Consolation, March 23, 1938

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Contents

Memory 3

Australasia 5

South Africa 9

South America 10

West Indies and Central America 11

Canada 12

France 14

Eastern Europe 15

Russia 16

Your Questions Answered by Judge Rutherford 17

Abattoir Department 18

"The Free and the Brave" 19

Vaticana 22

New England 23

New York 24

Letter from a Commercial Traveler 25

The Far West 26

By Trail and Stream and Garden Path (Signs of Spring) 27

British Comment by J. Hemery 28

Maple Sap—Cover Design for This Number 31

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Appetizers

This Skull Put Up a Squawk

YOU wouldn’t think that a mere skull, with all the flesh removed, would put up a squawk for holy water. Or maybe you would. It all depends on how much "faith" you have. Anyway, here is this from the Cathedral Calendar, Eighteenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia, Pa., Volume 4, Number 10:

The venerable Dominicus A. Jesu had, as it was customary with the Carmelite Order, the skull of a dead upon his table. It came to pass that as Father Dominicus sprinkled it with Holy Water, it addressed him and exclaimed most piteously: "More Holy Water," for it has greatly lessened the violent heat of the tremendously painful fires of Purgatory.

There is a chance here for bright inventors. One idea would be to fit up every Carmelite prison with a holy tank and let some priest bless all the water in the tank. Then, every night, all the skulls in the dump could be put in the tank, and in that way they could get out of the heat during the hours they want to sleep. A good, courageous, nervy skull ought not to hesitate to hop back into the oven in the morning, provided he had a good rest the night previous.

The thing is a trifle complicated, however. Here is a skull of some egg that tries to make out he is in the heat when, as a matter of fact, he is on a table or desk or buffet in a Carmelite monastery. That sounds fishy. Of course, it may be argued that only the lips and tongue and other fleshy parts are in the heat, while the skull itself is elsewhere. But if that is the case, why did not the skull open wide open and tell the truth, admitting that it itself was having a good-enough time, but it was the former tenants that were having it tough. And if that is true, what good would it do to souse the skull with much "Holy Water" or any at all? To tell the truth, it looks very much as if this skull had told a whale of a lie, and got the Cathedral Calendar to publish it, in the hope of separating some poor sucker from some more of his long green.

Hatching an Idea

◆ Hatching an idea, somebody suggested that many a man who was egged on to matrimony is now groaning beneath the yoke.

CONSOLATION

"And in His name shall the nations hope."—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.

Volume XIX Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 23, 1938 Number 483

Memory

THE mind of Jehovah works not like the minds of His creatures. As His ways are higher and more wonderful and wise than their ways, so are His thoughts above their thoughts; and His methods of expressing those thoughts are higher, too, because of the greater means at His command.

Where is the man capable of thinking intelligently upon several different subjects at the same time? What creature could read a newspaper, write a letter, discuss a technical subject, and in another language meditate upon a philosophical matter? all with equal efficiency? Yet the Lord thinks upon many millions of things at the same time without confusion, without fatigue or forgetfulness, and with flawless accuracy.

Who can comprehend a mind like that? or say to Him "What doest thou?" Fools and devils may presume; but the reverent mind is awed and humble before such majesty, meekly attentive upon His every utterance, and eager to learn whatever the divine purpose may reveal. The Word of God records the lives of some such—humble creatures who served Jehovah in time past expressing the Creator's purpose pertaining to the vindication of His name, together with associated and incidental matters. Of such servants of the Most High it is said that they will receive "a better resurrection".

Passing over the philosophy of the resurrection and its associated subjects, let us consider the matter of Jehovah's memory—the memory that never forgets, and upon which all resurrection depends. When Jesus spoke of the resurrection in John 5 He used a word (μνημεῖον) which, fully translated, means the "memory of God". That means, surely, that those who have fallen asleep in death are non-existent apart from Jehovah's memory of them—His recorded details of their individuality.

Let us probe this point. What does it mean to "remember" a dead person? To us it means, of course, that we have recollections of scenes in our own lives in which the dead took part. So far as their "character" is concerned we know, too, something of that, and can recall the manner of life of our friends or associates, knowing their reactions of thought, conscience and conduct to given moral considerations. But here we stop!

We can recall no more than was implanted upon our own senses by contact with those now dead. How impossible for us to resurrect anyone! Suppose we could construct a human body out of the dust. What of the countless nerve-responses present in the brain at the time of death? How may these be restored? How could the brain cells we have made (?) be given the impressions that would enable it to recall past scenes and events, old associations and experiences, as well as the deep hopes, loves or hates developed in the mind we wish to restore. But God remembers all, and can restore all at will.

How puny we are! A wonderful work indeed is man, but limited to his own sphere and purpose. Think of the wisdom and power used to refresh the brain that rotted in the body of the "stinking" Lazarus four days dead, and made him, at the Lord's command, come forth no worse for his gruesome experience than if he had had but an hour's nap!

But—we may ask—how does Jehovah remember so many details of each individual life? How was the angel able to use the power committed to him in such a way that not an iota of the memory of Lazarus was omitted? For if one is to be resurrected his whole previous life must be restored to him, which constitutes his memory. And to do that, Jehovah himself must remember the memory of every creature that has ever lived! How is it possible?

With man it is not possible; with the Lord it is a simple thing. Just the exact and actual means used to card-index the complex brain-impressions which go to make up a human creature, it is impossible for anyone yet to say; but we can, even now, upon the basis of what is known and done by man, reason upon the facilities in the hand of Jehovah to preserve a creature’s identity after death.

Could you conceive of a photograph’s being taken by an ordinary camera in a pitch-dark room? Yet that is done; for what we call darkness is any condition in which we are unable to see for lack of light. But, strange as it sounds, there are lights we cannot see! Such lights are nevertheless broad daylight to certain very sensitive chemicals on special camera-plates; so that, in a room flooded with infra-red light a portrait may be taken of a person who, at the same time, cannot see a thing in the room. Is that not wonderful? Thieves have thus been detected in the act of opening a safe. Such things seem impossible until the means are understood. Even so with the resurrection.

Now, to illustrate: the preservation of identity. Suppose a businessman finds it necessary to leave his home for a year or two on a business trip across the world. He has a passion for the culture of rare plants, and is interested in a certain exotic growth of which he wishes to make a careful study. Being resourceful, he provides a corner of the hothouse where the noonday light will play regularly upon the plant. In front of the pot is placed a movie-camera, specially devised so that it will snap one tiny picture each day at the stroke of noon. The seedling is planted, a servant instructed to water and otherwise care for the rare specimen, and the businessman sails for distant parts, knowing that in his absence the contrivance he has arranged (and which, remember, will operate by laws determined by Jehovah) will faithfully record the daily progress of his precious plant.

Two years later, the trip over, and the plant having grown, withered, and died, he develops the film, and there, in full life before him (and much magnified if need be), is portrayed upon the screen the plant he has never seen but in which he is so interested. Indeed, the secondhand, magnified version on the screen may be more useful for his purpose than the actual slowly-growing plant itself. Is not this also wonderful?

You will see, now, how very simple it must be for Jehovah to keep an automatic check on a creature's movements, and on the movements of his brain, his thoughts, his memory. It is possible for the record of man’s life from birth to death to be preserved by talkie film, his every movement and his every utterance; but what creature would be worth the colossal expense involved? Yet Jehovah has done that, and more, not alone of any one creature, but of twenty thousand million of them; and more than that, the memories of these millions are likewise retained in His memory by ways far superior to the ways of man, with means that reduce these mentioned wonders to mere trifles.

And what is the memory of God? It is the means by which such preservation is accomplished. Whether His own great mind retains such countless details or whether they are held in the minds of trusted angels or by some automatic equivalent of mechanical means matters not; the FACT is all-important. As the film in the plant-illustration retained what its master desired, without the least effort to him, so, without the least effort or fatigue to Jehovah, do the means He employs obey His commands and accomplish His purposes.

And when the resurrection has become a reality, when millions have returned from the grave and sit at the feet of Jehovah's King to be taught by Him in the ways of God, what means will Jehovah use to teach them? Will they read books, the Bible, etc.? They could, but there may be better ways, suited to the changed times and conditions. Since God can reproduce the memory of Abraham for Abraham's use, can He not reproduce, on screens, for the edification of the many millions who will then thirst for a knowledge of Jehovah’s dealings with man during the last six thousand years, the scenes in which Abraham participated when he made moving-pictures directed by Jehovah? But there are some whom Jehovah will forget. They, having proved their incorrigible selfishness, will be destroyed, not only in body as people die now, but will be destroyed both "body and soul in Gehenna". For such there will be no resurrection; for, since Jehovah himself will forget, since He himself will destroy from His own mind or that of His agents the only means whereby they could be resurrected, they will become as though they had never been, forgotten through all eternity.

Think upon the possibilities—and as you think your thoughts are being recorded by the same power that filed for future reference the identity of Abraham; and realize if you can, more fully still, how high Jehovah’s ways are above our own, how wise His purposes, how deep and inscrutable His majestic thoughts—not of the kind that man thinks, but which, expressed, give to mankind his chief delight in living.—Percy A. Williams, Australia.

Australasia

(Judge Rutherford will attend in person the convention of Jehovah’s witnesses at Sydney, Australia, April 22-25, 1938)

The “Infallibility” Myth

◆ I would like to point out that there are very sound reasons for a belief that popes are not infallible. Take the papal attitude to astronomy, for instance, when that science was in its infancy, hundreds of years ago. Acting under alleged spiritual guidance the popes held certain convictions concerning the movements of the sun and planets, and the students who differed from the church’s belief were, I understand, punished and tortured. In modern times every Catholic priest with whom I have come in contact holds precisely the same views with reference to the sun and planets as the students of long ago who were denounced as Godless in those times. Now if the popes of those days were in spiritual touch with the divine Lord, why didn’t He choose to make the information available through them, instead of a Godless medium? Another instance in more recent years is that of the Italian airman who tried to fly to the North Pole. He carried a small Italian flag on which the present pope had bestowed a special blessing. However, the pope’s blessing didn’t cut much ice, as the airman crashed in the snow and was very pleased to be rescued by an airman from the so-called Godless nation of Russia.—H. Tilmouth, Australia, in Barrier Daily Truth.

Australia’s 500-Pound Clams

◆ Australia’s 500-pound clams, Tridacna gigas, sometimes grow to be fourteen feet long. This so-called “giant clam” lies on its back in the bottom of a coral pool, with its huge jaws open, feeding on organisms of any kind that come its way. When the jaws snap it is sure death to anything caught between them. Many a pearl diver has thus lost his life. A 500-pound clam may contain as much as 25 pounds of edible flesh. The shells are in demand because of their striking colors.

Australian Air Surveys

◆ Air surveys of Australia are progressing, as in most other civilized lands, and are resulting in the correcting of existing maps. Lakes were found where they were not known to exist. Beacons for night flying are being installed. One at Melbourne has 1,500,000 candle-power.

The Rabbit Pest

◆ In the state of Victoria the law requires all landholders to begin a systematic campaign of destruction of rabbits in the month of February each year, when the weather is very hot and dry. This destruction is supervised more or less by Government inspectors, and in some cases is very effective. Where this work is carried out thoroughly, the great bulk of the rabbits are destroyed at a time when the skins are of little commercial value. Due to the hot weather generally experienced at that time of the year, only a small percentage of carcasses are sent to the freezing works, all others being wasted.

When rabbits are attacked on unnetted country they clear out, much to the annoyance of adjoining farmers whose lands are invaded. On occasions when the rabbits are extra plentiful the poison bait is often used. I have known of instances where they have been gathered up into heaps of hundreds after poisoning, and allowed to rot, being of no use to anybody. Other countless numbers are killed in their burrows and warrens by means of fumigators, and are left there to rot.

This waste occurs in all the states of Australia, and takes place after the pastures, etc., have been partially spoiled. Under different management the rabbit pest would not be nearly so bad, perhaps might not be a pest at all. But what can one expect from Satan’s old ‘order’? Confusion, trouble, waste, etc.—A. S. Faulkner, Australia.

Waiting for the Ferry, by Heg!

◆ Eleven o'clock at night and "holiday season" in New South Wales, Australia.

Four hundred cars lined up in an orderly queue, waiting their turn to cross "Peat's Ferry" over the beautiful Hawkesbury river.

A J.w. sound car, the occupants tired after a thrilling week-end of service in the "King of King's" campaign, takes its place in the queue. Two miles of cars, most of them visible, the sound car on top of the hill, and a calm, lovely night. Then comes the voice of one J.w.: "Boy! What a chance to give them a blast! How about it?" A grunt from the back of the car as one J.w. commences to rub the sleep from his eyes after hearing talk of activity. "Sure thing," says the driver; "let's clear the deck for action."

All occupants of the car immediately spring to action. Luggage is shifted to different parts of the car; No. 3 horn (which incidentally was used as a spare luggage carrier on the roof) is swung into position. Six-volt battery, No. 3, P.T.M., are all linked together. Microphone is attached and needle flicked. "O.K., boys; let them have it."

"This is a Watch Tower sound car operating in this district to bring you a message of good cheer. As you wait for the ferry we shall be pleased to present to you a program of musical items, together with instructive talks by Judge Rutherford [somebody nearby by claps], who is a recognized authority on Bible prophecy and world events. We invite your careful attention."

Down the hills and through the valley, echoing against the rise three miles away, the beautiful notes of "Humoresque" are heard. As the last note dies away motor horns are blown, voices are heard crying for "more", all showing the listeners' appreciation. Another short announcement introducing JFR, and then a short Bible lecture. In this manner the people are instructed. Surely the angels are enjoying it, too.

An hour has passed, during which time we have played four five-minute lectures by Judge Rutherford and the truth contained therein thundered through the district, and as the echo rolled down the hillside it was a veritable avalanche of truth. What an hour! 400 cars, averaging four occupants; 1600 listeners. Sixteen hundred listeners, spoken to in a clear and convincing manner, with no previous preparation apart from having the equipment on the spot. Imagine the advertising and preparation necessary before 1600 people would be induced to enter a lecture hall to hear the truth!

Over the "mike" comes a concluding announcement: "From time to time Jehovah's witnesses call at your homes with Bibles and books explaining the Bible. When they do so, treat them kindly; listen carefully to what they have to say. Remember, Jehovah's witnesses are your friends." Continuing, the announcer tells the people that the program will have to conclude, as the battery is running low. Immediately from the darkness down the road come the voices, "Keep her going, mate; we have a spare six-volt here," and, "Keep her going; we will tow you home if you are stuck." Others come up to the car and thank us for the program, asking us if we will kindly put on another Watch Tower quartet after a "talk". This we gladly do. Another party is so pleased they bring cakes and home cookies as an appreciative gesture for the spiritual food given. They gladly take the literature, loving the message of God's kingdom. But wait; the lecture "Fathers" is heard. "Why are the Roman Catholic priests called 'fathers'?" are the opening words. Then one lone car bleats a plaintive wail with its horn in a futile effort to drown the No. 3. No, sonny; you might as well try to sweep back the ocean with a broom. Somebody asks for "cooties powder", but none is available. How the "old woman's hide" is being tanned! All praise to Jehovah for these hard-hitting truths so timely given, and may we be privileged to continue our service to Him day and night. —Heg, Australia.

Four Days to New Zealand

◆ By the new biweekly service between San Francisco and Auckland it takes but four days to fly from San Francisco to New Zealand. The first day spans the 2,400 miles to Hawaii; the second, the 1,067 miles to Kingman's Reef; the third, the 1,546 miles to Pago Pago, in the Samoas; and the fourth, the 1,797 miles to Auckland. Then the Imperial Airways take up the load and carry it to Sydney, Australia, and so on to England, and, shortly, across the Atlantic and back to New York and San Francisco. A choice of several air routes around the world will shortly be offered, and any one of them can be completed within a two weeks' vacation.

Open the Nunneries

◆ We should ask the Government to throw wide open the nunneries to public inspection. If an ordinary civilian is suspected of filching a reel of cotton—of beating his wife—of hiding unlicensed firearms, or of anything against the law—then his house is open, and his office, to inspection by the police. Did you but bury your dead without notifying the authorities, then great would be the punishment and outcries. Yet scattered amidst us, hidden behind towering walls and ever-locked and guarded gates, are vast nunneries. What have they to hide that needs closer locking than a bank? What fear these religious daughters who, without property, have given themselves to closed walls for life? Why cannot the candle of their good works shine before men? No, no police invade those portals, no record is known of its inmates, of births or deaths. Did I say births? Too many of these Brides of Christ have escaped for us to longer be blinded. Sisters—WE KNOW—WE KNOW—but not for us to trample longer in the mire; let our votes see to that.—Protestant Truth Centre, Melbourne, Australia.

Defeated by Gramophone

◆ While writing of hotelkeepers, I was reminded of a story I heard the other day concerning Mr. Charles Bernhardt, who has the hotel at William Creek. He is a Jehovah's witness and will discuss his beliefs all day and every day. He issues propaganda to his guests.

The story has it that Mr. Royle, an inspector of aerodromes, grew weary of listening to the hotelkeeper and decided to embark on an argument with him on religion. They got very heated. Finally Mr. Bernhardt went to a gramophone and put on a record of an address by Judge Rutherford to give weight to his statements.

"That finished it," said Mr. Royle, "one cannot argue with a gramophone record."—Adelaide (Australia) Sun.

Australia's Board of Censors

◆ Australia's new board of censors are Dr. L. H. Allen, Prof. J. S. M. Haydon, and Mr. Kenneth Binns, librarian. These gentlemen have the sole responsibility of determining what books their fellow Australians may be permitted to read. The board deals only with imported literature.

No Risk—They Get the Money

◆ Advertising its so-called "Annuity Agreement" in The Annals of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Sydney, Australia, the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus says there is no risk in sending your money to them. They explain that a high rate of interest is paid, sometimes as high as eight percent, and that when you die the money you have donated is used "in the interests of the faith". The principal point in this is that the money you send them may or may not earn something, and this all depends on how they figure. If it earns anything you may get something. But the real point is that there is "No Risk" to the monastery. Whatever happens, they get your money in the first place, and keep it for ever. Just like pulling a stick of candy away from a baby.

Northern Australia

◆ In twenty-five years, and at an expenditure of $3,000,000 a year, the entire population growth of Northern Australia was but 80 persons per year, and the grand total is but 23,000, counting all noses, whites and natives. A report recently made calculates that by quadrupling the expenditure the province may make an annual gain in population of 680 for twenty-five years. However, the geographical location is so important to Britain that the necessary funds will probably be forthcoming, together with enough more to build a railroad connecting up with the other Australian lines. This very scattered territory was thoroughly covered by Jehovah's witnesses recently.

Aborigines of Australia

◆ Professor Frederic Wood Jones, retiring professor of anatomy, Melbourne University, in a farewell address before the Victorian Anthropological Society, claimed that when the whites arrived in Australia there were 300,000 aborigines living happily and healthily, while today there are fewer than 50,000, with twice as many half-castes living miserably.

Automobile Tires for Oxen

◆ Farmers of Java use automobile tires to protect the feet of their oxen from stony roads. The old truck tires are preferred, because they are thicker and stand the hard usage longer.

How the Devil's Curses Work

SOME time ago I had a very amusing experience with a big, fat, burly priest. As I live near a big airdrome, I get a good many chances to give out some of our booklets and Watch Tower literature to the large crowds that rush to see a human roasting stunt when planes come down in flames or crash. On this occasion I was giving out a few "Of What Are the Devil's Clergy Afraid?" and "Is Hell Hot?" I struck the above-mentioned queer guy with collar on backwards, and handed copies to him. He said quite a heap of foreign stuff to me, and ruffled the papers up and threw them madly to the ground. My wife said, "Dad, he has cursed you. He is a priest."

Now, here is the rub: Our 1,400 white Leghorn hens were in the midst of a very severe molt, and we were getting about one hundred eggs per day. Things were anything but bright with us. Immediately the curse was sworn against us the birds jumped up to almost eight hundred eggs per day within a few days. In all the twenty-five years in the poultry business I never experienced such a rapid change in our birds as this one.

We were about £60 in debt for fowl food on the day of the curse. But just about one month after, that bill and many others were paid. I now wish I had struck an R. C. priest before with the "Is Hell Hot?" and "Of What Are the Devil's Clergy Afraid?" Jehovah God is not forgetting us. I also have a sandpit from which I have sold about £12 worth more of sand than previously. In view of this we paid £6 14s. for a phonograph and 21 records but yesterday. With this outfit I hope to enjoy more curses.—A. O. Thompson, Australia.

Catholics Want Public Money.

◆ Australian Catholics have been making a great demand for state support of schools of the Catholic sect, and it is being met firmly with refusal, because this method was once tried in Australia and found to be a great failure. It led to constant bickering, fostered sectarian bitterness, increased taxation, diminished efficiency in education, and if renewed would allow one-fifth of the community to impose its will on four-fifths and surrender the sovereignty of the state to Vatican City ecclesiastics.

Australia Has a Surplus

◆ With Uncle Sam and other nations going in the hole financially, as fast as they can bury themselves, it is refreshing to learn that during the past year Australia had a surplus of about £1,000,000. Australian newspapers are giving facts and figures to show that the depression, as far as Australia is concerned, is all over. There are now 25,000 factories in Australia, which is more than ever before, and there are 493,000 people working in them, and this also is more than ever before.

A Too-modest Gentleman in Australia

◆ A too-modest gentleman in Purahurst, Australia, writes the following (requesting that his name be not used):

Some months ago I was troubled with cracked lips. They became calloused and at times used to bleed slightly and were very sore. No ointment or treatment healed them. After a time I suspected the aluminum cooking utensils and ate nothing cooked therein. It seems hardly necessary to state that my lips immediately improved and are now quite well.

Many hundreds (if not thousands) of subscribers in all parts of the world are well as a result of avoiding aluminum utensils.

International Fascist (Catholic Action) Organization

◆ New Zealand is considerably stirred by the discovery, mentioned in the New Zealand House of Representatives, that the International Fascist organization (Catholic Action under German control) paid the traveling expenses of certain New Zealanders to conferences in Europe of the international organization for destruction of the liberties of the democracies of the world.

Catholic Rulers

◆ Prime Minister Lyons, of Australia, is a Catholic, recently elected to office for the second time. His predecessor, Scullin, was also a Catholic, though only one-fifth of the population of Australia is of that persuasion. The former president of Switzerland, Motta, is also a Catholic, and Switzerland is a Protestant country.

New Fast Train in Australia

◆ A new fast streamlined train, built especially for the 500-mile Sydney-Melbourne run, makes the trip at 70 miles an hour; in some places, 90.

South Africa

Censorship in Southern Rhodesia

◆ It took eighteen months in Southern Rhodesia to form a board of censorship to endeavor to see that as little truth as possible, on the teachings of the Scriptures, should get to the natives or to anybody else. Jehovah’s witnesses could have forecast the nature of the censorship committee without hesitation or without error. It was ideal for the purpose. The senior provincial commissioner was the son of a clergyman, one was an Irishman, and the other two were missionaries, i.e., professional haters of the truth. With such a censorship committee as this on the job, Jehovah’s people have had a beautiful fight in Southern Rhodesia to get the truth to the people, but the courts stood by them in the exercise of their God-given rights, and the censors were publicly rebuked.

To Improve Conditions in Nyasaland

◆ A British commission will try to find out what can be done to improve conditions in Nyasaland, the little protectorate lying between the Zambesi river and Lake Tanganyika, east of Northern Rhodesia. The total native population is only 1,603,257, having been considerably reduced in recent years by emigrations of the workers to the mines of Northern Rhodesia. The European population is only 1,781, or only slightly more than 1 to 1,000.

Misgoverned Southern Rhodesia

◆ The extent of the misgovernment of Southern Rhodesia (transparent in the banning of some of Judge Rutherford’s beautiful and comforting and instructive books to help the people understand the Bible) may be seen in the fact that last year 54,000 natives in the little country were convicted and 25,000 were sent to prison for crimes that had in them no criminal intent. The government of the country seems to be in the hands of bunglers.

Strange Affection of Gander for a Cow

◆ Rawsonville, Cape Province, South Africa, has a curiosity in a gander that has fallen in love with a cow. Men sometimes do foolish things. This gander follows the cow two miles to pasture and comes home with her at milking time. When anyone comes near her he attacks him.

Gold Mines of Southern Rhodesia

◆ British capitalists have gold mines in Southern Rhodesia so profitable that they pay annual dividends of 60 percent to 80 percent. The miners are natives from Nyasaland, but are not paid enough that they can bring their families to their work location. The statesmen of Southern Rhodesia overcame this little difficulty for the mine-owners by passing a law licensing native women as concubines for the laborers; with the proviso that when the laborer returns to his legitimate wife and children the concubine shall be passed on to his successor. The bill was approved in London by the same government that was shocked beyond measure because the duke of Windsor wished to marry a divorced woman. It does not believe the text that God is no respecter of persons, and it does not hesitate to plan for and encourage adultery in its meanest and lowest form.

Dutch Reformed Preachers Want Work

◆ Forty-eight Dutch Reformed preachers in South Africa, who studied for the ministry but are unable to get any jobs, are in hard luck. Churches that have more than 800 parishioners will be asked to take pity on them and put them on the pay roll, whether they have anything for them to do or not. Seems as if the idea might be delicately conveyed to them that it would be much better every way for them to learn to do something that would be of some use to their fellow men. Looking after cows is a humble business, but every way honorable, and the Scriptures indicate a grand rush for positions in the cow business on the part of those whose lives have hitherto been spent in dishonoring God’s name. If the cow business eventually, why not now?

Resting Place of Military Uniforms

◆ The final resting place of uniforms and silk hats is with the Negroes of South Africa, who get as big a kick out of wearing second-hand military uniforms as their white brothers do out of wearing them new. The Negroes are not particular as to color, style, age or condition of the garments. There are more silk hats in some South African Negro villages than can now be found in many North American cities.

South America

The Horse at Butantan, Brazil

BEFORE going far up country in Brazil, in 1919 I went out to the Government’s Bacteriological Department at Butantan, near Sao Paulo, specially to investigate the manufacture of antivenin and diphtheria antitoxins.

For the former a horse is injected with excretions from the throat of a diphtheria patient. The reaction is severe, but after a day or so a further injection is made and repeated until the animal ceases to react. Then a large hollow needle is inserted in its neck and two gallons of blood extracted. This is repeated every few days. The blood is allowed to coagulate and the serum is the so-called “antitoxin”. The horse is not subject to diphtheria, and there is no scientific evidence that the blood serum has any relation to that disease in man.

The horse I saw at Butantan was in an extreme state of terror and exhaustion. It was slung up and its collapse was daily expected. It was said to have yielded several thousand times its value in antitoxin.

The serum which is used for “immunization” is of several varieties. According to The Lancet of 14 May, 1932, the variety which now finds most acceptance in England, “after the Bundaberg accident in 1928,” is “toxin detoxicated by formalin”. In the Bundaberg accident to which The Lancet refers 12 children were killed and many injured by diphtheria immunization.

The whole fatuous system is based on the germ theory of disease. It is admitted that the alleged germ of diphtheria may be found in 20 percent of healthy throats, and that in 20 to 40 percent of clinical cases of diphtheria the germ is absent. How absurd: the result a mystery without any attempt at explanation. There is now a widely-held view among doctors that germs are the products of disease, and not their cause. As Sir Almroth Wright has stated, the whole theory of serum therapy “rests upon a foundation of sand”.—Arthur Trobridge.

Good Times for the Church

◆ Hard times for atheistic Communism and good times for the Church were ushered in by the successful coup of non-Catholic President Getulio Vargas. The new constitution, Brazil’s third as a republic, guarantees freedom to the Church, and acts of governmental officials already show that this freedom is to be actual and not theoretical. . . . While giving freedom to the Church, the new constitution tolerates no secret societies. Already some Masonic lodges have been closed.—Rio de Janeiro dispatch in the Altoona (Pa.) Roman Catholic Register.

Fascism in Brazil

◆ Though it denies that it is Fascist, the Vargas government of Brazil provides that the law may censor the press, the theater, the cinema and the radio broadcast; the death penalty is prescribed for certain political offenses; religious training can be included in the ordinary curriculum of primary, normal and secondary schools. But all religious sects can exercise their beliefs publicly and freely, may join themselves together for this purpose, and may acquire property.

Argentina Buys Out Standard Oil

◆ The Argentine Government has bought out all the Standard Oil Company’s interests in that country, involving a transaction amounting to 140,000,000 pesos, or about $70,000,000. The Government company, which will now operate the properties, will retain all the Standard Oil employees. The purpose is to make the Argentine Government less dependent upon foreign capital.

Rights of Employees in Colombia

◆ In the United States of Colombia every employee is entitled to fifteen days’ vacation with pay, annually, and up to four months’ sick leave. If discharged, his employer must give him one month’s wages for every year he has worked. This law for the protection of the poor has been held constitutional by the Colombian Supreme Court.

In the Offices of La Prensa

◆ In the offices of La Prensa, Buenos Aires’ great newspaper, its readers are provided with free medical and surgical services, free oculist tests, free legal advice, and free instruction in music.

West Indies and Central America

As a Cuban Sees Cuba

◆ I suppose you have heard something about the repatriation of Haitians to give employment to the Cuban laborers. The reason given is to hide the real intention. The white Cubans are afraid of the Negroes. With the immigration of British, Haitians and their children born here, there are not less than one million full-blooded Negroes in Cuba. For the convenience of the whites the mulattoes, when spoken to directly, are not referred to as Negroes, but are classified as "colored". I know of one case in which the censor registrar has entered a very brown mulatto as white.

The Negroes are not thinking of dominating the whites; but this is the very idea that has been obsessing the white Cubans for the last seventy years. It was this obsession that led them to murder the two Maceo brothers in the war of independence of 1895-98. The whites have been trying to make of Cuba a white country. It is their intention to bring in Spanish immigration. In this they are going to fail. Should the Spaniards come here, they would go to cut cane and to rip coffee. That kind of work has never appealed to them; and they lack the dexterity to do it.

Besides, lately the Spaniards have been mistreated here and, as a consequence, are resentful. If the Spanish government wins in the present war in Spain, a great number of Spaniards here will go back home. The white Cubans have not noticed that most Spaniards are of mulatto complexion and that they themselves are not whites.

The country is going into an economic slump. The Cubans know nothing about business and economy. From the coming of Columbus up till now, the only people that have come to Cuba to enrich the country instead of to exploit it have been the Negroes; first as slaves, then, when free, as laborers. It is a fact that the people who hate the Negroes most are those that came from them. It is distasteful to the whites that Colonel Batista is ruling Cuba; but they themselves have acknowledged that they cannot do it.

The best method of handling the Negroes and the Negro problem for the benefit of the Negroes themselves while we are living under the "wicked one" is the method used in the U. S. A. Booker T. Washington knew that. It is the intention of the whites to repatriate the British subjects; but due to fear as to what the British government might do, they have not yet done it.—Julio Despaigne.

Bishop Monestel's Sudden Death

◆ The government of Costa Rica erected a building for the storing of grain. The time came for the official opening, and in that part of the world it is the uniform custom to have a bishop present to "bless" the structure, the same as if it were a battleship. Government officials and representatives of foreign powers were present, and Bishop Monestel, of the province of Alajuela, was invited to officiate. He had just put on his episcopal robes and was about to step out of the dressing room when his attention was called to the fact that he had left three buttons unbuttoned. He said, "Yes, just a minute," and fell dead. The program was canceled, after a priest did the "blessing".

No Thieves in the Caymans (?)

◆ A hundred and fifty miles to the northwest of Jamaica are the three little islands forming the Cayman group. One of Jehovah's witnesses who visited the islands says that there are no thieves, but the islands are overrun with all kinds of religion. The witness means to say that there are plenty of thieves in the Caymans, but not among the common people. These islands were formerly the rendezvous of pirates.

Grave Robbers in Costa Rica

◆ Grave robbing has become a profitable business in Costa Rica, the high price of gold having caused a rush of diggers to Indian graves. The industry is prohibited by law, but flourishes, nevertheless, in spite of the fact that occasionally the diggers get caught in the meshes of the law. Airplanes are used to whisk the booty out of the country.

Arrowroot for Colitis

◆ In his book Bermuda in Three Colors Carveth Wells writes that those suffering from colitis should try a diet of arrowroot for a few weeks. This seems reasonable, as arrowroot was used for centuries by Indians as a healing poultice for arrow-poisoned wounds.

Canada

Sullivan Speaks Soothingly

REFERRING to the confessed murder of the Canadian magnate A. J. Small, by his Roman Catholic wife, and her subsequent donation of his fortune to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, Patrick Sullivan, of Toronto, says soothingly:

Al Capone at his worst wore a glistening halo and shimmering white wings compared with the Vatican bandits who got away with A. J. Small and his whole estate. Ivan Kreuger, in his most malignant mood, was a saint compared with the political nitwits who assisted the Vatican scoundrels (a) to cover up the Small murder; (b) to get away with the avails of this murder.

Just think of giving A. J. Small's $4,000,000 estate to a gang of Italian grafters, with supernatural pretensions, to protect the soul of an acknowledged murderess, from fire eternal and fire sempiternal. What a fire insurance! The two organs of government, Romanism and Ontario's judicature, worked hand in glove in disposing of A. J. Small's estate. "British justice!" Yes! And what a lovely sample of it!

Surveying at 90 Miles per Hour

◆ Canada is being surveyed from the air at 90 miles per hour. The surveys provide good workable pictures of 100 to 200 square miles per hour by vertical photography, and 450 to 700 square miles by oblique photography. These photographs enable the making of maps which show every bend in the shore lines of the lakes, and enable quite accurate calculations of the timber stand. Logging companies now use these maps in laying out their roads.

Cardinal Wants All to Submit to Him

◆ Cardinal Villeneuve, at St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada, denounced liberty of the press. The direct import of that is that he wants everything submitted to him before it is published, so that the power to suppress truth and promote the lies of the Roman Hierarchy may be preserved intact.

Surgeons Provide Girl with a Scalp

◆ Somewhere in Ontario in recent years a girl was scalped by getting her hair caught in machinery. Surgeons not only grafted a new scalp upon her head, but it is now covered with lovely tresses, a triumph of the surgeon's art.

Confusing Himself with God

◆ Confusing himself with Almighty God, the "Reverend Father" J. McCann (Catholic clergyman), Coniston, Ontario, listened to two records by Judge Rutherford, and then smashed the records and sued Howard Macdonald, Jehovah's witness, for blasphemy, because he dared play them on a phonograph and thus tell the truth about the Roman Hierarchy's blasphemies and lies. The grand jury dismissed the foolish charge of blasphemy. Then Macdonald sued McCann, and was awarded $3 for the smashed records. Then "Reverend Father" J. J. O'Leary, another Catholic, desired to show that with his whole heart and soul he is a racketeer like McCann, and urged his congregation at Sudbury, Ontario, to assault Jehovah's witnesses, in the following Christ-like statement:

Throw them down the front steps if you have to pay a fine in police court for it. You may consider it well worth your money.

Must Have Paper from Canadian Mills

◆ Before the Senate Finance Committee Francis P. Garvan, of New York, testified that because the New York Times and New York Herald-Tribune must have Canadian newsprint paper their editorial utterances are influenced, and British interests are thereby enabled to foist their policies on the American public through J. P. Morgan & Co., the British agent.

Mount Norquay Skiing

◆ The skiing course at Mount Norquay, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, drops 3,000 feet in a traveled distance of a mile and a half while the slalom, or zigzag course between obstacles, has an angle of from thirty to forty degrees. Looks like a fine chance for somebody to break his neck, with considerable fun doing it.

Radium Is Still Expensive

◆ The price of radium is only one-fifth of what it was before the discoveries at Great Bear lake, Canada, but it is still expensive $700,000 an ounce. The total amount of mined radium in the world is estimated at less than one and one-third pounds, worth, at current prices, $15,000,000.

What May Now Happen in Quebec

IN Quebec any person may now walk into the attorney general's office and denounce a neighbor as a Communist or permitting Communist meetings. Without any definition of what a Communist is, the attorney general may then order the person arrested and the premises searched and padlocked. The defendant cannot call witnesses or cross-examine the plaintiff. This law, put into existence by Premier Duplessis, is a thing not even hinted at by him when he was running for the office he now occupies. Now all the key positions of the Quebec government are occupied by him and a handful of Jesuits and the liberties of the people of Quebec are at an end. But some are ignoring the illegal law. This absurd law, described by one Canadian statesman as "a toadstool grown on Mr. Duplessis' own mental dunghill", is stated by Mr. Duplessis himself as having been suggested by Cardinal Villeneuve. The same statesman, Col. R. S. Calder, not only stated definitely that the Roman Catholic Church is back of this plan to make Canada Fascist, but that:

A very strong committee of lawyers has been trying to find a method of procedure, but apparently every valve has been securely screwed down.

Former Premier Taschereau was in on this deal. The pretended conflict between him and the present premier is all superficial, done for the purpose of making the people of Quebec think that at least one of them is for the people. The objective of the "Church" is to have what they consider "peace and safety" in Quebec, to prevent the truth on all subjects from reaching the people. Under the law as it now stands, anybody in Quebec who has a book in his house not approved by the Catholic Hierarchy may have his house padlocked and not be able to enter it until the Hierarchy gives consent. Today no printer in Quebec may legally print anything at all without submitting the plates to the chief of police and first getting his consent. But in actual practice this law is not yet enforced, except in certain instances where the "Church" wishes it enforced.

The padlock law, however, is in full swing. Its intent is to prevent the use of lecture halls, printing equipment, and even hotels and eating places by anyone found objectionable by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. In one instance a group of police lickspittles even seized an editor's pants under the pretext that they contained something Communistic.

Real Object of Quebec Padlock Law

◆ Referring to the Quebec Padlock Law, under which the premier and the attorney general of the province may pronounce any man or organization guilty and lock his premises, without any trial, and without any definition of what he is guilty of, J. E. Keith, in Maclean's Magazine, says:

Actually the Padlock Bill illustrates very well the political situation in Quebec. There is no Communist movement of any strength in the province. Communist votes at elections have never been more than a few thousands in the whole of Montreal, with its large foreign element. The anti-Communist drive in Quebec is part of the world movement initiated by the Pope some months ago. Mr. Duplessis stated openly in the legislature that the idea of the Padlock Act was suggested by Cardinal Villeneuve. While ostensibly anti-Communist, the law can also be used against anti-clericals, who are growing stronger every day in the province. It is significant that the only sedition charges laid in the Quebec courts in the past five years have not been against Communists, who attack the economic system, but against "Jehovah's witnesses", who attack the priesthood.

Religious Corporation May Steal

◆ Religious corporations in Quebec may borrow all they can get from banks or insurance companies or other institutions that hold the savings of the public in their care, and then they can repudiate their debts and not a thing can be done about it. The courts of Quebec have decided that an ecclesiastical parish cannot be put into bankruptcy and that the holders of mortgages on church property cannot bring the property to sale. Talk about rackets!

Canadian Legislature Cuts Frills

◆ The first day of the Canadian legislature used to be a day of frills. Ladies flocked to the scene, milliners, dress shops and beauty parlors did a land office business, and many were the feminine triumphs and heartbreaks. Now that is all past and the legislature meets and gets down to business without the usual ladies' day, and it is estimated that it saves $10,000 by so doing. The milliners, dress shops and beauty parlors think differently.

France

Broadcast Warning to Crooks

◆ Two crooks traveling from London to Paris, at which latter city both were awaited by the police, never showed up, but from a third man, innocently traveling in their company, it was learned that while they were en route one of the men received in code a warning that the police were awaiting him. The information was received by means of a pocket receiving apparatus, and the police are now looking for the broadcasting station. There is reason to believe that an international criminal organization sends the signals, and that the wave lengths change with each broadcast. Broadcasts are frequent from Britain, France, Germany and the United States.

Les Cagoulards

◆ French police located two of the munition plants where arms were made for Les Cagoulards, the “Hooded Men” who sought to overthrow the French government and set up a dictatorship. The money for the building up of this hooded organization, once known as the Croix de Feu, was supplied by the French Government itself, through the hands of Andre Tardieu, when he was premier. The French Government was so fortunate as to apprehend at an obscure freight station 2,300 machine guns, fresh from Germany, intended for the big putsch.

Free Masons Stay in Switzerland

◆ Switzerland remains a democracy. The proposition to exclude Masons and Odd Fellows from the right of free association was beaten by a vote of 514,539 to 233,481. The only canton that voted in favor of the amendment to the constitution which would have driven these orders to the wall was the Roman Catholic canton of Frieburg, which is strictly under control of the Hierarchy. In this campaign the Nazis and the Hierarchy worked together, but in vain.

Spanish Refugees in France

◆ Spanish refugees in France, if between the ages of 18 and 48, are now required to return to Spain, to whichever side they prefer. This is proving embarrassing to some Spaniards of wealth that have been waiting for Franco to win the war for them.

Basque Children in a Panic

◆ Forty-one little Basque children sent to Switzerland went into a panic when they arrived in Geneva and were met by two priests. They mistook the Geneva city flag of red and gold for Franco’s flag, and the priests as his possible aides, and for fifteen minutes refused to leave the train.

The Dogs of Saint Bernard

◆ The last life saved by the dogs of Saint Bernard was that of a German with a broken leg, in 1928. The last person slain by them was a little girl, the daughter of Dr. Jean Bremond, May 16, 1937. Dr. Bremond made demand that all the dogs that participated in the attack be slain.

The “Dumb Dogs” at Rheims

◆ The “dumb dogs” at Rheims, France, when they consecrated anew the cathedral rebuilt for them by John D. Rockefeller, went around it three times, sprinkling it with “holy water” every time they thought of it, sniffing at the incense, and then sprinkling some more.

Financed the Croix de Feu

◆ On the witness stand in Lyons, former premier Andre Tardieu testified that more than twenty times he met Colonel de la Rocque, head of the Croix de Feu Fascist (Catholic Action) party, and passed him money in bank notes to hold the Communists in check (?).

The Vosges Tunnel

◆ The new Vosges tunnel through the mountains separating France and Alsace is nearly seven miles long and was bored for nearly two miles through solid granite. The project originated seventy years ago.

France Determined to Be Air-minded

◆ France, determined to be air-minded, will begin teaching children aerodynamics at the age of 9, and at 17 they will be expected to make flights.

Brittany and the Saints

◆ The most superstitious corner of “Christendom” is Brittany, France, where there are shrines, fetes and holidays in honor of 2,937 “saints”.

Eastern Europe

Persecutions in Hungary

◆ At many places in Hungary, notably Porcsalma, Tiszaeszlar, Budszentmihaly, Gava, Nyiregyhaza and Kisvarda, Jehovah’s witnesses have been brutally beaten, their homes to the number of 800 have been searched, and all literature found, including the Bible, was confiscated and destroyed. The foreign representative of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society at Budapest was taken out of the capital to Kisvarda and there arrested and treated like a common criminal. Several hundred Hungarian witnesses were placed under police control, thus completely restraining them of their freedom of action; over a hundred law suits are pending against them for handing out Bible literature; internments in prison camps have taken place. Writings awarded highest diplomas at Paris and Brussels expositions, and which have world-wide circulation running into the hundreds of millions of copies, were designated as “inciting against religion”. Count Stephan Bethlen, a supposed liberal and supposed defender of the rights of minorities, received with silence a detailed memorandum of these modern persecutions of innocent Christians.

The Pretense of Superior Blood

◆ Under the pretense that Aryan blood is superior to other blood, despite the Scripture assertion that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26), Poland’s ministry of education instituted regulations that Jewish students must sit by themselves on ghetto benches reserved for the race whence came the apostles and prophets and the Savior of men. Today thousands of Jewish boys and girls are standing in the class rooms of Polish schools and colleges rather than comply with the ministry’s idiotic ruling; and though one may question the wisdom of their self-imposed hardship, it is impossible to avoid admiration of their spunk.

Woman Athlete Becomes a Man

◆ At Prague University a woman athlete, a medical student, within two years changed to a man; and as Stepan Pekar is continuing his studies in the institution where, on two separate occasions, the athletic commission passed on the sex question involved, and with the different results mentioned.

In the Invisible Rays

◆ The invisible man, dream of scientists for centuries, has really happened. He appeared and vanished before a skeptical audience of more than 80 men and women in Graz, capital of Styria, Austria.

Three local engineers—Jules Gindert, Armand Pinther and Ernest Thalhofer—had invited the audience to see a demonstration of their invention which they claim can make things and people invisible.

On a small brightly-lit stage, before a vivid yellow background covered with blue and red signs, stood a vase, a china doll, glass bottles, and lighted electric lamps.

There was a low buzzing noise. After 30 seconds the background of the stage became luminous. Suddenly everything on the stage seemed to dissolve into nothing. The stage appeared to be empty. After two minutes the articles gradually took shape again.

Then came the real sensation. A middle-aged man selected by the audience stood against the yellow background. Within half a minute he had vanished.

A shiver went through the audience, when, replying to a question from one of the inventors, the man’s voice came from the stage, “Yes, I am here all right.”

When he was brought back to “sight”, the man said that the audience in front of him had been visible all the time. He felt nothing except a faint tingling sensation.—Barrier Daily Truth.

Smith, Farley, and Butler

◆ Al Smith, one-time candidate for the presidency, Jim Farley, Jobmaster General of the Roosevelt administration, and Pierce Butler, Supreme Court justice designated by Senate press gallery as “Papal delegate to the Supreme Court”, have been selected as the committee of American Catholics for the bread show at Budapest, in May.

Nazi Representative in Czechoslovakia

◆ The Nazi representative in Czechoslovakia committed suicide rather than face in open court the charges that would have put him down on the low plane of morality of the Catholic priests convicted of sodomy in Germany. Thirteen of his comrades were involved, and went to trial.

Russia

Treatment of Prisoners

◆ Russian political police may arrest any Russian citizen without warrant and without charge, and such person may be held indefinitely without trial or be tried, condemned and punished in secret. In Germany the Secret State Police are completely free from judicial control and may keep a person in a concentration camp for an indefinite period. In Austria the police have the right to detain without trial for an indefinite period and to control all intercourse with the outside world. In Bulgaria persons are often held for weeks without trial. In Irish Free State it is an offense to refuse to answer questions put by the police; the same holds true in Northern Ireland, and persons may be retained indefinitely. In Italy, independent of any judicial authority, a person may be sent away for detention for as long as five years. In Poland a three months' period of detention may be extended indefinitely, without any judicial control.

Red Tape Killing Russia and Germany

◆ The Russian and German governments are as alike as two peas in a pod; they have different bosses, but the same endless bureaucracy. Nobody dares do anything before careful inquiry as to whether he is likely to be shot for doing it. It is of record that in one instance in Germany it took 18 months to exchange a quantity of toys for 10,000 pounds of wool and before the deal was finished 680 forms had been filled out. The average number of forms on the average German business deal is now 140, and that is in itself enough to spell death to the régime making such red tape necessary.

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