down actually on the day and pretty much bang in the middle, give or take a few cent of the week's range so far. I know albeit from yesterday and the high and low, but pretty much in the middle. So maybe looking for longs if we can break the highs on oil, but for now it seems relatively calm and under control. At the United Nations on Monday, this is when those comments from Iran were saying yesterday about how you can't do talks with someone who is threatening you, but even before the new penalties were announced, the US has applied sanctions to almost 1,000 Iranian entities including banks, individual ships and aircraft. A month ago, the Trump administration prohibited the purchase of Iranian iron, steel, aluminium and copper. This has been going on for a while so it's just adding fuel to the fire, but if we have a look back at how we've got here I wouldn't say stocks certainly are too bothered about this and their bigger concern for the moment is upcoming G20 and then the comments from the Fed and whether we're going to get a continuation of this dollar weakness or not and of course with equity rates looking like we're actually going to have a cut. Tensions spiked in the Gulf since May. We had the tanker Gulf of Oman of course that led to a brief rally in the price of oil. We did then recover that and now we're trading near 58 which for me is obviously a key level from where we talked about in the briefing yesterday. You know just having a look at this longer term, why is 58 important? Well actually it just needs a little bit of a refresh here, the chart. It just remove everything off here on the chart. Having a look here at oil you can see just those previous lows coming back from May this year before the push down in the last day of the month or the second last day. We're now back there. 58 dollars massively important. Can we close above there this week or is that going to be a short time top? I put it down to you know the importance of technicals right now. 55 was key you can see why from the high that we had on the 10th of June. The failure to make that new low on the 12 and we pushed on next key level to the upside certainly from just a support resistance point of view. 60 bucks also another psychological handle. So it seems in the balance for now and this story on Iran not enough just yet to help us push higher despite the fact that the dollar is weak which of course would help oil price. So yeah one to keep an eye on but not necessarily one to ignite things straight away. Trade G20 coming up. The headline from Bloomberg overnight Trump and G to seal a deal. Traders aren't holding their breath. The general consensus of course is that there is going to be a meeting. Trump's tweet caught the market off guard last week. We had a decent push higher helped by the dovish Fed but you can see really from if we have a look at the Monday last week where we were range bound here just to draw an X because I've got the trend line on. You know we have had a decent push from 2900 which offered a level of resistance in previous trade to Monday. We're now 46 points higher to the high. We were 69 points higher. So a decent push helped by the idea that there is going to at least be a meeting but not necessary that there's going to be a deal with the the dovishness of the Fed talk of two hikes like Anthony was mentioning last week. Trump can step up his hawkish rhetoric. He's done it with Iran. He can now absolutely do it with China. You know he was blacklisting more technology firms over the weekend so he knows what he's doing. I still stand by the fact that I think he's just shot a bit too early here with the positive China news obviously election year perhaps behind his thinking. Chinese equities if I can just bring those into picture. Here you can see the recovery that they have had since the idea that they're going to meet. The general consensus on Chinese equities according to some analysts is that they won't actually come under too much pressure of whatever happens at the talks or if there is even talks that said the downward price action wasn't too severe as the trade dispute escalate because institutional investors hadn't piled into emerging market rally in the first quarter. So while we would not advocate fully allocating back into high beta emerging market market equities and risk on given the real risks to growth the fundamental story nothing is screaming out to us to be fully defensive either. So other comments to to bear in mind and this article here does go through some of those here. Let me just bring that into picture. There was yeah I think that the uncertainty surrounding here we go I was going to say for the the article disappeared there for a moment but here are a few snippets of what people are viewing ahead of the meeting. Nobody is really expecting anything concrete. There's very slim chance that we'll get a solution to the trade issue. The market has already discounted bad news for a worst case scenario. Our position is to take a wait and see approach. We're waiting for things to get worse on a much larger scale before buying the dip. Brian Chen there I think a lot of people are certainly looking at that over the coming years. But this sentiment leading up into this meeting is pretty bad that they're not actually going to get anything done. The fact that they're talking is what's pushed prices higher. So even if they weren't no deal was struck and I don't think the market is expecting that just the fact that they're talking and Trump I'm sure will say they had constructive talks well stocks should remain pretty elevated. We did a quiz a little survey after the briefing yesterday on what the traders here believed the bias for US stocks would be this week and this was before the sanctions on Iran and the majority or the highest answer was that stocks would actually come lower. You could argue that a bit of that is just down to the fact that we are at these all-time highs again. It is a case of taking profit and regardless of what happens in the G20 we're not going to see a massive correction. If we were to see hawkish chap from the Fed and let's go back to that calendar Powell and Bullard may give that opportunity then sure we could drift that lower in stocks. But it seems that the rate cuts are now being priced in. It might even be that we're getting a double cut in one at July. That's just going to add to the fire to push this market higher with the dollar weakness G20. It seems as we're getting closer what was thought to be such a big event is actually now being brushed aside as not too much is expected. The opportunity for me will come on the flip side so you've got to think of it as really buying opportunity will come if they were to strike a deal. The chance of them doing that is low so therefore the reaction will be high and on the flip side if the talks go really badly and China and the US do what they did back in the beginning of May and say they're not going to come to any arrangement anytime soon and then stocks can come up. Anything in between talks going well progressing we had a good chat sideways movement and then let the Fed dictate where this market will go. That would be my opinion on things going forward. Also overnight headline wise Boris Johnson we've got to talk about Brexit. We've got to talk about the new PM or supposedly the favourite for the new PM Boris Johnson saying he's serious about no deal Brexit threat. So yesterday seeking to regain the momentum in the bid to become the next Prime Minister he was saying that we need to take the country out of the European Union on October even if a deal with the bloc had not been reached. We've heard this before but however you know in the build up to certainly the conservative voting he did lower his hawkish rhetoric a touch regarding no deal so just stepping it up a touch. However not influencing the pound too much at the moment the pound very much a case of maybe waiting sea to the back end of July when we have our new PM in place and more for now is getting dragged round by the US dollar. We'll have a look at the euro pounds slightly as there was a couple of reports regarding that. But Boris Johnson the former London mayor still the front runner in the race to succeed May. His comments were my pledge is to come out of the EU Halloween on the 31st of October and the way to get our friends and partners to understand how serious we are is finally I'm afraid to abandon the defeatism and the negativity that has unfolded us in great cloud for so long and prepare confidentially and seriously for a no deal outcome. He said he did not want the no deal outcome but it was necessary to go and put with that and prepare for it going forward all things that we've heard before. So with the headlines if we have a you know a bit of a recap you've got the well gold pushing higher dollar weakness and potentially a bit of risk off you'd have to say that that's fair enough. The Fed situation we've got speakers today so being aware certainly of power at six bullard this evening they're going to be the main ones to focus on. I think bullard will offer the best opportunity as it stands right now. The Iran situation risk off in the market oil not necessarily buying into it at the moment and is pretty much flat for the week very important area here you can see again 58 to keep an eye on where we close each day and week. The trade situation G20 as we drift down towards it not too much in the way of progress expected to be made. You have the two opportunities of a deal being reached or a deal not going to be reached for a very long time that's your opportunity for a trade there and then you've got Boris overnight stepping up the hawkish rhetoric nothing necessarily new but just a repeat or something that he hasn't said for a while. Quick look at the calendar just to wrap things up before we have a look at some of these markets you can see going through in the morning it's likely to be quiet like it was yesterday in the morning patient trade not looking to get too involved would be my advice even into the afternoon the only two bits of notice of data wise the Richmond Fed unlikely to move markets and the api work depends how out of line those inventories are. It's going to be about the speakers we've had to Gwindos not much in the way of movement from that again quiet until we come into the afternoon and fed speak and a bit of ECB from Kerr as well so that's going to be certainly from a schedule point of view the driver as well having a look at markets the the pound here we had a look at oil you can see the the pound certainly here against the euro perhaps looks like it is going to be topping out a touch we're almost reaching reaching north what we did reach north 90 which is again a key level from a breakdown that we had back in January last year it's been a strong push higher just looks like the from yeah literally as we then hit the low from the year on the fifth of the third and overnight over the weekend the sixth of May it's been one way traffic to the upside the last article I do want to just go over here is the pound looks even worse than the euro you got some analysts saying that it's likely to you know go to towards 92 pence per euro by year end about three percent below current levels and this is not great for those that are looking to go on their summer holidays if you look back from where we were in May percentage wise what I don't even want to look at this as I'm off to Madrid shortly 5% not looking too good for the pound however I think ahead of the 23rd 24th 22nd that sort of time where we're looking like we're going to have the the new PM that's when it's certainly scheduled for anyway not much can really be made in the way of progress so I think we can drift higher what happens from then on might be the opportunity to to get short euro pound or long the pound in that case from a gauge of sentiment certainly I find this very useful with the dollar pairs and just drawing up these trend lines here if we were to get below this trend line for example okay well the market might be telling me that we're now looking to come lower but for now certainly this market is favouring the upside key resistance so be keeping an eye on that hopefully we do not get another three percent move in this market higher as we go through the summer stocks certainly from the the EU open just recovering a touch and the the daxed only now four points below where it opened recovering some of that loss gold looking like it wants to have a note another go pushing that high euro held well on the pivot and the pound pushing higher for more technical reason has remained higher above what was its previous higher the day at 128 hope you all have a good trading day any questions as usual please do let me know and I'll catch you in the chat if not


Chapter 11 of Our Master—Thoughts for Salvationist about their Lord. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lauren Randall. Our Master—Thoughts for Salvationists about their Lord by Bramwell Booth. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord, Jonah chapter 2 verse 9. Work out your own salvation, Philippians chapter 2 verse 12. Salvation is of the Lord or not at all. It is a touch, a revelation, an inspiration, the life of God in the soul. It is not of man only, nor of that greatest of human forces, the will of man. But of God, and the will of God. It is not mere will, work, a sort of self-raising power. It is a redemption brought home by a personal redeemer, made visible, tangible, knowable to the soul redeemed in a definite transaction with the Lord. It brings forth its own fruits, carries with it the assurance of its own accomplishment. And is its own reward, it is impossible to declare too often or too plainly that salvation is of the Lord. And yet around us on every side are those who are relying upon something short of this new life. They have set up a sort of human virtue in the place of the God-life. They are slowly mastering their disordered passions. The base instigations of their lower nature are being thwarted. Greedy appetites which reign in others are in them compelled to serve. Animosities to cunning and falsehood, the fruits of which are only too apparent in the world at large. They watch and harass and pinch. Animosities and jealousies and envies. Those enemies of all kinds of peace are repressed if not controlled. And these followers of virtue go further than this. They aim at building up a character which can be called noble, or at least virtuous. When some succeed or appear to themselves to do so, they cultivate truth. Honesty is with them, whether as to their business or their social life, the best policy. They are just. They are temperate. By nature and by training they are kind and generous. So much so that it is as difficult to convict them of an unkindly act as it is easy to prove them more generous and liberal than many of the professed followers of Jesus. Often they are charitable, giving of their substance to the poor, not hard to please, considerate of their inferiors, patient with one another, in a very high sense they have true charity. And after long periods of struggle and lofty and faithful effort, they may be able to claim that they have developed a fine character. That by self-cultivation, and perhaps by a kind of self-redemption, they have produced a very beautiful and desirable being. I will not stay to inquire how far heart conceit and heart deceit may account for much of this, or to suggest that a great contrast may exist between the outer life and the unseen deeps within. I will admit for the moment that all is as stated and even more. But then, with much of grace and beauty, it may be trained and tutored in the ways of humility and virtue, able to live in the constant and kindly service of others, and devoted to truth and duty. With all these excellencies they may yet be dead while they live. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Generous, lovable, dutiful, honorable flesh, but only flesh. A chaste, and if you like to have it so, a useful life, but lifeless. A fine product of a lifetime of labor in the culture of the physical, intellectual, and moral powers. But after all, dead. For he that believeth not on the Son of God hath not life. In this view, the body, and in a larger degree the mind, becomes a sepulcher for the soul. All the attention given to education, to refinement, and culture, to the development of gifts, for instance, such as music, or inventive science, to the practice of self-restraint and the pursuit of morality, is so much attention to the casket that will perish, to the neglect of the eternal jewel that is enclosed. It may be possible to present a kindly, honest, law-abiding, agreeable life to our neighbors, to go through business and family life without rinding anything of great moment with which to condemn ourselves, to be thought even by those nearest to us, to be living up to a high standard of morality, and yet, for all this has to do with the casket only, to be dead all the while in trespasses and sins. The young man who should spend his fortune upon his tomb would be scarcely so great a fool as he who spends his life on those things in himself which are temporal, to the neglect of those which are eternal. Only think of the absurdity of devoting the splendid energy of youth and manhood, the grand force of will, the skill of genius, and the other gifts which commonly meant applied to their own advancement and success, to the adornment enriching an extension of one's grave. And yet this is very much the case of those of whom I am thinking. All their advances, whether in moral attainment, in personal achievement, or in worldly advantage, are at the best but enlargements and adornments of a tomb, and of a tomb destined itself to perish. Do I then discourage good works? Has man no part to play in his own deliverance? Is he after all only an animal, the mere creature of circumstance and natural law? Have I forgotten that faith without works is dead? No, I think not. I have but remembered that works without faith are dead also. The one extreme is as dangerous as the other. The legal mechanical observance of the rules of a right life, apart from a living faith in Christ, can no more renew the heart in holiness and righteousness than can a mere intellectual belief of certain facts about Christ, apart from working out his will, save the soul, or make it meet for the inheritance of the saints. In both cases, the verdict will be the same. The faith in the one is dead. The works in the other are also dead. The fact is, salvation is a two-fold work. It is of God. It is of man. Did God not will man salvation? He could not be saved. Thus man will his own salvation. He cannot be saved. God is free. Man also is free. He may set up a plan for saving himself, but no matter how perfect it will fail unless it have God for its center, and God, though he has devised the most infinitely complete and beautiful and costly scheme of redemption for man, will nonetheless fail unless the individual man wills to cooperate with him. Man is not a piece of clay which God can fashion as he likes. He is not even a harp out of which he can get what strains he will without regard to its strings. There is in man something, a force, an energy, which must act in union with God, and with which God must act in wonderful partnership if his will is to be accomplished. It is true, of course, that God does much for a man without his aid. I do not now refer to material blessings. He it is who gives us life and breath and all things, and gives them largely without our effort. But even in man God does much without his help. He calls. He stirs up conscience. He gives flashes of light to the most darkened heart. He softens by the hand of sorrow, and rebukes with the stripes of affliction. Memory, human affection, hope, ambition are all made means by the Holy Ghost to urge men to holiness. The ministry of goodness in others is so directed as to point multitudes to the way of the cross. But this will not provide the one thing needful. Instruction, clear views of the truth, belief in the facts of God's love and grace, admiration of salvation in other lives, even the desire to declare the gospel may all be present and yet the soul be dead. Dead in trespasses and sins, cursed, bound and corrupted by dead works. Just as the noblest and highest efforts of man towards his own salvation without the cooperating, life-giving work of God can result only in confusion and death. So the most powerful, gracious, long-suffering and tender yearnings in work of God for man's salvation without the cooperating will of man can result only in distress, disappointment, and death. Are you dead? Are you in either of these classes? Are you relying on God's mercy, waiting for some strange visitation from on high, depending with a faith which is merely of the mind upon some past work of Christ, but without the vital power of his mighty life in you? Filled with desires that are not realized, offering prayers that are not answered, striving at times to work out a law of goodness which you feel all the time is an impossibility for you? Living, so to speak, out of your element, like a fish out of water, that is death. Or are you, on the other hand, depending for salvation on your own labor to build up a good character and to live a decent, honorable, and honest life? Conscious of advance, but not of victory. The servant of a high ideal, but without liberty? The devotee of your own self? All the powers and qualities of your nature growing towards maturity except the powers of your soul. The casket, as life goes on, growing more and more adorned while the eternal spirit, the priceless jewel made to receive the likeness of God and enjoy him for ever, seems ever of less and less worth to you? That also is death. The man who is in either class is dead while he lives. He is a walking mortuary. CHAPTER XII OF OUR MASTER THOUGHTS FOR SALVATIONIST ABOUT THEIR LORD. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Hirsch. OUR MASTER THOUGHTS FOR SALVATIONIST ABOUT THEIR LORD BY BRAHMWELL BOOTH. CHAPTER XII. SELF-DENIAL. IF ANY MAN WILL COME AFTER ME, LET HIM DENY HIMSELF, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME. MATHEW 1624. It is a striking thought that self-denial is, perhaps, the only service that a man can render to God without the aid or cooperation of something or someone outside himself. No matter what he does, unless it be to pray, which would hardly be included in the idea of service, he is more or less dependent upon either the assistance or presence of others. If, for example, he speaks or sings for God, whether in public or in private, he must have hearers. If he writes, it is that he may have readers. If he teaches, he needs scholars. If he distributes gifts, there must be receivers of his charity. If he leads souls to Christ, these souls must be willing to come. If he suffers persecution, there must be persecutors. Or if, like Stephen, he is called to die for his Lord, there must be those who stone him and others who stand by consenting to his death. A few moments' consideration will, I think, also show that even in the sphere of our personal spiritual experience it is very much the same. We can, after all, do but little for ourselves. Salvation comes to men through human instrumentality and seldom apart from it. We are, I know, saved by faith. But how shall we believe unless we hear? And how shall we hear without a preacher? That instruction on the things of God, which is a necessity for every true child of God, comes almost invariably by the agency or through the experiences of others. The joy and consolation of fellowship can only be the result of communion with the saints. In spiritual things, as in ordinary affairs, it is the countenance of his friend which quickens and brightens the tired toiler as iron-sharpeneth iron. And though it is true that God can and often does wonderfully teach and inspire his people without the direct aid of any human agent, it is equally true that he generally does so by the employment of his word which he has revealed to men or by the recalling of some message which has already been received into the mind and heart. Where does this in the least detract from our absolute dependence upon him? The man who crosses the Atlantic in a steamship is no less dependent on the sea because he employs the vessel for his journey. We are no less dependent upon the earth for our sustenance because we only partake of the wheat after it has been ground into flour and made into bread. And so we are no less dependent upon God because he has been pleased to employ various humble and simple instruments to save and teach and guide us. After full allowance has been made for the power and influence of intervening agencies, it is in him we really live and move and have our being. But I return to my first word. There is one kind of service open to all, irrespective of circumstances and gifts, which can be rendered to God without the intervention of anyone. In this we may truly call self-denial. Much that quite properly comes under that description need never, probably will never, be known to anyone but God. It may be a holy sacrament indeed, kept between the soul and its Lord alone. 1. There is the denial of all that remains of evil in us. How many sincere souls, when they look into their own hearts, find to their horror evil in them where they least expected it? Find them part stone, when they should be all flesh. Find them bound to earth and the love of earthly things, when they should be free from the world and the love of the world. Find them occupied, alas, so often with idols and heartlusts, when God alone ought to rule and reign. Here is a sphere for self-denial. Here is a service to be rendered to God, which will be very acceptable to him, in which you alone can perform. And if you with thus deny yourself, then examine yourself. Study the evils of your own nature. Recognize sin. Call it by its right name when you speak of it in the solitude of your own heart. If there are the remains of the deadly poison in you, say so to God, and keep on saying so with holy importunity. Pass your sins, attack them as the farmer attacks the poison plant among his crops, or the worms and flies which will blight his harvest, in which, unless he can ruin them, he knows full well will ruin him. That is the perfect self-denial. To cut off the right hand, and to pluck out and cast away what is dear as the right eye, if it offend against the law of purity and truth and love. But you yourself are to do it. Do not say you cannot, for you alone can. If you would be his disciple, his holy, loving, pure, worthy disciple, you must deny yourself. Cry to him for help as much as you will. You cannot cry too often or too long. But you must do more than that.  Pinch and harass and refuse your own inward sins, and expose them to the light of God. Confess them without ceasing, mortify them without mercy, and slay them and give no quarter. Say and say in earnest, O how I hate these lusts of mine that crucified my God. These sins that pierced and nailed his flesh fast to the fatal wood.  My soul has so decreed, I will not longer spare the things that made my Savior bleed. Whilst with a melting broken heart my murdered Lord I view, I'll raise revenge against my sins and slay the murderers too. Too! There are denials of the will. Human nature is a collection of likes and dislikes. The great mass of men are governed by their preferences. What they like, they strive after. What they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love, which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now true self-denial is the denial for Christ's sake and the sake of souls of these preferences. To say to God, I sacrifice my way for thy way, my wish for thy wish, my will for thy will, my plan for thy plan, my life for thy life. This is self-denial. Nothing can be more acceptable to a good father's heart than the knowledge that his son, living and laboring far away from him amid difficulties and opposition, is courageously sacrificing his own preferences, and faithfully seeking to carry out his, the father's, will. In such a son, that father sees a reproduction of all that is strongest and best in his own nature. And so it is with the heavenly father. No greater joy can be his than to see the resolute surrender of his children's own will to his, and the daily denial of their hopes and plans for themselves and theirs in favor of his plans. 3. There are denials of the affections. The precious things of earth, the mother's tender care, the father's faith and prayer, from thee have birth. And just because love is of such high origin and is the greatest power in human life, it is often captured and held by the devil as his last stronghold against God. The heart is at once the strongest and the most sensitive part of our nature, and it is here, therefore, that we often find the most blessed and profitable opportunities for self-denial. That pleasant companionship, so grateful, so fruitful of joy, and yet so likely to tempt me from the path of faithful service, Lord, I deny myself of it. That mastering affection for wife, or husband, or children, so beautiful in its strength and simplicity, and yet so exacting in its claims, Lord, I deny myself of the abandonment to which it invites me. I put it in its proper place, second to thee, and to the work thou hast given me to do. That love of home and friends and circle, which is so powerful a factor in life, and enters so constantly into all the arrangements and details of our conduct, influencing so largely all real plans for doing God's work. Lord, I will deny it when it is in danger of lessening my labours for thee and thy kingdom. The pleasant hour, the quiet evening, the restful book. I will lay them at thy feet for thy sake when they hinder me doing thy will. It is between me and thee alone. It is the sacrifice of love. How precious it must be to God to see such self-denial. When the true lover sees the woman he has chosen, leaving all for his sake, calmly laying down the love of father and family, and even braving the rebuffs and unkindnesses of those from whom before she has known nothing but affection, in order that she may give him her whole heart and life, how strong become the cords which bind him to her. Every sacrifice she makes for his sake forges another bond which will not easily be broken. Then is the Lord a man that he should be behind us in loving, within everlasting love, those who thus give up and deny their own loves for him? No, a thousand times no. He will repay. Every self-denial is a seedling rich with future joys, for it is indeed true that he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will give him the morning star. For there are denials with reference to our gifts. Look not, says the apostle, every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. That is, even in the exercise of his choicest gifts and graces, let a man forget his own in his desire to employ and bring forward the gifts of others. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in the lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. That is, in your own mind take a humble view of yourself, your own powers and your own worthiness, and hold your comrades in higher esteem than you hold yourself, in honor preferring one another to yourself. That would be a very real self-denial to some people. Recompense to no man evil for evil, though you know he well deserves it. Avenge not yourselves. If thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. That is, deny yourself of your own joys, that you may enter into the sorrow of others, and lay aside your own sorrows and tears, and silence your own breaking heart, when you can help others by entering with joy into their joys. You will see, beloved, that all this is work which no one can do for you, and that it is in a very true sense high service to God as well as to man. How then is it with you? Are you a self-denying disciple? If not, beware, lest it should shortly appear that you are not a disciple at all. CHAPTER XIII. And while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were holding that they should not know him. Luke chapter 24 verses 15 and 16. 1. The Knifegrinder. The only person in the house except for the man and his wife was a young domestic servant, a soldier of the Salvation Army. Her employers were generally drinking, when they were not asleep. And the drinking led to the most dreadful quarreling. Disgusting orgies of one kind or another were of almost daily occurrence and such. Visitors as came to the house only added fuel to the fiery furnace of passion and frenzy through which the girl was called to walk. Since that happy Sunday afternoon, two years ago, when she gave herself to God in the wholesome village from which she came, the meetings and the opportunity given her by the army, of doing some work for other souls had been a bright light in her life. Little by little religion had come to have for her something of the same meaning it had for St. Paul. Though I fear she knew very little of St. Paul, or of the great and wise things he wrote, domestic service has seldom favourable to the study of the scriptures. But the same spirit which led the great apostle to confer not with flesh and blood, and which took him into Arabia before he went to Jerusalem, was leading this quiet country maiden to see that to be a follower of Christ means something more than to win a fleeting happiness in this life and a kind of pension in the next. She was beginning to understand that to be really Christ's means also to be a Christ, that to be his one must seek for the lost sheep for whom he died. And so Rhoda, I call her Rhoda, though that was not her name, when she found to what sort of people she had in her ignorance of the great city engaged herself, had set to work to seek their salvation. Many very good people would probably think that she would have been a wiser girl to have gone elsewhere, that the risks of such a position were very great and so on. No doubt. But the light of a great truth was rising in Rhoda's heart in mind. She perceived in her very danger an opportunity to prove her love for her Savior by risking something for the souls of those two besotted creatures for whom she dared to think he really died. And so day after day she toiled for them. Night after night she prayed for them. And in her sober moments the wreck of a woman hermistress wept loud in her slobbering way and talked to the days long, long ago, when she, too, believed in the things that are good. The first flush of novelty in the sense of doing an unselfish thing for God wore away, and presently Rhoda's real trial began. The drinking and fighting grew worse, and the difficulty of getting out to a meeting grew greater. Gradually the weary body robbed the struggling soul of its time to pray, and worst of all by slow degrees Rhoda's faith was shaken, for her prayers, her agonizing prayers, on behalf of those dark souls were only too manifestly not answered. Was it worth while after all troubling about sinners? Was it her affair? Why should she care? What use could it be to become an officer in order to seek the many if God did not hearken to her cry for the few? One day the captain of the court, which Rhoda Balon called, and seemed greed with her for neglecting the meetings. This was a heavy blow. She could not or would not explain, and when that night, in the midst of a drunken brawl her master struck her in the face, hard and flesh both failed, and she determined to say no more about salvation and to abandon all profession of religion. That night seemed long and dark, and when at last sleep came, the pillow was wet with tears of anguish, of anger and of pride. Scissors to mend, to mend, to mend, the monotonous calls of London hawkers for a strange mixture of sounds, at one moment attractive, at another repelling, they are perhaps more like the cry of a bird in distress than anything else. Rhoda looked at her woodchopper as the knife grinder came nearer to the house, and as he passed, beckoned him and gave it to him. She made no remark. He was rough and grimy, and his torn coat gave him an appearance of misery, which his face rather belied. She was miserable enough, and made no reply to his cheery good morning. Presently the axe was sharpened, and the man brought it to the door. She paid him. Thank you, he said, and then, with kindly abruptness, excuse me, but I see you have been crying. Do you ever pray? And after a silence, God answers prayer, though he may not do it our way. He did it for me. I was a drunkard, but my mother's prayers are answered now, and I belong to the Salvation Army. Do you know any of them? Oh, they just live by prayer. Rhoda stood in silence, listening to the strange man, till she ceased to hear him, and looking at him till she ceased to see him. Another presence and another voice was there. It was the Christ. Rhoda was delivered. She is still fighting for souls, and loves most to do it, where Satan's seed is. But the knife grinder never knew. Two. A kiss. The heat and smell in the narrow slum were worse than usual. A hot Saturday night in midsummer is a bad time in the slums, and worse in the slum public houses. It was so on the night I speak of, in and out of the suffocating bar the dirty stream of humanity came and went. Men who had ceased long ago to be anything but beasts, women with tiny white children in their bony arms, boys and girls sipping the nafta of perdition, and talking the talk of fools, lewd and foul-mouthed women of the streets all hustled and jostled one another, and sang and swore and bandied horrid words with the bar men. And all the while they drank and drank and drank. The atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with the dust and tobacco smoke, and little by little the flaming gas jets burned up the oxygen till my midnight the place was all but unendurable. Among the last to go was a woman of the town, who betook herself with a bottle of whiskey to a low lodging-house hard by. There she drank and quartile with such vehemence that in the early hours of the morning the deputy, as the guardian of order is called in these houses, picked her up and threw her into the gutter outside.  Another woman chanced that way, young, beautiful, like-in-form in spirit, and touched with the far-offness of many who walk with Christ. She hastened to the early Sunday morning service there to join her prayers with others, seeking strength to win the souls of men. What is that? She asked her friend as they passed. That replied the other as a drunken woman, unclean and outcast. In a moment the salvationist knelt upon the stones and kissed the battered face of the poor wanderer. Who is that? What did you do? said the Magdalene. Why did you kiss me? Nobody ever kissed me since my mother died. It was the Christ. That kiss won a heart to him. Three. A promotion. Henry James was coming rapidly in his employer's favour. Thoughtful, obliging, attentive to details, anxious to please, and above all, thoroughly reliable in word indeed he was a first-class servant, an exemplary salvationist. In the court at which he belonged he stood high in the esteem both of the local officers and the soldiers. And there was no more welcome speaker in the open air or more successful fisher in the centre's meetings than young James. The question of his future was beginning to occupy a good deal of attention. Aught he to offer himself for officership in the army? He was very far from decided either one way or the other, when one evening at the close of business his master sent for him. He expressed his pleasure at the progress James was making and offered him a greatly improved position. The mangership of a branch establishment was certain privileges as to ours, an immediate and considerable advance in salary and the prospect of a still more profitable position in the future. There was really only one condition required of him. He must live in premises adjoining the new venture and he must not come to and fro in the uniform of the army. His employers had a high esteem for the salvation army. It was a noble work and their opinion of it had risen since they had employed one or two of its soldiers. But business was business and the uniform going in and out would not help business and so forth. The young man hesitated and to the senior partner's surprise asked for a week to consider. During the week there were consultations with almost everyone he knew. The majority of his own friends had decidedly accept. A few salvationists of the weaker sort said yes take it you will in the end be able to do more for God and give the army more time, more money, more influence. On the other hand the captain and the older local officers answered no. It is a compromise of principle. The uniform is only the symbol of out and out testimony for Christ. You put it on in a holy covenant with him. You cannot take it off especially for your own advantage without breaking that covenant, don't. James promised himself quite sincerely no doubt that it should not be so with him and on the appointed day informed the firm that he accepted their proposal. The new enterprise was a success. Everything turned out better than was expected. At the end of six months the new manager received a cordial letter of thanks from the firm and a hint to further developments. But Henry James was an unhappy man. He had gained so much that he was always asking himself how it came about, that he seemed to have lost so much more, position, prospects, opportunity, money. These were all enhanced, and yet he went everywhere with a sense of loss, burdened with the consciousness of having parted with more than he had received in return. As a man of business, the impression at first took the form of a business estimate in his mind. Yes, that was it. He had secured a high, a very high price, that evening in the counting-house when the partners waited for his answer. He had parted with something he had, in fact sold something. It was the Christ. It proved a ruinous transaction. End of CHAPTER XIII our master thoughts for salvationists about their Lord. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Hirsch. Our Master Thoughts for Salvationists About Their Lord by Bremwell Booth CHAPTER XIV Ever the Same A New Year's greeting. Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And he changes the times and the seasons. CHAPTER II VS. 20 & 21 I am the Lord. I change not. Malachi III V6 He changes the time and the seasons. What a beautiful thought it is. Instead of the hard compulsion of some inexorable and unchanging law, fixing summer where it must, and planting winter in our midst whether it be well or ill. Here is the sweet assurance that the seasons change at his command, and that the winds and the waves obey him. It is not some abstract and unknowable force taking no account of us and ours, with whom we have to do, but a living and ruling father. He who maketh small the drops of water that pour down rain. He who shuts up the sea with doors, and says, Here shall thy proud waves be stayed. He who maketh the south winds to blow, and by whose breath the frost is given. He who teaches the swallow to know the time of her coming, and has made both summer and winter, and the day and the night his servants. He is our Father. How precious it is to feel that our times are in his hands, and to know that whether the year be young or old, he will fill it with mercy and crown it with loving kindness. Do not be deceived by the modern talk about the laws of nature, into forgetting that they are the laws ordained by your Father for the fulfillment of his will. Every day that dawns is as truly God's day as was the first one. Every night that draws its sable mantle over a silent world sets a seal to the knowledge of God whom maketh the darkness. Behind the mighty forces and the ceaseless activities around us stands the sovereign of them all, the hand of him who never slumbers is on the levers. The earth is the Lord's, and his chosen portion is his people. And when he changes the times and the seasons, he fits the one to the other. It is with some such thoughts as these that I send out a brief New Year's greeting to my friends. I wish them a Happy New Year, because I feel that God has sent it, that he wills it to be a Happy New Year, a Good Year, that in all the changes it may bring, he will be planning with highest benevolence for their truest welfare. Whether therefore it holds for them sorrow or joy, it will be a year of mercy, a year of grace, a year of love. Blessed be God for ever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. He revealeth the deep and secret things. He knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. Let us then go forward in fear not. Man material changes. All things that touch the life of man are marked for change. As knowledge advances and men come nearer to the secrets of the world in which they live, they find how true indeed it is that man is but a shadow dwelling in a world of shadows. Everything is changing. Everything but God. The sun, the astronomers tell us, is burning itself away. The mountains, say the geologists, are not so high as they once were. Their lofty summits are sliding down their sides year by year. The everlasting hills are only everlasting in a figure, for they too are crumbling day by day. The hardest rocks are softening into soil every season, and we are actually eating them up in our daily bread. The hills are shadows, and they flow from form to form, and nothing stands. They melt like mists, the solid lands. Like clouds they shape themselves and go. The great ocean currents are changing. Most regions of the earth's surface are being changed with them, and time is writing wrinkles on the whole world and all that is therein. But above it all I see one standing, my unchanging God. Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest, and they shall all wax old as doth a garment, and as a vestured shall thou fold them up, and they shall be changed, but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. What a contrast there is between the worker and his work, between the creator and the creature. We see it in a thousand things, but in none is it so manifest for the wafering man or written so large upon the fading draperies of time as in this. They shall perish, but thou remainest. And greater changes yet seem to lie ahead. A universal instinct points to the time of the restitution of all things. The whole creation growneth and travaileth in pain together waiting, and it has been a long weary waiting for deliverance. But the day of the Lord will come, as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. And his vision John saw, as it were, a picture of that final change. Lo, he says, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair. It looks as though the wise men who say it will burn itself out are right. And the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind, and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. What a combination of astounding catastrophes is here. Earth and stars are to meet in awful shock, sun and moon to fail, cloud and sky to disappear. The elements to melt with fervent heat, a world on fire. But above it all, the lamb that was slain will take his place upon the throne, unmoved, unchanged, amidst the tumult of dissolving worlds. My God, my Savior, in thine unchanging love I put my trust. Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are my glorious dress. Its flaming worlds in these arrayed with joy shall I lift up my head. Two, changes of association. But far reaching, as are the changes in our material surroundings, those with which we have to battle in our personal associations, are often as great, and are often much more painful.  It is not merely that our companions and friends and loved ones die, the wind passeth over them and they are gone, and the dear places that knew them know them no more. It is not merely this, nor is it that their circumstances change, that wealth becomes penury, that health is changed to weakness and suffering, and youth to age and decay. It is not merely this, but it is that they change. The ardour of near friendship grows cold and fades away, the trust which once knew no limitations is narrowed down, and, by and by, walled in with doubts and fears. The comrade ship, which was so sweet and strong and quickened us to great deeds as iron sharpeneth iron, is changed for other companionships. The love, which seems so deep and true and was ready to look on tempests for us, becomes but a name and a memory, even if it does not change into a well of bitter waters in our lives. This fact of human mutability, this inherent changeableness in man, is the key to many of the darkest chapters of the world's history. The prodigal, the traitor, the vowbreaker, these have ever been far more fruitful sources of anguish and misery than the lifelong rebel and lawbreaker. The psalmist touches the inner springs of sorrow when he says, all that hate me whisper together against me, yea, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.  The human heart probably fell to its lowest depth of ingratitude and sin, when poor Judas chained sides and sold his lord. What a change it was, alas, alas, what a quagmire of uncertainties and shifting sand unsanctified human nature must be, nay, is. I suppose that few of us have escaped some sorrowful experiences of this kind, even to those who have not tasted the fruits of human fickleness in the great affairs of Christ's kingdom. There has generally come some share of it into the more private relationships of life, in the home, in the family, or in the circle of friendship or comradeship, we have had to lament the failure of many tender hopes. But blessed be the name of our God, who knoweth what is in the darkness, amidst the changing scenes we have found one comfort, above the strife of tongues, and over the stormy seas of sorrow when, as Job said, even our kinsfolk have failed, and our familiar friends have forgotten this. There is born to us the voice of one who sticketh closer than a brother, saying, I am the Lord. I change not. With me there is no variableness, neither the shadow of turning. I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. The more men change, the sureer God will be. The more they forget, the more he will remember. The further they withdraw, the nearer he will come. Three personal changes. And we ourselves change also. As the years fly past, the most notable fact about us, perhaps, is the changes that are going on in our own experiences. Our habits, our thoughts, our hopes, our conduct, our character. How much there was about us only a few years ago, which has changed in the interval, nay, how much has grown different even since last New Year's Day. Indeed, might we not say of a great deal in us, which today is, that tomorrow it will be cast away forever. Have you, my friend, not had to mourn over some strange changes? Has not your joy been often so quickly turned to sorrow, that you have wondered how you yourself could be the same person? Has not some trifling circumstance often seemed to cloud your sky for days, darkening all the great lights in your heaven, so that your whole past and present and future have seemed different to you, and you stood in the stupor of astonishment at the gloomy change? Has not your zeal for souls been subject to like-strange and unaccountable changes, so that the work you once thought impossible you have found easy, or the work you once delighted in you now find hard, difficult, and barren? Has not your freedom in prayer and your desire for it wavered between this and that until you have not known what to think of yourself? Has not your perception of duty and your devotion to it at one time clear and strong become at another so dim and feeble, that you have been utterly ashamed of your wobbling and cowardice, and amazed at your failure? And most sorrowful of all, has not your love for your God and Savior been up and down, shamefully down, so that when you have afterwards reflected on your coldness towards Him and His cause, you have been covered with confusion and astonishment at the fickleness of your own heart? And more than this, how great are the changes wrought in us by the curbing influence of time, how much that in youth and early manhood we meant to do, and could do, and did do, us to be laid down or left to others as our years approached the limits of their pilgrimage? I have known some men who, for this reason alone, did not desire to live beyond the years of strength and vigor, they preferred to cease at once to work and live. The loss by death or disappointments worse than death of our friends and dear ones, but changes this also works. Unconsciously, men narrowed the sphere of their sympathies. The mainspring of life, love, grows slowly rusty for want of use, and from some hearts that were once true fountains of joy to those around them, the living water almost ceases to flow. Some in fault-finding and censoriousness too often take the place of generous labor for the welfare of the world. This may, no doubt, arise in part from the natural desires that others should profit by our past experiences, which renders us the more observant of their conduct the more we love. But no matter what the cause, certainly it is that within and without all seems to change. Is it not, then, a joy unspeakable that, amidst all this, whether we are or are not fully alive to the weakness and variableness and deceitfulness of our own hearts, we can look up to the rock that changes not? In the darkest hour of disappointment with ourselves, in the depths of that miserable aftermath of sorrow and failure which follows all pride and foolish self-assertion, in the mirey pit of condemnation and guilt in which sin always leaves the sinner, we can look up to him whose power, whose grace, whose love is ever the same. Do you really believe it? There is a great hope in it for you, if you do, high above all your changes, high above all the storms and disappointments that belong to them, high above all the wretched failure and doubting of the do the best I can life you are living. He lives to bless, to save, to uplift, to keep. Unnumbered multitudes fighting the way to him in spite of the timidities and wobblings, the could'ns and would'ns of their own nature have proved him the faithful and unchanging God. Will not you? End of Our Master Thoughts for Salvationists About Their Lord by Bramwell Booth


Geographic masking is a technique used to protect the privacy of individuals by obscuring their exact location. It involves adding noise to the coordinates of an individual's address so that they cannot be identified from the map. There are several different types of masking algorithms, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The most common type of masking algorithm is random perturbation, which adds noise to the coordinates in a systematic way. Other algorithms include KD trees, which add noise based on the distance between the point and the nearest neighbor, and grid-based algorithms, which add noise based on the size of the grid cell containing the point. Each algorithm has its own advantages and disadvantages, but all aim to protect the privacy of individuals while still allowing for meaningful analysis of the data. This article was authored by Paul A. Zanburgen.


What made you want to go ahead and, and I don't know if you're an author, I don't know if you've released several books, but what made you want to take a step into, into this journey? No, this is my first like real book. I've definitely been writing a long time. Like I've done a blog, I've done like a kind of a mini book that I that I just kind of like tossed up on Amazon. But this is like the first real book kind of start to finish. And honestly, like the thing that I think kind of made it happen was just that I was like publicly committed to doing it and felt like I had a unique kind of opportunity from the very beginning. You know, this is a little bit of like, I don't even know if I jumped off a cliff so much as like fell and was like, I guess we're learning to fly. Here we go. I love that. How long have you been either ingesting someone of all thoughts or following him in that content? I mean, yeah, I've been following of all for 10 years, probably. I mean, when I was in Michigan, I had like, didn't know much about the Valley just kind of knew I wanted to get into the startup world and like had the entrepreneurship bug and the first like legit Valley real people that I met where like, dude, go read all of Paul Graham and go read all of the adventure hacks and following of all Cause he was just getting started with with some of the blogging and building Angel list at the time. I was like, okay. So he's kind of introduced to me as this like icon of the Valley and somebody's like a cultural setter and that was where I started. But it's been probably more than 10 years since then. So I've just been like following on Twitter and listen to talks and Trying to learn what I could from him. And so, you know, over those years, I've learned a lot and I've been recommending and following them. So I felt like I was in a pretty good, you know, I just I just had accumulated this Sort of base of knowledge and respect for all of the things, you know, I have a lot of overlapping interests, you know, he talks about sci-fi and futurism and education and crypto and You know, and wealth and happiness on a very principal level that has like built and invested in successful companies. And those are all just things I'm interested in learning more about. So it came together pretty naturally. I think of most people probably know Naval And this is kind of good and bad. This is really interesting because I think in Silicon Valley we get like super we got we have our heroes and they're kind of ours, right? The world doesn't know about them like they could be sitting courtside at an NBA game and nobody will know who they are. And that's actually why I love some of these individuals Because they're icons, but no one knows who they are and it's really nice or the majority of people. Naval was on the Joe Rogan podcast and I think that's that might have been a place where he got A lot of following as it but but then again, it's hard to find him, right? He has a podcast, but he's not he's not out there He's not like verified even on Instagram. He's not in a place where people are Did that make it hard to write the book that like how did you go about dissecting all of his information everywhere? Yeah, I mean that that's kind of what made me want to write the book Just because it's interesting like you and I at least are really deep in like the podcast world and the twitter world and those Like feel like huge places But they're really not like that mainstream in the scheme of things like most people don't listen to podcasts I think and like not everybody's on twitter Certainly at least not to the to the degree that they would automatically know who naval is and down that like tech twitter rabbit hole And I think you know some of these ideas Just over and over again would recommend them to friends or family members or whatever like well Here's what Naval had said about that or here's what I learned about this and People don't if they're not podcast people or they're not twitter people There's no access to those ideas and they're like they're kind of like yes or whatever And I'm like all right. I'm gonna take this stuff that's like shared in this kind of niche Format almost and like this ephemeral format, right because like Tweets just disappear after you know not very long and podcast discoverability is let's call it unsolved But everybody knows what to do with a book and books can like stay around forever And they're giftable and they're hand-offable and they're you know, they sit on a shelf until you Need them or they kind of meet you where they are and so it's just uh, you know It's such a timeless format and it's a more universal format And I just really wanted to you know Take these ideas that were so valuable to me and bring them into a little bit more of a Of something timeless. Hey everyone. Thanks for checking out that clip If you enjoyed it, be sure to hit the like button down below And if you're interested in hearing the full episode, it's out right now on our youtube channel We've had a lot of great guests come on this show before and we've got a lot of great guests coming up in the future So hit subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode And one final note We're always looking for new ideas and new companies feature on the show So if you know of someone or know of a company write us a comment down below letting us know who they are And what they do we'd be happy to have them on the show Until then I'll just be here waiting for your comments. So uh, see you later


Hello everybody. Welcome back to another HitFilm Express video. On this one I'm going to show you how to increase the audio of your video footage or your audio footage or maybe something you got off your cell phone. How do we increase the loudness or the decibels? And I'll show you using free software which HitFilm Express is as of this recording, February 24th, 2022. All right, first step you've got to open up HitFilm Express. If you do not have a copy, here it is. You want to go right here. Let's just pull this down and take a look. FXHome.com. You'll see here you can download it free. If you left click on this little button here, it'll give you this slider. What you need to do is you need to move that slider right to the left. It says consider supporting them and I do agree. You should support them but you know if you're just doing this as a one-time thing or you're not sure and you want to try this off road, this is all you have to do. Move it to the left, click download. Once you've gone and opened it, here you go. You're going to see this screen. I'm going to go to File New and then I'm just going to go ahead and click on OK. It doesn't really matter what those settings are because we're going to drag and drop some footage in and that footage is all that's going to matter. So I'm going to go over to my Movies tab and then I've got this video here. It's really not that good but whatever. I just want to show you a technique. So I'm going to go ahead and left click on this video and I'm going to drop it into the media folder just like this and then I'm going to take the video and then I put it right onto the timeline making sure that I click yes here so the editor sequence knows this and then presto. I hit left and then I've hit spacebar. You're going to hear it's basically just a rainy night and it's kind of quiet. Now to increase the audio, there's two ways to do it and this can be for any type of footage. This could be stuff you just got on your cell phone and or maybe you've got your DSLR camera out but you didn't have your shotgun mic plugged in or you didn't have it close enough, etc etc. A million ways reasons for this.  If I hit spacebar you'll see that it's much much louder. So that's all there is to it. You can go ahead and adjust that. You can also just click on the audio track just like this here. If I click on the audio track and then I go to controls you'll also see a slider here that allows you to go ahead and decrease and increase this. Right now it's capped at 12 decibels is the maximum you can increase it so if you need to go above that you'll need to render it out and then put it back in and then add another 12 decibels and if you're going that far you'll probably want to check out my Premiere Pro tutorial where I can show you to do that without all that stuff. So this is it guys. It's all you got to do. It's free software. It's free tool, free technique. Thanks for watching. A ton more stuff coming up. Stay tuned.


There are some obvious structural differences between the two congressional bodies. The Senate has 100 seats, compared to the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. There are two senators elected per state, both representing the entire state, while in the House there is one representative per electoral district, with each state carved up into districts according to population. Serving in the Senate also has more stringent requirements. Senators have to be at least 30 years of age, a resident of the represented state, and a citizen of the United States for at least nine years. Aside from these structural differences, there are some fundamental differences between the houses, which have been a source of tension throughout history. In earlier years, the Senate considered itself superior to the House of Representatives. So much so in fact, that even President Washington was snubbed when he approached the Senate for advice on a recently negotiated Indian Treaty. Instead of aiding the President by discussing the issue immediately, the Senate deferred the problem to a committee. This arrogance, fueled in part by the British system of an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons, drove a wedge between the Senate and the legislative workhorse, the House of Representatives. One major point of contention between the houses was elections. The house, designed to directly represent the will of the people, was chosen by popular election. Senators on the other hand, were chosen by state legislatures, and were expected to represent the interests of those in power in a given state. This system of electing senators however, became corrupt. After years of suspect elections, the system was changed in 1913, with the passing of the 17th Amendment, that declared that all senatorial seats would be filled by popular election. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state, elected by the people thereof, for six years, and each senator shall have one vote. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures. 17th Amendment to the Constitution, 1913 Though senators represented a first group of constituents, most tend to fit a certain mold. They are usually wealthy, white males, with a background in law or business. Because of this trend, congressional representation is often described as substantive, rather than descriptive. In other words, although senators may not share a common background or culture with their constituents, they have dedicated themselves to representing their constituents' interests. Many claim Senator Ted Kennedy is a good example of this. Though he is clearly a member of the Eastern elite, his record in the Senate shows he has spoken up for the poor, undereducated, and unemployed. Plums for the rich and crumbs for everyone else is the wrong priority. We need to do more for working families and communities across America. We can do more by raising the minimum wage. Senator Ted Kennedy, September 3, 1998 Although the American people still elect the president and members of Congress, many critics feel that senators and representatives are no longer focused enough on protecting the interests of their constituents. Essentially, the people have been distant or completely removed from the legislative process. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Have you considered that the advent of new technologies has greatly enhanced the power of the American people? Cable television and the Internet disseminate information broadly and quickly, and people can use this knowledge to hold their representatives accountable. Considering this, do you think that the people are too removed from the legislative process? What if you consider that every member of Congress must be re-elected by the people they represent? There are always new candidates ready to unseat an incumbent member of Congress. Members of Congress serve limited terms, with senators elected for six years, while representatives are elected for two-year terms. Given this influence over elected officials, do you think the American public is removed from the legislative process? What if you knew that the reelection rate for both houses of Congress has declined greatly since World War II? Very few members of Congress are elected for life, as used to be the case. Given this increased power of the voters, do you feel the American people are removed from the legislative process? Although public access to the legislative process is somewhat limited, the people can certainly influence the process. The Internet, talk radio, and cable television news disseminate information much more rapidly and broadly than ever before and hold members of Congress to a higher degree of accountability. However, powerful lobbyists, global concerns, and an incredibly complicated legislative process prevent Congress from focusing its full attention on public concerns and needs. Despite some obstacles, the people still have means by which they can play a role in the legislative process, such as voting, lobbying, and recall elections. Power in the Senate is not as clearly defined as it is in the House, and it is much more widely dispersed. The Vice President of the United States is appointed President of the Senate, but the majority and minority leaders hold the real power. They, along with party whips, dictate legislative agenda and work hard to urge members to vote along party lines. Because of their key role, the whips retain a great deal of power. As in the House, a great deal of power is held in the hands of committee and subcommittee chairpersons, making them positions of prominence. Aside from individual positions of power, the Senate as a whole is given its authority by the Constitution. The power of confirmation, for example, which grants authority and influence over the President, gives the Senate power to confirm presidential appointments. Major heads of bureaucratic agencies, Supreme Court justices, and even top advisors in the Executive Office must be approved by Senate committee hearings before they can assume their roles. This power can have a substantial effect on Presidencies. Before making a judicial appointment, the President typically would extend senatorial courtesy and ask for the support of the two senators who represent the state in which the federal judge's seat is being filled. With their vote of confidence, the appointment would be made and sent to the Justice Department Committee for review. Upon committee approval, a simple Senate majority would confirm the appointment. Senate committees operate much like House committees. There are 16 standing committees which are further divided into subcommittees. The senators involved in these also serve on joint, conference, and select committees. Senators typically try to serve on committees that allow them to affect legislation impacting their home state. For example, it is common for a Nebraska senator to seek a seat on the Agricultural Committee. The House and Senate do, however, differ on how they conduct business and determine legislation. Since the Senate has open and unrestricted debate on bills, it has always been a contemplative body, one that is more willing to discuss legislation. Any senator who can get the floor can talk as long as his win lasts. He cannot be out of order unless he takes the most extravagant liberties. At DW Brogan, 1944. But because there is no time limit on discussions, a unique strategy dubbed the filibuster is sometimes used to try and block legislation. By refusing to end discussion of a bill and continuing to talk without relinquishing the floor, a senator or senators can continue to speak without end in hopes that other senators will drop the discussion. During the 1950s, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond once filibustered for 24 hours in an attempt to defeat a civil rights bill. Despite their power, filibusters can be deterred by a motion for cloture, which is a vote to limit debate on a bill. However, cloture voting usually follows strict partisan lines. And because it requires a three-fifths majority to pass, parties that call for cloture seldom succeed. Once an extraordinary tactic that senators used sparingly, the filibuster has become a common strategy for defeating presidential appointments or legislation that splits party loyalties. Though many have tried to make filibustering more difficult, senators such as former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd of West Virginia, regard the tactic as not only important, but vital to the legislative process. The minority can be right, and on many occasions in this country's history, the minority was right. Robert Byrd.