Awake!, December 8, 1963
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The Problem of the Trinity
Religious Intolerance Flares Up in Mexico
Are You a Good Wife?
PAGE IO
History’s Happy Accidents
DECEMBER 8, 1963
THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL
News sources that are able to keep you awake to the vital Issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests, '‘Awake!" has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facto. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that It may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.
"Awake!” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, In scores of nations. From the four corners of the earth their uncensored, on-the-scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal's viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It Is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its coverage is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens.
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CONTENTS
On Whom Are You Working?
The Problem of the Trinity
Religious Intolerance Flares Up
in Mexico
Are You a Good Wife?
Popular Conversation Topics
History's Happy Accidents
Mahogany—the Wood for
Superb Furniture
Fascinating Hobby of Rock Collecting
Anything for a Home
Gold Drew Them to New Guinea
Putting Past-dated Magazines to Use
Ocean Garden
"Your Word Is Truth"
Samson—A Faithful Servant or an
Immoral Bully?
Watching the World
Volume XLIV
Brooklyn, N. Y., December B, 1963
Number 23
<s. m m mmst
ON WHOM are you working? Whom are you trying to improve? Yourself or the other fellow? It is one of the quirks of human nature to note the mistakes and shortcomings of another but to be blind to one’s own.
There are some persons who seem to have telescopic and microscopic vision when it comes to the faults of others but who seem to be abysmally blind to their own shortcomings. Do you have such a tendency? Or, more grievously still, have you, perhaps unconsciously, assigned to yourself the task of correcting the faults of another? For example, there is the wife who in the presence of others keeps after her husband because of slight slips of speech, dress or eating habits, yet is wholly blind to her more glaring faults of lack of tact and criticism of her husband in public. How foolish she is!
Suppose another’s frailties do annoy you. Is that a valid reason for you to try to make that one over or force him to get rid of such traits? Perhaps you have weaknesses that annoy him even more. To ‘meddle with what does not concern* one is condemned in the Scriptures as “walking disorderly,’* Concerning such a course we are admonished, “Let none of you suffer as ... a busybody in other people’s matters.”—2 Thess. 3:11; 1 Pet. 4:15.
This does not mean that one must condone religious falsehood or immoral practices or that parents are not to discipline their children. Not at all. But it does mean that something is wrong with the thinking of one who constantly harps on the minor failings of his fellowman.
Jesus Christ, by means of a hyperbole, strongly condemned those who are prone to work on the faults of others while ignoring their own: “Stop judging that you may not be judged; for with what judgment you are judging, you will be judged; and with the measure that you are measuring out, they will measure out to you. Why, then, do you look at the straw in your brother's eye, but do not consider the rafter in your own eye? Or 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.”—Matt. 7:1-5.
To work on the other’s faults while ignoring your own flies in the face of the righteous rule to do to others as you would have them do to you. More than that, it does not make sense- Why set yourself up as judge as to the degree of willfulness or carelessness represented by another’s shortcomings? Most fitting in this regard is the reproof of the apostle Paul: “Who are you to judge the house servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand” —in spite of the weaknesses that may annoy you—“for Jehovah can make him stand.”—Rom. 14:4.
Then, again, for you to take another’s failings so seriously as to keep dwelling on them in your mind, or so as to harp on them, trying to pressure that one so as to get rid of them, is most unloving. Instead of dwelling on, harping on, or advertising the faults of others, love does just the opposite: “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Yes, “love covers over even all transgressions.”—1 Pet. 4:8; Prov. 10:12.
The one to work on is yourself. That is the one you are in position to know the best, the one on whom you have the most opportunity to work; in fact, the one on whom you are obligated by God to work! His Word, the Bible, is filled with counsel for you to do just that. To mention some: “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” “Keep testing whether you are in the faith, keep proving what you yourselves are.”—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor, 13:5.
And Bible writers such as the apostle Paul practiced what they preached. As busy as he was preaching to others he did not neglect or overlook the need of working on himself: “I browbeat my body and lead it as a slave, that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.”—1 Cor. 9:27.
All such "training yourself with godly devotion as your aim ... is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come.” Those are among the more important reasons for you to be working on yourself.—1 Tim. 4:7, 8.
But there are also worthwhile though lesser benefits that come from working on yourself instead of on the other fellow. For one thing, it is much easier on your disposition, for, as a rule, you will be less irritated, annoyed, exasperated and frustrated at failing to get results if the one you are working on is yourself.
More than that, to the extent that you make progress in overcoming your weaknesses to that extent you will find yourself easier to get along with. You will also find others easier to get along with, and others will find it easier and more pleasurable to get along with you. Further, it will tend to make you more charitable about the failings of others if you keep on working hard at overcoming your own. It will make you humble, and humility is a fine though rare quality to possess. Remember, “God opposes the haughty ones, but he gives undeserved kindness to the humble ones.” —Jas. 4:6.
So, instead of noting the annoying weaknesses or mistakes of another and attempting to work on him, why not make it a point to note his good qualities and the fine things he has done? When you call to mind the faithful servants of God mentioned in his Word, you remember them for their fine qualities and the good things they have done, and you love them for these, do you not? So do likewise with those with whom you associate in your home, your place of employment or in your Christian congregation. Be wise! Note their good qualities, their fine deeds; and as for shortcomings and mistakes, keep working on your own!
F)toWle«c
INITY
WHEN you say the word “Trinity” most persons know what you mean —the religious doctrine that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are entirely equal and compose just one God.
This is the doctrine that prompts people to say: “When God came to earth,” or to call Mary “the Mother of God.”
Thousands of pages and perhaps tons of ink have been used to explain how the Father, the Son and the holy spirit could be “equal in all things, because each one is God, and they are but one and the same God.”1 Yet a religious authority adds: “No more than the child, the theologian does not understand this mystery.”3
Is this “mystery” worthy of discussion?
Indeed it is, for if we worship a trinity and that doctrine is false, our worship is vain, since it is not directed toward the true God. If God is One, and if in the face of the evidence we hold to a doctrine that says he is made up of three, we could not expect our worship to be accepted by him, since he said: “To no one else shall I give my own glory.”—Isa. 42:8.
Is there any question about whether this doctrine is true?
Indeed there is, for rather than saying that the three are “**ne, perfectly one, perfectly simple,’f:! as do people who teach the Trinity doctrine, Jesus himself said he was not identical with his Father. Jesus himself was very specific in showing that he and his Father were separate when he said: “ 'The witness of two men is true? I am one that bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness
about me.”—John 8:17,18.
Not Used in
Holy Scripture
Those words may sound quite strange to you, but the fact is that Jesus did not teach the doctrine of the Trinity, and his disciples did not imagine that he was equal with his Father. Thus The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that “in Scripture there is yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together.”4 Louis Reau, professor of medieval art at the Sorbonne, France’s leading university, says: “The dogma of the trinity is of relatively recent date. There is no reference to it in the Old Testament.” He adds: “One can even say that it is a conception foreign to primitive Christianity.”5
The Catholic Encyclopedia further says that the Greek word for “trinity” is first found, not in the days of Jesus’ Greekspeaking apostles and disciples, who had heard from Jesus about God, but “in Theophilus of Antioch about A.D. ISO.”6
It continues: “Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Ter-tullian. ... In the next century the word is in general use.” Do you find it amazing that not until the third century did this word come into general use? This was long after Christ's death, and in an epoch In which many false doctrines were finding their way into a “Christianity” that was becoming more and more paganized.
Theologians recognize this astounding lack of any reference to the Trinity doctrine in the Holy Scriptures.
How do they justify this lack of reference to the dogma they consider the “central doctrine of the Christian religion”? The French Catholic Encyclopedic Theolo-gique (Theological Encyclopedia), volume 52, book 2, column 14Q2, says this is because, when Jesus “speaks of the mystery of the most holy Trinity, he constantly assumes that this mystery was long known by the Jews and that it was a part of the sacred tradition.”
But it is impossible to believe that the Trinity was one of the “traditions of the [Jewish] synagogue,” as that encyclopedia asserts. Jews asked Jesus if he were the Messiah, or if he were Elijah the prophet, but never if he were a part of a triune God. The Jews’ strong opposition to this doctrine is widely known, and to this day they refuse to accept the Trinity doctrine and rightly cite the Bible’s true statement at Deuteronomy 6:4 that God “is ONE.” So, the much more logical conclusion is that the reason Jesus never mentioned the Trinity is not that the Jews already understood it, but that it simply was not a part of his doctrine! The false idea of a “Christian” trinity had not yet been invented, and Jesus did not teach it.
"Church Fathers” Also Silent
Not only did Jesus and his apostles and disciples say nothing about this doctrine, but neither do the earliest of the “Church fathers.” How is this shocking lack explained? The Catholic book La Trinity Chez les P&res Apostotiques (The Trinity in the Apostolic Fathers), by L. Choppin, admits, page 12, that in an effort to find early support for this doctrine one Is “reduced to looking for and grouping the passages in which the authors unite or bring together the names of the three divine persons, and those in which they speak of their attributes.” But the mere mention of the Father, the Son and the holy spirit in the same sentence no more proves that they are coequal and compose one God than does the use of the names Kennedy, Khrushchev and De Gaulle in the same sentence of a modem news report mean they compose only one ruler, or that they are entirely equal and of the same age!
This book justifies the lack of reference to the Trinity in the Holy Scriptures and during the early days of Christianity by saying that it “was not until later that the bizarre conceptions of the Gnostics and of Valentinus prompted the apologists’ replies,”
However, the belief that the Father and the Son are neither coequal nor coetemal is not so bizarre, since Jesus himself said: “The Father is greater than I am.” (John 14:28) Thus, the idea that they were not coequal came, not from heretics, but from Jesus’ own mouth—and if by any chance that idea were wrong, it should have been answered starting in the first century.
How Introduced into Christendom
Then, how did this doctrine become accepted into the “Christian religion”—into a “Christianity” that was falling away from the purity of the true worship Jesus had established, as the apostle Paul had predicted would happen?—Acts 20:29, 30.
This question is difficult to answer. RGau suggests it may have been a concession to the polytheism of the pagans, “How,” he asks, “was this dogma which should have seemed to many believers a renouncing of Hebrew monotheism [worship of just ONE God] and a return to pagan polytheism able to triumph?”
He thinks “the number three was considered sacred/’ and says: “From that many peoples, beginning with the Egyptians and the Babylonians, adored triple groups of gods.”7 As examples he cites the Capitoline trinity of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, and the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Siva and Vishnu.
The Encycl&p&die Theologique also refers to Hindu, Chinese, Greek, Druidic and Scandinavian trinities, though naturally theologians who support the Trinity doctrine contend that the “Christian” Trinity is different from these. Obviously it is not the “same” trinity as the Babylonian or Greek ones, but the question is: Was it copied from them? The answer very probably is yes.
As late as the beginning of the fourth century, numerous bishops refused to accept this doctrine. Histoire du Catholicis-me (History of Catholicism) says regarding this doctrine: “All the Eastern churches were divided and Constantine was asked to intervene?
The doctrine was firmly established by the council of Nice, which the Roman emperor Constantine called in the year 325. This council was presided over, not by a pope, but by the as yet unbaptized, and therefore still pagan, Emperor Constantine. In view of the fact that the “Greco-Roman paganism” was “basically polytheist,” it is understandable why this emperor could see no objection to that doctrine.
Problems
However, Constantine himself did not stick to it, and when he was finally baptized it was at the hands of an Arian who believed, as the Bible says, that the Father is greater than the Son!
The priest Ulfilas (311-381), who translated the Bible into Gothic and was the great converter of the Goths,9 also refused to accept the Trinity.
The impossibility of understanding this doctrine prompted new “heresies.” Then, as late as the seventeenth century, the triangle came into use to try to explain how three could be one and one could be three. But even this common illustration is wrong. The Catholic authority De Reg-non says: “The nature [of the Trinity], in its turn, does not result from the three persons, as a triangle is composed of three lines; because, once again, each person is the whole God. The Trinity, considered as substance, is no more than the Father or than the Son or than the Holy Spirit.”10
But if it were true that “each person is the whole God,” and the Trinity, “considered as substance, is no more than . . . the Son,” the conclusion would have to be that when Satan succeeded in having Jesus killed he killed the entire “Godhead.” And that is so ridiculous as to be unworthy of discussion!
Three-headed Images
If this doctrine is hard to explain in words, it is much more difficult to explain visually—where its contradictions become more evident.
Dr. Heimann, writing in the magazine UArt Chretien (Christian Art) discussed what he called this “difficult and delicate” problem. He says that by “faith” it is “possible to grasp” this doctrine, but that the painter or sculptor must choose between representing either the individuality or the unity of the three persons. He adds that the “conciliation of these two points of view ... is unrealizable for the artist?’11 This problem, he says, resumes “all the so varied history” of representations of the Trinity in religious art—a history that is indeed amazing, as we shall see.
In 1594 the book De Picturis et Imagi-nibus Sacris (Concerning Holy Pictures and Images) spoke of the entire Trinity “painted in the womb of the Virgin, or else represented by a person having three heads or three faces?’12 Does it shock you to think of the Father’s being, not in heaven, as the Scriptures say, but with Jesus in Mary’s womb, or of his being represented with three heads like a pagan god? Such false ideas were much more common than you would imagine today.
Pettazzoni wrote in the JoumaZ of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes that “a God with three faces, or three heads, held claiming that they were following the most orthodox traditions, represented the Trinity with a single face composed of three noses, three chins, three foreheads and five eyes. Balarmin cites other artists who dared to imagine and draw the Trinity as one man with three faces, or with two heads having a dove between them: which, he adds, had served Hungarian ministers as a pretext to declame against the Trinity, which sprang, according to them, from the threefaced Cerberus, Ger yon, Janus and other idols of antiquity.”
an important position in the religion of the Celts of Gaul.” First- to third-century images of it have been found throughout Belgium and France. Similar images were used “in the ancient Balkan world,” and “in the pagan religion of the Baltic Slavs.” He points out that the existence of such images “from one end to the other of barbarian Europe is of importance also in relation to the genesis of the three-headed image of the Christian Trinity.”13
Reau adds that the first three-headed images of the
Pillar from Rheimt r«pr renting three-headod god
Such images were quite common before the Reformation, when Protestant criticism led the Council of Trent to forbid them, on December 3, 4, 1563. Then in 1628 Pope Urban VEH formally forbade this theme, qualified as heretic, and had such images burned. This explains their rarity today.
Trinity in Mary's Womb
As to the far more shocking paintings of the Trinity in the womb of the virgin Mary, Yrjo Him, professor of Aesthetic and Modern Literature at the Universi-
Trinity seem to have appeared in France, and may have come from “local preChristian traditions,” since the worship of three-faced or three-headed “Celtic gods was very widespread in Gaul and a threefaced Mercury is often represented on Gallo-Roman altars.”14
That these reports of the excesses to which the trinity doctrine has led are not exaggerated is evident from the Catholic Encyclop&iie ThMogique (volume 15, columns 1139, 1140), which says: “The Father Interian of Ajala, in his Pictor Chris-tianus Eruditus, mentions the painters who, ty of Finland, explained that sometimes “the whole Trinity has been represented in the Virgin's womb, in illustration of the hymns in which Mary is invoked as ftotius trinitatis . . . nobile triclinium' [of the whole trinity . . . noble three-sided tablecouch].”16
This modern writer speaks of “that period of the Virgin’s life when God had his abode in her body”—which the inspired Scriptures never say. They say Jesus was the Son of God. Hirn adds: “The child that was conceived in Mary’s womb was the very God of whom it was said (I Kings viii 27) that ‘the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee? ”16 That, too, is not what the Scriptures say. They say, very differently, that the child conceived in Mary's womb was the Son of the very God whom “the heaven of heavens cannot contain.”
The Simple Biblical Doctrine
How much better it is to accept the words of that GOD who, according to the Roman Catholic Dou-ay Version of the Bible, said at the time of Jesus' baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”—Matt.
3:17.
How much confusion, how many “heresies,” how many images based on pagan examples would have been eliminated had men who claimed to be Christians held to the truth Christ himself taught when he said: “The Father is greater than I am.” —John 14:28.
The Sacred Scriptures are clear when they say, not that Jesus was a 'coeternal* or ever-existing part of God, but that he is “the first-born of all creation,” the first one God created.—Col. 1:15.
They are impossible to misunderstand when they say, not that Christ is “equal in all things” with his Father, but that “the head of the Christ is God.”—1 Cor. 11:3.
They are equally specific when they say, not that Jesus and his Father compose “one and the same God,” but that Jesus is in the second position, at “the right hand of God.”—Acts 2:33.
They are unequivocal when they say, not that Jesus was ‘the supreme God made man? but that he was the servant whom GOD glorified: “The God of our forefathers, has glorified his Servant, Jesus.” —Acts 3:13.
ARTICLES IN THE NEXT ISSUE
• When the wicked Prosper, Does God Care?
• The Use and Abuse of Television.
• Winged Creatures with a Role to Play.
• Anthem Case Decided
in Favor of Freedom.
Thus, according to the inspired Scriptures, Jesus is not a part of the Supreme God, but is God’s “only-begotten Son,” the first of God’s creation, and the highest in the universe next only to Him.—John 3:16.
With these Scriptural facts a liturgical prayer Dupin cites as having been “in force at the epoch of Saint Clement” agrees, namely: “That all the peoples should know that you are the only God, that Jesus Christ is your servant, and that we are your people and the sheep of your pasture?’17
The Bible itself is plain on this matter. It does not teach a trinity. So, the person who wants his worship to be directed toward the true God, and accepted by Him, must reject the idea that the Father, the Son and the holy spirit are coequal, coeternal and compose one and the same God. He must come to know Jehovah, the only true God, and the one whom he sent forth, his Son Jesus Christ.—John 17:3; Ps. 83:18.
REFERENCES
Etudes de Thdologie Positive sur la Sainte Trinity by Th. de Regnon, S. J,, Parts, 1892. First series, page 53.
2 Sarne.
Same.
i The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15, page 47.
a Iconoyraphie de PArt Ohrtftien, by Louis Reau, volume 2. book 1, page 14,
$ The Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15, page 47.
t Iconographie, volume 2, book 1, page 15.
& Histoire du Gatholiciame, by J, B. Duroselle, Paris, 1949, page 18.
o Same, pages 19, 20.
io etudes, first series, page 54,
ii L’Art Chrdtien, Paris, October, 1934, pages 37, 38.
12 Pe Pictures et Imaginibus Sacris, by Jean Ver Meulen, edition of 1594, page 245.
rs Journal of the Warbwrg and Gourtauld Institutes, London, 1946, pages 135, 136.
14 Iconographie, volume 2, book 1, page 21,
is The Sacred Shrine, by Yrjb Him, London, 1912, page 321.
ifj Same, page 450.
17 Revue d'Histoire et de Litt&rature Religieuxes, Paris, May-June, 1906, page 223.
H4KCSUP
~ MEX/CO
By “Awake!” correspondent in Mexico
IN THIS day and age when Pope John XXIII is widely known for advocating tolerance and brotherhood toward those outside the Roman Catholic religion, and Pope Paul VI himself is espousing a similar theme, priest-led mobs and riots that took place in Los Reyes de la Paz, Mexico, on the 4th and 5th of August, 1963, are certainly an indictment against the Roman Catholic Church as to its sincerity and its intentions of tolerance and brotherhood. Surely the Mexican government is not in sympathy with such deplorable mob action.
Since the Revolution of 1910 the Mexican government has gone all out to overcome religious intolerance within its borders. It has realized the need of granting freedom of worship and freedom of assembly to all its citizens, because for centuries these very freedoms were denied the people by governments controlled by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, with such action resulting in untold suffering and deprivation of its citizenry. But since the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and its bold application, there has been a sharp division between Church and State, bringing forth a refreshing change in the land of Mexico.
The effort of the Mexican government to educate all its people is not only noteworthy and highly commendable, but also admired by freedom-loving people the world over. The Nouedodea newspaper, August 6, 1963, said editorially: “Our representative said [in Bogota, Colombia] that Mexico wants an education for freedom; but that this freedom has also an end —justice, and that this, in turn, has as Its purpose—peace. . . . But if peace is what one wishes, there has to be education toward that end, toward peaceful aspiration; and if you want to educate for peace, one has to take into consideration that peace has no sense whatsoever without carrying out justice, and that justice, to be human and social, has to be built on freedom.”
These words are well spoken and the goal is a worthy one indeed. But vigilance is the price of freedom, not simply professions and declarations. A nation and particularly its rulers must stand guard against any element that might raise itself against its lofty principles.
Many are wondering if the nation’s age-old enemy has not reappeared on the scene and is once again asserting its oppressive hand. Cause for concern is growing, and for good reason.
In the large cities of Mexico, as in other democratic nations and cities of the world where Protestantism is predominant, the Roman Catholic attitude appears to be one of tolerance and brotherhood. In fact, in some places Catholics have been told to treat Jehovah’s witnesses kindly. “We have to try to save these lost souls,” a young Catholic girl was told. But in isolated places, away from the spotlight of the world and where Catholicism is the predominant religion, the picture is considerably different. Roman Catholic priests stir up mobs against the very Witnesses they are told elsewhere to save. Just a few months ago an incident of this nature took place in Mexico.
Mob Violence Erupts
On August 4 and 5, 1963, there was a vicious show of intolerance in La Paz, Mexico. The instigator and leader of this lawlessness, according to published press reports, was none other than a Roman Catholic priest. The reason given for such diabolical behavior was that the priest objected to an assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses. The gathering happened to be the Witnesses’ semiannual circuit assembly. The attendance of 1,714 was unusually high for a town with a little more than 4,000 in population. Perhaps this was what had upset the priest. But, whatever the cause, his reaction was not one of love, tolerance or brotherhood; it was not becoming a Christian, but was a course of lawlessness and violence.
Loudspeakers were attached to the walls of the Catholic church and pointed directly at the theater across the way where the assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses was being held. The purpose of these loudspeakers was to drown out the assembly program. With deafening volume musical sounds were blasted in every direction. This was followed by emotional speeches. Insults were hurled against the Witnesses. The people within the church were being whipped into an emotional frenzy. Hundreds of Catholic people, who normally are kind, calm and friendly, were now terribly excited. The speeches fulfilled their purpose. The people rushed out of the church grabbing sticks, stones and clubs. The uncontrollable mob rushed at the assembled Witnesses. It was a shameful, bloody sight to witness. Over thirty of Jehovah’s witnesses were wounded. Two of their houses were stoned. Walls were torn down. And this was done in the name of Christianity.
An appeal was made to the local police and the mayor to help quell the mob. With the aid of the Federal highway police, order was restored. Legal action was suggested, that the mob ringleaders might be brought to justice. The instigators made bold endeavors to obstruct justice. The main newspapers in Mexico City, however, commendably declared themselves against such barbarism as instigated by the Roman Catholic priest.
Press Reports
The Excelsior, August 6, 1963, stated: "The parish priest of Los Reyes, Jestis Meza, pointed out by the judicial authorities as the promoter of the riots, fled out of town in a car and escorted by hundreds of his parishioners। armed with stones, clubs and machetes. Eyewitnesses assert that when leaving the church, the priest Jestis Meza carried the tricolor flag with the Virgin of Guadalupe image. His followers shouted cheers for Mexico and Christ, the King, they added.**
What hypocrisy! What delusion! A people cheering for Mexico and Christ while actively engaged in violating constitutional rights, law and order, and flagrantly breaking every basic principle of Christianity!
The newspaper El Universal, August 6, 1963, also openly and boldly identified the instigator of this diabolical mob action. It said:
"Several hundreds of excited Catholics egged on by the priest of this town [Los Reyes, Mexico], Jesus Meza, were on the verge of lynching the members of some forty families who belong to the civil association called * Jehovah’s Witnesses? ”
Both the United Press International and the Associated Press circulated reports of this shameful deed far and wide. They told of soldiers patrolling Los Reyes, of Catholics stoning people engaged in peaceable assembly, of the local priest heading groups armed with stones and machetes. The Houston Post; August 8, 1963, in the United States, stated that 'about 1,500 Catholics were summoned by the tolling of their church’s bell/ that “the Catholics stormed the village jail and freed a youth who had been arrested earlier for throwing a stone at one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.” The Novedades, August 6, 1963, reported:
“The father Jesds Meza predisposed his believers, and on Sunday, after midday, openly harangued them telling them that Protestants are God’s enemies, and induced them to perpetrate violent acts.”
Now, do any of these acts sound Christian to you? Is this the conduct of a man of God? Is this what the Vatican, through Pope John XXIII and now through Pope Paul VI, calls tolerance and brotherhood? Certainly this represents a shameful expose of the intentions of the Roman Catholic Church. If this bloody mob action is not the wish of the Vatican, then let the Catholic Church discipline her priestly representative and print an apology for his shameful conduct
Witnesses Take Note
Jehovah’s witnesses are not going to seek revenge. They are well known earthwide for their good conduct and Christian integrity. However, such undisciplined actions of mobsters bring to their remembrance the words of Jesus, who said: “I have spoken these things to you that you may not be stumbled. Men will expel you from the synagogue. In fact, the hour is coming when everyone that kills you will imagine he has rendered a sacred service to God. But they will do these things because they have not come to know either the Father or me. Nevertheless, I have spoken these things to you that, when the hour for them arrives, you may remember I told them to you.”—John 16:1-4.
Even though Christians are forewarned about the very things experienced in Los Reyes, still what can be said about these Catholic mobsters? Are they Christian? Note again what Jesus said: “They will do these things because they have not come to know either the Father or me.” This is their tragedy. The priest and the people who engaged in this violence have not come to know the true God or his Son Jesus Christ. For had they come to know the true God and his Son they would have known that he is a God of love, and that they are under command to imitate him by loving not only their neighbors but those they may view as their enemies as well. (Matt. 5:43-48) Despite their claims, their conduct shows them to be unchristian.—Matt. 7:15-20.
Whatever precipitated the priest-inspired violence, the Roman Catholic Church stands condemned by it, because it was her priestly representative that initiated it. The Catholic Church also stands exposed before the Mexican citizenry and the world as being lawless and a promoter of mob violence- This, of course, is not something new. Her history in Mexico and elsewhere well establishes this fact. And it is this record of lawlessness and disregard for the teachings of the Word of God that causes many to forsake her, that they might share in worship that is acceptable to God.
HOW blessed is the man that has a good wife! ‘Tn her the heart of her owner has put trust, and there is no gain lacking. She has rewarded him with good, and not bad, all the days of her life.” Such a wife looks out for the interests of her husband and family, and finds delight in doing so. She is therefore a chief contributor to their contentment and happiness.—Prov, 31:11, 12,
Today, however, happiness in the family circle has become a rarity. Often husbands and wives will not speak with each other, and when they do it is only to argue. What is the trouble? How can a wife cause her husband to be delighted with her, so that he speeds home to be with her in the evening?
This can be accomplished only if the wife recognizes her proper place in the marital arrangement, and then holds to it. But there are so many opinions relative to woman’s place and what constitutes a good wife. Which views are correct? In some countries not many years ago women began a movement to obtain equal footing with men. The adage ‘Marriage is a fiftyfifty proposition’ was expounded, and still is. The competition that has developed between the sexes was aptly illustrated in the stage play “Annie Get Your Gun,” in which Annie said to Frank: “Anything you can do, I can do better, I can do anything better than you.”
But will a good wife endeavor to prove she can do things as well as her husband?
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by shin-
Will she shade him
When family who the fl
ing herself? it comes to decisions, should have
nal say? Is marriage a fifty-fifty proposition where each one has equal voice? For a wife really to be happy and to make her husband happy she
must identify the place that woman was originally meant to have in the marital arrangement, and stick to it.
God’s Arrangement
Women did not evolve from the lower animals, finally to reach the point where they could mate with men, who, evolutionists say, happened to reach the human state at about the same time. No, but God created both sexes, male and female, as Jesus Christ himself testified: “He who created them from the beginning made them male and female.” Marriage is therefore an arrangement provided for by God, and so a good wife will be happy to conform to the place that God assigned to her. —Matt. 19:4.
One of Jesus’ apostles took particular note of the order in which God created humans—man first, woman second. (1 Tim. 2:13) But why? After creating man, what was the purpose for creating woman? "It is not good for the man to continue by himself/’ God explained. Therefore, he said, “I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.” Ah, woman was1 made as man’s helper or assistant., In recognition of this truth the Christian apostle Paul said: "Man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man.”—Gen. 2:18; 1 Cor. * 11:9.
God gave the first man a big assignment, settling him "in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it” (Gen. 2: 15) So, to assist him in carrying out this assignment, God lovingly provided man with "a helper.” As man’s helper, his wife was not to be his boss or commander. Rather, she was to get instructions from and work with the one for whom God had created her as a helpmate, being subject to him. "Let wives be in subjection to their husbands,” the Bible says, for "the bead of a woman is the man.”—Eph. 5: 22; 1 Cor. 11:3.
But, on the other hand, she was not made to be man’s slave or hired hand; no, she was made “as a complement of him.” A complement is something that matches one, something that looks or goes suitably and properly with one, making a nice completeness. God made woman as a satisfying match for man to assist him in carrying out the God-given instructions to populate and care for the earth. Therefore His Word counsels husbands "to be loving their wives as their own bodies . . . for no man ever hated his own flesh; but he feeds and cherishes it”—Eph. 5:28, 29.
Happiness by Subjection
Since man is to take care of and provide for his wife, he was created with a paternal, protective instinct. He was made with a more active, aggressive spirit; while woman’s is passive. The two sexes were thus designed by God to provide two necessary factors for reproduction. This in no way means that one is inferior in nature to the other, but simply that each has a different role to play, which they are inherently equipped by God to fulfill.
So when women, in their movement for equal lights, began to compete with men to prove they could do things as well as men could, they were not playing their proper role of subjection. Many American women still try to usurp man’s position, as a feature article on women, in the February 18,1961, Saturday Evening Post, noted: "The American woman tends to regard being a woman as something to be overcome, something to be compensated for. She strives to stand on an equal footing with the men, to discharge her responsibilities in as competent a manner as a man would.”
Instead of this leading to her happiness, it has resulted in what Dr. Marynia Farnham, a foremost woman psychiatrist, called a “wave of neurosis that has turned our age into the unhappiest in history.” By failing to play their role of subjection, women fail to find happiness even in the intimate aspects of married life. This was observed by the best seller Modern Woman, the Lost Sex, coauthored by Dr. Farnham: "Challenging men on every hand, refusing any longer to play even a relatively submissive role, multitudes of women found their capacity for sexual gratification dwindling as their feelings of love gave way to hostility.”
Unhappiness is certain to be in store for wives who do not submit to God’s arrangement. "You wives, be in subjection to your husbands,” his Word says. It is obvious that one of the parties to the marriage union needs to be vested with the authority for making decisions and directing family affairs. And if a woman is honest with herself she will admit that she is not designed for this role, but that her husband is. To recognize this fact is the first step toward being a good wife. It will lead not only to her own happiness, but that of her husband as well.—Col. 3:18.
Subjection in Practice
This principle of subjection applies in many relationships in life, and how pleasant things are when it is adhered to! For example, a ship has a captain, and a ball team has a manager. Now, a sailor does not dictate to the captain how to run the ship, nor does a ball player tell the manager how to run the ball club. It is true that a good captain and manager welcome and, in fact, encourage suggestions from those under their charge, but if they allow subordinates to order them around and dictate what should be done, their authority is soon undermined, and confusion and disorder result. In the same way, a marriage quickly breaks down when the wife dictates to her husband. A good wife will therefore never teU her husband what to do!
This does not mean that she can never express her opinion or let him know what she would like him to do. But instead of ordering, ‘You do the dishes tonight, while I get ready/ or, ‘Run down to the store and get some ice cream for supper/ she will by her speech show recognition of her subordinate role. True, she may order her children to do such things, but her husband is not a child. He is her head.
So, instead of telling him what to do, she might let him know that doing the dishes may make her late, or, that it would be nice to have some ice cream for supper. In this way her husband can decide; he knows his wife’s wish and undoubtedly will be happy to comply with it, especially because of the way she made it known. But even if he does not, will not the meal be much more pleasant without the ice cream, than eating it with a husband that is resentful for having been told by his wife what to do?
It is important that a wife remember that her role is that of “helper” to her husband, not the other way around. A wife that continually has things for her husband to do when he comes home is not a pleasant wife to return to in the evening. But how often it is that way today! “Less and less is modern woman passive, the creator of quiet,” noted psychiatrist Florida Scott-Maxwell, “and it is often he who helps her, instead of the old way when she helped and rested him/’
So, rather than be so wrapped up in her own plans, wants and desires, a good wife will keep tuned to her husband’s direction in matters, seeking to please him. This will cause her husband to feel like a man, and he will act like one. Such submissive conduct of a wife will do away with the problem Dr. Rebecca Liswood, executive director of the Marriage Counseling Service of Greater New York, described: “Many of my clients complain of the weakness and irresolution of their husbands,” she said. “They fail to realize that their own aggressive tactics, their determination to get what they want at any cost, may win the temporary skirmish but lose the final victory.”
A good wife will therefore put her husband's pleasure and wishes before her own. She will observe his likes. Does he prefer that she wear certain clothes, or fix her hair in a particular way? Then she will comply with his wish. Wives in northern Africa, Afghanistan and other Moslem territories show their submissiveness by still wearing a burka if it pleases their husbands, even though the custom of wearing these confining garments that cover them from head to foot is rapidly dying out.
Perhaps there are certain things that her husband especially dislikes. Maybe her consistent tardiness is irksome, or he feels that she talks too much when both are in company with others. A good wife will then make conscientious effort to please her husband by endeavoring to correct these things that are offensive.
But just because a wife is in subjection to her husband does not mean she cannot show initiative and originality. Just as a keen consultant is indispensable to a business executive, so a good wife can be to her husband. However, instead of bragging about her wonderful ideas and trying to push them through, she tactfully brings them to the attention of her husband for his decision. What a help she can thereby be to him! Such “a capable wife is a crown to her owner,” the Bible proverb says. A wise husband will do well to encourage and cultivate her initiative and originality. —Prov. 12:4.
When her encouragement or suggestions help her husband and enlarge his image in the estimation of others, a good wife is not jealous because she may not receive recognition. Rather, she rejoices in his accomplishments, as psychiatrist Helene Deutsch explained: “If she is gifted in any direction, she retains the capacity for being original and productive without entering into competitive struggles. Such highly feminine women rejoice in the achievements of their male companions, which they have often inspired. ... Envy is alien to them.”
Practice It
Some wives, however, object that their husbands make no effort to take the lead, and that someone has to go ahead and make the decisions and direct the household. But could it be that their lack of initiative is due to resentfulness? When the wife runs ahead of her husband, telling him what to do and making decisions without obtaining his approval, the reaction of many husbands is, If she wants to run the show, then let her go ahead and do it.’ As a result of failing to follow God’s arrangement, neither party is happy.
It is true that some husbands are not alive to their responsibilities as husbands. They may be slower mentally than their wives, and not used to making decisions and shouldering responsibility. What will a good wife do in that case? Take over his husbandly role? By no means! More than ever she will keep in mind her role of subjection, helping her husband by tactfully suggesting and recommending, but always letting him make the final decisions, She will especially be careful not to be telling him what to do.
What happiness has resulted when wives have followed this Scriptural arrangement! Do not say that it will not work in your home. Put it into practice. See if improved relations are not forthcoming. The conduct of a good wife is bound to be pleasing to her husband; but of even greater importance, it will win the smile of approval from Almighty God, Jehovah.
'Topic*
♦ Studies have discovered that the most common topics of conversation with women include men, cZofftes or decoration; the most popular topics for talk among men include business, sports or monej/.
While working on his harmonic telegraph (a device he was design-
DID you know that some of the great discoveries of science were happy accidents? Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani, for example, 'accidentally discovered that a frog’s leg twitched when touched with an electrically charged scalpel. In this curiously indirect fashion was discovered the electric current.
Though Galvani had the scientific imagination not to disregard what he had seen, it was the physicist Alessandro Volta who followed up the observation, leading to his invention in 1800 of the voltaic battery.
Another accidental discovery relates to the invention of vulcanized rubber. Charles Goodyear, an American, worked for seven years endeavoring to overcome the summer stickiness of rubber and the winter’s tendency to make it hard and brittle. Year after year the answer eluded him, but with great tenacity he continued his experiments. Finally, one day in 1839, he happened to drop a piece of rubber mixed with sulphur on a hot stove; it charred like leather rather than melting like pure rubber. Vulcanization was born—the adding of heat and sulphur to raw rubber, making it one of the most useful materials to man.
Telephone and Phonograph
The life of Alexander Graham Bell has often been dramatized, highlighting the moment in which he accidentally discovered the basis for the telephone.
ing for the purpose of sending many different messages over one telegraph wire), Bell and his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, inadvertently stumbled upon the principle of the telephone. Bell was in one room with the receiver, and Watson was operating the sender in another room, when a contact on one of the senders got stuck. Endeavoring to loosen it, Watson plucked the vibrator with his finger. Bell came running in, shouting excitedly that he had heard a musical note on the receiver. Watson later explainod it this way *.
“Suddenly I heard a shout from Bell in the next room, and then out he came with a rush, demanding, ‘What did you do? Don't change anything. Let me see’’ I showed him. It was very simple. The make-and-break points of the transmitter spring I was trying to start had become welded together, so that when I snapped the spring the circuit remained unbroken while that spring of magnetized steel, by its vibration over the pole of its magnet, was generating ... a current of electricity that varied in density within hearing distance of that spring/’
A musical sound had gone over a wire, and after forty weeks of hard work, Bell had a working model of the telephone ready, thanks to an accidental happening and Bell’s ability to appreciate its significance.
The automatic or dial telephone also had its beginning somewhat by chance. Almon B. Strowger, an American who was an undertaker in Kansas City, had no engineering experience, but he suspected a telephone operator of being in collusion with an undertaker competitor. He suspected she was reporting his line “busy" when it was not and then turning his prospective customers over to his competitor. Incensed, Strowger spent his free time devising a “girl-less" switchboard, using a collar box, pins and a lead pencil. The intricate automatic switching system of today developed from such an unusual beginning.
Then there is Thomas Edison, who used electricity to light up the world. One day he was experimenting with a telegraph repeater. Edison observed that it gave forth curious speechlike sounds when its disks revolved rapidly. From this his mind conceived the idea for the phonograph. After experiments, a sketch was made and work began on the device. When it was completed, at a cost of $18, Edison turned the handle and shouted at the device: “Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow!” Putting the device back in the starting position, he turned the crank and the phonograph’s first words were: “Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow."
Discoveries in Europe
In the Dutch city of Middleburg, in 1608, there dwelt a spectacle maker named Hans Lippershey. One day, after he had finished grinding two lenses, he began his usual investigation for flaws in his work by holding one lens up to the light that was streaming in from the far window of his shop. From this vantage point he could see the distant church and its tall spire. But when he picked up the second lens to inspect it, the church spire seemed to jump toward him, and he could see the weathercock perched upon it quite clearly. He stared in disbelief and amazement. What had happened?
Lippershey found that the first lens happened to be in the line of vision between the spire and the lens he was holding in his hands. He realized that by chance he had stumbled upon a great discovery. Noticing that one lens was concave and the other convex, he made a rough tube and inserted at each end a lens of a different type. This could have been the first telescope, although others claimed they had independently discovered the instrument, so that Lippershey was denied a patent. News of Lippershey’s discovery spread rapidly and reached the Italian scientist Galileo, who devised a telescope that made objects seem thirty times nearer and a thousand times larger.
About a hundred and twenty years after Galileo’s time, James Hargreaves, an unemployed weaver in England, was about to revolutionize the spinning industry, Hargreaves was sitting in his home watching his wife spinning some yarn. Momentarily she stopped and her daughter, Jenny, upset the spinning wheel. Hargreaves noticed that the wheel continued to revolve and the spindle continued to wind the spun thread; he conceived the idea of building a frame with eight or more spindles. This allowed for one person to turn the wheel and spin eight or more threads at a time. He called it “the spinning jenny," after his daughter. Later improvements by others made it possible to spin 120 threads as easily as one.
X Rays and Radioactivity
In 1895 Dr. Wilhelm Roentgen, the German physicist, was working in his laboratory at the Royal University of WUrzburg. As he had done countless times before, Roentgen flipped his key onto the top of his desk and hurried to work on an experiment he was conducting on a primitive vacuum tube called the Crookes tube. At the time, Roentgen was experimenting with the conductivity of rare gases in a tube almost exhausted of air through which ran a powerful electric current.
As darkness fell, he noticed a weird, bluish glow emanating from the glass wall of the tube. He was puzzled and decided to take a picture of it. Going to his desk (upon which his key was lying), he reached into the drawer and removed a photographic plate and took the picture with it. The next day when Roentgen developed the film he found the image of his key on it. The weird, new light had passed through the wooden top of his desk and imprinted the key upon the photographic plate inside the drawer. Roentgen called his discovery the “X ray” because, while acting somewhat like light, it displayed characteristics that could not be explained.
After Roentgen’s remarkable discovery, a French contemporary of his, Antoine Henri Becquerel, began to work with various metals to see if they, too, might show Roentgen radiations when made fluorescent. One of the compounds with which he was working was uranium. Quite by accident, he left a portion of it resting for a few weeks in a darkroom next to a photographic plate that was covered. Upon resuming his experiments, Becquerel developed the plate and found upon it a smear of light. It made him curious and he looked for a possible source of light in the darkroom. He finally came to the conclusion that the origin of the light had to be the uranium.
To check his judgment, Becquerel placed a coin between the uranium and another photographic plate and developed it. Sure enough, there in the picture was the dark outline of the coin and the light smear. He found out that the rays differed from X rays in being deflected by electric or magnetic fields. Becquerel had, by chance, discovered radioactivity. But it was Marie Curie, a pupil of his, who, along with her husband Pierre, first separated from uranium the new element to be called “radium.”
Some years before that discovery, Professor Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish physicist and chemist, was lecturing to students in his class at Copenhagen University. Inadvertently he placed an electric wire near a compass needle. To his astonishment, the needle began to swing about. He had discovered the relationship between magnetism and electricity, thus paving the way for the dynamo, the motor, the telegraph and the telephone.
When we contemplate the many wonders of science coming out of history’s happy accidents, we should be thankful to the Creator, Jehovah God, who gave man the intelligence with which to understand some of the principles upon which the vast universe operates. Then we will not forget to praise the Master Scientist, of whom the psalmist wrote: “His understanding is beyond recounting.”—Ps. 147:5.
tf "Awaktl" carraifgandtnt In BrftL*ki Honduras
F AMED for its beauty, mahogany is highly prized for making fine furniture.
But not everything called “mahogany” and that is dark red in color is actually made from this excellent wood. There are many imitations, some of which are difficult to detect because of the practice of staining mahogany a dark-red color. It is not a red wood, but might be described as being of a sherry or amber color. To avoid imitations, rely upon the texture of the wood, not its color.
Any piece of furniture that is being sold as mahogany but which is finished so dark that the grain of the wood is not readily discernible more likely than not is an imitation. Mahogany has a distinctive texture that you can spot if you look closely. Its pores show clearly as fine pen lines, dashes or dots. Imitations such as birch, gum or willow have pores that are indistinct or undiscernible. Tropical woods that often are used to substitute for mahogany are less easily detected. They usually are from the Dipterocarpaceae family, which has larger pores than those in mahogany, and the grains of which are much longer and coarser. Also, the dark glistening deposits found In all mahogany are absent from them.
Mahogany is not a rare wood, but it is difficult to lumber because the trees are scattered among other trees in thick woodland. An average of about two trees to an acre is considered good. The better trees appear to grow where surrounding trees are the thickest and competition for sunlight is keenest.
Lumbering operations for mahogany trees are similar to those used for other timber in the tropics. A trail is cut through the jungle to each tree. When the tree is cut down, the log is pulled along the trail by tractors to the bank of a diy creek or river. There the logs accumulate until the creek or river becomes flooded. The logs are then shoved into the water and floated away while the water remains high.
There are three types of mahogany that are unanimously recognized by authorities on woods. All three belong to what is known as the Meliaceae family. They are the West Indian mahogany that grows in Cuba, Santo Domingo and Haiti; the American mahogany that grows in Mexico, Central America and South America, and the West African mahogany that flourishes on the west coast of Africa. The first type is regarded as the leading type for certain parts of the finest furniture because of its close grain, silky texture and extraordinarily beautiful color. It stains easily and takes a marvelous polish.
Mahogany veneers have increased greatly in popularity over the past hundred years. These are thin sheets of mahogany that are used to overlay less beautiful woods. They cover a wide range of attractive patterns and are available in large quantities. Expert cabinetmakers regard properly finished veneers as works of art. In the hands of such experts, mahogany veneers can represent high achievement in the art of woodworking. These veneers make possible a richer and more interesting effect than is possible with the solid wood. The remarkable beauty of mahogany crotch, for example, is possible only in veneers.
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