Consolation, April 12, 1944
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Contents
F
The Carpetbag Government of Vichy France 3
The Putsch Was Made Ready Beforehand 3
Collusion with Japan '
The Price of Betrayal
The Resentment of the Slaves
Only One Way to Freedom
Balkan Hatred of the “New Order”
Back to Czechoslovakia
Lack of Mercy Promotes Hatreds
How Will the Tide of Hatred Pass? 10
Aimee Semple Still Religious
Persecution
The Shrill and Insistent Cry for Liberty
Distributors of Consolation at Sedalia
Jehovah’s witnesses and the Kingdom
‘Let the Little Ones Come’
“Thy Word Is Truth”
He Comes to Reign
A Trip into Colombia
The New Days Are Better
Coming Back to Cartagena
Bogota and the Gilded Man
A “Miraculous Picture”
Farthest South of All
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Manuscripts and Versions of the
Greek Scriptures (Part 3)
Papias, Obscure Yet Renowned
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: .Less Driving, Fewer Lives Lost
♦ The reduction in the use and speed of automobiles has saved thousands of lives. The estimated total of deaths resulting from accidents in this field was 28,000 in 1942, to compare with nearly 40,000 in 1941. This is a drop of nearly 12,000, or 30 percent. Cities of over 500,000 inhabitants showed a 17-percent fatality drop in the first eleven months of the year. Accidents, however, are claiming more victims per accident when they do occur, due to the fact that car pooling means more passengers per car. Reports also show an increase in drinking drivers. Until Armageddon cleans up the earth there will still be people who are willing to risk their own lives and those of others for the pleasure of gratifying their depraved appetites. Another factor that has tended to offset the favorable situation is that dimouts reduce the vision of drivers from 40 to 60 percent. But for this the number of accidents would be even less.
Sneezed Germs Travel 100 M.P.H.
♦ Common cold germs, propelled by a sneeze, hunt new victims at a speed of more than 100 miles an hour, the Air Hygiene Foundation reported (Sept. 30, 1940) in Pittsburgh, Pa. “An unstifled sneeze sprays the air with thousands of droplets, some of which travel twelve feet and at a rate as high as 150 feet a second,” said a bulletin of the Foundation.—World Almanac.
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Lutherans Do Believe in the Devil
♦ The Consolation of March 1, 1944, on page 21, quoted from the Gloversville and Johnstown (N. Y.) Leader-Republican, February 21, 1934, as follows: “However, 100 percent of the Lutheran clergy replied that they did not believe in the devil.” We are advised the word “not” should not have appeared in the above. Consolation hereby corrects the error. *
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V. 4
Volume? XXV Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, April 12, 1944 Number 641
The Carpetbag Government of Vichy France
HE carpetbag government of Vichy France is like the carpetbag government that was established in the Southern states after the Civil War. One of these is just a memory now, and the other is passing.
At the time when the Germans were dividing France from Britain physically, by their drive to the channel ports west of Belgium, the New York Times said editorially, and, no doubt, believed it to be the absolute truth, that “the alliance between France and Britain is unbreakable. From his conference in Paris Mr. Churchill brought back to London a renewal of ‘the most sacred pledges that, whatever happens, France will fight to the end, be it bitter or be it glorious’.”
In less than a month from the time that statement was made the farce that ' had its headquarters at Vichy, and still has it there, was referred to by Mr. Churchill himself as a “sincere and loyal collaboration with Herr Hitler in his scheme for establishing a so-called new order in Europe”. It is not convenient for Mr. Churchill to link up the pope with this so-called “new order”. It would not be profitable politics. But everybody knows that the pope is as urgently talking about this “new order” as is his disciple and fellow Catholic, Mr. Hitler, and that they both refer to the same thing, the re-establishment in Europe of the so-called “Holy Roman Empire” of superstition, greed, falsehood, oppression, ignorance, torture, and murder, all so that the Big Church, Big Politicians and Big Business crowd may have beneath them, bearing them up, a horde of abject slaves.
The official explanation of the naVy department at Washington (by its spokesmen Col. William J. Donovan and Edgar Mowrer), as to how it happened that the people of southern France had this worse than no government wished upon.them, or foisted upon them, contains this explanation, which, it should also be noticed, carefully avoids any mention of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy or the Royalists, and touches the Big Business conspirators against the French Republic but softly and gently:
What happened to the French officers ? Simply this: for the most part they had ceased to believe in freedom, democracy or any of the slogans which alone could galvanize the entire country. While not exactly proFascist (and certainly not pro-German), they were hostile to the Third Republic; many had come to believe that an authoritarian regime like that of Italy and Germany was really preferable. It would, they thought, save the position of the privileged classes and really save France from the disagreeable necessity of defending herself. If there was to be a war, then let it be against the Bolsheviki. In other words, at least half and perhaps the majority of influential French citizens had come to believe what Herr Hitler wanted them to believe. *
The Putsch Was Made Ready Beforehand
Others have as long memories as Mr. Donovan and Mr. Mowrer and are not afraid to place the blame for France’s downfall squarely on the shoulders of
those "hostile to the Third Republic”, and to tell who they were and are. It isn’t so long since soldiers were transporting munitions for the Roman Catholic secret society of Les Cagoulards (hooded men) then planning for the very thing that took place, when one of the soldiers dropped his box, with the result that 200 cases exploded, each containing 32 hand grenades. The result was the death of 1.8 soldiers and civilians, arms, legs and parts of bodies being found as far as a hundred feet away from the place where the explosion occurred.
This made a stir, and the police in a sh ort time uncovered five different caches of arms and ammunition, and could have uncovered a hundred times as many. Two tons of explosives found in one of the caches -were of such a nature that they could have blown up one-fourth of Paris. In another cache, concealed behind a stairway, there were seven tons of ammunition, six machine guns and twenty-eight cases of hand grenades. In a cache in southern Prance itself, there were found in perfect condition, hidden under a bridge, Iwo machine guns,* 11 Mauser rifles, and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. These are but isolated instances of what was taking place all over France, and certainly, as all intelligent and honest people who know anything at all about the banner spy system of the earth must admit, it could never have been done without the knowledge and connivance of that greatest of all foes of republics, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy.
Collaboration Began Early
Vichy’s collaboration with the pope’s “new order” began at once, and, as soon as conditions wmuld permit, all its civil and military servants were gone over “with a fine-tooth comb” (says the French writer Pcrtinax) and everybody loyal to the French Republic was combed out.
It took a little while for the British to catch on to what was going on in Vichy, but the news got around, through the American state department and in other
ways, and at length the London Economist made the businesslike matter-of-fact statement:
By collaborating with the invader, they have finally and utterly discredited any ideas or principles for which they profess to stand; and since these ideas are supposedly Christian, authoritarian and traditional, the natural reaction against Germany is now tending to take Inevitably an anti-Christian, anti-traditional and revolutionary line. Any statesman of reasonable intelligence could have foreseen this development; but fear, cupidity and blind prejudice, not reason and good-will, have been the mainsprings of action at Vichy.
Long before the American armada landed in Northwest Africa, it was widely known not only that the Vichy government had agreed to give Germany control of all. important war installations, railways and ports in Unoccupied France, but that she was letting the Nazis enter and leave Tripoli by way of Tunisia. And it is common knowledge that when the American troops reached Tunisia, which they did in short order, they found the whole northern and eastern coast of the country in the hands of the Germans. How did so many Germans get into Tunisia so suddenly if not with Vichy’s knowledge and consent? Berlin claims that the French Mobile Guards actually aided the passage of Hitler’s troops through France.
Collusion with Japan
One of the reasons that Singapore, the Straits Settlements and Burma fell into the hands of the Japanese is that IndoChina was offered to them on a silver platter by Vichy France. Of course, Vichy’s claim is that she was without strength in Indo-China, could not safeguard the country, and therefore accepted the Japanese “proposals” as finally ratified between Admiral Kato and Admiral Darlan. But not a finger was lifted to stave off the “protectors”. Not even a popgun was fired. What probably took place was that the Vichy
consolation crowd was given the inside tip that papa would he better pleased if the doors were thrown wide open to the new ‘saviors’ of the Eastern world, the Japanese. But it made a bad hit in London. A dispatch from there, in the Vancouver Daily Province,, said:
For a year, a treacherous government in the hands of the enemy has allowed Japan to enter Indo-China, to occupy her ports and her landing fields, to confiscate all her resources for Japanese war needs and finally to transform the whole country into an initial base and an' arsenal for Japanese aggressions. In handing over French territory, the Vichy government has not only been a traitor to France but also to the Allies of our country.
Once in a while some Britisher comes out and speaks his mind regarding the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, but the common or garden variety of politician never does so, because he knows that it would mean his finish. And, rarely, one who is a subject of the pope and chances to Jive in Britain or some of her commonwealths tells the truth also, and makes the fire fly. That is what the former Mayor Camillien Houde, of Montreal, did when he said at a Y.M.C.A. supper:
You appear to be surprised when I say the sympathies of the French-Canadian would be with Italy in the event, of a war between that country and England. [This was before the attack on Poland, at which time Britain jumped into the fray.] I would ask you to remember that the great majority of. French-Canadians are Roman Catholies and that the pope is in Rome.
The French-Canadians don’t want to go to war. If war happens—and the possibility it may seems more probable every day—and Italy is on one side and England on the other, the sympathies of the French-Canadians in Quebec will be on the side of Italy.
We French-Canadians are not Latins, but Normans, but we have become Latinized over a long period of years. The Canadians are Fascists by blood, but not by name. The Latins have always been in favor of dictators. Baek in the Roman days, when they" didn’t have an emperor to dictate to them, they elected one.
Now, the French-Canadians have always been under dictators. When they came over to this country they were under the power of Louis XIII. Then came Cardinal Richelieu, a dictator and a cardinal at the same time, which made him an absolute dictator with full authority over the Communists of that time. And then came the seigniors and finally the parish priests.
It would not do to let a man run around loose who has no better sense in wartime than to tell the truth like that, and so Mayor Houde was arrested and locked up.
The Price of Betrayal
Judas received compensation for betraying Christ, and one would think that the Vichy crowd would have received something for betraying their fellow French men. But they seem not to have had anything but trouble. Their concentration camps are horrible beyond description. One of them, known as Les Milles, is in an old mill which has no windows in it and only two toilets for 840 men. The water used for drinking purposes is brought in pails from which dogs also drank. No bedclothes are provided, but merely four pounds of straw, wherewith the man makes his own.bed. To secure release from Les Milles, the prisoners had to sign for money and belongings taken from them at time of arrest, but never returned. Additionally, their trunks were rilled of all clothes, linen, silver, documents and valuable papers. The pope says that the “new order” is old; and so it is. This yarn sounds about like the way they must have done things back in the days of Pope Nimrod, “the mighty hunter before the Lord.” ;
Some who have reached America from french prison camps in France tell of sleeping on a stone floor, on rotten straw swarming with vermin, with no bath, no sick ward, and only one kind of pills for all diseases. That was at Tou-
louse. Another story tells of victims locked in a car four days without food, water or sanitation facilities, and of twelve committing suicide because of the horrible conditions. At St. Gurs, where 6,000 were already Confined, 6,000 more were dumped without any increase in the food allowance.
Who Shoulders Responsibility?
The ones that must assume responsibility for this condition of affairs are those that sought and gained the destruction of the French Republic, and in the dark, at that, and then adopted what they were pleased to call “hierarchical group representation”, i.e., the running of the country by cliques. The top clique is composed of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and clergy. Then on down to the lower levels. A married worker who is a father and a war veteran was to have four votes, one as a citizen, one as a family man, one as a worker, and one as a veteran. It works like this: If the clergy feel at any time that things are getting away from them, they call for more clergy and more votes for those already in the clergy business.
Ever since there was a nominal government at Vichy, Unoccupied France had been one of the principal sources of foods and supplies for Germany. This is now almost if not quite entirely cut off, due to American occupation of Northwest Africa. Before that event, in three weeks, according to Vichy statistics, 205 ships entered Marseille, coming across the Mediterranean from Algeria, mostly, though some of them right through the Straits of Gibraltar. And they were loaded down with all they could carry of heavy oil, rubber, lead, wool, linseed, cocoa, nuts, copra, gum, resin, sugar, coffee, wine, alcohol, rum, salted meat, fish, rice flour, dried vegetables, bananas, fresh vegetables, eggs, and other things too numerous to mention. Some 75 percent to 80 percent of all this material went right through Vichy France to its destination in Germany or Italy.
Not only that, but France itself has been stripped of all stocks of butter, fats, eggs, canned goods, oil cakes for the feeding of cattle, oats and fodder for horses, corn and grain for poultry, and the livestock itself was also carried off to Germany. Hunger has become a scientific war weapon. Because they could not help it, the British have allowed, or did allow, about 50 French ships each month to pass Gibraltar. The German Armistice Commission is or was in charge of the movements of all these ships and gave the captains orders that they must scuttle rather than submit to search by British warships. About 10 percent of these vessels were stopped by the British, and five attempts at scuttling were made. This line of supplies to Germany has now, of course, been cut off or greatly reduced. The New York World-Telegram tells of one cargo of American food landed at Marseille which went right on through to Germany, with nothing at all left for the slave state, France, through which it passed.
The Germans are going to miss the 6,000,000 tons of supplies that have come to them every year from Oran, Algeria, and through the port of Marseille. The ' French people themselves have not received much benefit. On the contrary, the paws of their dogs and cats have been found in the refuse pails, and that shows what happened to their pets. Conditions practically of starvation were reported from Nice, with restaurants closing because they had virtually nothing to offer except olives, radishes and vegetables.
The Resentment of the Slaves
The French are a proud people, and a liberty-loving people, and it can be faintly imagined how they resent the humiliations that are being piled upon them. They witness in their own factories three times as many goods turned out for the Germans as they turned out for themselves. They know that every pound of war material sent to Germany binds their chains that much tighter. And they can never tell when the British or Americans will bomb them and blow their factories off the map. On a single raid on one of their large cities 1,500 people were killed and several hundred injured. Whole streets were destroyed and complete districts razed to the ground. There are no more containers for anything. If one wants anything, even sugar, he must bring along his own paper bag. Or, if one wishes toothpaste, he must bring his old tube, opened at the bottom, and the druggist refills it for him.
The infamous Nuremberg Laws have been applied to the Jews by this carpetbag government, so that absolutely no civic rights are left to 1,500,000 people. All naturalization laws of the past fifteen years have been revoked; ghettos are planned. The history books have been “purged” of the truths they contained. This must be done in every land where it is proposed to switch over from a republic to a slave state. A ‘master race’ does not dare permit its slaves to know anything. The first thing the intelligent slave would wish would be some way in which he might get free. It is noted in all the slave lands of “New Order” Europe, that the people dare not talk. They never know when they will be reported to the Gestapo, with the loss of any remaining liberty, and perhaps of life.
Only One Way to Freedom
There is only one way to freedom left open to the French people, or to any people henceforth, and that is God’s way, the way of The Theocracy. Instantly, The Theocracy, while it may not now give freedom to the physical body, does give freedom to the heart and mind. And all the other freedoms will follow Armageddon, and maybe, in many instances, they will come sooner. If you wish to see what a blessing this freedom of the Lord is in a time of unequaled distress and anxiety, just read this encouraging, bright, cheerful, sunny letter from one of Jehovah’s witnesses in southern France, who lives right in the midst of a great time of trouble and which time of trouble will be banished for ever at Armageddon. This witness, of Armenian birth, or perhaps Syrian, writes as follows:
Don’t worry about us as to what we shall hat or wherewithal we shall be clothed. We enjoy the Lord’s definite care over us. Although troublous conditions are all around us, we have the peace of God. We know that worse times yet are ahead of us, but, if need be, we are ready even to die for His cause.
This year the people are in much worse condition than last year. The hospitals are crowded with the sick. The work of the undertakers has been greatly increased. The young men and women get consumption from lack of food. There is no wheat and no bread of
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any kind. Nor is there any kind of dried food like beans, peas, rice or lentils. There are some vegetables, but it is very hard to get them. People by the hundreds wait in line in order to get a head of cabbage or a few carrots.
When we see some of our acquaintances, we can hardly recognize them, because they have become so emaciated as to be hardly recognizable. Yet the hearts of the people in general have not been softened by their experiences, and they continue, as usual, to blaspheme God and to follow one ^another in the ways of selfishness.
The Theocracy is indeed the only remedy for this present miserable, unjust and foolish
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order of things. Every Sunday afternoon we have study meetings at the home of witness A. and sometimes the French witnesses come and comfort us.
Kind reader, ask yourself the question, “Since I must have one or the other, which had I better choose, some form of the totalitarian carpetbag governments of the J esuits such as is disclosed by the Vichy regime, or some other of the ‘new order’ outfits, or do I, in my heart, wish for the kingdom of Almighty God, the only hope for humanity, for which Jesus taught His followers to pray?” What is your answer? It’s yours to choose.
Balkan Hatred of the “New Order”
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EOPLE sometimes write and speak properly of the power of love. It is a real force. There is also a power in hate. An interesting illustration of the latter took place in Czechoslovakia. When it was reported that the Nazi authorities were going to confiscate bed sheets for German soldiers in the field, the Czechs began cutting their bed sheets into pieces and making them into underwear. They were willing to go without sheets themselves rather than to give up these simple luxuries to the . comfort of those that are upholding Pacelli and Hitler’s “new order”, which “order”, as the pope admits, is really very old.
There was another illustration of the same principle in the same land, recorded in the Nase Noviny, a foreign-language paper published in London. It tells that in various parts of their native land numerous Czech boys risked their lives by climbing to the roofs of public buildings where Nazi flags were unfurled, in order to cut out the swastikas, leaving round holes as the symbol of Nazism. None -of the boys had been detected up to the time of the announcement, despite the fact that the Nazi flags are specially guarded.
Information gets around among the common people much faster now than it did in the days when only the “clericals” knew how to read and write. This makes it much more difficult to pull off swindles than was formerly the case, though it is still far too easy. Rumania was pulled into the war on Hitler’s side, with the promise of Russian territory as their reward. The Rumanian clergy, like other clergy, take advantage of the war to fatten their purses at the expense of the common people, and Hitler, like all the other unprincipled politicians, virtually tells them to go ahead.
Thus an announcement frqm Bucharest, Rumania, sets out" that Bishop Ephrem declared that marriages performed under Soviet laws are illegal, because they did not cost enough. All a couple had to have was three rubles and they could get married. He stated that all such couples would have to be married all over again. The people know this is a swindle, and the word on such matters gets around among the women as well as the men, and the result is to make many discontented. Also, it opens their eyes as to the true motives back of religion.
Croatia is another of Hitler’s puppet states in the Balkans, with Ante Pave-litch the Murderer as its ostensible ruler. This villain was recently received by Hitler at the Eastern front headquarters/ He was also received by the pope some time back, but on account of his malodorous reputation the Vatican “news” mongers explained to the sucker world that he was received by the pope not as the ruler of Croatia, but because, like Hitler (personally another murderer), he is a fellow Catholic. How easy it must have been for Pacelli to say to the murderer, 'Now, Ante, you must. understand that I am receiving you* not as the ruler of your state, but as one of my beloved children, for whose escape from the legitimate consequences of their crimes my great, big, bursting, bleeding, fatherly, benevolent heart aches like a toothache.’ The common people get to know about such things, and, though they don’t dare hate the pope, for fear they will catch it in the non-existent “purgatory”, they take it out in hating Pavelitch.
And they have other reasons. Thus it was not at all a nice thing for some unknown person to bump off the German Gestapo chief in Zagreb, Croatia, but it was even less nice for that gentleman’s bodyguard to run amuck with revolvers and hand grenades in the crowded main square of the city and murder 700 innocent persons to square the account. The people that were slain all ha'd their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, etc., and the natural result is more accumulated hatred of the “order” for which Hitler, Pavelitch and Pacelli stand.
Back to Czechoslovakia
Returning to Czechoslovakia, the “new order” state of Slovakia, until recently under the direct rule of “Reverend Father” Tiso (now reported dead), personal friend of Hitler, commands attention. This little split-off from Czechoslovakia was billed $20,000,000 by Germany for ridding the country of Jews, and Tiso’s minister of finance ordered that the bill should be paid, and expressed the hope that the amount could be raised by the confiscation and sale of Jewish property. That is something new. You chase 65,000 Jews from their own land to one that is not as gQod; then you bill their tax collectors $20,000,000 for getting rid of them, and the tax collectors, by stealing all the Jewish property, raise the money and pay it to you. But there is still here and there some honest soul that whispers over the back fence that this doesn’t look right: it looks like the Devil. And so it is. He is back of the whole “new order”.
Another item on this same general subject comes from the late “Reverend Father” Tiso’s state, to the effect that the Protestant churches of Slovakia may no longer use the Czech language in their liturgies, as they have been doing for 400 years. Tiso knew where his bread was buttered! Meantime the Catholic churches of Slovakia carry on their liturgies in Latin, and neither the priests nor the people know any more what it is all about than a dachshund knows about the precession of the equinoxes. It all has the effect of making a lot more people good and mad.
Meantime, to make Tiso smell better, the story was put out that he was thinking of retiring to a monastery. But he never did; he died in office.
The “News Flashes from Czechoslovakia” from which this last item was taken explains that the Czechs don’t enjoy working for their Nazi lords twelve hours a day. Whenever they dare, they sabotage the war effort; but it is a risky business. The police have been greatly increased in number; but to prevent sabotage altogether.it would be necessary to have an expert observer behind every worker. The paper explains that 335 labor leaders of Czechoslovakia had been executed for one “reason” or another.
Lack of Mercy Promotes Hatreds
The Nazis would have been within their technical legal rights if they had executed the man who shot Heydrich the Hangman; but for that one murder, the German government officially admitted, 1,765 Czechoslovakians were slain. The argument of the “new order” advocates is that, in order to maintain their power, they have to strike terror into the hearts of all subject peoples. It does not work in the way that they think it does. After a race of people has received just about so many cruelties and injustices, the desire to even the score surpasses the desire to live. Without a doubt, there are now tens of thousands more of Czechoslovakians eager for vengeance than there were while Heydrich was alive.
No doubt the Nazi crowd find it harder and ever harder to get along with their “new order” plans. Thus they promulgated orders for the collection and delivery of all fruit stones within a month after the close of harvest. This was because the stones contain 25 percent to 45 percent of fat suitable for oil production. But do you not think they would have had a larger harvest if they had treated the Czechoslovakians more fairly?
In the city of Prague (once the capital of Czechoslovakia), in the winter, Germans were permitted to push to the head of the waiting lines, where they could get 400 grams (8/9 of a pound) of meat per week, but Czechs, who had to wait, could get but half that amount; Germans could get 125 grams (4| ounces) of butter per week, while Czechs could get but 35 grams, or 1| ounces, provided they finally got to the head of the line before the shop’s supply was exhausted. This was at a time when many American families thought nothing of disposing of a pound of butter a day.
In Czechoslovakia, if one can get it, he may have 2| pounds of bread per week. The bread is glutinous and contains a large proportion of potatoes. He may have 11 ounces of veal per week, but only on Wednesday and Saturday, and exactly at the moment specified. He may have the same amount of sugar. He may have J pound of butter and margarine combined, but not less than half must be margarine. Of milk he may have 1 of a pint daily. He may have one egg per week. He may have 18 ounces of fruit per month; and if there are children in the family, then the family may have up to 4 oranges monthly. One may have two pieces of very bad soap monthly. This soap does not lather. Good soap costs $5 per cake. A fair suit of clothes costs $1QO; a gold watch, $500. When eggs can be purchased on the black market they cost 50c each. These hard conditions all tend to promote bitterness, especially when some receive the favors and others are refused their share of life’s necessities.
Jan Sramek, prime minister of the last Czechoslovakia administration, in a statement signed in London by the representatives of nine European nations, made the following definite charges of Nazi cruelties against Czechoslovakians:
Hundreds of Czechoslovak citizens have
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been executed or tortured to death; tens of thousands have been compelled to undertake forced labor; the populations of entire districts have been expelled to make room for the German intruders; institutions of higher education have been closed; scores of secondary schools have been suppressed; Czechoslovak property has been arbitrarily transferred to Germans; Czechoslovak people have been removed from all leading positions, systematically impoverished, intellectually oppressed, and morally humiliated. The crimes committed by Germany and her satellites are not a matter of sporadic atrocities resulting from the war: they constitute a well-planned and prepared criminal campaign, having its source in the spirit of pan-Germanism and Nazi ideology. The German people prepared this campaign for decades, and the result is cruelty practiced on an immeasurable scale in the occupied countries since 1938, when Hitler inaugurated his march to world conquest.
How Will the Tide of Hatred Pass?
The tide of hatred will pass, for God’s will shall be done on earth as in heaven. (Matthew 6:10) The earth is God’s footstool (Isaiah 66:1), and God has declared that He will make the place of His feet glorious. All this will follow Armageddon, when all who wish to do wrong will perish. Meantime, once in a while, those that have been unscrupulous and cruel get what came to Heydrich. Or they may get it in some other way.
One can now see that the present war was planned by Pacelli and Hitler years ago, but, harking back to the days of Chamberlain and his umbrella, it looked to many then as if there was a chance of staving it off by letting Hitler “have his own sweet way” in Czechoslovakia, and so that was done. The man that at that time Hitler used to do his meanest and most contemptible work was one Konrad Henlein. Posing as the “protector” of a German minority in his homeland, he created an impossible situation for the rulers of the country, already kind beyond reason to their German citizens. Of course, this was all merely a p$rt of the “new order” scheme: it was intended to bring to ruin one of the most powerful Protestant communities on the continent; and it succeeded. It is mighty interesting news, at this time, that this man Henlein, having seen his own comrades slaughtered by the tens of thousands in Russia, is himself in one of Hitler’s jails, and is liable to be done away with.
Moreover, those that constituted Henlein’s followers received an even worse deal than Henlein himself. They constituted one of the divisions that marched into Russia in the fall of 1941. They marched in without overcoats or gloves. The Russian winter came on, with temperatures down to 40 degrees Centigrade below zero. When these boys got back to
Warsaw, some of them had to have both hands amputated (three cases cited), and died as a result of the operation. A Czechoslovak publication says, bitterly, “These bones were all that was left of hands once raised to swear the oath of allegiance to Hitler and Henlein, of hands once raised in perjury against Prague and Dr. Benes [the last Czechoslovak president].” . •
That seems to suggest that Czech hatred of these men did not cease even with death. .
Aimee Semple Still Religious
Aimee Semple McPherson is still religious, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that decent or honest people can do about it. After that stunt she pulled off a few years ago, when she was being hunted for by reporters, lured by her disappearance from the spotlight, and when she suddenly showed up near the Mexican border (after some of the papers had accused her of a religious love affair at a California beach, while she maintained she had been kidnaped and dragged off to Mexico, from which she barely escaped with what was left of her reputation), Aimee x went back into the religious business, the “foursquare” kind, and was relatively quiet.
Now comes a tale that Henry C. Kramer and Gertrude B, Kramer his wife, both missionaries for Aimee, have filed suit demanding $50,000 damages for being left high and dry 600 miles in the interior of Africa. The Kramers said they made their way down to the coast at Leopoldville, where they found they had been fired and were denied money wherewith to return to America. They were finally deported. They got back to Los Angeles, where Aimee still runs her religious business, and brought suit against the officials of her Foursquare Gospel organization.
Like all other religious organizations, Aimee’s outfit is founded on and practices demon-worship. The people connected with it see the “miracles” performed, people rolling around in religious frenzy, “talking with tongues,” and raising pandemonium generally and think it is God’s spirit that performs the “miracles”. They do not realize that the “miracles” are performed by the Devil and that Aimee is really working for the same one who promised Jesus if He would only do the same thing he would give Him control of the whole world.
Worming His Way
♦ At Canton, Ohio, a man was arrested on the charge that he stole 20 gallons of fishworms from a wholesaler of fishworms in Muskegon county, Michigan. Whether he wriggled out of his embarrassing predicament, or whether the authorities succeeded in fastening him securely on the hook, is not known.
Salvage from Floor Sweepings
♦ At the Vultee aircraft plant a magnetic separator salvages a weekly average of four tons of rivets, bolts and other materials from the floor sweepings. First a blower blows away the dirt; then the aluminum parts are recovered, and finally the iron. The final sorting is done by hand, and all usable parts go back into production immediately.
Persecution
“FIVE-TO-FOUR” decision handed down January 30 by the United States supreme court in the most recent of the “Jehovah witnesses” cases will rank with the Dred Scott opinion for illogicality and off-balance reasoning. The case reviewed was an appeal from a conviction under a statute of Massachusetts, the ostensible purpose of which was to prohibit minors peddling miscellaneous wares on • the public streets of that state. The real and subtle motive, however, behind the enactment of that statute was a sectarian movement to harass and restrict the activities of the sect known as “Jehovah’s witnesses”. .
The court resurrects a Mussolini-Fascist doctrine “that a state’s authority over children is broader than over adults in cases where a child of tender years might be made a ‘martyr’ by overzealous parents or guardians”. For some months past there has been a wave of juvenile delinquency sweeping over our land, and this has been apparent in our own community. This has been ascribed by teachers, social workers and clergymen of all denominations to lack of ethical training of the child in the home, yet, the highest court in this democratic land declares that the parent has no right to “make martyrs of children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves”. In Soviet Russia the totalitarian rule has been—and it has not been abrogated so far as I know— not to give religious instruction to children under the age of 18. Our august supreme court by this decision in effect approves of that doctrine, ■l ■ ■■
“A Peculiar People” (1 Peter 2:9)
I am not a member of that peculiar sect known as “Jehovah’s witnesses” ; I am not interested as to how my neighbor worships, but all should be treated alike on a .common footing. Occasionally I purchase the little magazine published
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by these people, and I find it well edited, instructive, and full of non-libelous information. At present they are running a description of the countries, customs and peoples of the Latin-American nations, which is especially apropos at this time. The members of this sect who display this literature do not solicit anyone to purchase it; they are quiet, law-abiding and inoffensive, and there is no question of their sincerity. They have been driven from post to pillar in every city throughout this free land, and it is time to call a halt to that form of persecution. Only the other day two of the local gendarmes arrested two of these people who were quietly walking on Central avenue and haled them before the municipal court. The judge, however, “knew his law,” and, after citing a United States supreme court decision in a former Jehovah Witness case, ordered their immediate discharge.
A peace officer is presumed to know the law, and if he makes an unwarr ranted arrest he does so at his peril. He may make an arrest for a misdemeanor committed in his presence, but since when has it become a “misdemeanor” to practice one’s religious beliefs? In this instance, the officers have laid themselves liable for damages for depriving a citizen of his liberty “without due process of law”. I look for the supreme court to perform another act of selfstultification, as it did in a former Jehovah Witness case, and within a few months reverse itself on this proposition. —J. J. O’Brien, in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. _
♦ But ye are a chosen generation, a royal J-
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God ; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.—1 Peter 2:9, 10.
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The Shrill and Insistent Cry for Liberty
THE shrill and insistent cry for liberty takes a thousand forms, sometimes sad, sometimes comical. Tn Tajs Angeles a man was so injured in an automobile accident as to make it difficult for him to sleep; so he took to the habit of walks in the night. Warned by a police officer to stay off the streets at late and unusual hours, he still continued to navigate them as he saw fit. The officer got mad, arrested him, and shoved him TOO feet to his (tar, so that he could take him to the calaboose. This made the walker mad. He sued the officer for $21,000 damages for interfering with his private business, and the court upheld him in his rights, saying that “a man is not a vagrant if he has a reason to be out at late hours, and that reason may partake of a thousand forms’’’.
Just here is a good place to remark that the people around Los Angeles are different and peculiar. Now, there was that four-year-old maiden at Long Beach, located near Los Angeles. While her mother was asleep in the next room A'larinnc Shaw started playing with matches and set the house afire. Not knowing just what to do she telephoned to her grandma at Alhambra, 30 miles away. Grandma telephoned right back tm Long Beach lire department, and when Marinne’s mama awoke the firemen were there putting out the lire that her small daughter had started. Probably by now the young lady has learned that while she does have some notable rights, yet setting the house afire is “out”.
James Could Hear Better
♦ At Indianapolis, Ind., ten-year-old James Hurt could hear better after physicians removed from his left ear a wad of paper and from his right ear a wad of paper, a pencil eraser, and a piece of lead. Many boys carry a lot of junk around in their pockets, but James hit on the idea of using his ears. It wasn't such a brilliant idea.
Distributors of The Watchtower and Consolation at Sedalia, Mo.
APRIL 12, 1944
Jehovah's witnesses and the Kingdom
N THE past decade the work of Jehovah’s witnesses has been banned in many countries. However, these ministers of the gospel did not stop preaching the message of the Kingdom; they con-tinned, because they are a free people, representing a new Government of righteousness, and obligated to preach because of a covenant made with Jehovah by them; Their God has made them'free to proclaim the message of the truth and to worship Him according to His Word. Government officials, religionists, gangsters or mobs might kill a creature, or a group of witnesses, but they can never silence the truth. God will raise up others to see that the message of truth is proclaimed. He declared that the very stones would cry out the message of the Kingdom if the servants of God failed to do this. But God’s servants are anxious and willing, and delight to sing forth His praises at the present time, and will continue to do so despite all persecution.
Jehovah’s witnesses are not a sect or a cult, opposed to present governments; nor are they fanatics who have some peculiar ideas about government, and who want to force them upon other people. Jehovah’s witnesses are just plain, ordinary people from every walk of life. They have one thing in common, and that is their love for truth and righteousness ; and they have faith in Jehovah God and His kingdom. Their belief and acceptance of the Son, Christ Jesus, as King of the New World cannot be shaken. Their will to follow in His footsteps cannot be changed. Their guide is God’s Word, the Bible, and in it is expressed the will of God concerning them. It is from there that they receive their instruction, and they follow the commands of the Almighty. Jehovah’s witnesses will obey all laws of men and nations if these are in full accord with Jehovah’s Word, as set out in the Holy Scriptures. Because they preach the Word of God, and this alone, they are persecuted, browbeaten^ jailed, tortured, and even killed. All manner of evil is brought to bear against them. They do not shun these sufferings and persecutions, because they know that their Master, Christ Jesus, had to go through the same kind of suffering; and ‘the servant is no greater than the master’.—1944 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses.
‘Let the Little Ones Come’
A ND they brought young children xX to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those _ that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.’’—Mark 10:13-16. ,
Jehovah’s witnesses encourage their little ones to come,and serve the Lord.
The little ones do not need urging or constraint. They are as eager to be about their heavenly Father’s business as was the Master at the age of twelve. It is not a “must”, but a privilege, and the children enjoy it. Just look at the, pictures. 1. Terry, on a busy corner in Columbus, Ohio, at 3| years. 2. Elaine Buthe Sparks, 5, youngest publisher at Portsmouth, Ohio. 3. Young Cleveland publisher. 4. Showing Larry Stiles, 4, of Seattle, Wash., how to do it. 5. Dicky Bj ornes, 5, regularity on Clinton, Iowa, street corner. There is no joy to be compared with that of serving the King.
Joyfully serving their King
TnyWORD is Truth”
'“John 17:17
He Comes to Reign
THE word kingdom is used in a twofold sense, as referring (1) to the ruling body, the dominating or controlling factor; and (2) to the dominion over subjects of,that kingdom. In the parables of Jesus Christ are found many concerning the kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven. So great is that kingdom in importance in God's arrangement that Jesus taught His disciples to pray: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) From that time until now Christians have been praying this prayer and hoping for its fulfillment. The Sacred Scriptures definitely establish the fact that such a kingdom of righteousness is to be put into operation. Who, then, will be the king of that great and glorious kingdom? The Scriptures answer, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.—Luke 22:30; Colossians 1:13; 2 Peter 1:11.
After three years of preaching the Kingdom, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate accused of sedition because He taught concerning that Righteous Government to come. Pilate asked Him: “Art thou the King of the Jews?” And Jesus answered: “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:33,36) By the word “world” or (Greek) kosmos here is meant Satan’s organization. The Scriptures show that from the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 606 B. C. until Christ Jesus comes to reign and sets up the Kingdom the Gentile ruling powers have a lease on earth’s rulership and that these powers lie in the wicked one, Satan the Devil, who is the god or invisible ruler of this world. (2 Oorin-
thians 4:4) Jesus spoke of Satan as /The prince of this world”. (John 12:31) Satan’s rule has been unrighteous, wicked, and devilish ■ and when He comes whose right it is, He establishes a righteous kingdom in the place or stead’ of the unrighteous organization of Satan. By the above words addressed to Pilate, therefore, we would understand the Master to mean that from that time His kingdom was future, and yet that definitely in the future time He would have a kingdom.
^Shortly before His death, resurrection and ascension to heaven Jesus gave to His disciples a parable designated the parable of the pounds or minas, in which He pictured himself as a certain nobleman going into a far country to receive a kingdom and to return; and He shows that this nobleman does return. Jesus said: “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. . . . And it came to pass, that when he was returned, having received the kingdom, then he commanded these servants to be called unto him to whom he had given the money.” (Luke 19: ISIS) A like picture and prophecy is taught by Jesus’ parable of the talents of money. (Matthew 25:14-30) As a further evidence that He would return, Jesus said: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations.”—Matthew 25: 31, 32.
Just a few hours before being nailed to the tree Jesus was teaching His faithful apostles. They understood, though imperfectly, that He was to be taken from them. His disciples were troubled at this information. Then Jesus, speaking plainly to them, said: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare
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a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for yon, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:1-3) This is indisputable proof that He must come to reign.
After His resurrection He stated that He would ascend to God the Father in < ■
heaven. (John 20:17) Forty days after His resurrection He was with His disciples on the Mount of Olives, instructing them to go to Jerusalem and there wait until they should receive the power of the holy spirit, that they might thereafter be witnesses for Him. “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud t z . /
received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11) Without a doubt those men who there stood by the disciples in white apparel were angels or messengers sent of Jehovah God thus to witness to them, and such angels doubtless materialized in human form for that very purpose and afterward dematerialized and disappeared. This additional testimony by angels was given, however, that the faith of Jesus’ disciples might be complete that the Lord would come again.
Such fact was so definitely established in the minds of the apostles that they often spoke and wrote of the second coming of the Lord. In fact, the vindication of God’s name and word by the establishment and work of that kingdom is the great event to which they and all other true followers of the Master have looked forward. One apostle writes, at 1 Corinthians 1: 6, 7: “The testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The same apostle says, at 1 Corinthians 15:25, 26: “For he must reign, till he hath put. all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” The disciple James writes: “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. . . . stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” (James 5:7,8; also see 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 2 Peter 1:16; Acts 3:19-21; Philippians 3: 20) Of His coming again and the blessings His invisible presence will bring to those that love Him, further testimony was given by the apostle Paul when he wrote to the disciple Timothy: “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
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appearing.”—2 Timothy 4: 6-8.
The last book in our Bible is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which He gave after His glorification in heaven. This revelation He concluded by stating to the apostle John: “He which testi-fieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly”; to which John replied: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”—Revelation 22:20.
That the Lord Jesus Christ is to have a kingdom of righteousness, that He is to be the great King of that Theocratic Government, and that He comes into the Kingdom when He comes the second time for the purpose of reigning, is so abundantly established by the Scriptures that all possible doubt thereon is removed. Let all persons of faith in God’s Word look forward to that near day when His Kingdom will remove all imperfect, unrighteous and demon-controlled political powers from the face of this globe and will then shower benefits and good things indescribable upon all His obedient and faithful subjects on this earth. . . .
A Trip into Colombia
IMAGINE that you are taking a trip into Colombia, and while you are at it you can imagine that it was 419 years ago, and that you were one of the Spanish Catholics that helped to settle Santa Marta, in the year 1525, ninety-five years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. The settlement still stands and there are 18,000 people living there. This town, “capital of the department of Magdalena, stands on the north coast near the mouth of the Magdalena river. The surroundings are attractive, but not salubrious. It has a good harbor.” Maybe, as the town has the reputation of not being “salubrious”, you prefer to wait eight years more and go with those who settled Cartagena.
Cartagena, founded in 1533, was a cache on a huge scale where the Spaniards collected and held for safekeeping the treasures of gold and silver looted from both coasts of South America, preliminary to their periodical shipment to Spain under convoy. It lies on a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a causeway. Lying parallel to the mainland is Tierra Bomba island, which must be skirted by vessels entering the harbor. Of the two entrances the Boca Grande (“Large Mouth”) is nearest the city; but it is too shallow for shipping to pass through, so the lower entrance, or Boca Chica (“Small Mouth”), which lies eight miles distant, is utilized.
The walls which encircle the old city are in some places, forty feet thick. They needed to be thick, to cover the deviltry that went on in the olden days. Skipping a few centuries, one can still call on’ Martinez Brothers, wholesale hardware merchants, to see the hole in their cellar where a few years ago was found the skeleton, of one of the victims of the Inquisition who had been buried alive in plaster. They have the names of 667 tortured in Cartagena, 60 of whom were burned alive. The account of the matter, published in the New York Times, said: The spot in the wall where the skeleton wa? found is almost exactly above the torture chamber entrance to the tunnel. The entrance to the cathedral, covered with a gray board with two black metal handles, is just to the. right of the altar.
The New Days Are Better
The new days are better than the old ones in Cartagena. Today, though Roman Catholicism is the prevailing religion of Colombia, yet all forms of religion not “contrary to Christian morals nor to the law” are permitted. This language may mean much or little, but the facts are that the Liberals in the country have made some headway. Tithing has been-abolished; ecclesiastical courts have been done away with; the Jesuits have been expelled; church and state have been separated.
Still, as recently as 1936, one could read an item like the following regarding Colombia:
I was well acquainted with Senor Don Heliodoro de Zapata y Ochoa, a distinguished
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cavalier from Medellin, Colombia, and a faithful “son of the church”, so called. One night, completely nonplussed at his colossal ignorance of a certain Biblical subject, I asked, “Heliodoro, did you ever read the Bible?” “The Bible!” he replied in horror. “Of course not. In my country the Bible is a prohibited book.” Now this speech came, not from one of the 90 percent of Colombia’s illiterate population, but from the son of one of the governors of a state, a man who had had two years in medicine and who was sent to Detroit as commercial consul for the Colombian government.
When Colombia gained its liberty from Spain the first thing it did was to abolish the Inquisition, the importation of African slaves and the collection of tribute from the Indians. Religious toleration was decreed and laws were passed to encourage commerce and immigration. Though there is a concordat between
Colombia and the Vatican, it is claimed to be largely a settlement of the respective claims of church and state regarding marriage. As to the present freedom of 'the government of Colombia from the domination of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, the Encyclopedia Americana, volume 7, page 278, says:
The Liberals, whose first great leader was Santander, favored a federal republic,,a large measure of local autonomy, restriction of the powers and privileges of the Roman Catholic Church, and the extension of public educational and economic opportunities. The Conservatives stood for a strong central government, resisted all manifestations of liberalism, and staunchly defended the Church. . . . The Liberals advocated advanced social legislation, more equitable distribution of taxation, and the extension of democratic methods and institutions. The Conservatives defended the interests of the wealthy, especially the large land-owners, fought democratic innovations, and in general opposed social legislation. On these issues the two parties are still deeply divided.
It is well known that the Roman Catholic Church claims it never changes; and it never does, unless it must. Hence, if it bad the power, it would return to the torture of those who are getting their eyes open to its devilish teachings and practices. The way the “Reverend Father” Harney, Paulist, put it is that he did not doubt “if they were strong enough, the Catholic people would hinder, even by death, if necessary'’, the spread of doctrines among the people which the Roman Catholic Hierarchy did not approve. Certainly if they could put people to death in the United States for disagreeing with their blasphemies, they would without question do it in Colombia. And the people of Colombia know it right well. Ask the Martinez Brothers of Cartagena.
Occasionally somebody in Colombia, like the “Reverend Father” Coughlin of Michigan, tries to hark back to the “good old days” when the Hierarchy had everything its own way. As recently as June 1, 1940, there appeared in Bogota a newspaper with the motto “Fatherland Justice” which proclaimed its policy as completely anti-democratic and said that it “marched under the banner of the Catholic revolutionary movement”, i. e., the “new order” of Hitler and Pacelli.
Coming Back to Cartagena
Coming back to Cartagena. It has a present population of 114,940. The mean annual temperature of the city is 82°, and the port is classed as very unhealthful, especially for unacclimatized foreigners. A few miles outside of Cartagena, at the suburb of Turbaco, is a field in wliich are located between fifty and sixty craters of what are termed “mud volcanoes”. The cones rise three or four feet above the surface of the hard clay field; their mouths vary from a few inches to five feet; and they eject nothing but cold mud. The ejecting force is subterranean gas.
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