View PDFThe content displayed below is for educational and archival purposes only.
Unless stated otherwise, content is © Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania
Contents
. - Papal Salvos on the Peace Front
The Pope Joins in the Offensive
Spellman’s Secretive Movements
4 Remember the Hierarchy’s Record
Do Regional Dictatorships Impend?
“Thy Word Is Truth”
Protective Wall Holds—in Some Places 19 ‘Greater Things Shall Ye Do’
Facts About Ancient and Modern Yucatan 25
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
The Scorching of Borneo and Sumatra
Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.
117 Adams St.. Brooklyn. N, Y., U. S. A,
OFFICERS
President N.- IL Knorr
Secretary . • . W. E. Van Amburgh
Editor Clayton J. Wood worth
. Five Conte a Copy
11 a year in the United States J1.25 to Canada and all other countries
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS
Remittances t For your own safety, remit by postal or express money order. When coin or currency is lost In the ordinary mails, there is no redress. Remittances from countries other than those named below may be made to the Brooklyn office, hut only by International postal money order.
' Receipt of a new or renewal subscription will be acknowledged only when requested. Notice of Expiration is sent with the journal one month before subscription expires. Please renew promptly to avoid los& of copies. Send change of address direct to us rather than to the post office. Your request should reach us at feast two weeks before the date of Issue with which it is to take effect. Send your old as well as the new address. Copies will not be forwarded by the post office to your new address unless extra postage J3 provided by you.
Published also In Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
OFFICES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES
England 34 Craven Terrace, London, W> 2
Australia 7 Beresford Road, Strathfleld, N. S. W.
South Africa 623 Boston House, Cape Town
Mexico Calzada de Melchor Ocampo 71, Mexico, D, F. Brazil Caixa Postal 1319, Rio de Janeiro
Argentina Calle Honduras 5646-48, Buenos Aires
Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879,
No tan da
Hitler in Mississippi
♦ So far as any one knows, Adolf Hitler’s agents were not active last week in the State of Mississippi, but Hitler’s work was being done there. It was being done by mobs which carried out three lynchings within that one week. The courts and police of Mississippi, whose authority was defied, are taking action. We may hope that it will result in arrests and convictions, but previous experience in similar cases does not make the hope a confident expectation. In the eyes of unfriendly foreigners the State of Mississippi, and with it the United States, must stand condemned as not practicing what our spokesmen preach. As this news goes round the world—and, let us be sure, it will do so—our cause will suffer. The Nazi propagandists will not add that the majority of the people of Mississippi detest lynching, nor that these murders outrage the great masses of the American people, though these things are true.
About 10 percent of our population are Negroes, and just as loyal as the other 90 percertt to our cause in this war. We count on them to work and to fight for that cause. It is of national importance that they be guaranteed the civil rights to which, like other .Americans, they are entitled/ and the protection of their property and their lives.' Any State in the Union, North or South, can insure these rights and this protection if its officials take the situation seriously.—New York Times, October 21, 1942.
■ j-'
Learning German in a Hurry
♦ A Danish bookseller peeved the Gestapo with a sign, “Learn English in 30 hours, before the Tommies arrive.”’ Forced to fake the sign down, he offered another engaging sign, “Learn German in 50 hours before our guests depart.”
CONSOLATION
“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A. R. V.
Velum® XXIV Brooklyn, N.Y,, Wednesday, April 28, 1943 Number 616
The Papal Peace Offensive
SCIENTISTS claim that many adults have the* mentality of a child. The propaganda by the Hierarchy regarding her persecution in Germany and her antipathy to the Nazis is simple bedtime stories and swallowed by the childlike. To insure this the public press is doing its best.
By this propaganda offensive the Papacy is courting the democracies, flirting with them while carrying on her clandestine affair with her dictatorial paramours. The wider the breach between the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Germany appears to be, the closer the Hierarchy and the United Nations seem to become, as though uniting against ■ a common foe. She is trying to draw closer to the Allies. Why? So that the democracies will invite her to sit as chief arbiter in the coming peace conference, so that she may draw closer to the democracies and be enabled to more neatly slip the knife into their backs, thus destroying her old enemy brought forth by the Reformation and Peace of Westphalia and having; her own bloody paw upraised in final victory! The exchampion comes back! That's her fervent aim .and heart’s desire.
Is the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, supposedly so cruelly persecuted and liated by the totalitarians, in a position to negotiate with them? The diplomatic relations maintained by the ‘peace-praying1 pope with the warmongering dictators answers emphatically Tes. Under the headline “Holy See Setting Up Peace Machinery at Vatican City” the Boston Daily Globe, May 5, 1942, said: APRIL 28, 1943 ' ''
Reliable non-British reports from the Vatican state that the Holy See is systematically transforming Vatican City into a highly important diplomatic center and creating there the international machinery for opening peace negotiations at the opportune moment. . . . It was learned from Vatican City a few days ago that the Holy See and the Finnish government had agreed in principle to the exchange of diplomatic representatives. The Vatican simultaneously was reported considering sympathetically a similar exchange of representatives with Sweden. . . . Finland and Sweden never before have entertained official relations with the Vatican.
But they will now; for they are in the Nazi orbit, which is the- papal orbit. These two countries have long been Protestant strongholds; now they are being drawn into the Catholic sphere of influence by crusading Hitler. It is very apparent that if the war is settled by a negotiated peace the pope hopes to be the central figure in the settlement and the main recipient of the favors extended. The ‘old harlot’ is going about the city of “Christendom” singing her songs and wooing the nations.—Isaiah 23.
All know of claims recently published that the German and J apanese gods are related. Both countries are likewise related by diplomatic envoys to the Vatican. And all three are related to the “god of this world”. Although both Britain and the United States are alleged to have protested the appointment of the Japanese envoy to the Vatican, both were practically told to mind their own business.
The .Tapan-Vatican deal seems to be .getting along splendidly. Matsuoka calls on the pope; the pope eulogizes him and sends his “blessing” to Japan..A deal is fixed up. The Japanese government recognizes the Roman Catholic religion as pure Shintoism (true,, as both are paganism) and sends all the Protestant, missionaries home. The war gets under way and results in favor of the Hierarchy become more manifest. Two hundred and fifty Jesuits in the Philippines report that they are safe and will “undoubtedly remain in the Philippines, no matter -what happens”. They are quite safe. It is further reported of the 1,273 Catholic missionaries in the Pacific war area that they “are in no serious danger”. This is quite true.
After the Vatican had accepted a Japanese ambassador China wished the same concession. At present it has only an apostolic delegate from .Harbin, which is in Japanese-dominated Man-chukuo. The Vatican was “extremely reserved”; in other words, cold. Its consent ■was not given. The most it would agree to is that the papal representatives in China, not the Chinese government, might send an envoy. And when the ominous fact is considered that the papal representatives in China are actually stationed in Japanese-controlled territory, and none in that part of China ruled by Chiang Kai-shek, this magnanimous papal concession and “impartiality” becomes ludicrous and an absurd fiasco. China must learn she is not of the Aryan “master race”.
Straddling the Fence
The Vatican also carries on its intrigues with those fighting her aspirations for a second administration of “Holy Roman Empire” dominion. The Kansas City Times, in a copyrighted article, said, on March 18, 1942; “It was learned from an informed Vatican source this evening that despite official denials Premier Joseph Stalin has sent Pope Pius XII a holograph letter which, though it has caused some perturbation in high Vatican circles, is generally interpreted as an act of homage toward the church. . . . lie [Stalin] ended with a request that the possibility of diplomatic representation with the U. S. S. R. receive the close and immediate attention of the Holy See.”
The principal flirtation of the “old lady” in this respect, however, is with the United States of America. Roosevelt said he would establish diplomatic relations with the Holy Sec as soon as public opinion in this country could be brought around to it. The wheedling maneuverings were too slow, however, and Mr. Roosevelt sent a personal envoy, Taylor, to the pope. On January 3, 1942, a United Press dispatch from Buenos Aires was published in the Detroit Times, which read:
La Prensa reported from Rome tonight that the United States had entered into full diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The newspaper report .said that Harold Tittman had been given formal rank of charge d’affaires accredited to the Vatican. Tittman. was said to have been given an audience Monday by w Pope Pius. “An unimpeachable source,” said La Prensa’x correspondent, “revealed to me that the development is the outcome of a great diplomatic game in which Pope Pius and President Roosevelt have sought to achieve rapprochement.”
This “unimpeachable source” is prob-.. ably wrong, since such establishment of relations must hive Senate approval; but doubtless for all practical purposes they do exist. Possibly the report is made to help bring the justly suspicious 'American public around to the idea’. In September; 1942, Taylor was back at the Vatican talking to the pope, and many declared the conferences were concerning the coming peace. The Arizona Republic said: “Air. RooSevelt wanted intimate relations with the Vatican because the latter has trustful access to all belligerents in Europe. . . . He cer-tainly wouldn't have in effect recognized the Vatican just as an idle gesture. He
must be convinced the Vatican will be the instrumentality for the termination of the present war and he is eager to -|r be in on the finals of such a big event.”
Papal Salvos on the Peace Front
Papal stablehands brush and curry and groom the pope as peace arbiter. There has been a continuous stream of propaganda for the pope as peace arbiter from the year 1940 on, and now reaches floodlike proportions. In October, 1940, the New York^Times published the following: “ ‘On this day, the feast of Christ the King, you have received the Prince of Peace in holy communion,’ Father Boland said. ‘Think of his vicar, Pius XII, in his role as a possible peacemaker in a shaken world.’ Citing the pope’s live-point peace program, Father Boland said his holiness was ready to serve.”
On September 4, 1941, the- New York J ournal-American attempted to put a high polish on this candidate, but, in its zeal to ingratiate itself, overdid the Job, and the obviously affected sentimentality * fails to give the desired shine. It said, in part:
A peace for the ages, a peace without rancor without spoils for the victor and without punishment for the vanquished—this is the constant hope and hourly prayer of Pope Pius XII, the leader of Roman Catholic Christendom. ■
' He is ready, this correspondent is able to reveal today, to lend the power and prestige of his church to ensure that the peace, when it comes, shall be one that may endure for generations, perhaps even centuries [like “Holy” .Roman Empire I], instead of merely providing a respite between clashes of arms....
He is also prepared to make certain that the treaty which may eventually be signed shall have behind it the unassailable .Sign of the Cross and the permanency of spiritual inspiration.
Many persons, the world over,- have wondered why during months which have seen a terrifying extension of war, His Holiness has remained silent, almost aloof. [Archbishop Spellman says the war has helped his business mightily. Could that be the reason ?] They have wondered why no exhortations [or Hitler excommunication] have come forth from the Holy See during a period when the pope daily, almost hourly, has bent his fragile body under the crushing weight of personal anguish over human sufferings.
Now, behind the portals of St. Peter’s, in his bare room, in the modest chamber of the unpretentious Vatican garden building where he chose to spend the sweltering Roman summer, the pope is working with almost superhuman [demons’?] vigor. This stems from the profound conviction that upon him— and him alone—depends the enduring success of whatever peace conference may elose. or follow the war.
From beginning to end it is a eulogy of the man who put Hitler in his present position, and whose hopes of “a peace to last through ages” is synonymous with his disciple Hitler’s “new order to last a thousand years”. It will be noticed that, after the usual bellyaching about the pope’s “fragile body”, “personal anguish over human sufferings" (for which he is personally responsible, since he, as papal nuncio in Germany, connived to put Hitler in power, in 1933); and his “modest chamber” next the Vatican (one of the largest buildings in the world), this “modest” mischief-making politician has “the profound conviction that upon him and him alone” depends the coming peaeel Jehovah God says that He, through His King Christ Jesus, will bring the only lasting peace of ages’ duration, but, like all totalitarian dictators, Mr. Pacelli is obsessed with the idea that he is the “indispensable man”. At Armageddon all the wicked will be dispensed with!
In the year of 1942 the- ballyhoo’s tempo increased. Almost daily one could pick up a newspaper and see the ‘virtues of Pope Pius as a peacemaker’ extolled. A negotiated peace is openly advocated. “Reverend” John A. O’Brien, professor of religion at Notre Dame, as reported in the South Bend Tribune, in February “urged the American government to ask Pope Pius XII to mak$ a settlement”. He said, “ What more intelligent or constructive move could our government make than to appeal to the supreme '■non tiff to halt the plunging of millions pf young men, made in the image and likeness of God, into the flaming volcano of war, and to settle the dispute in accordance with reason and conscience?” Isn’t this a clear suggestion for a negotiated peace with Hitler to end the war? Don’t the United Nations look upon all such advocates of a negotiated peace rather than a military victory as weak-eners of American morale, enemies of democracy, friends of Hitler? Obviously a negotiated peace at this time would benefit Hitler and enable him to retain much of his conquests. But maybe O’Brien is the only one advocating such capitulation. No, here’s another.
A mediated peace, with Pope Pius XII umpiring the rival claims in an effort to “establish a peace based on justice”, was urged by Rev. Aloysius McDonough, professor of theology at the Passionist Monastery at Jamaica, Queens, in an address yesterday to 3,200 members of the Department of Sanitation Holy Name Society of Brooklyn and Queens at a communion breakfast in the Hotel St. George, Brooklyn.
Dr. McDonough declared: “Our Holy Father would not be so impractical as to plan a world order to be run on faith, hope and charity minus a police system. Even Vatican City has its jail.”-—New York Timas, May 25, 1942.
That is true. The “holy father” is not impractical. The “new order” wouldn’t be run on faith, hope and charity; and there would be a gestapo police system headed by some modern Torquemada, and the Vatican jail and all others would be packed with any who hinted dissatisfaction with “Holy” Roman Empire II. A man who heads an organization that practices Inquisitions and suchlike must be in harmony with it, or he wouldn’t be where he is. But you must not think about these things. You must consider his “sobbing heart”, “personal anguish over human sufferings,” and his “fragile body”. “Fragile body,” indeed! Rather than fret over the pope’s “fragile body” the American people should lament the ‘fragile head’ of their public press!
The pope is a contestant in this fight for world domination; he would also like to be the umpire. That would make everything sure-fire, all sewed up, in the bag. What boxing commission or public fight fans would tolerate' the manager of one of the fighters serving also as referee? The stakes involved are not to be compared. Will the democracies permit the pope to umpire this fight and hand the decision to his hoy Hitler?
The Pope Joins in the Offensive
You may object to what you think is merely an inference that puts the pope in a position similar to that which his spokesmen take. That the pope favors a negotiated peace now, and not a later democratic victory, is no mere inference. This papal opportunist would call a halt now and salvage all possible from the gains of his Axis partners. He has so stated. The Vatican, as a previously quoted article said, has been silent, almost aloof. That was when Hitler was running wild over all opposition with blitzkrieg rapidity. Things are slowing up now, and the Vatican shows signs of life. It’s the opportune time to start the salvage work. So the developing peace offensive begins to roll and the pope recommends a negotiated peace, which is so odious to the democracies.
If anyone aside from Hierarchy spokesmen would even hint at such procedure now his voice would be drowned with angry cries of “traitor” and “fifth columnist”; and “Nazi”, and he would be mobbed. But the pope’s appeal for negotiations is eulogized and spread all over the newspapers. On May 14,1942, all the leading newspapers published the full text of the pope’s address in
celebration of his episcopal consecration 25 years ago. Leading up to the heavy artillery of this Nazi propaganda salvo, he mentions the “impenetrable designs of God” and the Lord’s heritage as being “heavy and full of sorrows”' on “our [his] weak shoulders”. God’s Word says to Jehovah’s servants, “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness,” and that they have the “joy of the Lord”. But to the selfstyled “Vicar of Christ” and leader of millions God’s designs are “impenetrable”, and by his covetousness and ambition he has ‘pierced himself through with many sorrows’. (1 Timothy 6:10) If the blind ones, nations and individuals, continue to follow this admittedly blind leader, all will soon land in the ditch. He deplores descension to the “crudity of violence”, not meaning the modern-day priest-inspired and priest-led mobs against Jehovah’s witnesses or the stamping out of “heretics” by “death, if necessary’, or Hitler’s blitzkriegs, but democracies’ defense by ‘fighting back’. ■ He recounts the glorious history of the church—skipping the Inquisition, of r course. Then, toward the end and after a long and carefully planned introduction for his hostile audience (for he knows his next proposal is obnoxious to the democracies), he subtly states:
If, however, the present lining up of forces, of gains and losses in the political and military sphere, does not show any immediate practical possibility of peace, the destruction wrought by the war among the nations in the , material and spiritual plane is all the time accumulating to such an extent that it calls for every effort to prevent its increase by bringing the conflict to a speedy end, even prescinding from arbitrary acts of violence and cruelty $ gainst which, on .former occasions, we raise our voice in warning. . . .
The cry that reaches us from the family front is unanimous—give us back our peacetime occupations. If one has the future of f mankind at heart, if your conscience before God ascribes some import to what the names “father” and “mother” mean to men and to
APRIL 28, 1943 what makes for the real happiness of your children, send back the family to its peacetime occupation.
As patron of this family front, from which may God keep far all open ways of mis-fortunate and disastrous upheaval, we make a warm, fatherly appeal to statesmen that they may not let any occasion pass that may open up to the nations the road to an honest peace of justice and moderation, to a peace arising from a free and fruitful agreement, even if it should not correspond in all points to their aspirations.
The world-wide family front, which has at the war front so many hearts of fathers, husbands, and children, which, amid the dangers and sufferings, hopes and desires, are beating with the, double love of country and of home, will become tranquil in the prospect of a new horizon.
The gratitude of mankind and the consent of their own nation will not be wanting to those generous leaders who, inspired not by weakness but by a. sense of responsibility, shall choose the road of moderation and tho field of wisdom when they meet the other side, also guided by the same sentiments.
Weakener of Morale
Most people have a natural desire for peace. The above Nazi propaganda is to make them want it more, to cause them to weaken in their resolves for nothing less than total victory, to accept peace at any price. ‘Prescind from arbitrary acts of violence,’ he says. Tn other words, ‘cease fighting, and negotiate.’ Arbitrate now. Come to a “moderate”, “fruitful” (for the Axis) peace agreement “even if you do not gain all your aspirations”. In other words, says the pope, ‘compromise ; let the Axis keep some of its gains; be moderate in your.demands.’ Of course, the Papacy is well experienced in the use of honeyed words and ‘by good words and fair speeches deceives the hearts of the simple’, and the sample just quoted hides its claws in fair words of family, home and peace, things dear to the human heart, in order to deceive.
' 7
The next day, the munificent pope “blessed” the whole world. He spoke of an old world now passing away in pain (the present war), and a new one being ushered in. How completely the Devil and his dupes mimic Jehovah God! They prefer to this war as Armageddon, an old Wtorld before it, and a new one to follow, Jehovah God will completely, destroy this ‘present old evil world’ at His miraculously fought battle of Armageddon, still future, and thereafter His new world, Christ’s kingdom, not the Pacelli-Hitler “new order”, will have -sole and supreme dominion throughout the earth, “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of- the earth.”—Psalm 72: 8.
Peace feelers periodically come from the Axis, and here’s one of the many emanating from the religious element of the combine. Boman Catholic bishops of Germany, according to the Washington Evening Star of July 28,1942, follow up the papal peace salvo of May 13 with a plea for the pope to advance a peace program making definite proposals. The appeal was signed by all the German bishops. They said outwardly Catholic persecutions had stopped but there was still a subterranean war against Catholicism. Apparently there is still some purging out of liberal Catholics to be done within the “church”. The bishops were . reportedly distressed about British bombings and possibility of internal conflicts within the Reich and said that for these reasons “it becomes urgent for Catholics throughout the world to combine their efforts in favor of peace”.
In 1942 it was reported that the pope was preparing a peace encyclical defining his “ideas of a basis for negotiated peace”. It was said this encyclical “would contain provisions seeking to maintain the present Catholic authoritarian regimes in Italy, Spain, Portugal and France”. It was first announced that this encyclical would come out in mid-August.' But Hitler didn’t make the expected progress in Russia. Stalingrad still held. So another report came out saying it would appear at the end of August or beginning of September. Surely the crusade would have converted atheistic Stalingrad by then. But Stalingrad was stubborn; she didn’t want to be “saved”; she continued to fight, and now the siege is broken and Nazi legions are swept far back by the Soviet offensive. And now things look black for the Axis in North Africa. So the pope’s peace encyclical is still pending.
In a reshuffling of his government Premier Mussolini moved Count Ciano, his son-in-law, from the post of foreign minister to that of ambassador to the Holy See. The shift has aroused much speculation in diplomatic quarters, and the New York Times of February 9, 1943, comments:
It is viewed as a possible first step toward the “fundamentally realistic consideration of the situation” expected by many. AU reports from Rome tonight insist on the Premier’s desire “at this moment when the war is about to enter its crucial stage” to reaffirm in a “decisive manner” the increasing importance the Fascist regime attaches to its relations with the Vatican.
Most of the “peace offensives” since the war began have originated in the Vatican. This has led diplomatic observers to read into Italian comment a desire to examine potential “solutions” that might in the not distant future come up for discussion. . . .
It was also noted that while preaching total war the Premier was not neglecting the adage about putting all his eggs in one basket, for in the Vatican Count Ciano, the possessor of more inside knowledge of the exact status of Italy’s chances in this war than any man after the Premier, is in a position to listen to take part in discussions on the Pope’s peace hopes.
The same paper, on March 21, 1943, published the following:
The consideration which dictates Mussolini’s present policy toward the church is most likely the political asset represented by the pope’s potentialities as a mediator. A member of the Italian diplomatic service told the writer when
he was in Italy that Mussolini regarded the pope as the only man who, when all hopes for an Axis victory were lost, might soften r Italy’s defeat. ... As for the pope, his supreme goal today is to bring about peace.
Spellman*8 Secretive Movements
And now Archbishop Spellman has just completed a series of very extensive conferences with the pope, the topic of discussion being shrouded in deepest secrecy. While the claim was made that only church matters were discussed, few seem to believe this, and speculate as to their real nature. The majority think they conferred on the vrar and the coming peace. This is doubtless true, and it is also just as true that this is a church matter, since the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has such high stakes in the present war. A United Press dispatch of March 15, 1943, published in the New York World-Telegram, confirms this now commonly accepted view of the activities of this religious politician, (Remember, Archbishop Spellman is a professional diplomat, having served in * the papal Secretariat of State under Cardinal Pacelli, now Pope Pius XII.) It states:
Belief grew today that Archbishop Francis J. Spellman, who broadcast an assurance of victory to Allied troops in North Africa yesterday, was on an important diplomatic mission for the American government. The most likely subject of the mission, it was believed here, would concern possibility of a separate Allied peace with Italy.
This week he will confer with various Allied leaders in North Africa, including Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and the American Minister, Robert Murphy, before returning to the United States, where, it was understood, he will report to President Roosevelt.
The Archbishop has been extremely reticent about his trip. ■
Church sources in the United States have * said Archbishop Spellman’s visit to the Vatican concerned purely religious affairs, but if that were true, it was pointed Out, it could not account for his impending conferences here.
The New York Times, March 24, 1943, reporting Spellman’s presence in England, says he would visit Ireland and “is expected eventually to extend his travels to cover China”. The article commented:
The visit of the American Archbishop who came from Rome via North Africa has been fraught with a certain element of mystery ever since his stay at the Vatican. Rumors have been so persistent that his discussions with the pope concerned either some form of negotiated peace, the possible evacuation of the pope to Brazil, or some other sensational development related to the world at war, that at least one London newspaper has demanded a clear statement or explanation. But apparently there is not the slightest likelihood of that being forthcoming. ’
There is no likelihood whatsoever.
If this representative of the Catholic church is working for a separate peace with Italy, as above suggested, be it here noted that sueh peace at this time would be a negotiated peace, and not the “unconditional surrender” declaration of the Casablanca meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt. The wily Catholic church works in both the warring camps; she watches, and she waits. Should developments make it expedient that she desert her Axis paramours and align herself with a victorious United Nations, she will do so without hesitation. While supporting the Axis she has courted the United Nations. She has kept the way open for a last-minute desertion of the Nazi ship of state should she see it definitely sinking.
, The Vatican peace front has been well planned. First the small fry, priests and prominent lay Catholics, form the spearhead. They are joined by the bishops and archbishops. At the opportune moment the pope jumps on the bandwagon. He prays for peace, offers a five-point peace program, offers the Vatican in which to hold the peace conference (with him, of course, thrown in to boot, as chief arbi-
ter), pleads for a negotiated peace, and has reportedly prepared a peace encyclical for early release. Archbishop Spellman goes to the Vatican for extended conferences, and from there meets with military leaders. The final push of the negotiated peace blitz is poised ready to stfike at the psychological moment.
Remember the Hierarchy's Record
Is the pope, the head of the Roman * Catholic Church, acceptable to the democracies as a mediator of peace? Before answering, weigh the following facts:
On her intolerant attitude toward democratic liberties:
We demand liberty whenever or wherever 'it is denied us; but we object with all our might that it should be a necessary consequence or correlated obligation to grant the same liberty to those who oppose us.—From La Lectura Dominical, Madrid, quoted in the "Morning Star” (Roman Catholic), New-Orleans, May 31, 1913.
She does not condemn at once, but ‘after the first and second admonition,’ as the apostle teaches. After that, however, if a man is still found pertinacious, the church, having no hope of his conversion, provides for the safety of others, cutting him off from the church by the sentence of excommunication; and, further, SHE LEAVES HIM TO THE SECULAR TRIBUNAL TO BE EXTERMINATED FROM THE WORLD BY DEATH.” —“Acquinas Ethieus; or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas.”
[Hitler has not received a first or second admonition, neither has he been excommunicated ; hence the pope must not consider him ‘unsafe to others’.]
On the anti-democratic “church and state” doctrine:
"Each (sword), therefore, is in the power of the church, to wit, the spiritual sword and the material. But the latter is to be used for the church, the former by the church; the former by the hand of the priest, the latter . by the hands of kings and soldiers, yet according to the beck and permission of the priest. But one sword must be under the other sword, and the temporal authority must be subject to the spiritual power. . . . Therefor^ we declare, assert, define, and pronounce, that it is necessary to salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff.” —From the bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam sanctam, issued in 1302, “Extravagantes Communes,” Book I, title 8, chap. 1.
From John A. Lee’s Weekly, November 12,1941, Auckland, New Zealand, the following quotation is taken, showing the Hierarchy attitude on democracy:
Democracy ' Condemned
For a clear exposition of the Church’s attitude we do not need to go past their own publications. The teaching of the Spanish Church is set out in a Catechism entitled “Brief and Simple Explanation of the Catholic Catechism”, by R. P. Angel Marcia de Areos, S. J. On page 404 we read as follows:
Q. Is every Liberal Government hostile to the Church?
A. Evidently, since whoever is not with Christ is against Him.
Q. What are liberal principles?
A. Those of 1789; so called national sovereignty; freedom of religious cults; freedom of the press; freedom of instruction; universal morality and other such.
Q. What consequences result from these?
A, Secular schools, impious and immodest periodicals, civil marriage, heretical churches in Catholic countries, abolition of ecclesiastical immunities, etc.
Q. Is there no grade of Liberalism which may be Catholic?
A. That is what its partisans claim; but the Church teaches that what is called Catholic Liberalism is not Catholic.
Q. Then there is no grade of Liberalism that can be good?
A, None; because Liberalism is mortal sin and anti-Christian in essence.
Q. Then whatever is liberal in politics sins?
A. Certainly; because in liberal polities there exists that liberalism which the Church condemns.
Here is an enlightening blast against democracy by John J. O’Connor, associate professor of history at St. John’s (Catholic) University of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
one-time managing editor of The Commonweal and Catholic editor of the Religious News Service. It was published in the Jesuit magazine America, May 17, * 1941, and is as follows:
How we Catholics have loathed and despised this Lucifer civilization, this rationalist creation of those little men who refused to bend the knee or bow the head in submission to higher authority . . . Today, American Catholics are being asked to shed their blood for that particular kind of secularist civilization which thej' have been heroically repudiating for four centuries. This civilization is now called democracy, and the suggestion is being made that we send the Yanks to Europe again to defend it. In reality, is it worth defending? What’s the sum and substance of it all? All the Yanks in America will not save it from disintegration. Unless a miracle occurs, it is doomed—finally and irrevocably doomed. The New Order in Europe will be either a Nazi or a British totalitarianism, or a combination of both—a planned economy based on the principle of brute force ...
American democracy is disintegrating, crumbling from within. [Hitler once made tv the same claim.]
The growing anarchy can be resolved in only two ways: totalitarianism or Christianity . . . Leadership in this crisis will not come from the laity. It will not come from the bottom of the Catholic pyramid. It will come only from the top, from the Hierarchy. The Christian Revolution will begin wdien we decide to cut loose from the existing social order, rather than be buried with it, and release the dynamite that is stored up in the Christian Gospel...
So when the fanfare comes for the pope to mediate the peace, remember the centuries-old record of his organization and its opposition to liberalism and democracy. Ask yourself, “Why should the pope support Protestant powers fighting to preserve what his church terms the 'heresy of freedom’?” Setting this objection aside, reflect: The pope, the supposed “vicar of. Christ”, has been praying for peace for many years. No peace comes. His prayers are unanswered. This is not so reassuring for. placing trust in him as world peacemaker. Jehovah God’s ‘ears are always open to the prayers of the righteous’. (Psalm 34:15; P'roverbs 15: 29) Peradventure the pope’s god ‘sleepethk— 1 Kings IS: 27.
Will democratic lands play the role of the poor simpleton of Proverbs chapter seven and go in unto the “old harlot”?
The Coming Peace
What will be the product of the peace conference? No man can say. There are many prognostications. Only one will be mentioned, and that is the widespread talk of revival of the League of Nations. In view of facts to be subsequently presented, the following is significant:
BERNE, Switzerland, April 4—Woebegone and neglected by most former admirers, the League of Nations continues in existence without much animation, but with palpitating hope of eventual rejuvenation.
The ido or so persons still connected with the League in Geneva are carrying on in skeleton staffs of various services so they can sometime hand over their records to normal complements without any important break or omission since the earlv days of September, 1939. ... '
Motlis in late 1940 threatened to damage upholstery and hangings in the Council Chamber and Assembly Hall—the only serious threat the building has suffered since it was “closed to business as usual,” in August, 1940.
Meanwhile the reduced staffs hopefully await the day for the League to resume where it left off, and never more be abandoned. —New York Times, April 5, 1942.
The League was, and now is not, but expects a resurrection. The League was said to be the “political expression of God’s kingdom on earth”. The falsity and absurdity of that blasphemy can now be seen by everyone. The revived League wdll have a generous religious smear to make it attractive to its subjects. A Catholic prelate, Bishop Miquel de Andrea, of Buenos Aires, made the following
statement, according to the New York< Times, concerning his meeting with President Roosevelt at the White House in August of last year: “At the close of the" Inter-American Seminar on Social Studies I wish to tell what the president of the United States said to me during my conversation with him. The only aim, hfe said, "worthy of mankind that can compensate for its sorrows is the speedy and wo rid-wide establishment of the Kingdom of Christ among men, not only in word but in spirit and in fact." That’s doubtless what the revived League will be labeled. Its former styling as “the political expression of God’s kingdom on earth” will in substance be revived along with it. It is a religious war. There will be a religious peace. Everyone, except true Christians, wants “more religion”. And they shall have it for a short time, say, “one hour.”
How can one say the League in some form will be the postwar result? The statement was previously made that no man could predict what should follow. That is true; but Almighty God can and does so foretell. Through His organization He has illuminated the minds of His witnesses. His sure Word of prophecy seems to indicate a'revival of the League of Nations; for that reason it was the only one of the many suggested postwar arrangements to be considered. The argument in support of this position taken is clearly and forcefully presented in the recently published Watchtower booklet, Peace-Can It Last? Before referring to it, read Revelation 17:3, 8,11: “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” Now, from the timely booklet Peace—Can It Last? read the following passages:
Note now the Scriptural answer to our question concerning peace as given by the great Revealer of secrets in Revelation, chapter seventeen. The World War was stopped in 1918. The implement that was then prescribed and provided to maintain the peace was the League of Nations with its World Court, which, eventually, was joined by fiftyseven nations of the world. . . .
The League of Nations, with world power and authority and fifty-seven members, was a scarlet-colored political creature, new and unusual but imaging in respects the seven world powers of human history. It combined also the living relics of all seven of them. It is therefore an added world, power, the “eighth” one. ...
As for its names of blasphemy, “blasphemy” here means the ascribing to men that which belongs to God or which Almighty God alone can do. In connection with this association of nations, it is noted that its creators and backers •! make for it promises that it will do what God’s Word plainly declares only his Theocratic Government or Kingdom by Christ Jesus will do. Thereby these false political and religious prophets paste the beastly creature with “names of blasphemy”. Thereby they cause it to “stand in the holy place”, “where it ought not.” (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14) . . . Concerning it [the League of Nations] God’s Word says: “And the beast that "was, and is not, even he is the eighty, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.” (Revelation 17:11) It can now be said that the League “was, and is not”. . . . Though forty members still profess to adhere to the League, the League is in effect in a state of suspended animation, and needs to be revived if it is ever to live again. It has gone into the abyss pf inaction and ineffectiveness. It “is not”.
Will the League remain in the pit? Again * the Word of God gives answer: “The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go into perdition. And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, they whose name hath not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast, how' that he was, and is not, and shall be present.” (Revelation 17:8, Am. Rev. Ver., margin) The association of worldly nations will rise again. The fight between “the king of the north” and “the king of the south”, being for world domination, makes such an outcome of this total war unavoidable. The necessities of meeting the totalitarian aggressions and stopping them are forcing the nations to that final confederation of nations for the new order,
symbol.—Revelation 17:3.
wh ate ver its
form. . . .
The beast and its rider in The prophecy show’s that
But mark this: when the “beast” comes out of the abyss at the end of this total war it comes out with the woman “Babylon” on its back, dr she climbs upon its back as soon’ as it gets out. That means that “organized religion”, and this time the religious organization with headquarters at Vatican City, will ride and exercise guiding influence over the League beast.
Once again we ask the leading question,
“Peace—Can It Last?” and God’s definite answer is, No! Man-made peace under religion’s “blessing” will be very short-lived, and political kings and rulers will not long enjoy it. The record says they “receive power as kings one hour with the beast”. “One hour,” with God, denotes a very brief time; and suddenly those ten horns and the beast ivill go into perdition, not peacefully, but violently, at the battle of Armageddon. This time the beast and its heads and horns will go, not into the “bottomless pit”, but into the “lake of fire and brimstone”, to be utterly consumed and destroyed.—Revelation 19:20; 20:10.
ing for a negotiated
The pope, on May 13 last year, said, appealpeace with gangster Hitler, that “Christianity [meaning his ‘Holy’ Roman Empire church] will secure, in the hour prepared by God, a peace”. So be it. That “hour” permitted by God for the existence of the ‘peace beast’ resulting from such negotiations means a very brief period of time, not a thousand-year reign of its “new order”.
Comeback of Religion Doomed
The old slogan, “They never come back," will hold true in this case. The Catholic Hierarchy’s liaison with the totalitarians would not be to the liking of the Catholic people generally were they aware of it. It will be apparent to tall soon. If Hitler cannot win by a knockout, if the pope is unable to arbitrate and hand his fighter ,the decision, then doubtless the wily religious politician will execute a neat change of horses to be on the winner. Should that come to pass his outward pretense of neutrality will stand him in good stead. He has not publicly put his eggs all in one basket. His adroitness in this ticklish maneuver may suffice to fool the people, but the papal masquerade will be over when Jehovah God, in due time, unmasks these cagey actors. Then will come the time’ of reckoning.
Do not be deceived when the League beast comes forth. Choose The Theocracy and everlasting life. Do you prefer to lean upon empty words and sophistries rather than the facts, some of which have been here presented and are based upon the Scriptures? An honest person will say no, a thousand times. Unless one has shut his eyes that he may not see, and W closed his ears that he may not hear, and blunted his mind that he may not understand, he will see and readily admit the facts presented. Many will remain in the class mentioned in Proverbs. To them it is said: “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?"—Proverbs 1: 22.
The League beast will stand in the place of God’s “Holy City’’, or Kingdom. Though this impostor “city" may have papal ‘"blessing”, and be hailed as destined to bring a peace through the ages, it is built and established by blood, and Jehovah says it shall not stand. (Habak-kuk 2:12,13; Micah 3:10) ‘The heathen rage and imagine a vain thing.’ “The king of the south” says, “We will dominate.” “The king of the north” says, “We will dominate.” Jehovah sits in the heavens and laughs. He knows who shall dominate.—Psalm 2. ,
Tormenting the Conquerors
EVER since the Nazis conquered Holland the natives have been forbidden to listen to the Dutch broadcasts from London. But most of them defy the regulation, at the risk of their lives. . . . One Dutch woman, who was recently caught listening to BBC (the British Broadcasting Chain), was arrested. The infuriated Gestapo asked her what explanation she had to offer for her crime of tuning in on the verboten station. . .. “I wanted to hear Hitler speak,” was her calm reply. “Hitler said he was going to speak from London last September and I’m still waiting for him.”
A Hollander placed a wreath on a statue.... After the fellow had departed, the Gestapo agent walked by the statue and, noticing that a card was attached to the wreath, picked it up. On it was written: “To the only man in Holland who.doesn’t listen to BBC!”
During the early days of the Nazi occupation of Paris, whenever German officers entered a cafe, the French patrons would promptly get up and walk out. This so infuriated the conquerors that they issued an edict forbidding ■ Frenchmen to leave a cafe for at least fifteen minutes after the entrance of a German officer. ... After that, whenever a German officer walked into a cafe, the Frenchmen present would reach into their pockets and pull out small alarm clocks, which they set and placed on the table. At the end of fifteen minutes, the alarms would go off all over the place, ( and the Frenchmen would rush for the doors!—Excerpts from Walter Winchell’s column “On Broadway”.
Do Regional Dictatorships Impend?
THE retiring governor of Colorado, Ralph L. Carr, has made the public charge that by July 1 of this year, 1943, a series of regional dictatorships will be established which will regulate the lives of Americans in a way to make them think that all previous attempts in that direction were mere child’s play. It is quite possible that Mr. Carr is correct, and it is also certain that nothing can be done about it. The whole world is going totalitarian. The democracies feel that they must fight the Devil with fire: that they must beat the Fascists and Nazis and the Mikadoists at their own game. So circumstances seem to indicate.
Governor Carr’s statement was made in his farewell message to the Colorado State Legislature on Friday, January 8, 1943. In it he made these disclosures: Surveys are being made over great sections of the country involving people who have little in common beyond the fact that they all breathe the same air and are American citizens. These plans seek to establish an average, educationally, economically and socially, over a series of sections which offer no common basis on which to draw comparisons.
While I am unable to furnish specific details, I know whereof I, speak, and it is my purpose in this last official message to you and the people of Colorado to warn you so that you may prepare. The danger is real. You must do your duty.
If this social planning had for its basis any needed war effort, we should bow and fall into line. But such is not the case. This is social planning which cannot become effective until peace comes. '
/b It Big Business?
The governor did not say whether or not the Big Business crowd are behind the impending dictatorships. They might be. If they are, Americans will'hope that the Anaconda Wire and Cable Company of Marion, Indiana, will not have the drawing up of the final specifications. - This firm had a big order for high-grade wire used in military operations. When the time came to test the product a “button box” was secretly introduced which increased the apparent resistance of the wire to ten times what it actually was.. The result was that Uncle Sam-received wire only one-tenth as strong as it was supposed to be. It was shipped to the Russian front, where it was found to be practically worthless. Are you interested in the Russian front? You should be.
By the way, there is something touch-, ing about the way in which the Big Business crowd stand by one another when their thirst for profits leads them to acts of treason, as in the case of the Anaconda. The men who did this stxuit deserve to be punished every bit as much as did those six Nazi saboteurs who were landed on American shores by submarines and who would have been glad to do work of this kind for the Anaconda company, without making any charge for their services.
But what happened? The Anaconda has so much money that it does not know what to do with it. So it bought big advertising space in the New York Times, New York Herald-Tribune, and New York Journal-American, telling how patriotic and capable it is, and none of these papers had anything to say editorially about one of the worst scandals ever pulled off in America. The editor of In Had says scathingly:
No one can say that the ads were placed to prevent editorials denouncing Anaconda . appearing, or to cause the newspapers to drop the scandal, but it is a fact that: 1, the ads were placed and, 2, the story was dropped and ’ no editorials appeared.
If it is Big Business that is back of the dictatorship scheme, it is probably not the Power Trust: they have been pretty well taken care of. It might be the National Association of Manufacturers, which may be said to begin where the Power Trust left off. The American Federation of Teachers, meeting in Chicago, identified both of these groups as follows:
During the nineteen-twenties the power companies launched a carefully prepared and well-financed campaign to mold the'mind of Ithe American people in support of their 'special interests. By more or less concealed methods they penetrated the various agencies - of education and opinion, including the public schools, colleges and universities. They sought to influence the content of textbooks, the courses of study, and the thought of teachers. This conspiracy against the American people, for such it was, was finally and fully exposed by an exhaustive inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission.
Evidence is accumulating that their discredited pattern of behavior is now being repeated, in whole or in part, by’ another powerful business group. The National Association of Manufacturers is seeking to capture the agencies of education for the purpose of using them in the service of its special interests. It is preparing materials to be used in the schools—books, pamphlets, bibliographies, and even moving pictures—all to be furnished to the educational authorities without cost. It has even sought, already apparently with very considerable success, to form an alliance with teachers and certain teachers’ organizations not altogether familiar with the facts of life. In return, contrary to its well-established tradition, it seemingly has offered to support, the public schools.
The American Federation of Teachers unqualifiedly condemns this second effort within a single generation on the part of organized business to shape the program df the schools and then to impose its peculiar pattern of thought on the young of America.
Could It Be Religion?
Could it be the religious crowd that aims at this regional dictatorship that Governor Carr fears ? It does not seem likely. Still, there is nothing the religious crowd would not do to gain its ends, and there is absolutely no crime they would hesitate to commit. Any group of men such as Judge Martin T. Manton (who peddled justice over the counter, and was responsible for denying bail to Judge Rutherford and his companions in 1918) or such as Gomez, dictator of Venezuela (who took it out on his enemies by resorting to “cuelga”, a polite name for testicular suspension), would do absolutely anything to gain or retain power over their fellows. They were religious. And the men who “honored” them by conferring on them the same degree of papal knighthood are even wrnrse than Manton and Gomez. If you think that this statement is hard on the religious gang, you simply do not know the gang. They have put it over on you the same as they have upon millions of your fellow men.
So the best conclusion is that stated in the first paragraph. If Mr. Carr’s information is correct, it is probably the politicians that have this dictatorship bee in their bonnets. To be sure, if that is the case, they have consulted with Big Business as to the revenues to be obtained and used, and with Big Church as to how to give the whole affair the $ odor of sanctity. But if it goes through, the politicians will find that the Big Church crowd are better politicians than they themselves are: and the upshot will find the Old Lady sitting astride the governments of Colorado and the other states involved, and with her legs crossed across their windpipes like the Old Man of the Sea. If the governor is right, there ought to be something doing soon.
The Vanishing Alesunds
♦ The persons operating the Norwegian government are perturbed over the vanishing inhabitants of Alesund. The fishermen go out with their crafts, but never come back; and, as they are expert navigators, the suspicion is slowly awakening in the minds of the Quisling-ists that they wind up in Britain because they don’t like the government to which they have-fallen victims. Seventy boats have disappeared.
ir
“ThyWorj)
ISlkUTH”
Why Not a “God Man”
THE most precious thing possessed by any creature is life, because without life everything else would be useless and could not be enjoyed. Man with even but a small spark of life clings to that with desperation. It is only when a creature is perfect and enjoying complete life and the right to it that he can properly glorify his great Creator, Jehovah God.
The Creator made the first man, Adam, in His own image and likeness. ITe created him perfect; for all the works of Jehovah 'are perfect, says Deuteronomy 32: 4. He gave to man life and the right to life. Life means conscious existence ; right to life means the full authori-> ty to maintain existence. Adam and his wife Eve in Eden were perfect in their bodies, without pain, without sorrows; and were beautiful creatures. They had not a sear nor a mark upon them anywhere. They enjoyed life and all blessings incident to it. Their home was perfect ; and even all the animals and birds of Eden were subject to them, and they had absolute dominion and control under God. God gave them all these privileges to enjoy eternally, upon one expressed condition, namely, that they be obedient to His lawT and thereby honor Him. He informed man that a violation of this law would bring upon him loss of life, loss of the right to life, and loss of all blessings enjoyed in life. •<
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and the divine sentence of death ‘was passed upon them, it had ah indirect * effect upon their offspring. Before he was driven from Eden, and yet had the right to life, he and Eve had not exercised the authority given to them by Jehovah to beget children on the earth. Only after being driven from Eden did they exercise this. They being now under the death sentence and undergoing that death penalty, it was impossible for their children, born under such conditions, to come into existence perfect. When the children were born, while they had a measure of life and the privileges accompanying that measure of life, they would have no right to life everlasting, because Adam had forfeited that for himself, and could not bring children into the world who would have greater right than he, their father, had. Hence it would take another perfect man, possessed fully of that which Adam had forfeited for his offspring, to redeem and recover that for them. Eor this reason the heavenly Son of God was “made flesh'’, a perfect man.
Religionists insist that Jesus, when on earth, was both God and man in completeness. Some have been induced to believe that should they say that Jesus when on earth w'as a man, and not God Almighty himself, such would be a dishonor to God. For our own understanding of the truth we should not permit ourselves to be beguiled or misled by sophistry or theories, but should follow the plain teachings of the Bible and then reach a conclusion in the light of that revealed Word after a full examination.
The Scripture record as already pre-' sented in this magazine concerning Jesus’ prehuman existence, His being conceived in a virgin’s womb, and His birth, entirely disproves the theory that He was incarnated and that hence He was both a spirit and a human at the same time. Scriptures cited in a previous issue show that Jesus was conceived in the womb of a Jewess, Mary, by God’s holy spirit or almighty power; that thereafter He was born in the same general manner that other children are born of a woman; and that He grew to manhood’s estate and increased in wis-
dom and stature and in favor with God and man. (See Luke 2:9-11, 40, 52.) None of these things would have been necessary if He had been merely an incarnated * person, a spirit inhabiting a body of flesh. The Bible records case after case where holy angels, who are spirit creatures, materialized human bodies instantly to appear in a form endurable to man’s vision, and those angels were thus for the time of appearance incarnated or clothed with flesh.
But when the Son of God was “made flesh”, as stated at John 1:14, it was a different matter or procedure, because it was not an incarnation. Until He was thirty years of age Jesus worked at the carpenter trade, at which age He began His ministry of announcing God’s kingdom. First, however, He went to John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan river. Immediately after thus symbolizing His consecration to God He spent forty days and nights in the wilderness, fasting and studying Jehovah’s purpose, and He got hungry, which would not have been the case were His human body a mere clothing over of His unseen spirit self. (Luke 3:21-23; 4:1-14) If He had been God incarnate, as religionists unscripturally claim, then this experience of fasting and study in the wilderness would have been wholly unnecessary.
Jesus up till then was not an angel or a spirit person; because there is the positive statement of the apostle to the effect that “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels”; and the apostle there applies to the man Jesus the prophecy of Psalm Eight. (Hebrews 2: 9) The apostle did not say that only as to His flesh was Jesus then lower than the angels. He goes on to speak about the children of Abraham, and then, at Hebrews 2:14, he says concerning Jesus: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.”
At 2 Corinthians 8:9 the apostle further states that Jesus was at one time rich in heavenly power and glory but became poor for the sake of fulfilling God’s will concerning humankind by taking upon himself the nature of man, becoming^ a real man. At Philippians 2: 6-8 it is written of Him: “Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.” (American Revised Version) Note further how the apostle, writing under divine inspiration, speaks of Jesus as a man, and not as a “God man”: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” “The first‘man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15: 21,47) “There is . . . one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom.”—1 Timothy 2:5, 6.
Had Jesus been merely an incarnated person it would not have been necessary for Him to be born as a babe and grow to manhood’s estate. While He was born of an imperfect Jewish woman, yet He was without sin, because His life was from His heavenly Father, Jehovah God; for He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners”. (Hebrews 7: 26) “He was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.” (1 John 3:5) He was without spot or blemish; therefore perfect and holy, as stated at 1 Peter 1:19 and Hebrews 9:14.
Had he not become a man as perfect as was Adam when created at Eden, there would have been no corresponding price to serve as a ransom to buy back that which Adam forfeited by sin and rebellion. There would have been no hope for any of the human race to get life through Christ Jesus. At Acts 4:12 the apostle Peter declares that there is no other name given under heaven whereby mankind can live. ,
Protective Wall Holds—in Some Places
LIKE a rising flood, world events have swept through the year 1942 in the most devastating and sustained assault upon the rights of man ever recorded in the annals of human history. Hundreds and thousands of Americans—Jehovah’s witnesses—with the protective constitutional wall dynamited by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Gobitis flag-salute case of 1940, and further blasted by the 5-to-4 decision in the notorious Jones v. Opelika licensetax opinion of June 8, 1942, saw their cherished liberties engulfed, stifled and drowned in the onrushing tide of totalitarianism, in many cases with approval of officials.
In the teeth of this sweeping tide, some judicial officers in lower state courts in two parts of the country have recently manifested their honesty and integrity and boldly refused to wash out the liberties of the people by following these mandates laid down by the Su, preme Court. A brief consideration of ** the unusual facts in these two cases is now of great interest to those who are watching the crumbling of the old world government even while it is rising to its zenith of power in the earth.
On November 13, 1942, in the town of Virginia, Minnesota, five youngsters firmly carrying into effect their covenant of obedience to the law of Jehovah God were expelled from school because of their refusal to participate in compulsory flag-salute exercises originated by the local school board and sustained by a lengthy “opinion” by the assistant attorney general of the state, who relied on the Gobitis decision as the highest law governing the matter, notwithstanding Exodus 20: 3-5 to the contrary. The ease then came on for a hearing before the six members of the local boat’d of edur eation, two of whom had previously voiced their dissent from the majority action in the expulsion of the children. After listening to an oral Theocratic protest for one hour and a half, another vote was taken and it was found that the board was hopelessly deadlocked with a vote of 3 to 3.
To extricate themselves from the tangle, which by this time was drawing considerable attention from the public, the school board resorted to the unusual remedy of instituting a legal proceeding against themselves in the local District Court, to enjoin and restrain the enforcement of the compulsory flagsalute regulation which they had adopted and applied. The school board’s attorney generously and fairly presented the argument of both sides of the controversy to the court without charge to the parents of the children, his fees being paid by the school board.
This unusual circumstance strikes us as being an instance of fair play by the school board, and one which hundreds of other school boards could profitably follow in settling controversies of this sort. In this-manner, the issues were' calmly and properly laid before a judicial officer, one who is highly skilled and trained under the law to determine just such matters. How definitely superior is this method of getting the case before the court when compared with the procedure used in many cases throughout the country where the parents and children have been criminally prosecuted for the inability of the children to attend school as required by the compulsory school laws I '
Circumventing the usual lower-court litigation the case was tried before Martin Hughes, judge of the District Court of the Eleventh Judicial District of the State of Minnesota, who, under date of December 12,1942, handed down his well-worded and brave opinion commanding that the officials of the Virginia public schools be forever enjoined and stopped from making compulsory, by pain of expulsion, the flag-salute rule.
The clear reasoning which characterized the opinion is evident in his words:
The pledge, if it means anything, must -come from the heart, without mental reservation. A pledge given by one who feels that while taking part in the form in which it is । given he is violating his own conscience does 4 not add any respect to the flag nor increase any devotion to it.
Highly significant and of great importance now, when, for the first time since the Gobitis opinion in 1940, the flag-salute issue is pending before the United States Supreme Court in the Barnette case from West Virginia, is the treatment of the law in this case. Brushing aside with a few broad strokes the hairsplitting and admittedly “wrongly decided" opinion of the Supreme Court, Judge Hughes said:
It may seem somewhat peculiar that those who rely upon the Constitution for the guarantee of the protection of their rights as to religious liberty should refuse to give the pledge of allegiance in the required form to the flag of the country which symbolizes all the Constitution embraces, but it is not for the court to pass upon the question as to whether their actions are peculiar or not. It is not for the court to pass upon the question as to whether their belief that giving the pledge of allegiance to the flag as required is violative of conscience is reasonable or unreasonable. So long as they are conscientious in their belief and such belief is not inconsistent with sound morality, it is the duty of the court to protect them in the full enjoyment of their rights. If courts should indulge in the question as to whether a person’s belief is reasonable or not, depending upon the view of the judge before whom the matter was pending, then we would have reached the end of religious freedom. There is no persecution more galling nor which wounds more deeply than does religious persecution. A conscientious person feels that any unwarranted interference with his right to worship God in his own way is the kind of wrong which is hardest for him to bear.
There is no question raised here as to the plaintiffs being law-abiding citizens. There is no claim that by their refusal to permit their children to give the pledge of allegiance to the flag in the form required they are intentionally showing any disrespect for the flag.
Expressing an opinion under the Congressional limitation and regulation regarding respect to the flag, Judge Flannery, of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, in the very recent case of Commonwealth v. Nemckik, said:
... it might be well to call attention to the Act of Congress, of June 22, 1942, Public No. 623, 77th Congress, 2d Session, by which that body codified the rules and customs regarding the use of and respect due the flag of the United States, Section 7 of that Act recites the pledge of allegiance to the flag and describes the accompanying gesture of salute, but significantly notes that full respect for the flag may be shown by civilians when the pledge is given by merely standing at attention [men removing the headdress].... [Bracketed words added]
The Department of Justice of the United States, through its Civil Rights Section, calls attention to this provision in question such as the one before us and indeed there is doubt whether any local regulation, ordinance, or statute prescribing a different salute as a measure of respect for the flag can be enforced. [Italics added]
Construction of this statute under the applicable parts of the United States Constitution now squarely confronts the Supreme Court; and all persons await with keen interest that court’s ruling on the matter. .
Equally courageous and important is the opinion of E. H. Henderson, presiding judge of the Ninth Circuit Court of General Sessions of South Carolina, who had before him a criminal prosecution against a Christian woman who was charged with the heinous deed of “donating” publications explaining God’s Word to the people, and at the same time securing rooming accommodations for conventioners who would attend the branch New World Theocratic Assembly, at Charleston, South Carolina.
Judge Henderson stated the facts:
The defendant is a member of a religious group known as Jehovah’s witnesses. The City’s direct testimony failed to show that an actual sale of pamphlets was made, as all four of the City’s witnesses stated that they refused to buy them. It does appear, however, that the defendant went from house to house and offered to sell for ten cents three pamphlets printed by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, and that if the persons vrere not willing to pay for them, in order to propagate her religious teachings she donated one of the booklets to anyone who was interested and wished to receive it. She did not have a license from the city. Contributions were received from other people, the Defendant stated. She testified that she is a minister of the Gospel. She said that, at the time of her arrest, she was engaged in her calling as a minister, and that she was not pursuing any commercial work; that the purpose of asking for contributions was not for personal profit to herself; and that she did not receive any part of which she collected. The contributions were sent to the Watch Tower Society so that more literature could be printed; that she supports herself from her own resources, from a farm owned by her; that she does this work in order to get the message to the people and not for any commercial purpose. She also told those upon whom she called that a convention was to be held in the city, and asked them for rooms to take care of the visitors; and she invited them to the convention.
Refusing to be made an accessory to the further sabotaging of the Constitution and fundamental rights of the people, Judge Henderson observed that although the Charleston ordinance was similar to those sustained in the cities of Opelika, Fort Smith, and Casa Grande, in his “opinion, the Judge of the Police Court should have directed a verdict of ‘not guilty’. .. ” . '
Courageously overruling apd reversing the holding of the five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Jones v.
Opelika case, who blundered on the basic assumption of their opinion that they regarded the work of Jehovah’s witnesses “as partaking more of commercial than religious or educational transactions”, Judge Henderson said: ,
In my opinion the Defendant was not engaged in the trade, business or profession of a dealer in books or other goods within the meaning of the ordinance. Her activity in selling or offering for sale religious books and pamphlets did not make her such a peddler as is referred to in the ordinance. The offering for sale of books and pamphlets setting forth her views of the Bible was merely incidental to the furtherance of her religious beliefs and her purpose of evangelization. Her work in the dissemination of religious teachings was not a business calling. Under the facts here, it was wholly unrelated to any commercial purpose. The collection of funds by her for the propagation of religion was a non-profit activity.
I do not think that the acts done by the Defendant were within the purview of the occupational license tax ordinance.
It is indeed strange and significant that, for the first time in the history of the American judicial system, the lower courts have so boldly refused to follow the precedents laid down by the United States Supreme Court, while that court • itself displays hesitating and uncertain judgment in the application of the fundamental laws. But these things occasion no surprise or cause for concern to those persons who view the matter in the light of God’s, Word, which says with absolute verity: “And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.”—1 Corinthians 1:28.
This does not mean that the things “which are despised”—Jehovah’s witnesses—themselves will accomplish this, but it is clear proof that Jehovah, by Christ Jesus, will guide His people according to His purposes.
These decisions should now be a
forceful answer to those who often charge that Jehovah’s witnesses are “slackers”, demanding the ben etits of the constitutional form of government and ‘then refusing to do anything to protect it. Let such ones take notice of the fact s that these tw’o cases are signal victories *1 in defense of the “four freedoms”, and 4 a summary defeat of the forces against the “four freedoms”. Against what appeared to be insurmountable odds in the form of adverse rulings of the United States Supreme Court, they pushed determinedly ahead in the service of their King, Christ Jesus, valiantly fighting the same issues through the courts time after time at their own expense in the strength of Jehovah God and His beloved Son. Enduring abuse, imprisonment, expense, and many other hardships, Jehovah’s witnesses, pursuant to their determination to preach the gospel of Jehovah’s kingdom in all the world for a witness, have admittedly taken the lead in the fight against the stealthy advance of the demonistic forces of the authoritarian conspirators. Hence these witnesses form the fighting front protecting the most vulnerable spot in America’s resistance to dictatorship.
No reasonable, informed person can deny that fact.
Many persons labor under the mistaken idea that, once the Supremo Court of the United States compromises away a freedom guaranteed under the United States Constitution, no successful resistance may thereafter be made against encroachment on that freedom; but the freedom-loving people and judges take w'ith little grace any invasion of these rights and find ways and means to avoid the decrees of the high court of the land.
Whether the other state courts wall likewise stand solidly by their respective constitutions rests with the officials of the several states. Whether the United States Supreme Court w’ill retract its hasty decision on the flag-salute and license-tax matters and preserve the dignity and profound goodness of the United States Constitution, rests with the court.
Motion for rehearing has been granted in the license-tax decision of June 8, 1942, and these cases, as well as the new flag case, have been argued in the United States Supreme Court. The decisions are awaited wTith great interest by all lovers of liberty.
‘Greater Things Shall Ye Do’
THIS same Jesus, who opened the eyes of'the blind, healed the lepers and raised the dead, said to His followers, ‘Greater things shall ye do.’ Obviously, He must have had in mind the work, on a far greater and more extensive scale, of opening the eyes of those spiritually blind, comforting those that mourn, and lifting up to a new plane those that are dea$ in trespasses and sins.
The experiences published from time to time in this magazine disclose that Jehovah’s witnesses today, in the very presence of their enemies, are having Jesus’ promises fulfilled in their behalf. These would be the very first to acknowledge that they are nothing in themselves, but that the power of Jehovah is manifested through them to the praise of His name, because they know’ of The Theocracy, are loyal to it, and sing its praises at every opportunity. It is with real pleasure that there is set out below two experiences of one of the witnesses, granted to him because he is alive to every opportunity to ‘let his light so shine before men that they may glorify his Father who is in heaven’:
Have you ever had the thrill of witnessing to a group of blind people—I mean physically blind—and seen their faces light up with delight? Well, it was this writer’s experience.
There are two factories in Brooklyn operated by the blind to semiblind, excepting the foremen. These factories are working on defense jobs, such as sewing pillow cases and towels for the army and navy.
I introduced myself as from the Watchtower, and always wishing to learn how a blind person can operate a machine. I had read of such factories in the papers. I asked the foreman if he would be willing to show me through the factory. He said he would be glad to do so. It was a two-story building, with the two floors accommodating about sixty blind but busy workers. It was really amazing to see these blind folks running sowing machines, measuring and cutting towels, sheets and pillow eases, all by touch, and with real speed and efficiency.
After looking the place over, I explained to the Catholic foreman that I had something that would be of great comfort to these blind people so diligently toiling away at their tasks. In order that he might know what it is all about, I put the phonograph on the table arid played “Comfort” and “Children”. He was quite impressed by what he heard, took the book Children, and. permitted me to play the records to the workers also and to witness to them as they left the factory.
It was a real joy to tell these patient, industrious, capable blind workers the good news of The Theocracy, the only government that can ever give them back their physical and mental sight. Many thanked me and accepted some literature which some one in their family can read for them. One of these blind workers told me that he attends one of the Watchtower studies in Jamaica, New York. •
Not long after this experience with the blind, someone sent me an invitation to speak at a Communist rally in New York city. Thinking that it would be a good opportunity to practice the lessons learned in our • Theocratic School, I accepted it and was scheduled to be one of the first speakers in a free discussion night on topics related to postwar conditions and what will be the best government, democracy or communism, and which government will gain the predominance.
It was my privilege to point tb the indisputable facts that for six thousand years honest men have tried to govern themselves and to establish a righteous government that would, bring lasting blessings to man, and that all must admit that such attempts have been a failure. All kinds of different forms of government have been tried, monarchy, democracy, and, now of late, Communism, Fascism, Nazism, etc., with the result that the world is filled with jealousies, mistrust, hatred, wars and distress as never before.
I explained that the worst form of government that man can erect is a religio-totali-tarian form; that we need only to look at Germany to see the results of that kind of government; that the best form of government devised by men has been and is democracy; but that even democracy cannot bring unending life and peace, which man so desires, nor can it vindicate Jehovah’s name.
I drew their attention to the fact that the great need is for a central government, so strong, so just and so wise that all honest people can look up to it with respect and obedience; that it should embrace the whole earth; and that such a government not only is coming, but is already here; that such a government is the divinely-provided postwar Government, not only for America, but for all other nations as well; and that it will supplant all other forms of government, because it is righteous, because it is just, because it is heavenly, from Jehovah God through Christ Jesus, earth’s rightful King, —The Theocracy, man’s only hope.
Immediately there was general applause, and all the other speakers following me on the program became so enthusiastic over what I had said that instead of speaking about Communism and the postwar conditions from any human standpoint, they all spoke about Jehovah’s witnesses, about Jehovah God, and wondered why Jehovah God did not stop this war and why He had not established His righteous government long ago. These questions were also answered. Thus in what had been intended to be a secular assembly, the name of Jehovah God, the great Provider for humankind, was made known in such a manner that the chairman closed the meeting by remarking that it was a blessed evening. The Lord is certainly giving us privileges and we must be on the alert to grasp them all to His praise.—A. Insberg, New York.
Gas rationing does not stop Jehovah's witnesses^
They Get There Just the Same
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES have good news for the people of good-will toward God and their fellow man. That good news Jehovah’s witnesses do not keep to themselves. Gas rationing and other obstacles may inconvenience, but they do not stop Jehovah’s witnesses from carrying on their work. They get there just the same. See here examples of some ways of solving transportation problems. (1) A youthful pioneer worker in Bay City, Texas, advertising The Theocracy by every means in his power, his bicycle ornamented with texts of Scripture, such as “We ought to obey God rather than men.” (2).Also Bay City, (3) An undaunted worker of Centerville, Calif. (4) Carrying their literature in baskets in the county whence cometh Worcestershire sauce. England. -(5)Bringers of eonsolatioit>at Weston super Mare, England. The one on the left was raised in a convent. (6) A wagon will do. This was somewhere out west. (7) Off t6 the field at Napoleonville, La. (8, 9) Frank and Roy McCluskey, Arkansas, go well supplied with food for thought. .
Some Facts About Ancient and Modern Yucatan
IN A previous issue consideration was given to the ancient civilization that existed in Mexico before the white man appeared and which he was instrumental iji destroying. Yucatan, a peninsula in the extreme southeastern part of Mexico, housed a civilization and culture which were in some respects even more remarkable, the Mayan.
Yucatan includes the Mexican states of Campeche and Yucatan and the territory of Quintana Roo, and also takes in British Honduras and a part of the Gnatamalan republic. It is mainly composed of tableland, but it is not sufficiently elevated to moderate the hot climate of the region. While there is deficient rainfall, the climate is comparatively healthful, although yellow fever occurs periodically. Yucatan must at one time have been very fertile, supporting as it did a thriving civilization with cities of great size and splendor. There are remains of great numbers of towns and cities, temples and palaces, that testify to the forgotten glories of theipast. Many of these are found in the desolate region in the north of the peninsula. Much of the country is now a wilderness! The Maya peoples who were the builders of the ancient civilization still comprise five-sixths of the present population of the territory.
The Spaniards are not responsible for all the ruins found in Yucatan. Many of the great cities and tenipks were already forsaken and their historian but forgotten when they came. A vawTmvstery surrounds them, however eagerly-^ the historians and archeologists may search what remains and compare it with the half-mythical tales of the inhabitants, of whom there are some 500,000.
Uxrnal, a great ruin, about sixty miles southwest of Merida, has remains of temples, cyclopean terraces, and other evidences of grandeur. They are said to date from what archeologists are pleased to call the “Stone Age”, and are evidently extremely ancient and impressive.
The Mayas were the ruling < race of Yucatan at the time of the Spanish conquest, and had been such for a long time. Their origin is still a mystery, although they are believed to have come into Yucatan from two different directions, a part coining from the Gulf of Mexico, and the remainder, probably a different race, from the west or southwest. Which one of these came first is not certain, but the traditions tell that the firstcomers were led by the “great hero” Zanma, or Itzamna, who was subsequently made a god, very much like Nimrod of old, but less culpably, for Zamna was an educator and governor of considerable merit. Not knowing the true God, 1 Jehovah, he did the best he could with 4 what light he had, aided by the knowledge that comes from the observation of “the things that are made”. It seems, too, that Zamna combined in his own person both the offices of king and priest, being the ecclesiastical as well as the civil ruler. He lived to a venerable old age and his long rule contributed to the great respect the people had for him. When he died the Mayas were in secure possession -of their “Canaan” and had extended their culture throughout the peninsula. They lived in close social and commercial contact with the other cultured peoples of the region, the Chiapas, Hondurans, and Guatemalans, having similar customs, language and religion.
Then came an invasion by foreigners from the north, headed, according to tradition, by Quetzalcoatl, of whom mention is made in the accounts of the Mexico of Ipng ago. Apparently the newcomers were Toltecs in religion and they had ’ come to stay, living on sufficiently friendly terms with the original inhabitants for the two races to carry on together. The architecture of the buildings throughout Yucatan indicates that there were two different peoples living there in harmony with the traditions, and that they spoke similar languages, if not the same language.
The Builders of Yucatan
AIT of the peoples living in Yucatan were great builders, as has been suggested by the fact of the numerous ruins of cities that remain. When the Spaniards came early in the sixteenth century the two peoples had become one, and were called the Mayas, or Itza.
Before this unification took place, however, there was recurrent warfare and rivalry. For a time Uxmal was the greatest, mightiest and wealthiest city in Yucatan, as well as the most artistic. It was famous throughout the neighboring tribes and also those afar off. But it ■was ultimately overthrown and another city came into prominence, namely, Mayapan. Mayapan had enjoyed a great measure of distinction as having been founded by the great Zamna. He had divided the Maya kingdom among his chiefs, and their descendants formed the nobility of Yucatan for many a year. In later times the highest nobles, called the Tutul Xiu, became the ruling power under a sovereign, selected from their own number. Still later the coming of the Toltecs brought Mayapan under their control, introduced a new worship, and brought about a sort of confederacy with the rulers of Mayapan and Chichen Itza, representing another people.
The Ruins of Mayapan
If this account seems more or less vague it is because no clear record of the times now exists. Many of the ancient records were destroyed by the conquering Spaniards. When you conquer a people it is just as well, according to the ‘morality’ of the conquerors, to destroy their records, so that afterward you can lie about them more effectively. The Spaniards were following the Boman pattern, meaning particularly ecclesiastical Hierarchical Rome-
But that is getting ahead of our story. Returning now to Mayapan, which, according to some records, was destroyed by Uxmal, and, according to others, destroyed Uxmal. One fact now is certain: these great cities are both but ruins. Mayapan flourished for “several centuries”, according to some chronologists, was once destroyed, apparently by Uxmal, and subsequently rebuilt.
The ruins of Mayapan, about 25 miles south of the present city of Merida, bear out the traditional story that this capital of the Mayas was entirely overthrown. Little of its past sumptuousness remains. It cannot quite be said that not one stone was left upon another. Some badly ruined buildings still stand; others are‘covered with dust. Many terraces, pyramids and mounds, huge quantities of hewn stone and sculptured building blocks, are found scattered over a wide expanse of territory, testifying to the great size of a once great city in a land ■ of which neither Europeans nor Asiatics had any knowledge. The ruins indicate that the city was some three miles in diameter, surrounded by a wall remarkably thick and high.
Many bloody wars raged against and around the city, and it was finally conquered, its wall razed, and its buildings mostly overthrown a hundred years before the Spaniards arrived.
One of the cities of ancient Yucatan whose ruins are fairly well preserved is Chiehen Itza. The name means “At the mouth of the well of the Itza”. It was this overflowing well that determined the site of the city. At first it was but a tribal settlement, but it grew to be a great city. It became a center of Itza learning as well as an important commercial town, extending its business connections with other cities and nations to Central America and southern Mexico. Great paved roads led from Chichen Itza to Campeche, Chiapas, and Guatemala. It was the Borne of ancient Yucatan, and, like its greater counterpart in Europe, it could be said of this ancient American metropolis that all roads led to Chichen Itza. It was the “holy city” of the Mayas, or Itzas, and exercised a very powerful religious influence over the surrounding countries as well as over the Yucatecs. But today Chichen Itza is only a ruin and a memory, an all-but-forgotten dream of past glory.
Modern Yucatan
Today Yucatan is dotted with a variety of towns and villages, some modern, others still clinging to the bonds of the past. Merida, already referred to, is the large urban center of the peninsula, and the capital of the state of Yucatan. It was founded in 1542, built on a plain. It has railway connections with all important points on the peninsula and Mexico itself. Steamers sail from its port, Progreso, twenty-five niiles away, to Vera Cruz, New York, and other great ports. Merida lies in a district almost entirely devoted to the prbdae^i^n. of sisal hemp, which is exported in eri&r-mous quantities. Hides, chicle, sugar' and indigo are also exported.
The first Spanish house built in the city is the municipal palace called the Casa del Conquistador Montejo. There is, of course, also a cathedral, as well as an asylum for maniacs. The population (of the city, not the asylum) is about 80,000. The streets are asphalt-paved, and the Banco Yucateca has a capital of $8,000,000, and the Banco Mer-cantil de Yucatan a capital of $6,000,000. All this seems a far cry from what was ancient Yucatan. But the difference is not as great.,as it may appear to be. It is only the externals and the details that have changed.'Mjjndamentally it is still a civilization of religion, politics and commerce—that is, if thewelter of poverty and wealth, ease and labor, sickness, warfare, death, and all the other-heterogeneous elements can be called- ■ civilization. Are the Yucatecs better off today than they were half a millenium ago, before the white man appeared! It is doubtful. Are they the worse for the coming of the Spaniard! That, too, is doubtful. They have a little more knowledge along some lines, less along others^ They may now pray to Mary, the “mother of God”, instead of to Zamna or Quetzalcoatl, with equal intelligence or with less; for intelligence is not encouraged among the lowly subjects of Hierarchical Rome, whether in Italy, the land of the popes, or in Yucatan, the land of the ancient Maya civilization.
Modernity is also in evidence at Dzitas, important railroad junction of Yucatan. It is not as modern, perhaps, as the richer city of Merida, nor as thoroughly Spanish, There is more Indian influence, less sophistication, but enough religion and too much.
Then there is Chan Kom, just a goodsized peasant town, not connected with any railroad, and which is ail example of the less progressive centers of population, It knows relatively little of what is going on in the outside world.
As an example of a thoroughly ancient and Indian place, Tusik may be mentioned. It has as little as possible to do with modern ways and thought, including the government which operates from Mexico city. It wants to be let alone, to live with the past rather than the pres-• ent. Yet the ruins of the past surround modern Merida, a startling contrast being presented between its throbbing life and the silence of the dead past as represented in half-buried Mayapan only twenty-five miles to the south.
Pictures of the modern Yueatecs show us a people of intelligence, with pensive looks that seem still to meditate on the past. It is not difficult to believe that this people in the days of long ago were the builders of a magnificent civilization, one that vied with the civilizations of Babylonia and Egypt, of Europe and of Asia, for its attainments along many lines. It had a highly developed and intricate calendar system and entirely unique chronology. Some call the Mayas the Egyptians of the new world—America. They were in many respects like the Egyptians, including their pyramidal monuments, their serpent symbols, and their grain-raising agriculture. Yet this powerful and amazing civilization was destroyed by another that was its inferior in at least some respects. The chief reason for its destruction was internal strife. Civil war that continued over a considerable period of time weakened the power and tarnished the splendor of the Maya civilization. The Spaniards merely completed what had already been so effectually started by civil war.
r THE “SWORD OF THE SPIRIT”
t The “sword of the spirit” is God’s Word, the BIBLE; an essential ' possession of every person. To aid you in obtaining your copy of the HOLY BIBLE, the Watchtower Society is extending to you a special offer during May, namely:
The Watchtower edition of the BIBLE, and the 384-page clothbound book THE NEW WORLD, will be mailed to you, postage prepaid, upon your contribution of $1.00.
This edition of the BIBLE is handsomely bound in a flexible maroon leatherette cover, embossed in gold, and is by 5 by If inches in size. The BIBLE text is that of the popular King James Version, unchanged, and printed in minion type on thin Bible paper, with handy marginal references, and maps. Among other features, it contains an extensive list of BIBLE names, expressions, and their meanings, together with a 59-page concordance. Such features make it excellent for private study. Send during May for your copy. Use coupon below.
WATCHTOWER 117 Adams St. Brooklyn, N. Y.
Please send me the Watchtower Edition of the BIBLE and the book The New World, for which I enclose my contribution of $1.00.
Name ..................................-............-................. Street..................................................................
City ............................................................-......... State .................................................................
Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”
Parts of Speech and Their Use
ARE parts of speech some of the higher learning to be shunned? Is it the excellency of speech Paul avoided? Is it the thing of which Peter and John were unlearned and ignorant? No. Correct speech is not what Paul avoided, but rather eloquence and oratory and high-sounding phrases were shunned. He didn’t use the classical Greek, but the common. Peter and John were ignorant in the dead Hebrew language, but not in the Greek tongue used in gospelpreaching. Their writings in Greek are grammatically correct; so also are the Hebrew scriptures. The Lord’s channel to instruct the people now, the Watchtower publications, uses correct English. We would hesitate to present them to the people if their pages were filled with grammatical errors. Good English becomes the gospel message.
Ungrammatical expressions, like mispronunciations, detract from the speaker’s message. Some speak by “ear”, thinking that if to them their speech sounds right it is correct. Not necessarily so. Their ear may not be properly trained. The speech their ear is accustomed to hearing habitually sounds right to them, though it may be actually incorrect. We must recognize error as such by our knowledge of parts of speech.
One often hears expressions similar to the following: He don’t appreciate his service privileges. They arrested witness Smith and I for preaching the gospel. Who do you serve? Each one of the witnesses have gone to their assignments. I feel badly. All of these contain errors that might be easily avoided by having a knowledge of parts of speech.
Two of these sentences contain errors in number. One of the rules concerning verbs is that they must agree1 m number with their subjects. The use of Jie don’t is very common, yet it is incorrect. Don’t is a contraction of do not. Do is plural, and he is singular. One would not say he do not, but he does not, or, he doesn’t appreciate his service privileges. Another error in number was the statement, “Each one of the witnesses hav6 gone to their assignments.” Each one is singular, and takes the singular verb, has, not the plural, have. Also the possessive pronoun (here wrongly their) should agree in number with its antecedent, the singular each one. The singular possessive pronoun his should be substituted for the plural their. The sentence would correctly read; “Each one of the witnesses has gone to his assignment.” An error in number of pronoun was made by the translators of the Bible, at Philippians 2:3; “Let each esteem other better than themselves.” “Himself,” not “themselves”, should be used, since “each” is singular. A similar error is found at Exodus 21:33, 34: “If a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his.” It is the ox on ass, singular, that falls in the pit, not both. Therefore, to refer back to the one animal victim the singular pronoun it should be used instead of the plural them; that is, “The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of it.”
Then there is the matter of case. Two of the examples erred in its use. Pronouns, depending upon their use in the sentence, are in one of three cases— nominative, possessive, or objective. The personal pronoun in the first person singular, for example: I is nominative, my is possessive, and me is in the objective case. The sentence given, “They arrested witness Smith and I for preaching the gospel,” has an error in case commonly made. Witness Smith and I are both the object of the verb arrested, and the pronoun should therefore be in the objective case. One would not say, They arrested I, -but .me. So “They
arrested witness Smith and me” is correct. In the example, “Who do you serve?” whom (the objective case form), not who, should be 'used. Whom is the object of the verb' serve. You serve Him, meaning Jehovah. Him is the objective case of fee. One wouldn’t say “you serve he”. He is in the nominative ease, the same as who is in the nominative ease. So “Whom do you serve?” is correct. Matthew 16:15 errs in case: “Whom say ye that I am?” It should be who. I am who? I am he, nominative case, not I am him or I am whom, which are in the objective case. The A. R. V. has it correct, using who.
Now for the last example mentioned. “I feel badly,” If you intend to say you do not feel in good health, that you are indisposed, then to say “I feel badly” is wrong. Badly is an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, not pronouns; so here the adverb badly would refer to the verb ’ feel and not to the pronoun I. Adverbs show manner, not condition. Therefore to say “I feel badly” one actually is saying that his manner of feeling, that is his sense of touch, is defective. Now, adjectives describe condition and modify pronouns; so if you want the ‘bad’ to refer to you, describing the condition of your health, use the adjective form, bad, not the adverb badly. Say “I feel bad”. Many persons confuse adjectives and adverbs, adding ly when it is not needed and omitting it when it is required. A knowledge of parts of speech would easily settle the matter for them. Genesis 40: 7 so errs: “He asked Pharaoh’s officers that were with him in the ward of hi? lord’s house, saying, Wherefore look , yet so sadly to day?” It was not their mariner of looking that was sad, as would be indicated by using the adverb sadly to modify the verb look, but they were sad. To Joseph the looks or appearance of these men was one of being sad. The men were sad. One wouldn’t say, “they were sadly.” The A, R. V. correctly says, “WhefefbreJoek-ye so-agdjtp-day^k using the adjective form stid to -modify and describe the pronoun ^e”. So, from these few examples it may be seen how a knowledge of parts of speech will enable one to form correct speech habits; and, once they are formed, one will not have to stop and analyze his speech so frequently thereafter.
If correctness1 of speech were all that this knowledge accomplished, that would be enough,to justify its careful study. But note these additional advantages: It helps iigtinderstanding, in pronunciation, in using the dictionary and new words, in writing, and in Bible study.
To explain briefly: In understanding: These eight parts of speech are words; these words are used by others in speaking and writing. The Watchtower has used them occasionally when explaining the use of a word in a Scripture text. Consolation has also used them. On page 75 the book Preparation refers to a part of speech, the preposition. To appreciate and understand the point these publications are making in such instances, one must know the meaning of these words (that is, nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.) that they are using. In pronunciation: We read in Genesis 27:33; “Isaac trembled very exceedingly, and said, Who? where is he that hath taken venison, and brought it me, and I have eaten of all before thou earnest, and 7have blessed him? yea, and he shall be blessed." Now, why are these two words, both spelled the same, pronounced differently? Because when it is a verb it is pronounced ‘blest’, and when an adjective it is ‘bless-ed’. In “have blessed him” it is a verb, in “he shall be blessed” it is an adjective, describing the condition of “he”. Other similar words are cursed and curs-ed, pre-sent and present, prec-e-dent and pre-ce'-derit. Knowing which parts of speech these words and many others are will enable one to pronounce^hem correctly. In using the dictionary-^ and new words: After the -dictionary lists a word it gives the vari-
ous parts of speech that word may be; and knowing how these parts of speech are correctly used, one is able to use the word correctly even though it be new to him. In writing: To illustrate this, note the expression hook up. Should it be written as one word or as two words? It all depends on the part of speech as used in the sentence. If one says the Nazis and the Hierarchy hook up with each other to gain world domination, it is two words. Why? Because hook is here used as a verb, and up as an adverb; and hence they must be written as the two words they are. The dictionary shows hook to be a verb or a noun, but hookup (one word) is shown as only a noun, and not a verb. If one were to say that the hookup of the Nazi-Hier-archy gangsters is an unholy alliance, he would write hookup as one word, since it is there used as a noun. Last, in Bible study: This is particularly noteworthy in the use of exhaustive concordances. The introductory matter in Young’s mentions relative and personal pronouns, verbs, nouns, conjunctions, and adjectives. Many other related matters on grammar are discussed. To get the full advantage of Young’s one must understand all these things. Let us examine Gruden’s for a moment. In listing words, Gruden’s often groups texts containing Reword according to the part of speech that word is in the various texts. For example, scriptures under. “fast” are divided into three sections, listing separately texts where fast is used as a noun, as a verb, and as an adverb. (Gruden’s uses the term “substantive” instead of “noun”, a substantive being a noun or a word used as a noun.) If one wishes to find the text “Is it such a fast that I have chosen?” where will one look? If one recognizes fast h&re used as a noun, or substantive, one will immediately look under that grouping, and save time. If searching for “When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance”, look under the verb grouping of the word “fast”. Of if one desires to locate the text “If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man”, one will first look under the adverb group if one recognizes that “fast” as here used is that part of speech. In addition to concordances, different Bible translations (such as the Diaglott and the A. R. J7.) discuss grammar and parts of speech in their prefaces. Therefore learn parts of speech, to speak correctly, to save time in using concordances, and to derive fullest advantage from exhaustive concordances and Bible translations.
Erratum
CORRECTION of a mistake made in the “Presenting ‘This Gospel of the * Kingdom’ ” article on “Theocratic Tactfulness”, which appeared in Consolation No. 614, dated March 31, 1943, is he.re given. From the eighth line from the top of column one on page thirty to the end .. A)f that paragraph the article should & have read as follows: ,
On hearing this, “Davids anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and..
APRIL 28,1943
because he had no pity.”—2 Samuel 12:1-6.
The Scorching of Borneo and Sumatra ♦ When the Netherlanders withdrew from the oil fields of Borneo at Tarakan and Balik Papan and the oil fields of Palembang, in Sumatra, they destroyed not only the wells, the machinery, the oil-tin factories, the printing works, the stores, the shops, and the clubs, but even the dwelling-houses. As a war pleasure, more than $650,000,000 worth of property was wiped out as by earthquake.
FIGHTINMIBERTY
ON THE HOME FRONT
RELEASED APRIL 1
12,000,000 ALREADY DISTRIBUTED
KlEEDOMLOVERSTHROWN to thellONS
This 32-page booklet answers frankly, with Scriptural support, such timely questions as these:
Behind the front, who is the chief enemy of liberty'?
Who are at the very head in the defense against this enemy?
When the firing ceases and peace comes, why will the fight for liberty have to go on!
Who will establish the four freedoms on earth in the perfect sense?
How have freedom - lovers been thrown to the lions?
The answers given in the new booklet FIGHTING FOR LIBERTY ON THE HOME FRONT are startling and sound a warning, but are priceless to
your comfort, enlightenment and hope by showing the way to enduring liberty.
You may now get your copy by filling in the coupon below and mailing it together with a contribution of 5c per copy.
WATCHTOWER, 117 Adams St., Brooklyn, N.Y.
□ Enclosed is 5c, for which please send me a copy of Fighting for Liberty.
□ Enclosed is 25c, for which please send me 10 copies of Fighting for Liberty.
Name...........................................-................ Street .................
City............................................. —......... State__________________
32
CONSOLATION
