Contents

Gestapo Amerie-anns—Domestic Species of Totalitarians Run Rampant at Shreve-■ port, Louisiana, and Columbia, South

Carolina

City Officials “Stab Freedom in the Back” 5

Shreveport Gestapo Swings into Action

.Who Is Like unto This Beast¹?

* Who Will Tie the Big¹ Cats?

Franco-German “Underground”

The Hitler Fellowship

Fingers Al] Smeared with Tar

Seine of Uncle’s Dirty Linen

Whither, Freedom?

“Pope to Make Retreat”

“Thy Word Is Truth”

The True and the False Body

Our Daily Bread

The Bakers’ College

In the Reign of Henry Til

Xavier Never Reached China

As to Vows and Oaths

The Belgian Congo .

Polish Refugees in Iran

Presently “This Gospel of the Kingdom”

Manuscripts and Versions of the Hebrew Scriptures (Part 3)        -

Editing President Grant’s Speech

A Chinese Publisher of the Kingdom

Published every other Wednesday by WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.

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Notanda

When October Gives Its Party

♦ Trees and shrubs have their growth for the season and so make no. further demands for chlorophyll, the essential plant-food producer which combines the carbon dioxide of the air with water taken in at the roots. Since chlorophyll is the green of the leaves, this cessation in growing works a profound color change.

Any chlorophyll remaining in the leaves in October wastes away; meantime, the sun brings out colors present ■ in lesser quantities. Yellow and gold predominate because they rank next. Other hues are struck off as by-products of chemical reactions which take place as the plant-food factories shut down. It is, simply put, a matter of alkalis, sugars and minerals within the leaves. And so, in one way or another, arrives the red of the maple, the orange of sassafras and hickory, the beech’s purple, the elm’s bronze.-^St. Louis Post Dispatch.                                 .

Fuel Economy in Royal Household

♦ To save fuel, King George has ordered every bathtub in the royal households painted with a red or black line at the five-inch level, so that nobody hereafter will bathe with the water at a higher level. However, a good-sized man can go through a ten-inch opening sidewise; and if he runs the water in the tub first, and climbs in afterwards, he will be pretty well covered even at the new level.

•»

Getting Everything Out of Oranges

♦ Orange juice, made on the spot from fresh fruit, is a great treat, but it does not dispose of the rinds and pulps. These are now mixed with lime, pressure is applied, and from each 25 gallons of the juice one gallon of 190-proof alcohol is made and 12^ ounces of dry yeast. What is left is used for cattle feed.

CONSOLATION

“And in His name shall the nations hope.”—Matthew 12:21, A.R.V.

Volume XXV                   Brooklyn, N, Y., Wednesday, January E, 1944                    Number 634

Gestapo Americanos

Domestic Species of Totalitarians Run Rampant at Shreveport, Louisiana, and Columbia, South Carolina

THE chief of the dreaded Axis Gestapo police, Heinrich Himmler, would probably be delighted to hear that certain American officials fancied his methods of “handling the public” ■ and were aping his system of forcibly gagging all those who dared have an opinion or idea not bearing the official seal of approval. Herr Himmler undoubtedly would beam with approval upon the action taken recently by certain officials in Shreveport, La., and Columbia, S. C. Cancellation of contracts, mass arrests of citizens without cause, confiscation of Bible literature, and official approbation of mob rule, as engineered by officials in these cities, though probably somewhat clumsy and bungled when compared with the professional standard of the experienced Axis Gestapo, nevertheless were clearly bottomed on the true theory of totalitarianism, and that would tremendously please the dictators.

At the same time, such a situation would arouse no pleasure among honest Americans who desire to see the freedom of the people survive. Let such Americans now consider the recent disgraceful conduct of certain officials in Shreveport and Columbia and then decide for themselves as to the gravity of the offenses these men have committed against democracy.

The Unhappy Mayor

Mayor Sam Caldwell of Shreveport,

La., is an.unhappy man lately. But your countenance would be just as glum as his if you had happen to you what “His Honor” has had happen to him during the past few weeks.                     .

Caldwell, you will recall, was the enterprising chieftain and official mouthpiece of a certain rabble element in Shreveport that last August hit upon the unfortunate idea of sabotaging the Constitution as a magnificent patriotic gesture. Consolation No. 628, issue of October 13, 1943, carried the account of this prearranged sneak attack made by the mayor and his pack of thugs and footpads upon Jehovah’s witnesses at Shreveport who were trying to hold a peaceful Christian assembly for the worship of Almighty God. For this act of home-front treachery Caldwell probably figured he would get a Presidential Citation of Honor, and achieve a place in the gallery of the country’s great. But, happily for the citizens of Shreveport, and unhappily for Caldwell, his intrigue against liberty went awry, and now he is only hoping that his efforts wdn’t achieve for him a place on the list of the country’s homegrown enemies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.                   '

Since Consolation No. 628 reported the outrage that took place in Shreveport on August 20,1943, as a result of the efforts of Mayor Caldwell and the gang of mobsters which operated with official sanction, there will be no need here to recount

the events of that national disgrace. In spite of the fact that the mayor's plot met with apparent success and the Christian assembly was broken up amidst his thugs’ violent rioting interspersed with their shooting, the whole evil plan soon exploded and the chagrined mobocrats are still stepping lively to get out of the ; way of falling pieces.

Mayor “Misses the Train”

The very first chunk of the exploded plot descended square into the mayor’s lap on September 6, 1943, when the postman delivered a letter to “His Honor” from the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, 1). C. If Sam Caldwell ever fancied himself a communications expert, that letter should have completely punctured his fancies. Just previous to the time advertised for the beginning of the “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Shreveport last August, the mayor, with a flare for the dramatic, had dashed off an urgent letter-length telegram over the much overcrowded telegraph lines, to the Communications Commission, howling that Jehovah’s witnesses were planning on using the “telephone system” to broadcast “an unpatriotic speech” in "my" city. Waxing eloquent over the horrible consequences that might be expected if the commission didn’t do something about this impending communications ‘disaster’, Caldwell neglected to mention that he was entirely ignorant of (1) what type of wire facilities were to he used and (2) what was to be said in the “unpatriotic speech” entitled “Freedom in the New’ World”. The mayor’s telegram did show, however, that he was an expert lampoonist when it came to Jehovah’s witnesses, even if he was a wee bit rusty on the technicalities of the science of communications.

Indicative of the impression the mayor’s telegram had upon the Washington officials, it lay acknowledged but unanswered for more than two weeks, during which time citizens in 100 cities over the nation thoroughly enjoyed the lecture delivered over the special land wires from the key city Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thus when the mailman walked into Mayor Sam. Caldwell’s office on September 6 with the belated reply to his telegram to the F.C.C., “His Honor” was already in an unhappy frame of mind. Reading the letter signed by James L. Fly, chairman of the commission, didn’t help:

Further reference is made to your telegram of August IS protesting the use of a coast-to-coast telephone network which was engaged by the Jehovah’s witnesses for the purpose of broadcasting a speech on August 21, 1943. As stated in the commission’s telegram to you of August 20, the commission has no jurisdiction with respect to the matter in which you complain.

Under the communications act of 1934, as amended there is no basis upon which the commission could deny the facilities of the telephone companies to this organization or any person or group. Members of the public desiring the use of telephone company facilities are not required to apply¹ to this commission for authority to use them. Common carriers subject to the communications act, on the other hand, are required to serve the public upon reasonable request and are prohibited from making unjust or unreasonable discrimination against particular persons or classes of persons.

With regard to your claim that the use of telephone facilities for broadcast purposes by the Jehovah’s witnesses is non-essential and precludes the use of telephone facilities by the public for essential long distance telephone communications, it should bp noted that the program transmission lines used in connection with radio broadcast are not adapted for ordinary telephone conversation. It wmuld appear, therefore, that the use of such facilities would not conflict with the use of telephone lines serving the general public and such use is not inconsistent with the request of the telephone companies that the public use telephone service only when necessary'.

The “patriotic’' mayor’s only comment on this official rebuke as reported by the Shreveport Times was: "The bureaucrats in Washington have, as usual, missed the train,"

City Officials “Stab Freedom in the Back”

A few weeks later, when things had just begun to settle down around the mayor’s office, the quiet was split by the fearful news that Jehovah’s witnesses were distributing free to the people of Shreveport truckloads of Consolation magazines carrying a report of the atrocious riot against Christianity in that city on August 20. A few minutes later a breathless messenger arrived with a copy of the magazine. What the officials saw made their eyes blink. Pasted on the cover of the magazine, a sticker printed in bright green ink announced: “Bead ALL ABOUT YOUB LOCAL CITY OFFICIALS’ OPPOSITION TO FREEDOM ON THE HOME front. See page 11.” Still gasping, page 11 was found and their part in the feature article in Consolation No. 628 was hastily read.

While the officials were gasping over the magazine the greatest distribution of Consolation that Shreveport has ever seen was already under way. Armed with a supply of twenty thousand magazines, each one bearing the special sticker, scores of men, women and children, anxious to make the truth known, were busily engaged in handing the magazines out free of charge to Shreveporters, who eagerly accepted the publication. All up and down the streets and in hundreds of homes, the people of Shreveport began to learn for the first time how their officials had disgraced the city,

Shreveport Gestapo Strings into Action

With visions of what might happen to them if something weren’t done, the officials declared the situation to be an emergency. Orders were given and “Gestapo” squads were hastily dispatched to “round up” the magazine distributors. All that afternoon the police dragged into their headquarters a constant procession of individuals caught handing out the magazines. These individuals would first be forcibly relieved of their magazines and then warned not to distribute any more, whereupon they would be released without any charges being placed against them. Promptly the distributors would obtain another supply of magazines and continue where they left off. In this manner some distributors were arrested three or four times in that one afternoon, but, despite the best efforts, of the crack Shreveport “Gestapo” squads, the distribution went ahead apace. Late in the afternoon an especially alert “Gestapo” squad located a truckload of the magazines. They promptly “arrested” the driver and hijacked the magazines (12,500 in all). But still the distribution went on.

At their wit’s end, the besieged officials finally caught the person whom they considered responsible for the distribution and jailed him on a charge of “vagrancy” (in spite of the fact that they knew he was probably the most active individual in Shreveport that day). But a bond was promptly posted, the prisoner was released, and the magazine distribution went merrily on, until all magazines outside the police station were in the hands of the people.

A few days later, the officials were forced to crawfish, dismiss the vagrancy charges, and release the supply of magazines they had illegally and unlawfully stolen. The distribution promptly began anew, not to be stopped until every resident in the entire town had been given the opportunity to have a copy.

Needless to say, all of this contributed in no small way to the discomfort of the mob-pack and their official sponsors.

Good Cause for Reflection

Soon after the mob attack upon, the “Free Nation’s” Theocratic Assembly in August, a full report of the disturbance

identifying the ones responsible therefor was made tQ the Civil Rights Section of the Department of Justice in Washington, D. C., and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation were promptly sent to Shreveport to make a full investigation of the incident, particular atten-, tion to be given the part the officials * played in the matter. Just what the outcome of this investigation will be is not yet known. But one thing is quite evident: the “gestapo officials” are very unhappy over the whole situation.

Perhaps they are thinking about ex^; sheriff Martin Catlette of Richwood, W. Va., who was sentenced to serve for one year in a federal penal institution and pay a fine of $1000 as a result of his aiding and abetting a mob of “patriots” in their heinous act of forcing large doses of castor oil down the throats of Jehovah’s witnesses who insisted on their right to preach the gospel. Perhaps (we hope) they are beginning to feel a little honest remorse upon reflection that their conduct only resulted in aiding the enemies of freedom in their campaign to destroy the liberty of the people from the face of the earth.

Opposition at Columbia, South Carolina

Simultaneously with the free distribution of Consolation No. 628 at Shreveport, nearly 200 persons at Columbia, S. C., set about to make a similar special distribution in their city, in view of the fact that affairs at Columbia figured quite prominently in this particular issue. All Saturday morning and well up into the afternoon, the good people of Columbia cordially received the free magazines as the distributors busied themselves in all parts of the city. Many of the citizens receiving the magazines voluntarily expressed their hearty disapproval of the action taken by their officials with reference to the Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses.

Things were going reasonably smoothly until Richard E. Broome, who acts as the judge of the recorder’s court in Columbia, made his appearance on one of the busy downtown streets. On every corner, in every direction, men and women were standing, quietly and industriously handing magazines to the passing pedestrians. Aghast, Broome incredulously surveyed the spectacle. Intrepidly boosting his galluses, he approached a magazine distributor and snatched an offered magazine. Then he became the spectacle. The more he read of the article concerning the action of Columbia officialdom, the more complete was his flustration. Completely losing his judicial poise, his mumbled reading soon developed into a loud, high-pitched excoriation of Consolation and its publishers and distributors. By alternately hissing and hooting, each time he came to a statement that might be particularly convincing, Broome finally succeeded in attracting a crowd, whereupon his readings gained in volume and were more colorfully interspersed with profanity, jeers and insults. Fortunately, Broome was the only one in the throng that was particularly moved by this tirade of invectives, and the crowd showed little prospect of turning into a mob. Nonplused, he gaped aS bystanders, attracted by his demonstration, held out their hands for magazines. Sensing defeat, the recorder thrust his magazine at one of his satellites standing near by, and dispatched him away to adjure the chief of police to arrest all of the magazine distributors. Then, sweeping the crowd with a brushing glance, Broome whisked hurriedly off for the avowed purpose of himself finding a policeman.

Wholesale Arrests Begin

A few minutes later the police began to arrest the magazine distributors bn a wholesale scale. Police cars, their springs sagging beneath the weight of their Christian cargo, in a constant stream would jerk to a stop in front of the police headquarters, disembark their

prisoners, and roar off in a smoky cloud of carbon monoxide to find more min* isters of the gospel. Toward sunset, the police headquarters was fairly bursting with the crush of persons herded into every room. Perspiring clerks, endeavoring to make out complaints against the alleged offenders, shouted to the arresting officers, seeking some information to put on the police blotter. These shouts, confused with the excited bark of addled policemen bringing in new prisoners, together with the mingled conversation of the crowd, soon snarled all attempts at legal process. Despairing of further accomplishment, the officers finally told the crowd to go home, but sternly admonished each one in the assembly to appear for trial at a specified time the following week.            •

Out of the 200 arrested, only 88 of the distributors were actually booked by the police. Needless to say, the officials, upon reflection, thought better of the charges of disorderly conduct that they had brought against these 88 and dismissed the complaints before the time set for trial.

A Serious Problem

It might.seem at first blush that these ridiculous efforts made by the officials of Columbia and Shreveport to cover up their own wrongful conduct by suppression of any publication daring to expose * their malfeasance in public office are of relatively small concern to a nation facing a great crisis. But let the matter be considered for what it is'worth. The Nazi tyrant of Europe has his heel on tile neck of millions because he was able to throttle those who desired to serve the public interest by calling attention to governmental corruption and selfish ambitions of scheming wall-paper hangers.

This journal is devoted to publishing the unvarnished, uncensored truth, in the interest of the general welfare of the people. If the truth offends certain unpredictable, excitable persons, and they choose to throw down the law and by vicious unlawful, underhanded means to do violence to those people serving the community by distributing the truth, then the people are entitled to know the facts of such conduct so that they can distinguish their friends from their foes.

Sober reflection upon the violations of civil liberty committed by the officials of these cities reveals the importance of a free, uncensored public press. Without a ■ free press the people, the sovereign authority in America, would grope about as helpless victims of political, commercial and religious corruption, according to whatever power controlled the press, be it proper or improper. A country thus led along in darkness, its ejrns blindfolded by a black cloth of censorship, becomes the easy prey of tyrants. Without a free press, democracy cannot exist.

To be sure, the blighted peoples of Europe in the Nazi Hiscist-Hierarchy-dominated lands have newspapers, magazines, and other propaganda aplenty, and are encouraged to read the same. But every line of type that is produced for public consumption must first pass the eye of the Nazi censor; and unless it affirmatively expounds the Nazi creed, such publication is immediately suppressed. Can there be any wonder then that such people now groan and suffer under the heels of the Axis regime, as servants and slaves to the unrelenting whip hand of the dictators? Eor the very reason that Americans have always enjoyed a free press as distinguished from a controlled press they are now able to shudder at the thought of such oppression’s dominating their lives. And in this hour of crisis of American history its citizens can be glad that the founders of this country provided and protected a way for them to enjoy the institution of a free press.

Who Is Like untQ This Beast?

ALL the world wonders at the totalitarian monstrosity now raging in its onslaught against the nations. What is the great secret of its power? Is its' power within its own self? Or is not a great amount of its power drawn from Unsuspected sources?

More to be wondered at than the legend of the “invincibility” of the Hitlerian beast is the manner in which a great dual-horned power, the British-American combine, has involved itself, wittingly or unwittingly, in succoring the Hitlerian beast whose murderous fangs, slashing them in blitzkrieg attacks, give Britain and America a taste of totalitarian madness.

The monster could not have sprung so viciously at the throats of the nations had it not drawn strength, in one way or another, from the two greatest champions of democracy and a free conscience. This fact is not restated here to throw past mistakes into the face of these great nations. But it is urgent that Britain and America consider the situation to determine whether those mistakes are to be repeated in the future. Will the postwar policy of the United Powers be that of appeasing, succoring and encouraging the totalitarian elements as in the past?

From the political viewpoint, Chamberlain’s Munich policy in the past, and the U. S. State Department’s courtship with Petain and Franco and Otto Haps-burg, cause many to wonder if the postwar “new order” world won’t find authoritarian governments thriving right along beside the rest. From the religious viewpoint, the very same religious system upon -which modern authoritarian states are built becomes more entrenched in the affairs and polities of the United Nations every day. But politics is only man’s system of ruling his world; while religion is the miry clay with which be holds it together: the lifeblood of his world, however, depends on a third element, Commercialism. It is the purpose here to consider the threads by which the past, present and future of this old world may be seen to be commercially bound together.

Many solid issues of this magazine could not expose all the ties by which the commercial elements in the democratic nations have been, still are, and may in the future be associated with dictator nations. But a few typical examples are enough to make one wonder if in the man-made “new order” the commercial structure of civilization will be to any extent altered in the interests of the prosperity of the peoples. Consider the following circumstances as recounted from The Thugs of Europe:

Immediately after the occupation of Sude-tenland the I. G. Farben annexed the Union for Chemical and Metal Production in Aussig, one of the largest industrial enter prises in Europe. Since Neville Chamberlain and Sir John Simon, the promoters of the Munich policy in the British government at the time, were both stockholders in the English Chemical Trust which was connected with I. G. Farben . . . the Munich solution to the European problem also presented personal advantages to them -which could not be underestimated.

The implication is simple. Through the role of the I. G. Farben chemical trust . in Hitler’s annexation of Czechoslovakia, certain persons in England profited commercially. Through that same I. G. Farben trust certain Englishmen profited in Franco’s murder of the Spanish republic. Thurman Arnold has shown that the same I. G. Farben that went on to get its share of the industries of Austria and all other countries looted by the Nazi war machine is related financially to Du Font, Standard Oil, Sterling Products of West Virginia, and Mellon’s aluminum empire. To gain control of world commerce a few gigantic industrial organizations like these invested in

Adolf Hitler’s National Socialism, which cleared all opposition out of their paths. Now what is to be done with them¹?

Who Will Tie the Big Cats?

¹ The situation terrifies this world’s reformers more when they consider that Big Business in every nation under the sun had a stake somehow or other in the totalitarian triumph. Big Business was never bigger anywhere than in Communist Russia, where it parades ■under the name of Big State and may still have Hitler to thank for a renewed claim on the Polish Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Perhaps more involved, yet not so apparent, are the littler, tedious problems of re-establishing such countries as Holland and Belgium, where certain native interests shared in the looting of their nations by the Nazis. Another paragraph from The Thugs of Europe tells the story eloquently :

When Hitler’s blitz struck Holland and Belgium, the Nazis of Amsterdam and Rotterdam—the followers of Mussert, Bcumingen, van T on n in gen and van Vlissin gen—stabbed Holland in the back. After the Nazi triumph the leaders of the fifth column and their German supporters became the masters of Dutch economy. Van Tonningen became president of the Dutch National Bank and announced the abolition of all customs and other financial barriers between Germany and Holland. This permitted German capitalists to buy for a million and a third pounds shares in . . . the very same Artificial Silk Trust directed by van Vlissingen.

The van Tonningens and van Vlissin-gens all over Europe are not going to be so easily dislodged as might be imagined. While they are representatives of a totalitarian system, yet they occupy strategic positions in Europe’s economic structure. Replace them with other men and the totalitarian system still remains. Destroy their structure from under them and Europe’s industry will be annihilated.

And 'another thing. The chief representatives of the totalitarian system are not mere small-fry politicians. In most cases the totalitarians are represented by the cream of the nobility and the clergy. No case is more in point than that of Poland. Prince Sapieha, who is also the Roman Catholic archbishop of Cracow, made full use of the Roman Catholic religious system as the propaganda organ for the group that stabbed Poland in the back. That group was made up of another Prince Sapieha, brother to the archbishop, with Prince Lubomirski, Radziwil, Count Potocki, Colonel Beck, and other aristocrats. Why these men should want to betray their country into the hands of Hitler might be explained by Archbishop Sapieha as easily as by Radziwil, who owns 3,862 square miles of land and wants to continue ruling northeastern Poland to suit himself.

Tn France a clique of industrial magnates and international bankers gave full support to the Nazi monster and paved the way to the fall of France and the rise of the Vichy disgrace..Just how long and how closely the masters of heavy industry in France and Germany had been connected before her fall is revealed in this infuriating account from The Economics of Barbarism:

Immediately after the last war [World War I], the heavy industrialists of the two countries again began to work in collaboration. Roeehling was a leading industrialist on the German side, and the De Wendel family was foremost on the Drench. These two formed common trusts like the A.R.B.E.D. and the H.A.D.I.R. companies and the International Bank in Luxemburg. This collaboration was not interrupted by the present war [World War IT]. II.A.D.T.R. continued to send 3,000 tons of ore daily to Germany, and a few days before the big German offensive in the west the directors of the International Bank, Frenchmen and Germans, sat peacefully together to discuss business affairs.

Especially since 1926 French and German magnates had strong and secret

reciprocal investments in the steel cartel; straw men of France took their places on German Boards (for instance, in Felton and Quilleaume A. G.), and vice versa. Not only were these financial operations carried on throughout Hitler’s invasion of France, but note how De Wendel still prospers under Hitler’s “new order”, as . reported in The Protestant:

Franco-German “Underground”

The head of French heavy industry is Senator Francois de Wendel, who has coal and iron mines in Lorraine, near the Franco-German border. Some of them begin in France and continue underground in Germany. In exchange De Wendel offered the Nazi an “underground” connection. He published a newspaper in German even before the war broke out, but concealed his ownership of it. ... In Paris the sheet was publicly accused of “sabotage of morale” and of spiritual high treason. In Germany the Nazi radio day after day picked up its editorials and transmitted them to the whole province of Alsace and Lorraine.

Monsieur de Wendel, French senator and pious Catholic . . . , is the master of a Trust and cannot himself be everywhere at the same, time. He has to use his time in plotting with the Nazi Trust Masters Kloeekner (more pious Catholics) and attending to his jobs on boards of directors. As for his Vichy “factory”, he was convinced (in 1941) that the time was ripe to change the leadership. So Laval became chairman of the board, Brinon (publisher of De Wendel’s treasonous paper) became acting secretary, and Petain remained the same as he had been: the honorary president who gives his name, who politely gives information about the decisions that are made, and who himself has nothing to decide.

» Commercially speaking, does this same totalitarian octopus have tentacles reaching even into Britain?

In May, 1941, Rudolph Hess, No. 3 Nazi, came to intrigue with the Cliveden set, the Munichmen and Buchmanites in Britain, because he thought that British Fascists were strong enough to swing their country to the side of Germany in a joint attack on Russia. The Hess terms, according to a United Press report on June 22, read as follows: “Restoration of France with the exception of Alsace and Lorraine; British Empire to be left intact; restoration to Germany of German East and German West Africa and certain other former colonies; Britain to make peace with Germany and join in the offensive against Russia.”

According to In Fact Hess hoped to bring about these peace-and-war terms through two closely related mediums, the Anglo-German Fellowship and the Buchmanites.

The Fellowship, as exposed by Simon Haxey’s England’s Money Lords, included a sort of holding company for Anglo-Nazi Fascism through which the Clivedeners worked for Hitler through the Chamberlain government, and was, or is, made up of the British families who own the land, the banks, the munitions plants, big business, the press and both the houses of Lords and Commons. Leading members in the Fellowship, consisting of representatives of British big business and many of them in both houses of Parliament, claimed that “Hitler has an unanswerable case” for the establishment of a stable world Economy. They met frequently with Himmler and von Ribbentrop. Among the Fellowship members who personally visited Hitler were Lord Lothian, later ambassador to the United States; Lord Stamp, chief adviser to the treasury, later killed in a raid; Lord McGowan, of Imperial Chemicals Industries, the international munitions corporation affiliated with the Nazi Chemical Trust of I. G. Farben above-mentioned and with Du Ponts. Von Ribbentrop indorsed the Fellowship as follows:

When Hitler’s Reich was formed . . . there was but little contact [with Britain] ... A handful of Englishmen and a handful of Germans made up their minds ultimately that new contact should be established. . . . The pioneer work had also made ultimately possible •—if not in a direct way, then, surely, indirect-

Cliveden set, which practically controls the British press and affects her foreign policy; that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy is all-influential in the British Foreign Office; that the British press and reporters are mostly Irish Roman Catholics; that Roman Catholic influences are in virtual control of the British Broadcasting Corporation; that Roman Catholic leaders have argued for “a modified freedom of the press” (until now they have it, which means that this magazine and kindred Watchtower publications are banned from Britain, leaving no real freedom of press there at all); that Rome has a so-called “Apostolic” delegate in England; that, like defunct Protestantism in America, the Church of England clergy are making calf’s eyes at Mother Rome. These trends that gave rise to Mussolini’s Fascism and to Hitler’s Nazism and culminate in an overspreading totalitarianism under spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy with headquarters at Vatican City are not only eating the heart out of democratic Britain; already they have overrun every country making up the British Commonwealth of Nations.

' Are the same trends at work here?

The answer may be given only in the affirmative whether speaking for politics or for religion. This is not mere wartime .emergency action that is congealing all nations, including America, in the - clutches of totalitarianism. It is Satan behind the scenes, gathering all nations and peoples and tongues who fear and worship his “beast”. That does not leave out the commercial element of America.

The fact may be illustrated through one typical American corporation which became involved, like so many of its kind, through a series of transactions with a German corporation. In his story of how such a corporation finds itself in the critical point of‘fighting against its own nation in the interests of Nazism, a ’ Harper s writer remarks:

The attack upon the United States did not

begin with Pearl Harbor. That event did no more than add a military to an economic front. The war behind the war was already in full swing; its campaign, planned long ago, was rolling along even before the Nazis came into power. Its objectives were to build up in Germany a huge capacit.y-to-produce and to sterilize the resources of its enemies. The J defeat of the adversary was to be insured before a gun was fired.

To such an economic attack the United States was peculiarly susceptible. Its corporate enterprises were committed to the pursuit of gain; business was regarded as a private affair; the intrusion of the Government was looked upon by American business men as “interference”. Officials of German concerns approached their American brethren, the bait of markets and monopolies was dangled, and , the supervision of the German state was concealed. ... In dyestuffs and light metals, chemicals heavy and light, tungsten carbide and synthetic rubber, the yoke was fastened before the victimized American corporations were entirely aware of the nature of the bondage. A dozen such battles, different somewhat in color, incident, and detail, move to the same tragic event. '

Fingers All Smeared with Tar

Citing Sterling Products of West Virginia as a typical case the author continues:

The story of Sterling reveals a cleavage that runs through our culture. As a Delaware concern reaches across state lines to do business, so the American corporation reaches overseas to form alliances. ... As a [worldwide] corporate feudalism develops, it disregards political frontiers, undermines national feeling, establishes its own fealty. Its urge to action, grooved by the habits of every day, is toward whatever bondage pays best in estate and dividends.

The “bondage” that pays best in estate and dividends appears to be the totalitarian bondage, spiritually nurtured by the Roman Catholic religious system and now flourishing in Europe. Senator O’Mahoney’s TNEC Report, page 43,

12                                          . reveals that the National Catholic Welfare Conference lobby in Washington, D. C., “sponsors a plan for an economic system of occupational groups under government supervision,” which “occupational groups” naturally could be made up of none other than the 250 industrial organizations that own and rule the nation, while the proposed government would be the pope’s government, of course, under some “nice” dictator.

Robert A, Brady, in a revealing book, Business as a System of Power, shows the collaboration between the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the chief American commercial organization, the National Association of Manufacturers. This all adds up to the fact that Big Business, whether it be American or German, is inclined to cater to any system that pays off in cold cash, even Hitler’s system. “We must squarely recognize that there are already a number of executives in American business predisposed to accept a Hitler-dominated Europe,” warns Norman M. Littell, assistant U. S. attorney general, who then cites instances such as the difficulty in getting General Motors to sever its contracts with its principal agent in Bolivia, who was a German Nazi leader, and of Henry Ford, who at first refused to make airplane motors for Britain and who like General Motors owns plants in Germany. “Does anyone doubt that upon proposal of a negotiated peace in Europe (which is the next avenue of Nazi attack [and all the more overwhelming if led by the Vatican, no doubt!]) such men . .. could be easily ‘softened up’ by promises of Nazi business; that these men, with all the power and influence which they have in American life, would quickly succumb to the alluring prospects of peace and business with a Hitler-dominated Europe?”

The question is all the more serious because “these men, with all the power and influence which they have in American life”, the merchants of earth in America as in Germany, are strong

CONSOLATION enough to guide the nation’s destiny. That destiny is not to steer away from the totalitarian ■ “beast”, but always closer toward it. In fact, under guise, of the League of Nations the commercial element in Britain and America set up a virtual image of that “beast” and caused the nations to worship it; that is to say, America and Britain, along with France, used the League of Nations to commit a number of deeds that caused the whole world to fall before the totalitarian system and become its slaves. Louis Fischer recounts these deeds succinctly :

“There never was an instance in which France and England . . . called on the United States and were refused. On the contrary, in 1932 Secretary of State Stimson urged action in China against Japan; it was Britain that demurred. If England and France had been ready to take adequate measures against Italian aggression in Abyssinia, Washington would have co-operated. The British and French governments lobbied hard to keep us anti-Loyalist toward Spain. If they wanted any help from America in the Czechoslovak crisis it was in the direction of appeasing Hitler, not the reverse. No, the League’s failure was not due to American abstention.” —The Nation, April 24, 1943.

Some of Uncle’s Dirty Linen

Nor will the revived League, in the postwar world, fail due to American abstention. The question is, will America under the new League stand up as champion of a righteous new world or will she court whatever system pays off best in dollars and cents? It is quite painful to think that we might look into America’s past role and find the answer to her future course. In fact we would not have to look, as Mr. Fischer does, to her part in arming Japan against China, in her moral support of Franco’s undoing of Spain, or of Mussolini’s outrage against Ethiopia, or of Hitler’s against Czechoslovakia and the rest of the world. Rather, we might turn to Sumner Welles’ authoritative work,

JANUARY a, 1944

Naboth's Vineyard, and find there the outline of the American “Good Neighbor Policy” in her own Western Hemisphere. Definitely she must have control over her own hemisphere, insists Mr. Welles, and if control in other hemispheres is what she will be seeking later on, it might be well to review PM’s summary of the “Good Neighbor Policy” of the United States government as it is now in effect with Latin America:

A basic platform of present State Department policy in Latin America is to recognize all existing governments. The reason given is that to do otherwise would bo “reversion” to imperialism, Mr. Welles knows that U. S. financial and economic policy can determine the character of the government in any one of these countries more effectively than the dispatch of U. S. Marines as in the old days. Welles, whose aim for the U.S.A, is dominion in the Western Hemisphere, wants governments in power which will bow to Washington’s wishes. . . .

The Good Neighbor Policy has supported the dictatorships and semi-dictatorships of Latin America, At the present stage of the crisis such governments are amenable to Washington’s desires—at least on the surface. . , . Certainly some Americans, after the experiences of the last decade, would prefer to put their faith in the strength of a hemisphere composed of popularly controlled, independent governments. .Of course, few such governments exist at present and Mr. Welles is a realist. The point is, however, that the U. S. program will insure that they never do exist.—P4f.

No, such programs are designed to promote the interests of concentrated political power, which rests in turn upon the golden foundations of commercialism. And it is certain that if America’s foreign policy makers extend this program in their postwar role of helping to reconstruct this old world, then none of those fiend-hearted Big Business outfits that reaped billions out of looting Europe need lose any sleep, until Armageddon!—Marley Cole, Tennessee.

13

Whither, Freedom?

A REPORT from Nigeria, part of the great British Commonwealth of Nations, makes one wonder about the “freedoms” which this great empire is supposed to be fighting for, along with the United States and other free (?) nations. The question mark is justified in view of the following news dispatches; the first from the news columns of The Daily Service (official organ of the Nigerian 'Youth Movement), Lagos, Wednesday, July 28, 1943, and the second from the editorial page of that paper on the same date:

About 250,000 copies of pamphlets and books belonging to the local branch of Jehovah’s witnesses, confiscated last year, have, it is understood, been ordered to be burnt and actually been destroyed.

It is Understood the burning took three days, the scene being at the Lagos Town Council incinerators at Epstedo.

Judge Rutherford’s publications had had unrestricted circulation in Nigeria for nearly 20 years and only last year government considered it necessary as war measure to ban the works.

A large number of volumes of the books w^rere confiscated and the impression was that they would be released after the war.

Mr. W. R. Brown, local missioner for Jehovah’s witnesses, when interviewed yesterday, said the value of the publications would be about £60,000.

He said if there was objection to their circulation here he ought to have been permitted to reship the books back to the United States where the headquarters of the organization resides.

Comments on this unheard-of incident show that there' are many that do not sympathize with the government’s perverted idea of “freedom” and its unwarranted and totalitarian procedure in this matter. The Daily Service says:

Thp report that over 250,00Q books and pamphlets belonging to Lagos branch of the Jehovah’s witness organization have been ordered to be burnt and actually been destroyed has aroused strong feeling of disapproval even among those who have never had any friendly feeling in the past towards the Bible & Tract Society and its somewhat aggressive literature.

It is true some of the books and pamphlets contain the most absurd and objectionable attacks on the Catholic Church, but the Church, in our opinion, is much too strong to be affected by being assailed from any quarter.

With regard to the Catholic Church, its strength and influence today is fulfillment, we think, of Lord Macaulay’s prophecy that this great institution will still be flourishing when the tourist from New Zealand will visit England to explore the ruins of St. Paul’s.

The value of the books destroyed, we understand, is in the neighborhood of £60,000 and it might have been hoped that if government objected to tbeir circulation in this country, the Jehovah’s witness’ local agent should at least have been permitted to ship them back to America, where they are known still to enjoy free circulation.

The destruction of these books is entirely unjustifiable.

Today it is the literature of Jehovah’s witnesses, and tomorrow it will be other literature and writings that are not wholly in accord with the Roman Catholic Hierarchy’s idea that anyone who is not entirely subject to its control should be murdered in cold blood, 'in good Inquisition style.’ Book-burning is a typical totalitarian stunt, and entirely inconsistent with the spirit of freedom. Nor is there any precedent for such tactics in the book-burning mentioned in the Bible, where the owners of the books that were then destroyed, realizing their wholly demonistic character, voluntarily gathered and burned them. We read of the occasion at Acts 19:19,20:

Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

This is no warrant for taking the property of others and destroying it, and particularly so when such literature honors the Word of God.

But it is not surprising that the Hierarchy and its tools will destroy Bible literature. They have destroyed the Bible itself on numerous occasions. Nor are these instances all of the distant past. Dennis Cardinal Dougherty, of Philadelphia, when in the Philippines, took occasion to gather thousands of Bibles and make a bonfire of them. His co-religionist, Franco the Butcher, of Spain, more recently, destroyed 110,000 copies of the Bible, making a pulp of them; Bibles which he had previously authorized to be admitted. Thus he showed his contempt, first for the Bible, secondly for the Protestant Society that sent them, thirdly for the British and other democratic peoples, and finally for his own word. He is a noteworthy example of those who destroy books and freedom with them.

The so-called “authorities” at Lagos may find satisfaction in the illustrious company which they have joined by destroying Bible literature that did not belong to them and which they could neither lawfully nor consistently with freedom dispose of. The British Commonwealth will have to look to its representatives, lest that which is loudly professed in charters and proclamation is flouted in practice everywhere, and the tools of totalitarianism subvert the objectives of the free nations under the very noses of those who seek the further freedoms.               '

In conclusion, hear the following comment from the Austin (Texas) American, speaking editorially:

The state of mind which prompts hookburning cannot be reconciled with civilization. It is barbarism as abysmal as any which is found in the jungles of Africa. . . .

Civilized countries know that a people capable of deliberately burning books are capable of almost any other atrocity of which they might be accused.

"Pope to Make Retreat”

♦ The above headline recently appeared in a Roman Catholic newspaper. What did it mean? Did it indicate that the “Supreme Pontiff” had at length realized that he must beat a retreat before the forward march of the “King of kings”, as He proceeds to the establishment of the “new earth” of Jehovah’s new world?

Not at all. The “Mystery of Iniquity” still foolishly boasts that she is invincible, and that the gates of hell can not prevail against her. No! The newspaper was only announcing that the “Holy Father” was going to make his "annual retreat” for six days, and that he was appealing “to all to pray for him that God might give him strength for his heavy responsibilities”. In other words, the newspaper title was just ecclesiastical jargon.          ■

But “the battle of that great day of God Almighty” approaches, and the Word of the Lord declares concerning His enemies at that time, “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.”—Isaiah 28:18.

At that time, the Hierarchy will indeed "make a retreat”, one from which it will never return, and the place thereof shall know it no more.—Frank R. Freer, Britain.

Demons Forbidden to Act

♦ .At the second anniversary of Clarence Darrow’s death his wife and other spiritists gathered at an agreed trysting place, recited the Lord’s prayer, and then demanded that Darrow disclose his identity if present. Nothing happened, and the demons that would have been glad to put up some hocus-pocus were apparently restrained from further deviltry at that particular moment.

The True and the False Body

WRITING in Greek, not Latin, to the group of consecrated followers of Messiah Christ in Rome, the apostle Paul wrote, among other things, this: “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. ... I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”—Romans 1:7; 12: 3-5.

Further discussing the subject of the 'Tody of Christ”, the same apostle wrote: “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular, And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 18, 27, 28) We look in vain for the apostle to mention that God hath set one member in the body as the “pope” or “vicar of Christ” or “vicegerent of Christ”, which office the religionists claim is the most important place in the visible organization. What, then, would the apostle say if he were alive on earth today and if he were to read the Vatican pontiffs recently issued “new encyclical on the mystical body of Christ” (Mystici Corporis Christi) ? and in which encyclical letter Pius XII says: “They, therefore, "walk the path of dangerous error, who believe that they can accept Christ as the head of the Church, while they reject genuine loyalty to His vicar on earth. They have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of unity, and they leave the Mystical Body of the Redeemer in such obscurity and so maimed that those w^Tho are seeking the haven of eternal salvation cannot see it and cannot find it.” In answer, Rauhs own words, at 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, speak for him: “Such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

At 1 Peter 1:2 the members of Jthe true “body of Christ” are called “elect according to the foreknowdedge of God the Father”. Again the apostle Peter likens the whole of The Christ to a house of living stones, saying: “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth' on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he [Christ Jesus] is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner.” (1 Peter 2: 5-7) At Acts 4: 12 the apostle Peter plainly declares that Christ Jesus, who is God’s anointed King, is the chief corner Stone mentioned in this prophecy. Jesus’ body of anointed followers wdio prove faithful unto death will, as “lively stones”, be made a part of this building in which Jehovah God dwells by His spirit.

The members of the body of Christ

must be made into His likeness and image. This anointed class, namely, Christ Jesus the Head and the church His body, is spoken of as a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s possession. Such fact was foreshadowed by the nation of Israel, particularly by the priesthood in connection with that -nation. Speaking of this class, the apostle Peter says: “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2: 9,10) Peter does not call himself pope thereof 1

The members of the true body of Christ, the church, are also designated as His footstep followers; and as such they are called to suffer with Him that they may also reign with Him. At 1 Peter 2: 21 the apostle writes: “Even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” These the apostle admonishes to be not ashamed if they thus suffer as “Christians”. Because one is a member of some religious organization called a church, it does not mean such one is a Christian or a member of the true church. The true church is the “body of Christ”; and anyone to be of it must be a consecrated follower of Christ in the truest sense of the word.

No one has been able to understand these things and appreciate them except those who have given their hearts to the Lord God. The apostle Paul says of the religionists: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) Jehovah God has so arranged it that only those who have their minds illuminated by the power of His holy spirit can understand and appreciate

JANUARY E, 1944

the mystery concerning the “body of Christ”. After one has consecrated himself to God through Christ Jesus and been justified and accepted by the Lord God and brought into the “body of Christ”, he must continue to obey God’s commandments joyfully if he would continue to have understanding and appreciation of the truth set forth in God’s Word.                          .

The hiding of this mystery was illustrated by Jehovah God in the construction of the tabernacle by Moses in the wilderness. The tabernacle inside was beautiful, but it was hidden from the people on the outside because it was closed by a veil and was covered over with three heavy layers of dfcth and skins. The priest ministered inside the tabernacle, and was therefore unseen by the people. As God thus hid these things which were typical of greater things, so He has hidden the glories and beauties of spiritual things, seen only by those who have come into relationship with Him through Christ Jesus.-—Exodus 40:1-33; Hebrews 9:1-14.

Satan the Devil has tried to counterfeit every part of Jehovah God’s purpose; so he organized a mysterious system in the earth which is iniquitous and is known as “the mystery of iniquity”. (2 Thessalonians 2:7; Revelation 17: 5) This “mystery of iniquity” God will destroy in His great day of vengeance, shortly. (2 Thessalonians 2: 3-12) But to the members of the true and genuine body of Christ the apostle Paul writes respecting the mystery of the real body of Christ: “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to. the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.”—Romans 16:25-27.   ,

17

Our Daily Bread

Undoubtedly, one of the oldest trades' or crafts is that of breadmaking. The word “bread” occurs in many places in the “Old Testament”, but it does not always signify exactly the same thing. In the earlier days, in all ; probability, it referred to nothing more than bruised grain bannocks; in the latter, to bread fermented with leaven. The discovery of leaven was perhaps made by accident, and probably quite early, as in Eastern countries a mixture of meal and water would ferment in tw’enty-four hours. The difference between bread made with leaven and that made without it would not long escape observation, either in size or in taste.

All the evidence scattered through literature of the process of breadmaking as first practiced indicates that it was a purely domestic industry conducted, both as to preparing the grain and making the bread, by the women of the household. In the larger households, such as the establishments of kings, the specialization of the baker's duties would be a necessity. This we find was the case in the courts of the Pharaohs. The fact that the baker "who obtained such unenviable notoriety in the time of Joseph (Genesis 40) was the chief baker indicates that there must have been others. By the time the Israelite^ had settled in Egypt, the leaven process seems to have been in general use, as the Israelites were strictly enjoined to use no leaven during passover week, under penalty of death.

Among a people so clever as the Jews, there is little doubt that baking became a trade and the leavening process was thoroughly understood. In Hosea 7 there is evidence that the baker had ceased to be a mere domestic. The same evidence points to the fact that baking as carried on at that time was in its essential features quite like the baking practiced but a few years ago in Western lands: using the method that is known in the trade as the “long process”, where only a small portion of yeast is used. In one of his exhortations the prophet likens the people to “an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. . . . They have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burnetii as a flaming fire. . . . Ephraim is a cake not turned.” With our present knowledge it is easy to discern in the simile the kind of bakers they had in Samaria in the prophet's day. Hosea seems to have had an intimate knowledge of, among other things, the baker’s methods and his ways.

The ruins of Pompeii and other buried cities have given us examples of the kind of bakeries in use when these cities were in their prime. They were in some cases part of the domestic establishments of the well-to-do, but there were also public bakehouses, as in most towns of England today, to which the bread of the poor was brought to he baked, or from which they could obtain supplies of newly-baked bread.

The Bakers’ College

In Rome’s strenuous days bread-baking was a domestic affair, the work of the ’women of the household; but after the war with Perseus, the last king of Macedonia (168 B. C.), some bakers were brought from that country, probably as captives; but they were evidently admitted as freemen, for from that time the industry wrns started as a distinct profession. Along with the Macedonian bakers a number of freedmen were put to work as assistants, and the whole craft was incorporated in one body called a college, Collegium Pistorum, from which neither the bakers no,r their children were allowed to withdraw. It should be pointed out that these colleges were little more than trade guilds common to all developed trades of the time. The position of the bakers’ brotherhood seems to have been high in the affairs of state, as they had representatives elected to the Senate.

The bakers of Rome at this period were held in high repute, and were endowed with extensive privileges. They were the only craftsmen who were freedmen of the city, all other trades being conducted by slaves. They were excused from guardianship and other offices which might take their attention from their work. To preserve honor and integrity among the members they were expressly prohibited from having any connection with comedians and gladiators, and from attending the exhibitions at the amphitheater, so that they might not become contaminated with the vices of the ordinary people. It is too much to suppose that all these regulations as to the personal conduct of the Roman bakers were made only with a view to the moral education of the trade; perhaps their real purpose was to keep the bakers from being used as agents in the plots and counterplots that permeated the life of Rome at that time. The poisoned loaf would add new terrors to the poison cup. Such strict regulations must have been very irksome.

Varieties of Bread

Flour- or wheat-blending seems to have been considered of much importance among the Roman bakers, and they, like the modern, had a keen appreciation of a high yield. Those who think the craze for white bread is quite a modern weakness will note that color was one of the main tests for quality in wheat and bread in Pliny’s time. Thus: “The wheat of Cyprus is swarthy and produces a dark bread, for which reason it is generally mixed with the white wheat of Alexandria, the mixture yielding twenty-five pounds of bread to the modius, fourteen pounds of grain.” We might mention here that it was an Alexandrian wheat ship that was wrecked with Paul on board on the isle of Malta.

Sometimes we consider brewer’s yeast as a somewhat modern usage in breadmaking, but again we quote Pliny: “In Gaul and Spain, where they make a drink [beer] by steeping corn [grain], they employ the foam which thickens on the surface as a leaven; hence it is that the bread of these countries is lighter than elsewhere.”

Like the well-to-do now, the betterclass Romans had quite a variety of plain and fancy bread from which to make a choice. The above writer gives a few of their names, being, as today, often names of association rather than of description. “Some kinds,” he says, “we find receive their names from the dishes with which they are eaten, the ‘oyster bread’, for instance; others again for their peculiar delicacy, the ‘artologanus’ or ‘cake bread’, for example; and others from the expedition with which they are prepared, such as the ‘speusticus’ or ‘hurry’ bread; others again from the particular method of baking, such as ‘oven bread’, ‘tin bread,’ and ‘mold bread’.”

Bread Doles and Rations

In Rome’s declining years the bakers must have had a busy time; for, according to Gibbon, in the fifth century, “for the convenience of the lazy plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn [grain] were converted into a daily allowance of bread; a great number of ovens were constructed and maintained at the public expense; and at the appointed hour, each citizen who was furnished with a ticket ascended the flight of steps which had been assigned to his peculiar quarter or division and received, either as a gift or at a very low price, a loaf of bread of the weight of three pounds for the use of his family.”

Providing the poor with bread seems to have been an ever-recurring difficulty in times past for all governments. They had mostly to rely on home-grown grain supplies; and bad weather often made a shortage, placing bread almost out of the reach of the poor. Thus, when rebellions were near, we find that often the price of bread was regulated for the good of all. This was done in England by what was "known as the Assize Law’s, under which the price of bread went up or ;down, according to the price of grain, the authorities fixing the price.

We might mention here that the above laws covered nearly everything needed in those days: meat, clothing, and ale, as well as bread. The Bread Assize w^Tas abolished as late as 1815. In 1266 this law allowed the baker twelve pence for each quarter of wheat he made into bread, allocated as follows: For three servants, four pence, half penny; for two lads, one penny; for salt, half penny; for yeast, half penny; for candle, one farthing; for wood, two pennies; for his boutell (bolting),>half penny. The records do not indicate how the other two pennies and three farthings was made up, but the baker was allowed also two loaves and the bran for his advantage; perhaps these were valued at that amount.

In the Reign of Henry III

From this we notice that the bakers milled their own grain at that time. According to the law made in the 56th year of the reign of Henry III, the kinds of bread allow’ed to be made were halfpenny and penny cocket, made of the second'priced wheat, half-penny and pbnny wheaten, and penny household. The relative values of the several kinds of bread seem to have been that three of the half-penny’s worth of white bread should always be of the weight of one penny’s worth of wheaten bread, and one penny’s worth of household bread should weigh as much as two pennies’ worth of white bread. The wheaten bread was, therefore, of two-thirds the value of the finest; and the household, half the value of the finest.

For offenses against these laws bakers had to submit to fines, imprisonment, and other indignities, such as being fixed in the pillory, or whipped at the cart’s tail. At the present time there are two systems of selling bread, each of which has its advantages and advocates: one, altering the price, and, the other, altering the weight of the loaf according to the price of flour. The former system is now enforced by law in England. The deliberate breaking of this law is at the present not often known, although the fines do not as a rule reach the figure of five shillings per ounce short on a farthing loaf as was reached in years past.

Baking Machinery

The bakers as a class are, or were, a very conservative people. Thus methods changed very slowly, being nearly the same for hundreds of years, and when machinery was being freely used in other classes of labor many said machinery could never make bread; but, however, notwithstanding the great opposition of the operatives, baker’s machines are now doing most of the work in modern bakeries. In this line we quote from a statement made by Wm, W. Banfield, the general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Operative Bakers, with a membership of 14,000, at their general conference at Birmingham, England, in August, 1927.

He said that the number of bakers now employed is about 10,000 less than the number so employed twenty years ago, this only in the districts covered by his union; and this had been caused by the use of machinery, and especially so since the first World War. The yearly report of this union presented at the above conference puts the blame for this unemployment squarely upon machinery, as follows: “There can be but little doubt that thousands of men who ordinarily would be employed on the production of bread are now thrown upon the scrap heap, owing to the extensive use of machinery. The change from the handcraft methods of the past to the complete machine method of the future is not yet completed, and in the meantime every increase of machine power in modern bakeries means a decrease in man power.”

It is now possible with a fully automatic plant to produce bread without its being touched by hand from the time the flour arrives until it reaches the consumer as wrapped loaves. We have one firm that has placed upon the market, for small and medium-sized businesses, a machine that does two separate jobs in loaf-making at the rate of 1,200 pieces per hour, which would take at least sixteen men if done by hand; nor is this the limit of machines now in use. Breadwrapping machines can be obtained to wrap any shape of loaf with an output up to 2,000 per hour, tended by a girl.

This' use of machinery helps to cheapen the finished loaf by an estimated sum of one-half penny per four pounds of loaf. When the baking trade was largely a one-man business, or, as often, a family affair, the machinery almost unknown in the bakehouse, it was scorned by the money kings as beneath their attention; but a modern bakery has now been raised to the status of a factory run by big business as a limited company, needing a capital that merits the attention of the stock exchange and company promoter. As an instance of this, not long ago two well-known firms in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, joined in a new company. When the public were invited to take up shares, it was stated that the new firm thus created was able to turn out 218,000 two-pound loaves per day. As one loaf feeds, on an average, three persons per day, we see that this firm alone can provide the staff of life for a population of 654,000 people.

We will close by stating that a claim has been made that that elusive gentleman, “Vitamin D,” which in the past seems to have escaped from white bread in the process of milling the flour, has been captured at last and that he and as many of his kind can now be imprisoned in a white loaf as the baker thinks fit. This, it is claimed, is the result of using over the dough in the making a mercury vapor arc lamp, thus catching the ultraviolet rays of this artificial sunlight. If this claim is sustained in practice many diseases will be greatly hindered.—Contributed.

Xavier Never

THANKS for the booklet put out by the “Very Reverend Father” Ralph M. Fontaine, S. D. S., Foreign Mission Headquarters of the Society of the Divine Savior, Elkton, Maryland, which bears the title “St. Francis Xavier, the Great Missioner of India and China”. The booklet, 12 pages, is nicely gotten up. The eleven pictures are very artistic, and an advertising man would admit that the four pages devoted to advertising religious goods such as “holy water” containers, bracelets, rosaries, prayer books, chains and pendants, selling at $2 to $5, are nicely put together and ought to yield a nice profit. However, unless the readers are unusually stupid, and maybe they are that, it looks, to a plain, ordi-

Reached China

nary man, as if somebody had stuck his foot in it by the sentence on the inside front cover, “But, enfeebled by his labors in India, St. Francis never reached China.” As an afterthought, maybe the writer of the booklet is about to print a statement that Peter, the first pope, never was in Rome. That would be interesting, ajid as true as the news that the 'great missionary to China’ never was in China. A second afterthought is that, in these days, people who write advertising matter, and expect to get their goods on the market, should either be sober when they write or should, otherwise, hire proofreaders that won’t pass bulls like that without at least putting a tag on them.

As to Vows and Oaths

IT IS certain that the pope and his prelates (bishops) can dispense with vows, since herein they hold the place of God on earth.”—Liguori, Vol., 189. “The power of dispensing belongs to all „ bishops who have jurisdiction in foro ⁱ ezterno, or the privilege of doing so from the pope. Hence the following persons can grant dispensations: (1) The pope, to all faithful from all vows - whatever; (2) Bishops, to their own subjects; (3) Exempt superiors of religious to their own religious and novices; and this is to be understood of vows which they have made either in the world (marriage, allegiance, &c.) or in the novitiate.”—Liguori, iv., 256. (The term “exempt” means that the “superior”, that is, abbot of a monastery, is independent of the bishop of the district.) Liguori was made both a “saint” and a “doctor” of the “church”, which means that his writings are papistically absolutely correct and authoritative,

“It is asked if the pope can ever dispense in things which are established of God of jus divinum? Answer: In those things in which the jus divinum has its origin in the human will, as in laws and oaths, it is certain with all (that is, all papist authorities are agreed) that the pope has the faculty of dispensing with them. In those things which are absolutely and unconditionally ordained of God (the law of nature, for instance), Sanchez and many others say with great probability that the pope has the power, in any particular case, not indeed of dispensing with them, but (take particular note of this choice bit of blasphemy and swelled head) of declaring that the DIVINE LAW NO LONGER BINDS (I). The pontiff cannot dispense with the law of God without a just cause; but in any doubt about the validity of the dispensation it is to be accounted valid. A dispensation may be obtained for a person not only in his ignorance but even against his will.”—Busembaum, 2, iv.

“A confessor may affirm, even with an oath, that he has no knowledge of a crime revealed to him in the confessional.”                                                 ,

“An accused person or witness, when interrogated unlawfully by a judge, may swear that they know nothing about the crime; meaning that they knew nothing about the crime concerning which they may be lawfully interrogated.” Scavini’s Moral Theology, Vol. ii., pp. 233, 235. This makes the evidence of any papist witness suspect. Who is to know whether he has this mental reservation in his mind*! When a papist swears to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, he quite evidently has this dishonest “reservation” at the back of his mind and is going to be his ‘ own judge as to what he may be “lawfully” interrogated on—or quite possibly he goes to the court primed by his “priest” as to what he may consider “unlawful” interrogation. But this does not end the papists’ dodges for lying in a court of law, &c. He is told by his “church” and theologians that he may use equivocation, ambiguity, or amphibology. Hear what Liguori says: “Amphibology may be threefold: (1) When a word has a double meaning; as vole, which means I jly as well as I will. (2) When the sentence has a double principle meaning, as, This book is Peter’s, may mean that the book belongs to Peter or Peter wrote it. (3) When the words have a double sense: one literal, the other .spiritual. Thus, if one is asked about something which he wishes to conceal, he may answer, I say no; that is, I say the word no. “Cardenas doubts of this” (good for Cardenas, whoever he was) “but saving his better judgment he seems to do so ' groundlessly; for the word I say truly has a double sense—it signifies to assert and also to utter. It is certain, and commonly held by all divines, that with a good reason it is lawful to make use of equivocation in the ways above explained and to confirm the equivocation with an oath. The reason is that we are not deceiving our neighbors, but, for some good reason, allowing them to deceive themselves.

“A witness interrogated by a judge, whether he have spoken with the accused or defendant, may deny it, meaning that he has not spoken with him by way of co-operation and crime.” (p. 160)

“It is certain a witness is not bound to tell the truth to a judge not legitimately questioning him; he may then lawfully answer even with an oath that he is ignorant of the crime.” (p. 265)

“Even legitimately and juridically interrogated you are not bound to give evidence, if you learn the matter through confession.”

Do you wonder that in Eirish courts there is so much perjury?

Liguori is not the only theologian who does not understand common honesty. Gregory or Valentia said “A judge, with the intent to serve his friend, may at one time judge according to one opinion, and at another time according to the contrary opinion, provided only that xo scaxdal result”. (Vol. iii., 5, 7) Suarez says “To confirm an ambiguous expression with an oath is not perjury”, (De Jurament, iii., 9, 1, 2.)

Sanchez, in Decalog, ii., 3, 6, 8, says: “When a man who has promised is from some reason free from the obligation of fulfilling his promise, he may swear that he did not promise. A man who is urged to do what he is not compelled to do may swear that he will, understanding (that is, contracting with himself), if I am obliged.”—Ulster Protestant.

The Wonderment of Cummings

THE British newspaperman A. C. Cummings cannot quite figure it out why some British newspapermen in Moscow, in getting out a new weekly journal emanating from the British embassy, should try to regale lied army men, worn to exhaustion through fatigue and fighting, with pictures of rural scenes in Britain, of picturesque villages with fat cattle grazing in the fields, and of Trafalgar Square, described as the '■'loveliest square in London”. So says the Vancouver Daily Province.

This seemed to start something. Three days later the United Press carried a story from London, describing a new American history. The author referred to. Sam Houston as “Housten”. He showed a picture of Lincoln and 16 men and labeled it “Lincoln and his army”. He devoted three lines to Patrick Henry but failed to mention the speech “Give me liberty or give me death” which made the man famous. The book is intended for use in English schools, with a view

to perpetuating the errors of judgment that brought on the American Revolution.             ______ , _T

Fall River’s §12,000,000 Fire

♦ Only thirteen years after Fall River, Mass., had a $20,000,000 tire, it celebrated again by having another, which destroyed $12,000,000 worth of property. This last fire started on the third floor of a manufacturing building where workmen were curing rubber automobile cushions in ovens 20 feet by 40 feet in size. There was an oven flare as sometimes happens in such work, but in this instance the workmen were unable to control it, and in jig time the whole factory was a furnace. Four great buildings went up in flames, and with them 120,000 tons of rubber, gas masks, balloons, machine-gun clips and other war supplies. Aid was summoned from thirty near-by cities of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and the great fire was subdued with difficulty.         .

The Belgian Congo

ND ER the title “What Is a Colony¹?” the editor of News from Belgium has set forth in the following statement, issued December 12, 1942, some facts that are not generally known. In all fairness these facts must be considered when * one thinks of present efforts at world domination, by this or that combination of the forces of “the king of the north” or “the king of the south”.

Virtually the whole world has taken sides with one or the other of these great powers. What will take place, in God's due time, will be the complete solution of all these problems by the “King of kings and Lord of lords”, Christ Jesus, the King appointed by Jehovah God, the owner of all the earth.

The realm of the new King, it is declared, shall be “from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth”. The editor of News from Belgium may know little or much of that promised rule of righteousness, but he knows considerable of what has been • done in the way of civilizing the Congo and some other sections of the earth. So consider his,story:

What is a colony? According to a widespread popular belief a colony is a distant territory exploited by the mother country, according to the habits of ruthless capitalism and with complete disregard for the natives’ welfare and lives. Recent utterances by American statesmen have somewhat confirmed public belief in this deprecatory concept of the term “colony”. A sequence to this sentiment is the conviction that all colonial peoples are oppressed and, therefore, should be liberated.

Among the empire nations is Belgium. It has a colony in Central Africa about eighty times its own size, with a population of fourteen million colored people, which is six million more than there are white inhabitants in the home country. Is this vast domain exploited and should its inhabitants be liberated from the Belgian “yoke”?

The time has come, it seems, for a frank discussion of this subject. A great deal of misunderstanding and some ill will exists with regard to the most essential elements of the position of Belgium and of the Belgian Congo.

There is no doubt that the debuts of all colonial enterprises have been harsh on the colonized people. The closer the range of culture of the invaded countries was to that of the invaders, the fiercer was the resistance and the more brutal were the methods of (subjugation. Colonial conquest, with a few exceptions, has nearly always resulted in partial and sometimes even complete extermination of the conquered peoples. Initially colonization is a violent procedure. Nobody among the people of good will and Christian morals wants to excuse this fact, but history is there to prove that it is practically a rule. A great number of circumstances may influence the invaders’ behavior and, consequently, safeguard the lives and property of the natives to a certain extent. When the Dutch conquered the East Indies, they found a population of approximately ten million people. At present these*islands are inhabited by about seventy million men. When colonization began in North America, an estimate put the population figure at one million Indians; today ‘there are 353,000 of them. This may sound .like an indictment. It is not, however. Not all of the American Indians have been wantonly killed. Probably only a small percentage of them have been put to death in actual warfare. They died mostly from contact with western civilization, in its manifold forms, economic, sociological and others.

We want to recall these historic facts with regard to the almost general belief that the beginning of Belgian colonization of the Congo was a series of horrors and a display of human beastliness without parallel. The excesses perpetrated in lonely sectors of the newly-discovered Congo have all been traced to a small group of people, in which practically every European country was represented and in which Belgians were a small, insignificant minority. It is known that many of those who indicted Belgium at the time were moved by either personal or political motives which, were far from commendable. Not a single accusation of cruelty or barbarism has been uttered against the Belgians since the Belgian Government took over responsibility for the administration of the Congo in 1908.

It is, however, one of the ineradicable beliefs of generous souls all over the world that the savage, left to his own, is a happy, carefree individual, a prosperous Tarzan, who enjoys a permanent Shangri-La, a sensuous Moon-and-Sixpence destiny. Multicolored birds delight his ears, and while he eats wonderful and wholesome food, streamlined antelopes, their gracious backs softly undulating like the hills of Jericho, speed by. Death comes with dignity, but without horror. Life for the colored man who never met the white tjivilizer is just one long “hour of madness ami joy”.

In fact, most of the primitive peoples— and on the whole the Congolese were extremely primitive—lived in terrible conditions. The Congo populations before the Belgians came wore decimated not only through the continual warfare in which they indulged on a general scale but, above all, by the regular incursions the Arab slave merchants made throughout the country. For three years, from 1891 to 1894, the Belgians waged a difficult and heroic war against these traders. Belgian officers and soldiers died that Negroes might be freed from slavery. The Belgian troops even joined with those of Lord Kitchener’s Egyptian army to end the Dervish resistance. Belgian rule also put an end to the medieval local wars between tribes and villages.

Tropical diseases and primitive hygiene accounted for a death rate recalling that of the ' darkest periods of the Middle Ages, when sometimes 50 to 75 percent of the inhabitants of certain regions of Europe died of epidemics. It is the pride of Belgium that sanitary conditions and medical aid in the Congo are better than anywhere else in Africa, that, for instance, in 1938, five million Negroes were examined by our health services, accounting for nearly half of the colored population. The Fore ami (Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Medical Aid for Natives), endowed by private and public funds, is entrusted with the building of hospitals, dispensaries and subsequently necessary roads. When an area has been cleared and made habitable, the State takes over and carries on at a moderate expense, not overburdened with the costs of the basic organization. More than ten percent of the colony’s budget is devoted to medical services.

In a country" as well acquainted with the problems which arise between people of different color as the United States, it is superfluous to say that the relations between white and colored people in the Congo have been carefully planned. It has been Belgium’s policy to respect, as much as feasible, native institutions -the elementary" forms of government which most villages possess. These villages are administered through the chiefs and native leaders in accordance with their tribal customs. Justice is administered by their own civil courts which are run by the natives under white surveillance. Tn the cities and big industrial centers where Negroes from many" different tribes live together, individual tribal customs can no longer be followed. Central governing bodies have, therefore, been formed in these cities, composed of Negro officials designated by the colored population. Of course, the presence of growing white communities of large proportions creates a situation for which the colored population is not prepared. To apply now our white men’s ideas of democracy and self-government to a territory comprising peoples of 80 different languages, having no common bond to unite them, would he a foolish and probably" a fatal experiment. Democratic government was the highest achievement of those undisputed masters of mankind, the Greeks. It is not a natural state to which people spontaneously revert. It demands an education which thousands of Belgians, as well as missionaries and administrators, have been giving the Negroes for half a century. Thein efforts have been successful. Except for occasional and local reoccurrences of tribal superstitions involving criminal practices, barbarism has left the Congo.

Are Belgian Negroes exploited ? The Charter of the Congo Colony decrees “that no one can be forced to work for private individuals or for companies”. The law on native labor is a ponderous volume which eliminates all chances the individuals or companies could

have to evade the clauses of the Charter. The only form of forced labor existing is the compulsion for every male Negro either to pay a modest tribute each year or work it off in a certain number of days, generally at state road ' work. The Belgians followed an old native custom that each man must work a certain number of days for his chief. It has been recog* nized by American experts that road-building

was a high point in Belgian colonization, resulting in "roads whose engineering feats and perfect upkeep make those of Kenya and Tanganyika look like cowpaths/’ So says Negley Farson, in Behind God's Back,

Qut of a native population of 14,000,000, only 420,000 Negroes are engaged as wageearners; a low percentage. They have the problems every wage-earner has all over the world. They have even additional ones, due to their frequent homesickness and the need of adapting themselves to new surroundings, but it is a far cry from depicting these people as victims of a brutal capitalistic exploitation, who must be freed at once.

This is not the place to discuss the merits and faults of capitalist management, and in the midst of the economic and social revolution we are going through it is less than ever the time. Step by step the government has built a series of restrictive devices around the big concerns which exploit most of the rich colonial mines. Even those who combat the influence of these companies are forced to recognize their creative role. Their social welfare organizations are outstanding models,

Colonies are often thought of as closed countries, the private hunting grounds of the white men of the homeland. The very basis of the Congo’s political system prevents this colony from being closed. It is one of the few countries in the world that are open on an equal basis to traders of all nationalities. Out of 9,204 economic undertakings only 4,227 are in Belgian hands. Commercially it is therefore the world’s playground, not the Belgians’ reservation.

The Belgian people have been reluctant to accept the colonial idea. But having done so, they have fully understood that theirs is a mission, the basi e justification of every colon ial action, to wit, the emancipation of the natives and the opening to the whole world of the mineral and vegetable treasures which, at present, are recognized by all the Allies as one of the great contributions of the Belgian Empire to the common cause.

Polish Refugees in Iran

THE Middle East is loaded with refugees from central Europe, and, even if no wars were on, the situation would tax the resources of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Iran. When the Polish troops were evacuated from their native land to Iran they brought along 10,000 women, children and disabled men and in an incredibly short time a Polish city sprang up on the outskirts of Teheran. Only hospital cases could have beds. Every-■ body else slept on the floor. But in jig time there were kitchens, bakeries, laundries, hospitals and schools going strong. A hundred women were running sewing machines, making clothes for the community. A carpenter’s shop was making furniture. A shoe shop was doing repair work and teaching dozens of boys how

to make shoes. Actors and actresses from Warsaw theaters were putting on as good shows as could be seen anywhere.                   .

A Canadian railroad man, backed by 142 British locomotives and 1,000 cars, sent from wherever they.could be spared, ' speedily expanded by six times the volume of traffic sent into Russia via the Persian Gulf and the now famous railroad across Iran, the one that was built by the Persians themselves, without borrowing money from anybody. This railroad helped to bring in supplies that made it possible to care for this army of Polish refugees now hard at work caring for themselves on the far-away shores of the Caspian sea in what was once Persia but is now Iran.

Presenting “This Gospel of the Kingdom”

Manuscripts and Versions of the Hebrew Scriptures

{In Three Parts—Part 3)

THERE were eight standard manuscripts or exemplars which were celebrated among the Jews for the correctness and value of their text. They are now lost but extracts of them are still preserved. Mention of them is made in Jewish writings and in the margins.of some manuscripts. They were the basis for the making of copies having general acceptation by Jews. These eight exemplars are: (1) The Codex of Hillel; (2) the Babylonian Codex of Ben-Naphtali; (3) the Codex of Israel; (4) the Egyptian Codex of Ben-Asher; (5) the Codex Sinai, on the Pentateuch; (6) the Pentateuch of Jericho; (7) the Codex Sanbuki; and (8) the book Taggin.

Jewish manuscripts are divided into “synagogue rolls” or sacred copies, and private or common copies. The synagogue rolls were made according to definite, strict rules, and contained the Pentateuch and appointed sections of the prophets or the book of Esther. These were in three rolls, and were never - put together in one.

They arc written in the Chaldee or square Hebrew characters, without vowel points and accents, but do show the fifteen extraordinary points and also the: unusual forms of certain consonants. They are made from genuine exemplars, without the slightest deviation therefrom or correction thereof.

The Helali or Hillel Codex (in Spain) was probably named after the Jew who wrote it, and was produced about A. D. 600. It had the Tiberian or sublinear vowels and accents, and also the Maso-

JANUARY 5, 1944 rah (textual comments in the margin). Up to A.D. 1500 it served as a model from which copies were made, but is now lost.

The Jewish scholar Pinner, who engaged in manuscript research, had a number of such named after him. No. 1, Pinner, is a roll of the Pentateuch on leather, and contains the five books of Moses complete. It has no vowel points, accents or masorah, which facts mark it as quite old. It consists of 45 pieces. According to the subscription of this manuscript or codex it was corrected in the year 580 and hence was written sometime earlier, likely 1300 years ago. It was brought to St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) and was kept there. If its subscription be genuine, it is the oldest manuscript known, except another manuscript, the Codex Petropolitanus, suspiciously dated A. D. 489, and is in the imperial library at St. Petersburg.

No. 5, Pinner, is an incomplete roll of the Pentateuch, with the subscription date of A.D. 843. No. 11, Pinner, is a fragment of a synagogue roll, dated 881. No. 3, Pinner, is a manuscript of 225 leaves, containing the greater and lesser prophets. Each page is written in two columns and has the masorah in between and in the margins. The vowels, accents and masorah differ from those in the Masoretie text; the vowel pointing is

,         27

over the consonantal letters according to the Eastern or Babylonian system. It has no punctuation whatsoever from Zechariah 14:6 to Malachi 1:13. The whole codex is very correctly written, and is dated A. D. 916. No. 15, Pinner, and No. 1'7, Pinner, are also according to the Babylonian system. No. 13, Pinner, * is an incomplete manuscript of 115 leaves, and has three columns to the page, with punctuation and masorah. It has many and important readings. An inscription states it was bought in 938. It is obviously an important codex.

The manuscript, No. 503, De Rossi, is an incomplete copy of the Pentateuch and has no traces of the masorah or qeris. It dates probably from the ninth or the tenth century. Codex 590, Kenni-cott, is a parchment manuscript containing the prophets and the other sacred writings (Hagiographa) except the Pentateuch; and has the vowel pointing. Its books are written with the titles missing, and are also arranged in the oldest order, Jeremiah and Ezekiel being before Isaiah, and Ruth before Psalms. The subscription states it was written in A. D, 1019 (or 1018). It was kept in the Imperial Library at Vienna, Austria.

Aside from the “synagogue rolls”, the private or common-copy manuscripts are written in Rabbinical characters on cotton or linen paper, and with the vowel points and masorah; and are none of them older than 600 years.

Translations

The earliest among the foreign-language versions of the Hebrew Scriptures is the Greek Septuagint, usually indicated by the letters LXX. It was produced to meet the needs of Greek-speaking Jews at Alexandria, Egypt. The name first applied strictly to the Pentateuch version, but afterwards was extended to include all the Hebrew books as they were translated. All these were combined into a single book by at least the first century A. D., at which time the Septuagint was accepted by the Greekspeaking Jew’s of the Dispersion as genuine Scripture. From them this Greek Version passed over to the Christians and is quoted from in the writing of Jesus’ apostles and disciples. The direct quotations from the Hebrew Scriptures have been computed to be 365, besides nearly 375 references or allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures more or less definite. The great majority of these quotations from the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures are taken by the apostles almost literally from the Septuagint, while some few appear to be new renderings made by them of the original Hebrew. The Septuagint was therefore based on a Hebrew text earlier than the Masoretic text. It was doubtless based on an old, well-written copy of the Hebrew Scriptures as preserved in the court of the temple at Jerusalem prior to the destruction of the temple in A. D. 70. Originally there were no apocryphal vm tings to the Greek Septuagint.

The Samaritan Version, so called, is really not a version, but contains the text of the first live books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, as preserved by the Samaritan community from the time of ' Nehemiah onward, hence from about the fifth century B. C. (Nehemiah 1,3: 23-31; John 4:4-20) The manuscripts upon which today’s printed text is based are, however, not of a date so early.

The so-called “Targums” (the Aramaic word tar gum meaning interpretation} are Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures. These in their written form, on the Pentateuch and prophetical books, cannot be earlier than the fourth or fifth century A. D. The text • which they show is practically the same as the Masoretic text. The Targum of Onkelos is thought to be the oldest Aramaic version existing. It is, on the; whole, literal and faithful as a translation, and is highly prized by Jews. The Targum of Jonathan is an Aramaic or Chaldee paraphrase on the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and twelve minor prophets. It is not So old or pure as that of Onkelos, but has its value for critical purposes. During their captivity in Babylon during the seventy-year desolation of Jerusalem the exile Jews adopted the Aramaic language. The Jews were averse to translating the Hebrew Scriptures into another language, because they held them to be so sacred, which accounts for it that the Aramaic version was not committed to writing until centuries later, that of Onkelos on the Pentateuch being written in the first century A. D. Till then the Aramaic version was handed down by oral tradition. This accounts for the statement at Nehemiah 8:8 describing how the Scriptures read to the congregation in Hebrew had to be interpreted orally in Aramaic for them to understand. The above verse reads: “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” On this the Jewish Talmud says that “the book” meant the original tekt; “distinctly” meant explaining it by giving the Chaldee paraphrase; “gave the sense” meant the division of words, etc., according to the sense; and “caused them to understand the reading” meant to give the traditional pronunciation of the words (the words being then without vowel points).—Ezra 7:6,11.

Of the Syriac Versions of the Hebrew * Scriptures, the Peshitto (P’shitta) or “simple” revision is translated from the Hebrew direct, although some books seem to have been influenced by the Greek Septuagint. The date of the Peshitto version is assigned to the second century. >Its underlying Hebrew text for translation was the same, as the Masoretic text,

Aquila was a Jewish proselyte of Pontus in Asia, an apostate from Christianity, and his Greek version of the Hebrew text is very literal. Because it slavishly adhered to the Jewish original, it was favored by the Greek-speaking Jews, who preferred it to the Septuagint because the Christians were using the Septuagint to prove the ancient prophecies as being fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Fragments of the Greek versions by Theodotion and Symmachus, both of the second century A. D., were preserved through the labors of Origen, of Alexandria, Egypt, born about A. D. 185. Origen produced a multiple version called the “Hexapla” (meaning “sixfold”). He arranged it into six parallel columns: (1) The Hebrew text; (2) the Hebrew transliterated into Greek letters; (3) Aquila’s Greek version; (4) Sym-machus’ Greek Version; (5) the Septuagint corrected by Origen to some extent to correspond with the Hebrew text; and (6) Theodotion’s Greek version. This Hexapla hindered rather than helped the restoring of the genuine, original Greek text of the Septuagint as Origen had intended.

The old Latin versions were based on a Greek version prior to Origen’s Hexapla. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate Version, completed about A. D. 404, did not take the place of those old Latin versions till two centuries later, namely, in the sixth century. His translation rvas direct from the Hebrew, but also made use of Greek versions, more especially Theodotion’s. It was Based on a Hebrew text practically identical with that of theMasoretes. _w Thus his was a fresh Latin translation, ' and became the basis of Western Biblical scholarship for a thousand years.

The famous manuscripts, the Vatican No. 1209 of the fourth century, and the Sinai tic of the fourth century, and the Alexandrine of the fifth century, besides containing the original Greek text of the Christian Scriptures, also contained the Septuagint version of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures.

The most important other versions yet remaining are the Egyptian, Ethiopic, Arabic, Gothic, and Armenian. With the exception of the Arabic, all of these versions of the Hebrew Scriptures appear to have been made, not direct, but through the medium of the Greek Septuagint.

Concerning printed (not manuscript) copies of the Hebrew text, various Jewish editions had already been printed in part since A. D. 1477, and in entirety since 1.488, thus shortly after the invention of printing. In A. D. 1514 the so-called “Complutensian Polyglot”, by Cardinal Ximenes, of Complutum or Alcala, Spain, began to be printed, and in 1522 it was published, twenty years after its beginning.. The first four volumes thereof contained the so-called "Old Testament”, with the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, in three columns, also the Targum and a Latin version of the same. The fifth volume contained the Greek "New Testament”, so called, with the Latin Vulgate. The last volume contained vocabularies, indexes, etc. Thus this polyglot work contained the first Gentile or non-Jewish edition of the Hebrew text. Six hundred copies thereof were printed, Other polyglot Bibles setting forth the Hebrew text followed in due course, of which copies thereof remain to this day.

The first English Version of the Hebrew Scriptures that was made by direct translation from the Hebrew text 'was that by the Englishman William Tyndale. His translation of the Pentateuch was published in 1530, and his translation of the book of Jonah in.1531. The first English Version of the entire Hebrew Scriptures, from Genesis to Malachi, that was translated direct from the Hebrew text appears to be that of the popular King James or Authorized Version Bible, published in 1611.

Despite the merits of the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, it appears to be the Lord’s will that the translation of the ancient Scriptures for this modern day be made, not from the Septuagint, but direct from the Hebrew Scriptures. This is the “day of Jehovah”, since A. D. 1914, and the climax of this day will be the*vindica-tion of His name. It is His will (Exodus 9:16) that His name should be declared throughout the earth by His witnesses before He shows His power over the enemies at the battle of Armageddon. His name Jehovah does not occur in the Greek Septuagint, that name being there represented by the Greek words for “the Lord” {ho kyrios), and for this reason the name Jehovah has been obscured for many centuries. The original Hebrew text does contain the name Jehovah in its more than six thousand occurrences. It is therefore fitting that the existent Hebrew text, even in the face of the possible corruptions therein, be used as the basis of translation into any other language today. Almighty God has even permitted it to work out so since the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, and that for His own wise reasons -which can be appreciated now-in this “day of Jehovah”.

Editing President Grant’s Speech

AT Des Moines, Iowa, in 1875, General

Grant, then president of the United States, called upon his fellow countrymen to encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. . . . Leave the matter of religion to the family circle, the church and the private school, supported entirely by private contribution. Keep the church and state forever separate.

In 1941 the United States Office of Education issued Bulletin 1940, No. 10, entitled “Expressions on Education by Builders of American Democracy”, and omitted the words above quoted. The reason, desire to placate the political religionists, is perfectly apparent. And the Office of Education is rendering a distinct disservice to the taxpayers that support it. Pretending to work for the people, they are actually -working against them, and for the religionists.

Read about

JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES-

INCREASED WORLD-WIDE ACTIVITIES

OPPOSITION by FREEDOM-DESTROYERS

DETERMINATION to STAND FAST for FREEDOM

in the

1944 YEARBOOK

' OF JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

This book contains a heart-stirring report by the president of the Watchtower Society reviewing the world-wide activities of Jehovah's witnesses during 1943. It is published for the aid and comfort of all freedom-loving people seeking the way that leads to life and other Kingdom blessings. You will profit greatly by taking hold of this enlightening provision, and will discern how the Lord’s servants are sending forth the light of His Word in every darkened section of the earth and doing so against great opposition. The enumerated evidences in this yearbook prove beyond all doubt that there is no power, in heaven or in earth, that can stop the forward march of Jehovah’s organization or frustrate the execution of His purposes by His servants in all the earth.

Not only will you be encouraged and thrilled by the facts and truths revealed in this cheering report, but you will be further strengthened and comforted in considering the Scripture text and Watchtower comment chosen for each day of the coming year and published in this yearbook.

Send immediately for your copy of the 1.944 YEARBOOK OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, containing 384 pages. It will be mailed postpaid upon remittance of 50c. This contribution will help defray the expense of this limited edition.

WATCHTOWER, 117 Adams St., Brooklyn 1, N.Y.

Please send me a copy of the 1944 Yearbook, for which I enclose a contribution of 50c.

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CONSOLATION