Awake!, March 8, 1965

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Should Christians Use God's Name?

PAGE 5

Understanding Mental Illness

PAGE 13

Volcanoes—Friends or Foes?

PAGE 17

Tracing That Fault in Your Car

PAGE 21

MARCH 8, 1965

THE REASON FOR THIS MAGAZINE

News sources that are able to keep you awake to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interest. "Awake!" has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It is not bound by political ties; it is unhampered by traditional creeds. This magazine keeps itself free, that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

The viewpoint of "Awake!" is not narrow, but is international. "Awake!" has its own correspondents in scores of nations. Its articles are read in many lands, in many languages, by millions of persons.

In every issue "Awakel" presents vital topics on which you should be informed. It features penetrating articles on social conditions and offers sound counsel for meeting the problems of everyday life. Current news from every continent passes in quick review. Attention is focused on activities in the fields of government and commerce about which you should know. Straightforward discussions of religious issues alert you to matters of vital concern. Customs and people in many lands, the marvels of creation, practical sciences and points of human interest are all embraced in its coverage. "Awakel" provides wholesome, instructive reading for every member of the family.

"Awake!" pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, 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 God's righteous new order in this generation.

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

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The Bible translation regularly used in "Awaken" in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 1961 edition. When other translations are used, this is clearly marked.

CONTENTS

Don't Be a Dropout! 3

Should Christians Use God's Name? 5

The Traveling Gray Whales 9

Plants and the Ceaseless Seasons 10

Understanding Mental Illness 13

Volcanoes—Friends or Foes? 17

Tracing That Fault in Your Car 21

Greetings! Just Words or What? 26

"Your Word Is Truth"

Is the Bible Contradictory? 27

Watching the World 29

DON'T BE A DROPOUT

PERHAPS you are thinking, 'That does not apply to me. Dropouts are teenagers who fail to complete their secondary or high school education.' True, but only partly so, for, according to Webster's latest unabridged dictionary, a dropout is "one who drops out before achieving his goal (as from school or a training program)." So the counsel, "Don't be a dropout!" applies to all who have set a certain goal for themselves and who may be tempted or pressured to drop out or turn aside and so not achieve it.

Being a dropout is an admission of defeat. It results in loss to the one dropping out as well as disappointment to others. That is why there has been considerable agitation in the United States in the past few years over the dropout problem. Educators point out that dropouts are less likely to find work, more likely to have to content themselves with unskilled work. And according to reports, each year some million youths drop out of school. The temptation to embark on a life of crime is also greater to the youthful dropout, for which reason the United States Secretary of Labor, Willard Wirtz, stated that the high school dropout problem "could easily develop into one of the most explosive

problems in the nation's history." And as if student dropouts were not enough to plague United States educators, we are told by a leading educational journal that "Teacher Dropouts [Are] Still a Dilemma."

The dropout is not something new; only the name is. Years ago he was called a "quitter." More than nineteen hundred years ago Jesus Christ gave an illustration stressing the undesirability of becoming a dropout: "For example, who of you that wants to build a tower does not first sit down and calculate the expense, to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, he might lay its foundation but not be able to finish it, and all the onlookers might start to ridicule him, saying, 'This man started to build but was not able to finish.'" It should be observed that such a builder not only invites the ridicule of others but loses self-respect and suffers a monetary loss because labor and materials are used without lasting results.—Luke 14: 28-30.

It might be said that today the temptation to drop out is greater than ever before. There has been a general letdown in morals and idealism since the beginning of World War I and it is getting ever worse, even as long ago foretold by the Christian writer the apostle Paul: "In the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here."

Materialism and extreme selfishness are rampant. So it is not surprising to find dropouts becoming ever more numerous, not only as regards schooling but in all walks of life.—2 Tlm. 3:1-5.

If you do not want to be a dropout, consider first the cost of what you set as your

So, in setting a goal for yourself, whether it be the accumulating of certain possessions, the acquiring of certain knowledge or skills or pursuing a way of life, first calculate the expense. Once having settled it in your mind that the goal is a worthy one, pursue it with determination, with stick-to-itiveness. Even with a hobby, do not let yourself be discouraged or turned

aside too easily;

don't be a dropout!

goal or of the obligation you assume. Many persons today are dropouts as to completing their time payments on something they bought on the installment plan. More likely than not, they did not consider carefully enough the burden of keeping up the payments or else they changed their minds about the desirability of keeping them up. Then again, they may have failed to take into consideration such unforeseen

Which God Do You Worship?

Take Care of Your Teeth.

Morals and Modern Youth.

Oracles That Awed Ancient Pagans.

Remember, almost as soon as you start doing anything worth while you will be faced with temptations or pressures to

turn you aside from your desired goal. But if you have counted the cost, show wisdom, show fortitude, keep your self-respect by pursuing your goal. It may cost you more than anticipated; it may mean practicing self-denial, perhaps undergoing hardship at times; but don't be a dropout. Today

things as sickness or unemployment. But whatever the reason, they are the losers, as also is the merchant who is obliged to repossess the item, whatever it may be.

A much more serious kind of dropout, also largely caused by failing to consider the expense, is the one who dishonestly takes advantage of personal bankruptcy laws to drop out of the obligation to pay all his debts. While there are always some cases of genuine need caused by unusual circumstances over which the victims had little control, the ever-increasing resorting

many persons start to study the Bible with one of the ministers of Jehovah because of their desire to understand it and to have their faith in God and in his Word strengthened. But then temptations to use the time for recreation or pressures because of what relatives or acquaintances think causes them to become dropouts, and that to their lasting harm. How foolish!

Certainly one who wants to be a disciple of Jesus is going to have to show foresight and perseverance, even as Jesus himself

to this provision of the law-110-percent increase in five years in the United States indicates that much of it is due to selfishness or at least a very imprudent handling of one's affairs. And here again, the one dropping out suffers loss, both in self-respect and in material things, as well as causing much loss to his creditors.

was illustrating when he spoke of the builder of a tower who was unable to complete it. Dropping out after having started out as one of his disciples means losing God's favor and everlasting life, for only "he that has endured to the end is the one that will be saved."—Matt. 24:13.

MANY modern Bible translators have hidden the fact that God's name, Jehovah, appears more than 7,000 times in the Holy Bible.

Your own Bible may not contain this name, since the men who translated it into your language may have replaced the Divine Name with either "Lord" or "Eternal." Yet God's name is a definite part of the inspired Scriptures and should not be ignored. A popular dictionary says of the name Jehovah (or of its other pronunciations: Jahve, Iahve or Yahweh); "God's own name, in the Bible."*

Men of faith in God in ancient times definitely knew this name. The writers of the inspired Psalms called Jehovah "the Most High over all the earth." Righteous King David wrote: "O Jehovah my God." The prophet Jeremiah said: "Jehovah is in truth God." Even Jesus Christ

said in prayer to his Father: "I have made your name known." Jesus taught his followers to respect the Divine Name when he taught them to pray: "Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified."—Ps. 83:18; 7:1; Jer. 10:10; John 17:26; Matt. 6:9.

Jews to whom Jesus spoke knew that God had a name. They no longer used it, out of fear of taking that name in vain, or in a worthless way, but they saw it writ- *Petit Larousse, Parks, 1869, page 1454.

ten in their Bibles. Even those of the Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew, but who read the Sacred Scriptures in Greek, saw that Divine Name written with Hebrew letters in their Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible.

In Jesus' day God's name was written with only four letters. This was because ancient Hebrew was written only with consonants. The reader added the vowel sounds from memory. The four consonants used to write the Divine Name were mī, which, reading from right to left, we would write Y-H-W-H (or, pronounced differently, J-H-V-H). Since the Jews had quit pronouncing this name, and so-called Christians followed their example, the true pronunciation was lost. Some modern translators render it Jehovah, while others prefer Jahve, Iahve or Yahweh. Even though God's

name is to a great extent ignored today, that Name exists. As Hellmut Rosin, a Protestant Doctor of Theology, writes: "Jews and Gentiles of all ages have been and will be confronted by the fact that in the [Bible's] original text the letters Y-H-W-H stand indelibly written. The confrontation with this fact is not removed from us by any translation, not even by the Greek."*

Used Long After Christ's Time

The Divine Name, which Jesus said he had made known, and which existed in the Bibles of his epoch, was not eliminated from Christian writings until long after Christ's death.

The earliest translation of the Bible into a language other than Hebrew was the Greek Septuagint, begun about 280 B.C.E., and used by Jesus' Greek-speaking apostles and disciples. So thoroughly has God's name been removed from later copies of this translation that for a long while it was believed that its translators had failed to use the name. But this was not so.

Numerous fragments of the Greek Septuagint translation have now been found that date from the second century before the Common Era to the third century of our Common Era, and which contain the Divine Name.* About the year 245, long after Christ's death, Origen published his famous Hexapla, which contained the Scriptures in Hebrew, in Hebrew written with Greek characters, and in four different Greek translations. Even at that date, more than 200 years after Christ, the Hexapla regularly used the four letters of the Divine Name.

In the late fourth century the noted Catholic Bible translator Jerome, writing about the ten names of God, said the ninth is "the tetragrammaton, which they considered . . . unspeakable, which is written with these letters, Iod, He, Vau, He. Which certain ignorant ones, because of the similarity of the characters, when they would find them in Greek books, were accustomed to pronounce Pi Pi." It is easy to see how people could mix the Greek letters IIIIII, Pi Pi, with the Hebrew letters for Jehovah,

but the fact that Jerome records this confusion shows that the Divine Name was to be found in Christian translations of the Bible long after Christ's day.

The four Hebrew letters with which the word Jehovah is written are called the "Tetragrammaton." When religious leaders no longer followed Jesus' example of making God's name known, and people no longer knew what these four letters meant, they were replaced by the Greek word "Lord." Thus, Dr. Paul E. Kahle, writing in The Cairo Geniza, says on page 222 (second edition, 1959): "It was the Christians who replaced the Tetragrammaton by kjrios [lord], when the divine name written in Hebrew letters was not understood any more."

Though Jerome recorded the fact that Hebrew letters were used for God's name in Greek-language Bibles, he did not use the Divine Name in his Latin Vulgate translation. He replaced the name Jehovah with "Lord" (Dominus) or "God." During the thousand years that his Vulgate was the dominant Bible translation in Europe, the Divine Name remained hidden from European readers and translators of the Bible. Even today translations made from Latin instead of from the original Hebrew follow Jerome's example, and substitute "Adonai," or "the Lord," for God's true name. Thus, the Roman Catholic Douay Version, for example, says at Exodus 6:3 that God spoke of "my name ADONAI," rather than correctly saying "my name Jehovah."

Significance of the Change

"God's own name" has become for many persons an "unknown name," and the True God has become an "unknown God." Your first impression may be that this statement is exaggerated, but it is not. God's name has been so thoroughly hidden that many persons are not sure who he is.

Consider, for example, the words of the Protestant clergyman Hellmut Rosin. He acknowledges that in the Bible's original text the Divine Name stands "indelibly written," that "YHWH is God!" and that: "According to the Old Testament various Names of God do not exist . . . YHWH is his name."

But he recoils at the effect that recognizing this fact will have on his opinion of who God is. Rosin says, for example: "In the Batta [Indonesian] hymn-book there is a hymn in the first stanza of which Jahowa is praised whereas in the second Jesus is glorified and in the third the Holy Spirit. Thus Jahowa seems to be the name of the Father and Jesus appears as the son of Jahowa; a strange theology which must lead to strange conceptions!"

Yet the identification of Jesus as the Son of "Jahowa," or Jehovah, is correct. It is the 'conception' found throughout the Bible. It sounds strange to Christendom's theologians, but it rings true to persons who believe what God's inspired Word really says.

Rosin continues: "Do they who recommend the transcription and transliteration of the Tetragrammaton realize with ecclesiastical significance, i.e. which consequences for liturgy, hymn-book, preaching and teaching such rendering will have? Either one takes this rendering seriously; then two Names will be preached alternately [Jehovah and Jesus] and it will be difficult to find a theological foundation for this situation—or it is only a matter of historical interest; then the Old Testament with its God Jehovah or Yahweh is isolated by anticipation from the New Testament and from the living language of the church."

However, we must take this rendering seriously. Two names are to be preached: The Father, Jehovah, and the Son, Jesus. There is, indeed, a great difficulty in finding a "theological" foundation for this, since theologians have confused what the Bible says. But the Biblical foundation for it is clear! Christendom preaches about Christ practically to the point of ignoring the Father. Yet the apostle Paul does not say Christ is God—he says the Father is!

Paul refers continually to two persons: "God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." He makes a clear distinction between God and Christ. Who does Paul say God is? At least fourteen times in thirteen different letters this inspired apostle says God is the Father!*

Do the people who take the same view Rosin does realize what effect preaching what the apostle Paul preached would have on Christendom's view of who God is? To use Rosin's words, Paul preached "two Names . . . alternately," depending on whether he was talking of the Father (God) or the Son (Christ Jesus). Early Christians, unlike Christendom today, knew that the Father is supreme. They believed Jesus' words, and Jesus himself had said: "The Father is greater than I am." —John 14:28.

Thus, Jehovah's name should not have been dropped from "the living language of the church." He is the Father of whom the Christian writers spoke. He is the One to whom Jesus referred when he said: "The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing."—John 5:19.

It would be better to change "liturgy, hymn-book, preaching and teaching," and to be in harmony with what the Bible says, than to keep these the way they are now and refuse to worship the true God in a way that is pleasing to him. If Christendom wants to be approved by Christ, from whom she has taken her name, she should start talking the way Christ did.

How did he talk? Let us consider some examples from the Gospels that are available in all of Christendom's churches.

Christ Identifies Jehovah as the Father

When Satan tried to tempt Jesus into throwing himself off the temple, as recorded in Matthew 4:1-11, he quoted Psalm 91:9-12: "He will give his angels a charge concerning you, and they will carry you on their hands, that you may at no time strike your foot against a stone." Who is the "he" who would protect Jesus? Not Jesus himself, for he was the one who was on earth and who needed protection. Rather, it was the Father, still in the heavens, who was to protect his Son. If you read Psalm 91:9-12, you will see clearly that the pronoun "he" specifically refers to Jehovah. Even Satan realized that the name "Jehovah" does not refer to a "Trinity," but to the Father, the Creator, in the heavens, who had promised to protect Jesus.

Jesus confirmed this fact. In reply to Satan's temptation he quoted Deuteronomy 6:16, which says: "You must not put Jehovah your God to the test." The one tested would not be Jesus, whom Satan wanted to throw, himself off the temple, but would be God, the Father, the one who remained in the heavens and who would protect his Son. Jesus knew that Jehovah is the Father

Further, in John 5:18 we read that the Jews "began seeking all the more to kill him, because . . . he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God." Who was this God and Father of Jesus? The Jews knew God had a name, which they would not pronounce. Today we pronounce that name "Jehovah." Jesus did not say, however, that he was this God, Jehovah, but that this God was "his own Father."

Jesus unquestionably identified Jehovah as being the Father when he quoted Isaiah

54:13: "All your sons will be persons taught by Jehovah," and added: "Everyone that has heard from the Father and has learned comes to me." Who does Isalah say will teach? Jehovah. Jesus cites this as a proof that the Father will teach. So, according to Jesus, who is Jehovah? Jesus clearly identified Jehovah as being the Father. Further, instead of saying: "I am God," Jesus, specifically said: "I am God's Son." He was not Jehovah, but was Jehovah's Son.—John 6:45; 10:36.

So the hymn is right when it identifies Jehovah as being the Father and Jesus as being his Son. And if today's religions really want to teach what Jesus taught, they will have to make drastic changes in what they teach about God.

His Name Will Be Known!

Using the Divine Name the way the Bible writers did would, indeed, have overwhelming consequences on Christendom's "liturgy, hymn-book, preaching and teaching," for it would mean that the now nameless "Father" would become identified in people's minds. Two names should be preached—the name of the Father, as well as the name of the Son. The Father's name should not be isolated from "the living language" of the true church, though it has been systematically ignored by Christendom's religions, Catholic and Protestant alike.

Whose words will you accept—Jesus' own words, or those of modern theologians? The true Christian can neither ignore the Father nor relegate him to a second position.

Jehovah will not forever remain an "unknown" God. He has begun the sanctification of his name. Already there "have come to pass the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ." Through his chosen representative, his Son Jesus Christ, Jehovah has already established a new kingdom —the kingdom for which all Christians have prayed.—Rev. 12:10.

They have prayed, as Jesus instructed: "Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified. Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth." (Matt. 6:9, 10) Note, as Jesus instructed, they have prayed for the Father's name to be sanctified. It is His kingdom for which Christians have prayed. That kingdom will vindicate his name and position as the Supreme One of the universe. His righteous will shall be accomplished on earth, bringing lasting peace and justice here, just as his righteous will has always been done in heaven.

More than a million of Jehovah's witnesses are honoring the Creator's name, doing so in 162 different languages in 194 lands throughout the earth. They visit their neighbors in their homes to talk about Jehovah's purposes. They knock at their doors to discuss what Jehovah's kingdom will mean for persons of honest heart. They call regularly on men and women

who are willing to learn what God's word, the Bible, really says about the Creator. They show people who seek righteousness how to praise Jehovah, how to receive his blessings and how to enjoy everlasting life under his righteous kingdom.

In the destruction of wickedness that will precede the establishment of righteous conditions on earth, Jehovah will protect those who sanctify his Name by conforming to his righteous standards. As wise King Solomon wrote long ago: "The name of Jehovah is a strong tower. Into it the righteous runs and is given protection." Jehovah himself said: "Is it not I, Jehovah, besides whom there is no other God; a righteous God and a Savior, there being none excepting me? Turn to me and be saved, all you at the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no one else."—Prov. 18:10; Isa. 45:21, 22.

What does Jehovah say? He says: "I am God, and there is no one else." So invoke his Name and sanctify it, for receiving His blessings means your eternal salvation.

THE TRAVELING GRAY WHALES

The Pacific gray whale is a great traveler among the myriad of God's creation that live in the oceans. During the summer the gray whales live in the Bering Sea and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean, dining heavily on small crustaceans. In the fall they all swim south. Half travel down the east coast of Asia, reaching the coasts of Korea; but tile other half take a 7,000-mile trip down the west coast of North America, to the warm lagoons off Mexico's coast. The whales swim at between 3 to 10 miles an hour, averaging about 80 miles per day. Each day on the long journey they swim about 20 hours, sleeping about four hours at night. In the warm lagoons off Baja California's west coast, calves are born in late January, the baby whales being about fifteen feet long and weighing 1,500 to 3,000 pounds at birth. It is a long swim back, but about six weeks later the whales start back to the Bering Sea. On the trip back the adult whales apparently live off their blubber, but nourishment is provided for the baby whales so they can swim right along with their mothers. The baby whales consume about 50 gallons of milk each day as they nurse.

"BRRR! What a winter! I never want to be in another!" exclaimed a British housewife, looking at the icebound

fields and snowy slopes.

"Phew! for a breath of cool air!" gasped her Australian counterpart at one and the same time.

Meanwhile, beneath the frosted crust of soil, prepared for the next season, were millions of bulbs waiting for a warmer day;

millions of tree buds in the icy air held in readiness for leaf and flower to burst forth at the given signal. And in the fields at the opposite end of the earth the fruitage of the warmth and light of the summer months was about to be gathered. Another year's cycle was over. Perhaps neither housewife realized the full importance of both heat and cold, long days and short, which the Bible says will never cease.—Gen. 8:22.

They Need the Cold

If the wish of the British housewife had been fulfilled and the autumn had led straight into spring, she would have waited in vain for many leaves to appear in springtime in all their profusion and endless variety. Unless the twigs and branches

are exposed to low temperatures for a minimum time, depending upon the species, many of the trees

greatly to the disadvantage of trees to retain theirsoft, thin leaves in winter. Winter gales would find great resistance to their passage, and even were the leaves not stripped off, causing thousands of tiny wounds through which disease spores might

enter or sap be lost, the tree itself would be more liable to be

blown down by violent winds.

Still worse, the cold dry winds would tend to dehydrate the tree, and this would be accentuated on those fine days when the soil would still remain frozen. As no more water could be taken in through the roots, the tree would suffer from drought. It is noteworthy that the great forests in the north of Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia, where there is a short growing season, are made up of evergreen conifers. Indeed, most evergreens in temperate or cool zones of the earth have tough, thick, often needle-shaped leaves, resistant to wind or snow damage and evaporation.

Jehovah God has also made provision for the many types of plants that have an annual cycle from seed to harvest. Many

By "Awake!" correspondent in the British Isles

in temperate climes will not sprout forth. This is a protection for the plants under normal conditions in winter. In lands where there is a severe temperature drop it is

of these seeds are shed in autumn and, were they to commence growth immediately, they would have to

face the winter in a very vulnerable condition. How can these seeds, without taking thought, know that the warm days of autumn, or the mild spells in midwinter are most certainly not the start of spring?

The start of investigating this problem was made at least as long ago as 1918, when Gassner discovered that by germinating the seeds of winter rye (rye ordinarily sown in late autumn and overwintered in the soil) at a temperature of 1 to 2 degrees Centigrade the time of flowering was brought forward by at least six weeks from that of the same rye germinated at higher temperatures and not subjected to a cold spell. How was the farmer to use this knowledge to get the best harvesttime? Further experiments, carried on in the Soviet Union, led to the introduction of vernalization, the hastening of the development of seeds by treating them in various ways before planting. This became a regular practice throughout Russia. It involved partially soaking the seed of the cereal to be sown and then submitting it to low temperatures. As these conditions were not hard to obtain in the Russian winter, it was not long before millions of acres were being sown with vernalized grain, winter varieties sown in the spring.

The gardener who wonders why his early-sown best seeds produced plants that "bolted," or produced flowers and seeds instead of edible roots, sowed them too early. They "caught cold," as it were, with a late frost or cold period, and were vernalized as they grew. Normally, biennial plants such as beet, celery and carrot are busy the first season producing vegetative parts only, namely, leaves and roots, but if left in the ground to overwinter will, if hardy, produce flowers and seeds the following year. If this chilling can be postponed, so can the onset of flowering—in the case of beets, indefinitely! Not all biennials are as sensitive as beets, though, in their early stages, and this is not a satisfactory explanation for the occasional onion, carrot or beer that decides to "dont" the first season anyway!

So, then, if our housewife were to lose her winters, she might well lose a lot more in addition. Moreover, if she were to have the nights Invariably as warm as the day, not only might she sleep less soundly, but she would be in the company of the tomato, which produces better if it, too, is cooler during the night.

The above holds true only for plants of temperate climates. It is not to be expected that a tropical plant such as rice would benefit from cold germination, and it does not. Presowing high-temperature treatment helps earlier flowering and better drought resistance in rice. This fits in with the climate it usually encounters.

Length of Day Makes a Difference

Besides cold and heat, other factors enter into the determination of time of flowering or fruiting of many plants. One of these should be familiar to motorists at least—lighting-up time! It is now known that the length of day is the factor that decides the time of migration of many birds. When the ratio of darkness to light in the twenty-four hours has reached the critical point, away fly the birds, as surely as if they had all been given a signal. Poultry farmers often govern the amount of darkness and light given to chicks and laying hens. This matter of day length is also the deciding factor in the case of some plants.

Not all, though. Tomato plants may prefer a cool night's sleep, but they are quite indifferent as far as flowering or fruiting goes with respect to the length of day or night, providing, of course, that they get enough light to enable them to grow. This makes it possible to grow tomatoes without recourse to artificial lighting at any time of the year under the protection of glass.

Peppers, maize and cucumbers are also unaffected by day length. But others need a day length of over twelve hours before they will begin to form flowers; for instance, beet, radish, lettuce, wheat, some varieties of barley and spinach. These are termed long-day or short-night plants.

Still others will come into flower only if the days are shorter than the nights. Chrysanthemums, some soybeans, rice and strawberries are such short-day plants. When a "winter" variety of rice plant was given short days by cutting off some of the normal sunlight hours, the time of onset of flowering was reduced from 133 to 47 days. This explains why some plants are incapable of producing flowers except at one particular time of the year. When the day length or night length is just right, the plant will flower, and this just as surely as if it could read the calendar. Some plants are so fussy about this that they will, if the seeds are germinated at the wrong time of the year, try to produce flowers even if they have not had sufficient time to grow out of the seedling stage.

Other experiments have produced decidedly odd results. A weed, common in some lands, called cocklebur, a short-day plant, will not flower under long-day conditions. However, only one short day followed by a long night will prove sufficient for the plant to commence reproduction even if the succeeding days are long ones. Odder still, if after two short days the leaves are removed, the plant will then not flower. This indicates that some slow-moving substance formed in the leaves is responsible for starting flower formation. Complicating matters still further, however, is the fact that, if kept cold, the cocklebur, Xanthium pennsylvaticum, then needs seven short days to initiate flowering.

Since flowers appear before fruits and seeds, it should not surprise us to find that the strawberry produces flowers under the influence of short days, and fruit when the days lengthen. It is an example of a plant that fits in well with the changing pattern of light and darkness. Many people enjoy strawberries at other times of the year than summer, and so other kinds of strawberries that have a prolonged season have made their appearance in gardens. This desire for "out-of-season" flowers and fruit has led plant hunters to scour the world for new varieties that have a different day-length pattern, and for plant breeders to produce by crossing and selecting new varieties that can be grown at alternative times. So now the gardener can choose from summer- and autumn-fruiting raspberries, late- and early-fruiting strawberries, early and normal chrysanthemums, and so on. These are protected by cultivation and so are not necessarily obliged by natural selection to conform to the prevailing pattern of development held to by plants in an entirely uncultivated environment.

These developments are watched with keen interest by gardeners especially, but even those of us not especially interested in cultivation should remember that Jehovah has marvelously made the whole of his earthly creation fit in so well that even the plants, insects and other unreasoning living things do the best thing for the survival of their kinds. Use of human intelligence and the divine blessing, too, in God's new order will result in such plentiful profusion that the continuing cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will be of still greater benefit to all living in those paradisaic conditions.

Understanding

doctors have come to realize that love has done amazing things in improving the mental health of innumerable patients, the

MENTAL ILLNESS

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IN 1943 a three-year-old girl was diagnosed as having cerebral palsy. Many were the doctors who examined her, the majority advising the parents: 'Put her away and concentrate on your other children.' Rather than 'put her away,' the parents favished

love on her, caring for her at home, trying always to improve her abilities. She did not talk, walk or feed herself; yet with patience she learned to spell very early and eventually was able to use an electric typewriter with one finger of her left hand. She has made remarkable progress, largely as a result of patience and love.

Such is the power of love in improving mental abilities and health that Dr. William Sargant, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, recently disclosed the following:

"A little while ago, one of America's most famous teachers of psychoanalytic psychiatry came to England and addressed a large meeting of British psychiatrists. He told us that skilled psychiatric diagnosis, unlike medical diagnosis, has now become quite unnecessary for treatment purposes. The best treatment for any patient suffering from mental illness was to make him feel loved in his hostile world."*

Though many doctors, including Dr. Sargant, do not believe such great emphasis can be placed on love, since mental illnesses are so varied; nonetheless, more and more

mentally retarded or the mentally ill.

The fact that love is so often lacking today may well be one of the main reasons for the high rate of mental illness. In fact, mental illness has become the number one problem in the United States. It is now more widespread

than polio, heart disease and cancer combined. Every other hospital bed in America is occupied by a mental patient, with one in five families affected and one in ten persons requiring some type of help. And in Canada, on any single day, there are more patients in mental institutions than in all the public general hospitals combined.

With the problem of mental illness of such great magnitude, there have been many efforts to help the public understand the matter better. The trend has been to educate the public away from such terms as "crazy," "mad," "nut" and other such synonyms for mental illness that hinder understanding and make it difficult to evoke sympathy for their plight. A greater understanding of mental illness has emerged, along with an awareness that some types can be prevented. With a considerable amount of the stigma associated with mental illness removed, there is now less reluctance to summon help. Afflicted families no longer need feel ashamed because a loved one is mentally ill, no more than if he were delicious with a high fever. The mentally ill are now being regarded as just that—ill and in need of care.

What Causes Mental Illness?

Although billions of dollars are spent on the problem of causes, authorities agree that there is no one satisfactory answer. Dr. William Sargant, in fact, has stated: "There is a general realization in England of our almost total ignorance of the basic underlying causes of practically all forms of functional mental and nervous diseases." Understandably, then, he admits: "It has generally been found over the years that psychoanalysis is a poor weapon to treat most forms of mental and even neurotic illness. . . . Freud's work may in fact prove to be one of the great hoaxes of the century if it turns out that all the data obtained on the couch have been unwittingly fed into the patient by the therapist and then, unknowingly, given back to him by the patient."

Amid these uncertainties about the causes of functional mental illness, along with controversy over forms of treatment, there are a number of authorities that are of the opinion that some quirk in the chemistry of the body causes the trouble. Others believe that there is some undiscovered disorder in the brain itself that triggers emotional problems. They expect the discovery of a chemical or drug remedy that will enable many mental ills to be treated much the same as organic diseases.

Then there are those mental illnesses actually brought on by organic disease. Since it is too often overlooked that various physical conditions can cause symptoms of mental illness, one doctor has gone on record, declaring: "The public should be repeatedly told that some patients have their mental depression as a result of chronic exposures to small doses of toxic fumes, that 'psychosomatic' symptoms causing patients to wander all over the nation from one psychiatrist to another have been dramatically cured when a diagnosis of

kidney infection was made and adequately treated, and that an occasional psychotic hospitalized for years has been promptly returned to normal by the administration of thyroid hormone. The public should know that the same mental symptoms can be caused by a number of underlying diseases."*

Then there is a strong belief among health experts that the stresses and strains of modern life play an important role in mental breakdown. It is known that the problems of the mentally ill often revolve around everyday happenings in the home, on the job and at school, especially college, where one out of every nine students in American colleges, says Dr. James A. Paulsen, "is sufficiently emotionally disturbed to need medical leave, hospitalization, or extensive and intensive psychiatric treatment." The liability to mental illness, then, would depend on how one reacted under strain over a long period. Stress is a natural function of living and can be the splice of life, bringing out the best in us, but it can mean disaster if the right balance cannot be obtained.

Another thing about mental illness is that it affects people of all ages and from all walks of life: the busy executive plagued with ulcers, the grandmother feeling unwanted and useless; the aging man approaching retirement and the high-strugh child breaking under pressures at home and school. Of course, the majority of persons manage to handle their problems and still maintain balance in their lives. But those who cannot find and keep that balance lose control, things around them get out of focus and some turn to alcoholic drink, drugs and bizarre behavior. Those who break down completely, retreat into a private world of their own creation, filled with fears, hallucinations, depressions and often uncontrolled and violent outbursts.

Recognizing Mental Illness

It is this lack of emotional control that is one of the chief differences between normal and abnormal behavior and one of the aids in determining whether a person is mentally ill.

There is advantage in recognizing signs of mental illness early. "Of all illnesses," says Dr. William Menninger, "mental illness has the highest recovery rate, with a big if—if the person receives prompt, skilled care."

So there are symptoms of mental illness, just as physical illness is recognized by symptoms such as headache, fever and pain. With mental illness there is usually some marked or prolonged deviation from the person's normal behavior: If one is always quarreling at the slightest provocation; if he cannot control his temper; if he has long and constant "blue" spells and deep depressions; if there are excessive and exaggerated fears about one's health; if he is oversuspicious and convinced that others are "out to get him"; when daydreaming consumes much of his time; when he loses interest in his appearance, his family and his friends; when his outbursts are frequent and he threatens to harm himself and others—it is surely time for serious reflection.

This does not mean, of course, that every person who often daydreams or who is overanxious about his health is mentally ill. Nor does it mean that those who are argumentative and moody are necessarily mentally ill. Many of such actions may parallel those of a mentally disturbed person and yet be caused from overwork or prolonged strain. Perhaps a change in scenery, more rest or a vacation is all that

is needed to get one back on the "beam" again. On the other hand, when these remedies are applied, along with efforts to improve one's spiritual health, and the symptoms keep recurring and develop to an extreme degree, it would be wise to seek aid.

It is quite understandable that one of the most difficult things for a person ever to admit to himself and especially to others is that someone he loves is mentally ill, but admit it he must if the stick one is to be helped. One of the most logical things to do at such times would be to consult the family doctor. He is usually acquainted with the history and physical condition of the patient and would probably be in a position to determine whether the problem has an underlying physical condition or not.

The Family's Role

The attitude of each member of the family at such times is extremely important. Were the sick one to break a leg or suffer a prolonged physical illness, most members of the family not only would rally around to give moral support but would, no doubt, pitch in and help to tend the sick one. How much more is this oneness necessary for the mental patient, for he is just as sick, only it is his mind rather than an arm or a leg.

Family members ought to ask themselves: What can we do to aid his recovery? Will we be able to care for him ourselves or will he have to be hospitalized? If we care for him, will we do it out of love? Once these questions are answered and the fact is accepted that they are dealing with someone who is ill, they will be in a much better frame of mind to care for him.

If you really show love and patience, the results may be remarkable. Let the ill one know that you love him, and you are really interested in his problem.

Assure him that he has your affection despite the hostility he may display due to his illness. Try to be as relaxed as possible with him. Be a good listener. He may need someone to talk to and with whom to share his troubles. Do not respond with, "Snap out of it." In many instances, he cannot help his actions anymore than a tuberculosis patient can avoid coughing. Try to help him work out practical problems, but, if possible, do not make decisions for him or force yours on him. Do not make promises you do not expect to keep. His trust and reliance on you will be an important path on his road to recovery. Use all the love, kindness, patience, long-suffering and understanding at your command, for he needs to know he is loved and wanted by his family or else the best of other treatment may not fully restore him to health.

When the mentally ill person has frequent outbursts or is harmful to himself and others, drug therapy and/or hospitalization may be the solution you will choose; but when at all possible many families have lovingly chosen to keep the ill relative at home where they can nurse and care for him themselves. It is the love and understanding that he is given by his loved ones that will make the big difference in any possible rehabilitation. It is evident, therefore, that the qualities of love and understanding cannot be overemphasized in the treatment of the mentally ill.

Preventing Mental Illness

Since love and kindness are so helpful in the treatment of much mental illness, these qualities must also be important in preventing illness. It is believed that the atmosphere in a home plays a vital role in maintaining mental health. There should be an abundance of love and understanding, the home being a place where the children are lovingly disciplined toward good behavior.

Being moderate in habits is also important, avoiding excesses that cause stress and strain. Each one, then, must find his own balance when it comes to stress, so that the recuperative powers of the body function properly. But if one persistently pushes himself beyond his capacity, constantly drawing on and using up reserve powers, he runs the risk of breaking under the strain. Prevention-wise, Dr. Hans Selye writes in The Stress of Life that one should find his optimum stress level and then use his energy at a rate and in a direction 'adjusted to the innate structure of his mind and body.'

Of all the preventives of mental illness none plays such a significant role as the possession of maturity, especially spiritual maturity. Sound spiritual health produces what the Bible calls the "fruitage of the spirit," which includes joy, peace, long-suffering, faith, mildness, goodness, self-control, kindness and love. These qualities do not bring on stress and strain but are vitalizing, upbuilding, strengthening. Yes, long before modern doctors put so much emphasis on love and kindness in treating mental illness, the Bible stressed the paramount importance of such qualities for daily living, since "God is love."—Gal. 5: 22, 23; 1 John 4:8.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Son of God stressed not only love but being 'conscious of one's spiritual needs,' putting spiritual things first, rather than material, and thereby avoiding much anxiety. Only by following such divine counsel can one have "the peace of God that excels all thought" and which "will guard, your hearts and your mental powers."—Matt. 5:3, 43-48; 6:19-34; Phil. 4:7.

VOLCANOES

FOR two weeks earthquakes had been shaking the area around Paricutin, a small village about 200 miles west of Mexico City. Then, on the afternoon of February 20, 1943, when Dionisio Pulido was out in the fields working his farm, he noticed a fissure in the ground. Suddenly there was an earthshaking thunder, and smoke and flames leaped from the ground setting afire pine trees nearly 100 feet away. More smoke followed, along with a loud continuous hissing noise and a

smell of sulphur. At this Dionisio and his three companions hastily retreated from the scene.

The next morning when Dionisio returned, a cone had risen over thirty feet into the air and was emitting smoke and rocks with great violence. By noon the cone had grown to nearly 150 feet! After a week it was 450 feet high. By this time it was an awesome blast furnace, sending prodigious amounts of incandescent materials over 3,000 feet into the air. What a beautiful fireworks display this created, especially when these glowing fragments cascaded down the sides of the cone, causing interlacing fiery trails!

For nine years this newborn volcano remained active, during which time it emitted an estimated 3,596 million metric tons of solid material and grew to a maximum

height of 2.120 feet. Its lava flows covered more than fifteen square miles, and reached a thickness near the cone of over 700 feet. Some 16,000 tons of steam and other gases were expelled daily at the height of activity.

Different Views

In recent years numerous volcanic eruptions have erected mountains, raised up islands from the bottom of the ocean and have covered hundreds of square miles with earth's heated contents. Many welcome this activity.

In Hawaii the spectacular spouting fountains of golden lava are an attraction to which people from all over the islands flock. Late in 1959, after an eruption of Kilauea volcano, a report from Honolulu lamented: "The fire goddess Pele has come and gone, and all Hawaii is saddened that she could not stay longer."

The frequent eruptions of massive Mt. Etna, on the island of Sicily, which occur on the average of every six to nine years, stir mixed emotions. On occasions lava flows require that villagers evacuate their homes and fertile fields, and, of course, this can be a tragedy. But even though homes and crops may be destroyed by creeping lava, farmers return to their land, for they know that minerals brought up from the depths of the earth will enrich the soil.

Yes, some of the most productive lands in the world are those that have been enriched by volcanic eruptions.

But perhaps the majority of persons see only the tremendous destructive power of volcanoes, and so view them as vicious, fire-spitting monsters. Their power is indeed stupendous.

Powerful Historic Eruptions

The most violent historic eruption in the Western Hemisphere was perhaps that of the Cosegüina volcano in Nicaragua in 1835. The explosions were so loud in Guatemala City over 200 miles away that the army, thinking it was cannon fire, prepared to defend the city. And in Belize, British Honduras, at a distance of nearly 400 miles, troops were called out to repel what was believed to be a naval attack. It is reported that for hundreds of miles the sea "was covered by floating masses of pumice, resembling the floe-ice of the Northern Atlantic."

However, the greatest eruption in man's history is generally believed to be that of the Krakatoa volcano on a small, uninhabited island in the strait between Java and Sumatra. This tremendous explosion in August of 1883 blew most of the island sky-high, sending such volumes of ash into the upper atmosphere that brilliant sunsets were created around the earth. In fact, on October 30 the sky had such a glow that fire engines were reportedly summoned in cities in the eastern United States "to quench the burning skies."

There have been two eruptions in the present century that rivaled the power of these blasts. The first occurred in June of 1912 in a remote section of the Alaskan Peninsula. Volcanic ash blotted out the midday sun 100 miles away in Kodiak, where drifts of ash piled up to a depth of

twelve feet! The other took place in March of 1956, when Mt. Bezymiany on the Kamchatka Peninsula, north of Japan, blew its top. It was only because of the remote location of these eruptions that no lives were lost.

Warnings Unheeded

Those who view volcanoes as belching killers lying in wait to claim victims fail to realize that there have been relatively few major death-dealing eruptions, and that even these were preceded by plenty of warning. Probably the most famous was the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E., which buried Pompeii under fifteen to twenty feet of volcanic ash. Although this was believed to be quite sudden, repeated warnings by a series of earthquakes signaled the impending disaster. Prudent Pompeians fled the vicinity and lived.

The classic volcanic tragedy of modern times occurred May 8, 1902, on the Caribbean isle of Martinique, when all but one of the 30,000 inhabitants of the seaport of St. Pierre perished in one fiery blast from Mt. Pelee, located five or six miles away. But it need not have happened. For weeks prior to the fatal eruption the long-inactive volcano had been seething and boiling. "The city is covered with ashes," wrote one woman to her sister days before the disaster. "The smell of sulphur is so strong that horses on the street stop and snort. Many of the people are obliged to wear wet handkerchiefs to protect them from the strong fumes."

The two most recent catastrophes were also preceded by days of rumblings and roarings by long-inactive volcanoes that were giving advance warning to those in the vicinity. Finally, on January 21, 1951, Mt. Lamington on New Guinea exploded, wiping out about 6,000 persons who did not heed the advice to get out of the way.

The situation was similar in March of 1963, when 1,500 persons perished in the eruption of Gunung Agung on the island of Bali.

It is evident that the vast majority of the estimated 190,000 victims of volcanic eruptions during the past 400 years need not have died had they heeded advance warnings. But even this needlessly large casualty list appears small when one considers that every two years some 200,000 lives are snuffed out in traffic accidents throughout the world.

More Good than Harm

A closer examination of volcanoes reveals that they serve a beneficial role that far outweighs any destruction and inconvenience they may cause. They have created tens of thousands of square miles of paradise-like land where tropical fruits and flowers of every kind flourish in abundance. The Canary Islands, the Azores, the West Indies and the Hawaiian Islands are only a few of the beautiful islands that were raised from the bottom of the sea by volcanic eruptions. Why, just seven years ago a new island ascended out of the Atlantic, and in time grew until it attached itself to one of the islands of the Azores. Another popped out of the sea near Iceland about a year ago.

The average person probably does not realize the major role volcanic activity played in preparing the earth for human habitation. Consider some of the most beautiful towering mountains—Fujiyama, Killimanjaro and 19,550-foot-high Cotopaxi in Ecuador, to name a few. Not only are volcanic mountain peaks such as these breathtakingly beautiful, but many have done much to moderate climates and to increase what would otherwise have been a scanty rainfall.

Huge areas of the continents are covered with volcanic deposits. For example, 200,000 square miles of the northwestern United States was inundated by successive lava flows. During the past, volcanic activity produced tremendous mineral resources, including rich deposits of sulphur, lead and zinc, not to mention beautiful gems such as diamonds. The famous diamond mines of South Africa extend into extinct craters, where long ago in the superheated bowels of the earth the sparkling gems were formed.

In addition to the huge quantities of volcanic ash, pumice and lava expelled in an eruption, underground gases are believed to be emitted in perhaps even larger amounts. The volume is stupendous. The emission of steam from one of Mt. Etna's minor vents during a two-week period when lava did not even flow was calculated to equal 450 million gallons of water!

In summarizing certain benefits of volcanoes, an article in the Scientific American concluded: "It is not merely that volcanic eruptions have provided some of the world's richest soils—and some of our most magnificent scenery. Throughout geologic time volcanoes and their attendant hot springs and gas vents have been supplying the oceans with water and the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. But for these emanations there would be no plant life on earth, and therefore no animal life. In very truth, but for them we would not be here!" Certainly there is good reason for us to become more familiar with these wonders of God's creation!

What Are Volcanoes?

Today there are an estimated 500 active volcanoes on earth, with thousands of others either dormant or extinct. The locations of scores of undersea craters are also known, and undoubtedly there are hundreds more. The Stromboli volcano in the Ligari Islands off the coast or Sicily is in a state of almost constant eruption; others erupt at rather regular intervals, as do Vesuvius, Etna and the Hawaiian volcanoes Kilauea and Mauna Loa, while craters such as Krakatoa, Bezymiany and Lamington may lie dormant for centuries and then blast out with tremendous violence.

What exactly are volcanoes, and what accounts for their different behavior?

A volcano is a vent or chimney through which molten material called "magma" rises some tens of miles to the earth's surface, where it spills out and is called "lava." Scientists have evidence that the source of this molten material, which differs essentially from molten rock in that it is charged with varying amounts of gases, may be in the upper mantle about sixty miles beneath the earth's surface. Shifting of underground rock masses or pressure from entrapped gases evidently forces the magma upward, where it often seeps into deep reservoirs twenty to thirty miles beneath the volcanoes.

Most of the explosive force of an eruption is supplied by pent-up gases within viscous magma. In violent explosions the throat of the volcano usually has been stopped up for many years and, when enough pressure is built up, the whole top of the mountain is blown into the air. In such eruptions the magma is expelled as pumice or ash, much like gas-charged champagne froths out of an uncorked bottle. It was this type of explosion of long-dormant Vesuvius that pulverized the magma and buried Pompeii under twenty feet of ash. No lava flowed at that time.

wint seidom any asn or pumice being expelled. In these volcanoes the magma is quite fluid, allowing the gases to escape with ease. Such eruptions are comparatively mild, and the only danger is in the path of the flowing lava. Most eruptions, however, are a combination of the two extremes, with ash and pumice being expelled first, followed by flows of lava.

On the other extreme, there are volcanoes such as Kilauea and Mauna Loa that emit magma as nearly 100-percent lava,

Servants Rather than Destroyers

Today some volcanoes are under careful surveillance, and, according to volcano expert Haroun Tazieff, "scientists can already forecast volcanic eruptions and will probably soon be able to predict their violence and hence the danger they present." This, of course, applies to only the handful of volcanoes that have well-equipped volcanological observatories. However, such investigations indicate that with proper knowledge protection from volcanic disasters is possible.

Not only that, but in time man may harness underground energy to provide much of his power. Already in Italy, New Zealand, Iceland, the United States and Kamchatka the heat produced by underground magma, known as geothermal energy, is being turned to useful purposes. In fact, in 1952 about 6 percent of the total electric energy output of Italy was produced from volcanic heat. Kamchatka also reports success in harnessing geothermal energy. "In a few years' time," they boast, "Kamchatka will be the only place in the world with all electricity and hot water free for everybody."

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