Consolation, April 25, 1945
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Contents
In Brief
Is Rome Holy and Eternal?
„ Ancient Rome
Medieval Rome
Blessing Skis, Turtles, and Kangaroos
The' Pope Urges Charitable Peace
Lithuania as a Soviet State
1 "Seeing Is Believing”
Elderkin Trims the Trembling Times
Manifestations of Jehovah's Holy Spirit
"Thy Word Is Truth”
"War in Heaven”
Six and a'Half Miles of New Road per Day 18
How to Get Barren Results
Theocratic Conventions Push Reconstruction
in Cuba ,
Santiago de Cuba
New Releases in Spanish
Cienfuegos
Havana, and the Third Convention
Standing Faithful
A Noble-minded Police Official
Basil of the Bogomiles
No Atlantic Charter in Those Days
Presenting "This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Producing the Bible
The Aged Must Slacken the Pace
Another Elderly Texan ,
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CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.S. V.
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Volume XXVI Brooklyn, N.Y,, Wednesday, April 25, 1945 . Number 668
Is Rome Holy and Eternal?
ONE of the most interesting controversies of this second world war, in which aerial bombardment plays such a prominent part, has been over the question : To bomb or not to bomb Rome. London had been bombed; Berlin also. Rotterdam was obliterated, and so was Coventry. Why not Rome also ? She had not been declared an “open city”. Built as she was, Rome would be an easy target to hit. But there was more involved than the mere dispatching of bombers with tighter escort. Rome had been proclaimed a “holy city”, an “eternal city”, by the “mighty potentate” of Vatican City and therefore immune from bombing. But it is on this very declaration of the pontiff that the whole controversy hinges and swings. ■
Without a knowledge of the exact meaning of the words “holy” and “eternal” one cannot understand or intelligently discuss the issue of Rome. Webster defines these words for us as follows : Holy : Set apart to the service or worship of deity; hallowed; sacred; infinitely good; perfect; spiritually sound and whole; godly; worthy of reverence or awe. Eternal: Of infinite duration; everlasting; without beginning or end. Continued without intermission; immutable; unchangeable.
Rome claims both of these attributes. She claims to be a holy and sacred city set apart for the worship of God, and for this reason she claims to be everlasting, unchangeable, and eternal.
But why is Rome any more nearly eternal or holy than any other city inhabited by men, women, and children? Is it that
APRIL 2B, 1S4S . her past history shows she has always existed as a pure, holy, and sinless city ? Or is it that she now is sanctified and devoted to a righteous cause? Or is it that she will stand forever and will never be destroyed? One must first know Rome’s past record as well as her present activity to give an intelligent answer to these questions. So let us look at Rome’s foundations, her framework, and the design after which she was fashioned. Her history both ancient and modern will also enlighten us as to her holiness and purity. And, in the end, perhaps, we can determine whether .Rome, having escaped aerial bombardment during this present war, will endure eternally, throughout all future generations.
Ancient Rome
The city of Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus in the year 753 B.C. on the hill of Palatine. (At the very outset the exponents of the theory that Rome is “eternal” are given, a setback; for Rome did have a beginning, whereas eternal means “without beginning”.) It grew by degrees until it finally consisted of seven hills. The original people were Latins, but as time went on the Latins merged with two other tribes, the Sabines and Etruscans. Each of these in turn had its influence on the life and character of the whole community during the years from 753 to 509 B.C.
Rome, as an organization, was designed like the ancient city of Babylon. Even as the master city-builder, Nimrod, constructed his city upon three pil-
lars, so likewise Romulus. Politics, commerce, and religion were the three supports that formed the triangular framework upon which the city on the Tiber jested. Politically, kings and princes . tfuled Rome in the early days. Later a republic was conceived having a senate '• - and a constitution. But this gradually I degenerated into an oligarchy, and was finally supplanted by an absolute monarchy. Commerce with the Greeks was carried on from the earliest of times. As Rome grew so grew her commerce and intercourse with other nations. So, by ' the time she reached her zenith the wealth of the earth flowed in a steady stream into her treasury. Religion, of course, was the middle pillar that bound and held the system .together.
Concerning the religion of this early time the Encyclopedia Americana says: “So composite was the body of the religious beliefs of the Roman people, and so complex the elements themselves of which this composition was formed that it is impossible to name any definite source from which it may have come. It-consisted of a mass., of mythological traditions and customs.” The Romans were exceedingly religious. They had a demon god or goddess for every deed and moment on the calendar. “The Romans had a separate god, or more often sets of gods, for everything. Besides all the greater deities corresponding to the Greek beliefs there were gods and goddesses for all the lesser acts and conditions of life, for every material thing. Thus from their supreme representatives, Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, to the Lares and Penates, the gods of the household, there ivas an endless procession of deities of every grade and power.” Some of the more popular ones, to mention a few, were Jupiter, Neptune, Fortuna, Pluto, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Diana, Minerva, Juno, Venus, Bacchus, Cupid, Saturn, and so on and on, as endless as the list of “Christendom’s” canonized “saints”.
From the building of the tower of Babel on down, every religion has. erected’ temples to its gods. Rome was no ex- ' ception either; her temples were her principal buildings. How many there were no one knows. But, judging from * their remains in Rome today, they were extensive in number and colossal m size.
By the beginning of the fourth century before Christ Rome had become a city of renown. Chieftains of northern hordes had heard of this walled city to the south, and, with apparently no other motive in mind than that of plunder, these barbarians migrated south. After overpowering the defenders of the city the Gauls sacked and burned Rome to the ground. By such an act they showed little respect for Rome’s antiquity. And still less consideration did they give to any boasting she may have made of being pure and indestructible.
There are two things to be learned from this historical event. First of all, Rome has not continually and perpetually existed from her birth, as papists would have us believe in these days. And, secondly, the Romans were exceedingly devoted to the worship of demons; for they soon rebuilt the temples of their gods, and without reason. For what kind of gods were these that were so helpless they couldn’t prevent a holocaust like this upon the “holy” city of Rome? But reason and religion are never found together in the same mind.
The next 150 years following the burning of Rome saw the extension of Roman power over the whole peninsula of Italy; not by peaceable means, but by force. The idea that the state is supreme ' is no modern one. The religious repub- , lie of Rome had the same idea, viz., that the first duty and highest privilege of the citizen was that of service in the legion. All, therefore, between 17 and 55 who were physically fit were subject to military service, and that without pay. Consequently Rome was able, with crushing military might, to establish her supremacy in Asia. And in 146 B.C. Carthage, Rome’s only rival in the West,
was destroyed. By the time Julius Caesar was born the name “Rome” had outgrown the mere significance of a city. It had taken on the all-inclusive meaning of an empire.
•By a casual reading of this expanding history of the Romans for the first seven hundred years one might think they were a well-unified, happy, and contented people. But the conditions internally were far different. There was a continual struggle between classes and factions, between the rulers and the ruled. If Rome had had a righteous, holy, and desirable government the people would have rejoiced and been satisfied. But they were not. Dissatisfied, they had tried out princes, lords, and kings to rule over them. “The last of these Etruscan lords,” says the Encyclopedia Britannica,-‘‘was Tarqnin the Proud. He is described as a splendid and despotic monarch.” F oilowing this tyrannical rule, the people suffered for many years under an experimental republican form of government which in time decomposed into a rule concentrated in the hands of those who arrogated to themselves all the privileges as well as the title of nobility. Rome’s history, therefore, for the first seven hundred years shows a discontented people struggling internally for an existence, while at the same time they were externally waging a bloody conquest of the world. It is very evident that Rome’s early history was neither glorious nor righteous, nor holy. Iler people were ardent devilworshipers. And, with the ashes of the Gallic fire still very much in evidence, no one would have dared to proclaim Rome invulnerable and eternal.
Let us now turn our attention to the history of the empire. With the rise of the Caesars to power Rome also reached her crest. The pomp and glory of the Caesars were backed up by the strongest military might of the time. The Lex Romana, or Roman law, was enforced throughout the empire, and the people were very much devoted to the worship APRIL 25, 1845
of their gods.. Consequently we might look for a righteous condition to exist in the city of the Caesars,'Rome, the capital of the world. But did such a condition of peace and prosperity exist? No; not by any means. Conditions were not at all as one would expect when reading the history of a city which, in these last days, is paraded before us as a venerable and holy city too sacred to be bombed. McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopedia (Vol. IX, page 112}, in describing the conditions within Rome at the time when she was at the very pinnacle of her glory, says:
One half of the population consisted, in all probability, of slaves. The larger part of the remainder consisted of pauper citizens supported in idleness by the miserable system of public gratuities. There appears to have been no middle class and no free industrial population. Side by side with the wretched classes just mentioned was the comparatively small body of the wealthy nobility, of whose luxury and profligacy we hear so much in the heathen writers of the time.
Such was the corrupt condition when Rome was at its best, when she was “mistress of the world”, the time when she was the very citadel and capital of paganism and idolatry. As a -world power under the Caesars the Roman empire is celebrated in history as a rule of iron. It was strong as steel; it was cold and heartless as iron. As a wild beast with fangs and claws of iron is able to slash and tear all others into subjection, so Rome ruled .the world.
Besides the blood of her first Caesar, who was assassinated in her very senate, Rome had upon her hq.nds even more sacred and precious blood, the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was anointed as King of The Theocratic Government. Upon her skirts, also, -was the blood of many early Christians who -were persecuted and killed for her entertainment. The apostle Paul was re1-portedly among those martyred at the hand of that wicked and profane Roman emperor, Nero.
■ 5
Such is the history of the Roman empire. And two thousand years of dust . fails to cover over those crimes and atrocities. In time the Roman empire fell of its own weight. The glory of the ~ Caesars faded. Rome itself crumbled and disintegrated. And why? Because the city of the Caesars was not immu-l ' table and eternal.
Medieval Rome
Some may say that when Rome is mentioned as the “eternal” city and the “holy" city reference is not made to ' pagan Rome, but rather to Rome since Constantine’s day. They may even quote what the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “The significance of Rome lies primarily in the fact that it is the city, of the pope.” It will be agreed to by all that there is nothing in all of Rome’s pagan history that would warrant calling her either holy or eternal So let us turn to Rome’s medieval history. If the true “significance of Rome” lies in the history of the popes, let us briefly review it in order, if possible, to establish the basis for the claim that Rome is too sacred to be bombed, '
Referring to the time when Rome was decapitated as head of the empire the Encyclopedia Americana says: “Rome, bathed in philosophy, scepticism, mysticism, emotionalism and stoicism, with nothing solid to which to anchor, drifted upon the rocks of national religious shipwreck. In this condition she was found . . . for, the development of the Catholic faith.” On the other hand, following the death of the apostles the early Christian church began to degenerate even as the apostle Paul warned. Grievous wolves, calling themselves “bishops”, entered in, not sparing the flock. After the first century or two only a few remained faithful: the majority became apostate and turned to formalism and religion; so much so that by A.D. 325 Constantine the Great, a pagan emperor, had no trouble fusing together apostate Christianity with the tangled mass of Roman paganism and calling it the “state religion”.
To do this Constantine merely had to take the rites and practices of those pagans and “sanctify” them with an outer cloak called “Christianity”, Neither did this work a hardship on the pagans; for they simply continued to practice their abominable rituals and ceremonies, changing only the names of their gods. Constantine, by fusing together these two factions of his empire, was able to secure and prolong his dominion. He therefore, in commemoration of this feat of “statesmanship”, rebuilt a fallen-down demon temple in Rome and called it the “Christian” Church of Rome. And it is on this spot that St. Peter’s church stands today! With the demonism of the pagans as the mother and the wicked Constantine as the father to give it life, we can readily see why Catholicism is such an illegitimate offspring, unholy and unclean from its very inception. ■
With such a start it is understandable why it was necessary for a council to convene at Rome a short time thereafter (A.D. 367) to examine into the charges of adultery leveled against none other than Pope Damasus himself.
As time went on the bishop of Rome, strengthened by the imperial power, gradually usurped authority over the other bishops of both the East and the West. These were systematically brought iJtto servitude to the see of Rome. Says McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopedia:
The first pope, in the real sense of the word, was Leo I (440-461). Being endowed by nature with the old Roman spirit of dominion, and being looked upon by his contemporaries, in consequence both of his character and his position, as the most eminent man of the age, he developed in his mind the ideal of an ecclesiastical monarchy, with the pope at the head.....After the death of Leo,
the papal chair was for nearly one hundred and fifty years filled by weak, insignificant men, who reasserted the papal claims of Leo
without possessing his energy to enforce them.
Pope Symmachus (498 to 514) is a good esample of this period to show how weak and insignificant these men were. The same source says that Symmachus was acquitted of the charges of adultery, and of squandering the property of the Church, and other crimes, not because he was innocent, but rather because it was declared that ‘judgment could not be passed on the successor of Peter’, and that he was “responsible only to God himself”.
In the next three hundred years the Church of Rome gradually pulled away from the Eastern emperors and made alliances with Western powers. Pope Hadrian I, from the time that Charlemagne first entered Rome, in 774, began to woo this barbarian chieftain. In writing to him thereafter the pope always referred to Rome and the Romans as “our city”, “our republic,” “our people.” One historian commenting on this affair said that Charlemagne and his successors were to find later on that the love of the Vatican was more deadly than her hate.
Leo III succeeded Hadrian in 795 and continued to court the lover Charlemagne by sending him the banner of the city of Rome as well as the keys to the confessional of St. Peter’s. Two years later sedition against the pope broke out in Rome. Leo managed, though wounded, to escape to Spoleto. This brought Charlemagne speedily to the rescue of his spouse, the pope. Such passionate “love” was climaxed by the marriage of Church and State in the year 800. On Christmas day of that year, in the city of Rome, Leo III crowned Charlemagne, a foreigner like Constantine, emperor of what was .thereafter called the “Holy Roman Empire”. This union was the beginning of the darkest history of man, a thousand years of the most detested and hateful events ever recorded on the calendar of time.
Coming to the next century, McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopedia says: “The
APRIL 25, 1946 first half of the 10th century is known as the period of ‘pornocracy’ [the government or rule by harlots], during which the papal chair was filled by a succession of reprobates, for which the history of few, if any, episcopal sees of the Christian world furnishes a parallel.” We can '■ therefore pass over this history of the scandal of Theodora’s and Marozia’s female reign, the infamies of John XII, and the various intrigues, as too loathsome to repeat.
In the next century, the Encyclopedia Britannica tells us, “when Henry III [the emperor], the son of Conrad, entered Italy in 1046, he found three popes in Rome. These he abolished, and, taking the appointment into his own hands, gave German bishops to the see.” Gregory VII became pope in 1073. Says McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopedia, “The pontificate of Hildebrand, who succeeded to the papal throne in 1073 under the name of Gregory VII, completed the papal system and the Roman Catholic Church in their most essential features.” Continuing, it says that Gregory’s fundamental idea was that "of converting the Roman Catholic Church into a universal theocracy [not to be confused with ‘Theocracy’ spelled with a capital ‘T’], with the pope at its head as sole sovereign in temporal affairs as well as spiritual. . . . The gigantic efforts made by the mediaeval popes, from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, to enforce these views fill some of the most interesting pages of the history of the Middle Ages. . . . None of the successors of Gregory attained so great a power and came so near realizing the establishment of the papel theocracy as Innocent III.” But Gregory VII didn’t have things any too easy. In spite of the fact that he was called “the greatest of the popes”, Henry IV, king of the “Holy Roman Empire”, found it necessary to excommunicate him. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that he was carried into “exile at Salerno, whither Robert Wiskard carried him in 1084 from the anarchy of
rebellions Rome". He died in banishment in 1085,
Hollowing this is a period of history extending through the next century known as “the wars of the investitures*', which was a bloody struggle between popes and emperors for pre-eminence in > .ecclesiastical as well as temporal power. l( Innocent IV was elected as pope in 1243. He continued to prosecute the war still more bitterly. At Lyon, France, where he was forced to flee in 1245, he convened a council to enforce his condemnation of Frederick II, the emperor. On this the ’ Encyclopedia Britannica says that Frederick, “placed -under the ban of the church, led henceforth a doomed existence. The mendicant monks stirred upr the populace to acts of fanatical enmity. To plot against him, to attempt his life by poison or the sword, was accounted virtuous. . . . The popes had been successful; but they had purchased their bloody victory at a great cost.”
Clement V, a Frenchman, was elected pope in 1305, and the seat of the papacy was transferred to Avignon. This placed the pope in subjection to the French crown, and ruined their prestige in Rome. From 1347 to 1354 was Rienzi’s revolution in Rome,
Not until 1447 under Nicholas V was the papacy re-established and again firmly harnessed on the neck of Rome. Concerning this period of history the Encyclopedia Britannica says: “Having become despots, the popes sought to establish their relatives in principalities. The word nepotism acquired new significance in the reigns of Sixtus IV and Innocent VIII. Though the country was convulsed by no great struggle, these forty years witnessed a truly appalling increase of political crime. To be a prince was tantamount to being the mark of secret conspiracy and assassination.” Sforza was murdered. Likewise Giuliano was murdered with the full sanction of Pope Sixtus IV.
In the next century the pope approved of the hideous military organization of Jesuits. As a result the public press was seized in Italy, and free thought was stifled. The Inquisition was on in full fury. The Council of Trent, in 1545, failed to regenerate the morality of the “holy” church. “Blossoms of hectic and hysterical piety” were put forth, says the Encyclopedia Britannica, “though at the core her clergy and her aristocracy were more corrupt than ever.”
Coming on down, in 1798, Pius VI fled Rome and died in France the next year. Then the following pope, Pius VII, was taken prisoner by Napoleon’s army, and later taken to Fontainebleau as a prisoner for three years. In 1814 the temporal power of the pope was again restored, but this saw no improvement in conditions. For the Encyclopedia Britannica, speaking about the year 1846, says: “Misrule had reached its climax in Rome, and the people were well-nigh maddened, when Gregory XVI died, and Pius IX was elected in his stead.” Two years later, the pope’s secretary, Rossi, “was murdered in November, and anarchy seemed to threaten the city. Pius escaped in disguise to Gaeta.” The next year, 1849, a French expedition was sent in to establish order, and in 1850 the pope returned amid fixed bayonets of the French.
September 20, 1870, Vittorio Emanuele entered Rome and internal peace was achieved. The reason for this is explained in the Encyclopedia Britannica: “Pius IX was allowed to retain the Vatican with its dependencies. . . . The state voted him a munificent income, and he was left in peace to play Hie part of a persecuted prisoner” up to the year 1929.
This is the history of Rome, “the city of the popes,” since Constantine’s day; and what a history! It may be divided into tjvo parts: First, the illicit union of Church and State; and, second, the institution of the Inquisition. Interspersed, and as an integral part of these two periods, is the history of the long line of popes and their associates. A history of intrigue, crime, and profligacy, of wick
ed deeds against both God and man.
Is there any basis, therefore, for the claim that “Christianized” Rome has been stable, enduring, constant,, without intermission or change, hence eternal? None at all. In the first place, temporal power was not seated in Rome, but was vested in emperors outside. And, in the second place, the popes had no guarantee of remaining at Rome. Frequently they were banished or exiled. Sometimes they were carried away as prisoners. And in other instances they had to flee for their lives. Rome, as represented in the person of the pope, has been far less perpetual than other meccas of religion.
Is there, on the other hand, any basis in this history for the claim that “the city of the popes” is hallowed, infinitely good, sacred and holy? Not unless one’s mind is so distorted as to believe that the adultery and murder, the rape and torture, committed by the many popes were events worthy of being called blessed and holy. Some devout papist will say that we have mentioned only the misfortunes of this history. But when one stirs up the dregs that have settled for 1600 years in this Roman cesspool one should not expect anything else to be given off than a putrid and foul odor. True, there were some acts intended by the popes to be as balm to soothe and relieve the wounds of suffering humanity. But to speak of the balm is to admit the wounds; and that doesn’t strengthen their argument.
The fact remains, there is no history so loathsome as that of “the city of the popes”. And there is no city on the globe more responsible for such ruthless and wanton shedding of blood than Rome. Her history—the most terrible ever recorded, written with the blood of untold millions, documented with the worst crimes and atrocities, covered over and blackened with the thickest superstition and ignorance—will be forever remembered as-the Dark Ages.
Blessing Skis, Turtles, and Kangaroos
IT TOOK only a three-column-wide write-up in the Boston_Pose to show that the “Reverend Father” J. Eugene Belford blessed skis at the New Year’s mass at Our Lady of. the Mountain church, North Conway, N. H. It is. all very simple. The priest merely orders' Almighty God to stop everything else He is doing, and no matter where He may be, and to come right down and be sacrificed, and, of course, after that, how could He do anything else but what He is told by the priest? So the skis were “blessed”. And the results? Oh, there weren’t any results except that earth’s biggest racket was advertised some more in the hireling press.
From time to time stories come through of the “blessing” of hounds, so that a pack of them can tear a frightened fox to pieces; also, so that they will be more fertile. And, of course, if dogs can
APRIL 25, 1945 have bigger litters by such a simple process, what is to hinder similar “blessing” of horses, cattle," sheep, pigs, poultry, and humans? The “blessing” racket can be extended indefinitely, and it makes a big subject. The only trouble is that nobody, not even the animals, gets the least little bit of* anything out of it, except the flimflam priest.
The immediate reason for this enthusiasm is a two-column-wide picture in the Washington Daily News showing a Roman Catholic priest by the name of Herran, beautifully dressed in an ab- • breviated lace nightgown, engaged in the job of sprinkling “holy” water on a turtle and a kangaroo at Los Angeles. What effect this “holy” water has on the turtle and the kangaroo can be judged only, by those still able to laugh at the idiotic stuff the Devil continues to peddle.
The Pope Urges Charitable Peace
IT IS something of a coincidence that the pope of Rome conies out with another plea for charitable peace when the rumors were being circulated that sJoachim von Ribbentrop, the Nazi foreign minister, was in Sweden in connection with some “peace feelers” that were '' getting under way, and which were, at the same time, loudly denied by Berlin. - ' Aside from the reflection that any peace ■ for the Nazis would be a charitable •peace, the pope’s message should be given some attention here, because he does quote a scripture here and there, if for no other reason. The pope spoke in St. Peter’s Square, March 18.
The pope’s opening remarks indicate his preoccupation with the externals of religion, such as the ringing of church bells, which had a pagan origin, and was in times past, and may still be, believed to scare away the devils. The pope confuses the church bells with “the voice of the Lord”, in the following rather overwritten passage: “This voice of the Lord, which the bells of your churches and the resonant chimes of this patriarchal basilica bring to you even as a murmuring echo—” but we spare you.
lie mentions the Lenten preachers, who, like their predecessors in past centuries, had burning zeal. You remember something of that burning zeal, as manifested in the Inquisition, when heretics (Protestants to you) were burned at the stake, or, more recently, as displayed by Bible-burning Cardinal Dougherty, of Philadelphia, and the similarly disposed Franco, but who saved the paper for other use, reducing 110,000 Bibles to pulp a few years ago.
Rather strangely the pope refers to a sower who has abundantly sown the seed of His Word, and it is a little difficult to harmonize that with the paucity of Bibles in Italy and other Roman Catholic countries. Is he referring to the work of Bible societies ?
. He exhorts to the keeping of holy Sunday, which he mistakenly calls the Lord’s day, though nothing in the Bible warrants that conclusion. It is more likely that the observance of Sunday had its origin in the idolatrous worship of the sun. The Lord’s covenant with Israel required them to rest the seventh day, not the first.
Pius especially "wants the sacrifice of the mass to be observed, quite foreign to the Scriptures. Since Christ offered “one sacrifice for sins for ever”, namely, himself, any other “sacrifice” is a denial thereof.
He thinks husbands and wives should get along together.
He thinks children should be “holily proud”. Nowhere in Scripture is pride shown to be anything but unholy. Refers to 1 Thessalonians 4:7.
He thinks there should be no profiteering. Sounds reasonable.
He speaks now of those whose hands are full of blood. Is it for these that he seeks a "charitable peace”? Quotes Matthew 5: 7. He did not quote this to Hitler and Mussolini and Franco a few years back, and is not applying the text to them now, either.
Says, “It is the spirit of evil which wars against the spirit of God and which would banish from the earth the kingdom of Christ [by which he means his own organization] and deify material force.”
Some nice double-talk about “the idolatry of absolute nationalism”.
Says he, “We cannot even suppose that after so many sorrowful events there is anyone who might give in to the temptation of profiting by the present situation of affairs to turn the organization of peace to his own advantage against the dictates of justice.” Naive isn’t the word for it.
Such, he opines, should worry what history will think of him.
Here he says something of a votive
CONSOLATION
mass of the holy ghost. God, he states, “holds in His hands and can move at will the spirit of the men who believe they have in theirs the destinies of the world.” Somehow this’reminds one of the words in The Revelation: “And the ten horns [kings) which thou sawes^upon the beast, these shall hate the whore [impure religion], and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her ' flesh, and burn her with fire.”
Remarks, “The path that will have to lead from the conflict to the suspension of hostilities, from the truce of arms to peace, is still in each of its stages covered over with shadows that may perhaps conceal surprises and dangers,” Doubtless,
Here a long paragraph remarks that things often go wrong.
Says the sons and daughters of Rome should be proud and should prepare for future generations an unephemeral greatness.
The papers said the pope was “a thin, dramatic figure whose crimson mozzetta or cape [overcoat] and white zucchetto [look that up yourself] stood out startlingly against the sombre purple of the back drapes”, as he delivered his speech. And that’s all for now. P.S. It was all very dramatic, not to say theatrical.
Lithuania as a Soviet State
ABOUT 350 miles due east of Denmark, and almost half again as great in area, Lithuania, with its 2,879,070 inhabitants, has almost a million less people than its smaller-sized neighbor to the west. Only one-third of th,e Danes are farmers, but more than three-fourths of the Lithuanians are. Each of the great states of Alabama, Kentucky and Minnesota has fewer inhabitants than Lithuania. The harbor of Memel, unlike other Baltic ports, never freezes.
The Lithuanians are 80.5 percent Roman Catholic, but they do not enthuse over papal attempts to run their private affairs, especially education. In August, 1931, there was a complete break between the Lithuanian government and the Vatican as to who should dominate the Kaunas university. In July, 1940, there was another break, and a mournful dispatch came through from Rome that no hope was entertained of patching things up as long as Lithuania is dominated by the Soviet Union.
The Lithuanian Roman Catholics seemed perfectly delighted to become a part of the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics. When they were given the chance to vote on the subject, 95,51 per
APRIL, 26, 1M5 cent of the total registered vote went to the polls and 99.9 percent of those voting cast their votes \as wanting their country to go into the Soviet Union.
When Hitler invaded the country en route to the borders of Petrograd the Roman Catholic-controlled Lithuanian newspaper Darbinikas. published semi’-weekly at Boston, had a gleeful headline “Lithuania Freed”, that is, freed for Hitler and the pope; but the people in the homeland did not want that kind of freedom at all, and as soon as the Russians had chased the Germans back into Germany, Lithuania went back into the Soviet Union without a protest, and with evident pleasure and satisfaction.
The Russians claim that since they accepted Lithuania into their Union they have established within it 900 day nurseries, 70 kindergartens, 250 public playgrounds, 100 new schools, and 66 technical high schools; also that Yiddish and Polish theaters have been organized.
Poland, also Roman Catholic, is right next door to Lithuania, but relations between the two countries are often strained. For years they would not even enjoy postal relations with each other. But with so-called “Godless Russia" they
are very friendly. An unprecedented number of voters went on record as wanting democratization of the armed forces, a purge of a former Nazified regime, increased wages, social insurance, distribution of land to peasants, moratorium on peasants’ debts to the state, the right of free speech, and the i right to strike.
The New York Times of January 3, 1945, contains the following story of what took place when the Germans withdrew from Lithuania. It bears internal evidence of being a truthful account:
The retreating Germans in Lithuania massacred 10,000 Jews in a Ghetto slaughter during one night and then burned the entire quarter before abandoning Kaunas, Colonel Pouyade, commander of the French Normandie air squadron that has been fighting [for] Russia, said here today.
Colonel Pouyade said that he had-been inclined to be skeptical about some of the atrocity reports publicized in Russia until he had seen the results of the Kaunas crime. He said that his unit had entered Lithuania with the Red Army and fifteen days after the occupation of Kaunas he had had occasion to visit the city.
He described heaps of corpses of men, women and children in the streets and in ruined cellars. Only one Kaunas Jew escaped, he said, by hiding in a secret cellar beneath the usual cellar, which he had fitted with a camouflaged stone trap-door.
According to Colonel Pouyade, there had been 40,000 Jews in Kaunas. The Germans concentrated them in a Ghetto and, during three years of occupation, slew 30,000. However, the Red Army’s.sudden advance forced the Germans to retreat while 10,000 Jews still remained alive.
During their last night in Kaunas, Colonel Pouyade said, the Germans massed the survivors in a one-square-kilometer section of the Ghetto and machine-gunned them en masse after having poured abandoned fuel supplies on their houses and set them ablaze. He said that absolutely nothing remained of the Ghetto area.
“Seeing Is Believing”
HERE is a simple little story, a true one, which I thought you might be able to use in Consolation magazine. It’s really such a simple thing that I hardly think you’ll use it. However, I’m sending it.
Recently I boarded a bus going down town. The bus was crowded, but I was fortunate to find a seat, the last seat. A young couple were seated close together on the side seat which runs parallel with the bus. Beside them, and occupying two seats, was a large suitease. ,
As I had taken the last remaining seat, others boarding the bus had to stand. Passengers began scowling at the young couple for not removing the suitcase, so that others might sit down. I, too, looked at them and thought Jiow very selfish this world had become.
An elderly lady got on, and still the suitcase remained where it was. More scowls. The young couple looked at each other, grinned, but did not remove the suitcase, which made the passengers, myself included, more indignant than ever.
A few blocks before reaching the end of the line, a man came from the rear of the bus, picked up the suitease, and got off, much to the amusement of the young couple and the consternation of .the passengers. ;
Is this the end of the story? Well, not quite. What about the man to whom the valise belonged? Did the passengers transfer their indignation from the young couple to him? Maybe so. Maybe so. But there was one among them who didn’t. I had learned my lesson. Instead of passing judgment on the man, I de-
eided he must have something precious in that grip. Who knows?
Moral: Seeing is not always believing. Outward appearances are often deceptive., “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)—I. M. S., New Jersey.
Elderkin Trims the Trembling Times
THE newspapers are deathly afraid of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, because they know that if they tell the truth about its activities they will be immediately subjected to the most contemptible, mean, small, narrow-minded, bigoted persecution of which only the lowest form of life on this planet is capable. The Hierarchy wall swing into action, sales of papers will fall off and advertisers will be boycotted unless they cancel their advertisements forthwith, -- The New York Times has the money, the experience and the ability to provide a good news service, and does so, but it is not immune from the sorrows that come to the timid, who would like to tell the truth courageously, provided it did not cost them anything. Below’ are two letters to the Times, both from George W. Elderkin, of New Jersey. When the first one was returned with regrets that the Times could not make use of it, Mr. Elderkin sent them the second one.
As Mr. Elderkin. is from a college town, readers will forgive him for using the word “eorybantic”. All it means is a person or other entity that acts like a lunatic, with wild music and frenzied dancing when in the presence of a demonized religious outfit. And now for the letters to the Times (merely remarking, meanwhile, that even on its letterhead that timid entity advertises that it publishes “all the news that’s fit to print”):
To the Editor of the New York Times:
In the Christmas message of the pope recently published in full in your paper, certain statements need amplification. When the pope states that all wars of aggression should be banned does he include religious
APRIL 86, 1M6 wars? One recalls the remark made to Kaiser Wilhelm by Pius XI, the predecessor of the present pope, that “Germany must be the sword of the Church”. Does the Roman Church bar religious wars?
The major part of the message deals with democracy, and here a searching definition of the term as used by the pope is not given but is imperative. Does he reject Pope Leo’s pronouncement in the encyclical Libertas humana, “It is entirely unlawful to demand or grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, of writing or of worship”? Does the present pope approve of complete freedom of worship and religious activity, i.e., does he accept the traditional ideals of American democracy?
The answer to these questions is not given in the message but may be had from recent events in Ethiopia, Spain and Argentina, not to mention Japan. The Italian conquest of Ethiopia which grossly violated human rights deprived its people of their Coptic form of worship and sent their patriarch a prisoner to Venice. The Swedish, Swiss and American social and religious missions were ordered out of the country. Only Catholic missionaries were allowed to remain. This action is an eloquent commentary on the Vatican’s conception of democracy. And when the Catholics, Hitler and Mussolini, with the full approval of the Vatican, sent armed forces to Franco to defeat the Spanish democracy was the pope putting a ban upon war or even acting the part of a neutral toward a government which had modeled its constitution upon that of the United States ? If the Vatican was so intent upon the destruction of the Spanish democracy can it entertain any sympathy for other democracies? These questions are the more urgent in view of the pope’s conspicuous praise of Franco at the close of his Christmas message. His conception of democracy
over which hangs the “sword of Christ” is not that which brought our forefathers to this land.
The pattern of papal anti*democratic ideals is"seen again in Argentina where the government has made instruction in the Catholic faith obligatory in the public schools. The United States does not impose the teaching of Tro test ant doctrine upon its school children. In the contrast is clearly stated the fundamental difference between the papal and the-American ideals of democracy. “If the future,” says the message, “is to belong to ■democracy an essential part in its achievement will have to belong to the religion of Christ and to the Church.” The Catholic Church apparently must take over democracy if it (democracy) is to succeed. This is not the entire significance of the prominence of democracy in the Christmas message. The Vatican fears a great outburst of anticlericalism in the Catholic countries of Europe, because of its pro-Fascist sympathies, and is seeking shelter in a new definition of democracy.
« George W. Elderkin
An open letter to the editor of the New York Times:
Your refusal to publish my criticisms of the pope’s Christmas message whieh appeared in the Times prompts me to make certain observations. I do not expect that you will have the courage to print them. The rejection of a single such letter would not in itself be significant if any adverse comment on the document had penetrated your rigid censorship, but the total absence of such criticism is thrown into high relief by the flamboyant eulogy from the pen of your correspondent in Rome who, being a Catholic, could hardly call into question the infallibility of the pope without being precipitated in due course into the ebullient soap-suds of “purgatory”. Your “forum” was wide open for her corybantie laudation of the message but no one apparently may present a contrary point of view.
What the pope’s message needs is a factual examination. It should be exposed to the fresh breeze of liberal appraisal which would blow away the dust of ecclesiastical verbiage from its sinister implication that the Catholic ehurch alone can guide democracy as well as other forms of government to a panacea for the varied ills of this stricken world. Your suppression of criticism, quite apart from being undemocratic and a potential menace to the free spirit of America, gives me the impression that the New York Times, like many another newspaper, is determined to please and appease the Church. A concrete though seemingly trivial illustration of this objectionable policy was the publication on the front page and at the top of your paper of the announcement that the Church had created a new diocese in Indiana, an event quite devoid of stimulating idea, whereas the' extremely significant resolution of the Council of Federal Churches of Christ in America whieh demanded of th/3 government that it discontinue diplomatic relations with the Vatican was relegated to page 36. The Council which framed the resolution represents a larger part of the population of this country than does the Roman Church.
The prominence which you gave to the new diocese in Indiana was, I imagine, quite gratifying to that Church which is on a rampage of propaganda designed to substitute for religious tolerance in America the benumbing intolerance of mediaevalism. How much more helpful would have been the publication on the front page of the Times of the story of the Jew wrho was attacked, beaten and then told by his assailant, “You crucified our Lord.” The hoodlum who perpetrated this outrage in Philadelphia, ironically “the city of brotherly love”, had perhaps read in the Catholic Bible for service men, whieh was printed at government expense, the surreptitous footnote, “The Jews are the synagogue of Satan.” Here was an opportunity for a newspaper, especially one Controlled by a refined and cultured Jewish family, to rise up in editorial wrath. How can there be any racial harmony in this country if a Jew is assaulted because of something his ancestors did or are supposed to have done nineteen centuries ago?
The reason why the Times, like many other newspapers, declines to publish any liberal comment upon the pope’s annual message or
any criticism of the Vatican’s political policies is, as many believe, the certainty of the vindictiveness of the Roman Church. The censors of the Times must know what happened recently to the San Francisco News for failure to obey a stem mandate of a Catholic archbishop. This paper published the fact that a Roman priest had pleaded guilty to driving an automobile while drunk and in the company of a lady friend. The misbehavior was more human than that of a minister of another denomination in the state of New York who was, according to the New York Times, put in jail on a serious moral charge. When the archbishop failed to intimidate the News and the tale of a frolicsome father careening on a highway appeared in print, the high priest ordered a boycott of the newspaper “until it recognized the well-known weight of the Church”. The paper lost subscriptions, and advertising. This penalty, whether serious or not for the newspaper, is a sinister warning that the Church will employ threats of reprisal not only in an effort to conceal priestly aberration but also to suppress any adverse publicity, just or unjust. This un-American attack upon the open forum can be abetted by the public press only at ' the ultimate cost of all phases of human liberty. The New York Times has apparently preferred to keep its Catholic subscription list and its Catholic advertising and, too, its freedom from embarrassment at the hands of politicians of the faith rather than show the fine courage, so thoroughly American, of the San Francisco News, Any newspaper committed to the defense of American ideals cannot - compromise with the ferocissimus propugnator sanctae fidei.
' George W. Elderkin
Manifestations of Jehovah’s Holy Spirit
IWAS watching for an opportunity to talk to a man whom I had noticed reading a Watchtower publication on the Long Island Railroad train to New York. This morning I did not notice him, but was interrupted "while preparing my Theocratic Ministry course lesson whefi he came up and, taking a seat beside me, said, “I must talk to you; can you tell me anything about the Watchtower organization? Somehow, I have a feeling that you are connected with it.” Time was short, but I obtained his address (twenty miles from my home), called on him the next evening, and spent a good hour and a half with him, during which time I took his subscription for both'LTie Watchtower and Consolation, and placed with him nine books, 25 booklets, a Watchtower Bible and the Kingdom News. When I left he said, "I am 'sure the Lord’s spirit arranged this meeting.” He has since attended, a Watchtower study and service meeting and associated himself with the. company nearest his home.—A. Ebinger, New York. -
[This is as should be expected at this time, when the great Shepherd is finding His sheep. Here in the office is a witness who was approached by another woman, also on a train, and asked if she knew how she could find the Watchtower people and associate herself with them. She was from out of town and had been praying to the Lord that He would help her locate His people here. She considered this a direct answer to her prayer. Further, and more of it, a totally blind man, living all by himself up a lane three-fourths of a mile in length, was visited by this writer on a day when the snow in the lane was. three feet deep and not a vehicle had been over it in two months. When he made his errand known, and that it was to comfort all that mourn, the blind man wept with joy, saying that just before his visitor’s arrival he had been praying to the Lord to comfort him, and that the visit, he was sure, was God’s answer to his prayer. The people that are living to make money are insane.]
APRIL 2S, 1648
Sf"lHyWbRD ■ is Truth” HJ “John 17:17
“War in Heaven”
WAR invisible to man—that! but it has had most visible effects upon the affairs of man. All this is evidence that Jehovah’s government of righteousness ■ by Christ Jesus was born in 1914 (A.D.).
Logically, the only ones with which the new Government could fight would be Satan the Devil and his demon hosts in heaven. ■
Watching the preparation for the Government and observing that the day was approaching for its birth like a “man child” from God’s “woman” or organization, Satan the enemy was on the alert, with the avowed purpose of destroying this Kingdom, if possible. At Revelation, chapter twelve, Satan the Devil and his organization appear under the name and title of “Dragon”. He is there represented as a “red dragon”. The word “red” there means fiery red, and particularly pictures Satan’s devilish, wicked and gory organization as murderously bent upon the destruction of the new Government. In this the Dragon was thwarted, because God prevented him.
The Government of righteousness there began to function. The-first thing was necessarily the expelling of Satan and his hosts from heaven. So Revelation 12: 7-9 declares: “And there was war in heaven: Michael [meaning, *Who is as God?’] and his angels fought against the .dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was east out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deeeiveth the whole world: he was east out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
In that great fight the Godlike Michael, who is Christ Jesus, together with His holy angels, fought against the Devil and his wicked angels; and the result was that Satan the enemy was expelled from heaven and was cast down to this earth. Satan the Devil now finds himself, together with his evil associates, ejected from heaven and cast out into the earth. This has most telling effects upon the affairs of men, and the cry that then rang throughout the heavens has been a true' prediction of what has come to pass upon this earth: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea I for the devil is come down, unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” (Revelation 12:12) The inhabiters here mentioned clearly are the ruling factors of the nations of earth and who operate the visible political, commercial and religious organization. They are in for further trouble besides what they have experienced since A.D. 1914. The Sea represents all the people alienated from God and who bear up the commercialized worldly organization. These too are in for much trouble. The Devil has great wrath against God’s organization, Zion, and against her children, and the prophecy shows he would gather together the inhabiters and the masses of mankind in a great and final trouble.
Do you ask why there is so much distress and perplexity in the world? Why are the people afflicted with famine, pestilence and disease? Why is man in bondage to so many evil things? Who is responsible for all this unhappy condition ? Now understand the answers to those questions. The Devil and all his wicked assistants are concentrating their powers and forces in the earth, implanting in the minds of the rulers, as well as in the minds of the masses, devilish, wicked thoughts. The profiteers selfishly reach out for themselves by “the black market”, international cartels, and other greedy means for themselves, against the common interests of mankind. The politicians selfishly seek their own purposes. The priests and preachers look after their own selfish interests; and the people are oppressed on every side and afflicted. The cause of all this distress and suffering is that the Devil’s uninterrupted rule over humankind has come to its end. He knows that his time is now short before destruction, and he is therefore desperately seeking to rally his forces for a great and final conflict, the battle of Armageddon, The peoples of earth are in great fear and trepidation, groaning'in pain and desiring to be delivered. They are waiting^ and the “men of good-will” among them are beginning to see they are waiting, “for the manifestation of the sons of God.” This means they are waiting for the manifestation in humanity’s behalf of the powers of the new’ Government of righteousness, God’s kingdom by Christ Jesus. Though not knowing definitely for what they wait, they all desire deliverance. Let all persons of good-will take courage now and have hope, because the time of the promised deliverance is at hand.
When Christ Jesus was raised from the dead He declared that all power in heaven and in earth was given to Him. (Matthew 28:18) That was more than nineteen hundred years ago. It was not the will of God that He should at that time begin to exercise His mighty power. Jehovah God then said to Him: “Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” (Psalm 110:1; Hebrew’s 1:13; Acts 2:34, 35; Matthew 22:44) After Jesus had appeared in God’s presence in heaven and there presented His human sacrifice as a sin-offering, He remained inactive against the Devil’s institution until God’s due time. “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.”—Hebrews 10:12,13.
The time must come when God would subdue the enemy, Satan the Devil, and his institution. Psalm 110:2 foretold that time, saying: “The Lord [Jehovah] shall send the rod [the scepter of authority and of power rightfully reposed in His beloved Son] of thy strength out of Zion [God’s capital organization; saying] : rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” This is the same time referred to by Jehovah’s declaration, at Psalm 2:6: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.”
The new government is now born, since A.D. 1914. Jesus Christ the King now stands up and assumes: His power and authority and begins His reign, even while the enemy still exercises power. But the enemy’s right to that power has expired; the uninterruptedness of his world rule has ended. Necessarily this would determine the beginning of the battle in heaven; the Theocratic King and His angels on the one side, and Satan and his angels on the other side.
It was really the fight of God Almighty against the Devil. The fight on God’s side is led by His beloved Son, and in this fight He subdues the enemy. The new Government of His Son is Jehovah’s instrument for the vindication of His name. And the war in heaven is the opening action of that Righteous Government against Jehovah’s foes. It ended triumphantly in the debasing of Satan and his demonic hosts to the environment of this earth. The final part of the war against Satan’s institution will come, shortly, at Armageddon; and in that universal battle victory will again go to God’s side under Christ Jesus and this time it will be by the thorough destruction of all of Satan’s organization, visible.and invisible. Let men now be wise and put themselves on the winning side!
Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
—Zephaniah 3: 8,
Six and a Half Miles of New Road per Day
THE Alcan highway, from Edmonton, _ Alberta, to Fairbanks, Alaska, was built at the rate of six and one-half miles a day, through wild mountainous country ■x that had never been mapped or even ^visited.by man. The war made it necessary. Supplies must he gotten to the string of airports, so airplanes flew back and forth between these airports, making photographs as they did so, and in this way fairly good maps were made in ■ jig time. Bulldozers pushed over the great trees, and armies of men followed with the latest and best highway machinery to be found on earth. The building of the road was ^pushed in both directions from every point that could be reached. The distance was cut down from 1,630 miles to 1,523 miles, by cutoffs, fills and tangents and the elimination of dangerous curves. Of the route 620 miles are in British Columbia, 580 miles are in the Yukon Territory, and 323 miles are in Alaska. In due time it is hoped to push the road through to Bering strait, to the Arctic ocean, and wherever else it is needed.
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