Consolation, August 5, 1942
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Contents
Jews and the Inter-Faith Hoax (Part 1) 3
'He That Hath Ears, Let Him Hear!' 5
The Sword of the Church 6
Modern Crusaders 7
Timely Warning 8
"In Search of the Future" 11
"Giants in the Earth" 12
The Shortage of Metals 12
The Race Against Time 13
Standard Oil and the Rubber Patents 13
Basic Magnesium, Incorporated 14
Du Pont Can Be Relied On 15
Another New Hope of the World 16
"Thy Word Is Truth"
Which Is the True Church? 17
Sweet Reflections at Canning-Time 19
The Gentle Art of Squeezing 19
The New Government
Castor Oil Outrage Rebuked 20
A Sacrifice for Liberty 22
Witnessing in a West Virginia City 24
Points for "Reverend" Henley 25
Presenting "This Gospel of the Kingdom" 26
Friendly and Unfriendly Questions 26
Arguments 27
British Comment
Canadian Priest Describes the Big Plan 29
Industries Stimulated by the War 30
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Notanda
'Hail, the Gang's All Here!'
◆ Much is seen in the public press concerning the "Inter-Faith" movement. This is the banding together of Catholic, Protestant and Jew for the ostensible purpose of promoting unity and good-will. Doctrinally, they have nothing in common.
The Washington Herald, April 2, 1942, carries an account which is an example of their union to attain that which would be of benefit to each of the rackets. It said:
Washington’s Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders yesterday sought permission of the Board of Education to inaugurate next term an experimental program of weekday religious training periods within the local public school system. . . .
Appearing in support of the program at yesterday’s meeting of the Board of Education were Msgr. Lawrence J. Shehan, of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, and the Rev. J. Herbert Garner, of the Sixth Presbyterian Church. Representing members of the Jewish faith on the joint committee is Rabbi Morton Fierman. . . .
Under the committee's proposal, weekday religious training classes would be established in the specified grades of schools, both colored and white. The classes would be held during “released time” granted the students for this purpose from their regular sessions.
Religion is the binding tie that holds together the Devil’s organization. This ‘untempered mortar’ is rapidly losing favor with honest people as they see it exposed by Jehovah’s “strange work”, and the religious clergy associate themselves together for mutual protection by means of “Inter-Faith”. These three, each of which damns the other two in their creeds, take counsel together in opposing The Theocracy. It is one of the Devil’s schemes to unite his camp in solid front against Jehovah’s organization; but it will be in vain.—Isaiah 8:9, 10.
CONSOLATION
"And in His name shall the nations hope."—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.
Volume XXIII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, August 5, 1942 Number 597
Jews and the Inter-Faith Hoax
(In Two Parts—Part 1)
ONE "trinity" is not enough. Religionists must have another. So they have formed the Inter-Faith movement. Catholic, Protestant and Jew, these three are one. This, like the doctrine of the "trinity", is a mystery. To anyone who is at all acquainted with the history of these three religions, the incongruity of their association together in this modern clique is appalling. What do they have in common? What benefits do they expect to derive therefrom? Why does each one participate in this newly created "trinity"?
The Jews do not believe in Christ Jesus; and they admit it. Catholics and Protestants claim such belief, but by their course of action they deny it. Each one believes the other two are outside God's favor by virtue of their religious dogmas. Hence they are not all God's children and the association is not one of spiritual brethren. Neither do they debate such differences or discuss them for mutual enlightenment, since they all have such tender susceptibilities. So the tie cannot be for spiritual reasons. They do, however, have the same father, the Devil; but this fact they do not appreciate or they refuse to admit. They are, indeed, strange bedfellows.
Dead Protestantism
Protestantism, as such, is dead. A few individuals may continue to cry out against the blasphemies indulged in by the Hierarchy, but they are as a voice in the wilderness. The original Protestant "lion" no longer roars out against the iniquities of Rome; it has succumbed to the subtle intrigues of the Vatican; its teeth have been pulled. As an organization, Protestantism is dead, and therefore might just as well return to the mother fold through the Inter-Faith snare as any other.
But what about the Jews? Do they align themselves in such relationship because of their tolerance? Is it the common love of tolerance that inexorably draws together the Jews and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy? Certainly not; for the Hierarchy is admittedly the most intolerant of organizations. Let their own spokesman testify on this point, that the usual charges of misrepresentation may collapse at the outset.
Catholic Intolerance
Archbishop Hughes, first archbishop of New York, gave the true attitude of the Hierarchy on tolerance when he said:
No man has the right to choose his own religion. Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intolerance itself. We might as well rationally maintain that two and two do not make four [or three ones do not make three], as the theory of religious liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity. [In the New York Freeman's Journal, January 16, 1852, his official newspaper at that time.]
Note the irony of this appearing in a "freeman's" journal!
Further testimony is submitted from the Jesuit weekly, America, issue of April 27, 1940, where it makes the following statement:
The most unreasonable of all attitudes toward the Papacy is that of neutrality. The Pope is either the supreme head of Christendom, the infallible teacher of spiritual truth, the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Christ on earth, or he is an impostor with whom no respectable person should have dealings. You can no more be neutral toward the Pope than you can be neutral toward Christ, although many persons who call themselves Christians are attempting this neutrality, with disastrous consequences to the Christianity that they profess. ‘He that is not with me is against me’ is as true of Christ’s vicegerent as it is of Christ Himself.
Now, neither the Jews nor the Protestants believe that the pope is “the infallible teacher of spiritual truth”, since their doctrines so widely differ. Hence, according to the above, they must necessarily believe the only alternative, that “he is an impostor with whom no respectable person should have dealings”. (In this Consolation heartily concurs.) Still they hobnob together.
“Willing Hands”
A typical example of this is the dinner given November 27, 1941, in New York, at the Waldorf Astoria, in honor of Bishop Molloy, of Brooklyn, by “a group of Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders”. A record of the proceedings on that occasion is contained in a brochure entitled “Willing Hands”. It has in the front an etching reproduced from the Brooklyn Eagle showing three hands, labeled “Catholic”, “Protestant,” and “Jew”, holding aloft on a staff a banner bearing the words, “Inter-Faith. Good Will.” In harmony with the physical facts, the Catholic hand is on the top of the pile, the Jew is on the bottom, the deceased Protestant is buried in between. Apparently all concerned are “willing” to have it so.
Mr. Louis M. Rabinowitz, the host, sounded the policy followed by all the other speakers, except the Catholic, when he said, “We here in America, regardless of our differences, whether they be economic or political, are all united.” These three organizations are most incompatible in their religious beliefs, yet the only differences mentioned were economic and political. This caution and high regard for the delicate religious susceptibilities of one another was followed throughout the evening, except by the guest of honor, who, taking advantage of his being the fair-haired lad on this occasion, did a little campaigning for the pope. On closer scrutiny, however, economic and political differences might well embrace the religious, since their religions are devoted to accumulating money and the organization used as a political force.
A Slip
Monsignor John L. Belford, after wading through countless platitudes, finally said something: “There is nothing narrow about religion.” This is true; for “broad is the way that leadeth to destruction”. The converse is likewise true; for Jesus also said that ‘narrow is the way that leadeth unto life’.—Matt. 7:13, 14.
Chairman Steinbrink rose and said insipidly (on page 19), “We have entered God’s garden and picked one of his brightest flowers, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise.” This ‘bright flower’ said he wasn’t prepared and didn’t know what he was going to say. He did make one statement which he might have enlarged upon. He said: “There is no room in America for those things which have been dominant and growing on the soil of Europe which have poisoned the relationship of man to man, and have befouled its politics and destroyed its hope.” He might have identified this ‘befouling influence’. He didn’t, however, and soon withered.
Dr. Frank Kingdon was introduced in course of time as “an outstanding representative of the Protestant faith”, and his words very aptly depicted its decay. He said:
I happen to be a Protestant. And yet, without attempting to put on any of the airs of the actor, I want to say to you that I have sometimes sat down in the quiet of my own room and tried to understand what must be passing through the mind and heart of the Holy Father during these days. There he sits, in the Vatican, that has been hallowed by men of great understanding and great import across the centuries. He cannot sit there, wearing the Triple Crown, without realizing the historic importance of his position. I think I know how his heart must be wrung [he should: the papers harp on it enough] by the events that are taking place in the world, and I think I know where, if he could speak as you and I can speak, he might throw the weight of his influence. But he is there, not simply as a man but also in a unique sense, as the head of Christendom, and when he speaks, he must try with all the concentration in his power to make his words the very echo of the Master whom he serves [the god of this world].
Another Slip
After this typical “Protestant” display of complete capitulation and subservience to Rome and the one he calls the “head of Christendom”, Dr. Kingdon, like Mgr. Belford, let the cat out of the bag. He aptly differentiates between this Inter-Faith muddle and Christians when he says: “There are times when I am neither Protestant, nor Catholic, nor Jew, but a believer in God.” He should not be a “double-minded man . . . unstable in all his ways”, nor a 25-percent Christian.
After the various speakers had waded through a seemingly endless stream of eulogies concerning the bishop (he was highly esteemed by all. What did Jesus say regarding such? — Luke 16:15), each stepping gingerly to avoid tender toes, very considerate of each other’s blasphemies, very inconsiderate of the dishonor thereby heaped on Jehovah’s name, the guest of honor, Bishop Molloy, was presented. As previously stated, he was rather careless of the susceptibilities of the other two “willing hands”, and put in a rather powerful plug for the pope as being Christ’s right-hand man on the earth. With this to think about, the ‘mutual admiration society’ disbanded for the evening.
To all outward appearances, such Inter-Faith movement may seem a good thing to promote unity and tolerance in a time of dire distress and intolerance throughout the world. But does it do this? Most of the attention is here given to the Jews and Catholics, for two reasons. First, and as previously stated, Protestantism is dead and therefore of little weight. Second, because anti-Semitism is such a live issue today and the Hierarchy is inextricably involved therein. It will be noted that in all Inter-Faith functions, as in the one just referred to, the Catholic dominates and the Protestant and Jew play the role of yes-men, void of spiritual integrity, and apparently desirous of “peace at any price”. The only time the Hierarchy even pretends tolerance or condescends to any inter-faith arrangement is where she is not strong enough to do otherwise. Her policy is still ‘death to heretics’.
‘He That Hath Ears, Let Him Hear!’
To be tolerant one does not have to fraternize with those who have shown themselves mortal enemies throughout the centuries. The Jews, particularly the leaders who have joined and the people who have endorsed this Inter-Faith subterfuge, should refresh their minds regarding the Hierarchy’s unchangeable policy concerning them. Let the popes of past centuries speak; let their canon law speak; let their actions as recorded in history speak! All these have much to say, if the people choose to listen. And the times have not changed. As these facts are recounted, note the modern-day parallels. They are not mere coincidences, but history repeating itself!
L. H. Lehmann, in an article published in The Converted Catholic, issue January, 1941, cites some of the decrees of the popes concerning Jews. The following is quoted from that article:
Pope Innocent III decreed as follows: “As Cain was a wanderer and an outcast, not to be killed by anyone but marked with a sign of fear on his forehead, so the Jews . . . ” against whom the voice of the blood of Christ cries out . . . although they are not to be killed, they must always be dispersed as wanderers upon the face of the earth. . . . They are admitted to our familiarity only through our mercy; but they are to us as dangerous as the insect in the apple, as the serpent in the breast . . . Since, therefore, they have already begun to gnaw like the rat, and to sting like the serpent, it is to our shame that the fire in our breast which is being eaten into by them, does not consume them . . . As they are reprobate slaves of the Lord, in whose death they evilly conspired (at least by the effect of the deed), let them acknowledge themselves as slaves of those whom the death of Christ has made free.”
Under this same Pope Innocent III, the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, which was one of the most important ecumenical councils of the Catholic church, officially decreed Canons Nos. 67-70 setting forth the Roman Catholic attitude towards the Jews: The first of these Canons is financial, containing protective measures for Christians against the rapacity of Jews as usurers. The second decrees that all Jews be distinguished for all time from Christians by color of dress and distinctive badge. The third forbids Jews to have Christians as nurses, tutors and domestic servants, and forbids Christians to cohabit with Jews and Jewesses. Legal marriage with them was impossible. The fourth forbids the acceptance of legal testimony of Jews against Christians, and orders preference for the testimony of a Christian against a Jew.
A few years later, Pope Innocent III reiterated and confirmed these edicts of the Lateran Council as follows: “. . . the same Council laid down that the testimony of Christians against Jews is to be admitted, even when the former use Jewish witnesses against Christians, and decreed that, in a case of this kind, anyone who would prefer Jews before Christians is to be condemned as anathema, yet up to the present time things are so carried on in the Kingdom of France that the testimony of Christians against Jews is not believed, whereas Jews are admitted as witnesses against Christians. And at times, when they to whom Jews have loaned money with usury produce Christian witnesses about the fact of payment, the deed which the Christian debtor through negligence indiscreetly left with them is believed rather than the witnesses whom they bring forward.”
Pope Pius IV permitted Jews to possess immovable property up to the value of 1,500 gold ducats. His successor, Pius V, however, in 1567, revoked this small concession, and ordered Jews to sell all their properties to Christians. Two years later, in modern Hitleresque manner, he ordered all Jews expelled from the States of the Church: “By authority of these present letters, We order that each and every Jew of both sexes in Our Temporal Dominions, and in all the cities, lands, places and baronies subject to them, shall depart completely out of the confines thereof within the space of three months after these letters shall have been made public.”
Other papal decrees could be cited, but this is sufficient to establish the point. It is true that a few popes made feeble attempts to curb extreme measures; but never did they take vigorous action to effectively remedy the disgraceful condition.
The Sword of the Church
Note, if you please, the similarity between these edicts and the laws enacted by the pope’s winning champion, Adolf Hitler, restricting the activities of the Jews to certain types of work, confining them to the squalid limits of the ghetto, or outright expulsion from the country altogether. Whole populations have been moved, massacred, driven throughout the earth, or thrown into concentration camps.
At the time of the Spanish Inquisition many Jews fled to Holland, Denmark and Norway. Now their descendants there have been overtaken by the revived Inquisition under the new Catholic Inquisitor General, Adolf Hitler! Hitler is a Catholic; the pope refuses to excommunicate him despite numerous requests by different groups that he do so. He would not lay aside this bloody “sword of the church” at this time.
The pope has always sided in with the Axis powers. Mussolini’s campaign in Ethiopia, Japan’s war against China, butcher Franco’s rebellion in Spain (ably assisted by Mussolini and Hitler), all were “blessed” by the “Holy Father”. Hitler’s putsch into Austria was welcomed by Cardinal Innitzer, and the priest Tiso played his part in Czechoslovakia for the gangsters. Now the pope’s ‘small boy’ in France, the “good Marshal Petain”, takes his proper cues and supports Hitler’s war against Russia, calling it a “crusade”. The “fifth column” role of priests in the Philippines was recently exposed in Consolation, and now the Vatican announces the establishment of diplomatic relations with the third Axis partner, treacherous Japan!
As these totalitarian papal-blessed powers overrun one country after another they bring in their wake a revival of the Inquisition, with the aforementioned treatment of the Jews that characterized that dark period. Note, for example, the conditions now obtaining in France relative to the Jews. The Converted Catholic, March, 1942, under the heading “France Revives Papal Anti-Semitic Decrees”, states the following:
Vichy France, having made friends with Hitler and the Vatican, made its “Nuremberg” laws against the Jews effective as of January 16, according to a special cable dispatch from Vichy to the New York Times of that date. Twenty-six different professions are now forbidden to the Jews. This includes all connection with banks, stock exchanges, insurance companies, advertising and numerous other occupations, and permits them to work only in manual or subordinate positions.
These Hitlerian Nuremberg laws are not new; they were dogmatized into the life of Europe by the popes. Pope Eugenius IV, in 1442, issued the following decrees among others: “Christians shall not allow Jews to hold civil honors over Christians, or to exercise public offices in the state. Jews cannot be merchants, tax collectors or agents in the buying and selling of the produce and goods of Christians, nor their procurators, computers nor lawyers in matrimonial matters, nor obstetricians; nor can they have association or partnership with Christians. Jews of whatever sex or age must everywhere wear the distinctive dress and known marks by which they can be easily distinguished from Christians. They may not live among Christians, but must reside in a certain street, outside of which they may not, under any pretext, own houses.”
Pope Paul IV, in 1555, added the following decree:
“Jews may engage only in the work of street-sweepers and rag-pickers, and may not be produce merchants nor trade in things necessary for human use.”
This is not a mere coincidence! These physical facts cannot be ignored! M’Clintock and Strong’s Bible Cyclopædia identifies the time of the Catholic church’s rise to power with the persecutions of the Jews. As the Hierarchy’s power increases, the troubles of the Jews rise in proportion. From this Cyclopædia the following is quoted:
Under the Roman emperors of the 2d and 3d centuries the Jews were in a somewhat flourishing condition. Quite different became their fate in the 4th century, when the emperor of Rome knelt before the cross, and the empire became a Christian state. Not only were converts from Judaism protected from the resentment of their countrymen, but Christians were prohibited from becoming Jews. The equality of rights to which the pagan emperors had admitted them was by degrees restricted. In short, from the establishment of Christianity in the Roman empire dates the great period of humiliation of the Jews; hereafter they change to a condemned and persecuted sect.
Modern Crusaders
Since Hitler’s coming into power, he has demonstrated his anti-Semitism to the whole world. He pillaged and robbed the Jews to enrich the coffers of his own political party, and then set out upon his task of re-establishing the “Holy Roman Empire” by the launching of modern crusades. The worldly kings and rulers during the Middle Ages were the leaders of the Crusades and acknowledged as "the sword of the church". Their bloody campaigns were invariably launched by stormy outbreaks against the Jews. Totalitarianism, now "the sword of the church", is crusading throughout the earth, particularly in Russia, and started and continues its bloody career by violent anti-Semitic outbursts! Concerning this feature of the Crusades of the Middle Ages, M'Clintock and Strong's says:
In tracing the history of the Jewish people in the Middle Ages, the Crusades form a distinct epoch amid these centuries of darkness and turmoil. . . . The crusading movement was inaugurated by a wholesale massacre and persecution first of the Jew, and afterwards of the Mussulman. The latter, perhaps, had given just provocation by his endeavors to supplant the Cross by the Crescent, but what had the inoffensive and non-proselyting Jew done to deserve such acts of violence and rapine? . . . From a learned, influential, and powerful class of the community, we find them, after the inauguration of the Crusades, sinking into miserable outcasts; the common prey of clergy, and nobles, and burghers, and existing in a state worse than slavery itself.
In all the turmoil of the Middle Ages, however, the Roman Catholic church was most gracious and tolerant. She extended to the oppressed Jews a choice. Not a ‘peoples’ choice’, to be sure, but a devilish one! There were three generous alternatives offered to the Jews: to be converted—and pay; to be expelled—and have all goods confiscated; or to be killed—and all goods be taken! Concerning this in Spain M'Clintock and Strong's says:
An institution had even been erected for the express purpose of training men ["Christian Fronters"?] to carry on successfully controversies with the Jews. . . . These were the outbursts of priestly and popular violence . . . immense numbers were murdered, and wholesale theft was perpetrated by the religious rabble. Escape was possible only through flight to other countries, or by accepting baptism at the point of the sword, and the number of such enforced converts to Christianity is reckoned at no less than 200,000.
Not having the truth of God's Word, 'the sword of the spirit,' it was necessary for this religious cult to use Catholic kings and nobles as "the sword of the church". Thus through violence and bloodshed she spread her blasphemies in the name of the Prince of Peace! It is even so today.
Timely Warning
THE Supreme Court of Heaven is now "in session". "For Jehovah is our judge, Jehovah is our lawgiver, Jehovah is our king; he will save us." (Isaiah 33:22, Am. Rev. Ver.) From the righteous decrees of this Court there is no appeal. Nor is there any possibility of injustice or error. The ways of the Lord are perfect and right.
On the other hand, worldly courts are subject to error, else provision would not have been made for review of their decisions by higher tribunals. Often when these reviews or appeals are considered the decisions of the lower courts are "reversed", or found wrong in the conclusion or decision arrived at, and that such should have decided for the other party in the case. In other words, the lower court is found to have made an erroneous decision exactly the "reverse" of what they should have made. Sometimes the decision of this higher court is in turn appealed to a still higher court or to the highest or supreme court. Then again the highest or supreme court decisions of a state may be appealed from, and such an appeal or request for review taken before the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States is sometimes known as the Court of Last Resort or Last Appeal.
It is the chief duty of the United States Supreme Court to interpret or construe the Constitution and the amendments thereto, which include the Bill of Rights. The Declaration of Independence states: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were born free and equal, and that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights,' which the document enumerates. "Inalienable rights" are those of which one cannot be deprived; and many of these are specifically listed in the Constitution, and include freedom of speech, of press, and of worship. In many courts throughout the United States the judges who preside would do well to refresh their memories by reading this memorable human masterpiece, which was written by courageous men who recognized that liberty required every safeguard to insure its preservation. One such man said: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Another man, General Lafayette, remarked, "American liberty can only be destroyed by the Popish [Catholic] clergy."
It has been said before on these pages that Americanism is the very opposite of Catholicism. It is not meant by that to infer that many (perhaps most) Catholics are not good Americans. It is simply meant that the laws of the Church of Rome, that is, the Roman Catholic Church, are in all ways opposed to the laws embodied in the Constitution. The proof of that will not be gone into here, as it has been exhaustively demonstrated in other issues. As a test of the truth of this statement, however, let any Catholic who wishes to do so ask himself this question: "What freedom does the law of my church grant me as my right?" He will find that the Catholic Church laws would even forbid him to ask such a question, and he will look in vain for anything but prohibition of freedom. A Catholic writer has admitted that "freedom" is indeed a "heresy" or "false doctrine" according to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, who are the ruling authorities.
The Constitution, therefore, was indited to protect the people from the aggressions of Catholicism, from the aggressions of the government, and from any other who sought the destruction of our dearly bought liberty. It was, mind you, the product of terrible experience. The men who framed it did not write the fancy conceptions of the "horse and buggy days", but struck out a document to safeguard the work of "blood and tears" which brought America into existence as a free nation.
These men knew the horrors of the Roman Catholic Inquisition. The fires of religious persecution still ravaged Europe. The Catholic monarchies of Italy, Austria, Spain, and, after the rise of Napoleon II, even France, looked with baleful eye upon this new freedom, and contemptuously dubbed it the "American experiment". The Papacy, acting through its espionage army or secret police, the Jesuits, determined to destroy as soon as possible this "pestilential error" of freedom developing in America; and many American writers, among them S. F. B. Morse and Abraham Lincoln, attest to that very fact.
The Catholic Hierarchy's position has not changed. They are backing up all the avowed enemies of freedom, the Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese. Note this dispatch which somehow escaped Catholic censorship:
[From the Pittsburgh Press Feb. 13, 1942]
SPAIN LINES UP 'CATHOLIC AXIS'
Franco Aims at Union with Vichy, Portugal.
By Allen Haden
(Copyright, 1942, by the Pittsburgh Press and the Chicago Daily News)
BUENOS AIRES, Feb. 13—Formation of a Catholic Axis with Vichy France, Spain and Portugal is the objective of Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain and Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar of Portugal, who met for important conversations at Seville yesterday, according to a neutral diplomatic source here, thoroughly conversant with Spanish affairs.
This junior league of powers would be nominally independent but actually subordinate to the senior members of the Axis—Germany, Italy and Japan.
As the Fascist regimes of Vichy, Spain and Portugal have the support of the Vatican, so this proposed Catholic Axis is presumed to have the Vatican approval as well.
According to my informant, the principal duty of the Catholic Axis is to capitalize on the pro-Fascism of strongly Catholic circles in Latin America, with the purpose of recapturing Latin America which has been wooed and partly won by the Protestant powers—the United States and Great Britain.
America is now openly at war with many of these Catholic countries mentioned. But this fact should not be forgotten: Americans are losing precious liberties at home.
For this sad state of affairs the courts themselves must assume a large measure of blame. Though bound by the Constitution to protect the liberty of Jehovah’s witnesses to “preach this gospel of the kingdom”, they more frequently connive with the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to punish Jehovah’s witnesses for obeying this command of Jehovah.
As long as the judiciary adhere to the Constitution their decisions do not conflict with the Lord’s law, because this fine document was based upon the laws of the Bible. But when they deviate therefrom to please priests or intrenched political groups and in order to fight against the Lord God they have degraded their high offices.
Therefore to the courts of the United States this warning is addressed: The Supreme Court of Heaven is now in session. The Lord is at His temple for judgment. The decisions which are made against Jehovah’s witnesses because they preach the gospel of God’s kingdom are more serious to themselves than binding upon Jehovah’s witnesses, who must serve God rather than men. A good example to follow is recorded in Acts 5:34-42, which is here set out for your careful reading: “Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; and said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God. And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”—Elton Groves.
In San Diego’s Model Jail
◆ In San Diego, California, is a model jail which apparently is a model of what a jail should not be. Any jail is a bad enough place, but this was so constructed that when a drunk set his padded cell afire five inmates were killed and twelve more were seriously injured. The beast himself was uninjured. Judge for yourself what kind of officials San Diego must have, when it would allow matches on the person of a drunkard and then put him in where the walls were made of tinder. San Diego officials have proved that they grovel on the lowest levels of any Americans in public life.
"In Search of the Future"
IT IS wonderful news to all liberty-loving peoples that, when the United Nations sit down in another 'Parliament of Man' to make the terms of a new world peace, all races and nations will be guaranteed the right to choose their own form of government and live on terms of equality with all other races and nations. It is also news of not so sweet a flavor but nevertheless news of an inevitable order of things that the first problem to pop the future-makers in the face is just what shall constitute a race or a nation in any just settlement of world order.
This was the problem the democracies were unable to solve after the first world war, when they tried to adjust "the balance of power" by taking some races and nations and splitting them up and juggling and fusing and compounding them into "new" nations and races, like Yugoslavia, consisting of so many parts Croats and so many parts Yugoslavs.
How successful this recipe turned out to be is indicated by the fact that when Hitler's army paid its Palm Sunday visit to Yugoslavia, that hybrid country instantly disintegrated, the Croatian ingredient willingly decomposing away to Hitler, with the Yugoslavs still fighting doggedly on as only those hardy guerrillas can. Humpty-Dumpty didn't present half the problem to horses and men as anyone will face who tries to put the Croats and the Yugoslavs back together again.
Problems of this nature arose in myriads to plague the powers of 1919 who sat down to 'make the world a fit place for Jesus Christ to come back to'. Twenty or more years of increasing hatred and bitterness on the part of all such peoples have made these same problems even more impossible for human solution.
Let's look twenty seconds at Poland: Before Hitler "saved" that country there were four million Ukrainians in south-eastern Poland whom the Poles detested because they spoke a different tongue, professed the Orthodox instead of the Roman Catholic religion, and harbored nationalistic ambitions of their own. The Poles savagely censored their newspapers, and beat and imprisoned many; some nights as high as 700 Ukrainian villages were raided, men and boys compelled with their bare hands to wreck their own reading rooms, libraries and co-operative stores, and to sign statements that they did these things of their own free will. Ukrainians were beaten to death; women, old men and children were maltreated, and were refused medical aid, hospitalization, or lawyers to defend themselves. Poles were trying every means to beat ideas of national or religious recognition out of their fellow Ukrainian citizens, when Hitler paid his call.
With the most highly mechanized army ever until then assembled, the Nazis pulverized Poland in eighteen days. The Poles didn't stand a chance against Hitler's new tanks, which went everywhere they pleased, and wrought such performances that Uncle Sam was scared into immediately ordering 329 new tanks at $17,790 apiece. What Hitler's tanks didn't do, the Nazi planes, fitted with engines made by Pratt & Whitney, at Providence, Rhode Island, finished. Then Stalin, who already had millions of Ukrainians and felt no compunction at taking on four million more, took his share of Poland as a gift from Hitler. Question: How, in the name of the Atlantic Charter or any other document you want to name, can the Ukrainians, Poles, Germans and Russians come to terms that will also be satisfactory to French, English and Americans, and decide who is to have what and how which is to rule what?
One more example: Allied victors would also invite the religious element to sit in on the peace conference (evidence of that is FDR's missions to the Vatican and the general rally of the democracies toward more and more religion of all kinds). Still applying the basic declaration of the Atlantic Charter, Spain's Fascist depredators would be mopped up and the people of that country given back their republican constitution.
The hitch is that the Spanish people's exploiters are part and parcel with the ecclesiastical hierarchy; and how that situation can be successfully met to the complete satisfaction of the Spanish people and the religious hierarchy is one more nut for Roosevelt and Churchill to crack.
As for the Japs and the Huns, one solution heard quite often is that we should 'completely exterminate the bastards'. But when we sit down at the peace table, what about our conscience when it is remembered that for every billion dollars' worth of war supplies America sold to China up till Pearl Harbor, four billion dollars' worth had been sold to her enemy Japan.
Also,—and this is not pleasant—as late as 1938 the democracies were doing their best to rearm Germany and prepare her to bathe the world in blood. The tons of scrap iron shipped that country in that year amount to the following figures: U.S.A., 462,782; Belgium, 244,842; Britain, 117,818; Netherlands, 93,679; France, 82,560; Luxemburg, 58,219.
No, such facts are not pleasant, but they are the kind of things somebody will be trying to sweep out the back door in getting the house ready for Jesus Christ again; which tempts one to wonder if He won't tell the housecleaners the same thing He did the first time He was here: “My kingdom is not of this world.”—Marley Cole, Tennessee.
“Giants in the Earth”
The Shortage of Metals
◆ The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers is not like the reporters that fill the daily newspapers with vapor. It deals with facts. Its chairman, Wilfred Sykes, knows just where America stands with regard to metals and engineers. He says America has one-fourth as many engineers as it now needs, and is able to produce only five-sixths of the iron it needs in 1942 because, during the past decade, 25,000,000 tons of scrap iron were shipped to Japan. That is one-fourth of America's production of iron for one year. Full production (of 100,000,000 tons of iron) is expected in the year 1943.
Robbers Should Rob Openly
◆ According to PM, February 17, 1942, the principle has been approved that when robbers perform an act of robbery they should do it openly. In 1917-1918 the government paid Bethlehem Steel $109,000,000 for ships, of which $20,000,000 was straight profits and $3,800,000 was bonus. The company had to sue the government for the bonus, and it finally won the suit, after twenty-four years in the courts. The Federal District Court which upheld the bonus used the following language, plain enough for anybody:
The managers for the contractor (Bethlehem) adopted the famous Rob Roy distinction who admitted he was a robber but proudly proclaimed that he was no thief. The contractor boldly and openly fixed the figures in the estimated cost so high as to give them the promise of large bonus profits. The managers for the Fleet Corp. knew that the estimate was high and why it was made and so protested it. The reply of the contractor's managers was, “We will take the contract with this promise of bonus profits incorporated in it but not otherwise. You take it or leave it.” Whatever wrong there is in this may have been the wrong in a daylight robbery, but there was no element of deception in it.
The Race Against Time
◆ The Detroit crowd that showed such a pair of clean heels to the whole world in the automobile business feel certain that they can meet the situation now that both Great Britain and Uncle Sam must have their tanks and bombers without fail. The last cars were made on the last day of January, 1942, and in that month 204,848 spick-and-span automobiles came off the assembly line and the machinery was immediately scrapped (except portions that could be used in armament work) and Uncle Sam will get no more new cars until the argument with Pacelli, Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito is finished.
In the year 1941 General Motors turned out $330,000,000 of armaments, and hopes to produce seven times that amount in 1942. Chrysler produced $113,000,000 of armaments in 1941, and also hopes to turn out at least six times as much in 1942. A huge machine in Pittsburgh scissors five-inch metal into short-length scrap as easily as you trim your nails. Uncle Sam is coming; don't doubt it.
At the Ford plant, on 1,000 acres of flat land (there are 640 acres in a square mile), a new factory is turning out bombers at the new rate of one every hour. In the assembly line are machines as high as a two-story house. Jobs that took 1,500 hours are done in 300. A six-hour job is done in 30 minutes. By the Ford methods a bright young man can do his particular job in three weeks and after that is an expert. The Ford plant will turn out bombers at a rate never equaled elsewhere. All you will have to do is to wait a little and see.
Standard Oil and the Rubber Patents
◆ Standard Oil of New Jersey, with a reputation that was always fragrant as Limburger, stood by Japan and Germany before the war and blossomed out March 25, 1942, in statements made by Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold to a Senate committee, as being about on the same level as other traitors of earlier times.
Frank L. Kluckhohn, Washington correspondent of the New York Times, gave the whole thing dead away and the Times had the courage to print what he sent. It seems that Standard, with unlimited wealth at its command, and thus the ability to hire the world's most able scientists, had developed a method of making synthetic rubber, butyl, at 7c to 15c a pound (compared with 20c for natural rubber) and which was better than anything Germany had.
At the direction of Germany Standard turned over all its discoveries to Germany even though Germany declined to give them anything in return, but it refused, even after Pearl Harbor, to release synthetic rubber products in the United States and refused to reveal to the United States Navy or to the British Government its processes for making the butyl, though it did benevolently let Italy into its great big, bursting paternal, Vatican-patterned heart. The way Senator Truman put it was:
Here is an agreement made with an enemy with whom we are actively at war and here is our greatest corporation holding patents absolutely essential to the war program and it is necessary to use all our legal and legislative power to get the patents into a pool to prosecute the war effort. It is an outrage.
The Standard gang got out of its jam by paying a fine of $50,000, which, to them, means nothing worth mention.
Wasting God's Gifts
◆ Half a million sheep were burnt to cinders in Chile; six million dairy cattle and two million sheep were destroyed in the U.S.A. Twenty-six million bags of Brazilian coffee were dumped into the Pacific Ocean, and a shipload of Spanish oranges were shovelled into the Irish Sea, while the empty vessel steamed into Liverpool on a sweltering August day amongst children to whom oranges were an unobtainable luxury.— Hewlett Johnson in The Soviet Power.
The Toothbrush Smudge
◆ To be sure, we own 40 percent of the world’s wealth, though we have only 7 percent of its population. Sure, we drive 70 percent of all the automobiles in the world. And one hour of American labor will buy 2 1/2 times as much food as the same labor will buy in Britain, and 7 1/2 times as much as in Russia. And our wages have gone up 400 percent, and the workday has been shortened 30 to 40 percent, all in a lifetime. To be sure, we have more sons and daughters in college than all the rest of the world put together, and more bathtubs, electrical home equipment and radios than any other country. With 131 million life-insurance policies in force, and 45 million savings bank accounts, and 14 million homeowners, we live longer and in better health than most people on earth. We are not forgetting all that. This thing we call democracy with its system of free enterprise has done more for us than has been done for any people anywhere in the world at any period of history. It is a great record, but not enough! You can smudge the whole picture with a toothbrush. Listen! Of our 130 million population, 104 million are of age presumably to use a toothbrush. Do you know how many toothbrushes are made here every year? About 100 million. Now, each toothbrush user requires two or more a year, which would indicate that only about 50 million of our people use them at all, and that would leave about 54 million without toothbrushes. It rather spoils the picture of a rich and well-supplied nation.—The Ford Company’s broadcast, October 12, 1941.
Basic Magnesium, Incorporated
◆ Referring to a deal by which a concern bearing the above high-sounding title aims to make a profit of 4,280 percent in one year on an admitted investment of less than $50,000, Senator Bunker, of Nevada, charged on the floor of the Senate that the deal "is so corrupt as to make the profiteering in the last war look like petty larceny by comparison". He castigated the Defense Plant Corporation.
It is a long story. The government puts up a $63,000,000 plant for refining magnesite at Las Vegas, Nevada. The above concern has no construction experience. Nevertheless it is paid $300,000 for supervising the construction of the plant. Its officers receive $400,000 in salaries. If the plant is sold within a year the government must pay the above concern $1,000,000. It must also give said concern the first opportunity to buy the plant. It is annually to receive $560,000 for management and operation; also it is to receive a dollar a ton royalty on all the ore that is mined, milled and hauled by the government. That will make, it is estimated, another nest egg of $280,000 a year in royalties.
The beneficiaries, who are they? The patents are owned half by the Aluminum Company of America and half by the German crowd, I. G. Farben. The operating company is 55 percent owned by the Hanna interests of Cleveland, Ohio, and 45 percent by the Magnesium Elektron, Ltd., of England. The contract is supposed to run for thirty years. This chance to make 4,280 percent profit a year ought to give the Hanna crowd a big enough charge of newspaper patriotism to put them among the top-notchers, even if they were not already there.
Plowshares into Swords
◆ The business of turning plowshares into swords is in progress in the United States on a scale never before dreamed of. There are about 200 concerns in this country whose principal business is the making of agricultural implements and farm machinery. More than half of all their equipment is now working twenty-four hours a day making implements of war. It was inevitable that the huge plants that have been making farm machinery for all the world would, in this emergency, be turned into just the channels in which they are now engaged.
Du Pont Can Be Relied On
◆ PM contains the interesting information that the Du Pont crowd can be relied on in this war in the same way and to the same end that it was relied on in the first world war. Walter Hutchinson, special assistant to the attorney general, told interestingly how, under a clever arrangement between Du Pont and the firm of Rohm & Haas (controlling synthetic glass used in planes), Germany, even after the European war started, got royalties on warplanes sold to England by the American "arsenal of democracies".
But returning to the dependability of the Du Ponts. Two memoranda in the Rohm & Haas files establish this conclusively and show in what the dependability consists. Here they are. The first reports what a Du Pont official had asseverated, and the second is a statement of Rohm & Haas themselves.
"Repeated over and over again that there is not the slightest possibility of the Imperial Chemicals coming into the American market, but Du Pont is afraid to write a letter to this effect because in case of an investigation of their firm by politicians, the politicians might make capital of such a statement."
"We arranged that in the case of products where we compete, we shall consult with each on prices, etc., in order to avoid destructive price-cutting. A matter like this cannot be put into the contract, because it would be against the law. We have to rely on our verbal assurances, and our experience with Du Pont during the last 15 years has proven that they can be relied upon to live up to an arrangement of this kind."
When Chemists Disagree
◆ When chemists disagree it is hard for the common people to get at the facts. At hand are two statements, one of them by Dr. William J. Hale, an expert chemist, and an opponent of the Standard Oil crowd, testifying before the Senate Agriculture sub-committee that butadiene for synthetic rubber can be made from farm products at 5c a pound as against a cost of 24c a pound from petroleum. And the second statement, by David Munro’s newsletter, Space and Time, alleges that what seems to be the same material, butadiene, can be made from petroleum at the rate of 1 1/2 cents a pound, and that the resultant synthetic rubber is superior to the natural product. Dr. Hale’s estimate is sixteen times as high as the Munro estimate, and, as both these gentlemen are severe critics of the Standard Oil crowd, it would look to a man up a tree as if they ought to get together and publish the facts, if they can ascertain them, or else stop putting out such interesting information about something of which perhaps neither of them know the first thing. It is all right to be a patriot if one knows what he is talking about, and to yell about the crookedness of the Standard Oil crowd, if one has the facts to back him up, but if he has no information he might better keep still until he gets some. Nobody likes to be lied about, not even the Big Business Burglars. And shouts of patriotism from a man who doesn't know what he is talking about are unconvincing.
Honest Man Found Among Shipbuilders
◆ Labor, February 10, 1942, reports the astonishing fact that an honest man or concern has been found, of all places, among the Big Business men that alone have plants able to build the ships Uncle Sam must have. It mentions James E. Barnes, representative of the Todds Shipyards Corporation, with yards on both coasts and on the Gulf, as mentioning the Todds' voluntarily returning $4,000,000 to the Navy department because of the excessive profits it is making. It seems that the concern draws $200,000,000 a year from the Treasury, and of this amount is allowed 10 percent profit, or $20,000,000. But its total investment is only $40,000,000, and it does not feel like accepting 50 percent on it. It thinks that 40 percent is quite enough; and so it is.
Another New Hope of the World
◆ The business of providing new hopes for the world goes cheerily on. The pope wants a new order; Hitler wants a new order of the same kind; Mussolini wants a new order, also the same; and now comes Eric Johnston, new president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and, in his first address, given at Chicago, May 6, 1942, tells the Big Business crowd, in so many words, "You will be the business leaders in this new world ... and you must plan and organize and co-operate to see that unemployment never again becomes a scourge to man. You are products of the free enterprise system. You must vindicate the system by helping in a plan which will bring real peace to the troubled world." The headline of the story as published in the Medford (Oreg.) Mail Tribune, same date, was "American Business Holds World's Hope When War Is Ended".
Is that so? Isn't it true, then, that "the government shall be upon his [Christ Jesus'] shoulder"? Isn't it true that He "went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return"? and then to put to death those that "would not have Him to reign over them"? Well, yes, according to the Scriptures. Then what's the solution?
Standard Oil's Deal with Hitler
◆ The officials of the company, with their world-wide sources of information and their experience in international affairs, were peculiarly well placed to understand the implications for the world of the Nazi program. The military importance of their products laid upon them a special responsibility. They could not fail to know that in dealing with their German partner they were dealing with an organization compelled to suit its policies and operations to the needs of the developing Nazi plans for world conquest. Yet as late as 1939 they were willing to build aviation gasoline plants for Germany and to convey technical information to Germany. A responsible sense of industrial statesmanship would have told them that this was not just routine business. It should have been clear that this aviation gasoline and these technical developments would ultimately be used against the victims of Germany's military aggression.—New York Times, April 2, 1942.
Thoughtful Bookkeeping
◆ Drew Pearson and Robert Allen, editors of the "Daily Washington Merry-Go-Round", report that the proper authorities at the capital are now investigating the bookkeeping at a certain shipbuilding plant where 50 highly paid craftsmen worked from six weeks to four months on the private homes and farms of certain company executives and their pay was charged to the government. Also, that essential shipbuilding material, 3,000 feet of cable, copper tubing, paint, electrical and plumbing equipment, paid for by the government, went into this private work. No doubt these birds own newspapers that will rush to their defense, insist that they had to keep their men busy while waiting for steel plates or what not, and that the thoughtful bookkeeping, so common in wartime, was merely an unintentional slip.
Maintaining the Federal Reserve Swindle
◆ Uncle Sam hands over to the Federal Reserve banks, say $1,000, and charges for this only the cost of printing, or about 30c. Then, if Uncle Sam needs money for defense or other important purposes, he borrows the same $1,000 from the Federal Reserve Bank System, giving his bond and paying a yearly interest of around $30. That is not sense. It represents a dead yearly loss of $29.70 on every thousand borrowed.—Representative Jerry Voorhis on the floor of the House.
Articles exposing the Federal Reserve were published in The Golden Age Nos. 168 and 367.
"THY WORD IS TRUTH" —John 17:17
Which Is the True Church?
DID you ever have a clergyman tell you that it matters little to which denomination one belongs, that all are traveling different roads, but to one and the same goal, and if each one is true to his religious organization he will reach heaven when he dies? Such claim is very misleading and wholly false.
The Scriptures, which are addressed to the true church, declare that the church is "the body of Christ" and without any division into sects. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." (1 Corinthians 12:12, 27) The clergyman should be asked: "Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul? For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?"—1 Corinthians 1:13 and 3:3.
Long before the beginning of the selection of the members of the church God foreknew and determined to select the church in His own good way. In Romans 8:28, 29 it is written that those who compose the church of God He has called and selected according to His purposes: "Because those whom he foreknew, he also predetermined to be copies of the likeness of his Son, for him to be a firstborn among many brethren." (Diaglott translation) This conclusively proves that the body members must be selected all in the same manner, and in the way that Jesus was selected, and must follow the same course that He took and do as He did. "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps."—1 Peter 2:21.
When Jesus reached His majority as a man He presented himself to Jehovah God, declaring His purpose to do God's will. God caused the man John the baptizer to be a witness to the selection of Jesus; and hence it is written, in Matthew 3:17, that John heard these words from heaven: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." That took place at the time of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan river. This baptism in water was a symbol that Jesus had agreed to do Jehovah's will. After Jesus had applied himself to gaining understanding of God's purposes from His Word, then God made a covenant with Jesus to be the King and Head over the church. Jehovah God had determined that Jesus should have associated with Him men who would follow in His steps, and those so selected are called "the body of Christ", which is "the church". The selection of these body members began at Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus' resurrection, and concerning this it is written (Acts 2:47): "And the Lord added to the church daily." Man did not do the adding then, nor has man since. God used the apostles of Jesus Christ to preach the truth to the people and tell them of God's way, but the Lord God himself selected the members of His church, "the body of Christ."
During the period that followed the baptism of Jesus He devoted himself wholly to the work of bearing testimony as a witness to Jehovah's name and kingdom. Those who follow in Christ's footsteps and who become members of His church must do likewise. When before Caesar's representative, Pontius Pilate, Jesus said (John 18:37): "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Every one of His true followers must do the same thing.
One becomes a member of the true church in this manner, to wit: He learns that Jehovah is God and that Christ Jesus is God’s anointed King of The Theocracy and is also man’s Redeemer, and that this is the only way of salvation of man. Having believed this, then to him Jesus says: “If you will be my follower, you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.” That means that the man must agree to be governed, not by his own selfish will or desires, but by the will of God. By this means one is brought into the covenant with God, and such a one as God accepts and justifies God brings forth as His spiritual child or son. Thus he is taken out from among men and set aside for God’s purposes, that he may be a witness to Jehovah’s name and Theocratic Government or Kingdom. In no other way could one follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, the Head of the church.
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