The Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

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in this issue

VALUE OF KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

"PREACHERS PRESENT ARMS”

CORRECTION OF A LIE

LATIN AMERICA

MORE NEWS NOTES

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November 22, 1933

Vol. XV ■ No. 370

CONTENTS

••       •                       I,                                     ,            —....    —                              •       "

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Riot for Privilege to Toil . . . 116

Millennium Lags in Philadelphia 116

Two Million Unemployed Women 116

Three Cents an Hour Wages . . 116

Morgantown Goes Broke . . . 117

Plain Statements by Huey Long . 117

Pasadena Plant Too Profitable . 119

Where the Utilities Differ . . . 119

Federal Relief in Texas .... 123

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

The Correction of a Lie . . . 109 Free Food and Fuel in New York 117 Six Million Children to Be Fed . 117 Relief Needs $1,000,000,000 a Year 117 Economic Crimes in the South . 117 The Average American Family . 118 Selfridge Proposes End of Liberty 118 Educational Changes Impending . 118

Corrected Figures on Prisoners . 120

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Air Route via Greenland . . . 119 2,520 Miles in 10 Hours 5 Minutes 119 False Damage Claims .... 119 Golden Gate Bridge in Construction 119 New York City’s New Subway . 120

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Western World Has Failed . . 120

Morris Hillquit’s Final Message . 120

Export Steamship Corporation . 120

Double Citizenship in Canal Zone 123

Why Economic Conference Failed 123

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Terrible Conditions in South Dakota 122

Bulb-Destruction Week in Holland 122

Russian Rubber from Towsagis . 122

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

Uses of the Electric Eye . . . 122

Radium Treatment of Diamonds 127

HOME AND HEALTH

Accidents in Pennsylvania . . . 116

To Polish Glass

Recipe for Hominy

No Redress for Removing Wrong Eye 121

“If Medicine Had Been Defective” 121

Medical Science

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

Latin America—Question JI ark

of 20th Century (Part 3)

What Bombay Is Like .... 123

General Dealers, Limited . . . 124

Tithing Farmers Hate Clergy . 124

Hurricanes in the “Holy Year” . 126

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Value of Knowledge and Understanding......99

“Preachers Present Arms” . . 104

Letter from New Jersey Jonadab 109

The Radio Witness Work . . . 110

Pennsylvania’s Expensive Prayers 124

“O Baal, Hear Us”.....125

Great Help to Their Father . . 125

Protestant Church Bankrupt . . 125

. । . . , ,.---

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jh ’Golden Age

Volume XV                    Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, November 22, 1933                    Number 370

Value of Knowledge and Understanding

Broadcast over chain Sunday October 22, 1933, by Judge Rutherford

MEN seek after that which they believe will bring them personal benefit. In seeking after that which is desired, if a man takes the wrong road he is certain to come to disappointment and sorrow. If he takes and pursues the right road success crowns his efforts. It is therefore of great importance that a man at the very outset know which is the right road to take.

Material wealth and worldly fame are the things which men of the world principally seek after. The existence of man on earth is brief, and when he dies he must leave behind him all his material wealth and his worldly fame can no longer be enjoyed by himself. That which thoughtful men desire above all things else is life with the attending blessings of health, peace and happiness. Men madly rush about in their efforts to acquire material wealth and fame, and, while they may desire to live, very few men have any real conception of how life in happiness may be gained. What is needed to learn the right way is knowledge and understanding.

What are knowledge and understanding? and what is the distinction between the two ? Properly defined, knowledge means information gained from truthful testimony. Understanding means to take hold of and comprehend the true meaning of the testimony received and to thereby be enabled to know for a certainty what is the right course or road to take. One who pursues such a course is wise, and the final result to him is certain to be good. One may have knowledge of the existence of a thing and have no understanding of its meaning. The two are necessary to go together that good may result.

How may one know for a certainty that he is gaining true knowledge and that he is having the proper understanding of the information received? If he follows the teachings of man he cannot be certain; for the reason, all men are imperfect and the teachings of men are based upon human information. Regardless of the good intentions that a man may have, his opinion may be entirely worthless. But it is possible for us to know for an absolute certainty whether or not we are receiving true knowledge and getting the correct understanding, and that information I shall now try to impart to you.

It has been my privilege to bring to your attention on former occasions the conclusive proof that there is one true God whose name is Jehovah and who is almighty in power, perfect in wisdom, exact in justice, and wholly unselfish, and that He is the source of light, truth and life. All information received from Him is truthful and wholly trustworthy. Truth is also called light, and light makes known to us the things that we want to know.

There is also, as the proof shows, a false or mimic god, whose name is Satan the Devil, who is the very embodiment of wickedness and who is the enemy of all men. He is bent on the complete destruction of the human race. Amongst other things the Scriptures designate him as the “prince of darkness”, and he and his wicked associates are rulers of darkness controlling this world. (Ephesians 6:12) It is the wicked ones who make war against all who love and serve the light of truth which comes from Jehovah God.

In order to gain true knowledge we must be assured that the information we receive emanates and proceeds from a truthful source. Concerning Jehovah God it is written: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Jehovah sent His beloved Son to the earth to teach the truth to the people, and of Him it is written that Christ Jesus is “the true Light, which lighteth every man” who desires to be enlightened. (John 1:9) Concerning the Holy Scriptures, which constitute the Word of Jehovah God, Jesus said: “Thy word is truth”; and concerning the way that leads to endless life and happiness He further stated: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17: 3) That assures us that the Bible is the source of all truth concerning the origin and destiny of the human race.

You may reply that there are several hundred different denominational religious organizations called “churches”, all teaching different doctrines and all claiming to base their teachings upon the Bible, and, you ask, how may we know who is right? The answer is that all of these organizations have some knowledge of the text of the Bible but are utterly without understanding as to the meaning thereof. The Bible has had the widest distribution of any book published, and yet there is without doubt a greater lack of knowledge and understanding of it by intelligent people in “Christendom” than of any other book in existence. The fact that a man is educated and graduated from a theological university and holds all the degrees of that university is no proof whatsoever that he has a knowledge and understanding of the Bible. He may be able to repeat from memory every text in the Bible and yet have no understanding or true conception of the meaning thereof. It will be conceded that the majority of the educated clergymen of this day even repudiate the inspiration of the Scriptures and have set up man’s wisdom as superior to that expressed in the Bible.

Jehovah God reveals an understanding of His Word only to those who are devoted to Him. Men who are worldly wise, that is to say, who follow their own wisdom or the wisdom of other men, cannot understand the Scriptures. Such are natural or worldly men, and of them it is written : “The natural [or worldly] man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) It is impossible for any man to please God and receive an understanding of His Word unless that man has faith in God and in His Word. (Hebrews 11:6) Faith means to have a knowledge of the text of the Bible, believe that the texts are true, and confidently rely thereon. There is no other means of acquiring faith.

A college education is not one of the essentials to the understanding of the Bible. That which is of first importance to gain a knowledge and understanding of the Bible is to know that Jehovah is God and have a proper fear of Him and not to have fear of man. It is only to such that God reveals an understanding of His Word. (Proverbs 1:7) The psalmist (25:14) says: “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.” The understanding and interpretation of the Bible is not committed to any one man or any company of men. The Bible was written for all persons who honestly seek to understand it and who follow God’s appointed way to gain an understanding thereof. It is written that the Scriptures are given for the instruction of the man w’ho devotes himself to God. None other can have an understanding.-^ Timothy 3:16,17.

Jehovah God created man and made him the most intelligent of His earthly creatures. It is to be expected that God would reveal His truth to the reverential man; and so He does. To the man who seeks to know God and His Word Jehovah says: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18) That means, regardless of how great a sinner a man is, if he turns his heart to Jehovah and diligently seeks to know the truth in God’s appointed way he will be led into the light of truth. It means that we must take God’s Word and study it from a reasonable viewpoint and not attempt to substitute human wisdom for divine wisdom. Note that God says to those who are seeking the right road to travel: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3: 5, 6) This is positive proof that it is unsafe to follow human reasoning to the exclusion of God's Word.

Public officers today, by the aid of high dignitaries in the church organization, are making strenuous efforts to pull the people out of depression and distress and to recover the world. A high public official stands before the people and says in connection with world recovery: “I have faith in divine guidance in this effort to recover the world from depression.” If he had faith in Jehovah God, then he would take God’s Word as a guide, because the Word of Jehovah God is given for a guide to the one who trusts in and pleases Jehovah. (Psalm 119:105) The fact that one claims to have faith in divine guidance is no proof that he has faith; and this conclusion is further supported by the fact that his course of action is contrary to what the Word of God states. What that man lacks is knowledge and understanding.

Jehovah God’s Word makes it plainly to appear why there is great distress and perplexity and depression now upon the nations of the world. The testimony of Jehovah’s great Witness, Christ Jesus, which is recorded in the Scriptures is to the effect that the beginning of the end of this wicked world would be marked by a world war, in which the nations of “Christendom” would engage. That world war began in 1914, and therefore that date marks the beginning of the reign of Christ and the ending of Satan’s rule without interruption. It means that the great climax in the history of the world has been reached. Worldly wise men, who claim to believe in God, told the people that the great war would make the world safe for democracy, and that then the people would be free, and now all persons know from experience that such a slogan was untrue. There was a brief period of material prosperity following the war, and then came the great distress which now weighs down upon the nations of the world.

If we have faith in divine guidance, then we must heed the divine Word, which says that the world war would be followed by great “distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken”.—Luke 21: 25, 2G.

Those words describe exactly what we now see on the world, and which conditions are a complete fulfilment of the prophetic utterance of Jesus concerning this very time. That means, then, that we have come to the end of the world and that God will bring about the complete change shortly, and that in His own good way; which means that He will set aside the wicked rule of the world and that the government of the nations will pass over into the hands of Christ Jesus, who will rule in righteousness. The wicked organization now ruling, the Lord first will destroy, that there may be a clear way for righteousness and upbuilding of the peoples.

It must be conceded that the rulers of the nations at the present time are putting forth their very best endeavors to recover the world and bring it back to material prosperity; but if it is true that the world has ended, why do they thus make an effort to hold the old organization intact? The answer is that they do not have knowledge and understanding of Jehovah’s purposes. If they really had faith in God and in His Word they would know that Satan the Devil is now endeavoring to drive all peoples to desperation and destruction, and because he knows that he will shortly meet the Lord in the last great conflict he has brought all this woe at the present day upon the nations. In God’s Word it is written: "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” (Revelation 12:12) If the world rulers had a knowledge and understanding of this scripture they would see the real cause of the trouble and look to the only One that can possibly remedy it.

Jehovah does not alter His purposes at the instance or prayers of men. He declares that His time has come foi’ Christ Jesus to rule and to put down the enemy and therefore the enemy must be destroyed and his organization pass away for ever. Jehovah in His own good way will then establish the world in righteousness, that it never again can be moved. (Psalm 9G: 10) It follows, therefore, that those who have a knowledge and understanding of the divine Word know that this old world cannot be recovered, but that within a very short time the Lord will completely destroy Satan’s organization and his rule, in order to make way for the righteous rule of His kingdom through which all the families of the earth shall be blessed.— Revelation 19:10-20; Genesis 22:16-18; Galatians 3:16-29.

The public press announces a nation-wide movement begun by the united efforts of the various religious organizations, and political and financial leaders, to get the people back to the churches to help pull the world out of its present dilemma. Their slogan is: “God the light of the world; follow the Light back to the church.” They do not say, however, whether they mean the true God or the mimic god. The Scriptures definitely show that the true God is not in the churches today; therefore this movement must be at the instance of Jehovah’s enemy Satan for the purpose of deceiving the people. In the past the people have received no light on the Scriptures from the churches, and they will receive none by going back to the churches. The same ones who have organized this nation-wide movement are the ones who bitterly oppose the proclamation of the truth of and concerning Jehovah God's kingdom; and for that reason alone their movement is doomed to complete failure. Instead of getting the people back to the churches, where they are asked to give up their hard-earned money and receive only husks, there should be a nation-wide movement to aid the people to gain a knowledge and understanding of Jehovah’s purpose as set forth in the Scriptures. Jehovah’s announced purpose is that in this day He will cause all to know that He is the true God and that the only hope of the world is His kingdom under Christ, which is now begun. To the nations Jehovah now says: “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the [nations]. . . . And in his name shall the [nations] trust.” (Matthew 1'2: 18-21) If the men of this nation-wide movement had a knowledge and understanding of Jehovah’s Word they would tell the people that the great crisis is here, that the greatest tribulation of all time is just ahead, in which all the nations will go down, and that the only way of escape is by and through Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ. A knowledge and understanding honestly used now would be of great value to them and to the people. A knowledge and understanding of this prophecy just now would do more to help the people than anything else. Failure of teachers to help men get such knowledge and understanding works a hardship on the people and puts them in a bad way, as it is written : “Where there is no vision [understanding], the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”—Proverbs 29:18.

Who is the chief opposer of the truth, and the one who keeps the people in ignorance thereof? The Scriptures answer that Satan the Devil, the prince of darkness, the god or invisible ruler of this world, he it is that blinds the people to the truth lest the light of truth from God’s Word through Christ Jesus should shine unto them. (2 Corinthians 4:2-6) Be assured of the fact that if you find the leaders in any organization or institution are opposing the spread or proclamation of the message of truth of and concerning God’s kingdom under Christ as the only means of blessing mankind, all such opposeis are being blinded by Satan and such opposers are without knowledge and understanding of God’s purposes, hence you cannot afford to follow them.

By His prophet Amos, in chapter eight, verse eleven, Jehovah foretold the present-day famine in the land, not a famine of bread, “but of hearing the words of the Lord.” The truth is just as abundant as ever, but few are they amongst the people that hear it, for the reason that Satan and his agents keep the people blinded and in the darkness. You may be sure, then, that any teachers of any organization that would hinder the people from studying and understanding the Bible are the agents of Satan whether they know it or not. Today there is comparatively a small company of men and women who are wholly devoted to Jehovah God and His kingdom and who are employing their time and means in an earnest endeavor to bring the message of truth to the peoples of the land. This little company of men and women are the only ones under the sun who are meeting any opposition to their work for the aid of the people. They are opposed, not because they are competing with others for commercial business, or for members of an organization; but they are opposed because they are trying to help the people obtain a knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. The Scriptures emphatically state that all opposition to such work of enlightening mankind proceeds from Satan, the prince of darkness. Many will ask, Then why do the great religious leaders and the politicians and their supporters oppose this witness work in the name of God and His kingdom and persecute the witnesses? Is it because they willingly desire to serve the Devil? The Scriptural answer is, because such opposers are without knowledge and understanding of Jehovah’s Word. If these opposers had a knowledge and understanding of the Bible, which shows that the only hope for the nations of earth is the kingdom of God under Christ, and that in the very near future God will destroy Satan’s organization and put His kingdom of righteousness in full control, surely they would not deliberately fight against God. It is easy to be seen, therefore, that they lack knowledge and understanding and that knowledge and understanding to them would now be of very great value.

Today in this part of the country there are a number of Jehovah's witnesses who have gone from house to house with the message of God's kingdom advising the people how they may learn the way of escape from the great trouble that is shortly coming upon the world, and how they may come into complete peace and happiness and life. They are doing this because God commands it and because they love to do Jehovah’s will. In doing this philanthropic and godly work they meet much opposition from the clergymen, high church leaders, police officers and magistrates, and at the hands of such they suffer many indignities. Just while I am talking information comes that two men and five women, Jehovah’s witnesses, are under arrest and being tried at Summit, N. J., because they freely gave to people in that city today the message of God’s kingdom. Their persecutors are fighting against God. New Jersey police are derelict in arresting kidnapers, but under the clergy’s influence are adepts at arresting faithful witnesses of Jehovah, who help the people in time of need. Why would men who claim to believe in God thus oppose and persecute those who are really engaged in carrying the truth to the people to comfort them in this time of distress and perplexity? The answer is, because such opposers are without knowledge and understanding of God’s Word. When the knowledge of God’s purpose is brought to the attention of such opposers, then their responsibility is greatly increased. If they had never known any better they would not have been so reprehensible ; but, having been informed in the light of events that are in fulfilment of prophecy, they are now without excuse. To His faithful followers, and concerning those who oppose His witnesses, Jesus says: “Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin.” (John 15:20-22) Clergymen and public officials have now had fair warning, and they must assume the responsibility before God. Knowledge and understanding would be of inestimable value to them if they would learn the way of wisdom.

The only way to life and endless happiness is Jehovah’s way, and that way is by and through Christ Jesus and His kingdom. From God's Word we are taught that there is no other name given under heaven whereby men can get life except the name of Christ Jesus. (Acts 4:12) Let us suppose that the world might be recovered by present efforts and that the wheels of commerce might turn everywhere and all the people be put in even a better condition than they were before the war. Even such temporal blessings could be only temporary to the present generation. Only God's kingdom through Christ can now bring the things that men desire and need. Jesus emphasized that point when He said (Matthew 16:26): ‘For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his life?’ No man or organization of men can give life to any man. ‘Life is a gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ (Romans 6: 23) No one can receive a gift without first having knowledge and understanding thereof. Then he must render himself in obedience to the terms of the gift. If you would offer a man a bag of gold and he could neither see nor hear nor otherwise understand you he could not accept the gift. Knowledge and understanding concerning the gift of life, therefore, are of the greatest value to all. God's Word is true and points out to man the right road to take, and he who gains that knowledge and understanding from Jehovah and walks in that appointed waxfinds the way to life and may receive the greatest gift that could come to him. Therefore the Lord says to man as set forth in Proverbs 8: 10,11: “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For w-isdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.”

Jehovah God has caused the Bible to be printed in all languages and has made it possible for you to read the texts thereof and to thus gain a knoxvledge of the texts. In these latter days He has caused His prophecies to be fulfilled ami a record of such fulfilment to be xx-ritten out and published and brought to your attention that you can gain both a knoxvledge and understanding of His purposes. The Lord himself is the interpreter of His Word and He has made it plainly to be understood even by the most unlearned in worldly matters. Do not, therefore, permit yourself to longer be led by men xvho claim to teach God's Word and yet xvho have neither knoxvledge nor understanding of the Word of God. They have been blinded by the enemy Satan, have given heed to xvorldly xvis-dom, and ignored God’s Word and have led you into blindness. Concerning them Jesus says (Matthexx- 15:14): “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

Jehovah God is no respecter of persons. He has not committed to any organization or man, be he pope, priest or lawyer, the right to interpret His Word, but, on the contrary, has caused to be written in His Word that no scripture is of private interpretation. (2 Peter 1: 20) Jehovah God and Christ are the teachers, and through Them is knowledge and understanding obtained. It is the privilege and duty of everyone now to gain such knowledge. To all who honestly seek the Lord He now says: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”—Revelation 22:17.

Regardless of whether you are a Catholic, Protestant or Jew, permit me in all sincerity to urge upon you that you do not follow the teachings of men, but that you personally and diligently apply yourselves to a careful and prayerful study of the Word of God that you may gain the knowledge and understanding of His purposes concerning you and your eternal welfare. Such knowledge and understanding is of far greater value than all the material wealth and fame of this world. Concerning this the Lord says to the people: “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding: for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her.”— Proverbs 3:13-18.

If the present rulers had knowledge, understanding, and faith in God’s Word they would be convinced that the world can never be recovered and that all schemes for that purpose are certain to fail. The reason is, Jehovah has entered final judgment for the destruction of the world. What the human race needs, and what it will get, is regeneration and a new world wherein dwells righteousness. (2 Peter 3:10,13) Then there will be no more need of disarmament conferences, because there will never be another war. There will be no more suffering from poverty, because Jehovah’s kingdom under Christ will supply the people with an abundance. Unrighteousness and wicked oppression will cease for ever. Such is Jehovah’s marvelous provision. Such knowledge and understanding bring peace and comfort of mind even in this time of distress. With all your getting, therefore, get knowledge and understanding, and rest confidently in the promises of JEHOVAH GOD.

“Preachers Present Arms”

THIS book by Ray H. Abrams, Ph.D., of the Department of Sociology of the University of Pennsylvania, is the fruit of six years of study, and of peculiar interest to Jehovah’s witnesses, on account of what they have suffered and still suffer at the hands of the clergy. We are frank to say that Dr. Abrams is more mild and generous with the clergy than we could be, but he is severe also, his severity consisting in the vast array of facts, from which we make a few selections.

Starting with the American Revolution, and with the Reverend John Cleveland, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, who “is said to have preached his whole parish into the army and then gone himself”, he touches briefly the Civil War, following which Federal generals gave over to Northern church boards and leaders all the churches in their areas “in which a loyal minister does not officiate”.

Those who refused to support that war, in the opinion of Reverend R. L. Stanton, professor in the Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, Danville, Kentucky, “were abhorred, both in earth and in heaven.”

The year 1898 brought the Spanish-American War, and with it the affirmation of Reverend Henry Van Dyke, Princeton, New Jersey, “We have come as a nation to our cross. If we bear it in submission it will be a ransom for the many, and a sign of peace for far-off generations.”

After a little we get down to the World War and Woodrow Wilson, and find anew that, though reelected because he kept vs out of war, “he had already committed himself to the Allies before the presidential election of 1916.” In other words, the deal with Morgan had already been closed.

Before America entered the war the clergy, some of them, were itching to show of whose father they were. (John 8: 44) Reverend B. C. Warren, pastor of St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal church, Peekskill, New York, made it clear that, given the opportunity, he could “ride, shoot, handle a spade, march or act as chaplain”. That was in 1915.

Early in the same year the Reverend Frank Isey Paradise, rector of Grace church, West Medford, Massachusetts, went further and told what he expected to catch shortly. If murdering is going to be done on a large scale, the clergy want to have a finger in the racket. So Mr. Paradise said:

“At length I do believe we shall catch the spirit of battle, and fling back the challenge of German nationalism. For we too have a conscious national destiny. The God of Israel has anointed us to champion the cause of the poor, the weak and the downtrodden. We too shall struggle for world power. It will be the helping and healing power of Christian civilization.”

We pause to reflect that Hoover and Mellon seem to have put the finishing crimp in this helping and healing power, but what they did not do Roosevelt will no doubt top off.

Catching the Spirit of Battle

Mr. Abrams carefully refrains from saying anything that would give offense. He mentions a number of clergymen who had inclinations toward liberalism, and then subtly adds:

“But the great body of the clergy, waiting to discover which way the tide of public opinion would flow, were beginning to succumb to the subtleties of Allied propaganda and the tactics of the defense societies and Security and Navy Leagues.”

Most of the clergy were willing to take a flop either way, and to a person with a gift of gab, no knowledge of the Bible, and no conscience, it has been, in the past, a pretty good way to slip through life without really doing anything useful.

Reverend George R. Van de Water, rector of St. Andrew’s, New York, at one time an army chaplain, told where he stood: “I am a preacher, and it is my duty to pray for peace, but it is just as much so to prepare for war, if necessary.” That is rich. Here is a man, to let us tell it, that is willing to go in public clothed or naked, walking on either his feet or his hands, and willing to talk United States or Choctaw. As soon as he finds out what it is the people want, why, that is the line of talk he gives them.

Nothing could be simpler. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

Reverend Dr. Merle-Smith, Presbyterian, as soon as he saw which way the cat was going to jump, said, “I am glad that the ministry of the Presbyterian church is not pacifist.” Of the Presbyterian clergy invited to march (in a preparedness parade) only six sent word that it would be against their scruples to do so.

Bishop Manning, a few months later, preaching on the glories of military training, said, “It will tend to make our young men better Americans, better citizens and better Christians.” Strange that Christ never thought of that simple method of making better Christians ; all He would have had to do would be to suggest that the whole church enlist in the Roman army.

“America Decides to Fight”

At this point we steal one of Mr. Abrams’ headlines in which he refers to the pronuncia-mento of sixty-five of the most prominent religionists in the country. Bishops in this list are thick as hair on a dog; they are primed up to goad the country into war; their declaration was made on January 1, 1917, and in three months had done the trick. They blasphemed God and said:

“The just God who withheld not His son from the cross, would not look with favor upon a people who put their fear of pain and death, their dread of suffering and loss, their concern for conquest and ease above the holy claims of righteousness and justice, and freedom, and mercy and truth. The memory of all the saints and martyrs cries out against such backsliding of mankind. Sad is our lot if we have forgotten how to die for a holy cause.”

Don’t let anybody think that any of those sixty-five had the least intention of dying for any holy cause whatever; all they were after was to hold their jobs, which they expected to do by pushing others into the gory and dirty and beastly business of butchering their fellows. Why should they muss up or soil their priestly vestments? Let George do it.

The dominies were strong for self-preservation. They even admitted it, for when Reverend Randolph H. McKim, of Washington, was preaching on this so-called instinct for selfdefense, he went so far as to say, “I do not hesitate to say that if it really were in conflict with the Christian religion we could not accept the Christian religion as a divine revelation.”

After the war once got under way Reverend McKim made it clear just what he considers the Christian religion to be, saying: “It is God who has summoned us to this war. It is his war we are fighting. This conflict is indeed a crusade. The greatest in history—the holiest. It is in the profoundest and truest sense a Holy War. Yes, it is Christ, the King of Righteousness, who calls us to grapple in deadly strife with this unholy and blasphemous power.”

The Cardinal and Mr. Cadman

At the inception of the World War Cardinal Gibbons was still alive. He wanted it to be known that if anybody was going to be killed he was in favor of it, and so he said: “Above all else we must be loyal to our country. There should be no hesitancy on the part of ablebodied men in answering the call that has gone forth to man the ships that protect our shores. I hope Catholic young men will step up and take their places in the front ranks. They should obey whatever our Congress decides is for the good of the country.”

Reverend S. Parkes Cadman, a sort of Protestant cardinal, endorsed the sentiments of Mohammed, saying: “If a man dies in battle giving God glory and in the service of his country, he dies well.”

In the World War American Lutherans were in a tight place. Less than a month before the United States laid her country and everything in it at the feet of England Reverend Charles F. Oehler, president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of California, wrote: “England, so history teaches us, loves no country but England. English militarism exceeds the militarism of any other two countries, and it indeed fights the militarism of other nations now in this present World War for the sole purpose of coming out of this struggle the undisputed ruler of the earth, on the continent and on the seas.” We wish our readers to particularly take note of this statement, for it does show’ that when a clergyman is sufficiently hard pressed, and when it is made sufficiently clear to him that it is to his own self-interest to do so, he may actually tell the truth on something.

Practically all the clergy of all denominations, however, went in for the “Holy War”, and so Mr. Abrams with kindly feelings remarks: “If the most noted scientists, who had spent all their days in scholarly research and in critical analysis and judgment of world events, lost possession of their reasoning faculties, it is not surprising that the most intelligent of the clergy, as well as the lesser lights, did likewise.”

The Jihad, or Jehad, of 1914-1918

It does not make much difference which wrny you spell it, the World War was for the dominies a “Holy War”. Reverend Joseph Fort Newton, pastor of the Church of the Divine Paternity, New York, said: “Think it all through, and at bottom, the war is religious. If our enemies are right, our religion is wrong, our faith a fiction, our philosophy false—yes, justice a dream, and righteousness a delusion. Then might is right, the battle is to the strongest and the race to the swiftest, and the more ruthless and unscrupulous we are, the better. By the same token, if our religion is right, if God is a reality, and the order of the world is moral, our enemies are wrong! The very stars in theii-courses are against them.”

In an official statement the American Board of the Congregational Church notified all men, “Our soldiers and sailors are preparing ‘The way of the Lord’. They are ‘making straight in the desert the highway for our God’. We must win the war to win the world.” That is going some.

Reverend William B. Meyers, of Park and Down Congregational church, Wollaston, Massachusetts, after the United States got into the war, said: “If we have sinned, it is in not going in sooner,” for, anyway, “between the sword and sermon is only a matter of degree, and one can be as redemptive as the other.”

Reverend Frank Mason North, once president of the Federal Council of Churches, announced, “The stir of the breath of God is upon the common people of the world. The war for righteousness will be won! Let the church do her part.” It was the breath of a god, to be sure, but the wrong god, the mimic one.

This is how Reverend Bernard Iddings Bell put it in an article to The New Republic: “This article is written in the certainty that God, the Almighty, the Eternal, the Triune, whom we Christians worship as revealed to the whole world in the Incarnation of the Son, the Godman, is the most powerful, the most active, and the most important of all who are influencing the war. He is delaying victory to either side in the deadlock until men shall comprehend that the war is being waged between spiritual principles and vital philosophies rather than between mere armed forces. This He is doing until men shall be ready for such a victory as is won by humble hearts and souls lifted up to Him, to His everlasting laws, to His divine love.”

The 'Cleansing and Inspiring Baptism of Fire’

Reverend Ernest M. Stires, of St. Thomas's Church, New York, thought that the training of troops is only “the preparation for the higher level to which they will climb on the consecrated fields of France, where the baptism of fire will cleanse and inspire. This is no dream of a visionary. The calm judgment of reasonable leaders declares that invaluable results have already been gained, and that vastly greater results are not far away. They will find God. They will discover their souls”.

Reverend John Kelman, pastor of the St. George’s United Free Church, Edinburgh, Scotland, was over here on a visit about that time and in a lecture on preaching at Yale University said regarding the soldiers in France: “Without knowing it, they are bearing in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Many of the soldiers, by this time, were suffering from syphilis contracted in France, but we cannot suppose that Reverend Kelman had reference to these marks. In any event his remark was ridiculous and impossible.

Reverend Doctor Harry Emerson Fosdick thought that the dominies of 1918 had a bigger job on their hands than Jesus ever had. He said: “The Master never faced in his own experience a national problem such as Belgium met when the Prussians crossed the border. The fact is that Jesus did not directly face our modern questions about war; they were not his problems, and to press a legalistic interpretation of special texts, as though they were, is a misuse of the gospel.”

Reverend Harold Bell Wright, of the Christian (Disciples) church, writing for the American Magazine, was of the opinion that “a thirtycentimeter gun may voice the edict of God as truly as the notes of a cooing dove. The sword of America is the sword of Jesus”.

The Golden Rule in Warfare

It seems that it was not Morgan’s French bonds, but the Golden Rule, that got us into the World War. Thus Professor Ernest De Witt Burton, head of the Department of New Testament Literature and Interpretation in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, explained that “for the sake of France, England, Europe, Asia and Africa, for the sake of the unborn generations of Americans, it was for all these and in obedience to the Golden Rule itself that we went to war”.

Reverend Edward Increase Bosworth, dean of Oberlin College, put it this wise: “The Christian soldier in friendship wounds the enemy. In friendship he kills the enemy. In friendship he receives the wound of the enemy. He keeps his friendly heart while the enemy is killing him. His heart never consigns the enemy to hell. After he has wounded the enemy he hurries to his side at the earliest possible moment with all the friendly ministration possible.”

It is hard to jab a bayonet into a man’s stomach in a spirit of brotherly love, but Reverend Herbert S. Johnson, pastor of the Warren Avenue Baptist church of Boston, probably thought it could be done, when in one of his sermons he said: “Three inches are not enough, seven inches are too many, and twelve inches are more than too many, for while you are pulling out the bayonet you are losing the opportunity to drive it into another man five inches.”

Reverend Henry B. Wright, camp director of religious work, Army Y.M.C.A., was at first a little confused at the thought of Jesus jabbing a bayonet into the squirming flesh of a fellow man, but he finally got it all straightened out and said: “Then it was that I saw Heaven open and beheld One faithful and true. He was no longer mounted on a white horse, to be sure, nor arrayed in a white garment sprinkled with blood, nor was He armed with a sharp sword to smite. Rather I discerned through clouds of gas and smoke One on foot arrayed in a garb of olive drab which was stained with blood and mire, and in His hands a bayonet sword attached to a rifle. He asked no man to go where He would not go. He did not lead His men up to the painful and bloody tasks which are the climax of every battle charge, to disappear just as the disagreeable deed had to be done and thus shift the responsibility on others.”

With visions like this in his mind it is no wonder that Reverend George F. Pentecost, pastor of the Bethany Presbyterian church, Philadelphia, thought and preached that “every Presbyterian church should be a recruiting station”.

They Got Away to a Good Start

The dominies got away to a good start. Within twenty-four hours after the declaration of war thirty-five different religious bodies had promised fullest cooperation. Lyman Abbott demanded that every church should be turned into a recruiting station, and Billy Sunday said that a man that broke all the rules but died lighting in the trenches was a better man than the Godforsaken mutts that would not enlist. Liberty loan Sundays were announced by the government, canned sermons were provided, everybody was expected to go along, and almost everybody did.

Inacampaign against venereal disease, which undermines so many armies, Bishop Lawrence explained that “moral questions are involved, of course, questions of purity, of family, of integrity, of the sacredness of womanhood and of childhood, chivalry and honor. These, however, are not my concern tonight; nor are they at this time the concern of the masses of our people who are building up the army; the vital question is that of keeping our men fit to fight and so to win the war”.

The chief of all the atrocity mongers was Reverend Kewell Dwight Hillis. His story about syphilized soldiers’ cutting off the breasts of the women they had used, and his proposal to sterilize ten million German soldiers and segregate their women so that the German people might be obliterated from earth, are familiar to most Americans.

Bishop William Alfred Quayle went Dr. Hillis a good second. He was sure that “Germany has poisoned wells, crucified inhabitants and soldiers, burned people in their houses, and this by system. Germany has denatured men and boys, has wantonly defaced the living and the dying and the dead. An eyewitness tells of seeing women dead at a table, with their tongues nailed to the table and left to die.” These stories were all lies; the preachers are good at that.

A “Reverend” in Harrisburg, name unknown, is quoted as proposing that when the kaiser should be captured they should “hang him up by his thumbs and cut pieces out of his body day after day until he was either dead or until there were no more pieces of flesh to cut out”.

The Exceptions to the Rule

There were not many exceptions to the general rule that those that posed as teachers of the Word of God were faithless to their trust.

In one paragraph Mr. Abrams says: “A search through all the available material from a variety of sources gives a total of fifty-five ministers of the gospel from various denominations and sects arrested for alleged violation of one or more of the espionage and sedition laws. In addition, there were several dozen Russellites, some of whom suffered severe penalties.”

In another place more extended notice was had of the trial which sentenced Judge Joseph F. Rutherford and seven others to what amounted to life sentences in Atlanta penitentiary. A portion of the account says:

“The passage found to be particularly objectionable reads:

‘Nowhere in the New Testament is patriotism (a narrowminded hatred of other peoples) encouraged. Everywhere and always murder in its every form is forbidden. And yet under the guise of patriotism civil governments of the earth demand of peace-loving men the sacrifice of themselves and their loved ones and the butchery of their fellows, and hail it as a duty demanded by the laws of heaven. ’

The trial had been played up in the papers everywhere and the verdict met with general approval. In printing and circulating the above condemned excerpt from the forbidden book, the press did the very thing the Russellites had been sentenced to twenty years for doing, and gave it more publicity than the followers of Russell could possibly have given it. An analysis of the whole case leads to the conclusion that the churches and the clergy were originally behind the movement to stamp out the Russellites.”

Another gem of truth in Mr. Abrams’ extremely valuable collection of data is a letter from one conscientious objector in which he said: “I think it was a most common experience of conscientious objectors that their most bitter and intolerant enemies in the army were the chaplains and the Y.M.C.A. men.” Just let that stand by itself as one of the worst indictments ever made of a class of men that are probably the most terrible murderers at heart that have ever lived upon this footstool. Incidentally, General Pershing is authority for the statement that nine hundred Y.M.C.A. trained soldiers are better fighters than one thousand men that have not had Y.M.C.A. training.

Doctor Abrams’ book Preachers Present Arms is copyrighted and published by the Round Table Press, Inc., New York City, 1933, and is a book that we are sure many of our readers will wish to have.

The Correction of a Lie

EVERY reader of The Golden Age will be interested in the following letter which corrects a lie that somebody in Plainfield told about the time of the latest witness. The veiled suggestion that it might be advantageous to correct this some time before the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November will probably not be lost on the gentleman most concerned. The witness in Plainfield was a tremendous success, the citizens of the community manifesting a friendliness and eagerness to learn that was most refreshing.

PEOPLES PULPIT ASSOCIATION

124 Columbia Heights - Brooklyn • New York

October 24, 1933 C. F. Stout,

Publisher, Courier-News,

Plainfield, N. J.

Sir:

In the October 23 (1933) issue of Courier-News, page eleven, appears the following:

Jehovah witnesses Peddle Literature—But Carry Permits

Several witnesses of Jehovah were in Plainfield yesterday, distributing religious literature, but they obtained a permit from Police Chief Charles A. Flynn before canvassing the city.

Police received several telephone calls from residents who remembered the arrest of sei oral of the witnesses several weeks ago when they went about the city, declaring they needed no permits. There were no arrests yesterday, inasmuch as police regulations were complied with.

Whoever furnished to you for publication what appears in the foregoing “story” concerning “permits” knows he has deliberately misinformed you and through you the readers of Courier-News. Plainly, your informant has lied and knows it.

That publication by your paper is false in this, that not one of more than a hundred of Jehovah’s witnesses who on last Sunday called at every home in Plainfield obtained or carried a permit from the chief of police before, while or after doing his (or her) lawful work Sunday October 22 among the inhabitants of the city.

Furthermore, you must be aware of the fact that the chief of police does not issue “permits” of the kind mentioned in your “story” for Sunday, but only for weekdays.

I challenge you, therefore, to call upon the city police department and have produced for your inspection the official record that a single permit was issued to one or more persons acting as Jehovah’s witnesses in doing what they did in Plainfield Sunday October 22, 1933.

Obviously the effect of this false publication by Courier-News is to further misrepresent the men and women who, as Jehovah’s witnesses, again pursued their lawful duty in Plainfield on last Sunday. Additionally, its effect is to blind the readers of CourierNews to the malicious and hypocritical conduct of those public servants of the “Inhabitants of the City of Plainfield” who still persist in cowardly and vicious persecution of humble servants of the true God who are unselfishly doing good to the people of your city, as a great many of the citizens of Plainfield willingly testify.

If you knew that you were publishing a falsehood, then you are doubly reprehensible.

In fairness to the public official who is mentioned in your “story”, I am sending to him a copy of this letter. In fairness to at least some of the residents of Plainfield who have been misinformed by your publication, a copy of this letter is sent also to a well known citizen, Edward Sachar.

If you, sir, honestly desire to do right, as you personally assured me (in the presence of Charles Hessler) in your office last July, you ought to set this matter squarely before the readers of Courier-Netvs. If you decide to take this honorable course in fairness to those who have been misinformed, I shall thank you to let me know before the end of October, this month.

If you care to be fair, publish this letter as it is written, and then the responsibility will rest where it belongs.

Cordially,

A. R. Goux.

cc Charles A. Flynn

Chief of Police

Police Headquarters

Plainfield, N. J.

ce Edward Sachar

1038 Myrtle Av.

Plainfield, N. J.

Inspiring Letter from a New Jersey Jonadab

a.m. and 6: 30 p.m. I receive your broadcast on my homemade one-tube set and choose your station for the best broadcast station.

I am a boy twenty years old. I am a Catholic. I have been going to church every Sunday, and other days recpiired by the church; for the past 109

ten years I have been going, and I can say hearing just one of your broadcasts of Jehovah God does me more good than if I go to church for a whole year, as, to be frank, I never knew hardly anything about God until I started to hear Judge Rutherford's broadcasts.

In church the priest reads the gospel, and half the time he does not explain it, and, instead, starts talking about a card party to be held in the church, or reading off committee names. It is a pity why there is so much misunderstanding, so many different religions; one claims to be truer than the other.

The Catholic church is supposed to be the true religion, being carried on ever since the time of Christ, and yet I never heard the priest talk about God's kingdom. One time I hear him speak about all persons are judged the moment they die, and then the next Sunday he speaks about how we should always go to church because if we don’t, when Christ returns to the earth on judgment day we will have to stand before Him and take the consequences for not doing so; also those who. are dead will be judged. Then, are there two judgment days for each person ?

Religion is a serious matter, and it is too complicated for me, due to the so many different ways it is brought out to the people, and it surely makes one turn away from the true God. I can say for the past two years I heard Judge Rutherford and your other broadcasts and I haven’t as yet noticed anything complicated or so as to contradict speeches that were already broadcast from time to time; it is the same thing, the truth.

I enclose herewith, in a card, 25 cents. Please send me four or five copies of the three speeches, “The True God,” “The Mimic God,” and “Why Serve Jehovah”; also, if you have any of the following, please send me a copy, “The Way of Escape,” “Effect of Holy Year on Peace and Prosperity.” I am going to give a copy to some of my friends, former, also send one to Cali, Colombia, S.A., to a friend of mine there; perhaps he will appreciate the truth also (or else refuse it). Thank you, and remain a friend of Jehovah.

I also would appreciate a copy of the list of books the Watch Tower has, as I expect to buy a set shortly, and get the benefit of the truth. Also, do you sell Holy Bibles ? As I haven’t any yet, I think it is about time I get one to really learn the truth. If so, kindly send me the price of the cheapest one you have. Many thanks.

J. J. 0.

The Radio Witness Work

Lansing, Mich. “I heard this morning Judge Rutherford's masterful lecture. Forceful, true and eloquent, it came in remarkably clear. May the blessings of God be with him always. Please send me copy of this lecture. Enclosed find twenty-five cents which I gladly donate for same.” A. G. R.

Brooklyn, N. Y. “I am a Catholic who, for the past two years, has been very interested in learning what is the matter with the world, and have concluded that our present system is a failure. ... I had the good fortune of securing several of your books, and ever since have attentively listened to your appreciated speeches by radio.” M. M.

Peterboro, Ont., Canada. “Please accept an appreciation of your continued work of spreading the truth. We were pleased to hear again Judge Rutherford Sunday morning. The lecture came to us very clear and distinct. Our canary bird Tom, who is now in his old age, seldom sings, but sang during the overture and almost continuously during the lecture. When the judge ceased speaking, the bird ceased to sing. The flowers in the window smiled, but my hearing was not keen enough to hear their notes of approval. Wife and I were both pleased to note the bird’s appreciation of something real and good. Would that many of our citizens who are now in the dark could realize the truth of the words given out by Judge Rutherford from time to time.” M. T. B.

Jamaica, X. Y. “How I give thanks to our dear heavenly Father for such a wonderful speech given by our beloved brother. So bold is he. We do appreciate his boldness to tell ‘Christendom’ of her downfall. We are determined to be with him in pressing the battle to the gate. He is such an inspiration and encouragement to us all.” G. M. S.

Latin America — The Question Mark of the 20th Century

In Four Parts—Part 3

IN THE fifteenth century, long before Columbus sailed out of Palos, Lake Guatavita, north of the present capital of Colombia, was considered a holy place. Pilgrims resorted to it to cast offerings of gold and emeralds into its waters. Whenever a new chief of Guatavita was chosen the priests and nobles of his tribe covered his naked body with resinous gums, which were then covered all over with gold dust. In a barrow hung with disks of gold he was carried to the lake, whereinto he plunged. The spectators at this time made their offerings of treasures. Thereafter the new ruler, El Dorado (Spanish, The Gilded Alan), and his subjects went back to Guatavita village for a feast and dance.

By Columbus’ day the foregoing custom had been discontinued, but the stories of El Dorado, as a place where gold was as plentiful as stones are elsewhere, spread among the Indians of the entire continent, and from them to the white explorers.

The very indefiniteness of the location of El Dorado, coupled with the astonishing magnitude of the treasures obtained from the Incas by Pizarro, made it an object of diligent search by the bold and restless adventurers of two hemispheres. To this search we owe the development of French, Dutch and British Guiana. The gold which the adventurers sought was always a little farther away.

French Guiana has never been a success. In an area of 34,740 square miles, only 8.800 acres, or about 14 square miles, are cultivated. There is some placer mining, but ever since the place was turned into a penal colony it has become a byword and a hissing. Devil's Island, where Dreyfus was incarcerated, lies off shore. It is sandy, dry and torrid.

Dutch Guiana is of about the size of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Vegetation is remarkable on account of the altitude of the trees and the great size of leaves and flowers. Orchids form large masses, with flower stems 12 feet high. Uncommon brilliance of coloring is characteristic of both the birds and the insects.

The population is a great mixture. At the end of 1925 there were among the 139,869 inhabitants: 26,283 Hindus, 25,523 Mohammedans, 24,565 Roman Catholics, 30,132 Moravians, 11,412 Lutherans and Dutch Reformed, and 699 Jews. The hinterland is impenetrable at present.

British Guiana, larger than Ohio and Pennsylvania put together, is hardly touched as respects its wealth. This soil is a rich, heavy loam 100 feet deep. Small canals, to carry off superfluous water from the plantations, intersect each other in every direction. The population of 310,933 includes 130,075 East Indians.

Mount Roraima, on the border line of Venezuela, is an immense sandstone mass rising with perpendicular sides 2,000 feet above the slopes which form its base. These slopes themselves are at 6,000 feet above sea level. The streams around Roraima possess extraordinary beauty, as they have cut down to a bed of green jasper.

The natives call Roraima the “Grandfather of Mountains”. They told the first explorers that the top of the mountain, an area of about thirty square miles, was littered with boulders of solid gold, zealously protected by headless men. Neither the boulders of gold nor the headless men have yet been found, perhaps needless to say.

The Guiana Indians have a system of enumeration of which the human hand is the basis. Six is a hand and one finger; twelve, two hands and two fingers. Twenty-seven is a man, a hand and two fingers, etc. The aborigines in the Guianas are few and shy. They prefer the dangers of the forest to contact with white men.

The Republic of Venezuela

The eastern part of the great country (as large as Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas combined) which occupies the northern end of South America, and which we call Venezuela, consists of the plains of the Orinoco; the western part contains Lake Maracaibo, a little mediterranean sea, lying within a Y-shaped range of the Andes opening out on the Caribbean sea. It was Lake Maracaibo that gave Venezuela its name. When Amerigo Vespucci sailed up into the lake he found the natives living in houses erected on long poles standing in the shallow waters and called it Little Venice (Spanish, Venezuela).

The piles of these lake dwellings are so well driven, and the buildings so well constructed, that they show no signs of shakiness in the greatest storms. Each house has two rooms, reached by means of a dugout canoe and a rough ladder made of a small tree trunk and its several branches. The houses are grouped in villages and connected by planks reaching from door to door. The shores of Lake Maracaibo, although in full sight of perpetual snow, are said to be the hottest place on the continent.

The South American Revolution originated in Caracas, the present capital of Venezuela, where both the great revolutionists Miranda and Bolivar were born, Miranda in 1736, Bolivar 17 years later. Miranda served as an officer with Lafayette in the American Revolution, and seems to have concluded that if liberty would be a good thing for North America it would be good for South America too. He did not succeed, and died a prisoner in Spain, but Bolivar took up the job and finished it.

The latter used up his own large personal fortune in the cause of independence and drew heavily and repeatedly upon the black republic of Hayti for assistance. Finally he was completely victorious, liberating one country after another until at length the Spanish power in America was altogether broken.

Venezuela was a natural place for the South American Revolution to have its beginning. The primitive dwellers of the Orinoco valley were independent-spirited. Many Negroes were brought in. The offspring of the Negroes and Indians, usually known as Zambos, retained the same spirit. Only one-eighth of the adults of Venezuela can read and write.

From Bolivar to Gomez

Venezuela had hardly more than declared its independence from Spain before there was a great earthquake in which thousands of people were slain. The clergy, always on the alert to take their stand on the side of the Devil, seized upon the catastrophe as proof that God was against the poor people that were aiming to have a better government, and for a time it was almost impossible for the liberty-lovers to continue their fight.

Some of our readers will remember the cruel, witty, resourceful and successful strutter and bragger, General Castro, who ruled Venezuela with an iron hand for so many years. He called himself a man of destiny and considered himself the Napoleon of South America.

His prisons were diabolical in design and management. Some of the cells were purposely arranged so that at high tide the water came in up to the prisoner’s waist. Many prisoners who passed through the gates of these prisons were never heard of later. The official answer always was, “He escaped.” A favorite joke of Castro’s was to chain together, face to face, two prisoners who were known to be enemies.

Gomez, who took Castro’s place, retained himself and brother and son in office as president, first vice president and second vice president, by the simple device of a hand-picked congress. When relatives claimed the body of a young man of 36 who had died in one of his prisons, they found the body covered with marks similar to those inflicted in the Inquisition, his hair had become snowy white, and his skin showed the wrinkles of an aged man. In Venezuela you do not criticize Gomez or you die young.

The Only Country with No Debt

Venezuela distinguished itself at its One Hundredth Anniversary of Independence, by paying off its external debt. It is the only nation without a foreign debt. It was able to attain this position by means of the immense revenue obtained from the oil fields. This revenue has also enabled the building of a modern highway from Ciudad Bolivar, on the Orinoco, about a thousand miles to the Colombian border.

In the mountainous borderland between Venezuela and Colombia is an interesting race of dwarfs, somewhat resembling the pigmies found by Stanley in Africa. These people, the Macoas, seem to have a mania for living as remote from each other as possible. A small village will be scattered over several square miles, each house on its own hilltop, perhaps a mile or more from the nearest neighbors. The Venezuelans fear the Macoas and keep far away from their mountain retreats.

Describing the delta of the Orinoco, where mangrove sw⁷amps cover 9,000 square miles, a writer says: “Like quicksand, the Orinoco delta sucks down any heavy animal that dares to enter, yet the delta is a Grand-Guignol zoo, teeming with rodents as big as guinea pigs, ants with savage appetites, water serpents, crab-catching hawks, crocodiles and four-eyed fish. For color there is the scarlet ibis with blood-red plumage, and the toucan, the bird with a rainbow-colored beak so large that it looks like the false nose of a circus clown.”

Venezuela has a population of only 3,216,000. The time will come when it will easily maintain more than a hundred times that many. By that time the Macoas will have discovered that houses a mile or more apart are no longer in style.

Republic of Colombia

The republic of Colombia is a little country occupying the northwestern corner of South America. That is it, isn’t it? How big is it?

Oli, the size of all that part of the United States north of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, including West Virginia. Seems incredible, doesn’t it? Colombia is twice the size of France. The population is 8,223,000, mainly whites and halfcastes, only 69,221 Indians being returned.

Though in its southern portion Colombia bestrides the equator, the climate is that of the temperate zone. Bogota, the capital, basks in the sunshine of eternal spring. The reason for the mild, agreeable climate is that three great chains of the Andes traverse the inhabited portion of the country from end to end, their summits always snow-clad.

The Magdalena river is navigable for over 900 miles, and unless one is in a hurry, and wishes to travel by airplane, the only way of reaching the national capital is to take a steamer 592 miles to La Dorada and then take a railway line for perhaps 200 miles farther. The trip takes ten days. People in the tropics are not in such a hurry to rush somewhere as they are in the North.

Colombia has long claimed to be the most literary country in Latin America. The best of her scholars are regarded at home and in the mother country as occupying nearly equal rank with those of Spain, but it is only recently that they have come to see the importance of educating the masses.

The greatest emerald mines in the world are in Colombia. The country is also rich in minerals of all kinds, gold, silver, platinum, copper, iron, lead and coal, mercury, petroleum, salt and other minerals.

Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador all separated from Colombia peaceably. The United States paid Colombia $25,000,000 for the loss of Panama. In recent years the country has been relatively free from disorders, but in 1899 a civil war took the lives of 50,000 men.

A present perplexity is the seizure by Peruvians of lands in and about Leticia which lands were colonized by Peruvians in the first place. These lands, bordering on the Amazon, were granted by Peru to Colombia so as to allow that great country to have river access from the southeast. The agreement of the two governments was not acceded to by the people.

How Big Is Ecuador?

Ecuador is one of the few countries in the world of which it is impossible to draw a map, for the reason that nobody knows where to place the boundaries. According to the Statesman's Year Book it has more boundaries than any other country and there are maps of the republic showing six different frontiers according to six different authorities.

Not long ago Colombia and Peru engaged in one of their periodical quarrels over their boundary. They finally came to one of their settlements, and after the smoke was all over it seems that most of the lands they had been quarreling over really belonged to Ecuador. At least that is what the Ecuadorians claim.

The World Almanac gives two estimates of 118,500 and 275,936 square miles respectively, according to two authorities. Then it makes the comical statement, “No exact figures can be given.” Just to see if that is true, we looked it up in The Encyclopedia Americana, when we got the low-down on it that the real area is either 171,287 square miles or else it is 220,502, the Americana people did not seem to be just sure which.

We consulted McClintock and Strong's Encyclopedia (that is a religious crowd; they ought to have it just right). According to them it is “about 300,000 square miles”. The pursuit became interesting.

We turned to Rand McNally's atlas; these people are professional map-makers and gazetteers; surely they will know. They told us the desired figures are 300,440 kilometros cn-adra-dos, which, at % kilometer to the mile (the usual method of figuring), would be 187,775 square miles. However, there are actually 3,280.8 feet in a kilometer, and but 5,280 feet in a mile; and as we want to be exact in this thing, we figure it all out nicely and it comes to 186,682.4909090909+ square miles. That fraction goes on 0909, like that to the end of time. We have to cut it off somewhere; so off it goes at 186,-682y₂.

Ah, The Standard Reference Work! The very thing. It says, “The present territory administered by the government of Ecuador comprises about 120,000 square miles.” That did very well for one column. In the next column it said: "Statistics. The following statistics are the latest from trustworthy sources: Land area, square miles, 116,000."

At length we go to the New International Dictionary, and in the Gazetteer we find at last that the area is “116,000 to 276,000” square miles. Why should we say that The Golden Age is a "Journal of Fact” if it isn't?

There are some people that are never happy till they get the final word; so here it is:

First estimate,	118,500 square		miles,
Second estimate,	275,936	ff	if
Third estimate,	171,287	ff	>f
Fourth estimate,	220,502	if	>>
Fifth estimate,	300,000	ff	it
Sixth estimate	187,775		if
Seventh estimate,	186,682i/2	if	if
Eighth estimate,	120,000	ff	if
Ninth estimate,	116,000	if	ff
Tenth estimate,	116,000	ff	ff
Eleventh estimate,	276,000	a	a
	2,088,682i/2	ff	if
Divided by 11,	189,880	ff	if

It is evident that the first, eighth, ninth and tenth estimates are what Ecuador really has. The second, fifth and eleventh are what she would like to have. The third, fourth, sixth and seventh are compromises. The first estimate of 118,500 square miles is probably the correct one. Thus it is as large as New York, New Jersey and all of New England.

Quito the Highest Capital

Quito, the capital of Ecuador, 9,371 feet above sea level, and only fifteen miles south of the equator (Spanish, ecuador), is the highest capital in the world. It is connected with the port of Guayaquil by a narrow-gauge railway 297 miles long, by which the trip is made in two days. It crosses the Andes at 11,841 feet, over the breast of Chimborazo and near to Cotopaxi, two of the greatest volcanoes known to man.

There are no stoves, stovepipes or chimneys in Quito, for fear of earthquakes. The cooking is done in pots and kettles over a charcoal fire. As there is almost no variation in the climate, Quito is said to be one of the best places in the world for the cure of tuberculosis. The best Panama hats are made here, not at Panama. Quito laces are also famous.

The Jesuit church at Quito is almost lined with gold leaf. The Franciscan church of the same city is also remarkable for the amount of gold used in decorating its interior. In 1904 all religions were made equal before the law and the nation was declared to be the owner of all church property. All kinds of clergymen are now forbidden to enter the country.

Most of the world’s buttons come from Ecuador. These are made of tagua nuts, or vegetable ivory, of which the yearly output is of the value of two million dollars. Cocoa of the amount of 70,000,000 pounds is exported annually. Of the population of 2,000,000 it is estimated that about one-tenth are pure European blood. Three-fourths of the population are Indians.

When Pizarro and his men invaded South America the Indians of Ecuador and Peru were at war with one another; they thus really helped the Spaniards to destroy themselves.

Ecuador is the owner of the Galapagos Islands, or the Archipelago of Colon, as the Ecuadorians like to call it. This island group is famous for its prodigious turtles and other reptilians. Until recently the islands have been used as a penal settlement.

The “master and slave” idea of the Spanish conquerors is still dominant in the minds of the Ecuadorians. If a foreigner undertakes to carry his own bag he might as well take the next train back to Guayaquil, and the first boat out.

The Shuaro Indians of Ecuador have some odd customs. When a child is born the mother scours the woods in search of delicacies, while the father lies in bed for a week, receiving the neighbors and their congratulations. He works himself up into a state where he suffers pain and fatigue until his wife returns with the delicacies he craves.

The Shuaros have another funny one. If you offend them they cut off your head, and then by a secret process they shrink the head down to about the size of a baseball. An exploration expedition that missed an Englishman subsequently came across a group of children playing with his head, all the features intact. He must have offended somebody. It does not seem like a nice habit. Still, look at the things done to us by our financial lights. It all depends on who was your father and how you were brought up.

The Land of the Incas

Peru, the land of the Incas, was treated in Golden Age No. 323. We add a few other interesting items. The sad descendants of the Incas do all the work of this great country, a land which is as large as all that part of the United States east of the Mississippi and north of Tennessee and North Carolina. The official estimate of the population is 6,237,000. The aim of the Inca priests was, and of the Roman Catholic priests is, to keep the Indians as virtual slaves, ignorant and superstitious.

The Indians live in vermin-infested huts on the cold, windy slopes of the pampas, under such terrible conditions that ninety percent of their children die before they are two years of age. The Spanish Peruvians all aim to get through this world on the backs of these poor Indians. They are in worse condition every way than when Pizarro first landed.

The Indians cannot afford to “marry'’; and so they choose their mates and are true and faithful to them throughout life. The priests make them pay for life, birth and death. They mistrust the whites. Can you blame them? If these men were educated they could make Peru one of the foremost countries of the world, for it has every possible natural advantage.

The Andes extend along the entire west coast, a distance of 4,400 miles, in Peru and out. There are only fifteen known passes; their average height is 14,057 feet. Ordinarily there is no rain in western Peru, the thirty-mile-wide strip between the Andes and the Pacific ocean, but in the early part of 1925 a change in ocean currents brought torrential rains. The traveling sand dunes ceased to travel and verdure was everywhere in short order.

Transportation, Present and Future

Of the tributaries of the Amazon within the borders of Peru some 4,000 miles are navigable. Railroads and other roads are few. In the high altitudes long trains of llamas are still used to transport the treasures of the country from one place to another. The llama is called “the living scales”. These animals will carry 100 pounds, and no more. If an extra pound is put on they will lie down and refuse to move until the pack is lightened.

Over the heads of the llamas, and over the steamboats, the railway trains and the automobiles, airplanes now wing their way clear across Peru from north to south and from east to west.

Conditions of transportation are so peculiar that when recently the Peruvian fleet wished to make a demonstration against Colombia it sailed up the west coast, went through the Panama canal, around to Brazil, and up the Amazon some two thousand miles to reach Iquitos, Peru, all together a 10,000-mile trip from Callao, the port of Lima.

Iquitos is a city of 20,000 population, with paved streets, electric lights and a good hotel. Vessels from New York and Liverpool moor regularly at its dock, which is a floating one because the river rises and falls thirty-five feet with the change of season. Iquitos is only 250 feet above sea level. Of the region around Iquitos a writer in the New York Tinies says:

The region is languid and violent: healthful and at the same time deathly. It is a region where the dry season is distinguished from the wet season merely because it rains less frequently during the day than during the rainy season, when it rains all day. It is a country from which the white man flees, but always to return; where they laughingly say of a person, when he does come back, that he has drunk the waters of Sachachoro, a mythical water which is supposed to cause a person once having partaken of it to wish always to return.

Yet it is an active, industrious region, a wealthy region. It exports costly woods—such as cedar, mahogany, quinina. It grows excellent tobacco, fine cotton, sugar cane, and the finest chicle, to be exported to America for the chewing-gum industry. It is the center of a vast area which produces and exports countless products.

Odd Peruvian Customs

Merchants of Peru are said to have not yet adopted the one-price system, now well nigh universal in the United States. The rule seems to be to charge all the customer is likely to be willing to pay. Foreigners are usually advised by friends not to pay the first price.

Peruvian men take off their hats to one another and are considered the most polite men in the world. The chief ambition of the Peruvian young man is to be a politician, a job requiring little work, with opportunities for affluence readily available. Yet President Cerro, just murdered, seems to have been a real patriot. He is said to have left an estate of but $30.

The women of Peru are backward, kept so by the Roman Catholic church. They are required to go to church every day, and are never seen alone in the street, as it is considered improper for a woman under forty to go out of her home unchaperoned by an older woman. What a silly old custom!

The men grow up agnostics, having no use for the church, and not interested in religion. The young girl is educated with but one object in view, marriage. She is not taught to think. Peru is still in the Middle Ages.

(To be continued)

Preceding the Millennium

Three Million Accidents in Pennsylvania

TN SEVENTEEN years, from 1916 to 1933, J- there were three million accidents on the list of injuries reported to the Pennsylvania labor department. The number of United States soldiers wounded in the World War was less than one-fifteenth of that number.

Nils Hansen, Friend of Needy Lawyers

XT ils Hansen, of Bridgeport, died early in ’ 1933 with $11,000 in cash stowed away on the houseboat in which he lived. A committee of lawyers appointed by the probate court to wind up his affairs handled the matter so efficiently that the claims against the estate totaled $18,000, and some of the lawyers had to take less for their services than they had expected.

Biot for the Privilege to Toil

WHEN a Chicago candy plant advertised for fifteen hundred experienced women workers, it is said, a good-sized riot arose when fifteen thousand men and women stormed the plant, eager for a chance to toil for wages. How changed for man are the conditions that now prevail as compared with the days when it was his happy privilege merely to dress and keep a garden!

Millennium Lags in Philadelphia

THE Millennium lags in Philadelphia. At three o’clock in the morning a young mother who had been two days without sleep and had had scarcely anything to eat fell in the street. The 17-month-old baby that she was carrying escaped unhurt, but the mother was bruised and cut by the child’s broken bottle. The husband had been gone a week, looking for work in other cities, and five days after he left she was evicted and had no place to go but the street.

End of a Gangster’s Treasure

A BOOTLEGGER or other gangster laid up $5,000 in treasure under the seat of his automobile; then he was killed, and in due time the automobile was sold for junk. Boys playing with the old scrap heap found the $5,000 and, supposing that it was stage money, burned it. Before setting fire to the bills one of the boys gave a yellow $50 bill to a garage mechanic who was working on a car. He tore the bill into pieces and used it for a washer for a bolt. All this happened in Jersey City.

50,000 Homeless Women in California

AT A MEETING of the state emergency relief commission in Los Angeles it was revealed that California now has 50,000 women and girls without homes, without jobs, and engaged in a desperate struggle for existence. The number of male tramps in California is set at 100,000.

Not a Bad Advertisement

TpHE proprietress of a beauty shop in Aroostook county, Maine, advertised that she would trade a permanent wave for each cord of good slab wood. She wanted to be sure to keep warm, anyway, and she evidently knows that slab wood is easy to split. Not at all a bad advertisement.

Two Million Unemployed Women

OUT of almost 11,000,000 women who ordinarily work for a living, the number of the unemployed is now more than 2,000,000. Included among the jobless women are many who are married and discriminated against on that account, many older women whose chances of finding employment are very slim, and many young women for the first time in the labor market.

Three Cents an Hour Wages

TNVESTIGATORS of the United States Department of Labor have found that much of the fine work on infants’ dresses is done by Mexican women in the state of Texas and that the wages paid are so low as to be unbelievable. Well over two-fifths of the workers earned less than 4 cents an hour. A girl who made from one and one-half to two dozen dresses a week obtained 70 cents a dozen, and thus earned about 3 cents an hour. The output all goes to New York city.

Allied Architects of Los Angeles

Til Id Allied Architects of Los Angeles county had it all fixed up to get back some of the money they have lost during the depression. Not only were they to have a monopoly on county building for the next ten years, which would not have been so bad, but they were also to receive 20 percent profit. That seemed too much to a humble employee in the mechanical department, and his protest brought a cancellation of the contract which had been already approved by the county supervisors.

Free Food and Fuel in New York

T71QR the distribution of free food and fuel in -L New York during the coming winter eighty-one depots will be opened near the police stations. For a starter the city had 2,000,000 pounds of pork from the national government, and may have chickens later.

Six Million Children to Be Fed

THE government has ordered that six million school children who face the winter in an undernourished condition are to be fed, and will itself undertake great drainage and brush-cutting jobs in the southern states to eradicate mosquito-breeding grounds and thus cut down malaria.

Relief Needs over $1,000,000,000 a Year

Harry L. Hopkins, emergency relief administrator, and head of the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation, estimated that total relief needs are over one billion dollars a year. We don't know where we are going, but we are on our way. The bright side to it is that the NRA has put 2,200,000 Americans back to work, and that in national recovery the first stride is the most important one.

Morgantown, West Virginia, Goes Broke

A DECISION of the supreme court of West Virginia, that all municipalities must pay their old debts before they can spend for current needs, brought Morgantown to its knees in good shape. Not only did it announce that it would have to suspend police and fire protection, street lighting and garbage and sewage disposal, but eight prisoners were let out of the jail because there was no food for them. That looks pretty nearly like the end of government in Morgantown.

Reorganizing the Hold-up Business

THE hold-up business in New York city seems to be in process of reorganization. Two older men, who, in earlier times, would have taken leading parts in a payroll hold-up, stayed outside and directed the activities of two boys, around 16 or 17 years of age. The younger men made a failure where the older, more experienced, might have succeeded. The old gentleman who was supposed to deliver over the payroll grabbeel the telephone and threw it at the head of one of the boys; the other wounded him and fled.

Economic Crimes in the South

rpiIE NEW REPUBLIC reports an increase J- of economic crimes in the South. In Warrenton, Georgia, a Negro was shot by his landlord during an argument over the plowing of a peanut field. The sheriff to whom the landlord reported told him to bury the body and forget it. In North Carolina a Negro tenant was shot and killed because he cashed the cheek he received from the government instead of turning it over to his landlord. In Benton, Alabama, a cow strayed into a Negro’s garden patch and he was whipped to death by five men whose names The Nev Republic prints. No inquest on this killing was made.

Slight Relief Due to NRA

Robert W. Kelso, federal relief administrator for the ten northeastern states, stated that of the 36,000,000 people in this area 10,000,000 would be on relief before spring, making it the worst winter in American economic experience. He also said: “A great many more people are working. It is an unhappy fact, however, that, with all of the NRA push, payrolls are only slightly improving above the level they were in midsummer, and that the pay of all but those on the very bottom tier of workers is even lower than it was then. This is a disturbing fact in terms of that hoped-for buying power of the nation. But it is still an uglier fact in terms of the need for food, clothing and shelter in those families which have reached the edge of destitution.’’

Plain Statements by Huey Long

Senator Huey P. Long, of Louisiana, has made the following statements, and no one can deny their truth:

“In the land of too much to eat and wear, and too many houses, there is no explanation for our hungry, naked and homeless people, except the greed of the few whose wealth is more than they can use. It is a shame on our civilization that one million people have more than they can use if they live to be ten thousand years old, but that 119,000,000 people are becoming more desperate as times pass. A great talk today is that if the people generally have an assurance of something to eat and wear and any kind of place to live in, they should be satisfied. Some seem to think that the holders of big fortunes are kind to let the sun shine on us. They seem to be spoken of as the divine set to handle the Lord's blessings on earth, and as generous to allow some of us nondescript and accidental 119,000,000 people to have more and some less.

Social and Educational Items

More than Seventy-five Years of Age

T WAS born September 21, 1858, but am still as agile as a boy,” writes A. J. Patterson, of

Arkansas. “I can sit flat on the floor.and get up without touching either hand, and after plowing all day can run a fox all night. I commenced cutting my third set of teeth at 66 years of age.”

The Average American Family

THE average American family consists of 3.4 persons and lives in a house valued at $4,778.

Half of the families (51 percent, to be exact) live in rented homes, with an average rental value in 1930 of $27.15 per month. One out of every eight families lives in an apartment.

Swam Herself to Death

A GERMAN girl, Ruth Litzig, of Essen, literally swam herself to death. She was in the water swimming continuously for 79 hours, beating her own previous world record by 5 hours. When taken out of the water she became seriously ill and never regained consciousness. She was but 19 years of age.

Selfridge Proposes the End of Liberty

IN A RADIO address at Boston, Gordon Selfridge, London merchant, advocated what in effect is an end of liberty. He advised that, as only one store in seven can be classified as “successful”, a system of licensing be set up to control entrance into the field of distribution, and further to make sure that the poor but ambitious young man should have no opportunity such as he has hitherto had. He proposed that this control should be exercised by a business man’s guild, rather than the government.

The Paints Have Changed

EPORTS of the Egyptologists are that though the paints have changed, the women have not. Samples of eye paints taken from the earliest Egyptian tombs were accompanied by inscriptions showing that each of the four colors in which the paints were made was for use at a different season of the year. One of these colors was a bright green. Don’t know for sure, but think that is now out of style. The ladies of that far remote time painted their cheeks, lips and nails, anointed their hair and bodies with delicately scented oils, and penciled their eyes and eyebrows.

Educational Changes Impending

TpDUCATIONAL changes of great impor-■*—* tance are impending. Removal of children from textile and other industries sends more of them to school. It is estimated that in the fall of 1933 there were 300,000 more children in school than the year before, and that there were 15,000 fewer teachers to teach them.

The Cannibal Cow

rp HE papers are saying that an unnamed farmer sent to the sheriff in the next county a telegram in which the statement was made: “Sedan passed here, killed a cow containing four men and two dogs, one of which was a clergyman.” Did not know a cow could hold so much.

Sixty-two Years of Service

TlfTHEN Eddie Savoy, Negro doorkeeper for ’ ’ the secretary of state at Washington, retired after sixty-two years of continuous service President Roosevelt invited him to pay him a visit, and in recognition of his qualities of faithfulness and dependability sent his own personal car to bring him. A very fine act.

No More Sunday Funerals of Negroes in Macon

THERE will be no more Sunday funerals of

Negroes in Macon, Georgia. Hitherto, so goes a dispatch to the New York Times, Macon Negroes have counted on passing out of this life with a funeral on Sunday, and a brass band in the procession. Seems as if somebody were always taking the pleasure out of life, and now the dominies and undertakers are even trying to take it out of the funerals.

Strange Happenings, These Days

SUBSCRIBER in California recently passed through the experience of an earthquake, which shook down the brick walls all around him, but left untouched a table upon which he had a Bible and a set of Judge Rutherford’s books. We merely record the fact. You explain it. In Englewood, N. J., a police officer was hit by a large chart which fell just as he formally accused one of Jehovah’s witnesses, whom he had arrested and who had duly warned him. As he was struck he said, startled, “Jehovah is after me already.”

The Utilities and Transportation

The Six Hundred at Balaklava

SAYS The Equalizer: “A Power Trust man was making a speech before a large audience.

Growing poetic he exclaimed, ‘On with the Light Brigade!’ At that moment an interested listener in the crowd jumped up and put on the finishing touches by shouting, ‘Oh, what a charge they made 1’ ”

Efficiency in the Arson Department

A DISPATCH from Memphis said: “After forty years of study and work, Claude W. Johnson had virtually completed an invention which he claimed would generate electricity in the home and thereby prove a great saving to households. Thereupon burglars looted his home and then applied a torch. The house was burned, and with it the invention.” Wonder if the Power Trust knows anything about this.

Pasadena Municipal Plant Too Profitable

THE newspapers of Pasadena, California, complain that the city’s municipal electric light plant is too profitable. Despite numerous diversions of funds for the erection of a Hall of Justice, a municipal golf course and other public structures, the fund accumulates three quarters of a million dollars of profit each year; and that is considered too much. Rates may be reduced.

Where the Utilities Differ

SAYS Clark McAdams of the St. Louis Post

Dispatch: “The utilities differ from all other business. They are monopolies rendering a social service. Without their services we cannot light the streets, water the lawns or cook our food. It is wrong to let such social services become the pawns of greed. No sensible people would permit it. It is one of the inconsistencies of city management all over the United States that whereas the taxpayers have paid for all the non-profitable social services, such as sewage, streets, education, parks and playgrounds, they have turned over to private enterprise the revenue-producing services, such as transportation, water, gas and electricity. The house of Morgan alone controls from twenty-two to twenty-three percent of all the electrical energy in the country, and twenty-two percent of the gas. This does not include the vast interests of Electric Bond and Share, also controlled by Morgan & Company.”

Air Route via Greenland

Colonel Lindbergh thinks a three-day air mail service can be maintained between New York and Helsingfors, Finland. The route would be via Greenland, with the planes fitted with skis for the winter flight across Greenland. Colonel Lindbergh has done much useful work in mapping air routes in the far North.

2,520 Miles in 10 Hours 5 Minutes

T ANDING in Brooklyn before midday, Colo-TJ nel Roscoe Turner made the hop from Burbank, California, 2,520 miles, in 10 hours 5 minutes 30 seconds. The plane at times attained a speed of 315 miles an hour. Stops for fuel were made at Albuquerque, Wichita and Indianapolis.

Possible Air Mail Route to Russia

Prof. Rudolph Samoilovitch, head of the Russian Arctic Institute, believes that continuous air mail service between the United States and Europe is perfectly feasible. The route he would prefer is via Alaska and the northern Siberian coast to Archangel and Leningrad. Twenty-five radio stations have already been built along this route.

False Damage Claims

Benjamin F. Landis, assistant United States attorney in Chicago, has unearthed a new way by which some corporations get an advantage over their competitors. They fix it up with crooked railroad officials to file false claims with railroads for damages to goods never suffered; the cash received on such false claims is just so much pure robbery.

Golden Gate Bridge in Construction

THE bridge across the Golden Gate at San Francisco is in construction. Some idea of the magnitude of this enterprise may be had from the fact that each cable contains 27,572 separate wires, each two-tenths of an inch in diameter, making a total wire length of 80,000 miles. The steel in the two towers alone will be more than all the steel used in the Quebec bridge. The total length will be seven miles; the clear center span will be 4,200 feet and the vertical clearance for ships at the span's center will be 220 feet. The steel towers that carry the bridge will rise 746 feet above mean high water.

Governmental Items

New Governmental Feature in Missouri

AT SPRINGFIELD, Missouri, 130 American Legion members have formed a new semisecret vigilance organization, the announced object of which is to aid in law enforcement. It is proposed that the group will eventually number 200 men, all to serve without pay.

Western World. Has Failed

IN AN address at Banff, Canada, Newton D.

Baker, secretary of war in the Wilson administration told the Institute of Pacific Relations that the institutions of the Western world have failed, adding: “We are standing at the parting of the ways; we are puzzled and bewildered.”

Corrected Figures on Prisoners

CORRECTED figures on prisoners, covering 24 states for the fiscal year ending in June, 1933, are that total commitments to prison were 66,384, compared with 69,483 for the preceding year. Male prisoners dropped from 68,483 to 63,471, female from 3,037 to 2,913. Previous figures published in Golden Age No. 368 were incorrect.

Government Should Commandeer Machinery

THE New York Chapter of the Society of Industrial Engineers, after a three months’ study of the problem, has recommended the commandeering of idle plants, mines and farms, to be operated by the unemployed under a national self-sustaining, self-help program. Obviously, it is the sensible thing to do. The profit god has suicided, cut his own throat, and his estate should be used for sustaining the orphans he leaves behind.

Dangerous to Live Nowadays

SEEMS as if it were dangerous to live nowadays. At Ambridge, Pa., there were troubles between strikers and strike-breakers or deputies. Just as the deputies had released a cloud of tear gas a man of the town, not on either side of the controversy, but a mere spectator, started to run. He had the bad luck to run into two deputies. Without any questions one of the deputies hit him on the head and knocked him down. When he tried to get up another hit him two or three times and knocked him out. Now the man feels that he has not been treated just right; and you cannot exactly blame him.

New York City's New Subway

A TEW YORK city's new subway is a success.

’ It carried only 70 percent of the passengers estimated for the first year of operation, but even at that there was a profit of $439,000 over operation and maintenance costs.

Pittsburgh Statue No Longer Votes

TWIGGING into the mare’s nest of corruption U in Pittsburgh, investigators discovered among the voters a bronze statue of James Anderson, standing in front of the Carnegie Free Library. The residences of other supposed voters were found to be the ninth floors of six-story buildings, and the tops of stone walls and telephone poles.

Morris Hillquit’s Final Message

Morris Hillquit, one of New York’s ablest citizens and thinkers, twice candidate for mayor of Greater New York, passed away suddenly. Shortly before his death he said: “The New Deal is a dangerous thing as far as the working people are concerned. Inspired by good intentions, as it undoubtedly has been, its fundamental weakness lies in the fact that it sets out to accomplish the impossible. It is not possible to reconstruct the industries of the country on a basis of planned production, elimination of ruinous competition, fair treatment of labor, and assumption of public duty and responsibility, while these industries remain in individual ownership and are carried on for private profit.”

Export Steamship Corporation

DURING the Hoover administration the Export Steamship corporation in a certain year was paid $300,000 for carrying four pounds of mail. Seems as if the matter should be looked up to see if they actually delivered the mail. There is no sense in paying $300,000 for delivering a little package and then not have the package delivered; somebody would be sure to say there was something crooked somewhere, when probably the records that the money was paid are as straight as anything done while Mr. Hoover was in power. All that is needed is to know what became of the package; was it delivered? In 1929 the company did not get as much for its mail messenger service; the price paid to it for mail delivery was only $66,000 per pound.

To Polish Glass

TO POLISH glass, says T. R. Weeks, pioneer, all you need is water, kerosene, and an old newspaper. To one gallon of water add one-half cup of kerosene. Take a sheet of newspaper, crumpled up; dip it in the solution and apply evenly on the glass; then briskly rub dry with one or two sheets of the paper. The oil and water clean the glass, while the newspaper dries and polishes. For best results, clean and polish one glass at a time.

A Recipe for Hominy

Mus. Wm. B. Johnson, of Nebraska, writes: “Here is a recipfe for hominy, a cheap and good food at present price of corn. Take 8 ears or about 2 quarts corn. Soak over night. Add 4 level tablespoons soda; cook until hulls; wash hulls off; cook in clean water until soft; keep in cool place and use as needed. This can be fixed for eating by heating with milk, butter, salt and pepper. This is excellent with potatoes ; it can be canned; it will not keep in large quantities in a warm place.”

A Necktie Wrinkle

LF. Wiens, of Saskatchewan, gives his ex-⁴ perience with neckties. He says: “In order to save the time and trouble of cleaning and pressing my ties, I put them on as usual, but instead of untying them I had them cut at the hack. I then put a few stitches through the knot, so it would stay the way it had been tied. Then, by sewing on a ring, hook and elastic, taken from an old bow-tie, I fixed up my ties in such a way that they can readily be fastened or unfastened, and they will wear well and keep their shape indefinitely.”

Deodorized Garlic

TT A. Seklf.mian, of California, says: “Henry Gravier, of San Francisco, has made an announcement, the echo of which will doubtless be heard around the world. He claims to have discovered a process by which every member of the human race may enjoy the flavor of garlic without becoming a pest to the nostrils of those around. Describing his process, Gravier says he grinds the garlic, soaks it in water, extracts the oil and cures the oil with sugar. Somewhere during this process the odor disappears. A hungry world is waiting with bated breath for further announcements.”

No Redress for Removing the Wrong Eye

TN THE Plain Talk magazine we read: “In a -L large New York hospital a man was put under ether for the purpose of removing a ‘dead’ eye and replacing it with a glass optic. The surgeons in charge removed the wrong eye, but the patient has never been able to do anything about it because of the cloak of secrecy enjoined by the American Medical Association. Instead of being blind in only one eye, this man, if he hasn’t committed suicide or died since, is now totally blind, a burden to himself and family, all because of inexcusable bungling by doctors who knew they were protected if they made such a mistake.”

The Best Possible Start in Life?

A DOCTOR in the state of Washington, whose name and address we have, astonished a child’s parents by writing them the following unique letter: “Madonna Ruth is one year old today and I congratulate her. I trust she is well and a joy to you in every way. Now is the time to start the habit of a yearly examination. Doctors have come to believe that a thorough examination at least once yearly is the best possible preventive for future troubles. Then, too, the second year is the best time to immunize against scarlet fever, diphtheria and smallpox. Why not take your little girl to your doctor today and so feel sure that you are giving her the best possible start in life T’ Being reverential, our readers mostly feel that Jehovah God had already done that himself.

“If the Medicine Had Been Defective”

IN THE Erie (Pa.) Dispatch-Herald is an account of the death of five-year-old Winifred Camp from lockjaw eighteen days after she had been vaccinated. The coroner, who, of course, is a doctor, tried to explain away the loss of this life by saying that nine other children had been vaccinated with the same tube of vaccine and that “if the medicine had been defective” the others also would have been slain. This opens up an interesting question: How does it come that pus scraped from the belly of a diseased calf is medicine, and just what should this pus contain and what does it contain when it is not defective? And nobody can tell. Not a vaccinator in the world knows the true contents of any tube of vaccine; and the most honest among them are willing to so admit.

Terrible Conditions in South Dakota

HDERRIBLE conditions maintain in South A- Dakota, where grasshoppers following the drought are said to have eaten everything but the barbed wire fences. Between 40,000 and 50,000 South Dakota families are entirely without food and must be helped over the winter.

Beavers Cause a Flood

BEAVERS working in New York state built such a good dam that the waters backed up and covered a highway with water three feet deep. The farmer on whose land they w’orked hated to interfere with their industry, and at last accounts it looked as if a court order w^Tould be necessary to reopen the highway.

Bulb-Destruction Week in Holland

UNABLE to market all her bulbs Holland had a bulb-destruction week in which hundreds of thousands of bulbs of tulips, hyacinths and narcissi were thrown into the garbage cans and refuse piles. The wisest of the world know not how to keep the profit system going except by depriving the common people of the use of the surplus that would enrich and beautify their lives.

The More Intelligent Mules

REPORTS from the South are that the mules, having heretofore been taught to avoid crushing young cotton plants, are slow to comply with the present demands of their masters that these same plants must be destroyed. The financial writer, C. E. Forbes, in the HeraldExaminer, Chicago, raises the question of whether the mules have not more sense than the men. Manifestly, how to make a perfect government is too big a problem for man to solve.

Russian Rubber from Towsagis

RUSSIA has a new source of rubber that may prove to be one of the great finds of the century. A new plant has been found, the Towsagis, the roots of which are 40 percent latex, which is 95 percent pure rubber. It has been discovered that this plant will grow in many parts of Russia, and in the hottest portions flowers twice a year. A single plant in a single season will produce a root ■weighing 12 ounces. When the roots are mashed the cellulose washes away, leaving the rubber behind. The Russians are expecting great things from this plant.

Farms in New Orleans

TT IS stated that within the city limits of New J- Orleans there are 198 farms averaging 11.2 acres each, on which nearly 2,000 persons earn their livelihood.

Seven-Year-Old Boy Saves His Father

T T IS not often in human history that a more J- moving tale comes than that from Czechoslovakia, where in a mountainous district a boy arrived just in time to see a huge vulture attacking his father. The father was torn and bleeding, and had already been blinded in one eye, when the boy temporarily drove the bird off with a firebrand and then put an axe in his father’s hands that enabled him to dispatch it when it returned to the attack.

Medical Science

IpRANK W. Dusey, member of Iowa Engineer-•*- ing Society, writes pointedly: “Suppose someone should catch your little girlie and compel her to swallow some filth from the cow stable. You would probably not think it right. Suppose that, instead of common cow-stable filth, the undesirable substance was pus from a foul ulcer on the cow. That would tend to make you mad; would it not? But suppose that, instead of compelling her to sw^Tallow’ this filth, her assailant should open a blood vessel and pollute her lifeblood with it. Now don’t get all ‘het up’ about this proposition. It is merely vaccination.”

Uses of the Electric Eye

THE electric eye has almost countless uses.

In an interesting article on the subject the Popular Science Monthly says: “It is sorting beans and buttons, turning on lights and opening doors, calling the fire department and timing races, stopping elevators and measuring stars a thousand times too faint to see. . . . Turning on the fountain as you bend over for a drink; swinging open the garage doors as you drive up with your headlights on; cutting off hot steel rods at exactly the same length as they rush at fifteen miles an hour from the rolls; picking out rust spots, holes and thin places in sheet metal; shunting mailbags and material on conveyor belts to the right destination, and sorting and filing cards in different compartments according to combinations of stencils cut in the pasteboard, are other astonishing feats of these light-sensitive miracle tubes.”

Federal Relief in Texas

DURING the month of July there were more than one and one-quarter million Texans living entirely from funds supplied by the Federal government in Washington; this number was a third more in July than in June.

Double Citizenship of Canal Zone Children

THE president of Panama has just decided that all children born in the Canal Zone are unquestionably citizens of Panama; and, as hundreds of these same children are of American parents, and under American law are also citizens of the United States, we have the peculiar condition of double citizenship arising, with a possibility of interesting complications.

“On the Upper Amazon”

TT IS a region of striking beauty and deadly monotony; of muddy rivers, on the banks of which big alligators sleep lazily in the hot afternoon sun, sliding off into the water when a steamer passes; of rivers teeming with small fish which could strip a man to the skeleton in a mere question of moments if he were unlucky enough to fall in. It is a region with warm tropical breezes; thousands of screaming parrots and brilliantly colored macaws flying overhead; chattering monkeys in the trees, and weird, mysterious unseen life in the jungles.

New Jersey Judge Violates National Law

FEDERAL courts may not issue injunctions prohibiting picketing in labor disputes. One would think that point established, but it is not; at any rate, not in New Jersey. Vice Chancellor Maja Leon Berry adjudged five workers guilty of contempt of court because they resorted to the picketing which he had forbidden. The fact that a thing is contrary to federal or even divine laws means next to nothing in New Jersey. The state has built up a bad reputation.

Why the Economic Conference Failed

THE reason why the economic conference failed is that the delegates to it are not interested in men, women and children, and to see that they have food to eat, clothing to wear and homes to live in. They were interested in the preservation of the outworn interest system, which is today dragging the whole world down into ruin, including itself. All debts should be cut in half instanter and interest above 3 percent made illegal. That would help some to delay the inevitable.

Moving a Mountain in Chile

TN CHILE American engineers are moving a mountain to make room for an electric power plant. Situated on the sea coast about ten miles south of Valparaiso, the peak covers a site considered ideal for a new steam generating station ; so it is being blasted away. The plant will cost $16,000,000 and will be one of the largest on South America’s west coast, with a capacity of 135,000 horsepower. It will serve Valparaiso and neighboring cities.

What Bombay Is Like

WHAT Bombay is like may be judged from the fact that there are 15,490 persons living in rooms each occupied by 20 persons or more, 80,133 living in rooms each occupied by 10 to 19 persons, and 256,379 living in rooms each occupied by 6 to 9 persons. Seventy-four percent of the residences of Bombay are of one room each. Every night, during the dry season, thousands of the people sleep in the streets as being the most comfortable place.

The Way to a Bear's Heart

THE way to a bear’s heart is down his neck, apparently. A 200-pound specimen broke the lock on his cage and wandered around the city of Queens, seriously upsetting the peace and good order of the community. A frightened detective shot him twice with a revolver. All that accomplished was to injure his disposition. At the critical moment his keeper arrived with a bag of sugar and he meekly followed him into his cage, taking along a couple of bullets in his hide, which the veterinary says won’t do him any harm.

Starvation Among Russian Peasants

A RUSSIAN writing in the Waterbury Republican says: “Right after the crop is ripe everything is taken away from the peasants and they are left almost without anything, left simply to starve. The government cares only for its five year plan and not for the people who carry all burden of work, who suffer, toil, hunger, and are driven into such a desperate state that they begin to eat their own children. There are many informations reaching us that it is dangerous even to walk alone from one village to another, as one can be caught and eaten by the hungry.”

Postgraduate Reading for Theological Students

Pennsylvania's Expensive Prayers

THE Pennsylvania state chaplain gets $16.33 per prayer for starting off the senate of the Keystone State in the way that they go. Seems like a pretty high price, but maybe the senate is in such shape that the common or garden variety of prayers would not do them any good.

Wonder Whom He Meant

A SUBSCRIBER wrote in trying to convey his idea of some occupation or profession, but did not seem to make himself clear. He said he had in mind the ameners, chicken-eaters, doggies, dominoes, lady-lovers, penny-snatchers, sin-busters and tear-shedders, and we cannot help but wonder whom he meant.

Clerical Assault on a Child

AMERICANS read with surprise that in a Birmingham (England) court a vicar of the Church of England was fined two pounds for compelling an eleven-year-old boy to remove his coat, shoes and trousers and then submit to a severe flogging, all for breaking a window light two years previously. It is not known v here the dominie found the text to justify this.

When the Dominie Talked Too Much

JC. Pluimer, of Minnesota, says: "A gentle-

• man upon whom I recently called with Judge Rutherford’s books told of an interesting item which many will enjoy. A ‘Big’ Lutheran preacher told his members that he did not know if the present conditions in the earth were predicted by the prophet, and then added, with an air of ‘heavy dignity’, that he did not care, either. The result that followed was that his flock quit him cold. Well, it looks like the overalls for him.”

Pastor Dons the Overalls

TN NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts, the pas--L tor of one of the churches appeared in the pulpit dressed in overalls. This was intended as an example to his flock, who were reported as absenting themselves because they were ashamed of their clothes. Nevertheless, we think he was a comparatively wise man. It is a good thing for the clergy to get used to the feel of denim now, and, besides that, the price is lower at present than it will be later, when all the erstwhile pulpit pounders head for the cow sheds.

Trying to Get Used to Them

A DISPATCH from Weatherford, Texas, says: “In order that the workingman with limited means may feel at home in his church, the Rev. Paul Clifton, pastor of the Fundamentalist Baptist church here, wears overalls while delivering his sermons.”

Millennium Near

THE Federal Council of Churches has a list of 2,000 seeking pastorates. In the Episcopal church alone there are over 600 unemployed clergymen. In New York city alone there are hundreds of unemployed ministers, of all denominations. The Millennium is near.

The Clergy See It Coming

THE clergy of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Erie voluntarily agreed to a cut of 10 percent in their salaries. This is a step in the right direction. In a little while now the people will take off the remaining 90 percent and then they can go to work and be as useful as other people. The shadows of the overalls and the alarm clock are athwart the horizon.

General Dealers, Limited

GENERAL DEALERS, LTD., is the name of the company British tithe owners have organized and are operating to help them collect some of their tithes from Britain’s unhappy farmers. Stock is bid in for less than half what it is worth; then the bidder descends on the farm while the owner and his staff are in bed, and the animals are loaded into vans and taken away. It happens that in such instances cows have been taken away that were being merely boarded by the farmer, and did not belong to him at all.

Tithing Farmers Hate the Clergy

RESENTMENT and bitterness is growing among English farmers over the paying of tithes to the clergy. Thousands of agricultural workers have lost their jobs because farmers could not pay them and pay the tithes too. The clergy have insisted that the tithes be paid anyway. Lady Balfour cited an instance where a clergyman receiving £900 a year insisted that a farmer discharge a man to whom he was paying 30s. a week, and pay the amount to him in tithes instead. Clergymen are now often hooted in the streets.

En Route to the Alarm Clock

SAYS C. R. Lay, pioneer, ‘‘In working from day to day one has many experiences. Just prior to leaving Texas, a business man’s wife said: ‘We surely are having hard times. I was over to Houston recently, and found our old preacher in the bread line.’ ”

If Christ Were on Earth as a Man

SAYS W. E. Brown, of Ohio: “If Christ were on earth as a man today, and fed the multitude, He would be jailed for feeding people without a restaurant license. If He healed the sick, He would be jailed for practicing medicine without a license. He would not be allowed to preach, because not ordained by the pope, synods, etc. He could not obtain work as a carpenter, for there are no jobs to be obtained.”

Baby Learned as Much as Anybody

HAVING a bright idea, the Reverend Baxter, pastor of the Nazarene church, Trinidad, Colorado, offered a prize of a baby blanket for the youngest baby attending Sunday school on a given date. The prize was carried away by the three-day-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Hall, of West Trinidad. Some might think that the proper place for a three-day-old child is at home with its mother, but such old-fashioned people should know that everybody has to keep step with the time, and, besides, there is no reasonable doubt that the new arrival in the Sunday school got as much out of it as anybody else, and perhaps more.

“O Baal, Hear Us"

FACING the menace of another world war, which they think will probably finish most of humanity if it gets to going nicely, and disturbed also by the fact that 0,000,000 young men are now in arms, while 20,000,000 more are in reserves; and disturbed also by the fact that in a world bursting with plenty there are millions on the verge of starvation, the deacons of the Druid Hills Baptist church, Atlanta, Ga., sent out “a call to world-wide prayer to the maker and ruler of this world” to deliver us from the evils that now threaten. For some further information as to where such a prayer would go, see 2 Corinthians 4:4, which many people do not know is in the Bible, and also Ephesians 6:12.

Balaam’s Hay-Burner

ONE of our subscribers out in Montana writes us feelingly about his pastor. He says that when it comes to preaching, “Balaam’s four-cylinder hay-burner could do a great deal better.” Now do you suppose that is the truth, or is that just a hard-hearted way they have of speaking about their pastors out in Montana?

Give the Reformed Pastors a Break

THE city garbage department of Tacoma has turned persecutor. It seems that a Presbyterian pastor of the city had begun to go straight, and each morning made it a business to go around back of a department store and gather up the waste paper. This he afterward sold for a small sum, but it cut down the revenues of the garbage department; hence his arrest. Now doesn’t it seem a shame that when a man does become honest and wants to get into some useful business he finds so many difficulties in the way?

A Great Help to Their Father

A REPORTER of the Ohio State Journal

asked five prominent clergymen when Jesus Christ will return. No. 1 said He returned at Pentecost; No. 2, that it will be far down in the distant years; No. 3, that He returns every time anybody is converted; No. 4, that He is here now in fullness of power; and No. 5, that He will not return “until God’s plan for a finer world without sin is consummated” and that not even the angels in heaven know when that will be. Anyone familiar with John 8: 44 can see at a glance what a help these clergymen are to their father.

Protestant Church in America Bankrupt TN OCTOBER Current History the Reverend •L Charles J. Dutton declares:

“Thousands of local churches are finding it almost impossible to keep their plants operating. Many churches are closed. Pledges to both church and denominational budgets are not being paid. Money for mission work is running low, and missionaries by the hundreds, their stations closed, are being called home. Church publications have been forced, because of the terrific financial strain, to change from weekly publications to fortnightly or monthly; many have been discontinued. Though denominational activities as a whole are being kept alive, their vitality is low, and there is not a church leader that does not face the future with a heart filled with dismay and fear.”

Hurricanes in the “Holy Year”

^DHE “Holy Year” of 1933 was marked by fifteen big tropical storms up to the end of

September, making it the banner hurricane year of the United States weather bureau. Three thousand were rendered homeless and 135 lost their lives in the Tampico (Mexico) hurricane.

Pretzel Primrose Path to Glory

THE pretzel primrose path to glory, or perhaps we should call it the corn cracker path, was opened in Chicago. A priest who noticed that his business is undergoing a depression hit on the making of a corn cracker which, so he says, makes a good substitute for pretzels. His customers are the saloons. He intends to let his church business rock along with the cracker business for a while, but after a bit he may be able to devote his entire time to the new path to salvation, monetary salvation, opened up by his keen discerning judgment of what would taste good with beer.

Ohio and Kentucky Geese

BEFORE the depression, the Catholic priest in charge of the Church of the Annunciation, Shelbyville, Kentucky, charged $1 to say a mass, while across the river, in Ohio, according to our information, they were getting $2 for the same thing. As a consequence the Kentucky pastor did more than twice the business of his comrade in the Buckeye State. Thus thou seest, son, how much better it is to have two lively geese that each lay one golden egg per day than it is to have one big goose that will not listen to reason, argument, persuasion or anything whatever but the ax.

Orthodox Priests Ready for Overalls

T^ROM a Macedonian newspaper we have been A favored with a translation of the following item: “We see the Bible Students who have set foot in our city, placing their literature in every home, such as Deliverance, Creation, and others. Finding ourselves in despair, we sent the following telegram to the government at Athens: 'We beseech the Government to pass a law granting regular wages to the clergy, as we are vomiting blood from hunger. Clergy without pay cannot properly take care of their duties. If the Government will not grant our request, we shall have to resign.’ Signed by a Committee of Seventeen Priests.”

The Church Business in Mexico

General Tejeda, governor of the state of Vera

Cruz, Mexico, affirms of the church business that it “is a business like any other business and should be treated accordingly”. He asserts that the mode of living of the priests “contributes to the national economic depression as, according to the statistics of the Catholic church, Mexico forwards to Rome a sum of 30,000,000 pesos annually”. He also says that the priests are “unproductive parasites on society” and “besides, they spend the people’s money uselessly in the erection of temples which might be employed in building schools”.

Matt Talbot, of Dublin

NOT knowing of the divine provision for the atonement of sin (through faith in the ransom sacrifice of the Man Christ Jesus) Matt Talbot, of Dublin, Ireland, wore a chain about his body so tightly wrapped that the marks of the chain were left in his flesh. He hoped by wearing this chain, which -was his constant burden for perhaps 34 years, that he could thus atone for previous errors. The Very Reverend Monseigneur George L. Leech, spiritual director of St. Patrick’s Holy Name Society, Pottsville, Pa., preached a “sermon” on this chain and says that a movement is now under way to have the man who wore it canonized and declared a saint. The sufferings Matt Talbot underwent were suggested to him by the Devil, and were intended by the Devil to be a reproach and a dishonor to the name of Jehovah God.

The Two Cribs of the Baby Jesus

WHEN Jesus was born He was laid in a manger. One of the cribs associated with the event is in the church of Ara Coeli, Rome. It has in it a wooden baby wearing a crown of jewels brought from the Holy Land. Another is in the church of St. Mary Major, also in Rome, by a fluke. All that is left of the latter crib are five pieces of wood enclosed in a silver case. At Christmas time those that get close enough to the case may kiss it. Whether the germs from the thousands of mingled kiss extracts remain on the case for another year is not known. Nor is it known for a certainty how many cribs the baby Jesus had, all together, but it is quite certain He had enough, if the lumber were collected, to build a six-story apartment house.

Behold!

Ozona (Texas) Citizens Fear the Worst

WANTED to swap — Good conscientious preaching for anything usable or valuable.

Ministerial Association of Ozona.—Swap item in Ozona Stockman.

8,000 Letters a Day

IT IS claimed that President Roosevelt’s mail averages around 8,000 letters a day. This is about ten times the daily mail received by President Wilson during the World War, and well illustrates the great stress through which the country is passing. Ordinarily the president of the United States receives about 600 letters a day.

Radium Treatment of Diamonds

IT HAS been discovered that diamonds can be made green by exposure to radium. This increases their value, as green diamonds are scarce in nature. It is supposed that the radium changes some of the particles into graphite and that very thin films of graphite are green. Thus the metamorphosis of part of the diamond into worthless graphite increases its value.

On the Highest of Rome’s Hills

/'AN THE highest of Rome’s hills, Monte Mario, there will shortly be built a statue of Mussolini 236 feet high. The statue will be hollow, with two staircases winding to the eyes. It will overtop St. Peter’s cathedral, and in many respects be the most conspicuous thing in Rome.

A Girl with X-Ray Eyes

DY SOME mysterious power, probably occult, -L* a London girl 26 years of age has the ability to see through the flesh of living creatures. She is able to see through the fur of a cat and see its skull and spine quite clearly. Bathing an infant, she sees all the bones of the little frame through its skin.

How to Frustrate Bandits

TN A TOWN in south Jersey a tear-gas salesman was showing employees of a bank how to frustrate bandits. At the critical moment in walked four of them, locked him and the four employees in the vault, and then made off with $8,941 of the bank’s money. They overlooked $3,500, but that sometimes happens when a cashier or branch president cleans out a bank, also.

Calendar for Jehovah's witnesses

EVERYONE needs a calendar in the home, but there is only one calendar that will really be an aid to those who participate in the work carried on by the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society. Everyone who is interested in the spreading of the Kingdom message should have the Society’s calendar for 1934, which is very beautiful. The year’s text is magnificently portrayed in a beautiful, colored picture, which is mounted on card board. A letter also appears under the picture, written by the president of the Society. The Calendar pad is unique, because the dates of special importance to Jehovah’s witnesses are set out in different color of type. Special testimony periods or other dates of importance are marked so as to remind one that there is a special work to be done at certain periods of the year. You will want one of these calendars in your home. These will be ready about December 1, and will be mailed to anyone at 25e each, or in lots of 5 or more to one address, at 20c each. Use the coupon below.

The Watch Tower, 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, New York.

Please send me .................... of the 1934 Calendar for Jehovah’s witnesses.

A contribution of ..........  is enclosed.

Name ................   —...................................................

Street and No...................................................................................................................................................

City and State ..................................._.....................    -...........-..........-..........................

24,074,401 IN ONE YEAR!

READ ABOUT THIS ASTONISHING DISTRIBUTION

IN THE

1934 YEAR BOOK OF JEHOVAH’S

WITNESSES

J EDGE Butherford, the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract

Society, has compiled the most interesting report of the greatest year's distribution of the Kingdom message. Every person who has had anything to do with the proclamation of Jehovah’s kingdom during the past year will want to read this report and see what a tremendous amount of work has been accomplished by so few people throughout the earth. Anyone after reading the YEAR BOOK would be convinced that only an organization under Jehovah's direction could accomplish such marvelous results in this greatest year of depression.

You will want to know where and how all of this literature was distributed. You will want to read the report of the country in which you live. You will want to know about the work in Germany, the opposition in Japan, the arrests in America, the radio activity, and the work being done by the transcription machines—a new instrument in the spreading of the Kingdom message.

In addition to the thrilling report there is a discussion of the year’s text which everyone will find most helpful. Further, there is a text and comment for each day in the year. To read these daily texts and the comments will greatly aid you in carrying on your responsibility to the Lord and His kingdom.

There is a very limited edition of the YEAR BOOK being printed, and orders should be in early. It is hoped the book will be ready by December 1. This book will be mailed to anyone, anywhere, for 50c a copy. Those desiring a copy of the book who are connected with a company of Jehovah’s ■witnesses should order through the organization in their city. Otherwise use the coupon below.

The Watch Tower, 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, New York.

Kindly forward to me a copy of the 1934 YEAR BOOK OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES as soon as it is ready. I enclose a contribution of 50e to further the Kingdom work in the earth.

Name..............................................

Street and No.

City and State