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Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE ANDZ COURAGE
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LAND OF THE MAGYARS
KALEIDOS COPICS
ANOTHER POISONING BEE
MASSES AT A BARGAIN!
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Volume XI * No. 274 March 19, 193 0
Contents
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Labor and Economics
Argentina Drops Gold Standard t. j-.r. . . . . :■ ..396
Distribution of Earnings ................ 397
Vulcanite Portland Cement Company
Widespread Russian Socialization . . . . . . . . . . .... 398
Labor-saving Machinery in Britain ............ . .. 398
Social and Educational
KALEIDOSCOPICS r. . . ........... ....
The Tliirteen-Month Calendar . .
Finance—Commerce—Transportation
Robot Traffic Policemen ................. 397
Political—Domestic and Foreign
Science and Invention
The Westinghouse Driverless Car .
Unbreakable Phonograph Records...........
Uses of the Noctovisor ........ . . . .... . 398
Home and Health
Vaccination Optional in England ,
Travel and Miscellany The Land of the Magyars :
Religion and Philosophy
The Baptist Church at East Marion . . . ■. ■. ■:. . :. . 395
Philosophy of Redemption . . . . . . ...
The Children’s Own Radio Story l. . L., •. ;;. 415
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<^e Golden Age
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Volume XI Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 19, 1930 Number 274
The Land of the Magyars
HUNGARY, before the World War, had an area of about the combined size of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Now it is slightly smaller than Indiana. In the deal among Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau, commonly known as the Treaty of Versailles, Hungary was divided and the pieces thrown to the dogs.
The present Hungary has 46 percent of its former population and 32 percent of its territory. The area of old Hungary was 109,188 square miles, with a population of 18,264,533. The area of the new state is 35,901 square miles, with a population of 8,454,500, of which 90 percent are Magyars.
Austria was drawn or pushed into the World War, but the Magyars wanted a fight, and seemed proud that it was such a big one. When it came to the council table this was remembered against them, and land which was largely Magyar in population and had been under Magyar control for a thousand years was taken away and given right and left.
Before Versailles, Hungary had plenty of timber; now she is dependent upon others. Before Versailles, Hungary had plenty of ore. Now Czechoslovakia has the ore, the richest agricultural lands have gone to Rumania, and other valuable parts have gone to Austria, Yugoslavia and Poland.
Hungary is determined to have these lands and peoples back, and the Little Entente that received them as prizes of Avar are determined to keep them. Who is it that called this mental attitude “self-determination of peoples”? “Nem, Nem, Soha!” (No, No, Never) is the battle-cry every time the subject of revision of boundaries is broached between Hungary and her neighbors.
In dividing the spoils among the victors, the attempt to make Hungary sorry for her bad conduct was successful, too much so. The old forests were well managed: indeed, 66 percent of the forest area was under state control, and water supplies, floods and erosions were readily subject to administration. Such control is now no longer possible, and the result is a neglected watershed.
Like the Mississippi Valley
In a small way the Hungary before the days of Versailles was something like the great valley of the Mississippi between the crests of the Alleghanies and the Rockies. It was a complete watershed and plain, with the great Danube flowing through it from north to south. The Danube, by the way, while it flows mostly from west to east, turns at right angles to that course all the way through Hungary.
Suppose you had lived in the Mississippi valley all your life and some fine morning you learned that everything from North Dakota to Texas had been shifted to the Dominion of Canada and Mexico. It would make you feel rather strange, would it not, especially if everything from Indiana to Alabama had been distributed among still other countries? You would feel like the dog with bobbed ears that had his tail cut off by the railroad train. The forests of the Alleghanies would still be there, but the people who now owned them would not care how many floods came to the Mississippi valley, except in a Red Cross sense. In its 200-mile journey through Hungary the Danube provides several large islands.
Not unlike the Mississippi valley, Hungary also has two fine lakes, the Balaton and the Ferto, the banks flanked by watering places and the surrounding hills covered with rich vineyards. The Hungarian Plain, like the Mississippi valley, is, on the whole, one of extraordinary fertility. Here and there are salt marshes, sand dunes and rows of mounds. The villages are large and populous, but are generally long distances apart. Immense pasture-grounds are filled with cattle, horses, sheep and swine.
Like the Mississippi valley, Hungary has 4,000 miles of levees, to protect some 15,000,000 acres of agricultural land. Before the war 800 rain gauges in the mountains, and 1,700 gauging stations along the streams, all linked together by telephones, were used to control detention basins and spillways. Now all this valuable equipment is useless, floods annually destroy levees and crops, and erosion deposits in the rivers are steadily raising the stream beds. These floods cost many lives and result in much property damage. They can be charged direct to Versailles, and its foolish and villainous revenges in placing Hungary’s forests in the control of its enemies.
A feature of the Hungarian summer is the Fata‘Morgana, -which rises about noon on the warm, tranquil days, and spreads like a shimmering sea over the heated plain. Despite its climatic variability, Hungary is one of the healthiest countries in Europe.
Buda and Pest
Buda was founded by the Romans eighteen hundred years ago. They called it Aquinicum. It is on the side of the Danube nearest Rome. Pest was first heard of about seven hundred years ago. For about 160 years the two towns were in the control of the Turks. The towns were joined in 1873 and became Budapest.
Pest has grown much more rapidly than Buda. The Houses of Parliament, Academy of Science, library, custom house, and other important public buildings are in Pest. Broad quays extend along the riverside some three miles. The towns are joined by suspension and other fine bridges. The span of the latest suspension bridge is 960 feet.
The last census gave Budapest, or Pest-Ofen, as it is sometimes called, a population of 1,217,325. The only other towns over 100,000 are Szeged and Debreczen. It is characteristic of Hungarian cities to be spread over enormous areas and to have small populations.
When Hungary was split up, her Magyar officials were given their walking papers in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, and forthwith headed for Budapest, accompanied by thousands of other unfortunates who were also victims of the villainies of Versailles. The town is terribly overcrowded.
For years after the World War, and perhaps even yet, thousands of refugees were pushed in upon the populace until in street after street there were ten to fifteen men, women, and children sharing one small room. In 1926, on the city dumps which are located at Buda, sixtyseven families were living in forty-two tiny dilapidated sheds built of boards, bits of wood, odd bricks and gasoline cans. The writer who then visited this dump said:
A few pigs, scraggy fowls and many half-starved children were grubbing in the filth and garbage or huddling together with the older people inside their dingy, leaky, malodorous hovels. All these people live by collecting glass, rags, bones and other spoils from amongst the rubbish. The children are in a terrible state—their faces expressionless, their limbs spidery, their chests flat or sunken.
At Budapest are the largest electrical works in all Europe. In this city was built the first successful underground trolley line. At one time the city claimed to have the best-lighted streets in the world. That claim is not now made, since the coal of Hungary was turned over to Czechoslovakia.
Near Budapest is an underground city where more than 1,000 people live. The soft rock lends itself to the carving of both rooms and furniture. The place is cool in summer and warm in winter. The oddest thing about it is that it is located beneath a cemetery.
Magyars and Magyarization
The original inhabitants of Hungary were Slovaks or Moravians. The Magyars, of Finno-Tartar origin, invaded Hungary about the ninth century. They are high-spirited, warlike, proud, generous, self-conscious, serious and stubborn. The Magyar costume is remarkable for its picturesque elegance. Most of the Hungarian nobles are Magyars.
The Magyar never forgets that he is a conqueror, and, though he be but a. poor peasant, treats with more or less good-natured insolence the Jews, Germans, Swabians, Saxons, Slovaks, Rumanians, Ruthenes, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and gypsies that live alongside him in his own country. As a matter of fact, before Hungary was split up the Magyars were actually in a minority in their own land, but were the largest single factor of population, being nearly half the total.
The effort to make it appear that there are more Magyars in Hungary than of other combined races has for decades led to a ruthless process of Magyarization that has been tyrannical in the extreme. Students claim that census statistics were deliberately falsified for Magyar state reasons. Ever since 1875 coercive measures have been employed to crush out other languages and erase the national sentiments of the majority.
When the World War came it was natural that the oppressed Slovaks turned toward Czechoslovakia, the Croats and Serbs toward Serbia, the Rumanians toward Rumania, etc. The Magyars can properly blame themselves for Hungary’s present predicament.
An amusing incident following the break-up was that the Magyars determined to change all non-Magyar names. Pressburg became Pozsony, Vienna became Becs, etc. Letters from Austria to Hungary and from Hungary to Austria were returned marked “Place not known” because the Magyars would not recognize the German names and the Germans would not recognize the Magyar ones.
The Magyar nobility is the last remaining stronghold of feudalism, and the strongest and proudest. Castles, hunting lodges, thoroughbreds, wilds abounding with game, innumerable servants and retainers, and a landless peasantry that lives in stalls and stables with the horses and cattle and is on the verge of starvation for the greater part of the year, is Mag-yarization at its proudest and foolishest.
It is in the interests of Magyarization that the gypsies have been suppressed. They must now give up their nomadic life, costume and language, settle in fixed abodes, pay taxes, and serve in the army. The beauties of gypsy violin music are famous all over the world. Some gypsy caravans are patriarchal and some matriarchal. In the latter the women tend to be larger and stronger than the men.
A pleasing feature of Hungarian social life is that Magyars are now trying to establish “Let us hope for a better future” in place of “Good morning” as a greeting. The person thus saluted is expected to reply, “May God hear your voice.”
The Karolyi Republic
On October 31, 1918, a revolution broke out in Hungary having as its object the establishment of a republic, the last thing wanted by the Magyar nobility or the Wall Street crowd who subsequently became their backers. Count Karolyi was a noble-minded man, an advocate of democracy, a pacifist', wealthy, Independent, and courageous. He was the embodiment of everything that the Magyar nobility did not want as a ruler, or as president.
The Karolyi estate was famous for its vast size. In the five months during which his administration lasted Count Karolyi divided this land for a nominal fee among the returned soldiers whom the war had deprived of their livelihood. He endeavored thus to stimulate his fellow aristocrats who also possessed vast estates to like deeds of generosity. Nothing could be more odious from a Wall Street point of view.
Who is there that would be mean enough or small enough to condemn a man for giving up his own lands to returned soldiers so that they might have the means whereby to live? ¥et since the Magyar nobility regained control of Hungary they placed Karolyi on trial before a royal tribunal, "found him guilty of high treason’ and ordered his property confiscated. He was alleged to have given aid and comfort to the Allies by ordering Hungary to lay down its arms at a time when the struggle with the Allies, including the United States, was still on.
It is interesting to reflect on the magnanimities and generosities of the Wall Street crowd and the American government since the World War that the wife of this noble man was refused admittance into the United States because she desired to tell some of these facts which reveal the narrowness of soul of some that are highly esteemed among men.
After the Karolyi estates had been seized by the Magyar nobility it became necessary to drive away from them hundreds of families so that Wall Street ethics could be upheld. What matters the suffering of women and children and poor defeated soldiers if only the nobility keep their grip? Count Michael Karolyi was a traitor to his class, and therefore "a traitor to his country’s And the United States government and the Wall Street crowd and its yapping press hastily and lustily applaud. It is enough to make Jefferson turn over in his grave.
The Soviet Administration
The moderate and reasonable and sensible steps taken by Count Karolyi were as unsatisfactory to the radicals as they were to the Magyar nobility and twenty-seven days after he began the difficult work of constructing a better administration for the common people a returned soldier, Bela Kun, who had been captured by the Russians, arrived in Budapest and began to circulate among the desperately poor the doctrines of Communism which he had learned in Russia and which seem so reasonable to t1’"se who have little or nothing of this world’s goods.
The French General Franchet d’Espery was pressing Karolyi on one side for rulings favorable to the continuation of feudalism. On the other side Bela Kun and his followers were pressing him for rulings favorable to Communism. It was impossible to go on, and in March, 19.19, he gave up the fight and the Bolshevists took control.
The Magyar nobility have only themselves to blame for allowing Count Karolyi’s government to fail, because they never lifted a finger to help him when he needed help the most, yet because the Bolshevist administration succeeded his well-meant efforts he was accused of turning the government over to them. Even the New York Times, usually very unfriendly to Liberals, says of Karolyi, “A theorist, he was never the dangerous character which his enemies proclaimed him to be. By excluding him from the country the state department made a martyr out of him.”
The Soviet administration of Hungary was no better than that of Russia, and probably no worse. Bela Kun was a great admirer of Lenin and tried to follow the same tactics of terrorization of the nobility and confiscation of their property that worked in Russia, but conditions were not as favorable, the treasury was nearly empty, industry and commerce were at a standstill, and all the power of the victorious allied armies was hostile.
The thing that finally overthrew the Soviet regime is said to have been as follows: They handed over $1,000,000 to the American relief organization for the purchase of food, expecting that it would be delivered in good faith, but a deal was made with the Magyar nobility and word was sent out that no food would be delivered until the Soviet administration was driven out. An army officer gave the situation away in an article in World’s Work. The picture which he gave of a future president withholding food from women and children in order to overturn a form of government not popular in Wall Street is not a pleasing one. Copies of the article containing the army officer’s boasts of how the thing was done are now hard to obtain, as every effort was made to buy them up and get rid of them. They told too much.
The White Terror
The White Terror, namely the return of the Magyar nobility to full control of Hungary, came with the overthrow of the Soviet administration on August 7, 1919. The deal as it was fixed up with the army officers and others wTho overthrew the Communist regime was that Hungary should be considered a monarchy, with the throne vacant. It seems odd to think of the United States’ being a party to the destruction of a republic and the reestablishment of a tyranny, does it not? But that is what happened. The form of government which Wall Street prefers is a dictatorship. That is why there are so many dictatorships in Europe at this writing.
When the White Terror came back into power one of its first acts was to abolish all the arrangements for social welfare and hygiene that had been begun by Karolyi and continued by the Soviet. Just why nobility should be antagonistic to sanitation is something for the nobility to explain. At any rate, all the young professors and doctors that were working on the sanitation problems of the country were summarily fired and nobody was put in their place.
One of the sad things about Hungary’s White Terror is the assumption that the parliament exists for the government of the people in equity. In Hungary it exists for the purpose of keeping the oppressed under oppression. The country always was and still is a despotism, and the Magyar nobility use the parliament as a screen for the most dreadful acts of tyranny conceivable.
Desperate Poverty of the Poor
Some idea of the desperate poverty of the landless agricultural workers of Hungary can be gained from a study of their wages. During the 40-day harvest season a male laborer may get for a day’s work 14.5 pounds of grain, and this may be all that he earns throughout the year except for rare casual jobs.
If it be desired to express the wages of the poor Hungarian laborer in terms of money, we find that 70c a day is extremely good pay, while if a man gets 35c a day he is yet considered
well off. There are a million landless agricultural workers and half a million more that own plots averaging fifteen acres each. The latter must work much of their time for others in order to keep alive. The 11,000 of the nobility have estates of upwards of 1,000 acres apiece. There are about a quarter of a million who own farms of reasonable size, up to 150 acres each.
There are very few industries in the one sizable city of Budapest. Factory workers receive 6c to 14c an hour, with an eight- or nine-hour day, but work only three or four days a week. A skilled workman in the most prosperous industries may make as high as $18 a month.
Their sufferings have driven multitudes of the people mad. Both young and old, without previous warning, try to dash their heads against walls, lamp posts, or even the stone flags of the sidewalks. At Budapest in two months there were 150 suicides by drowning and would have been ten times as many but for constant watching and patrolling of the river by fast boats under full head of steam.
When a deputation of the poor feel that they have gone the limit and come to one of the ministries for relief, the usual practice is to arrest them and beat them up. Nor are the newspapers allowed to publish the facts. Horseflesh is one of the staple articles of diet. Beggars must pay taxes on their incomes. Their ranks are overcrowded by starving professors, lawyers, and students, who cannot find employment. Many Hungarian, children do not know the taste of fresh milk.
Messrs. Earthy and Bethlen
Admiral Nicholas Horthy, controller of the Danube fleet, was the tool selected to maintain the Magyar nobility in power and to inaugurate and maintain the White Terror, and he has done his work well. It would be hard to imagine a more intelligent, relentless, cruel face than his photographs make him appear to be. To the simple-minded Magyar his admiral’s uniform makes him seem to be something more than a mere politician.
Horthy is clever enough to be satisfied with the power of a dictator without clamoring for the title of a monarch, which he could have at any time for the asking. He lives in the royal palace, a great building seven stories high, containing 300 large apartments and 600 rooms.
It is situated in a park (ff wide area. He is one of the world’s most terrible despots.
From time to time Horthy sends out reports that he wants to retire; but he evidently wants nothing of the kind. These reports are sent out only to make him seem a hero in the eyes of the people whom he oppresses. At times he makes a gesture' toward Liberalism; but wait until you read of his treatment of political prisoners and you will see the real man.
Count Stephen Bethlen, Horthy’s premier, is an aristocrat by birth, breeding and temperament, admirably fitted for carrying out Horthy’s plans. He is a man of energy and ability, short of stature, quiet, serious, a Magyar of Hie Magyars. Saying one thing and doing another is known in Hungary as “Bethlen Politics”. Shelving opponents by creating jobs for them is another common practice. Neither Horthy nor Bethlen is trusted or loved, but both, are feared.
Following Mussolini’s lead, Hungary, under Horthy and Bethlen, has created a department for large families. Gold medals, certificates, and gifts of money are presented to mothers of large families. Lectures on birth control are strictly forbidden.
With the support and guidance of American financiers, notably Jeremiah Smith, of Boston, Hungary has regained her economic balance. The condition of the landed gentry has improved, but the poor people at the bottom are, if anything, in worse condition than ever. The New York Times, in its issue of October 6, 1929, says:
For Hungary good crops and balanced budgets constitute only the one side of the picture. That the economic condition of its fanners, despite the bountiful harvest, is bad and almost catastrophic, is best indicated by the fact that one-third of the inhabitants in many villages are facing winter with no boots to wear and no money to buy them. The State taxes are heavy and this year’s bounteous crop becomes less an unmixed joy in the light of realization of the large proportion of last year’s still in the barns. To farmers preoccupied with the vital problem of providing shoe leather, politics seems a minor matter. Newspaper men who recently sought to ascertain the attitude of rural Hungary toward the forthcoming county elections, which are held for the first time in 18 years, were astonished to find it had no attitude at all. “We do not care about elections. Tell us where we can get boots” was its cry. Such apathy on the part of a people as.eminently political in mentality as the Magyars is hailed as a storm*signal. Even the impartial blame it on Count Bethlen’s system of government by job and favor.
The White Terror in Action
The White Terror under Horthy began its action by interning forty thousand “undesirable” Hungarians and aliens living in Hungary. To be a Jew and a Communist, or either one, back in 1920, was to invite death by torture. To be a Social Democrat rendered one liable to arrest and execution. To be poor and helpless was to invite wrath.
Not only were many of Hungary’s most intellectual men kidnaped, tortured, and murdered, but some were even kidnaped in Vienna, where they had fled, and were carried off and murdered. Pogroms were instituted by the peasants and in some instances were led by officers of the Horthy army. These officers lived in the best hotels and on the fat of the land while the poor and middle classes were dying of cold and hunger. No editor dared express an opinion reflecting upon the government.
In the winter of 1919-1920, when fear was on every side, two women of the Municipal Library were denounced as Communists, and though the charges were false, yet in the hearings one of them wms so beaten by the police captain and detectives that she was unable to move a limb. Beatings of prisoners continued all night. This was in Budapest. Many of these prisoners committed suicide by leaping from windows into the street.
Captain Freiszberger, in command of the Siofok garrison, with his friend, First Lieutenant Leszay, personally murdered in one instance forty-two prisoners. Freiszberger and his friends amused themselves by torturing prisoners in their own apartments. One night Freiszberger hanged eight men in his own room. Horthy knew all about these murders.
At Kecskemet, in the latter part of November, 1919, when Horthy’s army entered the city, nearly two hundred persons were robbed and murdered and the soldiers were paid with money taken from the victims; which, when you come to think of it, is an economical way of paying soldiers. The Horthy government pretended that this massacre was by an irresponsible gang of brigands, but it was well known to the people of the city that the soldiers all wore the national army uniform.
Some Brave and Fearless Men .
One bitter night in February, 1920, representatives of Mr. Horthy rounded up two Liberal editors, Messrs. Somogyi and Bacso, put them in a military automobile, sped with them fifteen miles to a country place, stabbed them to death, tore out their eyes and mutilated their bodies before throwing them into the Danube.
In May, 1925, Edward Beniczky, who had been Minister of the Interior, and was supreme chief of police at the time the murder was committed, hold in parliament that one of Horthy’s men had visited him and warned him to keep his hands off the case. The government confiscated the paper printing Beniczky’s story and suspended further publication. The murderers he had named were not arrested, but Beniczky himself was arrested and was indicted for high treason, despite a Hungarian law which expressly forbids the arrest of any member of Parliament without special legislative permission.
In 1922 a Liberal editor, Zoltan Szasz, was sentenced to prison for two and a half years, for publishing facts likely to damage the interests and reputation of Hungary abroad. Before he was sentenced he said to the court (and his brave words were published by other brave men):
The whole world knows our disgrace. I have only-signalized to the world that in Hungary the love of liberty and justice has not completely died. I have written to show the Magyars of the lost territories and the people of the civilized world that there are still people here who dare denounce this so-called “Christian” program of hate and revenge. And thus I think that I have served my country.
About the same time, according to the Manchester Guardian, the wife of a magistrate at Miskolcz was talking to her husband one evening before an open window’. She said that Hungary was “an impossible country”. She was overheard by some passers-by, reported to the police, and sentenced to a month in prison.
The horrible conditions continue. Only two years ago Baron Louis Hatvany, an author of European renown, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and a fine of $500,000 for writing seven articles which were published in a Vienna newspaper five years prior to that time. This man, solely and eminently a man of letters, was thus in effect sentenced to death and the confiscation of his estate for merely telling the truth.
Treatment of Political Prisoners
Any government can be fairly well judged by its treatment of those unfortunates who have offended it and are wholly within its power. Prisoners in Hungarian jails are commonly put in irons. The left wrist is chained to the right ankle, and the right wrist to the left ankle, and so tightly that the arms are taut and twisted. Not uncommonly the prisoners are permanently injured by this torture. Their screams fill the whole prison. Prisoners in torture are sometimes interrogated and receive cuffs and blows by the governor and the warders. Even women prisoners are thus put in irons. To Horthy, Bethlen, and Wall Street belong the glory. _ _ _
Mathias Rakosi, who has been in prison for three years, one time wrote to his legal adviser, describing prison conditions. The letter was intercepted. Rakosi was put in the dungeon, then isolated for three months, his food was reduced by one-third and his cell was heated for but one or two hours daily and then inadequately. Two and a half years of this life has made a nervous wreck of a strong and healthy man. He has developed chronic stomach trouble and has gone completely bald.
There are gendarmes in every village all over Hungary. The least expression of discontent is suppressed at once by force. The offender is grabbed and thrown into prison. If there is no immediate confession of guilt, then a confession is extorted by blows or torture. Many political prisoners have died as a result of hunger strikes aimed to ivin better treatment. One man climbed a flagpole and remained aloft for hours, refusing to come down until promised better treatment. At last accounts he was fatally ill of pneumonia.
The Manchester Guardian, which keeps in touch with the progress of liberty all over the world, said in its issue of November 4, 1927:
No one familiar with the character of the Hungarian Dictatorship will be in the least surprised by the contents of this statement; they merely reveal a procedure that is habitual in Hungary when evidence is required against political offenders, only as a rule these things are hushed up: “Edward Rubin was arrested in a room rented by the Hungarian Socialist Labor Party. He was brought before a high police official named Schweinitzer who ordered him to relate all he knew about the Communist party. Rubin said nothing, so was taken into another room. There he was made to stand on one leg up against a wall. ‘When I grew tired and wanted to change over to the other leg a detective drew his revolver and threatened to' shoot me. When I was completely exhausted and could not stand on one leg any longer and lowered my other foot he came up to me and hit me in the face and pulled me by the hair.’ He was then taken to another room, where 15 or 20 detectives were standing round. His hands were tied and he was kicked and beaten by the detectives. He was then ordered to take off his shoes and stockings. His feet were tied and held up, and the soles were beaten with an ox-hide whip. He felt about 15 blows, then lost consciousness because of the fearful pain. ‘My feet were untied and I was ordered to run round the room in a circle. I tried to stand up, but could not because my soles were fearfully swollen and hurt. The detectives stood round me, and pulled me up, beat and kicked me and pulled me round in a circle by the hair. After some minutes Schweinitzer came into the room and asked me if I were now ready to speak up, for if not they would beat me until I were dead. ’ The next morning Rubin was again taken to Schweinitzer, but still refused to give information about the Communist party. He was beaten again and again. Then his hands were tied behind his back with a strap and he was suspended by the strap from a large hook in the wall. He again lost consciousness but was brought to by more blows. He was taken before Schweinitzer and the chief of the Budapest police, who told him that they would let him rot in prison if he did not give them the names and addresses of people from Moscow. ... If he obeyed they would send him abroad with money to work for the Hungarian police. Completely broken by the torture Rubin agreed to everything and became a police spy. Here in Berlin his conscience tormented him and he at length made the above confession.”
Notes on Agriculture
Agriculture is the principal industry of Hungary. For centuries the land has been known as the granary of Europe. Most of the soil is productive; more than half of it is arable. Agriculture, with forestry, gives employment to 64.5 percent of the inhabitants. Sixty percent of the nation’s area is under cultivation.
The leading crops are wheat, rye, barley, oats, Indian corn, potatoes, sugar beets and grapes. Fruit trees are widely cultivated. Vineyards cover more than 850 square miles. The wines of the Tokay district are well known in most parts of the world.
There are important fishery preserves in the Danube and Theiss rivers and in Lake Balaton. The latter is the largest lake in central Europe, being fifty miles long by from two to seven miles wide. By treaties of friendship with Italy
qolden age
and Serbia, Hungary gets to the Adriatic Sea through the port of Fiume.
No other European country equals Hungary in the wild and profuse luxuriance of its fauna and flora. Vines, almonds, figs, olives and apples flourish in abundance. The forests are stocked w; h bears, wolves, lynxes, wild cats, boars, stag's and chamois, and the plains with hares and partridges; while wild fowl, vultures, and eagles soar overhead.
For a thousand years the Hungarian Hussar was famous for his horses and his horsemanship. The World War has put an end to the use of cavalry. Farmers have stopped breeding horses. Many thousands have been sent to the butchers. The breaking-in of colts has ceased. The automobile has come and the horse is out of it.
Hungary has a wealth of medicinal waters. Hunyadi Janos is exported to all parts of the world. Cold mineral springs are to be found almost everywhere, and a whole series of hot springs containing lime and sulphur are features of the banks of the Danube. If it were not for the Devil’s organization in full control of everything, Hungary would be one of the fairest spots in all the world.
The Secret Societies
As it once suited Queen Elizabeth of England to have on the sea plenty of pirates that could capture and sink Spanish galleons wherever they might be found, and yet could be disowned by the more or less virgin queen, so Horthy and Bethlen have made good use of secret societies composed of military officers, politicians, judges, lawyers and aristocrats, which societies they periodically disown. Nevertheless, these secret societies are important factors in Hungary’s reign of terror.
This clique of aristocrats that has the government at its mercy, and has done .and still does all the dirtiest work that Horthy wishes done, corresponds quite closely to the Wall Street Soviet which reigns in the Western World and furnishes the money for the eastern one. Illegalities are nothing, and their power is so great that the government dare not attack. The Manchester Guardian sizes the situation up well when it says:
A Liberal is worse off in Hungary than a Socialist. The Socialist at least has a party and a press behind him. If he is prominent and his case is one of particularly flagrant injustice a big stir is made on his behalf, and the trade unions may even take action. But Hungarians who belong to no big party, or have no international connections, are at the mercy of the system the moment they dare to oppose or criticise it openly.
The forgery of the French francs was the work of the secret societies which dominate Hungary. The work was done in the Cartographical Institute by government employees, and the former premier of Hungary, Stephen Frederick, testified in court that he had seen documents signed by Premier Bethlen assuring the counterfeiters the protection of the Hungarian government.
The prosecution of these forgers was an international joke. The state’s case was a mixture of one part prosecution and two parts de-■ fense. All Hungary and all the -world knew that these forgeries were intended to secure revenge on France and that court action was taken at all only to appease France and prevent international complications. All evidence at the trial tending to involve the Hungarian government was dismissed as hearsay and of not the least importance. The offenders were let off with light sentences, which, as a matter of fact, they will never serve.
Education and Religion
All boys and girls between the ages of six and twelve years are supposed to attend day schools, in Hungary; but as recently as 1910 nearly half of the population could neither read nor write. So the law is largely a dead letter. In the universities there is the same disposition to deprive the Jew of educational advantages as is characteristic throughout eastern Europe.
Sixty-three percent of the population are Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics or Old Catholics. The balance are Greek Orientals, Evangelicals, Unitarians, Evangelical Brotherhood, Baptist, Gregorian, Armenian, Jewish, and Mohammedan. The original pagan expression, “The God of the Hungarians,” is still in vogue throughout the land, and, oddly enough, in the Hungarian tongue, is called “Devla”. No meeting of more than nine persons can be held in Hungary without previous police permission.
The Hungarian love of music and dancing finds expression at every ceremonial, whether of religion, war, rejoicings, sacrifices or funerals. Liszt, himself a Hungarian, once said, “There is no other music from which European
The qOLDEN AGE
musicians can learn so much rhythmic originality as the Hungarian.”
All Hungarian railroad trains are provided with radio headphones in each compartment, and waiting rooms of the principal stations are equipped with loud-speakers. Thus, for a nominal fee, the Hungarian can have his beloved music with him wherever he goes.
27ie Holy Crown
After what has been said in this article as to the miseries of the common people of Hungary, and the source of their miseries, it seems odd to be told that most of the people still look to the restoration of the monarchy as their main hope for the future. This, of course, is due to improper instruction in church and in school. “The Holy Crown,” so called, has been and is the curse of Hungary.
The Allies, including the United States, encourage the Hungarian people to place their hopes in a monarchy; to their shame be it said. All the Allies have done is to remove the Haps-burgs from, the throne. But the removal of no one single family will cure the festering sore of royalty. Hungary has had too much, not only of the Hapsburgs, but of all the Magyar nobility, with here and there a rare exception, such as Karolyi. It is a state offense in Hungary to engage in propaganda looking to the establishment of a republic, but royalist propaganda by either of the claimants to the throne may be carried on unmolested.
The former emperor of Austria-Hungary tried to get the Hungarian part of his empire back in the fall of 1920, but Horthy doublecrossed the one who had raised him from obscurity to high rank. Horthy joined with others in arranging to receive Charles with open arms, and then fixed it up with the secret societies and with the troops to disperse the followers of Charles and seize him and his wife. When the queen arrived at the home of Count Andrassy the count mistook her for the new cook. This was a terrible humiliation for the proud Zita, but she should cheer up. It is better to be a cook with a job than a queen without one.
Charles was banished to the beautiful Madeira Islands, where he lived but a year. Zita has notified Horthy that she still regards herself as queen of Hungary and that her son Otto shall some day have the throne. And Horthy sits in her palace and smiles the savage smile of the despot. Otto will get the throne! And how?
All should be able to see that what Hungary needs with desperate need is the one thing that every other country under the sun needs, and that is the beneficent reign of earth’s rightful King, Christ Jesus, our present Master and Head and the future ruler of Hungary and of all the earth.
The Baptist Church at East Marion
OUR subscribers know that when the millowner of a church demands that people be put out of it, out they go. This was shown at East Marion, North Carolina, when one hundred members were dropped from the rolls at one time. Of course, they think they lost something. As a matter of fact, if they will receive it, this was a gift of liberty. They lost nothing at all. Nevertheless, some of the excommunicated ones feel rather badly. We have a letter from one of them in which she says:
“Since receiving your letter I feel that there are still a few friends that are really God’s children. I must say, though, that it is not a pleasant subject for me to talk on and that I have a burden on my heart tonight that I have never had before. I have been a member of the Baptist church since I was twelve years of age. For the last four years I have tried to live a life that would count for the Lord. Last Friday, November eighth, when my mail came, I was surely surprised to find my church letter sent me, without my request and with no knowledge whatever of the reason for such an act. The only thing I could get from the clerk was this: ‘The union and non-union cannot associate together.’
“I have four dear little children and it is my custom every Sunday morning to take them to church. We were always present, and my husband and I were both very active workers. What shall I do with my children? I cannot afford to send them, while I stay at home, and I don’t feel as if I can ever go back again. I shall try in my feeble way to hang on to God’s unchanging hand and overcome the Devil.”
Kaleidoscopics
Victims of Mad Drivers
OF THE 31,500 persons killed in automobile accidents in thirty-one states of the United States during the year 1929, more than half were pedestrians. The increase in fatalities over 1928 was thirteen percent.
Making Pearls in Brooklyn
IMITATION pearls are made in Brooklyn by the barrel and shipped to all parts of the world. The interior of the pearl is a carefully shaped round glass ball. The exterior is made of essence of pearls secured from the scales of millions of herring.
Wood Made of Cotton
ACLERKENWELL, London, man has invented a synthetic wood the base of which is cotton. The wood can be used for any purpose for which wood is used, and can be worked in any way in which wood is worked, and is quite inexpensive.
Slums at Kensington, London
Lord Buckmaster, of London, has recently pointed out that in Kensington, London, there are basements of four rooms in which live three families numbering sixteen persons. One room measuring eight feet by seven and one-half feet and without outside light was occupied by five persons. ..
Rome to Have Subway
ROME is to have a subway. It will have to be built thirty-five feet below the street level, so as not to interfere with the catacombs. Rome will also have a monument to the wufe of Garibaldi. The pope does not like it very well, and has complained about it publicly, but Mussolini is notoriously hard-hearted and seems to like to take a dig at Mr. Ratti often. .
The Thirteen-Month Calendar
HOUERE are now one hundred organizations -L in the United States that operate on the thirteen-period or thirteen-month calendar. These months are of twenty-eight days each and begin in each instance with the second day of January and end with the thirty-first of December. It is hoped to put the new calendar in universal use on January 1, 1933, because that day falls on Sunday.
OUT of 129 persons recently indicted for graft in Russia, fourteen were sentenced to death and only six of the total number were acquitted. The head officials of several departments were among those accused.
Bloomfield’s Municipal Plant
THE municipal light plant of Bloomfield, Iowa, is free of all debt and pays seventeen or eighteen thousand dollars a year into the city treasury. Taxes in the city have dropped fifty percent in the last five years and the city is one of the best lighted in the state of Iowa.
Student Teachers in Mexico
TV/TEXICO is making up for her deficiency in schools and -teachers by opening new schools in homes and elsewhere which are taught in part time by students of the regular government schools, of which there are now four thousand in the country.
Argentina Drops Gold Standard
fa RGENTINA has suddenly dropped the gold standard, and Professor Fisher of Male University has declared his opinion that in about three years there will be a panic that can not be stopped because there will be insufficient gold in existence to bear the strain of the money in circulation.
Talkies in the Pulpit
fa N AMERICAN movie magnate insists that, -O- since many preachers read their sermons poorly, there has ceased to he any need of them, and he will shortly offer for sale to any church a combination of talkies with music that will make these knights of the collection basket a thing of the past. Alarm clocks can still be had for 89c. Overalls are about $1.25 a suit.
Ruins of Sodom Found
IT IS believed that the ruins of Sodom have been found at the head of the Dead Sea. The city, 1,965 feet long by 1,310 feet wide, has some houses fairly well preserved, but gives evidence of having been destroyed by fire. Near by is a salt cliff 150 feet thick. Lumps of free sulphur have been picked up in the vicinity. The accuracy of the Bible account of Sodom’s destruction is plainly evident from these facts.
Distribution of Earnings
IN THE year 1927 the average wage of railway employees was $1,676; of factory workers, $1,299; of textile workers, $1,040; and the average money income per farm was $717. The total income of 11,122 persons was equal to one-fourth of the total income of ten million factory and railroad workers.
Detroit’s Remarkable Firemen
IREMEN of the city of Detroit, having been recently granted an increase of pay, requested that the money be used to employ men who need work to provide the necessities of life for their families. This is a lesson in statesmanship that tells its own story to all who will heed it.
Five-Day Week for Plumbers
NATIONAL agreement for a five-day week has been entered into between the
United Association of Journeymen Plumbers and Steainfitters and the National Automatic Sprinkler Association. This is the first national agreement for a five-day week that has been entered into in the United States.
Vulcanite Portland Cement Company
HpHE Vulcanite Portland Cement Company, •*- Bloomsbury, New Jersey, works its men an average of twelve hours a day and pays them for but eleven hours, and openly advertises that fact in notices posted about the works. On the longest shift, of 22J hours, the men are paid for two hours less than they work.
Christmas Unlawful in Scotland
Mr. Ripley, of cartoon fame, points out that
Christmas has been illegal in Scotland since 1644, on the ground that it is a heathen festival. Bishop St. Nicholas of Myra, now known as Santa Claus, was the patron saint of thieves and pawnbrokers. The original Christmas tree of Nimrod’s time was a palm.
Discoveries in Antarctica
WITH the use of the camera 150,000 square
miles of Antarctica have been photographed from the air. Thus an area equal to all the New England states, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and part of the Virginias has been added to the maps of the world.
Iceland’s Valuable Hot Springs
OT only are the hot springs of Iceland of great use to the farmers, in some districts doubling the potato crop, but arrangements are now in progress for using these waters to heat the city of Reykjavik, the capital of the country. The population of Reykjavik is 22,000.
Phoenicians in the Amazon
THE discovery of inscriptions carved on rocks in the Amazon valley leads to the belief that the Phoenicians once visited South America and built a city there. If this be true it may be found that South America is the lost continent of Atlantis and that the only reason it was lost is that those who once found it were not able, for some reason, to find it again.
Robot Traffic Policemen
HE Automatic Signal Corporation of New Haven, Conn., now has on the market an automatic robot traffic policeman which operates traffic with clock-like and almost human precision. The device has been used to replace traffic officers in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, New Haven, Providence and Boston.
The Ohio Penitentiary
OF THE 4,703 prisoners in the Ohio Penitentiary, 61 are college graduates, and 135 have attended college; 242 are graduates of high schools, 742 have attended high schools, and 1,129 are graduates of grammar schools. The illiterate number 472, or 9.8 percent of the total population.
The Profits of Crime
OF 108 habitual criminals sentenced to life imprisonment under the Baumes law, twenty profited nothing whatever from their crime, one obtained twenty cents, seventeen obtained less than $100, twenty-one obtained an average of $250, and in the rest of the cases the property was all recovered.
Russian Broadcasting
THE largest radio broadcasting plant in the world is in Russia, just outside of Moscow.
It has a capacity of 100,000 watts. Receivers are placed on street corners, in schools, and in village assembly halls. The programs are educational and are intended to reach the masses of the people with instruction in Soviet ideals.
Radio Equipped Cars
AT THE Automobile Show in New York, Tv. Cadillac, La Salle, Reo, Dodge, Chrysler 1-7
and many other cars were shown fitted up with radio receiving sets which may be used either while the vehicle is in motion or while standing. The antenna is built in the top of the car and consists of several strands of wire run back and forth through the beams of the hood. The additional cost is $100 to $200 a car.
The Westinghouse Driverless Car
THE Westinghouse research department recently had on exhibit in New York a driverless car, operated by telephone. At the word of command the car went forward and then backed up forty feet. Lights were turned on and off as desired. The electric eye on the car opened a garage door when the driver pointed his spotlight on the sensitive mechanism.
No More Deadly Monoxide
Doctor Frazer, professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins University, has found a catalyst which changes the poisonous carbon monoxide exhaust of automobiles to harmless carbon dioxide and eliminates the offensive odor. The smoke of combustion is totally consumed and the heat value of the fuel better utilized. Experts are now preparing the patent for general use.
Widespread Russian Socialization
HpHE Soviet authorities are determined to ef-feet the socialization of everything in Russia during the next five years, come what may; so reports indicate. In one place, Budenovitz, it is intended to socialize an entire city of 50,000 inhabitants, doing all the cooking in one kitchen. The farm city will operate 500,000 acres of land and have its own canning, cheese, and other food establishments.
Labor-saving Machinery in Britain
AGAINST her desires Britain is adopting labor-saving machinery, and this at a time when she has something like a million and a half unemployed. The world is in a strange muddle. The thing that Britons want above everything else is work, and yet the economists point to the United States and tell her that the only way she can get what she wants is to adopt machinery that will put still more men out of employment.
Unbreakable Phonograph Records
octor Beans, professor of chemistry at Columbia University, has made from synthet-ie resin a new substance for phonograph records which is as flexible as paper and yet is insoluble and infusible, and will not crack or chip under hammering. It is believed the new material will be very valuable in electric installations and stereotype matrices.
Uses of the Noctovisor
WITH the use of a noctovisor an automobile headlight of ordinary brilliance was readily seen through four hundred yards of a heavy London fog. The machine makes use of the infra-red rays which are below the level of human sight but readily penetrate fogs and mists. This device is expected to be of great benefit to water and air navigators..
Effect of Talkies in France
"WTHILE France has next to no unemploy’ » ment in other lines, yet the radio and the talkies have filled the streets of Paris with actors, singers and-musicians for whom there is no work. The effect is the same in America, Britain, and elsewhere. The poor musicians are being compelled to give up their art and seek employment as waiters or any other employment they can get.
Congressman McClintic’s Quest
Congressman James V. McClintic, of Oklahoma, is trying to find out why it took over $500 a day to pay the expenses of Charles M. Schwab when he was nominally working for the government for a dollar a year. We wish Congressman McClintic luck in his quest about this $260,000, though there are 260,000 reasons why he will not get the information which he seeks.
Raising Seans in Florida
A FLORIDA farmer raised green beans on his land, sixty thousand pounds of them, and received $300 for his crop, which was $700 less than the crop actually cost him. The beans sold at retail in New York city for fifteen thousand dollars. The farmer received 2|c a pound for his beans, the retail dealers in New York paid 6c a pound, and the public paid 25c a pound. Seems too bad that things have to be done so unfairly as this, doesn’t it!
Unemployment in Europe
GERMAN unemployment is now very great, being around two million persons. In Austria one person in every four is out of work. This is the situation as of the middle of January. Austria has been on the brink of civil war for months past, a war between socialists and clericals, but conditions have improved somewhat more recently.
Ford Plants in Europe
THE Ford plants in Ireland, England, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are in full swing, and in most cases pay the highest wages known in the countries where they operate. Business conditions are booming in Cork, ■where the tractor plant is located. The 4,600 men there employed are turning out sixty tractors a day and expect to speed up to 150 a day.
Popularity of World War Books
/NJLLIER’S magazine says of the popularity of books like All Quiet on the Western Front that “in a score of ways it stands proved that men and women are no longer fooled and cozened by old lies, traditions and superstitions, and have turned away from war as a thing abhorrent, criminal in its stupidity, sane in its futility”.
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Three Gangsters Get It
THREE gangsters in Chicago made a demand for $10,000 or his life of one of the labor leaders of that city. He made an appointment and at the meeting the three gangsters were shot to death by detectives secreted on the premises. They died squealing that they had not had an even break. The detectives were released under a verdict of justifiable homicide.
In Prison Nine Years, Now Proven Innocent
THE mayor of a French town, in prison nine years Tor killing a fellow man’, has now been proven innocent. Another man, who committed suicide, left a note stating that he had stolen the mayor’s gun and accidentally killed the man for the taking of whose life the mayor was incarcerated. Cheer up, Mooney. You have been in jail longer than that, and you are innocent too, but California may yet get an honest man in the governor’s chair and then you will be freed.
The Dust in a Cigarette
SOMEBODY has figured out that there are about four thousand million separate granules of dust in each puff of cigarette smoke. From the same source we learn that American smokers consume almost six pounds of tobacco per head of population per year. Now you figure out how many dust particles that is and you have the prize.
The Russian Air Force
fpil® Russian air force consists of ninety -L squadrons of twelve machines each. It is now admitted that this country is setting the pace in air armaments, spending a larger proportion of its revenue on aeronautical development than any other country. The whole aircraft industry is in the hands of the state. There are about twenty aircraft factories.
Disasters Due to Meteors
AT BUDAPEST recently a young girl on the way to a wedding was killed by a meteor.
This suggests that some of the unaccountable accidents which have befallen airplanes and vessels on the high seas may be due to this cause. A meteor the size of a hazelnut traveling at thirty miles a second hits its objective with the force of a five-hundred-ton train.
Europe’s Old Clothes
EUROPE’S old clothes are gathered together in a suburb of Paris, where they are sorted, cleaned, and mended, and then sold for so much a pound to dealers from Africa and Asia who, in turn, sell them again at retail to the poor of less favored lands. All the picturesqueness of African and Asian native garbs is being rapidly lost. One merely sees Europe’s old clothes on dark skins.
Vaccination Optional in England
AS A result of making vaccination optional in England the percentage of vaccinated births fell off from 97 percent in 1872 to less than 40 percent in 1922. And the deaths from smallpox dropped from 46,312 in the 20-year period, 1872-1891, to 122 in the 10-year period, 1912-1921. The British minister of health, Sir John Burns, stated on the floor of the House of Commons in 1911 that “in direct ratio as vaccinations had fallen off, the mortality from smallpox had declined”.
Doctor Cook’s Hard Luck
Doctor Cook is believed by some to have been the first man to visit the North Pole, but the world believed him a faker and turned its back on him. He was sure western Texas would be a great Hi field, sold plenty of stock, and went to prison for it. While he was in prison the oil was found just where he said it would be. Hard luck seems to have followed him through life.
Terrors in Berlin
SCHOOL children in Berlin rioted and smashed the furniture of a theater because shown lantern slides of a coal mine instead of a movie film as they had expected. In the same city a Russian doctor killed and robbed half a dozen people by shooting them with bullets of thin glass filled with poison gas. Eventually he killed several policemen and himself with the same gas when his capture was attempted.
Policeman Johnson’s Revolver
WHEN the hold-up men burst in on the Vitale dinner some weeks ago and held up the magistrate, the seven criminals, and Policeman Johnson, they took away Mr. Johnson’s revolver, but in some mysterious manner Magistrate Vitale returned it to him afterwards, refusing to say how it had come into his hands. The magistrate has since been up before the Bar Association for questioning. Police claim that the object of the hold-up was to secure possession of a murder contract which one of the criminal guests had in his possession.
Raising Cane in Washington
NDER this heading The Nation has a brilliant letter from Arthur Warner that is well worth reading. It shows, in the open, the curious methods by which the big business men pull their wires to reconcile their tariff differences, and that without taking the interests of the people into consideration at all. An interesting feature is the ridiculous light in which is placed General E. H. Crowder, one time ambassador to Cuba and during the World War in charge of the military draft in the United States. He was revealed as lobbying in the interests of Cuban sugar, for pay, and not hesitating to make use of American military and naval plans in order to gain his ends.
Radio Audience 41,000,000
THE radio families in the United States are -*■ now estimated at 9,640,348, and the radio audience at about 41,000,000 persons. More than eighty percent of the radio sets in the country are in daily use. The radio receiving station at Point Barrow, Alaska, is the most favored location in the world, receiving at all times practically all the programs which are sent out in America, Europe or Asia.
The Car of Juggernaut
WE HAVE before us a picture cut from the London Daily Herald of November 2, 1929. It is the scene when Sir John O’Connell was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic church by Cardinal Bourne. It shows five men lying as flat on their stomachs and faces as if they had been given opiates and laid out for the car of Juggernaut to run over their prostrate bodies. '
Idaho and New Mexico Prisons
HE new Handbook of American Prisons shows that Idaho and New Mexico are at the bottom of the ladder as far as their prisons are concerned. Idaho is frankly brutal in its treatment of prisoners, having learned nothingin the last one hundred and fifty years. In New Mexico the prisoners are still denied the use of knives and forks at the table. Why New Mexico should thus advertise that it is at the bottom of the list of American civilization is hard to say. Anybody, even a child, can see that that is no way to make men better.
Cent a Barrel for Apples
TAUNTON (England) fruit grower bought barrels and straw and engaged men to pick and pack thirteen barrels of apples, and shipped them to commission men in Sheffield. A few mornings later he received a letter from the Sheffield firm thanking him for the business and enclosing payment for the shipment, five pence in stamps, or less than a cent.a barrel. The grower claims that he would have received over a cent a pound for these apples if they had been sold for cider; and he and we are wondering how commission men can do such things as this and get away with it in both Britain and America. Surely a day of reckoning must come for such injustices.
Senator Couzens on Unemployment
enatob Couzens, of Michigan, in an address before the Senate at Washington, recently said that you cannot displace men with machines and forget it; that if the captains of industry will not assume responsibility for the displaced men, then the government will have to do it; and if the government does not bring about an adjustment then the unemployed will. That is plain talk, and true too.
Boston Watch and Ward Society
THE Watch and Ward Society, custodian of what morals Boston has left since the slaying of Sacco and Vanzetti, has just secured the fining and imprisonment of a man for securing, as a favor, a single copy of a book that the Watch and Ward Society has on its black list and selling it, without profit to himself, to an agent provocateur of the Society, posing under an assumed name. Massachusetts has shown that it simply will stand for anything and everything unjust.
Naval Disarmament Conference
THE Manchester-Guardian and the New York
World, on the eve of holding the London Naval Disarmament Conference, both expressed the opinion that the conference is so sure to accomplish next to nothing that the holding of it is really futile. The point of view maintained by France that she is virtually entitled to build all the submarines she desires is held to be an insuperable difficulty. A French memorandum indicates fear of an alliance between Spain and Italy to close the French route to and from Africa in case of war.
India the Real Issue
NDER this heading the Manchester Guardian says: “There are two chief reasons why a self-regarding England may hesitate to relax her control over India. The first is that her influence in the East depends partly upon her power to summon troops and to draw resources from India in time of need. This power will vanish when India has dominion status. The second is that Great Britain finds in India her best market, and that she has a thousand millions of capital invested there.” This is a plain statement of the facts and shows that England’s reasons for remaining in India are wholly selfish ones.
IN AN address before the 'American Sociological Society Dr. Harold B. Clark, of Columbia University, pointed out that it is not merely education that gives the college-trained man a better income than others, but in many cases this income superiority comes from inherited securities and from the “pull” which he has due to the fact that his parents are wealthier.
Distortions of Scottish History
Mr. Tom Johnson, under-secretary for Scotland, has been going after the teachers of history in Scottish schools and the writers of Scottish histories to insist that they teach the children real histories about the people and less about the mythical heroes. He insists that Robert Bruce was a feudal bully; that the tale of semi-starvation watching a spider in a cave was an invention, and that at the time named Bruce was enjoying the hospitality of the king of Norway.
Strange Language of a Magistrate
BOY seventeen years old and his fifteenyear-old sister were arrested on December 21 for soliciting funds to help the Gastonia, strikers, and confined several days in Raymond Street Jail. When the boy came up in court the magistrate accused him of having a diseased mind, called him a mongrel and a moron and wanted to black his eyes, thus to make of him a real good American. His superior on the bench has criticised him sharply for his language, and efforts are being made to remove him from the bench.
John Wesley’s “Primitive Physick”
T N THE year 1747 John Wesley, founder of -*■ Methodism, published his book entitled Primitive Physick, or an Easy and 'Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. John taught that a good cure for ague is to “make six middling pills of cobwebs. Take one before the cold fit, two a little before the next, the other three, if need be, before the other fit”. For a kink in the intestines John had a still more wonderful remedy, saying, “Many at the point of death have been cured by taking ounce by ounce, one, two or three pounds of quicksilver.” This extraordinary information is taken from the Physicians’ Times Magazine.
A Few Good Words for Rivera
EKEiiAL Primo de Rivera, late Spanish dictator, did several remarkable things. He closed the bullfights to boys of less than fourteen years of age: started drilling with a view to constructing a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar; canceled the order of Ferdinand and Isabella expelling the Jews from Spain; invited Jewish colonists from all corners of the world to come to Spain and make it their home, assuring them of a welcome and protection; and finally said, “I admit that my own opinion at the moment is that the dictatorship is beginning to waste away.”
Senator Borah on Conscription
IN AN article in Colliers magazine Senator Borah says: “Continental Europe, not including Russia, has two million men in arms. Europe is an armed camp. Countries impoverished, and with many of their people living in squalor and misery, are still expending 85 percent to 90 percent of their revenue, revenue extorted from the scant pockets of their people, for the upkeep of the war system. Four billion dollars a year is coined from the blood of the people and used to maintain a system which keeps them in many countries in economic slavery. Furthermore, fastened upon these same people is the conscription system which is as near the incarnation of hell on earth as anything yet devised by the devilish ingenuity of the human brain.”
The Decision Against Macintosh
THE decision against Professor Macintosh, of Yale University, that he may not become a citizen of the United States, reads, in part, as follows: “It appearing that the said petitioner, considering his allegiance to be first to the will of God, would not promise in advance to bear arms in defense of the United States under all circumstances, but only if he believed the war to be morally justified, it is decided that the petitioner is not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and further decreed that said petition for citizenship is denied.” This speaks for itself. No one can now be a good American citizen who places God first in all the affairs of his life. Meantime we have more than ten thousand murders a year.
Vivisection in St. Louis
EHIND a St. Louis hospital in late December a little dog was found with his mouth sewed shut with eight stitches of strong white cord. Rewards aggregating a thousand dollars have been offered for the arrest of the vivisec-tor who perpetrated the job. There ought not to be any trouble finding the miscreant, but dealing with him will be quite another matter. Vivisectors are engaged in this kind of work right along and have means of protecting themselves from interference or even investigation. By and by we shall be told some cock-and-bull story of what an aid this experiment has been to medical science.
Storing Speech in the Body
Y A new invention, spoken words may now be stored in the human body for a short time and released mechanically. The device wras shown at a convention of telephone men in New York city. A sentence was spoken into the telephone transmitter, and by means of amplifiers this sentence was heard by all the audience. At the same time part of the current was stored in a delay circuit, and after it had been stored for four and a half seconds this current was transformed into a high voltage and passed into the inventor’s body. He then placed his finger against the ear of a member of the audience, who heard directly within his brain the same sentence that had issued from the loud-speaker four and a half seconds earlier.
Introducing Mr. Adams
ABOU, of Washington, D. C., introduces the secretary of the navy, Charles P.
Adams, explaining that in the drought last fall Mr. Adams had one of Uncle Sam’s big airplane carriers furnish current to the Puget Sound Light and Poiver Company, of which he, Mr. Adams, is a director, but at first declined flatly to perform the same service for the embarrassed municipal plants of Tacoma and Seattle. Upon what meat doth this, our Mr. Charles P. Adams, feed, that he is grown so great? One would think that, as the Power Trust is always urging that the government is incapable of doing anything for the people, Mr. Adams would have sought the opportunity of showing that he is an exception. He is indeed an exception, but not on the right side of the ledger.
“Say We Not Well?”
SOME newspapers are worse than others, but a glance at almost any morning paper will reveal the depths into which the human family has fallen with regard to speaking ill of their fellow men. Six thousand years of wallowing in the filth have so marred humanity that speaking ill of one’s neighbor is one of the commonest pastimes of the fallen race. It is the Devil’s favorite and almost his only weapon wherewith to fight the truth.
To the ordinary mind there might seem to be little connection between the commandments G'Thou shalt not kill” and "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”, but Jesus puts the two together. He shows that it is killing one’s brother to call him an apostate wretch (Matt. 5: 21, 22); and if it is an act of murder to call him an apostate wretch to his face, how much more heinous in the sight of God and man it would be to call him such behind his back, when he was not there to defend himself.
Who among the Lord’s true people has not often had occasion to pray in his heart as David did of old, “Set a watch, 0 Lord, before my mouth: keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity”? It is so easy to drift down stream with the current of mud and filth. Anybody can be a slanderer.
The Lord Jesus knew that it would be necessary to put safeguards even about God’s own people in this respect, and so He arranged that when one Christian thought he had something against some other Christian he should go to him alone and talk it over with him. Alas I More often he goes and talks it over with everybody else, even while nominally holding to the Lord’s command, and even preaching about it to others.
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.” (1 John 2:10) But suppose he has ceased to love his brother, then what? Suppose that in his heart he has turned murderer, will he then continue to abide in the light? Will there then be no occasion of stumbling in him? The question answers itself. “Whosoever hat-eth his brother is a murderer.” (1 John 3:15) And if a man hates his brother the acts of the murderer will sooner or later appear.
The Apostle James let us all in for a good lesson on this subject of the use of our tongues. If you have forgotten what he said, it will not do any harm to look it up. “In many things we offend all ... . Out of the same mouth proceed-eth blessing and cursing”; and the greatest curse one brother can bring upon another is to undertake to kill him with his tongue. “Speak not evil one of another, brethren.”—Jas. 3:2-12; 4:11.
What a trimming Jesus gave those scribes and Pharisees who accused Him of casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils! “0 generation of vipers 1 how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”—Matt. 12: 34-37.
If slandering is done in secret it is so much the worse, for then the sin of cowardice is added to the sin of murder. “Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off.” (Ps. 101: 5) These are the words of the One in whom all our hopes of everlasting life are centered.
An odd thing about it is that those that are themselves in the weakest position to say anything are the ones that are most liable to do all the evil speaking. The wise man knew what he was about when he wrote, “A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips; and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue.”—Prov. 17:4.
One who is at all familiar with the Bible knows that the adversary counts on the unwise use of the tongue as one of his chiefest weapons. He counted on it to keep Nehemiah from rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem; counted on it when Sennacherib’s army was gathered about the gates of the city; and counted on it all through Jesus’ ministry.
It seems to have been a permanent feature of Jeremiah’s experiences. He says: “For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take revenge on him.” (Jer. 20:10) But read the next verse and see the source of Jeremiah’s strength.
Jesus was accused of almost every sin on the calendar; not directly, but inferentially. He was classed with publicans, winebibbers, harlots and blasphemers. His birth was questioned, the implication being that He was born of fornication and therefore not fit to associate with the “real good” Israelites who slandered Him.
Perhaps the top limit of the evil and slanderous statements made against the Lord was one that was addressed to Him direct. He had just been telling His hearers something about the Devil, that he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. The Devil hearing all that, and angered to have so much truth told about himself, used certain of the Jews to say to Jesus in reply, “Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?” (John 8: 48) Could human meanness or human conceit go further?
Jesus did not revile in return, but modestly and truthfully said, “I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.”
These thoughts recur to us as we ponder the savage and devilish attacks that were made upon Pastor Bussell throughout his useful life and even after his death, and the similar attacks that have been made and doubtless will continue to be made upon Judge Rutherford, and for the same reason, because of their joint faithfulness to their common Master and His God and theirs. During his lifetime there was no charge short of murder that was not laid against Pastor Russell. The Devil, of course, was the real slanderer. Indeed, “slanderer” is one of his names.
Just now some of these hyper-saints are grieved because one of the hardest-worked men in the world is being blessed by the Lord, being helped to carry his burden. Read R. J. Martin’s story in this issue, and see for yourself; and read also the most singular will ever drawn or placed on file in the records of transfers of property anywhere in the world. These things, instead of making one disesteem one whom the Lord is so greatly using, make him all the more loved.
While we are on this subject of slander we mention another, having as its basis a picture of Judge Rutherford sleeping in the only shelter available while traveling in Europe in 1920.
A gentleman who was in that party shows in the following letter how what was an act of generosity and self-sacrifice on Judge Rutherford’s part, and on the part of the writer of the letter (A. R. Goux) and the innocent photographer who snapped the scene in the early morning light, is construed into something entirely different from what the facts show it to have been.
The photograph reproduced in the scurrilous circular recently circulated among members of the IBSA is a record of an event of which I have personal knowledge, having been a member of the party of six men who were accommodated in the same building while en route from Paris to Athens in September, 1920, in fulfilment of duty.
One of our party, a photographer, had risen in the morning before the rest of us. As an altogether friendly and entirely personal act, he took advantage of the opportunity to “snap” this and other views of his sleeping companions.
The title reproduced with the photograph expresses briefly facts set forth in greater detail in a report of the mission of these men published in The Watch Tower for November 15, 1920. For convenience of any who may not have ready access to that issue, the following quotation is given that the truth might bo known by those who desire it:
“ . . . the ship proceeded on its vzay across ths Adriatic, landing in Trieste [Italy] late that night. The unloading here was amid great confusion also.
“An unusual thing transpired in this connection. It is customary for ships to unload their first and second class passengers before the steerage. But for some reason (probably because the crew was dictating the terms) the steerage passengers were first unloaded, then the second class, and finally the first class.
“We had received word that a new train was made up at Trieste which we could board and resume our journey at midnight. ‘With our baggage loaded into a horsedrawn vehicle, most of us followed it on foot to the station, only to learn on arriving there that the train would not leave until next midnight. Then we set about to hunt a place to sleep. We visited the best hotels without success. We were turned away everywhere we went. After one o ’clock, following vain attempts to secure accommodations in some private homes, wre came to a third class hotel. The manager informed us that the house was full, but he would be glad to entertain us if we would sleep in the beer garden on benches and tables. We agreed to that in preference to sleeping in the street. On entering, we found beds for two, in a room occupied by a gentleman who had not yet retired. Our British brethren were sent to the beds, and the other members of the party stretched themselves upon tables and benches in a large indoor garden, of which they had exclusive use. All slept soundly through the remainder of the night. ...”
The Truth About the San Diego House
Rz/ R. J. Martin
In view of the fact that there are so many slanderous reports circulated about Brother Rutherford, the real purpose of which is to injure the Lord’s work, I feel disposed to give the facts concerning some of them, not for the benefit of the slanderers, but for the benefit of those who are really loyal to the Lord.
SOCIETY’S BUILDINGS: During the past ten years the Society, under the business management of Brother Rutherford, has financed on a business basis and erected for the benefit of th«» work the following buildings:
The Bethel Home, furnishing commodious quarters for the workers there.
The Brooklyn factory, with a capacity of 20,000 volumes a day, in one of the best appointed and lighted factories in the world.
A factory and home for the work in Switzerland.
A factory and home for the work and workers in Magdeburg, Germany.
A home for the workers in Czechoslovakia.
Prior to this period the Society rented its headquarters in most of the places, including London. In the last few years the Society has acquired title to the London Bethel. The Society has also built offices and a printing plant at Toronto, Canada.
To my personal knowledge Brother Rutherford has been untiring in his efforts to get all this housing and equipment for the benefit of the Lord’s work.
As is well known by the brethren, he and others were confined in prison during the War because of faithfulness to the Lord’s cause. Following his release he had a severe case of pneumonia, and since then has had only one good lung. It is almost impossible for him to remain in Brooklyn in the winter season and get on with the arduous duties that he has to perform. To my personal knowledge there is no man in America that does more real hard work daily than he. Four years ago he went to San Diego, California, under the treatment of Doctor Eckols. The climate is so superior to that of almost any other place that Doctor Eckols has repeatedly urged him to spend as much time as possible in San Diego. When he goes he takes with him his office force and works early and late, and except for the work he has done the factories would not be able to operate and it is hardly probable that we could have been operating the radio stations.
It is not always convenient to get a comfortable place to live when it is necessary to rent a house for a few months. For the past two years I and other brethren close to Brother Rutherford have urged upon him the necessity of a house in San Diego where he can live and do the work that is so necessary to be done. Last year, in company with a few other brethren, we pressed this matter upon him, at that time the Lord having provided the means for the building of the house so that it would not be a burden on the Society. He finally consented that the house might be built only upon condition that it should be exclusively for the use of the Lord’s work, henceforth and for ever, and not for any private gain for any one. In October, 1929,1 went to California and acquired the title to the ground in my name and entered into a contract with the builder, and the house was constructed in my name. I again went to California at the beginning of the year 1930 to close up the building arrangements. I am happy to have any part in this because I know what it means for the Lord’s work.
I feel sure that the Lord loves Brother Rutherford as much as he loved David. David built a house for himself and afterwards thought about building one for the Lord. After repeated urging by loyal brethren the San Diego house was built, but Brother Rutherford refused to have it for himself except to use it for the Lord’s work. A deed was made conveying the title to the house. This deed was written by Brother Rutherford himself. I am certain there is no other deed to any piece of property like it under the sun. I am grateful to the Lord that I had anything to do with it. The deed is a matter of public record on the deed records of San Diego, California, and therefore I am at full liberty to publish it, and I do here submit the deed for publication so that all may see and understand how much Brother Rutherford has been libeled and slandered by those who would injure the Lord’s work.
I am certain that the loyal ones would have been glad to help finance the house had opportunity been given, and that they will rejoice when they know that this property will be for ever for the Lord’s people; that when Brother Rutherford is through with it somebody else in the Lord’s work will have it, and when David and Joseph or some of the other ancient worthies return they will have it.
The enemy charges that the house cost $100,000. Of course it did not cost one-fourth that amount; but their falsification in this behalf is in keeping with their false statements about everything else. See the statement from the treasurer of the Society that not one penny of the Society’s money was drawn out to pay for this house.
March 3, 1930 To Whom It May Concern:
This is to testify that no money has been drawn from the funds of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, or any affiliated association, by R. J. Martin, Brooklyn, N. Y., or anyone else to be used for the purpose of erecting, purchasing or acquiring the possession of any building or real estate in San Diego, California.
Respectfully submitted, [Treasurer’s seal] W. E. Van Amburgh, Treas.
I append a copy of the deed, including the notarial acknowledgments and recorder’s memoranda on the back, all of which will be of interest to many readers of The Golden Age, I feel sure.
DEED
ROBERT J. MARTIN
a single and unmarried person of 117 Adams St. Brooklyn, New York, for and in consideration of the sum of Ten Dollars ($10.00) does hereby grant bargain and sell unto
JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD
of 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, New York for and during his life on earth and thereafter to the WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, a corporation created and organized under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania and maintaining its chief operating offices at 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, New York and for the purposes hereinafter set forth.
All that real property situated in Kensington Heights, County of San Diego, State of California bounded and described as follows, to wit:
Lot One Hundred Ten (110) and Lot One Hundred Eleven (111) of Kensington Heights, Unit No. 2, in the County of San Diego, State of California, according to Map thereof No. 1912, filed in the office of the County Recorder of said San Diego County, May 24, 1926.
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD THE ABOVE GRANTED AND DESCRIBED PREMISES unto him, the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD for his exclusive possession, use and benefit for and during his life on earth and at the end of said limited estate then to the WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY in trust to be used for the purposes herein set forth, to wit:
The grantor at the request of the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD who is President of the WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY and General Manager thereof makes this provision and condition as set forth in this deed:
Both the grantor and the grantee, the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD are fully persuaded from the Bible testimony, which is the Word of Jehovah God, and from extraneous evidence that God’s kingdom is now in course of establishment and that it will result beneficially to the peoples of earth ■ that the governing power and authority will be invisible to men but that kingdom of God will have visible representatives on the earth who will have charge of the affairs of the nations under the supervision of the invisible ruler Christ; that among those who will thus be the faithful representatives and visible governors of the world will be David, who was once king over Israel; and Gideon, and Barak, and Samson, and Jephthae, and Joseph, formerly the ruler of Egypt, and Samuel the prophet and other faithful men who were named with approval in the Bible at Hebrews the eleventh chapter. The condition herein is that the said WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY shall hold said title perpetually in trust for the use of any or all of the men above named as representatives of God’s kingdom on earth and that such men shall have possession and use of said property hereinabove described as they may deem for the best interest for the work in which they are engaged.
This property has been acquired and the improvements built thereon at the instance and under the direction of the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD and dedicated to Jehovah God and to His King Christ who is the rightful ruler of the earth and for the express purpose of being used by those who are servants of Jehovah God. For this reason the provision is made in this deed that the property shall be for ever used for that purpose subject to any encumbrances that may have been placed thereupon.
IT IS FURTHER PROVIDED that if the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD while alive on the earth shall by lease, deed or contract provide that any other person or persons connected with the said WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY shall have the right to reside on said premises until the appearing of David or some of the other men mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews as above set forth even such person or persons so designated by the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD in such lease or other paper writing shall have the right and privilege of residing on said premises until the same be taken possession of by David or some of the other men herein named and this property and premises being dedicated to Jehovah and the use of his kingdom it shall be used as such for ever. Any persons appearing to take possession of said premises shall first prove and identify themselves to the proper officers of said Society as the person or persons described in Hebrews chapter eleven and in this deed. IN WITNESS WHEREOF I the said ROBERT J. MARTIN and the said JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD have hereunto signed our names this 24th day of December A.D. 1929,
Robert J. Martin
Joseph F. Rutherford Witnesses:
Donald Haslett
Bonnie Boyd
STATE OF NEW YORK) COUNTY OF KINGS) SS
On this 24th day of December A.D. 1929 before me, Donald Haslett a notary public in and for said County and State of New York, having authority to take acknowledgments of legal instruments, personally appeared ROBERT J. MARTIN and JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD known to me to be the persons whose names are subscribed to the foregoing instrument and each acknowledged to me that he executed the same as his free act and deed.
WITNESS MY HAND and official seal the day and year in this certificate first above written.
Donald Haslett
[Notary Seal] Notary Public.
State of New York,
County of Kings, ss. - .
I, Fred G. Limmermann, Clerk of the County of Kings and also Clerk of the Supreme Court for said county (said court being a court of record) do hereby certify that Donald Haslett the Notary Public before whom the within acknowledgment or deposition was made was at the time of making the same authorized by the laws of the state of New York to take the acknowledgments and proofs of deeds or conveyances for lands, tenements and hereditaments situate, lying and being in said state of New York. And further that I am well acquainted with the hand writing of such Notary Public, and verily believe that the signature to said certificate of proof, acknowledgment or deposition is genuine.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of said County and Court this 24th day of December, 1929.
Fred G. Limmermann, Clerk.
GRANT DEED Individual ROBERT J. MARTIN to
JOSEPH F. RUTHERFORD et al
Dated December 24th, 1929
Recorded at the request of Grantee February 7, 1930, at 15 minutes past 2 o’clock in Book No. 1741, Page 69 of Deeds.
Records of San Diego County, California. John II. Ferry County Recorder
By N. C. Parsons Deputy. Compared. Fee $1.80.
Boy Scouts and the Budget
THE following from the Kent Courier may help some to see how the religious and financial leaders are wringing and twisting the dollars out of the wage-earners to build up the side lines of Satan’s organization. Note that the answer is not given as to where the money goes and 'who gets it. .
BOY SCOUTS
By M. B. Spelman
The question has been raised, viz: Why is it necessary to place in the Kent Welfare Association budget an item of $1600 for Boy Scouts, and where does the money go or who gets this amount?
By Byron 14. Tripp (Ohio)
First, this sum goes as our portion of the budget of the Akron Area Council of Boy Scouts of America, of which we are a part.
The budget for the area for 1930 is $35,000. The Community Chest of Akron gives of the above sum $29,000, thus leaving $6,000 to be raised by other portions of the area.
Barberton gives $3,000, Wadsworth $1,000, Hudson $400, Cuyahoga Falls and Kenmore give with Akron.
Eight people are employed on regular staff to oversee and plan program for 3000 boys. One-field executive gives largely of his time to Kent and this portion east of Akron.
This man is the general overseer of all our work in scouting and without him and the connections with a mother council, scouting would become in a short time almost of no value.
Besides these eight employed people there are over 700 men working for and backing this movement.
Kent has 127 scouts now and some 30 men that are directly working with these scouts. They get not a penny for this work, yet feeling, as they get more and more into the work, that the most they can do is too little, in the work of making fine men out of our boys.
Scouting is absolutely non-sectarian, reaching every boy the course appeals to, and yet in the Scout Oath the first portion says ‘ ‘ On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and My Country.”
The last law of Scouting is “A Scout is reverent.” The leaders of Scouting wish many more people of our vicinity would get acquainted with real scouting as we are striving to lead our boys.
M. B. Spelman is very wealthy and a religious leader. Scouting is carried on in Kent by clergymen and superintendents. Some of their boys become expert marksmen in rifle practice. They are taught to hunt, carve, and live in the woods like young savages. On one occasion they set fire to a large woods and it took two fire departments several hours to put out the fire. The newspapers said ‘'•'some boys” accidentally set fire to the woods. To train 3,000 boys each year $35,000 is rather expensive. I am not one of the contributors.
Masses at a Bargain!
John R. Cantillon, pastor of the Church of St. Philip, 725 Diamond St., San Francisco, seems to be sore because his flock are overdoing the nickel end of the business. He speaks sadly of— men and women in fine clothes, beau brummels and their ladies fair, who chase buffaloes in their costly purses of latest design, when the collection box is handed around. I cannot imagine it. It is a monstrous reality; 834 nickels came from adult ■worshippers on last Sunday—many of them at 6:30 mass, the remainder at 12:15, for which mass a priest has to fast until 1:15 p. m.
That shows that John has some sense of humor, anyway; but he almost overdoes this in a concluding paragraph when he says:
Two masses will be offered on first and second Sundays for living and deceased members. Owing to the changed values of monies, 50c today has less purchasing value than 25c eight or more years ago. Masses continue to be said as formerly for members of the Altar Society who died in good standing.
If in your place, 'John, we would not talk to them like that. If you get them to thinking along economic lines, what they get for their money when they pay for masses, some of the curious ones will get to looking for some good priest that will offer the masses free because he really loves the poor souls in‘purgatory’and wants to get them out. And you yourself can see, John, that even at 25c a mass you are 25c ahead; whereas, on a strict brotherly-love basis you would not be entitled to one cent.
Six-Day Week in Russia
IN ITS anxiety to upset everything the Soviet government has instituted a five-day work week, with a day of rest to follow it. In effect this does away entirely with the seven-day week and makes a time for worship on any set day of the week almost impossible. '
Child’s Cart Carries AU
A DISPATCH from Wendell, North Carolina, dated December 19, 1929, tells its own story of the need which the poor have of earth’s new King. With proper instruction in the care qf the soil, such a story as this, in a climate like this, is absolutely unnecessary.
Wendell recently had a most vivid and pitiful example of the actual want, verging on starvation, which the farm situation in this section has made only too common.
A gaunt, ill-clad couple, man and wife, with their little girl and boy trudging painfully down the splendid concrete highway pulling a boy’s wagon loaded with all they had left in the world, all except the boy’s dog, which not even grim want could force the father to take from his son, though there must have been little enough food for that extra mouth. Pitifully little on the wagon—a clock, a picture, clothing, Christinas and birthday gifts of happier days—nothing of any value, and all that was left after half a lifetime of hard work.
Upon questioning by the sympathetic who saw them, the couple told their story, which is only too familiar. Tobacco cheap, cotton crop short, only half a crop, and that selling low, the landlord took the crop, and the time merchant took everything else. Then they were ordered to vacate the tenant house that had been home. Only a few personal things left, not one cent of money to move on, and nothing to move, and nowhere to go. Trudging down the road, tired, hungry, almost hopeless, in one of the richest states in the richest nation in the world.
A Question and Answer
UESTION: I have observed that young men and women born and reared in Christian homes lose all faith in and reverence for the Bible during their college life. Why is this so?
Answer: It is a deplorable fact that the question states the truth, and millions of people today are asking the same question. The answer is that the college professors, as a rule, are infidels. However, the fact that they are infidels is not generally known, because they still sail under the name "Christian”, and still assume to instruct young men and women in a knowledge of the Word of God, while the colleges are still called Christian colleges.
Almost without exception, these professors openly declare that they do not believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God. They deny the story of creation; that Adam was the first man, and that Adam was created perfect and in the image of God, and that he sinned and fell from this perfection. Instead of the simple Bible revelation of the creation of Adam in perfection, and his sin and fall, these professors have substituted a man-made theory called evolution. This theory teaches that man was created on the very lowest plane of existence, a protoplasm, and that through long ages he has been evolving upward, until he has arrived at his present condition and attainments. If evolution were true, then of course the story of the sin and fall of man would be untrue. Hence it is the claim of the professors that it was not necessary that Jesus should die for man’s sin, ^because he has not sinned, but is constantly struggling against the imperfections which were his at the beginning and is slowly but surely rising to higher levels.’ This theory, of course, denies the necessity for the death of Jesus as an atonement for sin, and thus strikes boldly at the very fundamental doctrine of the Bible, namely, that because of sin man needs a redeemer. In plainest language the Bible says that ‘without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin’. It tells us again that “Christ died for our sins”, and that the only hope of the race is to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”; it decdares that the resurrection of the dead will be accomplished by Jesus Christ, and the professors deny all this. They also deny the story of Jonah and the great fish, notwithstanding the fact that Jesus Himself vouched for its truthfulness. (Matt. 12:40) They deny that Jesus was the Son of God, by claiming that He had an earthly father. Thus they claim that Jesus was an illegitimate child, and cast reproach on His mother.
Recently, a newspaper carried an item saying that in one of the largest universities of the country, there was not a single professor who believed the Bible is the word of God.
Such are the men to whom you confide the spiritual and eternal interests of your sons and daughters when you send them to college. It is no wonder that they come out of college open and avowed infidels. Professors who hold positions of confidence and trust, and who use those positions to undermine the faith of the young men and women who are placed under their supervision, are very reprehensible. If they would honestly notify the world that they have repudiated the Bible and no longer believe it to be the word of God, and hence could no longer teach its precepts, then parents would know what dangers would surround the children if they were sent to college. We here offer the suggestion that a college education is entirely unnecessary, anyway. Jesus did not have one; neither did the apostles; and about seveneighths of what is learned there is false, as well as useless; and this includes the brutal hazings, and wild night parties, and rough brutal sports, which are considered such an important adjunct of a complete college course.
Philosophy of Redemption
[Broadcast from Station WBBIl, New York, by Judge Rutherford.]
JEHOVAH has revealed, to.man the only true philosophy. On this occasion consideration vzill be given to the philosophy of the redemption of man. Philosophy may he properly defined as the science of things divine; the science of things possible and in harmony with divine law and -"ower.
Let the audience keep in mind the great controversy between Satan and Jehovah. In every step of that controversy Satan is wrong and Jehovah is right. The final result will prove to all intelligent creatures that Jehovah God is right and supreme. God is perfect in wisdom, justice, love and power. These divine attributes work together in exact harmony.
Satan thought his reasoning was perfect, but it was very faulty. He knew that God had created man perfect and granted him the right to life upon condition of man’s obedience. He knew that God had said to man: If you sin you shall surely die.’ Satan reasoned that if man could be induced to sin that would prove man to be imperfect and would put God to the test and prove that the wisdom of Jehovah is faulty. He further reasoned that if man should sin Jehovah could not afford to kill him because by so doing He would admit that His creation was and is imperfect and therefore would demonstrate to all other creatures that He, Jehovah, is not perfect in wisdom and power. He further reasoned that if man did violate God’s law and God did not put him to death therefor that would prove that God is not just and would also make God a liar before all His creatures.
The wicked purpose of Satan was to discredit Jehovah before all His creation, with the expectation that the result would be that he (Satan) would receive credit, honor and worship from all other creatures. These conclusions are fully supported by the Bible record concerning Job. One of the manifest reasons for the book of Job is to teach godly men the supremacy of Jehovah and of His purposes concerning man.
Although favored with the wonderful position as overlord of man, Satan was insolent to Jehovah God. He induced Eve to believe that God was taking advantage of her, and this indirectly led to the sin of Adam. Because of his violation of God’s law Adam was sentenced to death and expelled from Eden. Ever thereafter Satan has continued his wicked insolence toward Jehovah and has continued to reproach the Creator’s good name.
On an occasion when the sons of God came to present themselves before Him and Satan came also, God said to Satan: “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.”—Job 2: 3-5.
This is proof of the wicked determination of Satan to turn all creation against Jehovah. To accomplish this he must discredit Jehovah in the eyes of all creation. He reasoned that it would be impossible for Jehovah God to be just and at the same time permit man to live if he, Satan, could induce man to sin. Herein his reasoning was faulty. How could it be possible for Jehovah* God to be just and at the same time forgive man his sin, approve man, and permit him again to live? That question was doubtless in the mind of Satan. God must prove His complete justice by putting the disobedient man to death, because that was His law. He did thus prove His justice. Should He forgive man, thereafter approve him, and again permit him to live, that would apparently be contradictory of His justice, and would afford cause for all creation to lose confidence in Jehovah. These questions were too much for Satan; and, thinking himself equal to God, he proceeded upon the theory that God had put Himself in a position from which He could not with honor and dignity withdraw7. These same questions have baffled all human philosophy. These questions, however, are plainly and fully answered by the Word of Jehovah God.
Satan was not wise. Wisdom results from, and is proven by, one’s pursuing a course of action in harmony with righteousness. The very moment that Satan contemplated rebellion he became unwise. The wisdom of Jehovah God is eternal. At the very time of expelling man from Eden Jehovah gave utterance to wisdom ■which foretold His purpose to redeem man. But only the wise could possibly understand that. Sa-
tan, having taken a wicked course and thereby proving his lack of wisdom, egotistically went on in his wicked way. It was at that same time that God stated His purpose to bring forth a seed that would destroy Satan and his power. Instead of destroying Satan then and there, God has permitted him to go on in his wicked course, and has abided His own good time to place Himself right before all creation. What, then, is the divine philosophy revealed by the Bible of and concerning the redefiiption and deliverance of man!
The Ransom
The answer is that God has provided the great ransom sacrifice as the price of redemption of man from the penalty of death, and that his deliverance will come as a result thereof. God's love led Him to take this course. In John 3:16, 17 it is written: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, hut have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
Upon the great ransom sacrifice depends the possibility for all men to have life everlasting. Without the provision of the ransom sacrifice it would be impossible for any man to enjoy life everlasting. It is written in Matthew 20:28 concerning Jesus that He came, not to be ministered unto, but to give His life a ransom for man. In John 10:10 Jesus is heard to say: “I am come that they [the people] might have life.” These words are true; and, being true, they show that the life of the human race depends upon the ransom sacrifice.
The doctrine of the great ransom sacrifice has been understood by only a few. Only those who have taken the wise course have had a clear appreciation thereof. I have no controversy with the clergymen of the various churches as men, but it is my duty to my audience and to my God to speak the truth. In doing so 1 must tell you that the clergymen do not believe the doctrine of the ransom sacrifice. Because I tell these facts no clergyman can have just cause for offense against me. I make the statements to the honor of Jehovah’s name and for the good of those who desire to know the truth.
Today the majority of the clergymen are modernists, and call themselves so. They confidently and boldly state that the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross accomplished nothing concerning the redemption and deliverance of man. Their theory or philosophy is that man is a creature of evolution and that he is lifting himself up; that he never fell and therefore never had need for a redeemer.
The fundamentalists do not believe the doctrine or Bible philosophy of the ransom sacrifice. They teach the doctrines of immortality of all souls and eternal torment of all who die in wickedness, which doctrines contradict the divine philosophy of the ransom. They admit that Jesus was the Son of God, but claim that He Himself was divine, which would make it impossible for Him to become the ransomer. They say that the life and death of Jesus are set before men as examples, and that if men follow His example they will go to heaven at death, but if not, they will go to eternal torture. These gentlemen entirely overlook the important thing that will result from the ransom, in this, that they deny the restoration of mankind to human perfection. God’s philosophy must be true and consistent, and my only purpose of contrasting the theories of men with the Scriptures is that we might see the faulty reasoning of men and how clear and reasonable is God’s Word.
That men have been much confused about these matters, all will admit. It is important, then, to ask who would be interested in deceiving men and blinding them to the truth concerning the great doctrine set forth in the Bible? The Scriptural answer is found in 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4, to the effect that Satan blinds men’s minds lest the light of the truth, as proclaimed by Jesus Christ and as set forth in the Word of God, should shine in the hearts of men and enlighten them. If it is always remembered that Satan is the enemy of God and the enemy of righteousness, and then the one who is examining the subject proceeds in honesty and with the purpose of knowing the truth, he will be able to find and understand the truth in the Bible.
On the contrary, when men follow the theories of men and ignore the Bible they cannot expect to be aided by the Lord, but, rather, He will take away His protection and permit Satan to blind them.
True Philosophy
In order, therefore, that we may have the true philosophy of redemption, we must ignore the theories of men and rely solely upon the Word of God. Such is the wise course, and they that are wise not only will seek to know, but will be diligent to obey, the truth of God’s Word.
In Deuteronomy 32:4 is found the proof that God made Adam a perfect man. Any perfect creature has the right to life as long as that creature remains in harmony with God’s law. The very moment that Adam violated God’s law and was sentenced to death his right to life was gone and he was therefore imperfect. Thereafter he begot children, and, of course, all of these were born imperfect. It is written, in Bomans 5:12, that all of Adam’s offspring have been born sinners; which means that they could not have God’s approval. It is easy to be seen that the final result to all mankind would therefore be eternal death unless God intervened in man’s behalf. Only the love of God, and His perfect wisdom, would make it possible for man to live. Therefore God has provided the great ransom sacrifice for man.
Ransom means an exact corresponding price, which price the law requires for the release of one held under its penalty. It was the perfect man Adam that had been sentenced to death. The penalty of the law, therefore, was to remove from Adam the right to life as a man. Nothing short of a perfect human fife could become the ransom for man, because that which becomes the ransom must exactly correspond to that which the law had taken. That conclusion is both reasonable and Scriptural.
All men being descendants of Adam, and for this reason imperfect, no man could redeem his brother. If man was ever to be relieved, God must make the provision. Satan reasoned that God could not make any provision to put Himself in the eyes of creatures as right. Having chosen a course of wickedness Satan would not thereafter learn, but would continue as The prince of darkness’.
The beginning of God’s creation was His Son the Logos. He was a spirit creature. He had the right to live as a spirit creature. God transferred this life from spirit to human and caused His Son Jesus to be born as a man child, not as a descendant of Adam, but as the human Son of God. When Jesus was thirty years of age He had attained His legal majority; or what we commonly say, He was of age under the law. He was also perfect as a man and was exactly equal to the perfect man Adam before Adam was sentenced to death.
From the date of His birth until He was thirty years of age Jesus was a human creature, and not divine. Upon this point Satan has confused many. He has induced some to honestly believe that they dishonor God by saying that Jesus was merely a man. Hence some go to the extreme in insisting that Jesus was at all times divine.
What is Satan’s purpose in inducing men to believe that as a man Jesus was divine from His birth? The answer is, that Satan might destroy the confidence of reasonable persons in the Bible philosophy as to the ransom sacrifice. If Jesus was at all times divine, then He could not die; because a divine one is not subject to death. To induce man to believe that Jesus was at all times divine would therefore aid Satan in his purpose of confusing the mind of man and blinding him to the truth. Furthermore, if Jesus was at all times divine He could not become the ransom price for man, for the reason that that would be more than God’s law required. The angels of heaven are spirit creatures, but not divine. A human creature is lower in rank of nature than a spirit creature. Concerning the man Jesus it is written in John 1:14 that he “was made flesh, and dwelt among us”. In Hebrews 2: 9 the record is: “We see Jesus, . . . made a little lower than the angels.” These scriptures prove that Jesus was human and that He was lower than the angels in rank. He was a human creature because He had the right to live as a human creature, which God had so given Him. Seeing now that it was the right to life as a human creature which Adam possessed and which the divine sentence took away from him, it must be seen that the one who would redeem Adam must likewise have the right to perfect human life. The man Jesus possessed that very right. Jesus, however, in due time did become divine, after God had accepted him as the great ransom price for man. God then gave Him the right to live as divine, and over Him death can never again have any dominion. This is supported by the words of Jesus, when He said: “As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” (John 5: 26) The fact that the Father Jehovah gave Him that right proves that He did not always possess it. Now we are dealing with the question as to how and why Jesus could become the ransomer of man.
From the time of Adam’s death sentence it was God’s purpose to redeem man and to destroy Satan. Later He expressed His purpose when He caused His prophet to write, in Hosea 13:14: “I vzill ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: 0 death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.” Jesus therefore became a man in fulfilment of God’s purpose and in fulfilment of prophecy. For God to purpose a thing means that it shall be done in His own good time, and nothing can prevent the carrying out of His purposes. Concerning this He says: “I have purposed it, I will also do it.” (Isa. 46:11) His purpose is to redeem man, not from torment, but from death, and to ransom him or buy him back from the power of the grave. God sent Jesus to earth to carry out His expressed purpose for the redemption of man.
The Bible record tells that w’hen Jesus became of age He went to the Jordan to be baptized. Why should He be baptized in water? Manifestly, as a symbol or testimony to other creatures that He had agreed to do Jehovah’s will at any cost. The prophet had foretold Jesus’ saying: “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” (Ps. 40: 7, 8) That means that Jesus was there to carry out God’s purpose of redeeming mankind. How could Jesus do that? He could accomplish it only by willingly undergoing the penalty of death as a substitute for Adam and his offspring, to the end that Adam and his offspring might be released from the sentence and the effects of death.
A crude illustration here may help to make the matter clear. Let us assume that John Smith is in prison because he cannot pay a fine of $500 assessed against him by the court. Some one else could pay the fine on John’s behalf. His brother Charles is willing to pay the fine, but has no money. He is able to work and earn money. He hires himself to Jones, labors hard for some time, and earns the necessary money. What Charles has really done is to reduce his time and strength to a valuable asset with which he may be able to pay his brother’s debt and effect'his release. This he pays over, and his brother John is released from the legal obligation.
Likewise Adam was sentenced to death, which deprived him for ever of the right to human life. Nothing could meet the requirements for Adam except the substitute of another perfect human life and the right to such life. Carrying out His purposes God sent His Son Jesus into the world, made Him a man that He might become man’s redeemer, and Jesus was willing to become the Redeemer. He could not keep the human life he possessed and the right thereto and at the same time use it to pay the debt of Adam. He must reduce what He possessed to a valuable asset which would have purchasing value. This He would do only by laying down His life in death in the place or stead of Adam. This is exactly in harmony with God’s expressed purpose as Jesus stated it. He said: “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they [the people, the human race] might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself [willingly]. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”—John 10: 10, 11, 15, 17, 18.
Here Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the sheep, to wit, mankind, because it is the will of God that mankind shall have a chance to live. Satan and his agencies on many occasions attempted to kill Jesus, and failed. The reason was that no man could take His life, and Jesus would not have died, except it was the will of God that He should die in order to provide the necessary purchase price for man. That, however, furnished no just cause or excuse to those who put Him to death. There was a reason why He suffered at the hands of His enemies, but this we must leave until a subsequent time for consideration.
Purchasing Value
The Scriptures declared that the life of man. is in the "blood of man. The blood of Jesus was spilled by man. What value is there to man in the shed blood of Jesus Christ? The truth upon this question is vital to every man. Its answer must further cast great reproach upon the name of Jehovah God or else it must show the great wisdom of God in carrying out His purposes and therefore be a vindication of His name. If there is no purchasing value in the shed blood of Jesus, then God permitted Him to be put to a cruel death without a cause.
The modernist clergymen without hesitation tell the people from their pulpits and through the press that there is no purchasing value in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. They not only deny the blood of Christ but cast a cruel reproach upon the name of Jehovah. That is exactly what Satan has long been doing. Now the people must determine for themselves whether they wish to take the side of and follow men who support Satan or wish to know7 God’s Word and be obedient to Him. God is not trying to get anyone to rush into His arms. He is causing His truth to be made known that intelligent persons might now reject or. accept the truth. The Bible contains the truth. For the benefit of those who desire to know the truth I now refer to the Bible answer to the question concerning the value of the blood of Christ Jesus.
Adam and his offspring were all sinners, because all were imperfect after the death sentence. No sinner can have everlasting life until that sin is remitted and the creature is reconciled to God. In Hebrews 9:22 it is written: “Without shedding of blood is no remission [of sin].” God foreshadowed this by causing the Hebrews each year to sacrifice the paschal lamb as their passover, which lamb must be without spot or blemish, the sacrifice of which foretold the death of God’s beloved Son. It is therefore written in 1 Peter 1:18, 19: “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, . . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb [of God] without blemish and without spot.” Again, it is written in Ephesians 1:7: <cWe have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his [Jehovah’s] grace.”
Are the people -willing to further follow a class of men who claim to be preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ and who at tfie same time deny the purchasing value o'f the blood of Christ? Are you willing to accept their doctrines that man’s righteousness can be obtained by his own efforts, in the face of the fact that all men were born sinners? Let the people choose whether they will accept the theory of boastful men or the philosophy of God as expressed in His Word. In Bomans 3:22-26 it is written that ‘the righteousness of God is by faith in Jesus Christ for all that believe. . . . God has sent forth Christ Jesus to be the satisfaction for sin through faith in His blood’. If the Bible is right, the clergy are wrong. The clergy, being wrong, should cease to claim to be preachers of the Bible; failing to do this, the people should cease supporting them.
Jesus plainly said that He came to give His life a ransom for man in order that man might have the opportunity to live; therefore His human life poured out in death must and does have the greatest value to man. Concerning the manner of God’s carrying out His purposes in this respect, it is written, in Hebrews 2:9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
To be sure, Satan the Devil would make a desperate attempt to induce the people to believe that there is no value in the shed blood of Christ Jesus and would use men as his instruments to so teach the people, because it is written, in Hebrews 2:14: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”
The death and resurrection of Jesus has already taken place; and next in order God will carry out His purposes to destroy the Devil and his organization and give the people full opportunity for everlasting life. The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus to the divine nature and to the highest place in Jehovah’s realm is one of the vital parts of the redemption and deliverance of the human race according to God’s purpose.
Next Sunday morning consideration will be given to the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The people must have a chance to know the truth in order that they may know and worship and serve Jehovah God and be the recipients of the benefits He has for mankind.
The Children’s Own Radio Story By 0. J. W., Jr. Story Forty-eight
JESUS knew that Judas would betray Him to the high priests and Pharisees, but none of the other disciples knew this. At the last feast of Passover at which they were all assembled, or as it is sometimes called, the “Last Supper”, Jesus, at the conclusion of the meal, said, “Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.” And the disciples were all amazed, and began to ask each other which of them it was that Jesus meant. The crafty Judas held his peace, and tried to look very innocent while this was going on, but down in his heart he knew that he had bargained to betray Jesus to the high priests for thirty pieces of silver. Eventually Jesus made this plain to Judas and to all the others.
The “last supper” was one of the greatest events in Jesus’ earthly life, for at that time He made a long discourse to the chosen twelve disciples, and comforted them and strengthened their faith. It was at this time that Jesus foretold that Peter would deny Him thrice; and let us see how this occurred.
Peter had made great professions of his devotion to Jesus, as we remember from our last story. Peter had said he was willing to share the trials of Jesus even unto death; and although the disciple’s faith was great, still he had moments of weakness, and this the Lord knew well. For Peter was, after all, an imperfect human being, like us all; and though his intentions might be of the highest, he sometimes lacked will-power to carry them out.
When Jesus and His disciples arose from the table at the conclusion of this discourse, they removed themselves to a garden in the suburbs of Jerusalem, called Gethsemane. Jesus had often visited this garden, to rest and pray.
Here Jesus betook Himself a little apart from them, and prayed long and earnestly to His Father in heaven. Jesus knew that He had not many hours of life before Him, and He being a perfect human being, sinless, holy, harmless, undefiled, we may form some little idea of His sufferings in the garden, when He knew that He must die as an outcast, a criminal, a blasphemer. It was a hard, bitter cup to drink; but Jesus had come to lay down His life for humanity, and because of His great love for us all He set himself firmly to face the sacrifice.
When Jesus rejoined His disciples at the close of His prayer to Jehovah God, He found them sleeping: exhausted by grief and sorrow, for they knew that their beloved Master would not be long among them. He looked upon them pityingly and said: “Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Eise, let us be going, behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.”
Now Judas had made an agreement with the officers of the high priest, that whomever he should approach and kiss, the same would be the man for whom they wTere looking. So presently a large band of men was seen coming through the garden to the spot where Jesus and His disciples were.
These were the servants of the high priest; and when they drew near, Judas came up to Jesus, and said, “Hail, Master,” and kissed Him.
Then the band of ruffians and soldiers, whom the high priest had sent to capture Jesus, surrounded Him and prepared to march Him away. But one of the disciples drew his sword and cut off the ear of a servant of the high priest. The poor man staggered back, bleeding exceedingly. Then said Jesus to Peter:
“Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sivord, shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be ?”
Then Jesus reached out, and laid His hand upon the stricken servant, and healed his ear.
What a beautiful character was this! Jesus, the Son of God, allows Himself to be taken captive by a band of ruffians whom He could slay with one word if He chose. When one of His own followers offers resistance to His cap-tors, and wounds one of them, Jesus reproves His disciple, and heals His enemy! Would you or I show the same strength of purpose and beauty of nature if we were placed in a similar case? Our first impulse would be to flee, or if we could not do so, to fight. Jesus did neither, but continued the course of sacrifice and humiliation, suffering abuse and revilement. Why? For popularity, notoriety, fanaticism, or some such reason? No! Jesus suffered persecution for our sakes, yours and mine. Remember that!.
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