Awake!, September 8, 1952

Download: PDF — Awake!, September 8, 1952

SEPTEMBER 8. 19552 sFnvrnvrnwT’HT v

THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

News sources that an aHa to heap you awak* to the vital bauM of our times must ba unfettered by censorship and selfish Intereate. “AwakeF* has no firtter*. It rtocdnlzes facte, fam facte, la frw to publish facte. It te not bound by political ambitions or obligations; It la unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; It te unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This Journal keeps itself free that it may epeak freely to you. But it does not abuse Ite freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

* Awake I** uses the rsgular news channels, but Is not dependent on them. Ite own correspondente are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four comers of the earth their uncensored, on- the - scenes reports come to you through these columns. This Journal's viewpoint is not narrow, hut la International. It is read in many nations, in many languages; by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge paw in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, Social conditions, natural wonders—why, its cover* age is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens.

"Awake F’ pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for oil, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.

Get acquainted with “Awake!" Keep awake by reading “Awake 1"

J’C’bz.Ijjhbd SsvnfOKTHxr by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY. INC. HT Adama Street

N. EL Kitou, JveHdort

Printing thf* f»suc: V7&,000

LMWtgtt It «ti*h thli muuIm IiT

Semimonthly—Afrikaing. totlUh, Finnish, French, German, HollanrilBh, Notwesiai, Spanish, Swedish, Monthly—Daniell, Greek, Portnruew, Ukralnlwi, Offices Yearly subscription Bate

A ■»[«>, U.S., I IT Adama St, Sra^pn I, If. Y. >1 1J Beresford Bd, Binthffeld, Nfi.W, Be

Canada, 40 irwln Ah., Tmonw &, Ontario 11 EnfllaM, 34 Cfaeta TsrrW*, LtfUUn, W. > 7i Snath AfriM, PrirtteBaf, P.O. BtanitafoOUlB, TranmM fa

CntHerf 0 aaOT&f'CiiM stUv at BmoUm. N. Y.

Brookljn 1, N. Y.( U. S. A. Grant 8 mtn, fSeoretarv

Five cents a copy

Bamtttanm ahould be wnt to office In row country In afmpllancB with regutotl&ns to EuarantM ufo delivery of money. BemiUuntea are accepted nt Br^oiklyn frott. tfnintrles There do office U totaled, by iDtematlwal money order only. Sobicrlptlon rata In different countries are hen rtatert In torii currency. Notice of aspiration (wt(i rentwii bliakt to Nfat at Jearit tyc Wika before BUbeariptlon er-pine. Ghani* of aidrra whin aant to our Office map ba expected effectin vithta one month, Send W oM x? mH m now address.

Art of Mairh 3, IS79. FrlfaM In U, fl. 4

CONTENTS

Noah’s Flood in the Folklore of Nations 3 The Celebrated “Epic of Gilgamesh** 4

Egypt’s Water God Saves Face

Flood Tales Across Asia

As Told in Pacific Isles and the Americas 7

Fight Against the Bible Fails

Why Asia Turns to Communism

Blessed Tobacco Seed

The Clergy and the Box Tops

Blossoms Provide Exquisite Food 13

Nature’s Amazing Chameleon

Blood and Oil

“Melancholia” in Art Circles

Choosing the Right Hat

Today’s Civilization

“Your Word Is Truth'-'

Futile Prayers

Jehovah’s Witneiaes Preach In All the Earth—Ireland Watching the World

p -- aH — Xi L L - - XL . TT 1^—.X JXXLL . . TXX + -r w^rr^r -J—*x---- ■ I____________l__u.

Voltm* XKXHI Brookjy*, N.Y„ September S, IW52 Number 17

Noah’s Flood in the Folklore of Nations

World’s traditions draw favorite theme from authentic Bible record

ONE and forgotten’1 remains the \T true summary of the great majority of men and their works. Mighty cities, whole civilizations of the past have been so completely blotted'out that there is even controversy as to their former location. It is indeed difficult to make a mark on the world that will be long remembered. Therefore, when we do encounter the relation of an apparently common event told and retold by many different nationalities In all parts of the earth, and And that these traditions, altered according to local conditions, beliefs and characters but based upon the same unmistakable theme, have been handed down for thousands of years, we are driven impulsively to seek the origin of such tales. An event is thus Indicated that must practically stand alone in the history of mankind.

Such is exactly the case with the story of Noah’s flood, Critics who scorn the Bible account find themselves faced with the unpleasant chore of laughing off more than ninety clear-cut versions of the same event found in the traditions of all nations. Though supplying a “Hollywood touch”, these traditions show what a profound effect the original catastrophe loft on the race. Rather than detract from the truth of the original, as Byron C. Nelson pula it, “it is only natural that memories of such an event would be carried with men wherever they migrated after the Flood, if all men were sprung from those who were the sole survivors.” This writer pointe out three fundamental points of similarity In nearly all the legends: (1) an ark refuge for the few survivors, (2) an otherwise global destruction of life by water and (3) a seed of mankind preserved. Finally, toward another strong indication of Bible truthfulness, he says: “The mon? ancient a tradition is, and the more close geographically to that central place in Asia where the Bible says the ark landed, the more reasonable and sane is the legend, the more generally like the Biblical account, and vice versa.”*

Some will argue for a series of local floods in the histories of the various peoples, thus accounting for the legends. But local floods simply do not make the sort of niche in history that inspires long-lived traditions. Furthermore, we have the similarities that Nelson names to account for. Even Marcus Dods, one of countless “D.D/s” who came to spurn the global scope of the flood, has to admit: “Local floods happening at various times in different countries could not have given birth to the minute coincidences found in these traditions, such as the sending out of the birds, and the number of persons saved. ”+

* Thw Story <t» gtoM, B. C. NrUcn pp. 16S-U& t The Book af OMflsia, commentary in TM

Bible aeries, by- Marcus Doda. D.D.,

But can the critics be proved wrong who claim that the Bible account is derived from the heathen traditions rather than the traditions from the Bible? Let us first reason. In these days of elaborate and imaginative motion picture stories it should be clear that original, uncolored records are inevitably garnished to suit dramatic adaptations. It is never the other way around, fanciful tales being made more realistic. Next, any honest comparison of these traditions easily qualifies the Genesis account above its rivals on these grounds, finding it free from the others’ lore and sentiment Professor Ira M. Price found that “a careful examination of all these traditions shows that the Genesis record is the purest, the least colored by extravagances, and the nearest to what we must conceive to have been the original form of these traditions”.1

Now let Us turn to fact. Oldest of the non-Biblical traditions are those belonging to Babylon, which date back to approximately 2000 B.C.f Here critics exult that Moses did not write the Genesis record until 1513 B.C. and thereafter, and that therefore he would be dependent upon and influenced by the earlier Babylonian legends. However, their haste lays waste to their argument. It is no longer any secret that cuneiform writing was known before the flood, thousands of clay tablets bearing that type of inscription and dated positively in antediluvian times having been discovered. In this way, Genesis tells us, the “books” or “histories” compiled by certain preflood men preserved an accurate record of affairs later to be recorded in

* The JUonMmsnfs and the Old Testament, by Ira M. Price, Prof. Of Semitic languages. University of Chicago, IKS.

f It Is believed their earliest sources may date as early as 2100 or 3200 B.C. But they cannot rival those written by the flood's very survivors.

the Bible that occurred from creation to tne deluge. Among these ancient sources were the histories compiled by Noah and by his sons.1 (Genesis 6;9; 10:1) It would be consistent and easy for God’s direction to see to it that Moses received the preserved written record transmitted from Noah through his son Shem's line. The Egyptians were well acquainted with cuneiform writing, and Moses “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians”. He was ably equipped to tap the most original flood story possible, the one written not by the postflocd Babylonians but by the flood’s survivors, t And now we are prepared to consider some representative traditions! that demonstrate an event of just the scope and dimensions the Bible relates.

Tfte Celebrated "Epic of Gilgamesh”

The most ancient non-Biblical flood legends, from Assyria and Babylonia, are now known to have sprung from the deluge tradition that became incorporated in the celebrated “Epic of Gilgamesh”.® This was established by discovery of the “Epic” account on cuneiform tablets by George Smith of the British Museum in 1872. Apparently no original part of the “Epic”, the flood story, as noted above, a very early Babylonian legend, was worked in and

made on episode in the adventures of the hero Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is referred to as ruler of Erech, and at this stage in the drama is depicted suffering from a dread affliction. Fearing death and in search of the secret of life he departs for the distant abode of his ancestor, Ut-napishtim, who dwells in an immortal state.

While asking advice, Gilgamesh inquires how it came that his ancestor was transferred alive to “the assembly of the gods”2 Ut-napish-tim’s reply describes his preservation through an earlier great flood and composes the eleventh tablet of the long poetic ballad.

Told by the gods of their determination to bring a flood of which the world at large knew nothing, Ut-napishtim followed these directions: “Forsake thy possessions, take heed for thy life! Abandon thy property; save thy life. Bring the seed of life of every kind into the ship, the ship that thou shalt build, measure well its dimensions.” [Lines 25-29] Having followed all directions of construction for the craft, offered daily sacrifices and completed all loading, the narrator continues: “I embarked with all my family and my kinsfolk, with cattle of the field, the beasts of the plain, the craftsmen, all of them I took on board.” [Lines 85-87] Describing the height of the flood, he says: “Violently it drove, [it raged about] the mountains. Like an onslaught in battle it swept over the people ... No one could see his fellow; no more were people recognized in heaven—(Even) in heaven the gods feared the deluge. They took flight, they climbed up to the heaven of god Anu (i.e., highest heaven). The gods crouched like dogs, by the walls they cowered. Ishtar cried like a woman in travail, the queen of the gods, the sweet-voiced one, mourned [saying]: (The creatures of) the former time are turned to clay? ” Finally, the crest of the deluge is reached, it subsides, the boat rests on a mountain, birds are dispatched, and at length, after disembarking, Ut-napishtim is called away to live with the gods.2

E^gypCs Water God

Saves Face

Perhaps the famed Greek flood legend of Deucalion was derived from Assyrian versions. Because the head of the Greek deities, Zeus, according to this tale, wished to blot out men of the iron-race, Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha stored themselves and their necessities of life in a large coffer or box. Except for the Peloponnesus and the Isthmus, all Greece was flooded, and the very mountains of Thessaly were split asunder. Afterward these two survivors threw stones behind them, Deucalion’s becoming men, those of Pyrrha, women.

Southward, we find in Manetho’s History of Egypt (about 250 B.C.) record of a world-wide deluge of water from which one Toth was saved who carried over the “principles of all knowledge”. Such a record in Egyptian annals is the more' remarkable since their water god of the Nile was supposed to be a most beneficent deity. In another more typical legend all of the usual flood symptoms are found: the godlessness of men and divine wrath, preservation of a remnant of mankind, all but the watery destruction. This was altered to save the face of the water god, who must never be

linked with such goings-on. In a legend Howorth relates, possibly the sairte one, a goddess acts as executioner, thus preserving the good name of the water god.

In Italy we hear the Deucalion legend again, but told this time in the literary eloquence of the Latin poet, Ovid. Northward in Lithuania a tradition tells of a god called Pramzinas dispatching two giants, Wandu and Weyas (the water and the wind), to punish a disorderly world. From the resulting fury only a few men flee to a mountain height, where Pramzinas, indulging in some heavenly nuts at the time, takes pity and lets fall one of the shells in which the refugees hide. After subsequent scattering only an aged couple was left in this land, leaving prospects of future Lithuanians rather dim. Pramzinas also took care of this, bidding the couple to jump over the bones left behind from the upheaval. They jumped nine times and were delighted to see this result in nine more couples who became the beginnings of the nine Lithuanian tribes.

The Laps tell of a deluge drowning everyone but one boy and one girl who Were carried to refuge on a high mountain by God’s power. One Scandinavian tradition relates a mass drowning in the blood flowing from the wounds of a slain giant. The Welsh possess two legends of saving by means of a ship during a flood; and ancient Britons believed that “the lake Llion burst its bounds, and the waves of the sea lifted themselves high around the borders of Britain, the rain poured down from heaven, and the waters covered the earth”.3

Flood Tales Across Asia

Back again to the site of origin of the oldest of the legends, let us spread out in the opposite direction. In the ancient

• The Mythology and Rites ©/ the British Druids, by E. Davies, 1809, p, 226.

Syrian city of Hierapolis Is a temple said by Lucian, in his Dialogues on the Syrian

Goddess, to be ascribed by Hierapolltans to the building of Deucalion (the same “Noah” of the Greek legend). Over in Persia one encounters tales of a time of watery destruction of all evil forces by the forces for good. Two Indian legends, one from a collection of old Hindu poems, tell of warnings of floods forecast by fish, which advice saved some. In one case the fish was the god Vishnu in disguise.

A Vogul legend of the Russian Urals interestingly combines in its narrative a faint trace of a period of warning sounded through an earthly voice that might correspond to the preaching of Noah. A giant man and woman built boats for their protection, then warned their countrymen of impending disaster and how efforts to find refuge In any other way than by the type of boat they recommended would prove in vain. Some heeded them and made similar boats, but the flood caught and destroyed most of the populace. Altaic peoples of central and eastern Siberia claim legends quite closely resembling the Bible account, going so far as to mention loading the refuge craft with animalkind, then entering it and waiting seven days till it drifted free. These peoples believe the “ark” rests on the summit of one of their local mountains.3

In the Hihking, ancient Chinese classic, Fuhi, alleged founder of Chinese civilization, is described appearing with his wife, three sons and three daughters (note, the same number surviving the Biblical flood) as initial members of the new postflood race. Sir William Jones assures us, “after full inquiry and consideration, that the Chinese believe the earth to have been wholly covered with water.Highly fn-

foresting is the report of Gutzlaff of what he saw In a Buddhist temple in China. As Byron Nelson quotes him; he saw, “in beautiful stucco, the scene where Kwanyin, the goddess of mercy, looks down from heaven upon the lonely Noah in his ark amidst the raging waters of the Deluge, with the dolphins swimming around him and the dove, with an olive branch in its beak, flying toward the vessel.”

As Told in Pacific Isles and the Americas

One does not next make the long Pacific hop from Asia to the Americas without encountering the flood story, for the Pacific islands have it in profusion. Almost inevitably these tales trace the flood cause to the anger of one or more native gods. Generally a global flood is described. From the Leeward islands we hear that the ocean god, Ruahatu, was angered when a careless fisherman’s hook became tangled in his hair while he was sleeping in the depths. A Fiji Island version tells of a vengeful flood brought by the god Mdengei because his two evil grandsons had slain his favorite bird. Sumatra natives think that Noah landed on their Mount Marapi, and they are said to build their stiltelevated houses in the shape of an ark.

From tip to tip the American continents contribute a wealth of flood traditions. An Alaskan legend relates the preservation of the father of the Indian tribes along with a host of animals in an earth-desolating deluge. This fascinating story attributes the power of speech to animals of that time, but explains their loss of it following the deluge due to their having murmured against the skipper while afloat.

The English traveler George Catlin reported a very elaborate religious ceremony in memory of the flood among the Mandan Indians. Included was the calling at each village lodge by one representing the lone survivor of the catastrophe and his request for an offering of an edged tool to be offered to the water, thus avoiding another deluge. Such tools, it is explained, were used to construct the “big canoe” in which this man was carried through the flood to safety. A representation of the ark in the form of a great canoe is present, and these Indians claimed to possess in four containers within their medicine lodge waters from the four quarters of the earth preserved since the settling of the waters after the flood.

The Pima tribe in the north of Mexico and in southern California holds to a legend involving the warning element supposedly delivered by an eagle, a warning of a flood that was repeatedly ignored. And very interesting is the notice given by Ixtlilxochitl, a Mexican historian, to beliefs of the Toltecs in the end of “the first world” under “tremendous rains and lightning from the sky, and even all the land, without the exception of anything, and the highest mountains were covered up and submerged in water fifteen cubits”. He further relates the saving of a few in a closed chest and afterward their building a great tower as protection against a possible second flood. Will any miss this link with Babel?

Guiana Indians have long related a tale of a vast flood caused by waters gushing forth from a tree stump. A man restrained the waters for a time by placing a basket over the stump. But a mischievous brown monkey, hopeful of discovering some choice morsels, peeped under the basket. The waters then flooded over the land, driving the man, birds and climbing animals into a tall palm tree. Other animals were sealed In a cave for protection. A novel twist is supplied from Peru where a legend recounts a shepherd learning of a flood from his flock of llamas, and preserving himself, his wife, children and animals by resorting to a mountain peak that floated over the surface of the waters like

a ship during their height. Finally, interesting too is the legend of the Tupi Indians of Brazil who believe that one Monau, “author of all that is,” once brought an earthwide fire which scarred the whole land surface, gouged valleys and raised mountains. Professor H. W. Clark attributes such beliefs to intimate knowledge of volcanic action. At any rate, following the fire purge, out of pity Monau is supposed to have sent great deluging rains “which quenched the fire, and flowed on all sides, forming the ocean”.4

Fight Against the Bible Fails

No, such imaginative pagan legends in themselves cannot be relied upon to furnish us with a truthful account of the end of an entire world civilization during the last great global revolution. But their startling repetition of a theme so obviously copied from the Biblical flood adds automatic verification to that- Furthermore, in harmony with the Bible, these accounts, so widespread among peoples of such varied descriptions, seemingly point back to a time that saw, in the words of Howorth, “a once continuous community broken asunder by some great disintegrating cause,”! Comparing the Bible account with the oldest non-Biblical flood story, on Babylonian tablets, F. G. Jannaway, in his book The British Museum with Bible in Hand; quotes another source as follows:

“ ‘The similarities have led some of the German professors and so-called “Higher Critics” to imagine that the inspired account is derived from the polluted pagan source. “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet-water and bitter? . . . So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh” (James iii. 11, 12), As well might we affirm that the ocean receives her supply of seaweed from the shore by gathering with her waves the dried dead piles of weed that lie upon the beach. The shrivelled weed originally came from the ocean. It was once living and fresh, but exposure to the air and sun has made it dry and putrid, and it only has a slight resemblance to what it once was. So with the ancient records of the past—they too are dead and dry, and contaminated with many traces of heathen religion’.”—Page 67.

So does the Devil’s campaign to pollute the pure Word of God with demon mythol-*bgy and creature worship fail. The demon gods have suffered many setbacks by repeated verifications of Bible truth; yet their worst defeat is still ahead of them. Note how they quailed and behaved like frightened puppies in even the Babylonian “Epic” flood story. Imagine their dismay while toppling to destruction during the colossal rout of Satan’s entire organization at Jehovah’s universal war of Armageddon, pictured by the Bible flood I—Matthew 24:38, 39.

The approach of this event and the complete vindication of Jehovah’s Word should cause sober reflection. Due for certain reckoning are the “fundamentalist” sectarian creeds that twist the Bible and make it appear unscientific, a source of ridicule and jest; “modernism” and its denial of basic Scriptural truths and divine power, and evolution which has sought to pervert the proved facts of science itself to discredit or even eliminate the need for God. Before joining thjs band wagon on the road to ruin the wise will remember the shriveling end of all anti-God falsehoods andthat “all flesh is as vegetation, and'all its glory is as a flower of the vegetation; the vegetation becomes withered, and the flower falls off, but the word spoken by Jehovah endures forever”.—1 Peter 1:24, 25, New World Trans,

WHY ASIA TURNS TO COMMUNISM

THE common people of the Middle East, Far East and Southeast Asia are the peasants. They comprise the vast majority of the population of Asia and of the world. Most of these people are hungry. They need food. They need clothing, houses, hospitalization and education. They are an overworked and overexploited peasantry. A large part of misery and hunger arises from the relationship between the peasants and the landowners.

For centuries the Asiatic peasant has lived at the mercy of the local landowner, who doubles in the role of the village moneylender. In some underdeveloped areas as many as 3,500,000 people work for a single landowner. The share of crop allotted to the peasant is so small that he could not live through the year’s sowing without securing advances from his proprietor-usurer. Interest on loans cuts his share still further. In some provinces 70 per cent and more of the harvest goes to the landlords. In this way the peasant is kept in perpetual poverty and slavery. It Is not for nothing that four-fifths of the human race have changed from a state of despair to a new grim resolve to come up from poverty and oppression, and that determination is growing everywhere with everaccelerating rapidity. These masses are increasingly unhappy and are determined to free themselves from want.

The Communists have exploited this fact and placed this issue in the center of

Asiatic politics. Their successes have been great. Their “success story” is now well known in outline: the methods of indoctrinating students who can mobilize peasants, the techniques of rent reduction and land redistribution, “of village ‘liberation* and class reorganization, of personal conversion and guidance by self-criticism.” On the lands they conquered from Chiang Kai-shek they reduced the rents from the general 60 to 70 per cent to a more modest 35 per cent.

On the other hand, even though America has encouraged, often ^ded, both in dollars and in military might, China, India, Burma and Indonesia to win their national freedom, these very nations today condemn America as reactionary and imperialistic. Why? “Along the entire eastern seaboard the American is utterly unwelcome. In countries like China, Malaya and IndoChina he runs the risk of being murdered. In great cities like Singapore, Saigon and Jakarta wise Americans stay indoors at night. Where he is not hunted, the American is reviled. Never in our national history have we been so feared and despised,”

aafd James A, Michener in his article "Blunt Truths About Asia" appearing in Life magazine for June 4, 1951. Why this animosity?

American Policy in East

When India was hungry, American representatives declared that food would be used as a political weapon without reference to peoples and without due regard for their plight. Such cold-blooded power politics brought no love nor did it create good will among the Asiatics. American dollars have ‘upheld only those persons who were willing to take direction from America; usually persons rejected by their own people and who followed America for the most corrupt reasons of personal power and gain’. For generations Asiatics have looked to America as a source fdr help, and then to be turned down cold has created a surge of bewilderment and despair that flooded Asiatic hearts.—“Why Asia Hates Us/’ Look magazine, August 28, 1951.

Regarding this policy, Prime Minister Nehru of India recently told Americans this very important fact: “The people of Asia do not bend easily. They are accustomed to disaster, invasions, floods, famine, discrimination from the; outside, exploitation, recriminations, blows, indignities, threats, prison—they have had these things and more, for hundreds and thousands of years. And they are still here.... This sense of having endured causes India to be not too much upset by angry reaction to her course. And what is true of India, in thia particular respect,” said Nehru, “is true of China. They too/’ said he, “have suffered many, many disasters. China today might be defeated by force of arms. But 450,000,000 Chinese cannot be subdued by winning a war against them, or by visiting military punishment on them. They can be won over; but they will never be won over by force, no matter how great the military victory *—CoCier^ June 23, 1951.

Communism Is not important to the Asiatic peoples. Food is. This hateful truth the Communists constantly push before the destitute masses of Asia: that they are hungry, while America is fabulously rich, and wasting more than Asians ever get to eat or wear. Like Esau, these hungry people will sell precious rights for a promise of a full stomach. Russian Communism presents two most attractive offers to these peasants. One Is freedom from the yoke of landlordism. That each peasant will have an opportunity to own land. To own a piece of land in China holds the final key to success. The second offer is individual freedom.

Basically, Communism’s concern with the division of the land among the hungry peasants is a tactical fraud. It is used simply as a means of gaining power. Once the Communist government is firmly seated in the saddle the destruction of private ownership begins. Their policy, apart from the fraudulent act of land reform, has nothing to offer the peasant save regimentation and decades of technical stagnation.

But tell this to a hungry man. Talk to him about the glory and freedom of democracy and the dangers of being enslaved to Russian Communism and he will laugh in your face. Democracy comes to the hungry in the form of bread. They cannot eat guns, airplanes or bombs. Empty promises as a substitute for food and deeds are loathsome to hungry people. The people of the East do not believe in absent treatment. America wants the Asiatic peasant to resist communism. But what is America doing to lighten the burden of the common people of Asia who are toying with communism? What is America doing to set a higher standard of living, to lift the peasant above poverty, above sickness, above exploitation and oppression? America claims to believe in “freedom and justice,

dignity of the individual and equal opportunity for all, not just for the British, the French or the Dutch, but for all the little people, the goat-herders and the tenders of the rice paddies", but what is America doing to bring these conditions to the needy of the East? Asians will say, “Do not American boasts belie her actions?”

Supreme Court Justice Douglas adduces factual material freshly gathered from a recent extended tour throughout the Middle and Far East, and here is his report: The Asiatic peoples are “puzzled and bewildered” that we Americans, “who profess such high ideals,” instead of aiding oppressed peoples to secure their freedom, “throw our weight and influence and give our money and support (two billion dollars of it) to corrupt and reactionary groups such as Chiang Kai-shek’s.”—Look magazine for January 16,1951.

The Russians have jostled the democratic world into co-operating with a bureaucratic feudalistic system until in at least a number of instances American dollars are backing oppression and corruption, the very thing it parades before the eyes of the world as being against. For example: Most Asiatics of French Indo-China are not in sympathy with harsh French regimentation; yet America has loaned France over three billion dollars, knowing full well that that money is being used to oppress the peasant and to suppress all opposition to the French in Ihdo-Chlna. —Wake Up or Blow Up, by Frank C. Lau-bach.

President Truman’s Point Four technical assistance program, according to Justice Douglas, Is “only underwriting the status quo” of landlordism and tenancy, the very powers responsible for the plight of the peasants in Asia. On April 7,1952, Justice Douglas stated that the technical and scientific aid offered under Point Four, amounting in fiscal 1951 to only $19,000,-

■XI

for the whole world, would mean little

to “the fellow at the bottom of the economic pile” because “the average return to the 99 per cent of the people who produce the crop is between 5 and 10 per cent, while the rest goes to about 200 people who own the economy”, the landlords and usurers. While Mr. Truman is willing to provide a little bit of window dressing In Asia and Africa through the expenditure of a few million dollars on Point Four, “on March 7 he proposed the expenditure of about $li billion in 1953 for military aid to reactionary despotisms in Asia and

Africa to put down the peasant masses.”

The common people of Asia no longer trust America. They are saying that “Americans are no different from other white people”. Moneylenders and landlords are not loved. Any nation supporting the Kuomintang remnants now on Formosa, which have oppressed the poor for years, or the rich landlords of French Indo-Chlna, Egypt, India and Africa, is also supporting the poverty, illiteracy, hunger and disease in which the peasants are kept. The people of the East have reason for skepticism. Harold Isaacs, in Bold New Program, Series No. 2, writes:

“The great gold and diamond mines and farms of South Africa ... have been made possible by the mass dispossession and virtual enslavement of the African people. About 6,000,000 rural Africans have been pushed off their land into forty million acres; while 800,000 whites have 204,500,-000 acres, seized from the blacks by the state without compensation. Deprived of his land the African was forced to work for the white or die . . . Virtual forced labor in the mines, other industries, and on white-owned farms, policed and herded, deprived of all freedom of movement, and paid from $1 to $12 a month.”

When Egypt built a great dam across the Nile the land tripled its production. Land

values soared. Rents went up. The common people went In debt to the moneytenders nt rates of 30 per cent and higher. They oat their land. In 1941, half of Egypt’s land vas owned by 12,000 landlords, 442 acres each on an average, 2,280,000 peasants held an average of .8 of an acre each, and millions were landless paupers. The farm family received an average income of $36 per year—family income, not individual. Such improvement the common people do not want

The Bell report of 1950 made the great landlords of the Philippines angry. John Collier comments on that report in the New York for October 31, 1950: “Usury, peonage, unproductive landlordtent mimintetrative corruption, must be ended,” Dr. Leubach stated: “If there were no great estates there would be no Communist threat In the Philippines.”

It is this kind of feudal system, with its grip on the governments, that is responsible for nine-tenths of the advances of the Communists around the world. Therefore, when American dollars are spent to uphold landlordism instead of breaking up these large landed estates and liberating the masses of people in dependent areas, these dollars fan the flames of hate against America and are one of the greatest contributing causes to the growth of communism in Asia. If Asia goes Red, Americans must take some blame to themselves.

Blessed Tobacco Beed

If God helped the members of one religion to make more money than those of another ,Jf the fields tilled by those who attended one church miraculously bloomed, If God changed growing conditions at the fence line of the non believer, then the religion on the dollar side of God's favor would really bloom in this commercially-minded world. But he does not, despite an April United Press report from Maysville, Kentucky, which said: '^acks of Burley seed tobacco were blessed by the Rev, Paul Brinker during a special service held at the St. Rose of Lima Catholic church. Farmers <»f the Mays Lick community carried the sacks down the aisles to the priest, who blessed each sack?'

The clergy and the Bax Tops

V When religious organizations meddle in affairs outside their field they often antagonize parts of their own congregations. The Rural Co-operator (Toronto, January 8) severely criticized certain United Church oiflcials’ public views toward agriculture. One point concerned farmers and income tax. Another dealt with dairy interests and cited an advertisement in the United Church Observer, an organ of the United Church, which said: "'Get your whole parish collecting Ail-Sweet carton ends. All-Sweet is the favorite spread of thousands of home-makers because it’s the only margarine with delicate natural flavor I Get a pound or two of this guest quality margarine tomorrow . . . your start toward winning $1,000 or more for your Church’" The farm paper commented: 'Christ . . . drove the moneychangers from the temple with the scathing words: 'It is written: My house is a house of prayer; but you have made It a den of thieves? We would respectfully suggest to these clergy that instead of spending their time poking their noses Into the personal affairs of Canadian farmer^ they show a' little Christian zeal £n ridding their church organization cf the disgusting commercialism which has crept into It. What the church needs today, quite obviously, is fewer third-rate economists and more first-rate preachers of Christian faith!”

By “Awakal’1 correspondent in the Netherlands

Provide

Is checked by the admixture of saliva. Upon arriving at the hive the bee gives the honey to the younger brood or she

I deposits the honey into the rOOCi honeycomb cells herself. The honeycomb contains the well-known hexagon cells made out of wax by the bee. Each cell is hermetically sealed with a thin layer of wax by the jealous bee. In this way the honey is safeguarded against deterioration. During the time that it is in the honeycomb the honey ripens. Thereafter it is fit for consumption.

Actually this stored-up honey is to serve as food for the bees to be used up later. The beekeeper, however, makes it possible for the bees to store up a larger stock of honey than they need In this way a sur-

BLOSSOMS provide the costly liquid from which honey is made. The tiny bee with her ligula, or “tongue”, which is about millimeters (| inch) long, draws the nectar out of the flowers. It is a sweet liquid, actually a watery solution of sugars, small amounts of phosphates, fats and minerals. This naturally sweet matter is taken along by the bee. But how? hi her abdomen is found the so-called crop, also called the honey sac. This honey sac is really the bag-shaped widened fore-end of the intestinal canal. This bladder can contain 100 milligrams of honey. But, per flight, the bee does not carry more than 20 to 40 milligrams of this delicious sweet matter which she has extracted from the flowers.

While yet in the honey sac of the bee the sweet juice undergoes a change, for by certain substances as formic acid and saliva the nectar is turned into fruit sugar (levulose or fructose) and grape sugar (dextrose). By the change, which takes place in the honey sac, comes the color and fragrance of honey while fermentation plus results, which surplus is for human consumers. One can eat the honey together with the honeycomb, but in general the honey is first extracted from the honeycomb. This it is possible to do in several ways. With an instrument built especially for this purpose, a honey extractor, the honey is extracted from the combs by centrifugal force. Honey that is thus gotten out is called extracted honey. The honey that is left in the comb is then permitted to flow or drip out. The last honey is pressed out of the honeycomb. So there are thus the following sorts: comb honey, extracted honey, drip honey, and pressed honey.

The finest is the pure honey out of the honeycomb, the comb honey. This is the honey that we come across in the honeycomb made by the bees themselves (apiarists sometimes use artificial honeycombs). Pure comb honey is a nature product. It must be clear in color. Then one has fine-quality honey. The honeycombs must be well filled and sealed in white. As one eats comb honey he also eats the wax, which is indigestible but harmless. The honey one buys in the grocery stare te mostly extracted honey. This honey is the best sort of the prepared honeys. Hie noney is hurled out of the honeycombs by the extractor, and thus one gets a beautiful and clear product. Of lower quality is the drip honey, which is, apart from that, good to eat. This honey is not quite as pure as extracted honey. The pressed honey which follows is not entirely pure, for while it Is being pressed impurities such as pollen dust work their way into the honey. That is the reason for the often somewhat sharp and bitter taste of this honey.

HTuzf Zs Honey?

But what exactly is honey? The chief constituents of honey are the inverted sugars levulose and dextrose. Levulose (also fructose) is the fruit sugar which occurs in all sweet fruits. Dextrose is grape sugar which is present in grapes and also in sweet fruits and is likewise secreted by the starches of plants. Honey contains 33 to 40 per cent fruit sugar and 32 to 39 per cent grape sugar. (According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica 40 to 50 per cent is fruit sugar and 32 to 37 per cent grape sugar.)

Further, we find in honey small amounts (1 to 4 per cent) of saccharose, that is, cane sugar. The saccharose has the inclination to turn , slowly into fruit sugar or grape sugar. This conversion occurs under the influence of heat and the presence of invertase and acids which are found in honey. Further, honey contains very small amounts of minerals: iron, calcium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, and sulphur. As it is generally known, the fermentation of enzymes is responsible for the conversion of foodstuffs. These are substances that are necessary for the maintenance of life. Not all foodstuffs can just simply be taken up into the blood as they are. No, they must first be converted, for only dissolved foodstuffs ente>* the blood. As far as It can be established, the enzymes are of great consequence in the conversion of foodstuffs. Now, we find many enzymes in honey. Therefore honey occupies an important place as an article of food. Since only very small amounts of minerals are needed for the maintenance of the human body, and honey contains such minimum quantities of minerals, it is also of consequence for this reason.

Finally, honey contains water. The water percentage fluctuates between 15 and 35 per cent. (According to some scientists, between 13 and 20 per cent.) There are countries, as, for example, the United States and the Netherlands, where the set requirements for sound honey are that the water percentage totals not more than 25 per cent

Health Food

Honey is really a prominent, natural article of food. A pound of honey provides about 1,600 calories. Thus honey serves our body with a goodly amount of energy. The caloric value of eggs is considerably less. A pound of eggs provides about 800 calories, while a pound of meat yields about 500 calories. The wise king of old did not write in vain: "My son, eat thou honey, because it is good.0 (Proverbs 24:13) Honey is easily digestible because the conversion of the sugars in the honey has already begun in the honey sac of the bee; therefore an important part of the digestive process on the honey has already taken place before it enters our stomach. This explains why honey can be given as supplementary food to small children from nine months to two years; daily a teaspoonful or a bit more in an ordinary glass of milk. It is in their formative years that children need sugar. Well known is the child's desire for sweets. For the child's stomach honey is better than ordinary sugar. History teaches us that the ancient peoples (Romans and Greeks) gave their children much honey.

One can take much honey in place of sugar in tea, in cereal, in sandwiches and cooked foods. For mixing with other foods the transparent flower honey can best be used. When anyone, however, uses the same kind every day it can go against his grain. For this reason it is advisable to introduce a change. There are so many kinds. For example: Many relish heather honey, which is very pure because heather fields are not treated with artificial fertilizer or other harmful chemicals. Heather honey is dark golden brown in color and has a full-flavored and spicy taste and aroma. Linden honey is also fragrant and sometimes somewhat minty. Anyone who relishes something very sweet will enjoy clover honey, which has a pale color, yes, is almost white. Strongly aromatic is the dark-brown buckwheat honey, which is not recommended for daily use, but, on the other hand, is pleasant for a change. Rapeseed honey is light-yellow and crystallizes quickly.

When honey crystallizes, after a short or a long time, some think that there is ordinary sugar in such honey. That is not the case. Crystallized honey is pure. Crystallization proves that honey is pure. Such crystallized honey can be liquefied very easily. Place the container in warm water. But be careful what you do, for, although honey liquefies at 154 degrees Fahrenheit, many of the important constituents can be harmed at 159 degrees. If a container with honey has stood in a cool spot for a length of time it can indeed become stiff and hard to handle. But, placed in the room, it takes in the temperature of the surroundings and then too becomes softer and easy to spread.

Besides being an article of food and strengthening, honey is a medicine, George

Ebers found a medicinal papyrus In Egypt which contained very many prescriptions of which honey was the chief constituent. Honey contains inorganic salts which are important for the formation of bloodcoloring agents. People with anemia and chlorosis do well to eat honey. Because honey is hygroscopic or water-absorbing it acts as a disinfectant on infected mucous membranes, and hence honey is often medicinally effective in the case of affected air passages, while the muoous-dfssoMng quality is also of importance. All living micro-organisms need a certain amount of moisture; the bacteria come In contact with honey and they are forced to give up moisture and as a result die. An old and simple remedy against the cough is a glass of water and lemon juice and a few teaspoonfuls of honey, of which one may take a little several times a day, or a 10 per cent solution in warm milk, which solution likewise dissolves mucous and soothes coughing.

Interesting is the observation of the American physician D. C. Jarvia that honey is capable of checking and curing the unpleasant habit of bed-wetting by its hygroscopic quality. The honey must in this case be taken in the evening. There are many persons who suffer with constipation. Honey is for sud?. persons a simple and an easy-to-take laxative. As a laxative one can also make use of warm honeywater with an extract of senna leaves.

Blossoms provide us with a truly exquisite food by means of the busy bee. Honey is sweet, pleasant and soft. It can be kept a long time in preferably a dark, dry and not-too-warm spot, Next time you have honey remember its Source, not the bee, nor the blossom, but in the words of the Romans: “Here is honey, which God has made for your health,”

Nature’s Amazing Chameleon

By "Awakt!" correspondent in Sovlhom Bhcdotlo

NO CREATURE has as m^ny gadgets, as many devices, as many rugged horns, as fantastic a hood, as bony a shield, and as many different paint jobs for each mood in its make-up as the chameleon. Its hands are different. Its feet are different. Its eyes are different. Its tail is different. Its tongue is different. Well, best described, the chameleon Is a little bit of everything different. It Is the only animal in creation that can capture its prey more than a body-length away without moving anything except its tongue.

C The chameleon is a slowpoke. Its every action is deliberate and drawn out. All parts seem to operate in slow motion, that is, all but its eyes and tongue. These seem to belong to this age of marvels and speed. The eyes are unique organs projected prominently from the sides of the head as cone-shaped tubes, possessing conspicuous power of independent movement. The eye fixed at the tip of the cone makes It possible for the chameleon to see its own forehead, nose, and even have a look at its other eye without undue strain. The turret-mounted eyes swivel in every direction. One eye scans the ground below for possible enemies, while the other searches overhead branches for food, but instantly, when a fly, beetle, or worm is sighted, both eyes work in unison. They judge the distance of the prey and plan the attack. The chameleon's mouth opens—fire! With bulletlike speed a long elastic tongue is shot out. The tip of the tongue, which is club-shaped and sticky, strikes the target. It never misses its mark. Once tagged with the sticky end the insect has no hope of escape. The tongue returning to the mouth is slow and can be watched. With a big gulp the insect Is swal-’"wed and the chameleon gets set for its next shot.

t, Chameleons are said to be “one long contradiction to our general conception of a small four-footed reptile". The chameleon's tail cannot be lost In a moment's notice and regrown at leisure. It Is a delicate organ, fully equipped with muscles, nerves, and a sense of feeling. It is curled downward like a coiled spring when not used, but up in trees it is used as an extra hand for holding and grabbing.

< The fingers and toes of the chameleon are not arranged as ours are but they have bundles of two that oppose bundles of three In each limb—three toes on the outside and two on the inside for the feet and the other way around for the hands. This thoughtful arrangement allows for the firmest of grips on the branches and twigs. They are known to lay some twenty to fifty eggs and bury them In the moist ground. When the babies are hatched, wet and sticky, they are able to take care of themselves and get right at work with their strangest of equipment,

C The chameleon is world famous for its ability to change color. It uses an endless variation of green, yellow, brown, black and white. Contrary to general consensus, the color changes are not necessarily for camouflage governed by the background the animal is in. Often it uses colors that make it more conspicuous in its habitat. The chameleon will decide to change coats when the temperature has changed, or if it has been emotionally disturbed, but a greenish color is its favorite jacket.

C According to African legend, the chameleon was sent by God to bring immortality to mankind, but it traveled so slowly that the lizard carrying the message of death arrived first. Gullible mankind accepted the message arriving first—thus lost out on immortality. While only a small portion of “gullible mankind" believes in this race of the lizards, the great majority has swallowed the fable of Immortal human souls. Death came, not from a lizard, but as a result of disobedience to God’s law. Everlasting life, on the other hand, is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. (Romans 6:23, New World Tran#.) This precious heritage is not dependent on nature’s slowpoke, the chameleon, or upon mythical Immortal human souls, but on the spirit and power of Jehovah God.

Fabulous Treasure to Her People

By 11 Awake)1' correspondent in Brazil

OF ALL the precious materials extracted from the earth, there is not a single one that does not drag along in its wake a legion of selfish men that, because of greed in their unending quest for riches, contaminate the morals of earth’s inhabitants, whose plight becomes worse and worse. They are possessed of a burning fever that consumes them until they perish. It is for this reason that all humanity contends in the hope of more controlling power—not so much world dominion as the control of earth’s riches. Today, even though gold is the most alluring, it is not gold that foments revolutions, friction, wars and heated debates among the modern nations. It is the dark-colored oil that flows from the bowels of the earth in gushers or drilled wells.

Ever since its discovery, Brazil has been cruelly beaten, its people ruthlessly crushed beneath the heavy boot of foreigners, and its riches, mineral, vegetable or whatever other, are controlled by foreign influence that monopolizes everything.

In spite of its beauty and position, Brazil has a high percentage of illiteracy that is almost without remedy. Its commerce is dominated by trusts that do not allow this profitable prey to escape, and any undertaking to open up the rich resources of the country is immediately cut off by certain occult interests, and hardly ever accomplishes anything. Such is the problem of Brazil’s oil.

The oil campaign in Brazil is not of recent date, for since the beginning of tills century attempts have been made to regulate the oil situation in the country. In 1902 the first book on the subject was written, and for some years now there has been strife over “black gold”.

In the book O Escdndalo do Petr&eo a partial vision is presented, showing how, at the outset, Brazil did not prosper in her national companies and the desire to stop the exploitation went to such a point that crime of every variety was used in a strong effort to hinder those who wished to see Brazilian oil flow out of the earth.

The Martyrs

Josef Bach, a German geologist, studying the soil in Alagoas since 1905, finally made certain of the presence of this precious substance and established a modest business for extracting it. This was in 1918, and on August 26 of the same year he wrote a letter to the local police asking protection for himself and his family m order that he might continue to live in that little town and proceed with the development in that zone. Measures were taken and nothing happened, but on a certain day when he was crossing the lagoon in a canoe with a different boatman from the regular one, the bark suddenly upset and he was drowned; the boatman escaped unharmed except for a bath. His disappearance served the occult interests well; complete inac-tivlty reigned thereafter in the digging for oil.

Years after, Pinto Martins, a young Brazilian engineer with big ideas, acquired from the widow the studies and rights to renew the enterprise- He went to London to start negotiations, then came to New York and from there to Rio in a sensational flight. He was acclaimed a national hero by the people. He was offered a premium of $10,000, which he never received, because he committed suicide before the time, without anyone’s knowing the motive for the tragedy.

Later, in the state of Mato Grosso, Bar-zarettl, an Italian engineer, made studies and contracted for some land to continue the exploitation, announcing that oil wells were going to be drilled in the region. And what happened? A gunshot, from nobody knows where, mortally wounded him. All activities were stopped and the ever-increasing enthusiasm died down.

Monteiro Lobato, an outstanding Brazilian writer, participated actively in drilling and exploiting and also in spreading oil wells all over Brazil, beginning with the land he owned in Lobato in the state of Bahia. At a great personal financial loss and after many pleadings and supplications he saw the oil that was not to be discovered flow out of Brazilian soil. For this, Monteiro Lobato fell into the bad graces of the government, his oil wells were nationalized, and he was thrown out of his job as chairman of the Merchants’ Exchange. The metal plates that identified the field were tom down and in their place was put up an obelisk with these words: "The first field of the national council of Dr. Getulio Vargas’ government from which oil flowed in Brazil.’*

Development of the Fight

Standard Oil and Royal Dutch & Shell are the two great international trusts; consequently Brazil, with so many places marked with indications of oil, meant a real danger for them; so the first thing they had to do was to monopolize the potential oil-bearing land and then to catechize the Brazilians. Knowing the various weaknesses of the Brazilians, they thought; Nothing is easier than to fool these simple people, who, although they live on top of oil, do not know anything about it; they must always buy oil from us, while we calmly acquire the land that can serve us as future reserves, and as we exhaust the fields that we now possess we shall have sure recourse to our oil in Brazil.

During the past three years the newspapers have employed many blaring headlines, the people have organized mass meetings, going out and shouting in the streets; "The oil is ours"; carrying placards with such phrases as: "We urge the taking of measures; out with the international trusts," and walls have been daubed with pitch in the same words. It looked as if the thing were going ahead, but this was pure deception. During the period of May-June, 1951, the morning newspaper of Rio de Janeiro, Didrio de Noticias; published some interesting items about the oil situation In Brazil, one of which was on the occasion of the National Oil Convention promoted by the Cedpen, when Gen. Arthur Carnauba, chairman of the convention, said:

"Its aim will be, once again, the defense of the fundamental thesis of state monopoly, not only with reference to refining but also as to research, production and distribution. . . . To hand these over to the oil monopolies constitutes a crime against our native land. Let us avoid the necessity of our sons’ being obliged to fight a battle like that in which the heroic Iranians are engaged ... Oil is a factor of emancipation for those who know how to exploit it and an instrument of slavery for those who criminally hand it over to the international trusts.

... Reflect a little before you throw yourselves In the path of colonization and of tyranny!”

In the same paper we read further about a meeting in the Senate, at which Senator Domingos Velasco spoke: “The Brazilian Socialist Party is in favor of state monopoly. . . . All of us are called by the trusts1 lawyers 'useful innocents’ in the service of communism, whereas the truth is that we are in the service of Brazil. And what have we gained in our fight against the trusts that have never hesitated to kill patriots who opposed themselves to their interests?” Then he denounced a list of prominent persons, accusing them of being “useful innocents” on the side of the trusts. At the close of his discourse, the senator appealed to the president of the Republic to nationalize the Brazilian oil, as he had stated in his speeches in which he had so enlarged upon the riches of the Brazilian soil.

There was the closing of the National Center opened in 1935 for the study and defense of oil, because it was supposed that it had become infiltrated with Communists, a claim which was strongly refuted by Mr. Domingos Velasco. Some days later the Ultima Hon^published a note containing parts of a document presented by a representative from Bahia, in which he asked what had happened to the national gasoline and how much had already been produced in Brazil. The magazine Time in its Latin-American edition published news of the release of Brazilian gasoline in Rio de Janeiro and the joyful and enthusiastic reaction of the motorists who acquired it, but in reality it had already been released some time before at a station in Guarei where a few motorists bought; the cariocas that bought the Brazilian gasoline said that it was just as good as the Imported.

Really things began to warm up after 1949, but the very complicated problem that for the time being presents Itself has not been solved. There is a refinery in Mataripe in the state of Bahia with a capacity of 2,500 barrels a day, which guarantees enough for the consumption of that state; but Brazil has 21 states. Plans are under way to open another refinery at Capuava in the state of Sao Paulo with a capacity of 20,000 barrels a day. This refinery, not yet completed, already has a lot of shareholders and owns $3,000,000, but it needs $15,000,000 to finally get into action. The basis of shares is as follows: Only native Brazilians can be shareholders, so that the controlling interest of the refinery always remaihs in national hands; the maximum subscription per person will be $75,000, and the minimum, $150. Studies and installations will be made by a competent American firm, the Hydrocarbon Research Corporation, the same that was selected to install the official refinery at Cubatao, all to be under the supervision and approval of the National Oil Council; and the distribution of the bonds was trusted to Roxo Loureiro S/A—Investment Bankers, under contract signed and approved by the National Oil Council.

Beneath the deceptive surface some questions arise, such as, How much money borrowed from foreigners is back of this? Where did the first shareholders or founders get the $3,000,000 for the first payment? And many others. Who can certainly guarantee that what is going on in Iran will not come to pass in Brazil? This is only the beginning. What will be the end?

…