Consolation, September 27, 1944
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Contents
The Conscription of Wealth
A Courageous Editor—Now Silent
The Desire to Boss the World
By-passing Corporation Taxation
$2,000,000,000 in Advertising
$7,000,000,000 Loaned Hitler
Gilead Matriculates Fourth Class
In Jesus’ Footsteps
Tortoises — Turtles — Terrapins
Do You Wish Infantile Paralysis?
The Carmine Cherry Tree
Kingdom Service Song Book—An Appreciation 13
From a Catholic’s Viewpoint
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Foundation of Government
The Song of Bernadette
The Use of the Bible
Sebring Postmaster Gets Preliminary Pay-off
Not to Stir Up Trouble
Postmaster Godwin on the Job
Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s witnesses
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Three Effective Sentence Constructions
Arius, Defender of the Faith
The IsTicene Creed
Straight Through to Heaven
for Forty Dollars!
Index to Volume XXV of Consolation
Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC. ' 117 Adama St., Brooklyn 1, N. Y.t U. S. A.
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In Brief 1
Jehovah’s witnesses in Switzerland
♦ An article published in the magazine Trost, a Swiss magazine, shows that J Jehovah’s witnesses are not carrying on" any subversive action, nor propaganda ■ endangering the security of the state. It' reveals an interesting story of a Catholic ■ newspaper’s publishing an article entitled “The System of Jehovah’s witnesses’’. In the article they asked four questions, to be answered officially. These questions were answered officially by Jehovah’s witnesses and the answers were published in the Trost magazine. Also, this article was published in pamphlet form. Action was then brought by the government against the Watch Tower printing. plant, and 6,400 pamphlets entitled “Catholics Ask Jehovah’s witnesses” were seized. These pamphlets, contained the answers to the four questions asked by the Catholic paper. The Watch Tower printing plant addressed a protest to the government, pointing out its illegal action and requesting an annulment of the order of confiscation. This pamphlet was an official answer to an official charge.
On April 16, 1942, a personal interview with the governor of Sursee was obtained by the representatives of the Watch Tower printing plant and certain laws of the land were called to the attention of the government. A copy of the complaint finally drawn up was sent to the attorney general of the Canton Lucerne district. On May 4, 1942, the Watch Tower printing plant received official notice that the criminal proceeding against it had been repealed and the pamphlets were to be returned and fees paid by the, state. The only “crime” that Jehovah’s witnesses appeared to have committed was that of answering a Catholic paper, and for so doing government action was brought against them. This is just another evidence of Catholic Action in operation against freedom of speech.—1944 Yearbook of Jehovah’s witnesses.
CONSOLATION
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.
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The Conscription of Wealth *
NOW, don’t get too much disturbed about that headline. Nobody ever took it seriously, not even the people that had the wealth. It was just a headline to help fill up the newspapers and give them something to get alarmed or excited about, so that they could sell their papers. Neither the Big Business crowd, nor the politicians, nor the newspapers, nor even the common people, imagined for a minute that the thing would be done. And it wasn’t. There was some talk about drafting labor. But ! drafting money! Well, no, it just isn’t . done. Haven’t you noticed the great ' distress in the papers about those who had enough income that they had to fill out an income tax report?
As a vote-getter, what could be more alluring than the politician’s ballot-box cry of a few years ago, “If there is ever another war, wealth will be drafted as well as men”? But after he is elected to Congress, there is but here and there a representative like John M. Coffee, of Tacoma, Wash., who would have the discernment and the courage to say, as he did:
I believe the menace of cartels is the greatest cloud that hangs on the horizon of the United Nations today. The Bank of International Settlements, which was set up about twelve years ago, the home office of which is at Basle in Switzerland, which is on the German border, is operating actively today. The principal depositor is the German Nazi government, which has 85,000,000 Swiss gold francs on deposit . . . I might point out that the head of that outfit is a man named Tom McKittrick, a partner of J. P. Morgan and
■J
Co., of New York city, who is right now the president of the Bank of International Settlements. Interestingly enough, the majority of the board of directors of the Bank of Inter-national Settlements are German Nazi officials, yet that bank is functioning right along and American money is being deposited in the bank. These cartels get along regardless of whether wars are being fought between their respective countries. They do not care who is fighting whom. They sit around the table together, Dr. Schacht, the great German financial expert, Montagu Norman, the great British financial expert, and Tom McKittrick, the great American financial expert.
A Courageous Editor—Now Silent
William Allen White, editor of the Emporia (Kans.) Gazette, has finished his work. Clear-minded, truthful, he had the courage to say, just before he passed away:
Here in Washington every industry is interested in saving its own self. It wants to come out of the war with a whole hide and with its organization unimpaired, legally or illegally. One is surprised to find men representing great commodity trusts or agreements or syndicates planted in the various war boards. It is silly to say “New Dealers” run this show. If s run largely by absentee owners of amalgamated industrial wealth, men who either directly or through their employers control small minority blocks, closely organized, that manipulate the physical plants of these trusts. ■
For the most part, these managerial magnates are decent, patriotic Americans. They have great talents. If you touch them in ■ I
nine relations out of ten, they are kindly,
couiieous Christian gentlemen. Bnt in the tenth relation, where it touches their own organization, they are stark mad, ruthless, unchecked by God or man, paranoiacs, in fact, as evil in their design as Hitler. They arc determined to come out of this war victors for their own stockholders, which is not surprising, It is understandable also for Hitler to desire to come out of this war at any cost victor for the German people.
But this attitude of the men who control the great commodity industries, and who propose to run them according to their own judgment and their own morals, does not make a pretty picture for the -welfare of the common man. These international combinations of industrial capital are fierce troglodyte animals with tremendous power and no social brains. They hover like an old silurian reptile about our decent, more or less Christian civilization, like great dragons in this modern day when dragons arc supposed to be dead.
The Desire to Boss the World
The desire to boss the world is widespread; there are several candidates for the job. The United States News says quite frankly that this war is to decide whether Germany and Japan are to run the world or whether, “as in the past, it is to be run by Great Britain and the United States.” That’s interesting, and important if true. Most Americans, busy in their own back yards, have never given much attention to running all the back yards everywhere else.
H. G. Wells, the British author, is out for a “prolonged armistice” in which there should be a string of special commissions to punish war criminals, restore devastated lands, exploit world resources, suppress profiteering and rearmament; else, as he says:
Big Business grabbing may destroy what is left of our world. Who are we to push aside Norwegians, Swedes, Indians, Czechs, Frenchmen, South Americans, Zulus, while the big business interests which weigh so much in our affairs make a fresh and final mess of the world ?
H. G. Wells and Win. Alien White talk much alike; don’t they?
It is natural for the common man to want better conditions. And it is of real interest to the Big Business crowd that such is the case. That is their market. Who will build the new plastic houses to which British workmen are looking forward? Somebody will own the'molds; somebody will own the sawdust and other things that go into the composition; somebody will put the dwellings together; and that somebody is in business today. Such a home was built in London by ten men in 52 hours, and the inventor claims that ten women could have done it in the same time. This model home contained one living-room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a well-equipped kitchen, all suitably wired. The plumbing unit forms part of the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom and contains all the necessary pipes and tubes for hot and cold water required in a modern home.
The same London paper (Cavalcade) that tells about the foregoing (though not of the same date), tells how Africa is looking longingly for the better days that the whites, so far, in Kenya at least, have failed to bring. It quotes Sir Richard Acland as saying in the .House of Commons:
The natural resources of these territories have been exploited and developed by and for British shareholders, and there has been a top-dressing of administration on the surface. You can play about with that topdressing, push it a little farther below the surface and so on, but the basic fact is that these resources are owned by private individual white men. Dispossession of the natives is based on a land-enclosure system. In Kenya, for instance, 3,000,000 natives are, according to Du Bois, confined today to 50,000 square miles of the poorest land; the best land has been given to Europeans, often at a nominal price, in estates so large that they can only be cultivated by hired labor. Again and again forced labor has been legalized in Kenya; and it is legal today. Labor in the mines of South Africa .was long removed only a step from serfdom, and labor conditions there now allow a native wage of £3 a month.
Stock Market Not Sentimental
Though there are some hundreds of’ millions of people in the world that are sentimental about what happens in the world, the stock market is not in that class. When Mussolini fell off the balcony, stocks dropped from $1 to $5 a share. Those operating war industries feared that the war would be shortened and the days of big profits would draw to a close. And so what? Wonder if anybody would be mean enough to suggest that some, a fewT, who had been counting on huge profits, secretly hoped the end would not come until they had gathered in the big pile anticipated.
You have probably seen the list of salaries in the General Motors Company, of the seventeen executives that get over $100,000 a year each, ranging all the way from C. E. Wilson, with $276,433.04, down to poor Alfred J. Fisher, who was paid only $101,358.75. The total salaries of 28 men in the automotive industries came to $4,529,787.05 a year; but, lest you get to worrying about how they could get along on that, it should be explained that they got a lot more, because of ownership of stock, bonuses and other incidentals too numerous to mention. So they made ends meet. And, anyway, that salary list was away back in 1941, before Pearl Harbor, and there have been big things doing since then.
Some have suggested that the taxpayers have an interest in these matters of officials and supervisory officers of plants engaged in government work. Congressman Louis Ludlow, of Indiana, indicated the manner in which the ordinary run-of-the-mill American is involved when he laid before Congress thirty-eight single-spaced typewritten pages of names of corporation officials whose wages were hiked skyward after their firms had received war contracts. He mentioned a superintendent moved up from $3,000.a year to $7,800; another, from $100 to $325 a month; a general manager, from $18,000 to $24,000; a factory manager, from $7,200 to $12,000 a year; a construction engineer, from $175 to $400 a month ; 17 "officials of one company, whose salaries had previously ranged from $125 to $300 a month, were ail increased to $450 a month; nearly 600 in one company received an increase of more than 30 percent. Of course, these increases were increases in costs, and the government orders were based on cost-plus contracts. Not only was this money stolen from the government, but, said Ludlow, “1 do know that in many instances the taxes paid by the private operating companies are charged to the government as part of the costs.” Makes- a highwayman look like a beginner, doesn’t it?
By-passing Corporation Taxation
The American Investor’s Union published a list of 28 executives of that many of America’s leading corporations. The salaries of these executives in 1940 were $2,416,331; in 1941 they were $2,888,621; in 1942 they were $3,649,218. The first year the upward jump of the 28 men was $472,290; the second year it was $760,597. If you could talk to each of those 28 men they would be glad to explain to you that they are among the most patriotic men in the country, but that business is business.
Some samples of w’ar profits are: Pausin Mfg. Co., Newark, N. J., with wTar business of $327,052, increased officers’ salaries from $12,000 to $90,000, but even then cleaned up a profit of $133,929, which was 250.9 percent on the money they had invested in the business; East Liberty Electroplating Company, on a business of $257,734, made a profit of $165,874; Kar Engineering Co., Great Barrington, Mass., on a contract of $421,992 made a profit of $205,568, wffiich was 173 percent on its invested capital.
The Senate Finance Committee has
reported that the 1942 profits of the Timken-Detroit Axle Company, of $8,250,000, after taxes, was four times as much as it made in prewar years; that the Elastic Stop Nut Corporation 1942 profits of $3,480,000, after taxes, are to be compared with $432,000 in 1939, the best year it ever had prior to the war; that the Warner & Swazey Company, Cleveland machine-tool makers, advertised that business was not making any money out of the war, but that in 1942 its profits were $5,461,000, after taxes, which was four times its peacetime average; and that the Harnisch-feger Corporation had $2,795,000 for its 1942 profits, after taxes, as compared with $561,000 in 1940, the best year in its recent history up to that time.
It was some knowledge of conditions such as these that caused Charles E. Wilson, head of the General Electric Company, and now vice-chairman of the War Production Board, to say, in an address to the National Association of Manufacturers:
I tell you frankly that I am deeply alarmed over the possibility that a right wing reaction may draw some sections of capital so far away from our traditions as to imperil the entire structure of American life, as we know it.
$2,000,000,000 in Advertising
You have seen in the newspapers immense advertisements of the big companies, and may have wondered at it, since nothing was advertised for sale. It is simple enough. There is a doublebarreled advantage for the advertisers. They gain control of the press; that is something; and they charge up those advertisements as costs of doing business, so as to deprive the government of the excess profits taxes at higher rates which it would otherwise receive. Senator Harry S. Truman, Missouri, expressed it this way: .
The bulk of this expense is being borne by the federal government, not by the corporations. This is so because these advertising
costs are being treated as an expense of doing business before computing profits on which the government is entitled to receive excess profits at the highest rate. In other words, the advertising costs the corporations prae-*
tically nothing, because the taxpayer foots the bill. The Bureau of Internal Revenue
I1
should investigate these advertising costs and determine the amounts the government is entitled to receive on income taxes.
The Wall Street Journal describes as an “advertising flood” the great expenditure of $2,000,000,000 for this purpose, or $15.18 for every man, woman and child in the country. If a girl were to advertise widely that she was straight, some might wonder how she came by the money. It looks as if the advertisers may have overdone it.
It Makes One’s Head Swim
It makes one’s head swim to hear about the Du Ponts trying to keep high octane gasoline information away from Germany, on account of the latter power’s rearming, and. to learn that General Motors and Standard Oil of New Jersey had their way and Germany got it anyway, because those two had a financial interest involved. Having knowledge of these and kindred matters, Senator Harley M. Kilgore, of Virginia, in an address to the West Virginia American Legion, is reported as saying:
With large numbers of our biggest producers under agreements limiting their production to the will of our greatest enemy, we entered into the chute which eventually brought us into this war. American money went abroad in huge quantities to build plants which we are now risking the lives of our boys to bomb out of existence ... A number of these agreements were so phrased as not only to control markets, but to furnish secret and confidential information to Germany. For instance, I cite the Bausch & Lomb cartel agreement with a German optical concern, which required Bausch & Lomb to disclose many scientific and optical instruments manufactured and sold to the United States armed forces, including range finders,
I
CONSOLATION
periscopes, altimeters, boresights, gun sights, even secret bomb sights, torpedo directors and fire control apparatus . . . The German firms with which American industrialists were in league became the economic arm of the Hitler government. In turn, the Hitler government became the political arm of the cartels. Both worked together for the domination of the world. 1
i7f000j000,000 Loaned Hitler
It is no secret now that British and - other international bankers loaned Hitler $7,000,000,000. The money was raised by selling German securities to investors in Britain, the United States and other democratic nations, and that Mussolini was financed in the same way. Moreover, and this is quite startling, several writers are claiming that even at this very moment Germany is girding for a third world war through a worldwide economic monopoly. Paul I. Wellman, reviewing What to Do with Germany (213 pages, Ziff-Davis company, New York) in the Kansas City Times, said recently:
■ Today—at this very minute—Germany’s
j program has its basis not only in Germany, [ but in all countries of Europe, in Aria^ in the Americas, in the United States itself. This consists of the German economic octopus, the tentacles of which reach everywhere, and the rooting out of which will be more difficult than the outright defeat of the Nari wehrmacht . . . We beat Germany in the first world war. But as early as 1920 the German chemists and industrialists were planning the second world war. Mark that. Chemists and industrialists, not generals. And here was why they could assume this leadership: they had almost unlimited funds at their disposal, hidden in Holland, Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere in the names of citizens of those countries. Furthermore they reckoned rightly with the fatuousness of investors who would pour capital into Germany ... It is to be remembered that all this was before Hitler. He was only ranting in a beer hall, a comic figure, when the gigantic war plans were being formulated by big business and industry in Germany. He inherited his war machine; he did not build it. It was only when his crazy oratory and demagoguery united the people under him that Hitler was adopted as the spearhead.
In America the plan was working out according to schedules. And the full tale of this is only just coming to the fore. It has been shown that such companies as the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and General Electric entered into cartel agreements with Germany, whereby production of certain vital materials was purposely kept down in this country. Some of our great industrialists owned stock in German interests, as Edsel Ford in I. G. Farben, and Walter C. Teagle of Standard Oil in General Aniline and Film corporation, which was the same firm under a different name, organized to get back German patents lost during the first war. Cartels held a throttle grip on American production in many directions. These cartels may be revived unless steps are taken to suppress them from the start; and unless it is .made impossible for German industry to recover its exclusive basic patents lost during this war, there will be another phantasmagoria of horror all over again.
Jehovah’s witnesses do not anticipate a third world war between the nations; but they anticipate Armageddon, which will be the concluding act in the history of present-day nations. But the foregoing review brings sharply to mind the Lord’s prophecy of “men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth”.—Luke 21: 26.
Jehovah’s witnesses are interested but neutral spectators of the efforts of the big fellows to grab all the business of the United States and all of the oil of Arabia and Canada and everywhere else, and make fabulous fortunes even while doing it, but they are not disturbed by what they see. It is admitted that there are adequate oil deposits to last until the year 3026. That is a long way off, and Jehovah’s kingdom lies in between, with its thousand years of infinite joys.
Gilead college scenes: (1) Main building, as glimpsed through campus’ trees; (2) a corner of the steadily growing library; and (3) the irrigation dam, where an occasional “dip” refreshes.
Q CONSOLATION
Gilead Matriculates Fourth Class
AFTER invoking the great Theoerat,
•the top-ranking Educator of the universe, for His blessing upon the newly : matriculated class of ministerial stu: dents, a very warm, personal greeting was extended to them.
' This is a very blessed occasion for. all of you because today you begin a preparation that may go on for years, as far as the witness work is concerned. This is just the beginning.
' It is not the end of what you are going to do. : For the next five months you brethren will live here at Gilead; you will be studying hard. You will be filling your minds with the precious words that the Lord has set forth. You will study the Bible from the beginning to the end. It is your “'sword of the spirit” which the Lord gave you. At the close of your five months of study you will be able to wield it more efficiently and effectively.
Such were the opening words of the president of the Watchtower Bible College of Gilead, Mr. N. H. Knorr, as he welcomed the fourth college class, which began their five-month college career on Monday, August 28,1944.
The opening address laid before the student body the great privileges and | responsibilities which will fall upon them 1 after their completion of the five months , of advanced ministerial training. The * theme of the whole 1 ectur e»was Matthew 28:19, “Go, disciple all the nations.” (The Emphatic Diaglott) The difficulties, hardships and inconveniences in the foreign fields would be many, and must be braved by all those being trained for the foreign missionary fields. If any felt they could not endure the trials and rigors of future Theocratic battles, far from the immediate surveillance and protection of the well-organized Society of the Lord’s people in the United States, now wa’s the time to turn back. The education offered at Gilead is not for those- who would desire an advanced education to glory over selfishly in the future by remaining home among friends, but is offered only to those who wish to be front-line fighters for the New World in other lands. All those in attendance expressed their desire to continue on at Gilead and to proceed with the course set before them. One and all, the students were eager to be prepared to “go, disciple all the nations”, just as eager and anxious as those who <have already graduated from Gilead.
Weeks before the United Announcers’ Theocratic Assembly of August 9-13 .convened, the president’s office of the Watchtower Society sent invitations to one hundred full-time ministers to enroll as students for the fourth college term. They were given advance instructions as to what preparations should be made for their college training. Certain prerequisites of Bible reading and knowledge were definitely outlined. They were advised that they could begin to .matriculate on Thursday, August 24, and thus enjoy a few extra days at Gilead getting accustomed to the new surroundings and the work done there. The opening of the college course was to begin Monday, August 28.
By Thursday evening thirty-one students had arrived from many parts of the United States, also one brother from Mexico city, the first student to enroll at Gilead from a foreign land. Friday thirty more prospective Gileadites, laden down with their baggage, phonographs, typewriters, etc., arrived. Over the weekend the college campus saw many more new faces, all aglow with the expressions of wonderment, joy and expectancy peculiar to newcomers at Gilead. By Sunday noon all of the one hundred students had arrived, enrolled, and had been made acquainted with their lodgings and the rules and regulations of the college dormitories and dining room. Thirty-eight male and sixty-two female ministers (two of the latter being of the colored race) reported for advanced
Front view of Gilead, showing some of the recent improvements in landscaping.
training. At two o’clock Sunday afternoon President Knorr conducted an extensive tour over the entire grounds of seven hundred acres surrounding Gilead and comprising the establishment known as ‘Kingdom Farms’. Points of interest on their itinerary were the various departments in the main building, “Gilead,” and other buildings, such as the mill, carpenter shop, “Shiloh,” houses, garages, cheese house, greenhouse, cannery, bee house, classroom “C” building, root cellar, the large cattle -barn, and the many other barns. The tour ended at the farm’s irrigation dam, where many of the students and others enjoyed a refreshing swim in the spring water just before supper.
Many telegrams of greetings came in
to Gilead on Sunday and Monday from various groups of former Gilead graduates. Some of the messages received are as follows:
Rejoicing with the fourth class beginning studies. The Lord's blessings continue as heap of witness continues. Gileadites, Third Class, Daytona Beach, Fla.
Five Alaska-bound Gileadites from the third class send Theocratic greetings to the fourth class student body. Jehovah's rich blessings rest upon you.
Our thoughts and prayers as you begin studies. May Jehovah's spirit be upon you in successfully completing the course to vindicate Jehovah's name. Baltimore Gileadite.
. 4 ■
Jehovah's spirit and rich blessing on the efforts of the fourth class and the faculty. Gileadites of the Second Class.
We live again the joys of Gilead in contemplation of the blessings you are about to receive. May the active force of Jehovah sustain you as you.study to add to the heap of witness. Fellow Gileadites of the Second Class, Brooklyn, N. Y.
The, students will have many new things* to learn, including a complete study of the grand new book, "The Kingdom Is at Hand1’. The wonderful new Bible published by the Society, the American Standard Version, and released at the convention, will become the principal textbook of the college. This will largely supplant the “Authorized Version Bible” published by the Society, which, however, is being retained for use in certain classes. An analytical study is also to be made of The • Emphatic Diaglott during this term. Thus, all three Scripture publications of the Society wall hold the foremost place as textbooks in the college curriculum.
College again is in full session with the faculty, the Farm family, and the students, all organized into another cone large family’ of the Lord’s servants. What another happy five months it will be for all at Gilead! They will be busy months but joyful ones. Everyone has his assigned job, whether as a student or as a worker on the farm. Everyone having “put his hand to the plow” will carry forward his share of the work at Gilead to the praise of Jehovah’s name.
In Jesus’
PRIMARILY Jehovah’s witnesses carry on their work as did Christ Jesus when He was upon the earth, that is, from house to house. After the Lord had made His consecration to serve His Father in heaven He devoted all His time to preaching the gospel of the Kingdom, presenting the truth to the people, which would make them free from the bondage of this evil world. Due to the modern means of conveying information to other persons, Jehovah’s witnesses have advantages that Christ Jesus and the apostles did not have in their day. The printed page has been a real asset and is used very extensively by the Lord’s servants in their activity. These Christian people use Bibles, books, booklets, magazines, pamphlets, tracts, and other documents necessary to convey the truth of God’s Word to the people, in all principal languages. Jehovah’s writ-nesses are not book distributors, but are educators, and their purpose is to teach other people the same as Jesus did. In order that the people may get the very best out of the publications placed with them, Jehovah’s witnesses arrange to call back on these interested persons so
Footsteps ► . * .
that studies may be started in their homes. This work is identical with that done by Christ Jesus and the apostles, and it is carried on for the very purpose of teaching all persons the truth, which truth will lead to life eternal.—1944 Yearbook of Jehovah's witnesses.
Tortoises — Turtles — Terrapins
♦ Tortoises or turtles are not really fishes: they are reptiles. Some have been found that weigh 600 pounds. In South America one of these big matrons lays from 200 to 300 eggs in the sand, covers them up, and forgets them. Along come the Indians, dig them up, put them in a large tub, tread them into a jelly, and pour in water; and when the oil rises to the top, they dip it off, put it into stone jars, and use it for butter. As to voices, usually the females can only hiss, and the males pipe feebly. There is one big tortoise, however, 8 feet long, weight nearly a ton, that has a hoarse bellowu He wants what he wants when he wants it. There are 225 kinds of tortoises or turtles, or terrapins, as they are sometimes called. Ever eat turtle soup? It’s good.
Do You Wish Infantile Paralysis?
0 YOU wish infantile paralysis? Or is it syphilis that you desire? There are ways to get these ailments. It is done by having people scratch pus into your arm or leg, or wherever you want it. The ■ National Anti-Vivisection Society, 37 South Wabash ave., Chicago, Ill., gives some details. It'cites how, a few years ago, money was collected “in honor of the president” and it was supposed that such funds would “be used for the direct relief of infantile paralysis”. But, said Dr. Joseph S. Wall:
Not one penny of that fund will go to buying a crutch for a crippled child. Not one dollar of it will go to President Roosevelt’s pet foundation in Georgia. The majority of the dollars in that fund will go for the purchase of monkeys in order that we may carry out proper animal research.
Commenting on the fact that in the past the serums made from monkeys had in numerous instances resulted in WL ■
“cases of paralytic poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis) with high fatality” the National Anti-Vivisection Society does not approve of diverting the money from crutches to monkeys, saying:
We believe that a grave mistake is being made by the diversion of funds from established clinics dealing with actual cases of infantile paralysis, to research laboratories which will buy monkeys to produce serum for experimentation along lines already tried and which, according to Dr. Leake (medical director of the United States Public Health Service), instead of preventing infantile paralysis, actually causes it in some instances.
To be sure, there is a chance that you might not get infantile paralysis by having this monkey serum injected into your blood stream, but then again you might.
About getting syphilis: There are some old-fashioned Americans that don't want it. But it can be had, and the American Medical Liberty League, 404 South Wabash ave., Chicago, Ill., is a headquarters for information on the subject:
/Out of every 1,000 men examined in sections of Kentucky, Maryland and South Carolina, 200 were found to be infected with syphilis and unfit for army service. These states force all children to be vaccinated before they enter school. But in North Dakota, Minnesota and Utah, less than 10 syphilitics were found out of every 1,000 selectees examined. These states have laws prohibiting compulsory vaccination.
Great Britain abolished compulsory inoculations in the armed forces, and the health of her men in all fields and all services has been exceptionally good with thousands not vaccinated or inoculated.
The Carmine Cherry Tree
♦ Man was made to appreciate and admire the works of the Creator's hands, and to rejoice in them. All will enjoy the following description of the carmine cherry tree, which was seen at Camp Tahawndam in Burma, in 1931, given by Captain Kingdom Ward, who, at the time$ was engaged in obtaining botanical specimens:
On March 20, close to our camp, I noticed^ a big cherry tree about to flower. Two days later it was in full bloom. It was quite leafless, just a mass of flowers, stark crimson.) For a minute I stood before it unable to speak a word, drunk with the glory of it. It was not to be believed. When the everyday world came back to me, I was in doubt for a moment whether I wept, shouted or said a prayer. It is one of the largest of the deciduous trees, only the elm outstripping it. It grows eighty to one hundred feet high, and its branches have a very wide spread. The ruby-red flower buds appear about the middle of March, in compact clusters toward the ends of the branches, and the tree is swiftly transformed into a frozen fountain of precious stones. As the buds open the stalks lengthen till the flowers are hanging down. Then the whole tree bursts suddenly into crimson flame. To see the setting sun through its branches when the tree is in full bloom is a thing not easily put out of one’s mind.
Kingdom Service Song Book—An Appreciation
MEN of the world, particularly those who profess interest in the so-called “better” things of life, admit with some concern that for a number of years now hardly anything worth while has been composed or set to music. The best that the song writers of today can offer is either trite or puerile, vulgar or blasphemous, or suggestive and degrading. Yes, even judging by their own standards, the musical offerings of today are just so much trash. This condition has caused parents, particularly those who love truth and' righteousness, to become worried that their young folks should be singing such stuff. They have prayed for something suitable for their young folks to sing as well as raising an ever stronger cry for Theocratic songs for their own enjoyment.
How fitting, therefore, that, at a time in the world’s history when the writing and singing of popular songs has reached an all-time low, Jehovah should arrange that His channel on earth should reach an all-time high in this very matter
Yes, true to His promise to supply all our needs, and not to withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly, Jehovah has given His people a new songbook, the Kingdom Service Song Book. And what a songbook! No mere “hymnbook” this. No, sir! No pining to go to heaven; no doting on character development; no sanctimonious “tear jerkers”; no sentimental platitudes void of meaning; no hackneyed religious tunes; no national airs borrowed from the political wing of the Devil’s organization.
No more words and music inseparably linked with Satan’s old world that is on the way out, but, instead, words and music, thoughts and sentiments suitable for those who expect to enter the New World. Sixty-two of such songs on as many pages. Up-to-the-minute Theocratic truths and expressions, favorite Psalms and Bible chapters and verses set to music; and new melodies full of vigor (Nos. 7, 12, 26) and of beautiful sentiment (Nos. 1.2, 20, 36, 38, 45) never before published and the exclusive right of Jehovah’s servant. In fact, more than half of the pages are filled with music original wdth Jehovah’s witnesses.
This songbook is Theocratic throughout. No credit is given to any creatures, no names of composers of words or music appear on any of its pages; and, instead of foreign and traditional phrases to indicate the kind of song it is and how it is to be sung, short pointed remarks at the beginning of each song give the cue. The musical notations also are not of the traditional hymnbook variety, but of the larger and more beautiful type used in standard and classical music. The heavy black bars appearing at the end of each line of verse in hymnbooks, reminiscent of the days of the ecclesiastical chant, are also gone. And, in addition to the index as an aid to finding the song desired, as far as possible the songs have been arranged in alphabetical order according to the opening word of the first , verse. Thus, song No. 1 begins with the word “Arise”, and song No. 62 with the word “Zion”.
Singing implies a reason therefor, and, truly, never has there been more reason or cause for Jehovah’s servants’ raising their voices than now, that the Kingdom is at hand and His name shines in such luster. (This may be, in fact doubtless is, the reason that nothing worth while is being written by worldly composers: they have no cause for joy and song.) As so well called to our attention at the recent Assembly, there was singing long before man was created, and we may know for a certainty that singing wfill never cease, for “of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end” and Jehovah’s
name will shine with ever-increasing brilliancy throughout eternity.
Nor will this new instrument to Jehovah’s praise, the Kingdom Service Song Book, merely be used at the service meeting, when all will join in unison to sing songs of Kingdom service and to the praise of Jehovah. It will also bring joy, and fill the need for song when there is time for relaxation at the close of day. The melodies have the musical “what it |akes” so as to make them easy to learn, easy to sing, and easy to remember; melodies that will instinctively recur to the mind when the heart is filled with joy or longing. In this regard these melodies will easily replace old-time “love” and folk songs, practically all of which are just so much creatureworship, and, instead, will help one to
have heart-to-heart fellowship with the great Creator, as was counseled in the columns of The Watchtower not long ago. Yes, how much more fitting that Jehovah’s servants should be singing of their love for Him and of His love and watch-care for them!
“Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: ... Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah, all the earth:'break forth and sing for joy, yea, sing praises. Sing praises unto Jehovah with the harp; with the harp and the voice of melody. . . . Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together before Jehovah; for he cometh to judge the earth: he will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.”—Psalm 98, Am. Stan. Ver.
From a Catholic’s Viewpoint
WE ARE supposed to be fighting this war against Fascism and Nazism, and all it represents. We find this menace, spawned in the gutters of Rome long before we ever heard, of Mussolini or Hitler, has spread all over Europe and is imbedded in Argentina as well as other places, and it alone is responsible for this present world slaughter.
The present conflict started in the rape of Ethiopia, Albania and Spain, where those countries were used as the dress rehearsal for the present world conflict. Those are the cold facts, and no use mincing words, this “new order” was espoused by no other person than Pius XI, and also supported by the present Pius XII; and these same Nazi-Fascists were appeased by Great Britain and the United States until appeasement had gone the limit. It was then too late to stop its progress, Those are the causes that dragged Great Britain and the United States into this war. No use to offer alibis.
If Great Britain and other nations, including France, had cracked down on Mussolini, Franco and Hitler; if we, as well as Great Britain, had not given aid to those aggressors, instead of putting all our energies toward destroying the Soviet Union; if we had not sold scrap iron and other materials to Italy and Japan, we could have avoided this war.
Now that we find Spain has been used to produce these secret weapons, as well ? as Sweden has provided those materials 1 to Germany, let us crack down just as > hard on Spain as well as Sweden. Spain i never has been the neutral country, but has given every aid to Hitler, and even j provided troops to fight against our ; great ally, the Soviet Union, except by \ open declaration of war. ]
In the face of all this, Churchill offered J apologetic excuse toward Spain. His 1 face ought to turn scarlet after all that | has happened, even since he applied his | coat of whitewash to the “blessed savior” 1 Franco. Spain did not favor Britain 1
through any goodness of heart. If Spain had been powerful enough to wage war against Britain she would have done so when the opportunity was favorably. Spain knows the Loyalists are still alive, and only waiting to celebrate their own “Fourth of July” as we did in 76.
As for the position of the church in : this matter, it is political, not spiritual, and all this emotional appeal to spiritual matters is out of place. The spiritual and religious faith of the Spanish people would not be any less with the church and its high Hierarchy removed from political status than it would with it corrupted by politics, and the ambitions of those politically-minded clergy whose chief concern is the political aggrandizement of the church. And that applies to ! any denomination. We cannot allow God or Jesus Christ to be used as political figures. That is blasphemy, pure and simple.
The position of the church in Spain is exactly as was that of the Orthodox in Russia of czarist days, and that had. more to do with bringing about the Bolshevik revolution than any other cause, believe it or not. Can anyone say that church is less spiritual, now that it has been purged of its political corruption, than it was before that purge?
No other church meddles in the politics of the world as does the Roman Cath olic. It seeks world power as a superpolitieal state, as the state church in every land, and would assume that political status in the United States, if it could, in spite of our Constitution, which forbids such a diabolical institution.
All this will be construed as trying to create a religious controversy, which it certainly is not. We Americans, Catholics included, have that right to say what we think, even though the canon law of the Catholic Church would intimidate us Catholics from any criticism of the church, particularly its political
Collusion with Nazi and Fascist groups, while it plays the hypocritical role of waging war and seeking to destroy the Soviet Union. .
In that position the pope is a superhypocrite, not a vicar of Christ, nor is that attitude concerned with God or the moral affairs of Christian doctrine. It is Roman Catholicism; but Roman Catholicism is not • Christianity, any more than this corrupt Democratic party is democracy.
There is no need of Catholics’ ‘‘going haywire’1 over these statements of ‘cold facts. If what I say is an indictment against those ecclesiastical politicians ' and bigots I accuse, let them strike where they see fit. I know what would happen in the United States if we were under the rule of a Roman Catholic, or any other form of state church and religion. We are out to defeat Fascism, not ’ to condone it as a matter of convenience, regardless of the pope or others who have leaned toward it; otherwise, let us stop all this blathering about ideals, freedom, democracy, etc. Fascism in Spain cannot be appeased when we fight it in other nations or whether Churchill apologizes for Butcher Franco, the blessed savior” of Spain, so dubbed by Achille Ratti, or, as he was known, Pius XI, and his successor Eugene Pacelli as Pius XII.
American citizens, Catholics included, have that right to speak their minds, regardless of any canon laws of the church, particularly when those matters are outside religion and morals, which politics certainly is. Thank God we have those who dare do so, and at least one magazine, The Converted Catholic, that dares tell the truth, regardless. Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold and even Quisling were much maligned men, compared with these ecclesiastical parasites and politicians in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and other countries, all Nazis. —James Rooney, Rhode Island.
Foundation of Government
GOD has delegated a government to
His beloved Son, the Messiah; hence it is properly called the government of Messiah. The supreme power proceeds from the God of heaven, and therefore the government is also properly called “the kingdom of heaven”. But from this we must not infer that God Almighty has not always governed His obedient creatures. There is no record of the beginning of the exercise of Jehovah’s sovereign power. As for the Son of God, He came to be pictured by the king of Salem, Melchizedek, “priest of the Most High God,” and of Melchizedek there was no record concerning the beginning of his days nor the end of his life. This was significant in its typical bearing upon Christ Jesus as the Chief Executive Officer of Jehovah God carrying out His purpose at all times.
But here God’s purpose and provisions pertaining to man are under consideration. God created the earth for man’s habitation. (Isaiah 45:12,18) The expressed purpose of God is to the effect that the perfect man shall have dominion over the lower animal creation upon the earth. Man’s first invisible overlord, Lucifer, who committed the great crime of treason against God and became
Satan the Devil, induced man to turn away from God; and man thereby lost life and the right to life. Traitorous Lucifer builded a great organization of his own to hold man in subjection to himself and to keep the mind of man turned away from Jehovah, to the end that Satan the Devil might receive the worship of man. God’s purpose is to deliver man from the power and influence of Satan and to bestow upon men that turn from Satan’s service everlasting life and the blessings incident thereto. To this end God builds a mighty kingdom or Theocratic government, with His beloved Son as King. His arrangement is that Christ Jesus shall have associated with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand others who shall form a part of the Kingdom. In building this Government God has made no haste, but has majestically progressed with it according to His good pleasure.
Both Zion and Jerusalem are names applied to God’s organization. It is out of this organization of Zion that His Deliverer for obedient humankind must come. (Romans 11:26) Of necessity the foundation of the great empire must be laid in God’s Theocratic organization, which is Zion. Therefore it is written, at Isaiah 28:16: “Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I. lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.” This prophecy refers, without doubt, to Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God, to whom He has committed all power in heaven and in earth. The Theocratic Government is symbolically represented as a stone structure, the foundation stone of which is Christ Jesus. He was tried and tested, and under the most severe test proved His loyalty and faithfulness to God. It is certain that God can always trust Him. He justly earned the title “The Faithful and True”.
Jesus is called the “precious corner stone” because He is the dearest treasure ___ •
of Jehovah’s heart. He is the fairest of ten thousand and altogether lovely. “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”—Psalm 45: 3, 7.
Christ Jesus is the “sure foundation”, the one that can never be removed, always upholding the dignity and honor and good name of Jehovah God. This foundation stone is the foundation and chief corner of the government that shall carry into operation God's great purpose for the deliverance of humankind, r,
As to the time of the laying of this foundation, we have the proof from the Scriptures that it was at the time of the consecration • of Jesus at the Jordan river. About that time John the Baptist said of and concerning him: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) About this time Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, and it was there that the prophecy written of Him at Psalm 40: 7, 8 was fulfilled, to wit: “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.”—See Hebrews 10: 5-7.
Jesus is also pictured as a lamb slain. From that time of His consecration He was counted as slain and as the great sin-offering in behalf of mankind. It is written concerning Him, at Revelation 13: 8: “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” That expression fixes the time of the laying of this precious foundation, namely, at the time Jesus
J ■ *■ /
was baptized and begotten of the holy spirit.
Before Jesus’ advent in the flesh God had made His arrangement. His purpose provides that there should be a building upon this precious foundation stone, composed of other stones that shall form a part of the mighty Government. It necessarily follows that the class of persons to be thus a part of the Government, also the manner of their selection, testing and completion, was prearranged according to the good pleasure of God. Hence it is written: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” (Ephesians 1: 3-5) These words of the apostle Paul apply to those, and to those only, who will constitute a part of God’s Theocratic Government, which in due time will govern and rule all obedient men of the earth.
It is of keen interest to note that those who are built upon Christ Jesus, the foundation of the Government, are not selected from among the angels of heaven. It is God who selects them through Jesus Christ, acting as the representative of the Most High God. He lays hold upon them or takes them from the human race; that is to say, He selects men possessing the faith of Abraham. Thus it is written: “Besides, he does not in any way take-hold of angels, but he takes hold of the seed of Abraham.”—Hebrews 2:16, Diaglott.
That which distinguished Abraham above any men that preceded him was his faith in God. Trusting implicitly in Jehovah, Abraham deported himself accordingly. Such faith as exhibited by him furnishes the criterion for the selection of the members of the royal line. This is in harmony with the essential quality that Jesus impressed upon His disciples as of paramount importance, namely, “Have faith in God.” (Mark 11:22) It is clearly manifest from the Scriptures that God grants His great favor only to those who implicitly rely upon His Word. Says the scripture above quoted: “He that believeth shall not make haste.” All those who gain life either in the heavenly kingdom or upon the earth as subjects of the Kingdom must believe or exercise faith in God’s beloved Son, Christ Jesus, as the Foundation of the Theocratic Government.
The Song of Bernadette
ranz Werfel has done well by Bernadette in his 575-page book by the title “The Song of feernadette”. He has done even better by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, whether he intended that result or not. The mantle of glamour has been thrown about a completely nondescript character and a profitable religious business. Werfel has made much out of nothing. But he had reason for his exertions, for he was a Jew fleeing from the Nazis, and found shelter in the little town of Lourdes, near the French-Spanish border, which for some, weeks of anxiety he was unable to cross. Just why he, a Jew in the flesh, should vow, if spared by some unnamed power, to glorify this hitherto utterly unimpressive and entirely unconvincing child of an improvident drunkard is an interesting question.
The book, which has also been made a “movie”, is described as follows:
The Song of Bernadette is a work of beauty, the strong and all-embracing beauty that springs from a complete understanding of, and communion with, the infinite variations of the human soul. It would be a radiant hovel at any time; today it has a touch of magic.
That last word is the key to this perversion of the truth. The book has more than a touch of magic, dealing as it does with spiritistic phenomena which are all too obvious to one who is enlightened by God's Word as to the works of Satan and is therefore not ignorant of his devices. One who disregards and distorts the truth can make any life appear “beautiful”; and this is what Werfel has done with the less than mediocre existence of a French girl whose chief qualification for “visions” was apparently her lack of mentality, a blank mind being the most accessible to the demons, whose efforts in every direction are away from God and His worship to the adoration of other things, including “ladies” and “babies” and what not.
Yet it is not necessary to be unduly! harsh in one’s comment on the effort of Franz Werfel. He was, admittedly, writing a novel, hence not dealing with truth, ' either concretely or in the abstract. His ; “Bernadette” is wholly a creature of the ; imagination and never existed in the ! person of the subnormal child whose ' visions of “a beautiful lady” were the origin of the profitable, and highly profitable, business of “Lourdes”.
The “blurb” for the book tells us further:
The facts about Bernadette Soubrious are simple enough and in outline familiar. In Lourdes, some eighty years ago, the daughter of an impoverished family was visited by a vision of measureless kindness [sic] and indescribable beauty. She alone saw this Lady of the Grotto. There were powerful reasons of State and Church for discrediting a miracle, and ingenious and cruel attempts were made to prove the girl a fraud. Despite these efforts, and despite the fact that Bernadette herself made no claims except the single one that a beautiful woman had appeared to her, all France was swept by the conviction that the Mother of God had appeared on earth.
Franz Werfel does not ask that his readers believe or disbelieve in Bernadette’s miracle. He does, however, ask that they believe in Bernadette, and his luminous story of her life makes her completely believable to any reader, Catholic or Protestant, Jew or atheist.
This is asking too much. That Bernadette had visions is not denied, nor is it necessary to deny it. That there have been cures performed at Lourdes since her day is not denied either. That also is not necessary. It is only necessary to put the whole thing to the test of truth and to measure it, by the divine measuring rod, the Bible. The subtle suggestion that one need not believe in Bernadette’s miracle, but Only in Bernadette, is obviously a mere dodge. If one accepts the child’s claim, there was a “lady” there, whom no others saw, and one is neces-
sarily under obligation to start explain' ing the situation. The present-day development of the Lourdes "miracle” with its “grotto-shrine” and church explain the whole thing sufficiently for those who are not easily influenced by emotional and misleading externals. But it requires also an appreciation of the fact that the demons have been active in the affairs of earth’ since the time of the Flood ’ and particularly active in times of uncertainty. Demonism explains the “vision”, “miracles,” and “cures”.
According to Scripture a thing must be established “at the mouth of two or three witnesses”. None but Bernadette ever as much as saw a glimpse of the lady. Not did anyone hear her, though she spoke to Bernadette, according to the story, and Bernadette was in a sort of trance, which Catholic writers are ■ fond of describing by the term “ecstasy”. Being in an ecstasy means that one is beside himself. This is not God’s way of giving revelations of himself or His purposes. The story of Bernadette, even in the guise in which it is told by Werfel, is utterly at variance with the sound and entirely believable tone in which Scriptural miracles are recorded.
When Paul saw the glorified Lord Jesus, those with him were not at all oblivious of the fact that a supernatural event was taking place. They saw the light and heard the voice, but saw not the one who was the source of that light, nor were they able to understand the voice (speaking in the Hebrew) that had such a significant message for the great apostle to the Gentiles.
The lady of Bernadette’s vision was most mysterious and inarticulate. She had little to say, and seems to have conveyed her meaning (if any) in gestures. She had a rosary, too. One or two things she did say with any degree of definiteness pointed to the religious practices of the Roman cult. A chapel was to be built, and pilgrimages were to be made. The water of Lourdes was to be used for ablutions, and everybody was to practice penitence. This doing of penance is wholly different from the Scriptural command to repent. “Penance,” so called, consists in certain religious practices which are supposed to get one remissions of punishment in a place named “purgatory”, but which never existed, while the command to repent means a changed course of action, from sin to righteousness. Repentance has a practical bearing on life itself and results in an understanding and proclamation of the truth, not fairy tales.
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