The Golck.n Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT WA COURAGE

•%

lommmmiimsiismmmEimHmmHmmmmmmiEim .

in this issue -

OCEANOGRAPHY ■

NO PATRIOTS: WHEN?

CANCER                        .

THE FIG TREE

PAINE AND MODERNISTS

PREACHERS WORRIED

AN IDEAL GOVERNMENT twelfth of a series of radio lectures on good government,by Judge Rutherford

miimimmimimiommmmnmmmihimHimmomEi

EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY

5c a copy -        $1.00 a year - Canada & Foreign $1.50

Volume XI - No. 264                      October 30, 19 2 9

Contents

J—---------rtlg^OS. ' ______'■ -=-rw r-r/, ' ■

Labor and Economics

Civil Versus Military Employees.............75

.       _: Social and Educational

(Sparks prom the Anvil ...............  .

Open-handedness of the West . .

On Tattooing ........

How to Get a Few Smiles ................ 78

Finance—Commerce—Transportation $55,000,000 Profit in Six Years .

The Private Car Graft ...........

Political—Domestic and Foreign

Colby Has No Taxes

Niggardly Food Allowance for Prisoners .......... 76 The Pilgrims from Philadelphia ............. 76 Helping the Baby Jesus ...

There Were No Patriots When All Men Belonged to One Tribe . 77 Organized Minorities in Washington ............ 88

Agriculture and Husbandry Fined Heavily for Raising Wheat .......

The Fig Tree         .........

Science and Invention

The New Armored Combat Tank

Home and Health

Cancer: Its Causes and Prevention

Chromium-Nickel-Steel

Conservators of the Casket Business .........  .

Travel and Miscellany A Little Study in Oceanography ........

Religion and Philosophy

Thomas Paine and the Modernists . .

A Book and a Man ..................81

Advises Against Imitating Christ .........

Bible Questions and Answers . .

Sojie Preachers Worried ................ 86 The Government That Will Satisfy ...

Ecclesiasticism and Freedom ..........

The Children’s Own Eadio Story ............. 95

Published every other- Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

Copartners and Proprietors Address: 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y-, U. S. A.

CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH.. Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN.. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNORR.. Secretary and Treasurer

Five Cents a Copy—$1.00 a Year Make Remittances to TUB GOT.T/EB AGH Notice to Subscribers: We do not, as a rule, send an acknowledgment of a renewal or a new subscription. A renewal blank (carrying notice of expiration) is sent with the journal one month before the subscription expires. Change of address, when requested, may be expected to appear on address label within one month.

Foreign Offices

British .............34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2, England

Canadian ...........40 Irwin Avenue, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada

Australasian . .7 Beresford Itd., Strathfield, Sydney, N. S. W., Australia South Africa ............ 6 Lelie Street, Cape Town, South Africa

Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Golden Age

Volume XI                        Brooklyn, N. Y.» Wednesday, October 30, 1929                       Number 264

A Little Study in Oceanography

OCEANOGRAPHY, in its widest sense, covers all there is to know about that portion of the earth which, in divine wisdom, covers 71 percent of its surface. It would be a study about winds, waves, tides, currents, marine and submarine plants and animals, icebergs, fogs, cables, rains, minerals and gases held in suspension, geology, the formation of islands, navigation and fisheries, and scores of related subjects. We can not hope in the compass of this article to go deeply into these subjects. Some of them we can not even touch.

The lure of the sea! How it beckons! Two years ago a Norwegian 'whaling vessel put in at Hobart, Tasmania, in need of 28 men to complete its whaling force. The wages offered were only $20 a month, with a bonus of %c a barrel of whale oil obtained. Three hundred men stormed the Norwegian consulate to get those jobs. They wanted to leave positions as salesmen, bank clerks, surveyors, engineers, and what not, and only three of them had previously been to sea; yet the call was irresistible.

In one of Victor Hugo’s works he describes the sea:

Those billows, that ebb and flood, that inexorable coining and going, that noise of all the winds, that blackness and that translucency, that vegetation peculiar to the deep, that democracy of clouds in full hurricane, those eagles flecked with foam, those wonderful star-risings reflected in mysterious agitation by millions of luminous wavetops—conf used heads of the multitudinous sea—the errant lightnings which seem to watch, those prodigious sobbings, those half-seen monsters, those nights of darkness broken by howlings, those furies, those frenzies, those torments, those rocks, those shipwrecks, those fleets crushing each other, mingling their human thunders with the divine thunders and staining the sea with blood; then that charm, that mildness, those gay white sails, those fishing boats, those songs amid the uproar, those shining ports, those mists rising from the shore, those cities at the horizon’s edge, that deep blue of sky and water, that useful asperity, that bitter savor which keeps the world wholesome, that harsh salt without which all would putrefy; those wraths and those appeasements, that all in one. the unforeseen amid the changeless, the vast marvel of inexhaustibly varied monotony, that smoothness after an upheaval, those hells and those heavens of the unfathomed, infinite, ever-moving deep.

Chemistry of the Briny Deep

There is no danger that the human family will ever run out of salt. If the whole of the European continent that lifts its head above water were of solid table salt it would then contain only about one-third as much salt as is now in the ocean. If all the salt that is in the ocean were taken out and sprinkled over the United States it would bury the country a mile and a half deep.

There is a mass of other salts in the ocean nearly a fourth as large as that just mentioned. These salts, in the eyes of the chemist, are a great storehouse of treasure, out of which wonderful things for the benefit of man are yet to come.

There is gold in sea water; only 40 or 50 milligrams to the ton of water, but somebody with a penchant for figures has estimated that if it could all be taken out and divided among us we would have about 80,000 tons of gold apiece. For sixty years there have been spasmodic attempts made to work the ocean profitably for its gold content, but, none of them have succeeded.

The following is DitmaFs Analysis of the proportions of the principal salts in the ocean:

Parts per thousand

Sodium chloride..................   27.213

Magnesium chloride ................ _

Magnesium sulphate.....

Calcium sulphate ......______________________________________.  1.260

Potassium sulphate ...

Calcium carbonate_________________________________________  0.123

Magnesium bromide............

Every time it rains, the salts in the sea are added to, because the rains gradually leach out the soil and remove it bit by bit to the ocean depths. Fortunately we have earthquakes once in a while which throw some of these riches back up where we mortals can get at them.

Working the Ocean Mines

A Norwegian has been devoting years to the study of sea water, with the result that he has shown it is practicable to extract metallic magnesium and gypsum, common salt and some other minerals from the deep blue.

The deep blue color of the ocean, by the way, is owing to the fact that sea water is ten times more partial to absorption of the red rays of the spectrum than it is to the blue rays. Experiments show that at 900 fathoms there is no light. At that depth two hours’ exposure of a sensitive film produced no effects.

At Summerfield, California, the Department of Agriculture has demonstrated that a plant for treating sea water, to remove its chemicals, is self-supporting. The plant also handles seaweeds. Among the raw materials obtained are potash, nitrogen, ammonia, tar, oil, creosote, iodine, bleaching carbon and common salt. At a similar plant in France there are obtained large quantities of potassium chloride, magnesium chloride, magnesium sulphate and bromide.

Iodine exists in the proportion of one part of iodine to about 500,000 parts of water, yet it is calculated that its value at present prices would be about a thousand times the total value of all the real property in the world. Iodine is obtained from the ashes of seaweed. The principal producers are Britain, France, Norway and Japan.

The salinity of the oceans is greatest where the rate of evaporation is high and the rainfall small, as in the Red Sea, and it is least where opposite conditions prevail, as in the China Sea. An electrical device of the Bureau of Standards automatically registers the amount of salt in sea water as the ship moves through the water, thus aiding in the better detection of ocean currents and the approach of icebergs.

Gardens of the Ocean Bottom

The gardens of the ocean bottom are as real as the wheat fields of a Dakota farmer. The pictures that have been taken of these gardens, especially those about Nassau, in the Bahamas, are like “fairyland”, beautiful beyond words. They can be seen in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, and have been reproduced in the rotogravure sections of the Sunday papers.

Gardening in the ocean, when the human family gets to it, will be gardening in three dimensions. Land farming is limited to a single surface, but in the ocean there may be farms piled on farms, five hundred fathoms deep. Sir John Murray estimated that the animal and plant resources of the ocean exceed those of the land.

At present we get but little vegetable aid from the oceans. The Chinese and Japanese cultivate seaweeds and use them extensively, and as a result are free from goitre and other diseases. They also make a seaweed glue.

In the West Indies an edible jelly is obtained from ordinary seaweed after it has been bleached and boiled. Agar-agar, useful in medicine, is obtained at the plant in California previously mentioned, and there is a plant in Massachusetts which makes quantities of Irish moss ready for the market. This moss is used in the ■ preparation of blancmange, and is useful as an expectorant.

Many marine products have been utilized from the dawn of history. Fish, shellfish, coral, salt and amber have been used by man from time immemorial. The ancient Tyrian purple, a very beautiful dye, was obtained by an extremely laborious process from shellfish. Wampum, strings of shell beads, served as money among the North American Indians.

Fishes and Marine Animals

A British writer defined man as a mackereleating animal; implying that if some men did not catch mackerel and others eat them, part of us would go hungry. Every year three billion pounds of fish are taken from the waters of the United States and Alaska, but it is a mere fragment.

We have millions on millions of neighbors in the world that none of us shall ever see. These are the denizens of the deeper waters, living down where even the rays of light do not penetrate. If man were to go down to such depths he would be crushed flat. His ribs would snap like pipestems, and all his organs would be reduced to jelly.

From 1872 to 1876, in the ship Challenger, Sir Wyville Thompson and his staff visited three hundred places, and with the long arm of a specially constructed dragnet drew up from the depths the residents of a new world half as large as the earth we already know.

From time to time there have been additions to this knowledge. Creatures that were born and live and usually die at these great depths are sometimes cast up to the surface by earthquake shocks or otherwise, and thus men get to know something about them. It is believed that there are no parts of the ocean too deep for life.

There are sea deserts, such as parts of the Mediterranean and of the Pacific off the west coast of Patagonia, where there are no seaweeds, and hence no other form of marine life. Many bones of sharks and whales are found in these waters, indicating that these monsters sometimes get lost in the deserts and starve.

It is believed that in the Millennium and thereafter wide use will be made of the plant and animal life of the sea and that property fronting on the ocean will become increasingly valuable.

Ocean Drifts and Currents

The Hydrographic office of the United States navy makes a systematic study of ocean currents and ocean drifts. A paper printed in eight languages is placed in a bottle, which is then sealed and thrown overboard. These bottles have been known to drift from five to five thousand miles and to stay in the water from six days to six years. When recovered they always have an interesting story.

The winds have much to do with the formation of ocean currents. The effect of a wind blowing regularly and continuously over the surface of the ocean will in time penetrate deeply into the waters and impart a certain amount of forward motion to the whole mass blown upon, but the effect will be principally at or near the surface.

Where the trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific blow with great regularity all the year around we find currents on the ocean’s surface, called the North and South Equatorial Currents, respectively. These currents have a mean velocity of about 15 miles a day. The northern current moves a little more rapidly than the southern. Variations in density and in temperature are important factors in the circulation of ocean waters. Moreover, the oceans are of different heights, due to tide, etc., and for that reason flow from one into the other.

The Ocean Temperatures

At 100 fathoms the mean temperature for the whole ocean, based on observations in all latitudes, is 60.7° Fahrenheit. At 200 fathoms it is 50.1°; at 300 fathoms, 44.7°; at 400, 41.8°; at 500, 40.1°; at 600, 39.0°; at 700, 38.1°; at 1100, 36.1°; and at 2200, 35.2°. Below that the changes are slight.

The waters around Japan, Newfoundland and the Cape of Good Hope are successively occupied by waters of polar and of equatorial origin. In many other places the surface wrnters change but slightly. The hot surface waters around the equator, averaging 80 degrees, occupy only a comparatively small depth even in the tropics. It is believed that these great differences in temperature between the surface waters and ■ the deeper waters at the equator constitute a boundless source of power that will some time be available.

The details of how this difference of 40 degrees in temperature within 300 fathoms of depth may be utilized by vaporizing and condensing a liquid, as is done in a steam engine, have been worked out in great detail on paper and sometime will be applied. Such a source of power would be sufficient to run all the machinery on the earth, and much, very much, more. Over 80 percent of the bulk of the ocean remains at a temperature of less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Tides and Tide Predictors

When all the figures of mass and distance are taken into consideration the pull of the moon on the surface of the earth causes about 2% times the tide-producing power exerted by the sun. The principal reason for the moon’s greater effect is its proximity. The sun’s total pull on the earth is, roughly, only 183 times that of the moon. The reason is that it is so far away.

Most of the time the sun and the moon are pulling in different directions, but twice each month they pull in the same line and then the tides are higher than usual. Spring tides they are called. Theoretically, every planet and every star has some effect on the tides, but the effect is so small as to be negligible in the calculations.

The United States Coast and Geodetic Survey has a tide-predictor, which does single-handed, and with unfailing accuracy, the work of sixty human mathematicians. This machine, which is the only one ever made, predicts the exact time of high and low tide, and the height of the tide, for any given place, for an indefinite time in the future. It is kept busy constantly figuring tides for all the principal ports in the world a year ahead.

Near the shore the tides provide the most important of the ocean currents, but at a distance from the shore the'tidal motion is secondary to that of the winds.

The lifting power of the tides is now regularly utilized at East Saugus, Massachusetts, for the generation of electricity for industrial purposes. One cubic foot of salt water will lift 64 pounds. At the Knowlton plant the power is derived from the upward thrust of a large float or piston, lifted by water. The larger the float, the greater the power.

A Little on Kumatology

Kumatology is what a Yankee would call hvave-ology’ and let it go at that, for it is no hardship to a Yankee to compound words from two tongues to make a third word that nobody but himself will understand. But lexicographers view such words with horror and dismay. They call it slang, and so it is.

Well! A kumatologist, an officer of the French navy, carefully measured 4,000 waves in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The largest were seen in a gale in the Indian Ocean. Of thirty different waves there seen the average was twenty-nine feet in height, the largest being thirty-seven.

The largest waves, carefully measured, rarely exceed or even reach fifty feet in height, but they seem twice that high to a ship in the open ocean; and on a rockbound coast, when they strike the rocks they do rise to an incredible height.

The Beil light on the Scottish coast, 115 feet above the sea, is often hidden by foam and spray. The Eddystone lighthouse, formerly 72 feet high, had to be rebuilt to a height of 132 feet to prevent the waves from riding over the top of the lantern. The great bell of the Bishop Rock lighthouse was once wrenched from its fastenings by a sea, although fixed at a level 100 feet above high-water mark.

The waves produced by the moon, tidal waves, are more than a thousand miles wide from front to back and travel at the rate of hundreds of miles an hour, their very speed making them imperceptible of height.

This wave, moving eastward, splits on the west coast of Ireland, then sweeps around Britain both ways, and the two parts meet and neutralize each other at a point in the North Sea, midway between England and Holland, and no tide occurs there in consequence.

A wave caused by an earthquake is a very different proposition. On the coast of Chile, in 1835, the ocean first withdrew, leaving ships which had been anchored in forty feet of water, on dry land. This action was succeeded by a wall of water thirty feet higher than high-tide level. Then came a higher wave, and finally a still higher wave. Great flocks of birds flew in from the sea more than an hour before the disaster occurred.

Frequently, tidal waves are not preceded by a negative undulation. South American populations, however, never flee until the ocean has first retreated, and thereby much unnecessary loss of life has been occasioned.

Plumbing the Depths

Having now made fairly good maps of most of the land surface of the earth, and the development of the airplane and zeppelin having laid bare most of its remaining mysteries, it is but natural that man would wish to map the lands that lie below the seas, and he has many good and sufficient reasons for wishing to do so. Navigation considerations are first of all, but there are many others.

It used to be a slow, laborious job to let out miles of heavy piano wire with a heavy lead attached, to sound the deeps. And even when, at the expiration of two hours, one sounding had been made, the results were not accurate.

Now the sonic depth-finder, placed in the bottom of a ship, sends down rapping noises and catches their echoes from the ocean bottom at the rate of 14,000 soundings an hour, while the ship is at full speed. The speed of sound being known, the depth is calculated accurately from the time between transmission of the sound and reception of its echo.

There is still a great deal of work to do. There are oceanic areas as large as the United States where no soundings have been made, and many others where present soundings have been widely spaced. Frequent charting of ocean depths is desirable, on account of changes brought about by earthquakes.

Perhaps some wonder how the exact position of the ship is determined, so that when the map is made it can be known that it is correct. A bomb is exploded twenty feet below the surface of the vessel. The sound travels under water to two hydrophones located miles apart, near the shore. The sound is then broadcast back to the ship and recorded on a tape, so that, by a little calculation, based on the known velocity of sound through sea water, the exact position of the ship as respects the known locations of the two shore hydrophones is soon established.

The Ocean’s Floor

If anybody tells you that he knows just how the ocean’s floor looks at seven miles below the surface, it is more benevolent to smile in a kind way than it is to tell him what you think; yet there are some that know something about it.

Occasionally there are earthquakes that lift parts of the ocean floor to view; and it is quite well established that the deepest parts are covered with a soft substance called “ooze”, described as the settling down of the dust of the sea.

In many places there are great gorges in the ocean floor ten to fifty miles in width and two to five miles deeper than the surrounding bottoms. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is dwarfed into insignificance by these tremendous canyons, into some of which Mount Everest could be tumbled and would sink out of sight without leaving a sign.

There is life at the greatest depths, but there is no decay. If the body of a whale sinks to the bottom, its flesh pressed together by the tremendous pressure, it is either devoured or dissolved. Bacteria do not live at such depths, and it is intensely cold. There are no storms down there, nor any swift-flowing currents, although these deep waters do gradually work their way toward the Poles where at length they emerge as polar currents.

Perfect silence and perfect darkness are always in these vast canyons, except that some of the inhabitants have organs in their bodies which greatly resemble eyes. These are used to produce light rather than to receive it, much as a cat’s eyes give light in the night.

The Atlantic Ocean

■ Most of the world’s great rivers flow into the Atlantic. It is the saltiest of the oceans; it has the largest icebergs and the greatest number of them; it has the greatest traffic; its Gulf Stream carries more water than all the other currents of the world put together; its quiet pond without a current, the Sargasso Sea, exceeds all the other calm spots of the oceans put together; it has a submerged mountain chain six hundred miles. long from north to south; and yet with all of these claims to our attention the oceanographers are mean enough to say that it is not a true ocean, but simply the greatest of the inland seas.

The Atlantic is not so deep. Its biggest hole, the Nares Deep, is off north of Porto Rico. It drops down 27,972 feet, only a little more than five miles, but it is a large hole. The state of Maine could be dropped into it and would go down four miles out of sight, before it struck bottom. There is another deep spot off the coast of Mexico. The South Atlantic is a slightly deeper ocean than the North Atlantic.

The highest peaks of the Edward VII range in the North Atlantic are only 6'00 feet below the surface. Mount Laura Ethel comes within 200 feet of the surface. About Sainthill, a mountain farther west, not fewer than seven thousand wrecks lie scattered, showing the tremendous influence these submarine mountains have on ocean currents and ocean storms.

The Bermudas and Porto Rico are mountain tops. A mile off shore the waters of Porto Rico are five miles deep; and a mile off the Bermudas they are two and one-half miles deep. The waters near St. Helena were three miles deep twenty-seven years ago, but now are only three-fourths of a mile deep.

Greatest Tides in the World

The greatest tides in the world are in the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Twice a day the water in this bay rises over 35 feet, and comes in with such suddenness that escape from the flats is impossible except by boat.

The head of this tide finds its end at Moncton, and comes in like a solid wall of water. The Moncton Bore, so called, is one of earth’s strangest sights, as is also the reversing falls at St. John. One passes the falls at a given hour and sees them behaving as any falls ought to behave, pouring their waters into the sea. Returning a few hours later he finds that the waters are bewitched and are flowing the other way, and over a generous falls too. The tides have risen meantime. Many suggestions have been made for utilizing this vast power.

The Atlantic is stormy, and half the storms originate at sea. The waters of the Bay of Biscay and those off Cape Horn are considered the roughest in the world. Traffic in the Atlantic is so considerable that seven twenty-mile-wide lanes are recognized, each of them divided into an east- and west-bound section ten miles wide.

The sonic depth-finder, mentioned above, is now being used to chart accurately waters heretofore inaccurately charted. Incidentally, the men doing this work found an oil field beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

The w’aters of the Atlantic are warming appreciably, the cold waters about Greenland, Baffin Island and Labrador being now about five to seven degrees warmer than usual, indicating great climatic changes in the near future.

There are phosphorescent seas off the western edge of Cuba, often reported. Fish disturb minute phosphorescent organisms, which flare up suddenly in response to the irritation produced. Untellable trillions of them produce such a brilliant band of light that sometimes a newspaper can be read on the deck at night.

The Sargasso Sea was so named by the Portuguese, and in their language signifies ‘The Sea of Little Grapes’. The reference is to the floating seaweed buoyed up by thousands of tiny gas-filled bladders which look like a fruit but are in reality only the device by which the seaweed is kept afloat.

The Gulf Stream

When the Nebraska fanner goes to the village store and comes home with a piece of salted codfish he may be bringing back part of his farm that slipped into the Missouri the previous spring. The cod off Newfoundland live indirectly from the mud which the Mississippi pours into the Gulf Stream in its circuit of the great gash in the American continent which we style the Gulf of Mexico.

Benjamin Franklin first gave its name to earth’s most mighty phenomenon. Imagine a river forty miles wide and a half a mile deep, of a deep indigo blue color, great clearness and high temperature, flowing through the ocean at fifty to a hundred miles a day. Hundreds of miles after leaving the coast of Florida the edges of the stream are sharply marked.

It is calculated that in one hour the Gulf Stream carries 90,000,000,000 tons of water past a given point and that all the ships of the world wrnuld be inadequate to transport the salt alone that would be contained in such a quantity of water.

As it proceeds north and east the Gulf Stream rides over and forces down a wedge of cold water, the Labrador current. The western edge of the stream is chilled by this current. Its waters can be penetrated by the eye to a considerable depth.

The Gulf Stream flows from the Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico partly because of the difference in level of the two bodies of water, and for a similar reason flows from the Gulf into the Atlantic.

Opposite Newfoundland the stream breaks up, fan-shaped, and in the summer its influence can be discerned as far as the west coasts of Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. The icebergs meet their Waterloo when they hit the Gulf Stream. They begin to come south in February and are gone by August. They come from the west coast of Greenland, moving at the rate of about ten miles a day.

The Pacific Ocean

It seems incredible that the South Sea, as the Pacific was formerly called, was first seen by Europeans less than five hundred years ago, and that it was then seen on its eastern edge. Balboa first saw it in 1513 from the summit of the mountains which traverse the Isthmus of Darien. Nobody denies that the Pacific is a real ocean.

There are a good many deep spots in the Pacific: Mindanao Deep, off the Philippines, 34,000 feet; Tuscarora Deep, off Japan, 32,000 feet; Mariana Deep, off Guam, 31,000; Kermadec or Aldrich Deep, off New Zealand, 31,000; Solomon Deep, off Solomon Islands, 30,000; Fleming Deep, 28,000.

The Aleutian Deep is a gash five miles deep and fifteen hundred miles long. It parallels the Aleutian Island chain, merges into another huge canyon that stretches past Japan and down to the Philippines, and finally to the South Sea Islands, where it splits into various deeps of smaller dimensions.

Like the Atlantic, the bed of the Pacific is uneasy in recent years and shifting about as though some great change were in preparation. Kocks are found to have risen, shoals have piled up where before there were none, and old shoals have thickened.

There are no Arctic currents in the Pacific, and hence no icebergs, but a good slice of the Japan current passes through Bering Strait into the Arctic, rendering the ice treacherous even in mid-winter. In fact, the trips over the ice by the natives of both Asia and America in the depth of winter to visit their kinsfolk on Diomed Island, in the middle of the strait, are considered hazardous ventures.

After leaving the coast of Alaska the Japan Current, or Kuroshiwo, has lost much of its heat and passes the coast of California as a cold current. It is this fact that gives California such a wonderful climate. It is hot in the sun, but the air is cool and invigorating.

Some years ago the Humboldt or Peruvian Current, which formerly bathed the tropical and desert coast of Peru with icy waters, suddenly changed its course, working havoc to animal life. The cold waters killed the fish, and the birds died of starvation. Regions rainless for years had heavy rains, and rivers formed over night in what had been parched deserts.

The Pacific does not have many high tides, but three points are noteworthy in this respect. In the Bay of Panama it rises to fifteen feet, and at Cook’s Inlet, Alaska, to twenty-eight feet.

In the lower reaches of Puget Sound, called the Narrows, the tides attain a height of twenty feet or more and go surging and boiling down between mountain chains, causing a magnificent sight from the precipitous shores. There are tremendous whirlpools in which many small boats are gripped and sunk each year, while even the large steamboats creak and groan under the strain of breasting the twisting currents. The roar of the tides when running at full resembles the distant boom of the surf.

The Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean was first explored by ti Phoenicians, in the seventh century B. C. Solof mon was confederate with these people, and at an earlier date had a navy at Ezion-geber, on the Red Sea, which brought him treasures from all down the east coast of Africa.

The Indian Ocean is 6,500 miles in length from north to south, and is 6,000 miles wide in its greatest breadth, being therefore 1,500 miles wider than the Atlantic at its widest point. Its greatest known depth is 22,968 feet, only a little over four miles.

The Indian Ocean is noted for the streaks of alternate warm and cold water, caused by the collision of the hot waters of the Mozambique Current with the cold waters of the Antarctic. During the summer months the southwest monsoon sweeps over it, and during the winter months the direction is reversed.

The Arctic and Antarctic Oceans

North of Bering Strait the current which sweeps between Asia and America splits, part of it going westward north of Siberia, and part of it eastward above the American continent. This suggests a continent or large island between Bering Strait and the Pole.

The water of the Arctic is extremely clear, shells being visible at a great depth. The salinity of the waters is less than that of the southern seas. Polar waters contain twice as much oxygen and nitrogen to a thousand parts of water as is found in tropical waters, and for 'that reason the ocean population as a whole thrives better in the colder waters than in the warmer ones. There is more life to a cubic mile of water beneath the North Pole than there is beneath the equator. That is one reason why those great fishermen, the bears, seals and whales, enjoy the cold climates. They like to have regular meals, and not merely a “hot dog” now and then.

Moreover, cold water, far better than warm, absorbs carbon-dioxide from the air, and thus is relatively rich in the materials that support vegetable life, and in summer the Arctics are full of minute forms of vegetables and plants. The birds come for them and for their share of the fish.

The waves of the Antarctic are the banner waves of the world. They go around and around

the planet for ever and ever, without anything to check them, and are seen in all their fury and majesty off Cape Horn. Marine insurance is suspended during the time vessels round Cape Horn. A bottle thrown into the water off Cape Horn was picked up on the coast of New Zealand 10,250 miles to the east. Another bottle thrown into the water off the Cape of Good Hope was picked up on the coast of Chile 8,800 miles to the east.                                 -

Captain Warden, master of pilots of the port of Glasgow, a humble and zealous advocate of the truth as we.see it, relates the following story about the mountainous waves off Cape Horn:

“A British vessel was ploughing its way forward, buffeted by the hard winds and the tremendous waves. There was a missionary aboard. At midnight the first mate found him, with a light in his cabin, dressed in his best clothes, sitting on the edge of his berth. In a voice little above a whisper he asked the mate, Ts there any hope?’ The mate did not know what he meant and said, Hope of what?’ Why,’ said the man, ‘I thought surely the vessel was going down and I put on my best clothes, so as to be ready for the end.’ ”

Captain Warden laughed heartily at the idea of a man’s dressing in his best clothes to be seen only by some stray flock of penguins, and perhaps not even by them. But it is customary to be buried in good clothes, and the poor man wanted to make sure that he would go out according to the rules.

British captains, when conversing with other captains who have spent their lives crossing the Atlantic, if the latter say anything about storms in the North Atlantic, merely ask them if they have ever been around the Horn. If the answer is “No”, they simply say, “Stop talking,” and that is the end of the argument. Yet there is one British liner that rounds the Horn on every trip it makes. Indeed, the vessel does what we have done in this article: it goes around the world.                                           .

Sparks from the Anvil

Bed of Pacific Rising                     ,

OFF the western coasts of Nicaragua and

Costa Rica the bed of the Pacific Ocean is rising so rapidly that navigation is becoming unsafe. Bottoms known to have been 1,608 feet down are now only 51 feet beneath the surface, and many other similar startling changes are noticed.

Cigarette Smoker Burns a Bus

HIGH-CLASS bus plying between New York and Reading, Pennsylvania, was completely burned the other day, only the framework remaining. It was set afire by a woman. It is said that the woman was a fool, because at the time of the accident she was smoking a cigarette.

Increase in Cancer Rate

HE death rate from all forms of cancer to a 100,000 of population increased from 212 in 1900 to 311 in 1920, an increase of 47 percent. In that period intestinal and related forms of cancer increased 148.4 percent. If you want these figures to grow, cook your food in aluminum and let it stand in it. It all helps.

Decrease of Food Fishes

UROPE is concerned because there is a noticeable decrease of food fishes. A discouraging feature of the present. situation is that cormorants have come to understand the philosophy of nets and know how to swoop down and take the entire catch out of a net, leaving the fisherman nothing.

Features of Times Square

TIMES SQUARE, New York city, corner of Broadway and 42d street, is far and away the busiest spot on earth, judged by the millions of people that pass it. Drug stores, candy shops, barber shops and similar places in the neighborhood are never closed, from year’s end to year’s end.

Openhandedness of the West

SASKATCHEWAN woman lost her husband and oldest son in quick succession, leaving her with eight small children. Seven of her neighbors came with tractors, plowed her 160 acres in a day, harrowed and seeded it in another, and thus made it possible for the little brood to get along.

GOLDEN AGE

Settlement of Oceania

Colby the people have not swallowed all the publicity of the power trust, fed to them by the simian press, but they still have and maintain their own municipal electric light and water plant, and that plant pays all the town’s governmental expenses.

The Osservatore Romano

THE Osservatore Romano, official organ of the Vatican, has only four thousand subscribers, which shows how few people there are who care anything about what happens at the Vatican or what the Vatican thinks about anything. From the notoriety which this sheet receives in the American press one would think its circulation must be away up in the millions.

Magic for Ministers

THE -writer of the books “Magic for Ministers” and “The Conjurer in the Church”, and also two other books on magic, is now in the combined church and show business with Rodeheaver, late with the Billy Sunday outfit. Not having any Bible truths to present to the people, this method of doing sleight of hand tricks in the pulpit ought to make a hit.

Toronto in for a Bad Time

THE bones of a saint have been rubbed against fifteen hundred motor cars in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church in Toronto, holy water has been sprinkled on them and they have been “blessed”. No doubt the records since then will show a great increase in automobile accidents in Toronto streets. Toronto is in for a bad time.

The New Armored Combat Tank

THE new armored combat tank goes 42 miles an hour over rough country. In fourteen minutes it can be converted into a caterpillar tank and go sixty-two miles an hour. We have no information that each tank will be blessed with holy water and will have a chaplain aboard to represent the Prince of Peace, but if either of these desiderata is wanted it can be supplied instanter by those that are in that line of business.

of Oceania were uninhabited until about 400 B.C., when travelers put out from India, gradually spreading eastward until they reached and settled Central America, Mexico and countries to the north. Relapse into barbarism followed, owing to interrupted lines of communication.

Civil Versus Military Employees

TTNCLE Sam’s civil employees must put up 3y₂ percent of their w’ages to guarantee a maximum retirement allowance of $1,000 a year. Thus far they have put up twice as much as they have received back. Army and navy men receive higher wages than civil employees, put up not a cent toward their retirement fund, and yet may retire on $4,000 or even $6,000 a year, while still in the best of health.

$55,000,000 Profit in Six Years

ON AN investment of only $11,250 in Central

States Electric shares a Chicago lawyer made a profit of $55,000,000 in six years. This was possible because, in the United States, electric current which costs less than %c a kilowatt hour is sold to consumers at an average rate of 7.4 cents a kilowatt hour, or more than 3y₂ times the Canadian rate. The rate charged American consumers of electricity is in the neighborhood of ten times what it costs, and is the nation’s outstanding disgrace at this time.

The Private Car Graft

HPHE Long Bell Lumber Corporation has wide-ly scattered lumber interests. Do its officials pay railway fares when going from one part of the country to another? They do not. They have a lumber railroad down in Louisiana so small that it does not show on the map, yet it is long enough to have a private car, and that private car carries its officials all over the United States free of charge. Forty years ago this very form of graft was exposed and denounced and legislated against; but it still continues, and the public is the loser. One big thief will always help another big thief on the ground that he may some time want a similar favor. Legislation will never make the owners and operators of these private cars into honest men.

Niggardly Food Allowance for Prisoners

FOR more than sixty years the food allowance at the prisons in New York state has been but twenty-one cents a day, despite the fact that food prices have multiplied several times in the meantime. It is believed that this miserable food allowance was the underlying cause of the prison riots recently raging in New York state prisons. The governor of the state has promised to see that the prisoners shall have more and better food.

Fined Heavily for Raising Wheat By W. E. Shannon

Harry Porter, near Custer City, Oklahoma, had five hundred bushels of wheat in the Wheat Growers’ Association, and received $8.65 for it, or less than 2c a bushel. They charge 10c a bushel here for threshing, so you can see how much he made. I am well acquainted with him, and have this right from his own lips.

* * #

We ask our city readers to think about this a little. Think of the cost of the land, the necessary buildings, the fertilizers, the seed, the expense of plowing and , sowing and reaping and hauling to market, and the . hopes built on it all. No need to think of the taxes and cost of living. No need to think of any luxuries or even any comforts. How can this man who has provided so much food for his fellow men possibly contrive to live? The answer is that he can not do it very long unless help comes, and comes quickly.—■ Editor.

The Pilgrims from Philadelphia

FROM the Philadelphia Catholic and Standard we learn that when the pilgrims from Philadelphia recently called upon the pope at Rome they brought with them the following “Spiritual Bouquet”. Just what the pope will do with this bouquet we do not know; but, thinking some of our readers might be interested, we reproduce it. It seems a little bit shy on “Ransom of Pagan Babes”, and overly heavy on “Ejaculations”, but if the pope likes it we have no particular complaint. Of one thing we are sure, and that is that Rome will be as far as it will ever get.

Masses heard	340,156
Holy Communions	199,812
Rosaries	374,471
Litanies	33,779
Benedictions	41,639
Spiritual Communions	96,468
Rosaries promised	58,462
Benedictions promised	38.000
Stations of the Cross promised	7,227
Masses promised	97,571
Holy Communions promised	56,475
Stations of the Cross	36,639

Ejaculations	26,366,867
Mortifications	23,841
Good Works	741,554
Acts of Charity	31,381
Hours of Labor	75,065
Hours of Silence	10,088
Extra Devotions	1,436,002
Visits to Blessed Sacrament	267,989
Ransom of Pagan Babes	9
Visits to Blessed Sacrament promised	114,776
Litanies promised	4,296

Helping the Baby Jesus

MANY have supposed that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that Jesus Christ is

Almighty God. Indeed we published only a short time ago some evidence from the pen of one of their own theologians making that claim.

We now present additional evidence from the same source that, in their judgment, Jesus is still a baby. No wonder they worship Mary!

The letter which follows was sent out by the Right Reverend John J. Blair, president of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada. The letter-head contained a picture of the baby Jesus in the manger. It was sent out by the thousand about Christmas-time.

Dear Friend;

As the Feast approaches on which we celebrate God’s wonderful gift to mankind—His Only Begotten Son—-Who comes each year, with outstretched baby arms, scattering anew the peace and happiness of heaven upon men of good will, it behooves us to show, in a special way, some sign of the love that fills our hearts at the thought of what His Presence means in our lives.

What can we do to manifest this love? His Kingdom is a spiritual one; His only desire the salvation of souls. He commissioned the Apostles and their successors to carry on this work, and wants us to help them. '

How can this be done? Many generous, faithful Catholics send us, each year, $5.00, AS A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR THE INFANT JESUS, to assist our missionaries in bringing souls to Him. THEY HAVE LEFT HOME, AND FRIENDS AND COMFORTS FOR HIS SAKE. THEY NEED YOUR HELP. In His Name we beg you to send us $5.00 for this Fund and, exchanging a spiritual for a temporal favor, I shall offer, on Christmas morning, a special Mass for the intentions of all who send Him a Gift.

May the Infant Jesus grant you a plenitude of Christmas joy and blessing.

There Were No Patriots When All Men Belonged to One Tribe (By Robert Quillen. Reprinted from Brooklyn Times)

(Copyright, 1929.)

FpHE greatest enemy of peace is patriotism.

Patriotism is a survival of the narrow provincialism that was universal when cities had walls and every stranger was an enemy.

Patriotism is sectionalism gone mad.

These United States function as one country, yet their people are not one in spirit. East, 'West and South feel superior to one another - and resent one another.

Neighboring states have their jealousies, also; and rival cities in competition for trade or other advantages feel an enmity that is bitter and unreasonable.

When towns, counties and states dislike and envy one another, they may use commercial weapons to wage expensive war, or they may be content to boast of their own advantages and sneer at the claims of a rival; but they do not take up arms or endeavor to destroy one another’s property by force, for the superior power of the Federal Government would not tolerate strife between them.

They do not fight because they dare not—or perhaps because they are too civilized—but the feeling that animates them is in all particulars identical with the “patriotism” that prompts nations to make war.

If it is noble to be ignorant of the world outside your immediate neighborhood, to think your small section and your acquaintances the salt of the earth, to envy the good fortune of other people and other sections, to love the thing to which you are accustomed and hate the thing of which you are ignorant, then patriotism is noble; for that narrowness is patriotism.

If nations inspired by this patriotism should fight, then counties and cities stirred by the same feeling should fight in the same way. The size of the district one loves should not lessen the obligations of patriotism.

Leaders with axes to grind have encouraged and glorified patriotism throughout the whole of history; for they had need of cannon fodder, and men fight best when told they are fighting in a noble cause.

The truth is, there could be no patriotism without ignorant provincialism.

If cities that are rivals can live in peace, and sections of America that scorn and deride one another can remain partners in government, then all nations, despite their differences, can belong to one federation and settle their family quarrels without guns.

Since hatred between units of a nation isn’t patriotic, and the very existence of patriotism depends upon the existence of an outsider, the obvious solution is to make all nations units of one government and leave none outside to hate.

Family pride can pick no quarrels if all are one family.

On Tattooing

ONE often comes across members of the human family who have disfigured some part of their body with tattoo marks. Indeed, I well remember seeing in my boyhood days a side show at the local fair, wherein was exhibited a beautiful woman, of fine figure and lovely complexion, whose whole body from the feet to the neck w^Tas completely covered with a variety of designs in blue and red.

I have questioned many men upon whom these disfiguring marks are found, as to their reasons for being tattooed; but in no case have I received an answer showing any benefits derived from this practice. In most cases I learned that they regarded it as ornamental, and allowed their bodies to be marked simply because they wished to be in the fashion. A few supersti-tiously believed that in some way it kept them immune from infectious diseases; especially is this the case among soldiers and sailors, who form the larger portion of tattooed whites. Aristocracy has patronized it, even to the royal family. Perhaps this helps to clear up that mysterious expression, “the blue-blooded aristocracy.”

It seems strange that man should have any desire to disfigure his body with these red and blue marks, v⁷hich, I am given to understand, can not be removed except by an operation. By such practice men do not bring any glory to the Creator; and, after all, man’s chief object in life should be to bring glory to his Creator. Furthermore, I believe that God is displeased v/ith such w^rork, because he forbade his chosen people to make any marks on their bodies.— Lev. 19:28.

Tattooing has been practised in many countries, and is still common in Arabia, North and South America, India, China and Japan, being used for a variety of purposes in the different

{Contributed)

countries named. The American Indian tattoed the mark of his tribe or totem, for identification. Among the Fijians and Eskimos it assumed a religious significance. Omitting to tattoo was supposed to incur the forfeiture of happiness in a future world. Australian blacks and African negroes cut gashes and patterns on the skin, filling these with clay so as to raise scars.

Light-skinned people resort to cicatrice. In Japan it became a high art and was often used in lieu of clothing. In all countries in which tattooing is a usual custom, the designs vary according to sex. In some countries it was used as a brand of servitude; in others it was used for the purpose of intimidating foes. What could .be more fearsome or hideous than an army of tattooed warriors brandishing spears?

Among the Maoris, natives of New Zealand, it was, if not now, the rule to be marked at an early age. They are very proud of their marks - -and consider it a badge of bravery, an outward and visible sign of courage and prowess, cer-w . . tain lines denoting certain qualities.          ..... .—

Today the marking is done with an electric- . needle; but the Maoris used more crude methods, making the process a very painful one. Instruments made of whalebone, sharpened to a fine point; others made of shell were used. The ? chisels w’ere set in wooden sockets so that a mallet could be used in puncturing the skin. The lines were made from a pattern traced with, charcoal. The pigment used was the smoke from kauri gum. The operation is borne with stoical fortitude, it being considered a disgrace to acknowledge pain.

The superstition attaching to the practice show-s its origin to be from the Devil, who delights in spoiling God’s handiwork; therefore it is a thing to be avoided.

How to Get a Few Sweet Smiles By a Grandpa

FIRST select a little girl about five years old. A few years, more or less, does not matter. In want of a little girl, a little boy wall do, because you can still make out the shape of his fingers, even in vacation time; but you will be more likely to see them clearly if it is a girl that is selected.

Ask her to hold up her fingers good and straight, stretch them widely apart and hold them firmly. If she can’t and won’t do that, the game is all off. You might as w^rell give up looking for the smiles. But having pledged her to that, the rest is easy.

You grasp the wrist of your little friend with

your left hand; and then, with a solemn look on your face and a solemn tone of voice, you place the index finger of your right hand on the top of the upturned thumb and say:

This is little Tommy Thumb, Round and smooth as any plum.

Results start right away. The next step is to move your index finger over to the top of the little maiden’s tiny digit of the same relative position and say:

This is Busy Peter Pointer;

Surely he’s a double jointer.

You shift from one smile to another now, finger by finger, as you go on down the line, slowly and solemnly wiggling each of the maiden’s fingers down to the last one:

This is mighty Toby Tall;

He ’s the biggest one of all.

This is dainty Reuben Ring;

He’s too fine for anything.

And this little finger, maybe, Is the little Finger Baby.

Now you start all over again and have them coming in quick succession as you go back and forth from index finger to little finger, again and again, a word or two on each:

All the five we’ve counted now, Busy fingers in a

row*

Every

finger

knows the way How to

work and

how to

play.

Then you fold all the little maiden’s fingers up into the palm of your hand and say reassuringly :

But together work they best, Each one helping all the rest.

By the time you get done all the girls in the room up to 100 years of age will be casting sheep’s eyes at you and wishing you would tell them the same story.

Cancer: Its Causes and Prevention

FROM a little book by Melville C. Keith, M.D., published by W. H. Webb, medical herbalist, Southport, England, we print a few extracts. This little book, published away back in 1907, supports the view often mentioned in these columns, that all man’s bodily troubles originate in his intestines.

Whenever there comes to be too much of anything or any material in the body, which the force in that body can not get rid of by the proper channels, then this material is taken up by the blood corpuscles and deposited in some place (wherever it is most convenient and as far away from the heart as can be) and there this material is deposited as a bunch. Kindly observe this—any old, dead, effete, wornout, or ex-crementitious matters, are deposited, or dumped, in some place: and this dumping ground is actually a bunch of old material.

It is never under any circumstances a “growth”, but is a deposit; just in the same manner that you cleanse out your stables and throw out the debris and refuse, or excrementitious matters from your cattle, into the yard. It is never a growth, but always an accumulation of some old wornout material (or some excess of matters in the body) which should never have been there, but which, being there, has to be carried somewhere out of the way of the blood stream and out of the way of the action of the heart and lungs.

When this accumulation is large enough to be unpleasant, or in the way, when this dead matter is hard, then the life or force leaves these tissues: and we have the dead material, which fills the tissues. Then these tissues do not keep the fresh blood in them, and they become dead. When we have dead tissues, or material in which there is no life, then we have the chemical law taking hold of this mass, and it putrefies, or changes from a bunch to a dead mass. This dead mass, under the chemical law, putrefies: and we have an “eating sore”, or rather a mass which is composed of dead and rotting material. When the veins and nerves are filled up all the way around (for the blood corpuscles Eave filled these veins and arteries and nerves with this old and dead material), then these stiffened full veins and arteries and nerves (as they reach out away from the main bunch) look like “roots” or feelers of the “crab”. Hence this bunch has been called a cancer, from the Greek word kankrinos, crab, or cancer. It appears like a crab, a cancer, because of its supposed roots.

The surgeons may cut out the offending bunch, no matter where it is, and the victim may live for some time. But sooner or later the same conditions that caused the bunch in the first place will cause it again in some other place, and we shall have death as a result from the decomposition, or the putrefying of this dead and poisonous matter and its absorption back into the system.

Now the facts are that these cancerous formations were not due to the cancer germ. They were caused by filth, the disobedience of nature’s laws; and this, added to improper nourishment, brought about the condition of foreign or dead material in the body. Nature deposited this dead material in one place, and they called it a growth. It was not a growth, but an accumulation or a deposit of old material, and it became putrefied: it became a rotten or putrefied ulcer, or a cancerous bunch, and they cut it out. The proper thing to do would have been to eliminate the waste materials in the system instead of cutting out the organs with the supposition that there was a live germ there. We have already stated in a larger work than this how it was that the milk glands became filled with deposits of old material and the cancer of the breast followed.

When one thinks, in regard to these cases of the uterus, ovaries, or breasts, that there is always a deposit (not a growth, but an accumulation and a depositing of waste materials) ; also in the case of osteosarcoma, that there is always a growth or enlargement, and the growth or accumulation continues until the place is dead. The vital force has left the tissues. Then it breaks open and becomes putrefied. When we think of these conditions and think that the medical men have called these things first after kankrinos, a crab, because of its fancied resemblance to a crab, and then in the case of epithelioma, calling it a lupus, or wolf, we can see how little reasoning power they used in naming these conditions.

If they had said in regard to an osteo-sarcoma that it was a manure pile, they would have been much nearer the truth, because the materials which form this osteo-sarcoma are really the materials which should have passed off through the system a long time before. To call the epithelioma a lupus, or a wolf, because it eats and breaks down, is absurd; for it is not a wolf at all, but is simply a weakness of the tissue, because there is not sufficient strength in the tissues to hold it together, and not sufficient strength or nourishment in the food eaten to allow the vital force to build up good tissue.

On the cause of appendicitis the same writer said:

The basic reason for all cases, or nearly all cases of appendicitis, comes from the fact that the ascending colon has been crowded full of material; and as the feces form in the ascending colon they are forced over into the transverse colon. These colons being full and perhaps clogged by excessive dryness in the rectum, or excessive amounts of dry material which have caused constipation, or constipation from any cause—we say, these colons, being crowded full, exude or send through the walls of the intestines a quantity of the thinnest of the fecal matter.

The fecal matter, or the thinnest of it, passing through the walls of the ascending colon, falls down around the ascending colon and fills the groin full of this fecal material in its thin stage of liquid like water, but filled with particles of manure. It is at this point where this fecal material has exuded, or has been forced through the walls of the ascending colon and has fallen into the groin, that the pain, or ache, or uneasy feeling, is felt by those persons who are about to have appendicitis.

Chromium-Nickel-Steel

IT IS claimed by the Lalance & Grosjean Mfg.

Co. (Woodhaven, New York) that their utensils for home and factory use contain no copper, zinc or aluminum, are not subject to rust or corrosion, are not attacked by alkalis, cleaning liquids or powders, impart no foreign flavor or discoloration to foodstuffs, do not affect and are not affected by foods, and that soap and water are sufficient cleansing agents. Out of 126 acids and other chemicals listed as having been stored or used in these utensils, only 21 are reported as having affected them in any way, and 9 of them but slightly. The twelve which attacked them were chloracetic acid, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, picric acid, sulphuric acid, bromine, chlorine gas, copper chloride, ferric chloride, and combinations thereof. It is claimed that the metal is three times as strong as ordinary steel and equally as tough, that it is solid and not plated, and that it will last indefinitely.

The Fig Tree By J. A. Bohnet

CH HE Bible variously mentions the fig tree;

yet few people outside of California and some of the southern states know anything about this tree, although they may know more or less about its fruit. Readers of The Golden Age will doubtless be interested enough in this subject to peruse this article in its brief examination of this peculiar fruit-producer.

When in early springtime the fig tree puts forth its budding, the first noticeable sign of fruitage is a small green nub termed a fruit bud. As a rule, this bud does not mature. It drops off, because it came too early for the fruit wasp to pollenize it. Later another series of nubs come forth and develop into leaves. Then upon the new growth of wood comes a second crop of fruit buds, and these bring the season’s fruitage.

Of the first fruit buds referred to, a very small percentage develop into fruit; and those that do so produce fruit much larger, very much more luscious and desirable in all respects than the fruit of the second set of fruit buds.

We speak now of the variety known in general as the Smyrna fig, the one of recognized best quality and salability. However, this particular fig is not known in California by its true name Smyrna, for the reason that the law forbids it. Hence, in order to evade the law, it is known in this country as the Calimyrna fig, a combination of the two words California and Smyrna. This Calimyrna' fig is unlike any other kind of fig, and would be absolutely non-productive if not pollenized by the fig wasp, which comes from the Capri fig tree in exactly the proper time for pollenizing.

The Capri fig tree is what can rightfully be designated the male Smyrna tree, which bears no edible fruit, but a small fig that is, called manna-manona or perfiga, and in'which the-fe-male fig wasp has deposited eggs to the number of many hundreds. Around these eggs minute individual cells form, in which each egg develops into a larva and, in due time, into a fig wasp.

In each of these small male-tree figs there are therefore hundreds of these little cells which contain the female larva of the fig wasp, which when fully developed is about an eighth of an inch long, black in color, and could easily pass through the eye of a fine sewing-needle.

The male fig wasp is about half an inch long, amber-colored and glossy. It punctures the coll and impregnates the larva, which duly comes forth or escapes from the tiny cell, provided the day is one of sunshine. In rainy weather the larva does not hatch out the female wasp, but remains unhatched until the day is sunny.

The life of the female wasp is only twenty-four hours long. But during her brief existence she and her thousand companions emanating from the same male fig swarm the Smyrna fig tree, crawl into the needle-fine hole of the fruit bud, and pollenize the fig. At the same time she deposits therein her hundreds of eggs, which degenerate and become part of the fig itself. Without this procedure there could be no fig crop.

The male fig wasp never leaves its home in the male fig. These male figs (manna-manona or perfiga) are plucked from the tree, placed in cans or in open pouches, and hung in the fruitbearing fig trees, from one to four to a tree, according to the size of the tree. Each can or pouch contains from ten to twenty male figs.

The time of the escaping female wasp synchronizes exactly with the blossoming of the' fig tree. This is nature’s doing, and is remarkable. The fig blossoms within itself, and is the only fruit that does so. The first female-wasp hatching takes place in April. But the figs are then not yet in bloom; and consequently there can be no pollenizing, except in rare cases, as already stated. The next hatching takes place in June; and this is the time when the general pollenizing of the Smyrna occurs. Should heavy frost kill the male fig, which stays on its tree all winter, there would be no Smyrna figs.

The secret of fig pollenization was so carefully guarded in Turkey that several years were spent in finding it out. A Mr. Boding, of Fresno, spent two years among the fig growers of Smyrna before he learned how to import the wasp larvae to this country with safety. Finally, with the cooperation of Messrs. Richford and Swingle, of California, this was successfully accomplished.

Now throughout the southern half of California the Calimyrna fig is being grown in large quantities. The Newby Brothers have 240 acres planted exclusively to this kind of fig tree, about fifteen years’ growth. The fruit is much in demand.

When the female fig wasp hatches and comes forth in great swarms, not a blossoming fig escapes entry and pollenization. Any one wanting to know the number of wasps in a male fig needs but to count the seeds in an ordinary fig. The male fig is very prolific, and would afford a fair estimate.

Besides the Smyrna fig there are grown in California large quantities of the Black Mission fig, which is much larger and of excellent quality. But its blue-black color is somewhat against it, although many people prefer it. There is also the Asiatic fig, cream white in color and requiring much less culture care.

The Newby Brothers have a hundred or more Filipinos living in tents on their place; and when not needed, these are hired out to other fruit growers of grapes, oranges and figs at from 35 cents to 40 cents an hour in the offseason, for tree pruning and irrigation. When the fruit season is on, they pick fruit by the crate or ton-weight rate. They are not too smart to make good helpers, and can be depended upon. They have work the year around, at one job or another. Each man is both known and kept track of by number, as in the prisons. They are well content. Some of them own automobiles. They have a community dining room and their own cook and table waiters.

Figs, like grape raisins, must be thoroughly dried in trays before being shipped. The Muscat is the grape generally grown for raisin making. The Tokays are good keepers, and bring good prices. But the grower gets the small part. After he finds that some time during the night some one has driven into his vineyard with a truck, loaded it and decamped to parts unknown, he feels like going out and kicking somebody’s dog.

Conservators of the Casket Business By E. H. Bates

WE SIGNED a contract with the Manitoba Free Press for classified advertising, and our first advertisement showed that we served wholesome meals and protected the health of the public and did not use aluminum utensils.

A short time later we received a letter from the J. H. Ashdown Hardware Company, Ltd., of Winnipeg, Canada, objecting to our making a reference to aluminum and inclosing a reprint from the Winnipeg Free Press, outlining the city consulting chemist’s views.              .

We ignored their letter, and a few days later a representative of the Free Press called and stated that they had a complaint from the aluminum interests concerning our advertising, and wished us to eliminate our statement in reference to aluminum. When w*e told them that we considered aluminum was injurious to health and that we could furnish them with much information to show that such was the case, and if such was true they as a news medium should be glad to receive such information in the interest of their readers, he agreed to discuss the matter with others and advise us later, but without warning or further interviews they changed the advertising to suit themselves, omitting the statement in reference to aluminum.

I inclose herewith a letter from them setting out their reasons for the deletion; also parts of the Free Press paper showing our advertisement as originally printed, also after they had omitted the statement about aluminum.

A further portion of the paper is inclosed showing that the Ashdown Hardware Company, referred to above, came out with special rates on aluminum immediately after the Free Press reduced our ad. Many big stores in the city are displaying and advertising aluminum extensively, and it is common to see advertising cards with the display of aluminum which read that aluminum is not injurious to the health. The advertising suggests, If it is not injurious to health, why is it necessary to draw this to the attention of the purchasing public?

I inclose a clipping from the Winnipeg Tribune, April 11, 1929, which shows that about one-ninth of the ones referred to who die, die from cancer.

# * «

You wouldn’t think that in the city of Winnipeg the Aluminum Trust could control a hardware company, would you? Nor that the hardware company could control a newspaper? Nor that a newspaper could control the public announcements of an advertiser ? Yet it is all so easy. Free press! Fre-e press i FREE press! Laugh again.—Editor.

Thomas Paine and the Modernists By B. F. Grossell

THE publication of a new commentary on the

Holy Scriptures by Bishop Gore, which is said to represent the ripe scholarship of the greatest of English theologians of the day and of the authorities of the Anglican Church, in which the whole groundwork of authority of the Scriptures is undermined, brings up some interesting comparisons.

In one of his epistles the Apostle Peter speaks of the authority on which the Old Testament writings are based. He says that ‘holy men of . old spake as they were [borne along] by the holy spirit’. The thought contained in the Greek text, in the expression “borne along”, is that of a ship being borne along before the wind. That is, the writers of the Old Testament were impelled to write by a force outside of themselves; and oftentimes they wrote concerning things they did not understand.

The conclusions reached by Bishop Gore in his commentary are simply the outcome of the application of historical and literary criticism, the fruit of advanced scholarship that is now said to be a science. And we are told that with these new evidences before us, modern reason and philosophy can no longer hold the Bible to be the Word of God. This is termed the modern view, from which we get the word Modernist,

Some time ago a canon of Westminster, and a widely known preacher in London, wrote in one of the English Reviews that the Old Testament has lost all influence because of “the absurdities and moral crudities”, “the incredible, puerile or demoralizing narratives,” and that the New Testament “will have to go the way of Old Testament prodigies”. The only teachings saved from this wreck will be the moral precepts. One of the most advanced of the destructive critics in Scotland teaches that the New Testament has no historical foundation. Men of Cambridge and Oxford and of universities in this country teach that the Old and New Testaments contain a mass of fables, myths, and legends.

The “proofs” from which these conclusions are drawn are stated to be as follows:

• 1. Historical and chronological.

• 2. The constant contradictions found everywhere in the Old and New Testaments.

• 3. The disorderly arrangement of each book and of all the books.

• 4. Evidences that the books were not written by the authors assigned to them and were written long after the time narrated.

• 5. The low morality in precept and practice, and the low view of God.

• 6. The incredible claims made for Jesus Christ and His birth, miracles, resurrection, and deity.

The interesting point about these “proofs” is that they are identical with those given by Thomas Paine in his “Age of Reason”. There is this difference, however: There was no room for question as to Paine’s attitude. It was well known that he was opposed to the Bible. He wrote so that he could not be misunderstood. He stated that the whole Bible is a “pious fraud”, “spurious,” “an imposture,” and “a lie”, and that “I can write a better book myself”. Whereas, many of the Modernists are preachers, as in the case of Bishop Gore, occupying positions of influence in the church. While ostensibly expositors of the Word of God, they are really trying to destroy it. Hence the term “destructive critic”.

Thomas Paine came to this country from England, with a recommendation from Benjamin Franklin; and in the early years of the American revolution he was of great assistance to the colonists in stirring up the country in the cause of liberty by his writings. Later Paine went to France, and during the revolution in that country, in 1794-6, wrote his “Age of Reason” and sent it by thousands to America. It was very popular for a time, recommended by Paine’s reputation as a friend of America, and was spread through all the colonies. This small work is a strong and popular presentation of reasons for rejecting the whole Bible as “fabulous and false”.

Paine’s method is the application to the Bible of what he considered simple rules of history, literature, and science. The points made against the Bible are:

• 1. The “historical and chronological” evidence.

• 2. The “contradictions” found everywhere.

• 3. The “disorderly arrangement”.

• 4. The books were not written by the authors assigned to them, and were written long after the time narrated.

• 5. The low morality and the ascription to God of wicked and unjust words and deeds.

• 6. The incredible claims made for Christ, particularly as to His birth, His miracles, His resurrection, and His deity.

He states that the Old Testament is “a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry tales”; that the New Testament is full of "glaring absurdities, contradictions and falsehoods”.

These points are identical with those of the destructive critics of the Bible today. There has been no advance since .1796 ; the essentials are the same. Paine’s book taught nothing new. It is but a strong presentation of the arguments employed by the learned, destructive critics in England from Herbert to Hume, in Europe from Spinoza to Sender, in France from Rabelais to Voltaire. Nor are these predecessors of Paine the first in the field, for the same ground had been covered and the same conclusions reached in earlier centuries. However, this was not the first; for the most keen and learned men in the Bible of that time confronted Jesus and denied His teaching of the Old Testament, and His claim to be the Son of God. They charged Him with being a blasphemer, a servant of the Devil, a deceiver. The twenty-seven accusations against Christ by the chief priests and scribes cover the whole range of criticism of the Bible. Really, no new unbelief has been invented. The essential lines of attack are the same, and very old.

A Book and a Man

PRINCETON University is a sort of flioly of holies’ of the Presbyterian Church, a place where young men are trained for its ministry. What sort of training they get may be inferred from the following, reprinted from the Chicago Journal of Commerce. It will be of interest to our readers as showing that business men are getting their eyes open as to just what is going on in the colleges and universities.

The Bible is just a book, said Dean Wicks of Princeton University Chapel, in a recent sermon to Princeton students on the “AB C of the Bible”. The news says he thinks this book “should be treated entirely as a piece of ancient literature, telling the story of the development of religion from its most primitive stage to the high plane of the Christian era. The Old Testament especially is devoted almost entirely to stories of this development”.

So far as quoted, the dean said nothing of the literary characteristics of the Bible—its masterpieces of narrative, poetry, wisdom, drama and history. He calls it “just a book”, a rather flippant characterization of what is justly regarded as one of the greatest books ever written. So far as the news story reveals, Dean Wicks seems to regard it almost negligible.

Of the New Testament, w'e are told that it is but a record of various people’s opinions of Jesus Christ, all colored by the minds of the writers. Strange that this dean, if correctly reported, should leave the words of Christ entirely out of consideration. He might have mentioned the Sermon on the Mount, at least. That was not the opinion of others. But we need not worry about that. “Something drastic needs to be done about Christianity,” says the dean. Maybe, but he doesn’t do it. Addressing an audience of young people, an impartial critic might well wonder why he did not call attention to the teachings of Christ; that is, if he wanted to inspire the young people to better lives. And we see nothing better than Christ held up to them to take His place, unless the dean himself is the One.

Advises Against Imitating Christ

THE pastor of the Highland Christian Church

(Denver) advised his flock not to try to imitate Christ ‘because Christ did nothing to better His earthly position, studied no useful art or science, made no money, established no home, was never ordained, never performed a marriage and never baptized any one’. We add a few for good measure. He had a kingdom in His grasp and refused it, which is something no preacher ever did; He walked on the water and raised the dead, which shows that if He did not understand the arts and sciences He had something just as good; He never had to take up a collection, and never tried to bunco His fellow men by standing up on a pedestal and assuming to be what He was not. He was the friend of the common people, not of the plutocrats.

Bible Question and Answer

UESTION: Why did God not make Adam and Eve morally strong enough to resist temptation in the garden of Eden ? If you answer this question by side-stepping it, as Dr. Cadman did, by replying that “God did make them strong enough, but they did not will to resist it”, then I am asking you to apply the “why?” to that answer thus: Why did they not will to resist the temptation ?

Answer: In 1 Timothy 2:14 the Apostle Paul refers to the temptation and says: “Adam was not deceived; but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression.” Adam and Eve, being the handiwork of God, were perfect in all the faculties, powers and members of their being. Deuteronomy 32:4 says: “[God’s] work is perfect.” Eve did not resist the temptation because, for one thing, she was deceived. Another thing was that Eve let selfishness and pride enter and control her. The serpent deceitfully demonstrated to her that the forbidden fruit was a food; hence Genesis 3: 6 says: “The woman saw that the tree was good for food.” This created in her an appetite, or what the Apostle John calls “the lust of the flesh”. The scripture also states: “The woman saw that the tree . . . was pleasant to the eyes.” So the deceptions of the serpent made her indulge in what John calls “the lust of the eyes”. Thirdly, the scripture states: “The woman saw that the tree was . . . to be desired to make one wise.” Eve feeling that she lacked certain wisdom which she deserved to have, and the serpent arguing that the tree would supply that lack and make her as wise as gods, the scripture states that “the woman saw” or thought she saw the need of the forbidden fruit. Eve was stirred to vanity and indulged in what John calls “the pride of life”. Eve was not ignorant that to eat the fruit was forbidden, for she told the serpent that it was forbidden. Now even when matters are deceitfully misrepresented to one, yet out of faithfulness and love one can choose to keep God’s command. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,” says 1 John 5: 3. So, had Eve let gratitude for God’s past goodness, and love toward Him, rule her, she would have resisted the temptation to selfishness and would have lovingly kept faith with God and obeyed His commandment. For similar reasons Adam did not resist temptation. He was neither ignorant of God’s commandment nor deceived; hence his temptation was not with regard to the fruit, but in regard to his wife, and on the same three points. He saw that Eve was satisfying to his “flesh” as a companion; that she was a perfect beauty, and hence “pleasant to the eyes”; and rather than wait on God to justly dispose of Eve’s case, he was tempted to “pride of life”, to run ahead of God in self-wisdom and cast in his lot with Eve rather than lose her in death. Adam fell, not because he had been created imperfect or weak-willed, but because he allow’ed selfishness to crowd out love for God. That Adam could have successfully withstood the temptation, read Matthew 4:1-10, and you will find that Jesus was tempted on exactly the same points as Adam and Eve, namely, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” Jesus resisted the Devil, and, being at that time a perfect man, the equivalent of Adam in Eden, Jesus proved that the perfect Adam could likewise have resisted the Devil and won. To the true followers of Jesus it is written: ‘'Tove not the world, neither the things that are in the world. . . . For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” (1 John 2:15,16) Faithful Christians overcome this world as Jesus did (John 16: 33; 1 John 5:4), by resisting the lust of the flesh and of the eyes and the pride of life. If they in their imperfection can do this with God’s help, surely Adam in his perfection in Eden could have overcome. If Adam was not made strong enough to resist the temptation, then we should reason that God, knowing this, would have prevented Adam from being tempted by something too much for him, and would thus have saved His earthly creature from sin and death. But the scripture (1 Cor. 10:13) says: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able [to bear].” But God did not hedge Adam about from temptation, because He knew that the perfect man was made strong enough to bear it. Hence we must conclude that, when it came to deciding the issue, Adam suppressed his supreme love for God and let love for himself and for his beautiful wife decide the course for him to choose.

THE Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society receives daily reports from all corners of the world as to the trend of the people toward God or away from Him. Such a report was recently received from Walters, Oklahoma, respecting the coast-to-coast hook-up in which Judge Rutherford lectured on “Health and Life for the People”. The report said, in part:

The lecture of August 25 has made Satan and the clergy in Walters very angry. . . . Now here is some good news for you: All the preachers heard this lecture yesterday morning. At 11 a.m. they met in the First Baptist Church. The Baptist preacher made a long talk on the evils of Judge Rutherford’s radio lectures. After this talk was over, the preachers and the principals of their flock met in the anteroom of the church and outlined an attack upon the spread of the truth. They authorized their secretary to send a letter, one they had just outlined, to the proper officials at Washington, D. C., and another one to the Federal Radio Commission. This letter is a protest against Judge Rutherford’s and all other Bible Students’ using the radio for their “propaganda”, and against the sale of their literature. It declares that if this is not stopped immediately, it will soon destroy civilization, the churches and the governments.

We hope that none of our readers will be so foolish as to think that these preachers really believe there is anything in Judge Rutherford’s address that is harmful to the cause of truth and therefore adverse to the real interests of anybody. They believe nothing of the sort.

What they really believe, and what they really know, is that he is telling the people the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and it is this that they feel must be stopped at all hazards. Their letter to Washington is a confession. They say, in effect, ‘The Devil knows you are part of his kingdom, you know it, we know it, and everybody knows it. Up till now we have lied for you with our whole heart and with our whole soul. We have declared that instead of being part and parcel of the Devil’s empire, you are really Christ’s empire. We have at all times been ready to bless your battleships, cannons, machine guns, TNT bombs, poison gas, tanks, flame throwers, lying press and thieving politicians and financiers. What job as chaplain have we ever turned down? When have we ever failed to pray for any politician, regardless of how black his name or how black his heart?

‘And when have we ever failed to churn for war when you wanted war, and to turn our pulse pits into recruiting stations for you? You Know that we have been your right-hand men. And now this man Judge Rutherford is upsetting everything. He is spilling the beans. He is telling the people the truth about us, and it is getting too hot for us. Something must be done, and we depend on you and on the Devil to see that it is done and done quickly.’

Perhaps some of them would lack the courage or the perspicacity to make such an obvious statement, but they were all thinking it, to the last man in that conference. It is not God’s name they are interested in. It is the preaching business in Walters, Oklahoma, and elsewhere. It is the overalls and the alarm clock that they fear. Every time they hear the name “Big Ben” or Waterbury or Ansonia or ‘Westclox” they break out in cold sweat. The pick is hard on the back, at first, and it takes a little time to get up callouses on hands that have never done an honest day’s work. But in the end it will all be for the best.

They infer that Judge Rutherford will soon destroy the churches unless he is stopped. They are not well read on this important subject. They do not know what a church is, and so we will help them, and will send them marked copies of this article.

In the first place, a church is not a building. It is a company of people. The building in which they meet has nothing to do with their standing with God. “The Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”—Acts 7:48.

These words of the martyred Stephen are buttressed by those of the Apostle Paul, at Athens, when he said, “God that made the world, and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”—Acts 17: 24.

W’e do not need to support the statements of the inspired apostle by the statements of uninspired men. Nevertheless, the Roman Catholic theologian, Bellarmine, defines the church as “the company of Christians knit together by the profession of the same faith and the communion of the same sacraments”. This is not a description of a building.

The catechism of the Greek church teaches that “the church is a divinely instituted community of men, united by the orthodox faith, the law of God, the hierarchy and the sacra-

ments”. Nothing is said about cathedral naves, transepts or chancels.

Article nineteen of the Church of England declares that “the visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance”. It says nothing about pulpits or choir lofts.

The Lutheran church, in its Augmstine Confession, article seven, says that the church is “a congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered”. It wisely and Scripturally omits all mention of steeples and belfries.

The Presbyterian church makes the following definition: “The universal church consists of all those persons, in every nation, together with their children, who make profession of the holy religion of Christ, and of submission to His laws.” Interest in stained-glass windows, pews, hymnbook racks, carpets and cushions, is not indicated in this definition.

The Congregational church defines as follows: “A church is a society of professed believers, united by a covenant expressed or implied, whereby all its members agree with the Lord and with each other to observe all the ordinances of Christ.” The definers make no mention of collection baskets or altar rails, and apparently thought such mention unnecessary.

When Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), He had no reference to buildings of any kind. He was thinking wholly of people. He was pointing out that the members of His church would all believe the one great truth that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and they all do believe it. No one can be a member of Christ’s church and not believe that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

It will be noticed in this connection that Jesus did not say that it would be required of His followers that they must believe that He is the heavenly Father Himself. Nor did He intimate, as some have misunderstood, that it was Peter, and not Peter’s utterance, Peter’s declaration, the great truth that He is the Son of the living God, that constitutes the foundation of His church.

When again Jesus said that under certain circumstances one might tell the misdeeds of another to the church, it is obvious that He did not have in mind whispering these matters to a pile of stone or wood or brick, but to a company of Christians.

In thinking and speaking about this matter of the church, some have quite overlooked the fact that Jesus was not an ordained minister, in the accepted sense of the term; never built a church, nor asked anybody else to do so; never rang a church bell or had one rung in order to get people to hear Him; never wore any priestly vestments and never preached from a pulpit nor asked any one else to do so.

Jesus never applied to Himself the title “reverend”, “right reverend,” “doctor of divinity,” “father,” “bishop,” “archbishop,” “cardinal” or “pope”, nor asked anybody else to do so; never sprinkled holy water on anybody nor asked anybody else to do so; never sold any holy candles or other holy trinkets nor asked anybody else to do so.

Jesus never used for Himself or His followers the title “Roman Catholic”, “Greek Catholic,” “Anglican,” “Presbyterian,” “Methodist,” “Baptist” or any other of the one hundred and sixty-three curious names for Christians now in use, nor asked anybody else to do so.

Jesus (and here the Walters, Oklahoma, “divines” may read with profit) never exhorted His followers to be the mainstay of the Roman government or its successors, nor to act as recruiting agents for the same in time of war; nor did He ever do any of that kind of work Himself.

Jesus never set apart a portion of God’s earth as consecrated ground; for He knows it all belongs to the Father. He never shook a collection basket under anybody’s nose, nor asked anybody else to do so in His name.

Jesus never pined for a cathedral, an episcopal palace, rectory, manse or parsonage. He was content that “the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head”. (Matt. 8:20) When He wanted to go anywhere, He walked. His friends were among the poor and lowly.

The religionists of His day considered Jesus an illegitimate child (John 8: 41), a glutton and a wine bibber (Matt. 11:19), a friend of publicans and harlots (Luke 7:34), a destroyer of temples (Matt. 26:61), a blasphemer, (Matt. 26:65), a deceiver of the people (John 7:12), the prince of the devils (Matt. 10: 25); and they verily thought that unless something was done, and done quickly, they would have to get to work.

If you wish to see a true mirror of that conference at Walters, Oklahoma, read the following: “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Bomans shall come and take away both our place and nation.”—John 11:47,48.

In his epistle to the Romans, chapter sixteen, verses three to five', - the Apostle Paul says: “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their house.”

This gets down to the root of the matter. Here was a church, a company of God’s people, meeting in a private home, a perfectly legitimate and praiseworthy thing for any company of Christians to do. The time will come when every home in the world will be just such a home.

Will there be anything wrong when such a situation prevails in Walters, Oklahoma, and elsewhere all over the earth, a situation in which God is “all in all”, i.e., everything to everybody? Why, that is what everybody wants. That is what everybody is praying for when praying, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

How is God’s will done in heaven? Is it done the way it is done in Walters, Oklahoma? Is it just a place of churches with clanging bells, and collection baskets, where people will hear careful repetitions of things they have heard a million times before, without ever, by any chance, hearing anything new or anything better? Pardon us, but that would be heaven for ecclesiastics only.

Let us get the right thought. It is not God’s wish nor His purpose to transform this earth into a place where everybody will be living in monasteries and convents, and the only buildings will be churches and church institutions. That would be too ecclesiastical to be practical.

What God desires is not buildings, but hearts. “The Father seeketh such to worship him” as “worship him in spirit and in truth”. Of what use will all present church buildings be when the following prophecy goes into effect ? “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”—Jer. 31: 33, 34.

In God’s kingdom what will the people build, if not churches? Hear the Word of the Lord: “And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” (Isa. 65:21-24) That will be the Millennium, God’s kingdom, and it is even now upon us.

As to the effect that will have on the United States government, or any other government, we are not concerned. Few politicians are in pow^Ter long, and many of the finest of them have said that they hope Judge Rutherford is right and that the long-promised reign of truth and peace and justice and honesty is really here. They know that it means the end of all hypocrisies, including the institutions that have miscalled themselves churches, and will quietly laugh up their sleeves when they receive that wild-eyed manifesto from Walters, Oklahoma.

Organized Minorities in Washington

REFERRING to Mr. Coolidge’s warning against heeding the cries of minorities, Labor says: “While he was in office he gave the Power Trust, the Shipping Trust, the Money Trust and the Transportation Trust everything they wanted. He never entered a word of criticism of their lobbies. He could see no menace in their activities. He was on the public payroll for thirty years, and the undisputed record shows for every minute of that time he served the interests. Other machine men might flop to the people’s side occasionally, but not Cal.”

The Government That Will Satisfy

[Broadcast from Station KNRC, Santa Monica, Calif., by Judge Rutherford.]

THE peoples of earth who bear the burdens desire a government of honesty, founded upon justice and administered for the general welfare. That the people are not satisfied with the governments of earth is abundantly supported by testimony well known to all. While the people were passing through the horrors of the World War there was an effort made to encourage them to greater deeds of valor and blood by telling them that the war would make the "world safe for democracy. Ten years have passed since the vvar ended, and democracy is yet very unsafe. Radical governments are unsafe and unsatisfactory.

The people are not satisfied with any form of government that they have experienced. Monarchies have been controlled by the exploiters and selfish. Bolshevism and sovietism have proven a complete failure.

A smaller minority that compose the governments of earth are feverishly preparing for another war. The people are being burdened with taxation to pay for such preparation for war. The people are not satisfied with it. In England a monster petition has been presented to the government, signed by the people who usually do the fighting, declaring that they will not support another war. Their dissatisfaction is thereby expressed. TheLeague of Nations, supposed by many to be a means to their everlasting peace, has completely broken down. Disarmament conferences have failed. The people have lost faith in the attempts to establish a satisfying government.

The government that has long been looked upon with pride, the government that has long stood at the head of the list, and which has been regarded as the most nearly ideal government, is that of the United States. The expressed intention of its founders was that it should be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. After one hundred and fifty years’ experience the people are not satisfied with the result.

A few weeks ago a distinguished member of the United States senate visited California. In a public address he made some strong statements concerning present conditions. We must indulge the presumption that the distinguished senator told the truth. There is no reason to believe that he did not tell the truth. Among other things he said was this: “The government of the United States is in the hands of boodlers, grafters and lobbyists. Trusts multiply and the president does not choose to interfere. Monopolies grow fat; combinations are formed, and arrogantly pursue their methods under the protection of the government.” The common people bear the burdens and suffer.

In the Congressional Record of March 5,1928, is the statement that more than eighty-two percent of all the taxes collected from the people in the United States is expended to make preparations for war. At the same time there are millions of men and women who are unable to find honest employment to earn bread to feed themselves and their children.

The Reason

Attention is called to these unhappy conditions, not for political purposes, nor for the purpose of producing more discontent, but for the purpose of enabling the people to see the reason for these conditions, and that their eyes may be opened to the absolute remedy, and that they may see what will bring to them a satisfying government.

There is an invisible power that controls the affairs of the governments of this world. That invisible power is Satan the Devil, who for many centuries has been the god or invisible ruler of the world. The authority for this statement is found in the words of Jesus and of Paul, recorded in the Scriptures. The statement is supported by the physical facts with which all thoughtful men are acquainted today. The influence of Satan the Devil over the ruling powers of earth has always been evil. Whether men know it or not, they have been and are .weak and are susceptible to the sinister influence of the evil one.

Jehovah is the only true God, and from Him come all things that are desirable. He created man perfect and gave him a happy home which he might have enjoyed for ever. He placed Lucifer, a spirit being, as overlord of man. Lucifer rebelled against God and led man also into rebellion against Jehovah. God changed the name of Lucifer, and since then he has been designated under the titles Dragon, Serpent, Satan and Devil, all of which names signify his great wickedness. Man was sentenced to death.

While lie was undergoing thaf death sentence over a period of years his children were born. The result was that the children of the imperfect man were born imperfect. All men, therefore, have been born sinners, weak and susceptible to evil influences.

God did not restrain the Devil from exercising power over men. God permitted man to take his own course and to attempt to establish his government. He placed before him good, and let man choose whether he would follow good or evil. He has permitted man to have a long period of experiences, and by this man has been thoroughly informed of the bad effects of following unrighteousness. In due time God organized Israel into a sample government and instructed them to hold themselves aloof from the influence of Satan. That nation did not do it, but fell under the influence of the Devil. In the year 606 B.C. God cast away the Israelites and permitted the Gentiles to have an uninterrupted sway. During all that period of time Satan has been the invisible ruler, because men who have ruled on earth have yielded to his influence. At the time of the overthrow of the Israelites God made a promise that in His own due time there should come His anointed King to whom the right to the government should be given and that He should establish a righteous government for man. That promised One is His beloved Son, Christ Jesus. He succeeds to the position of invisible ruler of man, which for a long time has been occupied by Satan. The government of Christ will prove a government entirely satisfying to the people.

Nearly nineteen hundred years ago Jesus, the Son of God, came to earth and was crucified. His death as a man provided the redemptive price for man to relieve him from the disability of sin. During His rulership all men shall have an opportunity to avail themselves of the benefit of that ransom sacrifice. When Jesus was raised from the dead He ascended into heaven, there to receive authority to establish a righteous government for man on earth.

Jesus declared that He would return and take charge of the affairs of earth and establish a righteous government. Asked by His disciples as to what would be the proof of that coming time He answered: 'The time shall be marked by the nations’ becoming angry; nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, to be followed by famine and pestilence and revolutions. These things shall mark the beginning of sorrows.’

In 1914 that great prophecy began to have its fulfilment. The nations became angry. The World War was the beginning of sorrows upon Satan’s organization, including the unrighteous governments of earth called "Christendom”. It was in 1914 that Jehovah enthroned His beloved Son as the invisible Ruler and began operations to establish a righteous government. It is manifest that before righteousness could be established in the earth the evil ruler must be dethroned. Satan would not voluntarily surrender control over the governments of earth. The Scriptures show that conditions are now preparing for the great battle of Armageddon, in which Satan and his organization shall fall, never to rise again.

In 1918 the World War ceased. Trouble was suspended for a time, and the Scriptures declare it was for the purpose of having the followers of Christ give testimony to the rulers and to the peoples of earth of the impending trouble upon the nations and governments of the world and of the great blessings that shall follow under God’s righteous government. That work is now being done.

It is Satan and his agencies that are preparing for another war. The rulers of the world do not realize that fact. I do not speak in harsh criticism of the rulers. They are blind to what is in progress, and the clergy have completely failed to tell them the meaning of God’s Word and His purposes.

The commercial and political interests desire more wealth and more power. They have no faith in God, because they have not been taught. They have no faith in the clergy, yet they tolerate the clergy as part of the governments of this world, having some unfounded belief that they must do so. The clergy have failed to learn the truth of the Bible, and of course have failed to teach it to the people. Fear has laid hold upon the governing powers of the earth; and Satan takes advantage of this to urge them on to the preparation for war, expecting to use these forces in the great battle of Armageddon.

The Devil’s purpose now is to discredit God and His Christ, and he uses the clergy for that purpose. Men who claim to represent the Lord at the same time deny the blood of Jesus as the saving power for man and teach evolution and self-uplift instead. The prophet of the Lord,

having a vision, wrote concerning the very times in which we are now living and said: “And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”—Rev. 16:13-16.    ,

These three unclean spirits are likened unto frogs. They are bombastic and noisy. They utter messages that proceed from the Devil. They are turning the minds of the people away from God and hurrying the rulers on to prepare for Armageddon. The clergy were warned in this prophecy to watch and keep themselves identified with the Lord. But they have failed to watch and, as indicated symbolically by “their garments”, they have allied themselves with the world and have exhibited their shame. They have failed to tell the people that the World War and the events transpiring since then are the evidences conclusively showing that the Lord is establishing His kingdom of righteousness.

The Issue

The great issue before the peoples of earth today is, Who is God? Those who are really devoted to the Lord bear testimony to the fact that Jehovah is the only true God, and that Christ is God’s anointed King whom He has placed in power and authority. The obligation that now rests upon every follower of Christ is to tell the people of God’s government which He is setting up on earth. For^- a long time the whole creation has groaned and travailed, waiting for this government of righteousness which the Lord long ago promised. The people must now be told about it, because the time has come. That is the only excuse for the existence of the Bible Students or any other followers of Christ.

Let it be understood that the Bible clearly teaches that God is not trying to get any one into heaven. There will be a very few who will go to heaven, and those few will be made up of the ones who are entirely devoted to God and His cause and who refuse to mix up with the politics of this world. These regard it as the greatest privilege of man to be God’s witnesses, and the followers of Jesus, but they have no time nor inclination to mix with the evil affairs of this world. What God is having done now is to tell the people about His government through which shall come all the blessings that they have desired.

Righteous Government

With the fall of Satan and his organization the righteous government of Jehovah and His Christ will have full sway over the earth. Jehovah has placed His beloved Son Christ Jesus in charge as the invisible ruler of the peoples of earth and will restrain Satan from exercising his evil influence over them. The government of Christ will bring the desire of the people. It is written by the prophet of the Lord concerning Christ: “Unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.” —Isa. 9: 6,7.

Wars to Cease

It must now be apparent to all thoughtful persons that war can not be outlawed by the League of Nations, disarmament conferences or treaties among men. As long as Satan the Devil exercises power and influence over man, war and trouble must continue, because Satan is the very embodiment of evil.

The people do not want war. They call to mind the great suffering and sorrow war entails upon the innocent. The young man is harshly torn away from his wife and unborn babe and hurried to the field to kill or to be killed. The young wife is left in distress and sorrow to give birth to the child. The babe suffers for want of food and nourishment, because of the burdens that war has cast upon the people, and dies. The mother is broken in health and in courage. The husband returns from the war with broken body and mind. In sorrow the two drag on their existence for a time.

The horrors of war can never be described in human phrase. It stands always as a hideous monster before the minds of honest people. The people want wars to cease for ever, and will not be satisfied until they do cease. Under the righteous government of the Lord war will cease for ever. No more will the people then be taxed to build warships and other instruments of destruction. Concerning that the Lord through His prophet says that "the kingdom of the Lord shall be established over the other kingdoms and nations. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the government of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will wrnlk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their svzords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’.—Isa. 2: 2-4.

Through His prophet. Daniel, God gave a brief outline of the history of the world powers and governments from the time of Babylon to the League of Nations of the present day. This He caused to be written for the encouragement and comfort of those who seek the truth. In the hour of distress, when the nations are preparing to destroy each other, the Lord’s prophecy applies. He says: “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”—Dan. 2:44.

Mark the words, “the kingdom shall not be left to other people.” That means that the government of the Lord established over the earth will have in it no boodlers, no grafters, no lobbyists, but will be a government and rule of the people in righteousness. In that government there will be no heartless profiteers and financial institutions called trusts to oppress the people.

Concerning that righteous government God’s Word says: “For the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth, the oppressors are consumed out of the land. And in mercy shall the throne be established; and he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness.” —Isa. 16:4,5.

God and Christ are invisible to men. Who, then, will be the visible and active rulers among the peoples on earth? The Scriptural answer to that question brings joy to the honest heart. The Bible discloses a long list of faithful and honest men from Abel to John the Baptist. It is written concerning these men that they loved and served God faithfully and of them the world was not worthy. It is also written that these men died in faith, not having received what God had promised them, but that God reserved their reward until the completion of His government. In their day they were called “fathers” in Israel. Under the government of Christ they shall be the princes in the earth, as it is written in Psalm 45:16: “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.”

A prince is a son of a king and acts under the king’s authority. These faithful men from Abel to John, including all the prophets, will receive life from Christ, as God’s great executive officer. They will therefore be the children of Christ, and will be princes or visible rulers in the earth.

That the administration of this government will be righteous is proven by the words of the prophet: “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.” (Isa. 32:1) Such is the government for which Jesus taught His disciples to pray: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.”

The people must learn to do right and to deal right with each other. This they can not do while the evil influence of Satan is exercised over them. But as they come to a knowledge of the righteous invisible government of Jehovah, and the righteous administration by the faithful men in the earth, the people will respond with gladness. The prophet represents them as saying: “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for "when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.”—Isa. 26:9.

The mass of the people wrnnt to do right; and if they are permitted to do it and evil influences are removed, they will do right. The Lord’s righteous government will show them the right way, and it will bring to their minds complete satisfaction.

The people for long held to the belief, because of false teaching, that only those who are taken from earth to heaven will ever be happy. God made this wonderful earth for a purpose. He states through His prophet (Isa. 45:12,18) that He formed the earth for man, and that He formed it to be inhabited. Then He made promise that through His anointed King, under the administration of His righteous government, all the families and nations of the earth should have opportunity to be blessed. He made it clear from the Scriptures that all who would be obedient to Him should be blessed with an opportunity for life, for health, for peace, and for happiness. By the sacrifice of His beloved Son the great redemptive price for man was provided, and thereby all men, agreeable to His promise, are ransomed from death and from the grave. He provided that men should receive the benefits of this sacrifice during the administration of His righteous government. In that time every man shall be brought to a knowledge of the truth and, if he is willing to obey the truth, shall be restored to a perfect condition of manhood and dwell for ever on the earth. The righteous princes or representatives of God’s government on earth will teach the people and lead them in the way of righteousness. The living shall have the first opportunity, and then the dead shall be brought forth from the grave and be given a full and fair chance. Through His prophet the Lord declares: “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”—Isa. 35:10.

The word “Zion” mentioned in this scripture means God’s organization, His righteous government. Not only will that government be satisfying to the people, but it will bring to them joy and gladness, and their sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Under the present evil conditions great financial companies oppress the people. As stated by the United States senator here a few weeks ago, “Trusts multiply, monopolies grow fat, and combinations are formed and arrogantly pursue their methods without interruption.” These institutions loan money to the people upon their farms, and lend it at usurious rates. The people’s burdens are such that they are unable to pay the interest and taxes. The mortgages are foreclosed and they lose their homes. A great part of the population of the governments of the earth are in constant fear of being robbed of what they justly own by these arrogant and cruel powers. Such a thing will for ever cease under the righteous government of the Lord now being put into operation, because it is written of and concerning that government: “They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” —Isa. 65: 21, 22.

“But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.” (Mic. 4: 4, 5) That will be a government that will satisfy the desire of every honest heart.

Today the common people do not have a fair show in the courts of the land. The wealthy and influential can commit crime with impunity and go unpunished. The poor suffer. It will not be so under the righteous government of the Lord, for it is written: “With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.”—Isa. 11:4.

The earth is full of material wealth. There is sufficient for all to be supplied with an abundance. But throughout the nations and governments of earth a few roll in luxury and the majority of the people suffer for want of necessities. The secretary of labor only a few days ago reported a great multitude without employment in the fertile and rich land of America. Such conditions will not be possible under the righteous government of Messiah, because it is written that in that kingdom “shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined”.— Isa. 25: 6.

For centuries man has diligently sought for health and vigor. A sample of such is the Spaniard, Ponce de Leon, who sought the fount of eternal youth. Why this desire in the heart of man! The answer is, Because man wants something that is satisfying, that will guarantee to him continued peace, health, prosperity and happiness. None of these things does man enjoy in his present deplorable condition, and no government on earth has been able to bring that which satisfies. God promised that under His righteous rule the people shall be blessed with peace and truth and health, as it is written: "I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.” “And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.”—Jer. 33:6; Isa. 33: 24.

The whole creation desires to live. It was Jesus who said: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17: 3) This great satisfying blessing will be realized under God’s righteous government.

Let the'people not misunderstand me. I say without hope of contradiction that the clergy and their church systems have taught the people that the purpose of the Lord is to work through the churches to convert the world and prepare them for heaven. In this the clergy and the churches are wrong. The Scriptures plainly say that God has been taking out from the world, a people for His name preparatory to the establishment of His righteous government among men and that such righteous government shall bring to man the things that he has so long desired, namely, peace, prosperity, happiness and life everlasting. Is it not time for the people to awake to the fact that all the efforts of man to obtain the desirable things upon earth have failed, and that the only way to enjoy the things that are satisfying is to pursue the way that God has marked out¹? and that, seeing that this is true, the greatest privilege that could now be granted to any one would be to faithfully represent the Lord and to tell one’s fellow men about these blessings that are at hand? There should exist no prejudices and no harsh feeling between those who have a desire to see the people in a better condition. Let them all learn that the common enemy of man is Satan the Devil, who has for long been the invisible god of this world; that the great friend of man is Jehovah God, whose every act toward man has been prompted by love; that He has placed His King, Christ the Righteous One, in authority, and His government is now being installed. With that government in full sway it will bring complete satisfaction, peace, prosperity, and happiness to the families and nations of the earth. The obedient shall dwell on the earth for ever in complete happiness.

Ecclesiasticism

TpCCLESIASTICISM and freedom are incompatible. Of all the men that signed the Declaration of Independence, only one man, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was a Roman Catholic. Now, to hear some people talk, you would think the bulk of them were of that liberty-hating institution.

Ecclesiasticism is willing to receive, accept, appropriate and use any and all riches, favors, emoluments and honors, but she never willingly gives up a single one of them to any people, no matter how needy or how deserving. Her only idea of justice is to get all possible and hold on to it till death. Charity she may dispense; justice, never.

The French and Indian war, which aimed to exterminate or hamper the development of Protestantism in America, was the work of Jesuits. In the past two hundred years the J esuits have been expelled from France, Spain, Italy and many other countries. At one time one of the popes suppressed the order, but today it is one of the strongest single forces in the United States.

Ecclesiasticism does not want justice. It wants

and Freedom

toleration while it renders in kind the most bitter intolerance. Romanism professes to be above all law. In some countries priests may commit any crime and no penalty may be laid upon them by the civil authorities. Rarely does any priest suffer for a crime in America. There are ways out.

Ecclesiasticism does not want education. It has had its way in Ireland, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Portugal, Mexico, Spain, Brazil and Guatemala. In these countries the average percentage of population over ten years that can neither read nor write is 54.7. In the Protestant countries of Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, Scotland, Holland, England and the United States, this percentage is only 2.6.

Where it has had full sway ecclesiasticism can proudly point to twenty times as many people who can not read and write as can be found in other countries. Ecclesiasticism, in all its forms, is the meanest of all the branches of the Devil’s empire, because of its blatant hypocrisy. It never means well for the common people, but tyranny always, ever, unchangeable.

The Children’s Own Radio Story By C. J. W., Jr.

Story Forty .

TAT"E WILL remember that Jesus sent seven’ ’ ty chosen disciples throughout all Palestine to preach and teach the Word of God and do miracles in His name.

These men were eager to praise the name of the Lord, and were filled with joy because of their experiences. They gathered around Jesus and began to tell Him of their adventures, saying, “Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.”

And then Jesus told them that they should have full power to heal sickness and cast out unclean spirits, but should not rejoice so much in the power as in the fact that Jehovah God was pleased with their deeds. He said: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

About whom do you suppose Jesus was talking when He told the disciples they had power over the “enemy”? There was no war at that time in Palestine, and Jesus would not have encouraged His disciples to go out and kill people if there had been a battle.

The enemy whom Jesus meant is Satan, the Devil, who was and is the foe of Jesus, and is the foe of all who will try to do His will and be like Him. God will destroy the Devil in due time; then sin, death, pain, and sorrow will be destroyed too, for the Devil caused it all.

So when Jesus gave the seventy disciples power over the enemy, He granted them the right to subdue and cast out those evil spirits that delight in taking possession of weak or undecided minds and in torturing the persons to whom those minds belong. .

Now, in the synagogue at Jerusalem Jesus frequently taught the people the Word of God, and there were always some Pharisees present. On one occasion a Pharisee, by profession a lawyer, arose and asked a question of Jesus. He said, “Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

Then Jesus asked the man what was written in the law; and the man replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God wuth all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

Then Jesus told the man he had answered correctly; but the man said further, “And who is my neighbour?” Then Jesus answered by way of a parable. It is interesting and important, so we will give it in His own words:

“A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of Iris raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

“And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

“And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

“Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the .thieves ?”

And the lawyer answered Jesus and said, “He that shewed mercy on him.” And Jesus replied, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

This parable which Jesus told shows us that mercy may be found in people where that quality would be least expected. For instance, the first man who came after the poor traveler had been robbed and wounded was a priest, a “good” man, supposed to be a “holy” man, who, as a representative of God, ought to have been full of pity and gentleness. But this priest had a heart of flint, and a proud heart, and the man’s wounds were unpleasant to look upon; so he kept his course. And the people whom he met saluted him as Rabbi, and he was very dignified and “good”.

Then came a Levite. The Levites were supposed to be a very respectable class of people. He merely looked at the poor man, and hurried on, fearing the man might call to him for help. But finally there came the Samaritan, a man considered of no repute, one whose very name denoted a class of people to be shunned, but this man had mercy; and the rest of the story speaks for itself.

Can You Imagine Such a Thing?

’V)tiiiinji<iniimiiiiiiniitiiiHiiiiiiiiuiiiniiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiinj:i:uui nniiiuiiiiuiitiiiui.iiiii iiiiHiiniiiiiiniiiiiiimiiiiiuniiiiitiiiiuitiiitiiiiiititdiiun>i iiiniititiniiiiiiiniiniiiliiifitiir

A library of seven topically arranged Bible-study books in ordinary (not theological) language for half the regular price. This com- ' ‘ plete set of seven volumes of Studies in the Scriptures, written by Pastor C. T. Bussell, contains more than 3,400 pages, is bound in maroon cloth, gold-stamped, in regular library size of 5" x 7-3/8". In the seventh volume you will find a complete index of all the scriptures quoted or explained throughout these seven books.

During the week of November 10 to November 17, representatives of THE WATCH TOWER will ■ be calling upon the people throughout the United States, and, in fact, all over the world, offering to the people this set for the special price of $1.25. This special offer is for this one week only.

A special concession, however, is being made to the readers of The Golden Age; namely, to any one sending in an order for a set of these books at any time between now and November 17, we will fill it at this spe.cial price and pay the postage. In other words, from October 30 to November 17 you have the opportunity to purchase this set at the reduced price. Those who already have a set of these books may desire to purchase a set to give to some friend. This special offer presents an excellent opportunity to secure a fins gift at an exceptionally low price. They are books that are widely read, because 15,608,000 are now in circulation. The set will be mailed postpaid to any address desired, upon receipt of a money order for $1.25. Address

•mm,-..................................................................................................................

Watch Tower 117 Adams st« Brooklyn, N.Y.