First published in 1963, this book by Bishop K. C. Pillai was written on the urging of many of his listeners to put his teachings into book form, “so that more Christians may be encouraged to trust in the Word of God, and believe more deeply through understanding.” He explains in his Introduction that he was unable to put all of his teachings into one book at this time due to time constraints, but with this volume intends to “touch upon some of the portions of the Bible which my listeners tell me have been the most interesting and inspiring.” A wonderful book for any reader who seeks to know and understand the Word of God...

2013 Reprint of 1963 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. K. C. Pillai (1900-1970) was a Bishop-at-large of the Indian Orthodox Church in Madras India. He spent the last twenty years of his life in the United States of America on a special mission to acquaint Christians with the orientalisms and customs of the Bible. He wrote books and worked with western Christians to help clarify what he believed were difficult Scriptural passages through an understanding of the eastern manners and customs. During his time in the United States, he became associated with Victor Paul Wierwille, with whom he worked through every orientalism in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation over a six-week period in 1953.

First published in 1949, in By Eastern Windows author William H. McDougall recalls his experiences of his three years spent in prison camps in Sumatra. “By Eastern Windows is filled with stories of the heroism and sacrifice of priests, doctors and simple men, as well as of the disgraceful behaviour of deadbeats and chiselers. It is written throughout in a spirit of humility and humble faith. It packs a wallop...”—Orville Prescott, New York Times “...By Eastern Windows...is a book that deals with the spirit of mankind at war and is directed to the spirit of mankind in peace. Everyone who reads this book upon completion surely must agree with the author that ‘there is no possible disarmament except in the hearts of men.’”—Grace S. Nutley, New York Eagle “...It is an amazing tale with humor lighting tragedy and heroism marking what might have been the sheerest of animal existences. By Eastern Windows is perhaps the best book of its sort to date in that it is neither so objectively done that it misses the ever-present human element, nor so sentimentally reported that it fails to show both sides of the Japanese captors as they went somewhat bewilderedly about their tasks in a losing fight.”—T.M.W., Boston Traveler

Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye. In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution. Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.