Consolation, October 15, 1941

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Contents

Sound and the Human Ear 3

Unexplainable and Unnecessary Sounds 5

Under the Totalitarian Flag

Auto da Fe, or Act of the Faith 9

"Characters of the Inquisition" 10

The Pope's Great Big Flock 11

Mr. Hays Could Not, Would Not and Did Not Answer This Letter 13

"Give Us More Religion" (?)

A Friend in Chile Inquires 14

"Enormous Prestige" of the Clergy 15

Eloquence from Paintsville 15

Counsel by J. F. Rutherford

Orphans Become King's Children 16

Telling Japan What to Do 18

"Patient and Peaceful" Diplomats 18

The Rewards of "Labor" 19

The Suggestion Box 19

The New Government

Beautiful Row in North Carolina 20

Defending Liberty by Denying It 20

Oklahoma Zone Assembly in a Tent 22

Natural Phenomena 25

New England—Police Must Obey Laws 26

The Press—"Refused Further Information" 27

Mexico, Nicaragua and Bermuda 28

British Comment

Hopes for Russia 29

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Notanda

A Scientific Description of Sound

◆ The source of a sound is usually an elastic body distorted from its normal shape and released, vibrating more or less symmetrically about this normal shape or position. The distance from a point in one impulse to the corresponding point in the next impulse is called the wave length of the sound. The frequency of these waves as they strike the ear determines the pitch of the sound.

Sound may be conveyed by any elastic substance. If produced in free air, at a distance from all obstacles, it spreads in spherical waves, diminishing as it spreads over greater and greater surfaces. In the air sound travels approximately 1,100 feet per second, but the velocity varies with the temperature and other circumstances.

Sound can be conveyed by any elastic substance. Place a watch on a table, smother it with a pillow so that its ticking cannot be heard, put the ear to the edge of the table and the ticking of the watch will be heard coming through the wood, strong and clear. This principle is employed in a device by which the bones of the head convey the sounds. Electric vibrators, fastened to the forehead or other parts of the cranium, enable totally deaf persons to receive oral instruction, music or other sounds from the teacher, with whose loudspeaker they are connected by wire.

When a gun is fired five miles away at sea there are two reports. The first one comes through the water in about six seconds. Twenty seconds later comes the report transmitted through the air.

The noise in a vehicle is much less when it is loaded than when it is empty. This is because the bodies and clothing of the passengers absorb many of the sound waves.

Sound waves may be bent by passing them through large thin-walled spherical balloons. When the balloons are filled with heavy gas the sounds converge; when filled with lighter gas they diverge.

CONSOLATION

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

Volume XXIII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, October 15, 1941 Number 576

Sound and the Human Ear

JEHOVAH GOD caused the walls of Jericho to fall down flat at the sound of a multitude of human voices, the voices of His then witnesses in the earth, His typical people in the days of Joshua. They were to give a shout all at once and down would come the walls, and they did. The marching continued until the shout was to be given and was given.

That seems to be the situation today. Jehovah’s witnesses go about the earth with the witness by word of mouth, by sound-car, by phonograph, by radio (to some extent), as well as by books and magazines, and sound enters into it all (except in the case of those totally deaf), and may enter into it still more, in some manner as yet unforeseen. The great shout is yet to come, and is sure to come, whatever be its form, and, in any event, a consideration of the subject of sound, with some attention to the human ear, is quite in order.

The sounds which one hears coming from stringed instruments come, not from the strings, but from the sounding boards. It is infinitely more important to have a good violin than it is to have good strings on it. As violin strings cut through the air they communicate almost no motion to it and therefore emit practically no sound directly.

In the human throat, air from the lungs is blown over elastic vocal cords and their vibrations are communicated to the air after being projected against the roof of the mouth as a sounding board. Good singers have the roofs of their mouths highly arched.

A curious but unintentional example of sound diversion occurred in the British House of Parliament when a shaft of warm air, rising through a large ventilator in the floor, so diverted the sound that a speaker on either side of it could not be heard by one sitting on the opposite side.

Reverberation comes when sound waves hit solid walls and rebound, sometimes echoing scores of times before they come to rest. Reverberation is corrected by coffering or deeply recessing plastered walls.

The Human Sound Receptacle

The air ripples set up by sound pass through the outer ear in man and beat against the eardrum, which covers and protects the middle ear. In the middle ear are three small bones, the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup, the uses of which are to convey the sounds to the inner ear, the cochlea, the exquisite harp of 2,700 strings which baffles the atheist.

Who was it that strung those little white threads, those tiny aerials which catch the flutterings of the ether across the oceans and convey them to the brain without a slip of so much as a syllable? Some call these threads nerves, but how they do their work without intervention of the will is unknown, except by the Creator. They do something else too. As the head is bent these tiny threads bend correspondingly and send out warnings all over the body to stiffen this muscle or relax that one so that the proper balance of the creature may be preserved. It is a bigger trick keeping one’s balance than one thinks it is: it is an exceedingly difficult matter to stand perfectly still in one position for even one minute. This part of the brain is so important that when a person is hit on the chin and the jawbone is forced back into the cavity where these little threads are found, the person hit goes down unconscious.

A human whisper can be heard about 15 feet, and an ordinary voice 30 feet. The Solomon Islanders are said to hear drums 100 miles away.

Man has heard volcanic explosions at 2,000 miles. He can hear artillery firing at 150 miles, a railway whistle at two miles, and the noise of a train at 8,200 feet. A balloonist has heard the report of a rifle and the bark of a dog at 5,900 feet, the beating of a drum at 4,550 feet, the rolling of a cart at 3,255 feet, the croak of frogs at 3,000 feet, the note of a cricket at 2,500 feet, and the voice of man at 1,600 feet. The cry of a babe has the greatest carrying power of any human articulation. This is to make sure that its wants will receive attention.

The trained ear can distinguish sounds as low as sixteen vibrations per second, and up to as high, in rare instances, as 70,000 vibrations per second. Young people can hear sounds of higher pitch than older people.

Sounds Man Cannot Hear

Bats are guided in their flight at night by echoes that come back to them from shrill notes which they send out from little noise-making centers in their wings. These noises are so shrill that they cannot be heard at all by human ears.

The air is full of sounds that man cannot hear, but they mean life or death to the insects and to the birds and other creatures that make their living by secondary methods. Watch the ears of cats and dogs and see how responsive they are to sounds you cannot detect.

Everybody remembers the story of ‘the holy geese in the holy temple of the holy city and how the holy Roman soldiers were awakened by them when the wicked heathen Goths tried to climb up into the Capitoline Hill one stormy night. The holy geese saved the holy city by squawking at the right time. Thus the holy fires in the holy temple did not go out, but continued to smoke, holy smoke.’

Reptiles have ears, fishes have ears, worms have ears, and whales have ears. The dip of an oar is enough to send a whale out of sight beneath the waves. In the effort to accommodate himself to the rising din about him which is making him partly deaf, it is said, man’s ears are getting larger and larger.

By means of mechanical ears, which transform inaudible sounds into audible ones, or into visible signals, man is able to hear or see the roar of a magnet as it picks up a piece of iron, or the shrill sounds of inaudible foghorns set to guide ships into port in a fog.

A mechanical ear attached to the outside of a dwelling enables a detective to hear the conversation carried on within, or to detect a gun fired 135 miles away. It is hoped that man may yet set up silent sounds that will destroy or entrap insects and other pests.

Man can sense some of the low sounds which he cannot hear when the floor beneath him in a church trembles from the deepest notes of the organ, pitched so low that while his body can feel the vibrations, his ears cannot hear them at all, though a trained ear may be able to do so.

Locomotive Whistles

When the Britishers hear about American bells and locomotive whistles and the unending racket which they make from one end of the land to the other, day and night for ever and ever, they smile incredulously.

Over there they have no grade crossings. Incidentally, that one little item saves them 5,000 funerals a year.

It is thought that if all locomotive and traction whistles were of one pitch, and nothing else could use it, the ear would soon become accustomed to instinctively associating it with danger.

Western lines are experimenting with musical locomotive whistles, soft, cooing, in place of the screech-owl type generally used. Sirens audible at three miles are used on the Southern Pacific lines in California. The direct annual cost, in coal and water, of operating railroad whistles is figured at eight million dollars for the United States alone.

A siren is a very simple form of whistle. It consists of two circular discs, the one fixed, the other pivoted to revolve nearly in contact with it. Both discs are pierced by a circle or circles of holes through which steam or compressed air escapes as the holes in the two discs come opposite one another.

Sound is much affected by atmospheric conditions, topography and buildings, so that a blast from a single whistle cannot always be heard for any great distance in a specified direction. Some have expressed the belief that the locomotive whistle, like the headlight, should be reflected forward, to confine the sound, as far as possible, to the region ahead.

Unexplainable and Unnecessary Sounds

Mysterious noises in the sky have been heard within the past few years in various parts of the earth, notably in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, the Mississippi valley, and Honduras; also over London. Though the skies were clear, these explosions were so severe as to shake the houses. At last reports the scientists grappling with this problem had not been able to suggest any reasonable theory to account for them.

There are some odd radio receptions, hard for any but experts to understand. In a Toronto florist shop the metal sink acts as a loudspeaker and when the radio transmitter is on the faucets in the flower store yield as nice music as one could wish. There was a similar case in London, where crowds gathered around a metal lamp pole near Station 2LO to hear the latest news without the trouble or expense of tuning in.

In various places in the earth street criers rend the air with cries that seem to accomplish little except to lacerate the nerves of all in the neighborhood.

Such cries were much more common once than now. Hand-organs and street bands are largely things of the past.

A speaker who shouts hurts his own voice and hurts the ears of those he addresses. Speaking with clear, careful articulation, not too loud nor too low, gives best results all round. Slovenly or billowy speakers are a bore.

Riveting machines are passing out. One man with an electric welder can do what four men did with the riveter, and do it quietly, and do it better. Barking dogs are a nuisance in a city and a menace anywhere. City dwellers, with their nerves torn by the racket, do not find the same delight in being awakened by crowing roosters as do some others.

Of all noises in the city and out of it, the one that seems to be the greatest general nuisance is the unrefined, coarse, blatant, discourteous squawk from the automobile. It speaks for itself. That it accomplishes its purpose of giving sudden alarm is not to be questioned, but there are some kinds of horns that are less beastly than others.

The tooting of an auto horn in front of a house is illegal and indefensible, if its object is to arouse the inhabitants of the house. There are other and better ways to accomplish that end. Yet it is often done by those (and they are many) who never think of anybody but themselves. Why anybody should awaken a whole neighborhood because he wishes to speak to one person who can be awakened otherwise is a mystery. Also, how about the noisy ringing of church bells early on Sunday morning?

A study of the noise of New York city charges forty percent of it to auto trucks, twenty-five percent to the elevated railway, twenty percent to surface cars of the street railway, and the remainder to automobiles, taxicabs, fire apparatus, horsedrawn vehicles, and excavating and building operations.

The Audiometer in Practice

The little machine for measuring the volume of noise in a given vicinity is called the audiometer. By means of this instrument it has been discovered that at the brink of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls of Niagara there is no greater volume of noise than is sometimes equaled at New York’s busiest corner.

Oddly enough, the noise map of New York shows that the quietest place in the city is in a subway station when all trains are far enough away to send back no roar. As a rule, the noise map of the city is almost identical with its traffic map, but not quite.

Cottagers near bodies of water complain of unnecessary noises by motor boats. Britain estimates its cost in fatigue due to jazz bands as not far from one million pounds a week. As one long-suffering Briton put it, he wishes they would take the din out of dinner and restore the rest to restaurant. There is some agitation in Britain for a public health noise abatement act.

In America one person in six has defective hearing. Children of cousins are special sufferers in this regard. The hard-of-hearing children have to repeat their grades three times as often as do children from all other causes.

Disturbing Effects of Sounds

The natural rhythmic action of the stomach is found to be halted one-third by any harsh noise, and instruments show that when a paper bag is burst near the ear of a subject the pressure in his brain rises to four times normal.

Why should some sounds disturb one, and other sounds which to others seem worse have no effect on him? Here enters the human nervous system; and strange are its ways. Here is Helmholtz’s explanation of why a discordant note offends the ear:

The essence of dissonance consists merely in very rapid beats or changes in intensity of the sound. Two consonant tones flow on quietly side by side in an undisturbed stream; dissonant tones cut each other up into separate pulses. These pulses may be too rapid for the ear to separate, but their existence may be demonstrated. The nerves of hearing feel these rapid beats as rough and unpleasant because every intermittent excitement of any nervous apparatus affects us more powerfully than one that lasts unaltered.

It is the odd way that this works out in everyday life that is interesting. The Syrians and many others enjoy music that is full of half and quarter tones that are painful to the ears of others; but having become accustomed to it, they like it. Jazz is in the same class.

New York had the odd example of two riveters perched in the iron work of a towering building, pleading with a lady who was practicing scales in a studio opposite their rattling machine guns. They begged her to stop her racket, as it upset their nerves. It is well known that the city dweller is as much upset by the odd sounds of the country as his country cousin is by the racket of the city when he comes to town.

A stationary engineer works for hours on end in a deafening roar, but let an unusual sound come from the engine, a bit of grinding or scraping, he hears it instantly and is alert to locate the trouble. It is not so much the noise as the unusual noise that distresses.

Many people sing when in the bathroom. The reason is that the note is struck for them by the running water. The reason why noise in some offices is so distracting is that the noises are unusual. The click of the typewriter does not disturb. One gets used to that; but conversation, singing, WHISTLING, the ringing of the telephone!!!

Causes of Deafness

Exposure to sound above a certain intensity causes deafness. A single loud blast may do it, or a relatively low intensity long continued will produce the same result. Hearing continues while asleep. Digestive poisons work to produce deafness. A White Plains woman had extracted from her ear the skeleton of a cricket that flew into it fifteen years previous. A Massachusetts man had his eardrum punctured by a twig that slapped him and broke off while he was in the woods. Many aviators are deaf, and it is small wonder. Water in the ear is a contributory cause. A child "specialist" in a California city makes a specialty of puncturing infants' eardrums for the money there is in it. He deserves condign punishment for such a crime. He puts an optical instrument into a perfectly normal ear, and then gets a distracted mother to look through it and see for herself 'how imperative the "operation" is'. There are other rackets than the religious humbug.

The first American school for the hard of hearing was at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1817. In New York city's School for the Deaf 440 children are being trained to speak and follow the same course of study as other boys and girls. They learn to read lips, which is a fine art. The elementary sounds are taught by means of mirrors, which help the children to make the same motions as normal persons make in producing sounds. Some admitted as entirely deaf are later found to have some rudiments of hearing.

Stunt flying in airplanes as a means of gaining the use of the organs of hearing passed out after several precious lives were lost and little good accomplished by that means. Gunners try to save their hearing by opening their mouths while firing large guns, thus equalizing the pressure on both sides of the eardrums. Edison was made stone-deaf by having his ears boxed. A supposedly playful box on the ear burst the eardrum of one ear of the writer of this article. Some people think their brains were only stuffed in to fill out the cavity in their skulls.

The Search for Quietude

The only quiet places in New York are in the interior of blocks and in the tops of skyscrapers. Street noises hit the walls of the buildings and ascend in heavy volume ten floors, after which they gradually die out until, when the twentieth floor is reached, they are well dissipated. Vessels in the harbor are a greater annoyance on the top floors than lower down. Unnecessary noises from tugboats and other harbor vessels have been much reduced in New York in recent years, as a result of determined efforts to that end.

It has long been recognized that quiet should reign in hospitals and in their surroundings. The sick do better where it is quiet. So do the well. Removal from a noisy place to a quiet one is as good as a vacation. Silence soothes the bruised nerves of the ears.

London is as quiet as a graveyard, compared with New York. There are few autos, and they travel quietly. Even the children seem quiet about their games. Yet the Londoners are beginning to complain of the noise of a noisy age.

In Paris a nervous play-writer, M. Bernstein, had an architect design a supposedly soundproof room; but in spite of padded walls, two feet thick and stuffed with sawdust, he found that his sensitive ears picked up as much noise as ever. He gave up the fight and went to a hotel.

Herbert Spencer valued silence so much that rather than waste his time listening to a conversation which he saw was becoming unprofitable he wore ear-muffs, which he impolitely drew down when he began to suffer. These ear-muffs contained small wax cones with which he closed the portals of his ears.

Grenville Kleiser, writing on the value of silence, says:

Great is the power of silence. There is nothing more eloquent than the still small voice of conscience. Think of the silent growth of the forest. The world upon which you now stand is whirling silently through space. The great forces of nature are silent. How wonderful is the silent power of truth, constantly at work, without effort, sound or confusion. Only man is wasteful, prodigally squandering words, speech and energy. Silence will help you to solve personal problems. Silence is golden. Silence will give you rest from inordinate ambition and desire. Silence will promote quietness of spirit. Words are squandered in useless daily talk. The loss of time and energy from this source alone is incalculable. Add to this the incessant noise, alike in the country and cities, and the need of some counteracting influence is obvious.

Inventions in the Realm of Sound

Super-sounds have been produced up to 300,000 vibrations per second. This was done by what is called a "piezo-electric oscillator". At this rate these sound waves do not register in the air. Frogs and fish died within a few minutes when the waves passed through the waters in which they swam. One-celled organisms, called paramecium, broke in pieces.

By means of the hydrophone, much used during the World War, any water sound may be magnified any number of times desired. The addition of each vacuum valve after the first squares the volume of sound. With one valve the sound is magnified seven times, with two valves forty-nine times, and so on. The footsteps of a fly may be made to sound like the roar of heavy artillery. The geophone does for land sounds what the hydrophone does for water sounds. A perfect receiving apparatus could receive every sound in the world.

A loudspeaker device uses a new series of sound waves. They travel at twice the speed of ordinary sound waves and are capable of hurling the human voice many miles. Who would want to live in a world where titanic bellowers could project their words in tones stupendous? Even Spencer's ear-muffs hold out no hope.

The "exponential horn", so called, is a new invention that broadcasts the natural human voice or tones of musical instruments without distortion. It is claimed to function perfectly at a mile. The secret of the volume of the horn lies in a mathematically-precise enlargement of the tone chamber, which is four feet square.

The Topeler method of sound photography has been greatly improved upon recently by the discovery that sound waves produced between a point source and a photographic plate cast shadows on that plate. The twinkling of stars and the phenomenon of heat rising from the ground, both caused by varying density of the air, are keys to the new method.

By the Osiso, which transforms sound into a pencil-point of light, the totally deaf may understand speech by viewing the audio-frequency waves of the output of any good radio receiving set or telephone. The receiving is done on a series of revolving mirrors.

By a German invention, patented by the firm of Mertens, books and papers printed in a certain kind of ink may be heard by the blind, but the form intended to be used is a series of dots and dashes printed on a tape. It is necessary that the blind person be familiar with telegraphy.

It is admitted that athletes have the best hearing of any humans; so, if you wish to hear well, keep your entire body in as sound health as possible. Children whose parents are cousins should be taught to lie on the face, to help keep the Eustachian tube open and reduce the chances of deafness.

A totally deaf person states that he gets some fun out of his predicament. Once he was arrested for not reading correctly the lips of an officer who had warned him he was violating a traffic ordinance and who wanted to know brusquely if he thought he could get away with that. When he nodded affirmatively the cop, not having any sense [and it is wonderful how many such there are] ran him in. The totally deaf, when visiting with each other, by the lip-reading system make noises that scare the unsophisticated; but they themselves do not know of it.

In the Days of The King there will not be a deaf ear in all the earth.

UNDER THE TOTALITARIAN FLAG

Auto da Fe, or Act of the Faith

◆ "Act of the faith" (auto da fe) in the Romish church is a solemn ceremony held by the inquisition for the punishment of heretics and the absolution of the innocent accused. They usually contrive the auto to fall on some great festival, that the execution may pass with the more awe, and it is always on a Sunday. The auto da fe may be called the last act of the inquisitorial tragedy: it is a kind of jail-delivery, appointed as often as a competent number of prisoners in the inquisition are convicted of heresy, either by their own voluntary or extorted confession, or on the evidence of certain witnesses. The process is this: In the morning they are brought into the great hall, where they have a peculiar habit put on, which they are to wear in the procession, and by which they know their doom. The procession is led by the Dominican friars, after which come the patients, being all in black coats without sleeves, and barefooted, with a wax candle in their hands. These are followed by the penitents who have narrowly escaped being burnt, who over their black coats have flames painted, with their points turned downwards. Next come the negative or relapsed, who are to be burnt, having flames painted on their habits, pointing upwards. After these come such as profess doctrines contrary to the faith of Rome, who, besides having flames painted upwards, have their picture painted on their breasts, with dogs, serpents, and devils, all open-mouthed, about it. Each prisoner is attended with a familiar of the inquisition, and those to be burnt have also a Jesuit on each hand, who is continually exhorting them to abjure. After the prisoners comes a troop of familiars on horseback; and after them the inquisitors, and other officers of the court, on mules; last of all the inquisitor-general, on a white horse, led by two men.

A scaffold is erected, large enough for two or three thousand people; at one end of which are the prisoners, at the other the inquisitors. After a sermon, made up of encomiums of the inquisition, and invectives against heretics, a priest ascends a desk near the scaffold, and having taken the abjuration of the penitents, recites the final sentence of those who are to be put to death, and delivers them to the secular arm, earnestly beseeching, at the same time, the secular power not to touch their blood, or put their lives in danger. The prisoners, being thus in the hands of the civil magistrate, are presently loaded with chains, and carried first to the secular jail, and from thence, in an hour or two, brought before the civil judge; who, after asking in what religion they intend to die, pronounces sentence on such as declare they die in the communion of the church of Rome, that they shall first be strangled, and then burnt to ashes; or such as die in any other faith, that they be burnt alive. Both are immediately carried to the Ribera, the place of execution, where there are as many stakes set up as there are prisoners to be burnt, with a quantity of dry furze about them. The stakes of the professed, that is, such as persist in their heresy, are about four yards high, having a small board toward the top for the prisoner to be seated on. The negative or relapsed being first strangled and burnt, the professed mount their stakes by a ladder, and the Jesuits, after several repeated exhortations to be reconciled to the church, part with them, telling them that they leave them to the devil, who is standing at their elbow to receive their souls, and carry them to the flames of hell. On this a great shout is raised, and the cry is, "Let the dog's beards be made," which is done by thrusting flaming furze, fastened to long poles, against their faces, till their faces are burnt to a coal, which is accompanied with the loudest acclamations of joy. At last, fire is set to the furze at the bottom of them, over which the professed are chained so high that the top of the flame seldom reaches higher than the seat they sit on: so that they are rather roasted than burnt. There cannot be a more lamentable spectacle. The sufferers continually cry out while they are able, "Pity, for the love of God!" Yet it is beheld by all sexes and ages with transports of joy and satisfaction.—Buck's Theological Dictionary.

"Characters of the Inquisition"

◆ The American Freeman, June, 1941, reviews the foregoing book by the Catholic author, Wm. Thomas Walsh. The editor of the Freeman is a Socialist, accustomed to using his brains, and though he may not yet see, as do the readers of this magazine, the imminent and final destruction of the Catholic Church and literally every single person then a member of that church, and of all the other churches that have blasphemed God’s holy name, yet he does see much of the vicious depravity of the old "harlot" whose works Mr. Walsh glorifies. But let the editor of the Freeman tell his own story:

Walsh actually defends the methods of torture used by the Inquisition, claiming they were "humanitarian acts". For example, Torquemada, who introduced the "reo", or "water cure", had in his saintly mind the sacred wish "to temper the application of torture with mercy". Walsh then describes the "water cure" in order to prove how merciful it was. Here are the Catholic author’s own words, in a book issued in 1941:

"If he (the victim) refused to clarify the contradictions in his testimony, or was strongly suspected of withholding important information, he was stretched naked and tied with cords upon a very forbidding looking escalera, or ladder. His nostrils were stopped, his jaws held apart by an iron prong, and a piece of linen placed loosely over his mouth. Into this cloth water was slowly poured, carrying it into the throat. This gave him the fear, and some of the sensations of suffocation, without allowing him to suffocate. If he squirmed, the cords hurt his wrists and ankles. If he proved very stubborn, one of the familiares might give him an extra twist or two. This must have been a very painful and harrowing experience. Yet it seldom did lasting harm, and it often obtained confessions."

Let's not forget that the people who resorted to the above acts are presented to the world as the sole preservers of virtue and godliness, the people who have a decree from God Himself giving them authority to save the souls and purify the lives of the human race. If the above form of torture was "merciful", try to imagine what the rougher devices embraced. It’s terrible to reflect that the Black International has never surrendered its right to invoke such forms of torture when circumstances permit the Church to resume its old, perhaps only temporarily lost, temporal power. Hitler's Gestapo has already re-established the worst features of the Inquisition; its horrors are being perpetrated as you read these words. Reaction is in the saddle and doing terrible things to human beings. And the religious mentality that organized and conducted the Inquisition, at the cost of millions of lives, is with us today, writing in its defense, and urging the institution's return. If America were to become a Catholic country the Inquisition would be set up. The leaders of the Church frankly say so. Why should we refuse to believe their candid words?

The Theory and the Record

◆ The "five points" upon which Pius XII would base a peace are:

1. Guarantee for all nations, large or small, powerful or weak, of their own right to life and independence, and recognition of the right to reparations for evils suffered in the war according to the rules of justice and reciprocal equity;

2. The necessity of halting the armament race and of avoiding the danger of the material force becoming tyrannical;

3. International, not unilateral, reorganization, with juridical institutions guaranteeing the faithful fulfillment of peace pacts; 4. Recognition of the just rights of minorities;

5. The pacts which the people agree upon validated and animated by morality and by religion.

These words remind one of the message addressed by the pope to the Peace Congress in 1899. Commenting on this message an eminent but unnamed Roman Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic power is credited in Autobiography of [Ambassador] Andrew D. White as having said (and the words bear the stamp of the truth):

The Vatican has always been, and is today, a storm-center. The pope and his advisers have never hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as everybody knows, the pope did everything to prevent the signing of the treaty of Munster, even going so far as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at that congress of no effect. . .

They pretend to be anxious to "save souls," and especially to love Poland and Ireland; but they have for years used those countries as mere pawns in their game with Russia and Great Britain, and would sell every Catholic soul they contain to the Greek and English Churches if they should thereby secure the active aid of these two governments against Italy. They have obliged the Italian youth to choose between patriotism and Christianity, and the result is that the best of these have become atheists. Their whole policy is based on stirring up hatred and promoting conflicts from which they hope to draw worldly advantage.

Lafayette said:

It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country—the United States of America—are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests; for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated most of the wars of Europe.

And it is this gang that accuses Jehovah's witnesses of stirring up hate.

The Pope's Great Big Flock

◆ The Lord Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The Roman Catholic Hierarchy, aiming to have everything as different as possible, rejoice in their great big flock, a larger percentage of whom are behind bars than of any other denomination. The Hierarchy advertises that in the United States, Alaska and Hawaii it has 22,293,101 communicants, 35,839 priests, and 152,159 sisters and nuns. That is almost five nuns to a priest. The whole family was invited to the St. Paul Eucharistic Congress in June.

A possible explanation of how it is that the self-advertised “Glacier Priest”, the Jesuit “Reverend” Bernard R. Hubbard, of Santa Clara University, California, came into possession of military and naval information that no civilian should have is that his brother, Captain John Hubbard, is a retired officer of the United States Army now living at Chico, California. Of course, Hubbard wants to sell his dogs, which accounts for much of the free newspaper advertising he has received. The latest story from Santa Clara, California, contained a free advertisement of about 150 words as to why the Hubbard dogs should be purchased by the United States Army.

You should be interested to know that on April 27, 1941, the pope “blessed” the Jesuits on the 400th anniversary of the founding of that society which at various times, because of its corrupt principles and practices, has been banned repeatedly from most countries of Europe.

The Catholic Universe Bulletin reports the archbishop of San Antonio as complaining that America has given (the Catholic) religion a secondary place in American life and that “too many of our citizens give only lip service to the principles upon which our nation was founded”. This is just to tell Archbishop Lucey that America was not founded on the Catholic religion, and, as a matter of fact, they had nothing to do with it.

The Hierarchy is anxious beyond words to seize control of America; so they have a batch of 113 candidates for beatification so that America will have fresh lots of "saints" coming up on the dumb-waiter continually. They will be minus their hair and whiskers, which do not stand the heat of "purgatory" well.

The London Catholic Herald rejoices in the fact that three priests helped at the third inauguration of President Roosevelt, Mr. Corrigan, Mr. Ready and Mr. Cartwright.

The Flanagan racket in Nebraska is being worked to a finish. The people have seen and heard so much that they have sickened of it. People are unwilling to pay their good money for movie entertainment and then be compelled to gaze upon a lot of strutting priests. Wherever the movie "Men of Boys Town" has gone, thousands of letters from Flanagan have followed, asking for a handout. And thousands of letters have gone to Hollywood protesting against the obvious Roman Catholic propaganda being stuffed down people's necks as "entertainment".

Boys Town, Nebraska, was so widely advertised that Patrick J. Norton, manager of the town, was invited to take charge of California's notorious Whittier State School for Boys. Between fifty and sixty boys escaped from the school a few minutes after Flanagan addressed them. This institution is famous for its strappings, black eyes and suicides.

Eugene's Beautiful Straddle

◆ Herbert L. Matthews, commenting in the New York Times on one of the pope's somniferous regurgitations, says:

No doubt much ink will be spilled on both sides to show that the Pontiff was anti-Fascist or pro-Fascist, but a preliminary study of this Pentecost message, made both in and out of the Vatican, agrees that the balance has been kept pretty finely. Some shrewd blows are dealt at the Fascist conception of life, but there are other passages that appear to support Fascist theses. The Pope seems to envisage the new order as a compromise that would satisfy certain Fascist aspirations but, above all, preserve the freedom of the individual.

Mr. Matthews had the courage to tell the truth, but the editor that wrote up his story, in the same paper, and on the same day, straddled the straddle crosswise just like this: "The Pope speaks in general terms, but his condemnation of the social and economic tenets of totalitarianism, whether Communist or Nazi, is unmistakable." In other words, nobody could make head or tail of the junk, but it was up to the editor, if he wanted to eat regularly, to come across with some baloney that would give the pope a good break in the eyes of the great American sucker. The solemn title of the editorial was "The Pope Speaks". Any other verb would have done just as well.

"Fifth Column" Work in Santiago

◆ The Diario de Cuba (Cuban daily), Santiago, April 18, contains details of the arrest, imprisonment and release of "Reverend Father" Joseph Moran Pan, a Spanish Catholic priest, residing at a church, and in whose room were found several pictures of the fortress for which Santiago is famous; also other pictures of the priest himself, in a trench in Spain, and in the uniform of a Phalangist (Fascist). The cause of his arrest was that he was devoting himself to espionage activities. Witnesses found in his room a plan of the city of Havana, with specifications of the military airdrome and some important factories. It is not considered feasible in Cuba, which is a Catholic country, to hold a priest in prison for crimes against the country.

The Bright Red Song Book

◆ The Army and Navy are printing a new song book with bright red covers, which ought to be good. Protestant, Catholic and Jewish hymns are mixed together in the one book, which winds up with a hymn "Good Night, Ladies."

(To be continued) Mr. Hays Could Not, Would Not and Did Not Answer This Letter

July 25, 1941

Mr. Will H. Hays, President,

Motion Picture Producers

and Distributors of America,

Hollywood, Calif.

Dear Sir:

I have before me a copy of the New York Times of July 21 which quotes you as saying:

“The motion picture screen has no room for propaganda. . . . The great function of the entertainment screen is to entertain. . . . There are those who would use the films to bemuse, rather than amuse, the American public. The screen has no room for such propaganda.”

Apparently your condemnation of propaganda is general, and I am entirely in accord with such attitude. I wish to ask, however, if you mean to include in this sweeping condemnation the use of the screen to eulogize one particular church system? Ever since the Catholic Legion of Decency, once headed by Mr. Breen, has constituted itself the censor board for all films, there has been a great loss in their entertainment value which may be laid to the introduction of Roman Catholic Church scenes which the plots did not call for. Are not such scenes intended to influence Catholics and non-Catholics to think more highly of the Roman Catholic Church? In view of the bad record of the organization thus projected on the screen and their backing of the Axis powers, is not the introduction of Catholic priests in virtuous roles misleading, and hence a subtle form of propaganda?

May I ask again: Do you intend to prohibit the use of the screen as a vehicle for Roman Catholic Church advertisement?

It cannot be offered as excuse that Hollywood has become imbued with religious zeal for all religions. There is no praise in picture of Protestant or Jewish faiths, and quite a number are ridiculed, such as the Mormons and Baptists. But not the slightest criticism is permitted to fall on the agents of Vatican City.

Just how are the rites and customs of the Roman Church “entertaining”? Not even their curious garb customarily adopted, nor their beskirted antics, can be considered “amusing” when it is remembered that such costume and pretended piety have been used for centuries to hide iniquitous deeds. Now this same politico-religious system is supporting Hitler, called “The Crusader” by Catholic bishops throughout the world; who is in truth the modern Inquisitor General who has left butchery and desolation in his wake.

Because of the censorship adopted by the American press with regard to all Papal activities you may not have the facts on the tie-up between Hitler and the pope. I assume that you would like to know if this is true. If you do I suggest that you read any of the following books: Van Paassen’s Days of Our Years; E. Boyd Barrett’s Rome Stoops to Conquer; George Seldes’ Catholic Crisis; Religion, by Judge J. F. Rutherford (Watch Tower, Brooklyn); or any issue of The Converted Catholic, 229 W. 48th, N.Y.C.; or of Consolation. Several English and Canadian publications cover the same matter. H. G. Wells, dean and famous English writer, will vouch for the truth of the assertions contained in this letter.

Or, because of your position, you might find it convenient to have a private talk with ex-Ambassadors Kennedy and Cudahy, who have intimated as much and are putting their chips on the Catholic-Nazis to win.

Criminals who are never uncovered even at the end of the picture mislead public opinion. When the Hierarchy is eulogized in glorified roles this is propaganda of the worst sort. The question now is: Did you really mean what you said, and intend to eliminate propaganda? Or did you simply mean that you intend to eliminate propaganda that you DON'T LIKE? Much of the popularity of the cinema depends on the course which you take in this matter.

Perhaps you already know the truth of the above charge. If you do and have determined to assist the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, just throw this letter away; and only remember it at the time the Lord of Hosts has a final reckoning with wickedness both of the Hierarchy and of all her allies.—Psalm 9:17.

Yours for righteousness

and against hypocrisy,

ELTON GROVES.

"Give Us More Religion" (?)

A Friend in Chile, S. A., Inquires:

Has Judge Rutherford forgotten the incident of the Booth family and the £1,000,000 they grabbed and ran off with when a mutiny in the ranks of the "army" dethroned them, and which they were ordered to return by a British tribunal? Only £1,000,000. Every penny of it subscribed by people who thought they were giving it for the uplifting of the outcast and the fallen!

Has Judge Rutherford ever realized that "General" Booth (the founder of the racket) was a liar even as he lay dead in his coffin? My reasons for saying so? Here they are.

When the "army" had grown beyond his own wildest dreams and became a rich vein of pure gold, he conceived the smart idea of handing the management down along the Booth family from father to son like some dynasty. Well, do you see what this means? No? All right, here goes again: (1) The words "Booth" and "Salvation Army" now get one and the same meaning. (2) Money can then figure in bank accounts and investment documents in the name of the "Salvation Army" but be manipulated by Booth and only Booth. (3) Booth was thus able to pose as a poor man living on the interest of £2,000 left him in a will by an old woman he had buffaloed. (4) In order to insure the immediate succession of his son to the hoarded wealth of the racket, he had only to grant this son power of attorney and name him as his successor as head of the "army". (5) This did away with the necessity of making a will, as "my dear son" had only to step in and take charge. It also did away with the necessity of paying death duties—a thing that exasperates all millionaires when they know the end is approaching. (6) It enabled him to make everybody think that he was what he claimed to be—a benefactor of the poor. Even the Times—that sober, staid old monument of conservative journalism—was fooled, and published a touching leader on the "General's" life, saying, among other things, that his will (in which he left intact the £2,000 he got from the old woman to somebody else) was a conclusive answer to his critics.

That the money was completely in the hands of the Booths is proved by the fact that they were able to collect a million pounds without any question at the banks and walk off with it. Had I been the "General" who succeeded the Booths, I would have been tempted to let that million go rather than face the publicity of the British courts in claiming it. But subsequent facts show that he had a better card than that to play. He gambled on the short memory of the public and won his bet, because now we never even hear a word about the matter, and I doubt if one man in a thousand even remembers it.

One fellow I once spoke to, a warm admirer of the "army", got hot at me one day. "What do you mean?" he said. "Look at the thousands of meals and free beds the 'army' gives away every year." "I'm looking at them," I replied. "But I have also audited the accounts of fraudulent institutions, and it was just surprising the number of really legitimate operations I found in their businesses. Legitimate operations, you know, are the greatest essential in every fraudulent concern."

They want them to point at. Without them the real business of fraud would become at once visible."

Yes, the "army" really does give away bum meals and verminous beds and publishes them well. The figures, by the way, are NOT audited. And, curiously enough, they omit to publish the amount they wring from the public with heart-breaking tales of the sufferings of the poor. All together it is a case worthy of Judge Rutherford's pen, and I will look with interest to see if he will ever have anything to say about it.

"Enormous Prestige" of the Clergy

◆ When the clergy say that the world needs God, they mean the world needs them, and there are those not of the clergy who have the same exalted idea of them. James H. R. Cromwell, prince consort of the Duke tobacco millions, and famous for bungling his job as minister to Canada, was subsequently bullion candidate for United States Senator from New Hague, once called New Jersey. This is the state where it is legal to vote the dead by the hundreds, but it is illegal to teach your children the Second Commandment of Almighty God. Well, in an address at Bethany College, West Virginia, Mr. Cromwell said: "The time has come for the clergy of all denominations, with their enormous prestige and courage, to save the nation from the dangers, both internal and external, that threaten to overwhelm it."

The clergy of all denominations have enormous courage in lying about Almighty God and persecuting Jehovah's witnesses, but otherwise are in the same class with the man who, seeing a bear coming toward his cabin, handed his wife an axe, shoved her outside, and bade her go to it with the bear. He stayed inside until she finished the bear. None of the clergy believe that Jesus told the truth when He said that the dead are in their graves (John 5:28), nor do they dare debate the things they are supposed to believe with anybody who really accepts the Bible as the Word of God as did the Savior of men. In the eyes of the average intelligent man the "enormous prestige and courage" of the clergy is that of the dung beetle whose only interest is to feed while he can on whatever may drop in his vicinity from those that live on a higher plane of mentality and activity. Neither the Roman Catholic Hierarchy nor the Federal Council of Churches dares to publicly debate its doctrines with Judge Rutherford.

Eloquence from Paintsville

◆ A correspondent in Paintsville, Kentucky, sent a copy of the Paintsville Herald containing at the top of the front page a six-column heading reading "Go to Church During February—Any Church—but 'Go to Church'—Each Sunday They Welcome You". In a box at the right is the statement that "churches and religious worship are the backbone of a nation". Italy is a sample, for instance. Then the paper gives twenty reasons for attending church, and said correspondent modifies the reasons by suggestions in brackets. Here are some of the reasons and their brackets: (1) The best people go (to see and be seen). (2) The best Book on earth is read there (very little). (5) Our sorrows are explained there (and no remedy given). (6) Our (false) hopes are brightened there. Other comments are equally pointed. On this matter of being made welcome the correspondent says "There's a heart full of welcome for you (and more so if you hit the collection plate hard each time you go)".

Starting a Generation Too Late

◆ Imitating the Catholics the Protestant churches of Queens, in Greater New York, have organized a movement called "Protestant Action". In the first place, this group could never be taught to do and would not be willing to do the things of which Catholic Action is guilty, and, in the second place, the real work these Protestant churches should be doing has been done for a generation by Jehovah's witnesses and is now about all done.

COUNSEL

by J. F. Rutherford

Orphans Become King’s Children

WAR multiplies the many orphans. Literally there are many orphans and widows in the land who are in mourning and distress because of the loss of loved ones in death. Are these the “orphans” or “fatherless” ones that become children of the King of the Righteous Government?

A child separated from his father is subjected to reproach by others. The fatherless need a vindicator and protector. Almighty God Jehovah makes it His purpose to be such to those “orphans” of good-will toward Him and His righteous rule. It is written: “He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” (Deuteronomy 10:18) The rulers of this world see God’s people being crushed, reproached and discredited, but lend no aid and comfort to them. Addressing them, at Psalm 82:3, 4, Jehovah God says: “Defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; rid them out of the hand of the wicked.” But the rulers fail and refuse to do so, and Jehovah then takes over the task; and concerning it His prophet says: “The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.”—Psalm 146:9.

By His prophet (Malachi 3:5) the Lord God says that He is against them “that oppress . . . the widow, and the fatherless”. There are many persons now on earth who are of good-will toward Jehovah God, the Giver of life, and toward His King, Christ Jesus, by whom He grants life. Not having heard the truth of God’s Word, and not having had opportunity to embrace it and take their stand on the side of Jehovah and Christ Jesus, the King of The Theocratic Government, such persons of good-will are truly “fatherless”.

In sacred Scripture a woman is symbolic of an organization. Jehovah God is the husband of his “woman”, or faithful organization. To her He says, at Isaiah 54:4, 5: “For thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name.” Likewise the true church of Christ is “his wife”, “the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” (Revelation 19:7 and 21:9) The true church of Christ is God’s church; but when “organized Christianity” turned to demonism or religion and thereby turned to “the god of this world”, Satan, who is the chief of demons, then Jehovah God cast away that religious organization, and those in the organization who desired to serve God but who continued to hold on to the worldly religious system are properly spoken of Scripturally as “fatherless” or orphans. There are organizations in the land many persons amongst which apparently desire to serve the Lord, but are held back and restrained by the religious leaders and others of Satan’s representatives, and the entire company of those thus desiring to serve God and who are held as prisoners are properly spoken of as a widow. Such are in fact “widows”, because, although claiming God as their husband, He has rejected them. This is the symbolic use of the words in the following text:

“And if any one thinketh that he worshippeth God, and doth not restrain his tongue, but his heart deceiveth him; his worship is vain. For the worship that is pure and holy before God the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and that one keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1 : 26, 27, Murdock’s translation of the Syriac Version) Thus the Lord God, by the apostle James, defines true worship. On the other hand, religion, which is practiced by the denominational organizations of “Christendom” under the supervision of “the god of this world”, consists of traditions of men and forms and ceremonies that dishonor God and His King, Christ Jesus. It is the true followers of Christ Jesus, those who are Jehovah’s witnesses, that practice the pure worship as defined by James, and this they do by making it their regular and foremost business to witness and to go about in the land visiting the “widows”, that is, those organizations that desire to know of God and His kingdom; and also the “fatherless”, that is, those who sigh and cry concerning the abominable things that they see done in the land and done in the name of the Lord God and hence they hunger and thirst for righteousness. It is the regular and commissioned business of these faithful ones to visit and comfort such by exhibiting to them the truth concerning Jehovah God and His Theocratic Government by Christ Jesus. That is exactly what Jehovah’s witnesses are doing today. Any other formal or regular work in the name of the Lord is a false worship and is religion.

Manifestly James 1 : 26, 27 uses the expression “worship that is pure and holy before God the Father” to distinguish the proper work of a follower of Christ Jesus from the formalism called “Christian religion”, which is practiced by many organizations in the name of the Lord, but which is in fact a devilish formalism or demonism. There are many who oppose the work of Jehovah’s witnesses, which work is prompted by loving obedience to God and His commandment, and these opposers therefore oppress the “fatherless and widows in their affliction”, as above described; that is to say, when they see some seeking after the truth and righteousness of Jehovah’s Kingdom by Christ Jesus, then the opposers endeavor to prevent such truth-seekers from finding the truth. Those opposers include the ones who claim to serve God and yet would, if possible, hold back Jehovah’s witnesses from carrying the message of comfort to those who are called the Lord’s “other sheep”, and who shall form the “great multitude” that shall survive the final war of Armageddon and shall thereafter carry out the divine mandate to be fruitful and fill the earth with a righteous race. (Revelation 7:9-17; Genesis 1:28) To carry the Kingdom message of truth to such ones is a part of the present-day work of those witnesses of Jehovah. The opposers and oppressors mentioned by the prophets are the ones who do not “keep [themselves] unspotted from the world”, as James describes, but are the ones that mix with Satan’s worldly organization and by compromise or other means seek the favor thereof. It is the bounden duty of God’s commissioned witnesses to go about amongst the people and “comfort all that mourn” and to mark such in the forehead by giving them an intelligent understanding of Jehovah’s purpose through His kingdom under Christ Jesus.—Isaiah 61 : 1, 2; Ezekiel 9 : 4.

The King Christ Jesus is called “The Everlasting Father” because unto Him is given the power to minister life everlasting to obedient ones of humankind. (Isaiah 9 : 6) That means that those to whom He gives life and who obey shall never die, and those who are faithful and obedient subjects shall live forever on earth and carry out His purpose. The authority conferred upon Him by Jehovah means that the territory of the dominion of Christ the King-Father belongs to Him. The people will occupy the earth and glorify it in trust. That is a sacred and blessed trust, which the children of the King shall have the privilege and joy of executing. Thus the Lord Jesus confers upon His children a great and wonderful privilege and honor.

…