Awake!, August 8, 1955

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AUGUST 8, 1955 semimonthly

THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

Naw* sources that are able to keep you awake to th* vital i**ue* o.' our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interest*. “Awake 1” has no fetters. It recodnizes facts, faces fact*, is free to publish fact*. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; ft is unhampered by advertisers whose toe* must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creed*. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it doe* not abuse it* freedom. It maintains integrity io truth.

“Awake I” uses th* regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. I^s own correspondents are on all continents, in score* 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, but is Internation at It is read in many nation*, tn many languages, by persons of all ages. Through it* pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its coverage is as broad a* the earth and as high as the heaven*.

"Awake I” pledge* itself to righteou* principles, to exposing hidden foe* and subtle danger*, to championing freedom for all, 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!”

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CONTENTS

Josi Marti—Cuba’s Apostle of Freedom 3

God or Politics?

Religion’s First Responsibility

Follow God, Not Mar.

"A Nation of Spectators”

Religion’s Political Activity

Babies Smarter than You Think

Probing the Unknown Continent

Oddities and Future Proposals

An Interesting Book

Marvel of the Living Tree

Surprised Thieves Atomic Radiation and Man’s Destiny

Shortened Life Span Since the Flood

Military Whitewash, Scientific Fears “Your Word Is Truth”

Christian Grounds for Divorce Does Radiation Shorten Life Span? Do You Know?

Watching the World

Vol urn* XXXVI_________________

Brooklyn, N. Y., Augurt 8, 1H6

Number 1*

JosS Marti* Cuba's Apostle of Freedom

By “Awnk«l’J c«rr«»p»»d»nt in Cuba

IT SEEMS that each country has its own George Washington, its Napoleon, its Caesar or its Alexander the Great. Cuba’s hero is Jose Marti, a nationally honored and deeply respected apostle of freedom. Jose Marti was instrumental in the nineteenth-century struggle to free Cuba from the tyrannical rule of Spain. Yet, more than advocating political rule, he wanted the people to think. Moved by the Ignorance the Cuban peasants manifested toward the Bible, Jose Marti composed a thought* provoking message to the common man.

He said the priest did not want the people to know how false and useless were all his ceremonies, "because after that he can’t collect more money for all this?3

He said further: "The priest also says he baptizes [your son] for you for him to enter the kingdom of heaven. But he baptizes the newly born if you pay him money, cr grains, or eggs, or livestock; if you doi^’t pay him, if you don’t give him something, he doesn’t baptize him for you. So then that kingdom of heaven that he talks to you about costs a few coins, ar grains, or eggs or pigeons. What need or what interest can you have as to whether your son enters a kingdom like that? What kind of judgment must you form of a man who says that he will do you a great favor, that it is within his power, that without him you are condemned, that your salvation depends on him, and for a few silver coins he denies you that great benefit? Isn’t that a selfish, avaricious and wicked man? What idea of God would you have if he actually should send a messenger like that to you?

“That god that bargains, that sells salvation, that does all for money, that sends people to hell if they don’t pay him, and if they do pay him he sends to heaven, that god is a kind of money lender, a usurer, a trafficker. No, my friend, there is another God.”

Some people might not like what Cuba’s apostle of freedom thus said and wrote to the poor of his land. But it is true that what he said is worthy of careful thought It is also true that freedom-loving Cubans in large numbers are now learning that there is a God who does not demand money, who is not a usurer, a trafficker or a money lender, whose servants serve for love, as did Jesus and the apostles. False and misplaced faith is being replaced by what is sound and true, by a faith based upon a loving God whose Son freely gave his life for all who would accept its protection, and who today liberally provides the truth of his righteous new world that will shortly bring conditions of lasting peace and freedom to al] the earth. Many thousands of freedom-loving Cubans are now hearing about this hope from Jehovah’s witnesses.

TV7HAT would you think W of teachers and professors in schools and coEeges who would take money for teaching you one subject, but spend most of their classroom time discussing a different' one? If you paid a man to teach you French, would you want him to spend most of his time talking about Arabic? If your Interest was in learning mathematics, would you appreciate a teacher who ignored its principles to talk about the art of cooking? Do you agree that a man should deal with his own field before trying to branch out into others? Following the same line of thought, if you paid a man to teach you about religion, would you not expect him to show mare interest in your spiritual welfare than in politics, commerce or social matters?

A columnist in the Detroit, Michigan, Free Press once said: “I do not go to church very often because I have grown 'tired of having preachers in their pulpits tell me what I ought to think about taxation, government ownership of industries, the tariff, labor legislation, and God alone knows what else. ... I always supposed that the clergy was to spend its time look^ tag after our morals, not our politics or economics.”

Eleanor Roosevelt expressed a similar view: "Sometimes I think church organizations are foolish because they do things that lead people to believe they are not interested mainly in the spiritual side of the church but that they have a decided interest also in temporal affairs. Yes, with the current state of religious illiteracy, with the apathy that today is shown toward true Christianity and right doctrine, religious leaders would have their hands full teaching their own subject, without trying to expand out into others.

But they do expand out Into others. Rell-ion's part in politics is ot accidental. Lutheran shop Ilans Lilje of Han-HMVer, Germany, told a con-■JP^ference of clergymen, politi-' cians, journalists and publishers that "the Church should readily take part in political responsibility," though not delivering itself into the hand of a single political system. Also, reports of the World Council of the churches' second assembly in Evanston, Hiinois, last summer had a great deal to say about the political position that high church dignitaries thought the religions should take. This is not new. Centuries of religious history show that religion and the state often have been closely allied. However, the fact that this custom has a long history does not automatically make it right.

Fer a moment, visualize in your mind’s eye the Messiah going about his preaching in Palestine nearly two thousand years ago. Can you see this founder of Christianity getting information about the political injustices committed in Palestine so he

could travel to Rome and present political information to the rulers there? Is he waging a fight for social rights or lower taxes? Does he tell the Roman governor what economic practices or what international policy should be followed? No! His mission was far higher than temporary political reform.

What have taxation and social security and other politics to do with Jesus’ instruction: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all .the nations”? (Matthew 24:14, Neto World Trans.) Certainly not even all the so-called “Christian” world is yet aware of that good news, or knows how that kingdom is the sole hope of mankind, the only hope for peace. Jesus’ work of pointing to the truth remains the primary work of true Christians today, though many religious leaders Seem to have ignored this fact and show a far greater concern with other fields.

Religions First Responsibility

As long as the divorce rate in “Christian” lands can reach one out of every three marriages, as long as juvenile delinquency so shamefully increases, as long as adultery is as widely accepted as novels, movies and the questionable Kinsey report would imply, what business do the religions have in spending time in other fields that Jesus pointedly ignored? As Jesus said: “How can you say to your brother; Allow me to extract the straw from your eye’; when, look! a rafter is in your own eye? Hypocrite! first extract the rafter from your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to extract the straw from your brother’s eye.”—Matthew 7:4, 5, New World Trans.

Is the bringing of peaceful conditions religion’s responsibility? If its loaders think so, then let them first teach their members how, under Christ, to live in peace. Are social security and race relations and foreign and international alliances unjust? If so, then religion has failed to instill right principles and the importance of daily applying them into the minds cf its members who are in high governmental positions. Until religion succeeds in teaching at least its own people such principles, it should devote its efforts to solving its own problems (the problems that Christ dealt with) and teaching its own subjects (the subjects that Christ taught) before trying to solve other problems that Christ pointedly rejected.

Teaching a right knowledge of God’s Word is religion’s first responsibility. But while that knowledge does not exist in any really great quantity among church members today, religions have concerned themselves with labor standards, social welfare, civil rights, tha tax policy and other matters that they say are basic to family welfare. and therefore of prime concern to the church. But is establishing labor standards the church’s commission? The command to Christians was not: “Go and solve the world’s political and social problems,” but: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in tile name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit.”—Matthew 28:19, New World Trans.

It is true that those who thus take up the work of true Christianity will become better people, more law-abiding citizens, will be considerate of people of other nationalities, races and colors, will give a good day’s work to their employer and a just wage to their employees. Yes, legal reforms to enforce these social advances would be unnecessary if the religions really had taught their members the sound principles of godly living. Perhaps it is the religious leaders’ failure to succeed in doing this that prompts them to go to the state

and ask for laws to force the people into the course they think the people should take.

The mission of true Christians is to preach the gospel, to aid those who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, to teach the truth. Spiritual welfare should come ahead of political or social accomplishments, Thus Paul reminded, in Romans 8:6: "For the minding of the flesh means death, but the minding of the spirit means life and peace,”—New World Trans.

The world’s religious leaders have become associated with the world, identified with the world and an integral part of the world’s governments. In wartime clergymen give moral support to their members on all sides. If, prior to and during World War n, the clergymen of Germany and Italy had instilled a real Christian conscience into the minds of their members, then there would have beeif no war. Their members may have been ordered to fight, but they would have known that they receive a higher set of orders from above. It was because they had ndt really been taught these higher orders that the people accepted the false human ones. Had the churches stood solidly behind their professed determination to be Christian, rather than lending at least tacit support to the totalitarian governments, and had they done a proper job of teaching their members' to follow the same right course, then the internal support for the totalitarian governments would have collapsed, the soldiers would not have fought and there would have been no war.

But the churches had allied themselves too closely with the political state. They refused to take the neutral position that Jehovah's witnesses did in those lands, and the world was plunged into war.

Separate from the World

Not everyone likes the idea of the churches’ being in politics. In his book Church Lobbying Dr. Luke Ebersole says (page 106): “The development of church lobbying requires the emancipation of the church mind from traditional notions about nonparticipation in government by religious groups.” But why should such “traditional” notions be cast aside, especially since they also are scriptural? The Bible, our true guide on religion, pointedly says:

“Do you not know that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God,” “Do not be loving either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” Jesus told his followers: "If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you.” The world in general has not changed, but many of those who claim to follow Christ have. The world continues its corrupt course, while many religious leaders have not only become its friends, but even want to help govern it.—James 4:4; 1 John 2:15; John 15:19, New World Trans,

Think of the political influence religious leaders could have if they were given the chance Jesus had to be made a king. Many would be enthusiastic over such an opportunity. But what did Jesus do? “Therefore Jesus, realizing they were about to come and seize him to make him king, withdrew again into the mountain all alone.” Why would he not be king? Because he knew that Satan was the world's real ruler. Satan had already had the audacity to offer Jesus the world’s kingdoms: “Again the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him: ‘All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to ma/ ” (John 6:15; Matthew 4:8, 9, New World Trans.) How different was Jesus' wise refusal of such an offer from the course taken by the religious leaders of today who in their eagerness to have political advantage admit a willingness to “deal with the Devil himself” to advance the interests of their particular religious group.—New York February 22, 1945.

A shocking statement? Well, according to the Scriptures, when a religion meddles with the world it is dealing with the Devil himself! Thus 1 John 5:19 (New World Trans.) says: “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” Again, in 2 Corinthians 4:4 (New World Trans.) we read that it is the “god of this system of things,” obviously Satan, who “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” Further, in a prayer to his heavenly Father Jesus said of his followers: “I have given your word to them, but the world has hated them, because they are no part of the world just as I am no part of the world.” Exactly to the contrary are today's clergy-politicians who can say: ‘The world has loved us, because we are a part of it, and our basic aim is to help it solve its problems.’—John 17:14, New World Trans.

Follow God, Not Man

True Christian confidence, however, is not in man's solutions but in God’s kingdom. Religious leaders who support the world’s politics say that by this action they are bringing in God’s kingdom. But Jesus said: “My kingdom is no part of this world.” (John 18:36, New World Trans.) God’s kingdom is not something that is just within the hearts and minds of men, as some people believe, but it is going to bring a complete overthrow by Jehovah through his Son Christ Jesus of the present Satan-ruled corrupt system of things. “In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms,, and it shall stand for ever,” says Daniel 2:44, Ameriean Standard Version. Does that sound els if God’s kingdom were a mere social reform?

Further, in Isaiah 9:6, 7, it was prophesied regarding the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus: “Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this.” (Am. Stan. Per.) Does that sound like something that is just in the hearts or minds of men? or something to come just by passing new laws or making political leaders aware of the importance of social reform? Far from it! That kingdom will provide a righteous, invisible rulership for earth. That righteous ruler* ship now is replacing Satan’s wicked rule. Soon Satan’s rule will come to the sudden and violent end that is described in Revelation 19:19 through 20:3. This is the vital message that the religious leaders should now preach, if they were not ignoring that now-established kingdom while mingling with Satan’s world.

Is the true Christian going to follow the course of today’s world, supporting it and lending tacit approval to its course of ignoring Christ's established kingdom? No! God himself is the one who promises to intervene, and the Christian has complete confidence in that promise. “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind?’ And again: “Furthermore, the world is passing away and so is its dAire, but he that does the will of God remains forever?’—Isaiah 65:17, Am. Stan. Ver.; 1 John 2:17, New World Trans.

Jesus was quite explicit about the limitations put on the activity of true Christians: "Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it?1 (Matthew 7:13, 14, New World Trans.) However, today’s religions have let the barriers down, broadening but their path to where almost anyone can come in, rather than keeping their principles high and on the way of right worship. Thus they are filled with many "social” members who are members because it is the popular thing, the accepted custom, and they are also filled with apathetic individuals whose belief is far below lukewarm, who do not practice the principles that Christ taught, and who, in many instances, do not even know what those principles were.

Having watered down their high standards, these religious leaders have also watered down Christ’s instructions to stay separate from the world. They see little reason to stay separate, because they have lowered their standard to where their membership already takes in much of the world. They may even put aside their true job of teaching and preaching true worship and apply their major interest to family problems, labor standards and the like.

But the point is that if their concern is political and social reform, they should be honest enough to say so and let people join them for the reasons they would join a political party. But if their aim is to live up to the name Christian, then they should follow Christ—and he was interested in one thing: spreading the right knowledge of God’s purposes and pointing to the narrow way of true worship that does lead his servants to everlasting life.

It is not anticipated that today’s religions would so drastically alter their present course as to get back to that way that Christ set out. Then what can you do about it? You can separate from them, realizing that you should not follow leaders who ignore Christ’s specific instruction that tells them to keep separate from the world. “ ‘Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing,’ ” " ‘and I will take you in? ” (2 Corinthians 6:17, New World Trans.) You must separate yourself from the wrong, and accept what is right. This requires positive action upon your part. Jehovah’s witnesses, who have taken that action, will consider it a privilege to show you how you too may do so.

A NATION OF SPECTATORS

Some scientists do not think much of what television has done for mankind, especially for children. In fact, one scientist, Dr. Robert E. Wilson, a chemist and chemical engineer, believes that youthful preoccupation with television has contributed to creating a shortage of scientists and engineers in America. In an address before the 127th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Dr.

Wilson said: “The bright young boy who used to play with a home-made crystal radio or a chemical kit is now twirling the knobs on a TV set, watching terrible programs that distract him from constructive activities.” Television, declared Dr. Wilson, “has made us a nation of spectators instead of participants.”—New York Times, April 3, 1955.

Religion's Political Activity

THE preceding article discussed the scriptural viewpoint of religion’s meddling in politics, and showed what is wrong with this widely accepted

practice. But do you have any idea how the churches have done

authority, andhave swayed the voters to accomplish their political aims. In the United States the first method (that of trying to influence legislators) is called “lob

bying.” And, as the Christian Century once pointed out: “De-

this? the denominations that are involved? the subjects on which they try to influence the government? or the extent of their activity in this field? This article will answer these questions. It will deal with both Protestantism and Catholicism alike. And while it deals basically with United States lobbying, the principles that are involved concern the people of every land where the government is elected by the people.

Britain’s Labor government complained in 1949 about that land’s state church taking a political side on economics apd national policy. The Vatican’s August, 1953, concordat with Spain legalized Catholic power in that land. Former President Quirino of the Philippines warned against the participation of the church in politics, but acknowledged that he had yielded to Catholics on the issue of religious instruction in public schools. And in the United States Kermit Eby of the Protestant Federal Council of Churches has called for “an integrated, long-range political strategy in.

the ranks of Protestantism.”

There are many ways that churches have mingled in politics. They have tried to sway legislators, have influenced their church members who were in positions of spite the fact that most churches try to avoid using the word,” the representatives that they keep in Washington “are lobbyists as defined by law,” because “they are in Washington 'to influence, directly or indirectly, the passage or defeat’ of legislation by Congress.”

It is commonly known that church officials and lobbyists in Washington furnish information to legislators through the mail, through personal interviews and through having their opinions published in the press. By mail congressmen receive religious publications, statements concerning churchmen’s official views and letters dealing with specific issues on which religious organizations have taken a political interest. Information furnished to congressmen is directed to key members of committees, who may be urged by the religious organizations either to speed or to delay action on proposed legislation. Oftentimes an influential individual will be brought to Washington to appear before a particular congressional committee to argue for the view of his religious organization.

Both Catholic and Protestant organizations have wide interests. An idea of the scope of their activity is shown by the ar-

rangement that Protestant groups made several years ago for a cooperative system of exchanging legislative information. Their labor was divided in this manner, according to the detailed study Church Lobbying in the Nation's Capital by Dr. Luke Ebersole: “Northern Baptists: civil rights, atomic energy, food; Congregationalists: immigration, social welfare, relation of church and stare; Friends: United States-Soviet relations, strengthening United Nations, displaced persons, revision of immigration regulations, civil rights; Methodist women: civil rights, labor, tax policy: Presbyterians: European recovery, social welfare, labor, alcohol.”

The extent of such church interest in politics can further be seen in some examples of religious influence In Washington during recent years. Religious representatives have taken sides and tried to influence the government on such matters as the fair-employment practices bill in 1947, social security, extension of the displaced persons act, the anti-poll-tax proposal, U.S. aid to Greece and Turkey, the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, federal aid to state health programs and the North Atlantic Treaty. The idea that some religions might not know everything about politics has apparently prompted no general trend toward their staying in their own field.

Regarding Slavery and Prohibition

Are you amazed that church lobbying has reached such a scope, and that some men apparently want to put God on one political side, other men want to put him on the other? This is nothing new. Even during the short history of the United States, both of these things have been evident many times. The churches took a strong interest in and certainly did not speak with one voice on the nineteenth-century issue of slavery.1 Said President Lincoln: “I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine wiJL”i Very frequently a religion’s members’ approval of its political ventures was based not on the question of whether politics is the proper place for a religion, but on whether the denomination’s political views corresponded with those of its members. As Church Lobbying puts it (page 6): “It appears that, to some extent, the attitude toward the participation in politics by preachers depended upon which side of the controversy the Almighty was placed?1

Perhaps the most outstanding instance of church lobbying in the United States, however, was that carried on by the national Anti-Saloon League, organized in Washington, D.C., in December, 1895, to represent about forty-nine temperance and religious groups. Eventually ft had the support of as many as 60,000 agencies, and had such political power that Governor Brumbaugh of Pennsylvania is reported to have said that no politician or political party could afford to turn a deaf ear to “such an organized body of men.”

“At first,” says Ebersole, “the church’s tradition of non-intervention in politics produced doubts and resistance, but the hope of immediate reform was too great and the churches rallied to the cause/1 The league did not put up its own political candidates, but it supported those who agreed with its policies, no matter what their voting record was on other issues. Its strategists drafted and Introduced bills, lobbied among congressmen, created public opinion and succeeded in establishing prohibition, putting through the constitutional amendment that banned the sale of intcxl-

eating liquor from January 16,1920, until it was repealed in 1933.

Protestant Representation

In contrast with single-purpose organizations like the Anti-Saloon League, the present trend is toward denominational and interdenominational organizations having regular representatives before the United States government This trend was begun by the Catholic Church during World War I, and the major Protestant groups later followed suit, generally during and after World War IL

The Friends and Congregationalists have had full-time legislative secretaries in Washington registered with the govem-ment as lobbyists. The Presbyterian representative registered to lobby “in the interest of social legislation on which the Presbyterian General Assembly has taken action?* The Northern Baptist representative’s duties consist of “talking with Congressmen and officials to present the Baptist conscience, arranging for visitors to meet their representatives and express their views, keeping watch upon the acts and trends of government, and reporting back to denominational agencies and groups?*

The Washington office of the National Lutheran Council says its purpose is that of public relations. Robert Van Deusen, the council’s secretary, says: “A two-way flow of information is considered desirable, but no pressure is to be brought on individual congressmen in favor of specific pieces of legislation?’ Additionally, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Brethren, Mennonite and Christian denominations are reported to have part-time representatives but with less activity in connection with legislation.

What do people think of religious organizations’ trying to persuade the government to take a particular course regarding such political subjects as trade agreements, income tax, the United Nations and the Bretton Woods monetary conference? It is safe to say that many people know nothing about it A Catholic Digest survey revealed that 72 per cent of the Catholics and 69 per cent of the Protestants think it is never right for clergymen to discuss political candidates or issues from their pulpits. If they are not to discuss them in their pulpits, then should they take sides on them in Washington?

Catholic Lobbying

The Catholic Church “Never Interferes in Matters of Political Nature,” declared Our Sunday Visitor to its Catholic readers, September 16, 1945. “Those editors who are ever charging the Catholic Hierarchy with meddling or interference with politics?* it said, “are careful never to publish statements of the Hierarchy which prove the very contrary.” However, one’s actions speak at least as loud as his words, and the Catholic Church is no more free from political meddling than are the Protestant religions. Its political position is well understood in Spain where the Catholic concordat is a legal agreement with the state. It has come to public attention in England, where a London Catholic Herald headline said: “Priest Has Right to Advise on Use of Vote—Says the Pope?'

Church activity in politics is also a prominent matter in the United States, as informed Catholics know. Numerous agencies are at work in Washington, from time to time making formal recommendations to the government, and representing Catholic interests before administrative agencies. Dr. Ebersole discusses some of these on pages 50-54 and 106-113 of his book Church Lobbying, This lobbying, of course, is in addition to the numerous devout Catholics in government who would respect and support their church’s views on major issues, which views are widely publicized through Catholic agencies, through local churches and through the statements of Catholic leaders that are published.

It is also in addition to what the Christian Century called the “strong influence on American foreign policy of the professors of Georgetown and Catholic universities/* and “the close liason the Catholics maintain with congressmen through certain priests in Washington.” Ebersole says Catholic power “derives from long, continuous and intimate acquaintance with legislation and lawmakers; from the loyalty of some Catholic government officials; and from an active interest in the administration of the law.”

Thus, there is no question that both actions and admissions show that high Catholic organizations, as well as the Protestant groups, can be charged with “meddling or interference with politics” despite Our Sunday Visitor's declaration to the contrary.

Catholic lobbying for such things as tax sunnort for religious activities, for religious hospitals and religious schools, and to gain political representation for their religion through an ambassador to the Vaticant prompted the establishment of another political organization, Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, organized specifically to oppose these efforts.

Thus, on both sides of the religious fence there is abundant lobbying, and the religious organizations exercise a far greater influence than many people realize. Should the religions do this? No! As the preceding article shows, religion’s duty is to preach the truth, to teach right morals and pure worship, and to show the people how to separate from Satan’s dying old world and to side with God’s righteous new world. While the religions in general are not really doing that work today, you can have a part in it. You will thus find the greatest joy for yourself and will provide the greatest of services for others—the service that God himself set out Will you participate in this important work?

BABIES SMARTER THAN YOU THINK

C. Cameron Meredith, assistant professor of education at Northwestern University, told the Chicago Run-Times of a baby who learned to cry silently, because his parents were deaf and dumb. According to Meredith: ‘‘This baby’s parents could neither speak nor hear. It only took a few experiments for the baby to learn that if he yowled, no one paid attention to him. What did^he do? He learned to cry silently, wasting no energy but getting the same results of attention any other baby would attain by crying his lungs out?* The baby would roll his big blue eyes at his parents, screw up his face, pucker his mouth, and once in a while drop a visible tear; in short, he went through "all the gyrations of crying without making a sound.” This strategem brought swift results. "His parents were quick to look for the pin that might be sticking him, change his diapers, grab for jhe bottle, take his temperature: Do what all parents think is necessary when a baby cries, even though this youngster made no sound! And amazing, too, was the story about this particular youngster, that when people talked or made sounds in his hearing, then he would cry audibly to attract attention.” Meredith told of a hard-of-hearing boy about six years old who had "temper tantrums.” No matter what the parents would do in the emergency, the lad would show no reaction except to continue the tantrum. When asked privately why he paid no attention to his parents at the time, the lad replied simply: “I turn off my hearing aid!" Meredith concludes by saying to parents: “Don’t underestimate the Intelligence of your youngsters.*’

WHAT—a continent nearly as big as Europe and Australia combined, and yet unknown? That , is right. Most of it has never been seen by human eyes. This is Antarctica, called the ‘‘bottom of the world.” Here is a vast region of snow, ice and penguins. Here are some 6,000,000 square miles so unknown that most maps still show it in hazy, general outline. Here is a continent with 14,000 miles of coast line, most of which has never been sailed. Here is a continent where summer, as most of us know it, never comes* Yet a summer of a sort does come to Antarctica during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter, bringing 24-hour-a-day sunshine and brief, spongy softening of coastal pack ice. It is during this cold, flowerless summer that valiant men arrive by ship to probe the mysteries and oddities of the unknown continent.

Thus it was that the United States naval icebreaker, the 6,500-ton Atka, steamed into Antarctic waters last January to probe the continent’s inhospitable coast line. This was hot a military voyage. The Atka’s objective was to search out locations where bases could be established for a large-scale research project. In fact, the Atka’s probe into the unknown was only a part of the world-wide activity being carried on in preparation

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for the International Geophysical Year 1957-58. Some forty nations plan to conduct co-ordinated studies in this gigantic undertaking. To prepare for the United States’ part of that program was the Atka’s task. Surprise, enchantment, disaster and innumerable oddities lay in the pathway of the Atka’s journey.

An Inhospitable Pacific Const

Toward the Ross Sea steamed the Atka. First port of call was Little America. Here Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, during his expeditions, had set up camp near the outer edge of the Ross Shelf Ice on the Bay of Whales. A dismaying surprise greeted the Atka: the Bay of Whales had vanished. The harbor had disappeared. It had disintegrated. Hundreds of square miles of Ross Shelf Ice had broken off, and much of the unoccupied Byrd camp had been carried out to sea. Only a fuel drum, buried in a sheer 100-foot diff of ice, was found to mark Byrd's 1947 camp. Seventy-foot radio towers, erected by Byrd on a still earlier expedition, were now almost buried by snow and ice; only some seven to ten feet protruded. Little America had indeed changed.

Sailing east from Little America, the Atka tried to enter Sulzburger Bay. But the way was barred by a mighty river of ice called pack ice. This consists of frozen ocean broken into floes that range from a few square yards to hundreds of square miles. In its calmer moods pack ice is fantastically beautiful; when it is angry the pack can destroy a ship in a few minutes by direct crushing or by swamping it under mountains of storm-tossed ice. Before the Atka could extricate herself from the heavy floes, a submerged spear of ice lopped off one of the three blades of the ship’s thirteen-ton starboard propeller. Undaunted despite the mishap the Atka forged ahead. “When the ice was not thick enough to bring the ship to a halt,” wrote Walter Sullivan, the only correspondent aboard the ship, “the Atka forged ahead, plowing a swath sixty-five feet wide. Huge ice cubes three feet on a side twisted, ground and turned somersaults in the churning water alongside. The sound within the ship’s hull was like that of empty oil drums bouncing down a mountain.”

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At a small Indentation the Atka made a landing. This was Kainan Bay, which was found to be a possible, though not an ideal, site for a base. It was here that disaster struck. One of the ship’s helicopters, while ferrying observers onto the ice plateau, crashed, killing the pilot during a “whiteout.” This condition, one of the chief hazards of Antarctic travel, occurs when sunlight diffuses through a solid overcast. The effect is that of being in a cloud. No boundaries can be seen. Men on the ground may walk into crevasses and airplane pilots may crash because they cannot tell where the surface is.

For the next two weeks the Atka battered its way futilely at enormous fields of drift ice. It made three further attempts to enter Sulzburger Bay, after circling north of the pack. When these probings were blocked, the Atka continued eastward. It tried to break a pathway through to Mt. Siple and the Thurston Peninsula, all without success. So formidable was the ice pack that never again, after leaving Kainan Bay, was the Atka able to reach the Antarctic coast on the Pacific side.

Atlantic Coast of Antarctica

Churning its way toward the Atlantic side, the Atka rounded Palmer Peninsula, a piece of land that juts out 800 miles from the continent toward South America. The peninsula is so narrow that, even 500 miles from its top, one can see across it from its 5,000-foot plateau. It is a land of snowy mountains, glaciers and fiords.

Off Palmer Peninsula is fantastic Deception Island, Here the Atka took the ocean’s temperature, thus giving the crew a glimpse of this unusual isle. What makes Deception Island so intriguing fs what it really is—a relic of a huge volcano. The crater of the volcano has cracked open, allowing the sea to pour in. A snug harbor four miles wide is the result. The crack is large enough so that ships can sail into the harbor. Heightening the isle's weird enchantment Is the sulphurous steam that spurts around the shore line and the "black snow”—layers of volcanic ash that give the snowy slope a sooty appearance.

The Atka now steamed into the Weddell Sea, where the pack ice was especially heavy. Officials aboard the Atka believe that theirs is the first ship to battle the treacherous Weddell Sea ice pack since an earlier ship was trapped there in 1922. During the skirting of the Weddell Sea shore the Atka made a landing in a small bay. Here the crew captured some penguins for the Washington zoo. It was not very difficult capturing the birds; they can readily be approached since they do not have any natural enemies on the ice. Commenting on Antarctica’s wildlife, the New York Times correspondent, Walter Sullivan, said: "Despite its cruel climate the pack abounds with life. Seals lounging on the floes have met no enemy on the ice. They know fear only in the water. Like most creatures of the Antarctic they are so wild they are tame?’

But capturing wildlife was not the Atka’s main objective; so on the vessel steamed in search of a good landing place. On the coast of Queen Maud Land the Atka found a fair landing place, which was surveyed and named “Atka Bay/’ Farther east the Atka crew exulted on finding an excellent site, Admiral Byrd Bay. This discovery is regarded as an outstanding achievement of the expedition, since Admiral Byrd Bay is well suited to the larger expeditions planned for the near future.

Oddities and Future Propotah

A probe into the unknown was bound to bring some oddities. The Atka itself furnished one oddity: the mailing of 2,500 envelopes near Antarctica. The post office? The ocean’ For the Atka crew, using a modern version of the bottled message, tossed some 2,500 post cards sealed in transparent plastic envelopes into the ocean. The finder is asked to write down on the card where it was found and drop it into the mall. Scientists want to find out where the waters flow from the bottom of the world.

Another oddity was seen on the voyage home. This was an iceberg so enormous that it took four hours for the Atka to steam past it. It was the largest iceberg seen by the expedition, and its size was so vast that only an estimate could be made of its length: a 50-mile-long iceberg! So huge was it that the crew could hardly believe the ice was not on land. But an iceberg it was.

The very outcome of the Atka’s Journey is somewhat odd. The icebreaker steamed some 5,500 miles or about halfway round the frozen continent, and yet the ship could discover pnly four accessible harbors along the coast. Though the Atka’s major objective was to find suitable bases for future explorations, so much datum was collected in the physical sciences—study of cosmic rays, sea temperatures, depth of ice, high-altitude weather, etc., that the correspondent aboard the ship came to this conclusion: “The most valuable work done by the Atka on her cruise may prove in the long run not to have been in her discovery of good harbors and airfield sites for future operations. It may have been in the data collected from the ship's 'exploration' in the physical sciences.”

The Atka’s cruise enlightened scientists on one special objective of the research of the International Geophysical Year. That objective is to find an answer to the question: At what rate is the earth becoming warmer? The Atka found that the pack lee was strikingly farther south than had been expected from records cf previous visits. Was this just an unusual year or is the phenomenon further evidence of the warming cycle in the earth’s climate? By 1958 scientists expect to have the answer.

So there is no doubt that the Atka’s probings helped pave the way for the mammoth international program scheduled to culminate In 1957-58. A United States observation outpost at the South Pole itself is Just one of the many remarkable proposals for the near future. One of the most exciting proposals for 1957 is for a joint British-New Zealand expedition to perform an even more daring, more difficult feat than conquering Mt. Everest was, namely, to attempt to cross the whole Antarctic continent. Man has never been able to do this except by airplane. If the projects for 1957 succeed, the veil of obscurity enshrouding Antarctica may soon be lifted— and a vast continent will, at last, signify more than ice and penguins.

T HAND is a review* copy of the new book Jehovah’s Witnesses—the New World So-ctetyt published by Vantage Press of New York city. Several books and many pamphlets have been written about Jehovah's witnesses, but this one Is unusual in the fairness and objectivity of its material. It is put together in the crisp news style of a reporter by its author, Marley Cole. He has assembled authentic material by research into literature both by the Witnesses and about them, by attendance at local congregational meetings and at national and international assemblies, and especially by personal Interviews with many Witnesses themselves, some of whom are officials of the Watchtower Society.

<L The first of its ten chapters colorfully reports on the 1953 international assembly at New York’s Yankee Stadium, attended by Witnesses from ninety-six nations, and climaxed by a gathering of 165,829 persons to hear the public talk on the last day.

C A chapter showing the unorthodoxy of Jehovah's witnesses states: “You could not produce a more revolutionary religion, even if you took the sum total of all the tenets of Christendom and turned them precisely upside down. It is as if the Witnesses had hit upon the formula that religion as we know it has everything In reverse. To get true worship straightened out (you could almost accuse them of reasoning), you adopt the opposite of what you hear in church.*'

C In the chapter on the Society’s first president, Charles T< Russell, we read: * ’His writings,’ declared an enemy, 'are said to have greater newspaper circulation every week than those of any other living man; a greater, doubtless, than the combined circulation of the writings of all the priests and preachers in North America? ” His enemies were many and their bitter attacks bristled with slander and libel, but they never stemmed the flood of Bible truth from his pen that swept away falsehood and restored to their place In the minds of many the basic truths of the Bible. He was referred to by one as 'turriing the hose on hell and putting out the fire?

After his Heath Joseph F. Rutherford became president of the Society, and author Cole shows how attention was turned from creatures to focus squarely on the organization, building it up and strengthening it on a theocratic basis. Neither internal strife nor external attacks could muffle the ringing cry of those years, i4The Kingdom Is Here!” Even the imprisonment falsely of the Society’s officers, including Rutherford, was no victory for the enemy, for while in prison a new magazine was conceived, the one you are now reading, only then it was called '■’The Golden Age.” The work of witnessing to the Kingdom's establishment boomed, and during this period this society of Christians became known world-wide as Jehovah's witnesses.

C -Under Rutherford's successor, Nathan H. Knorr, the witness work took on new impetus as trained missionaries were sent into scores of countries and branches sprang up in many lands. And yet this was in the face of continuing opposition, from individuals to mobs to nations, fighting imprisonment and bans, doing the work underground for years in some nations, and waging incessant court battles in many countries for the legal right to preach. An ^enlightening interview with the Society's legal counsel, Hayden C. Covington, disclosed the magnitude of the court battles and the many victories won In the Supreme Court of the United States—so Impressive that judges and lawyers have hailed Jehovah’s witnesses as making firm the civil liberties of all citizens. C, Another interview, this one with a Society director and the superintendent of evangelists, Thomas J. Sullivan, brings out the basic doctrines, .placing first in importance the vindication of Jehovah's name, and continuing to show beliefs about salvation, the soul, Christ’s second presence since 1914, earth-wide' Kingdom preaching and the paradise conditions to come in the new world.

Many pages of fine photographs on heavy coated paper and an appendix complete this 229-page book. Perhaps the outstanding part of this appendix for the average reader will be the documentary evidence that President Eisenhower's parents were Jehovah's witnesses for more than forty years. This book is interestingly written about interesting material. You will enjoy reading it The first printing of 20,000 copies has been taken up by bookstores. A second printing, 40,000 this time, has been run.

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THEcrowningglo-ry of the plant world is the tree.

Yet how few people appreciate this marvel among plants!

Many a person who walks through a forest or park hardly gives any thought to the giant plants around him. If he does think of them, he may not think of them as things that are truly alive* Yet a tree is a living creation* It breathes.

It digests and assimilates food. It gives off waste products* It has real circulation* It rears a family as truly and beautifully as any other form of life* It has the power of adapting itself to its surroundings Ina wonderful way* Though it, of course, lacks intelligence and power of locomotion, a tree performs vital acts as truly as the body of a man. Yes, the living tree is a marvel!

What a variety there is in the tree world! Botanists have now numbered between 60,000 to 70,000 species of trees. Thes^are of all shapes, sizes and colors. You name the color; and if you cannot find it in the bark of these thousands of trees, you will find it, at some time of the year, in the leaves* As for sizes, there is a tree to measure up to everyone’s ideal. At maturity some trees are only ten feet high, with trunks as slender as six inches in circumference. If you like big trees there are species that reach as high as 350 feet and those with a trunk circumference of more than a hundred feet. In Australia the eucalyptus trees reach dizzy altitudes* One eucalyptus, located near Colac, in the province of Victoria, reaches a height of 347

N TREE

feet. For sheer tallness, though, the redwood puts in its hid for first prize* At Dyerville Flat, California, the tallest living tree in America rears its topmost boughs to a height of 364 feet. Still growing, its girth is 47 feet

Adaptability and Circulation

Truly wonderful is the growth of a tree. For the tree adapts itself to its surroundings in as marvelous a way as man adapts himself to varying conditions. If water is scarce, roots go down deeper and deeper. If nourishment is poor, the roots stretch out farther and farther, traveling backward and forward, above and below and around obstacles in their search for what will be good for the tree. As a tree grows, its roots exert a steady pressure, whose cumulative effect is truly astonishing. Thus the birch, though far from the sturdiest of trees, can lift a boulder weighing twenty tons.

If trees are crowded together, they reach higher and higher; and their branches, instead of growing outward, rise almost perpendicularly to reach the sunshine. If the situation is windy, the tree takes firmer hold of the ground with its roots* Though the tree may bend before the wind, it rarely breaks; snow and frost it can keep out;

animals and birds it can often resist; and In the tougher fight against its own relatives —such as the ivy that tries to strangle it— it puts up a good fight and sometimes wins.

The living tree has a circulation as truly as does man himself. While it does not move as fast as ours, and does not go round and round as the result of pumping by a heart, the circulation system of a tree is still a marvel, for it operates from the tiniest root hair to the most distant leaf and back again. In the giant trees that is some distance! On the upward flow the circulation goes on through the sapwood, traveling from cell to cell, from the small roots to the larger ones, then into the trunk and branches and leaves. From the leaf the circulation travels down once more through the cells of the inner bark on the way to the smallest roots, building up layers of cells all the time. And so most trees keep on growing in girth, as long as they live.

Like man each tree Is a marvelously unique individual. For no two trees, not even those of the same species, are ever alike. And for that matter, no two boards taken from the same tree Eire ever alike. Each piece of wood, with its grain and rings, is as different as human fingerprints.

"The Lunge of a Tree”

A tree breathes as surely as man does. It takes in air through its leaves, entering through tiny openings on the undersides. Once inside the leaf, the elements that make up the air are separated from one another. The carbon dioxide is used in sun-' light in the manufacture of solid substance, while the unused oxygen is given off again to the air. This process is called photosynthesis, because it is a union or synthesis of material in light. Of course the leaves need some oxygen for breathing. But although green leaves undergo normal respiration, absorbing oxygen and excreting carbon dioxide, they absorb on the average about five times as much carbon dioxide in photosynthesis as they excrete in ,respiration, and release about five times as much oxygen as they consume. Indeed, enough oxygen is produced by 180 square inches of green-leaf surface during an average summer to supply the average oxygen requirements of a mein for an entire year!

Leaves are aptly called, then, “the lungs of a tree.” What a marvel a single leaf is! And how many there can be on a single tree! A good-sized poplar may have 70,000 leaves, a birch 200,000 and an old oak, 700,000, Shapes of leaves are adapted to the conditions under which'the tree lives. Though most leaves have flat blades that expose as much surface to sunlight as possible, cone-bearing trees have needlelike leaves that offer a minimum of resistance to the high winds of cold climates. How do the needlelike leaves make up for their little surface? By their numbers! Thus an examination of a Monterey pine revealed some 8,000,000 needles. When trees have only a few leaves, they make Up for it by their size. So the leaf of a royal palm may weigh ten pounds or more, and tire leaf of a mature date palm may be twenty feet in length. One tropical species has been observed with leaves a fantastic forty feet in length!

Seeds are another marvelous feature of trees. Again there Is a wide range of variety. Some seeds are so incredibly light it takes tens of thousands to make a pound. In fact, 500,000 seeds of the Torrey pine weigh just one pound. On the heavy side, specimens of the giant double coconut from the Seychelles Islands may tip the scale at forty pounds.

How are seeds distributed? Those that are light float through the air; those of the sycamore have wings to carry them far enough from the parent tree to find sustenance in the soil. Acorns, chestnuts, cones and other heavier seeds are often planted by

forest creatures such as squirrels and jays. Even the heaviest of seeds, the coconut, lacks not a way to travel For the coconut palm often grows near the ocean beaches; some palms even lean over the water. When coconuts fall they either roll into or drop into the water. Soon they are riding waves. In time a floating coconut hits land, rolls into a spot and germinates; and barren land becomes a lovely grove of palms that offer to man their fronds for shelter, cool coconut milk as a drink and coconut meat as food.

Life Span of Trees

Almost everyone has heard about tree rings. In those trees whose annual activity is interrupted by a regular winter or dry season, rings of growth occur. These are a clue as to a tree’s age. But how do the rings develop? Because wood cells produced in the spring of the year are large, and those produced later in the year are smaller, and because an interruption of growth occurs during the winter, each year’s growth of wood appears as a distinct ring.

How long do trees live? Long! Sugar maples frequently live as long as 500 years. Some oaks live as long as 1,500 years and some junipers as long as 2,000 years. Some of the giant trees in Sequoia National Park, California, are so old that they were nodding their lofty boughs when Jesus walked the earth. Many of the sequoias are over 2,000 years old. The General Sherman tree is estimated to be between 3,000 and 4,000 years old. John Muir, who examined a huge sequoia much damaged by fire, reported over 4,000 growth rings.

How long, then, can a giant tree live? Man does not know, since the giant trees appear not to know such a thing as "natural death.” Thus Hammond’s Nature Atlas of America sa#s: "For how many centuries or millennia our present sequoias will go on living nobody knows; their chances seem excellent as they are almost indestructible." "A recent study of giant sequoias," says Dr. Ferdinand C. Lane in The Story of Trees, “found no record that any had ever succumbed to mere old age and guessed that if the hazards of lightning, fire and storm could be eliminated, some of these great trees might defy the ravages of time for 10,000 years.”

And so, extraordinary longevity, a life span so long that man cannot .measure it, is the crowning marvel of the tree. How richly meaningful the Bible’s numerous references to trees now become, especially Jehovah’s promise of never-ending life to those worthy of living in his new world: ‘Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. As the days of a tree shall be the days of my people.’—Isaiah 65:17, 22.

*5? Usually the thief surprises the victim, but not always. At Hagerstown, Maryland, someone made off with a classy-Looking suitcase; it contained a ten-foot python snake. But it remained for a thief In Knoxville, Tennessee, to hit bottom. He grabbed a purse from Mrs. Lilly Mae Hipshire. The bag was full of diapers. Perhaps the most surprised thief for a long time was one in Modesto, California. This one made off with a station wagon but he abandoned it in hot haste. On the back seat was a local resident—recently deceased. The station wagon belonged to an undertaker.

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