■Contents

The Record Speaks for'Franco

Franco a Criminal, a Murderer

Conditions Worse than Ever

Treatment of the Vanquished

. A Peanut Statesman

। The Famous Black last

Batting Franco the Buteher on the Baek 10

Winchell’s Letter to the President

Lest We Forget

Christians in the Galleys

Jehovah Spread His Word

Tyndale’s Work Followed Wycliffe’s

Clergy Always the Same, Everywhere .

Clergy Imitate Their Father, the Devil

“Thy Word Is Truth”

Studying the Word of Truth

Theocratic Victory in Brasil

Victory for Truth and Justice

On the Old Santa Fe Trail

Jumping into New Mexico

“They Never Had Enough”

“Divine Protection for Those in Service” 24

Huss, Reformer and Martyr

Little Children Suddenly Taken to “the

Land of the Enemy”

“Ye "Worship Ye Know Not What”

Prophetess Collides with Facts

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

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In Brief .

Weald You Believe, It?

♦ A Kansas newspaper states that on a certain day the name of a certain soldier appeared in'the casualty lists. The next day the wife of the dead soldier ib- . ceived a letter from a thief, asking for the return of $10 which he claimed to have loaned to the dead man. The woman had good judgment. She reported the matter immediately to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the rascal was caught. It seems hard to believe that any man could be that mean.                   ■

But worse yet would be the man, if such a man could be found, who would write to such a woman, or call upon her, and offer, for so much cash in hand, to deliver the dead soul of the soldier from ■ a place which does not exist, and which is nowhere even hinted at in God’s Word, i.e., "purgatory.” Would you believe that any man could do such a thing, and that he could not only do it but get away with it, and until Armageddon wipes the dirty religious slate clean?

Colorado’s Canon City Penal Institution ♦ One of the state’s penal institutions is at Canon City, 160 miles south of Den- ■ ver, in Fremont county. The warden of the state penitentiary' there hires out . about 500 of the convicts to work as ranchers, and harvesters of Cauliflower, ■ broccoli, potatoes, cherries, apples, and hay. The men are paid the prevailing farmhand wages, of which they are allowed to retain the wages that are paid to the workers within the prison walls. The rest of the revenue goes info the penitentiary fund, and is used to provide modern buildings and facilities for the comfort and care of the prisoners/ The warden says that none of those wprking outside the prison have tried to escape. That seems reasonable. There are better ways of getting the best out of a man than by kicking and beating him. Brains without blackjacks are better than blackjacks without brains.

CONSOLATION

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

Volume XXVI                 Brooklyn, N. ¥,, Wednesday, Aunust 1, 1945 '                 Number 875

The Record Speaks for Franco

THE conspiracy against the Spanish

Republic was not hatched in the United States. Uncle Sam merely mothered the chickens after the Old Hen,got off the nest. The refusal of the “statesmen” at Washington to sell the Spanish Republic the necessary weapons with which to defend itself constituted a reversal of a policy that had existed undisturbed for 150 years. Uncle Sam would and did sell munitions to Germany, and so helped to start World War II, but he wouldn’t sell to Spain because he wanted to please the Roman Catholic Hierarchy. And he acted with indecent haste.

Britain and France also cut off the Spanish Republic from arms, but Germany and Italy could have all they wished. All they had to do was to He, and Hitler and Mussolini could go right ahead with the pope’s wishes; which was what they did.

The Non-Intervention Committee was set up in London, and history records a no more completely hypocritical farce. The committee rewarded Italy for sending her armies to invade Spain by appointing her to be the protector and guard of a coast which she had already shelled. This is the first time in history that an aggressor was appointed by an impartial committee to patrol the coasts of the country he was invading.

There was no embargo on the shipment of munitions to Japan. Does it seem now that it was wise and just to help Germany, Italy, Japan an*d Franco and to garrote the Spanish Republic and the Chinese Republic? Who asked it? and who was benefited? Does it make you feel proud that when, on occasion, the Spanish Catholics that were fighting Franco and his Moors brought down one-of his planes, they found that the engines had been manufactured in the United States? That happened after the embargo went into effect.

Uncle Sam furnished military supplies to the Cuban, Mexican and Nicaraguan governments when such governments were threatened with rebellion, hut in the case of Spain the very opposite course was pursued. That makes it look just as crooked as it is.

Timidity in the Face of Cruelty

It isn’t manly to be timid in the face of cruelty, and Uncle Sam was timid when the Hierarchy wanted to keep the Basque Catholic children away from American shores after Hitler had destroyed Guernica and other cities where they had lived. France gave refuge to 8,500, while 4,000 went to England, 500 to Belgium, and 500 to Mexico; but when it was proposed to send 500 to the wealthiest country in the world, to the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, the statesmen at Washington crawled on their bellies as statesmen are wont to do in the presence of the triplecrowned humbug with headquarters at Vatican City. The Basque .children would have to go to Paris to get visas, but after they had gotten them they could not use them. The Hierarchy did not want them to come.

One reason why the Hierarchy wanted

Franco to win was that the pope’s ambassador to Franco was Isidoro Cardinal Goma y Tomas, bishop of Toledo. The bishop’s salary for looking after the spiritual interests of starving Spaniards amounted to $600,000 a year. It is easy -to look after a starving man properly ’Alien you are comfortably fed yourself. At the time this came out it was also disclosed that while 85 percent of the soldiers of the Republic were Spaniards and Catholics, on the Hierarchy’s side there were 50,000»Moors and 25,000 Germans, besides 125,000 Italians and 50,000 Portuguese. Other nationalities also ■ were represented.

When the Loyalist government saw they must have arms if they would survive, and asked permission of France and Britain to buy where they could, to offset the efforts of Hitler and Mussolini to destroy the republic, their request was flatly refused. As far as the United States is concerned, it is a fact that the embargo policy was “slipped through” while both then Secretary of State Hull and Undersecretary of State Welles were out of the country. The plot to cut off war materials from the legitimate Spanish government was jammed through Congress with such haste that in the House the debate was limited to one hour.

“Catholics Back Embargo”

That is a headline in the New York Times, in the days when this unheard-of scheme of denying a legitimate government the wherewithal to defend itself was in the news of the day constantly. Of course, they backed it. That is what the pope wanted, and what he wants is what they want, whether there is any honesty, justice or decency connected with it or not In Cincinnati 5,000 Knights of Columbus voted against lifting it. They did not wish their fellow Catholics in Spain to have a republican government.

Dorothy Thompson said in her column “On the Record”:

We are simply, like all the rest of the democratic world, yielding to blackmail, and, like France, following the lead of a British government which has proved an appalling incapacity of courage, leadership, or even simple morality.

At one time_; the world was mightily stirred by news that leaked out from Istanbul, Turkey, that airplanes had been shipped to the legitimate Spanish government in violation of the United States embargo, but when investigation showed that the planes had been shipped not to the Spanish Republic but to the man Franco that ’was engaged in overthrowing it, all was well and the subject lost interest. In was enough that the pope wished the republic’s death.

In the final showdown, the Spanish Republic (in the Catalonia campaign) was revealed as having just about onetenth of the tanks, planes and pieces of artillery that Franco had obtained, mainly from Germany. Is it any wonder the republic went down? And when it was too late to do any good more than 167,000 telegrams, letters and post cards poured into the White House and State Department asking for the lifting of the embargo, with less than 16,000 opposing the lifting of it. Almost any man would be ashamed to get caught in the act of choking to death a man with the same ideas as himself who had never done him any harm.

As soon as Franco’s treachery had succeeded, the United States graciously and immediately recognized the traitor’s government as the legitimate one for Spain and lifted the embargo forthwith. The republic had been destroyed. What further need of the embargo? The betrayal of Sp'ain had been a complete success.

What Hitler saw and what he helped to bring about in Spain in the way of a successful betrayal foreshadowed the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, and made it almost inevitable; and since then everybody knows what has happened. World War II got under way.

Franco a Criminal

Any traitor that destroys a government to which he has sworn allegiance is personally responsible for the acts of those he employed to make the treason effective. The ‘‘Reverend Father” .Alberto Onaindia, the canon of Valladolid, said in an interview in Paris:

I saw the bombardment and destruction of Guernica by enemy planes. "Women and children were slaughtered ,by aviators with machine guns. ... At the village of Ceanuri, twenty miles from Bilbao, twenty-four women, including a girl of 12, were violated by the rebel Moors.

Franco is responsible for these murders and these rapings.

A dispatch from Seville stated that Franco came there in “Holy Week” of the year 1940 “acting in his capacity of chief of state and leader of the Spanish people”, and that this “emphasized the close connection of the new regime with the church”,, and also :

After the solemnities of Good Friday give way to the liberated gaiety of Easter, he will preside at a gala opera, and a bull fight in Spain’s biggest bull ring, on the banks of the Guadalquiver on Sunday afternoon.

That is quite an idea. A man who is directly responsible for the death of 1,000,000 fellow Spanish Catholics celebrates the resurrection of Christ by presiding at a bull fight in the biggest bull ring in Spain, on Sundav afternoon, March 21, 1940.

Is it any wonder that the Spanish primate, Cardinal Isidoro Goma y Tomas, stated in his pastoral of about that date that religion is at a low ebb in Spain, that the churches are empty, that only a small percentage of the men and women attend services, and that the Franco victory, contrary to expecta- ’ tions, did not result in a revival of religious faith?

Gil Robles, formerly working alongside Franco, but now’ an exile in Portugal, has made eight charges against his former chieftain: that Spain’s foreign policy is completely pro-Axis; that

Spanish divisions have fought against Russia; that Franco. offered Hitler 1,000,000 soldiers; that he'inspired proGerman articles; that his Falange party had organized manifestations against Great Britain; that Tangier had been occupied militarily in violation of treaties ; that the Franco government has been proclaimed as totalitarian; and that under pressure subjects <5f occupied countries who were not members of the military forces have been put in concentration camps.

Franco a Murderer

It occasionally happens that honest workmen embarrass dishonest and criminally minded persons. Thus, Norwegian , seamen at Baltimore refused to sail on ^; the S.S. Titanian when they knew that it was loaded with war materials wherewith Franco could murder his fellow Catholics of the Spanish Republic, fighting for the four freedoms.

Franco is personally responsible for the slaughter of his fellow religionisms at Guernica. The “Reverend Father” Eusebio de Arronategi, priest of the church of Santa Maria in Guernica, an eyewitness of the massacre, testified: “It ■was not our militia who set fire to Guernica. If the oath of a Christian and a Basque Alcade has any value, I swear before God and history that German airplanes bombed viciously and cruelly our beloved town Guernica until they had wiped it off the earth.”

A German aviator captured by the Loyalist forces admitted that he had been ordered to shoot everything that moved, and did so until his plane was punctured and he had to bail out. General Goering who, with Franco, was responsible for the slaughter at Guernica, was reported as well pleased with the performance. Franco tried at first to lie out of it, but afterwards admitted the essential facts, 3,000 civilians slain. •

Munitions shipped to Franco from Germany were labeled “Chocolate”. A crate burst open in Hamburg and was

found filled with bullets. But as if to offset a lie with a reality, about two years later, namely,¹ February 2, 1939, boxes apparently containing chocolates were dropped from Fascist planes over Catalonia, and the children who picked them up had their hands blown off, as is testi-tfied by the last British nurse to leave *the district.

Frdm the start Franco was and is an avowed Fascist, responsible for the death of 1,000,000 of his fellow Spanish Catholics. And the pope is equally responsible, or more so, for he blessed Franco and is a partaker of his evil deeds. Franco is openly anti-democratic,' and so is the pope.

Franco a Thief '

In Saragossa, Spain, at the Church of the Lady of del Pilar, there is one of the greatest stores of treasure on earth: innumerable roses made of diamonds and other precious stones; 365 necklaces of pearls and diamonds; 6 chains of gold set with diamonds; 195 silver lamps, ranging in weight from 100 to 500 pounds; an image of the Virgin 5 feet high, all of pure silver, set with precious stones, and a crown of gold set with diamonds. And the common people of Saragossa starving. If that isn’t stealing, what is it!                       .

In Our Lady of Pilar’s crown are 2,836 big diamonds, 5,725 small diamonds, 145 pearls, 74 emeralds, 62 rubies, and 46 sapphires, and in the crown of her little baby there are 574 big diamonds, 200 small diamonds, 12 pearls, 16 emeralds, and 16 rubies. Thus the baby, representing Almighty God, is counted worthy of sporting 818 gems, but the decorations on the image of the virgin Mary total up to 8,888, or more than ten times as many, on account of ‘her being God’s mama’.

In the midst of the excitement of the Spanish War, three airplane robbers 'cleaned the Pamplona (Spain) . cathedral of jewels worth $412,500 and managed to get back over the Pyrenees without getting caught. They probably figured that it doesn’t make sense to have more jewels than you know what to do with when you are in the religious business in a country where the common people are starving. Moreover, the “Church” owns about two-thirds of all the privately owned land in the whole country. (And Jesus owned no place where to lay His head.)

One of the first things Franco did after he became ruler was to return to King Alfonso XIII and his useless relatives all the property they had left behind when they fled from the country. It makes Franco vexed to think of the, common Catholic Spaniards’ owning anything. He wants all property to lie in the hands of the “Church” and the aristocracy.

Within six months after he gained power, he set aside $6,000,000 a year to maintain the Church racket, despite the fact that most of the,churches were playing to empty houses. Moreover, he made the Spanish people responsible for the damage done to church property during the time it had been used for fort or arsenal purposes. A few months later $30,000,000 of the people’s money was turned over to the Jesuits. None of these rascals pay any taxes. It all comes out of the hide of the common people. And in less than a year after his victory he gave the grandees back their estates; and the only useful thing most of these grandees ever do is- to provide a means of exit for the finest foods and most delicious wines.

Conditions Worse than Ever

As soon as Franco had obtained full power, the conditions which had previously been bad enough became much worse. Supplies were scarce and the gang in power sold a considerable part of these in the black market and pocketed the proceeds, while another part was stolen outright. Flour sacks were turned face downward in the trucks so that the Spanish Catholic people would not be able to read the words “Gift from the American people” inscribed thereon, even if they knew how to read. A sample of Franco’s gratitude.

The “Church” had privileges greater even than under Alfonso. The annual state payments of 65,000,000 pesetas were resumed, and the property of the religious orders, which had been partly confiscated, was restored. Divorce was abolished and civil marriage was permitted only if both parties could show they were not Catholics.

Half the food grown in Spain was shipped to Italy and Germany, and to the latter country went heavy shipments of copper, mutton fats and olive oil, all useful in war. The Masons were exterminated. Charged with having promoted liberty and education, and being thus the most dangerous citizens in the country, they were given six to twelve years in prison.

The crookedness of the Franco crowd was manifested even in the United States, where, among two dozen organizations that collected money for one side or another of the Spanish people at war with each other, the pro-Franco American Committee for Spanish Relief, headed by Ogden H. Hammond, former ambassador to Spain, made a great splurge of collecting $30,753 for war sufferers, and not one cent of the money ever went across the pond. It was all used up in “expenses”. What a gang!

Treatment of the Vanquished

History very properly judges the manhood of a conqueror by his treatment of the vanquished. Franco exterminated those capable of democratic leadership. He uttered never one word of mercy or generosity. He was as vicious, cruel and devilish as a pope. He started off his courts by pronouncing the death sentence on 20 fellow creatures daily. Lawrence A. Fernsworth, an honest and educated Catholic, stated that at the execution of men guilty only of being officials of the republic, such as mayors or members of the Cortes, the scenes resembled those of the Inquisition. Great mobs reviled the doomed and refused to let them say one word; this at Majorca.

At Caceres, after a group of Spanish republican Catholics had been executed, one sat up. One of Franco’s “men” walked over, kicked him between the eyes, and dispatched him with a pistol. Why, this conduct is almost as bad as it is alleged to be. at the Medical Center of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Springfield, Mo., where, as alleged in the New York World-Telegram of February 9, 1944, the customary procedure involves beating the sick, pounding them with fire hose, depriving them of food, kicking them in the most vulnerable parts%f their bodies, confining them in stone cells, Without heat or furnishings of any kind, and forcing them to sleep nude on bare concrete floors. All this is* the one-time vaunted “New Order”.

At Marbella, Franco’s troops captured 200 Catholic militiamen of the Spanish Republic. He and his fellow traitors had taken over all the soldiers’ uniforms in the country, and because these men did not have on the uniforms he had stolen he had the 200 tried, sentenced and executed in just 24 minutes.

At Ondaretta prison prisoners were knocked half senseless to the floor and then kicked savagely as they I$y. At Ba-dajoz any captured soldiers of the Spanish Republic who did not instantly join the ranks of the traitor army of Franco were shot immediately. Franco’s Moors sharpened their swords until they had razor edges. They became experts in decapitating prisoners at one blow. At Malaga prisoners were shot to death, being shot in the back after their hands had been tied behind their backs.

A Son of the Devil

Anybody but a son of the Devil would show some compassion for suffering captives in his power. But not Franco. He has never uttered a word of compassion for any of the honest men that he betrayed, and who lost their cause through ' the poltroonery of Britain, France and America. When Madrid fell, instead of declaring an amnesty it was officially disclosed that 1,200,000 had been accused, and after 60 days they were being tried at the rate of 380 a day in Madrid alone, and in all Spain were being executed at the rate of one every nine minutes. While awaiting their fate, 20,000 Spanish Catholic republican soldiers were crowded into the bull ring at Ciudad Beal so tightly that most of them could not lie down, and they were kept there for 20 days with almost no food at all and very little water. This was reported by the American Friends Service Committee. These Quakers, it should be explained, are not members of the “Church” jof the “Most Reverend” Francis J. Spellman and Francisco Franco. Nine months after the war had ended, the Vatican reported that 500,000 men and women political prisoners were still in Spanish jails and concentration camps.

A Peanut Statesman

As the last army of the Spanish Republic fled over the Pyrenees into France this two-legged excuse for a man had them machine-gunned, thus blotting out another 1,000. His great haul of prisoners he housed in convents and in the churches which, to a large degree, had been used before that as his arsenals. When he handed over his sword to the Cardinal Goma y Tomas his bodyguard consisted of Moors in white turbans, all of them heathen at heart.

Ten months after the war ended, it was estimated that Madrid alone had witnessed 40,000 executions, but by the end of that time they were down to 1,000 a month. The Butcher had the daily shootings take place at the Eastern Cemetery, to save bother in hauling and burying the corpses. A year and a half after the war was over Collier's estimated a possible 500,000 still in jail, with 2,000,000 men, women and children dead as a result of the war. Two years after the war was over the St. Louis Dispatch said the former Spanish Catholic republicans were being liquidated in droves from the overcrowded and underrationed prisons. Also, the American State Department had asked Franco to please be nice to his prisoners. It waited only two years to do this.

Faint Glimmerings of Reason

Someone else must have drawn the attention of mankind to the true situation in Spain. It could not have been Franco; he does not have the common sense. But after two years it was noticeable that neither the factories nor the railroads had enough skilled workers. Production costs were high. The cost of living kept rising. Franco would not care for that, not as long as he had control of the public purse, and could take .what he liked. But multitudes of the Spanish people fell into tuberculosis, from lack of food, and the shortages of coal, gasoline and cotton. When all the most intelligent workers in a country are thrown into prison, somebody besides the prisoners suffer. Franco would never have sense enough to think of a thing like that. But others did, and mentioned it

Two years and nine months after the war was over Franco the Butcher made the statement that “Spain has ever been the favorite nation of our Lord”. This made a hit at the Vatican, and the next month the pope cut loose, bawling out the Spanish Republic (composed almost entirely of his own followers) as “the diabolical persecution let loose in our time against the most sacred name of Christ”, i.e., against the system of slavery and thievery for which the Papacy has always stood and by which it has always profited in Spain.

Over three years after the war was over there were still nearly 1,000,000 Spanish Catholic republicans in Spanish prisons. Four years after it was over, there were between 800,000 and 1,000,000 better men than Franco still in his prisons, agriculture was prostrate, livestock was depleted, there was a coal shortage, the railways were in awful shape, and all Spain had to boast of w'as the grinning monkey Franco that knew' how to be a traitor, and knew how to get frequent “blessings” from the pope, but knew not enough to make him a decent worker with a pick and shovel. It takes brains and industry to swung a pick and handle a shovel. Spellman admired Franco; and why shouldn't he? Both are in on the same racket.

The books Appeasement’s Child, by New York Times' correspondent Thomas J. Hamilton, and We Cannot Escape History, by John Whitaker, disclose that Franco enriched the rich and starved the poor, fueled the German U-boats, and still held 500,000 in prison as the fourth year drew' to an end. A partial amnesty was granted at Christmas, near the close of the fifth year. A more cruel, vicious, narrow-minded man never breathed.

Cruelty of a Fiend

A year after Franco had been set at his Benedict Arnold job of destroying the Spanish Catholic Republic, his airmen bombed a home for the feebleminded at Santa Agueda. These poor creatures probably would not have been in the place in which they were but for the vicious treatment in this life by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, and the fear of still w'orsc things in the hereafter in the imaginary “purgatory” cooked up for them by those that had robbed them in this life. The attendants were machine-gunned at the same time. If Jesus and all the apostles had been there, this Butcher Franco, w’hom Spellman so much admires, wmuld have machine-gunned them also.

Franco’s airmen bombed Catholic churches at Durango and machine-gunned the worshipers; 25 bodies were recovered from one church. Starving children, fleeing barefoot out of Malaga, were bombed. Pregnant women were killed by being made to drink large quantities of castor oil; this at Algeciras. In the destruction of Guernica (by German planes, but with Franco’s consent) fifty women and children were burned alive. At Lerida 50 school children were killed.

In the second year of the war there were cities where every cat was eaten; the children were blue with hunger and cold; the mothers were so poorly fed that they could not nurse their children; eighty Masons w'ere garroted at Malaga, and the New York Daily News was wondering how it could be true that the Spanish Catholic people could really be wishing the return to power of a “leftover of a centuries-old royal line of profligates, sensual, diseased, prognathous (jaws projecting forwards) haemophiliac (susceptible to hemorrhages, bloodthirsty) sloppy-brained, often brainless or insane, rakehells”. The Daily News should know, by now, that what the pope wants he wants.

The Famous Hlack List

Jehovah has a white list of those that will be awakened from the sleep of death (Malachi 3:16; John 5:28). Franco had a black list, of the ones he intended to murder quietly after the war. If any Spanish Catholic desired a republic, that was enough to get him on the list. At first it was said that in this card index there were 1,500,000 names of men and women. Then Franco himself stated he had 2,000,000 names in the file. This looked so unspeakable to the New York Daily News that it cut the number in half, and this was the number (1,000,000) cabled two months after the war was over. Newsweek,' a. week later, moved it up to 1,200,000. Franco probably included in his list the entire 500,000 refugees that escaped into France, figuring that he would get them and murder them at his convenience sometime.

As a true son of the Devil, Franco put on his list those who had worked for the republic two years before he began his successful attempt to destroy it. He punished also those who dared to put “obstacles in the path of the providential and inevitable triumph” of his dastardly treason. Nurses were arrested for caring for wounded soldiers. In Barcelona alone 130,000 persons were arrested. The German Gestapo were busy all over Spain. .

Thousands of little children became \ vagrants. They had no other way to live. With nobody to harvest the crops, the^: yield of wheat fell off to less than half, and but for the generosity of the U. S. State Department the number that starved would have been astronomical. So far, Franco has merely proved that he knows how to murder; nothing else. A New York lawyer with business in Vichy France was wisely warned that he would do well to take his food along with him. He says he can never erase from his memory the faces of the starving children of Spain that he saw on that trip.

Goes to Mass Every Day

While the unspeakable Franco was engaged in ruining Spain the ‘.‘Very Reverend” Sylvester Sancho, O.P., told an audience of priests' at the Catholic University, in Washington, D.C., that Franco “is a gentleman and a good Catholic. He goes to mass every day and says his rosary with his wife and daughter every afternoon” (sweetly unconcerned about Spain’s starving children). One of the meanest things that could be truthfully said about both Franco and the hypocritical coward Petain is that Franco was Petain’s favorite pupil at the St. Cyr military school.

Two years after the war was over, the ighoramus running Spain still held so many intelligent and industrious Spanish Catholics in prison that physicians on the spot declared that, in spite of fabulous assistance by Uncle Sam, the Spanish people had only a fourth of the food which they needed to maintain them in health. The true explanation is that he is afraid of liberty-lovers and dreads the spread of the truth. At the same time (summer of ’41) Franco had the crust to say that the Allies had lost the war; that his sympathies were with Germany and Italy and that “Europe wants nothing, from America” (this while Uncle Sam was feeding and clothing the starving and naked subjects of his misrule). Spain at that very time was in economic chaos, and is to this day.

In Appeasement's Child •Hamilton shows that Franco has turned Spain into a desert; that conditions, every year, are worse than the year before; that Franco has set to himself the task of keeping hatred alive; that intellectual life is dead; that he hafe even proscribed the Basque language. He encouraged a large birth rate; including bastardy, but starved the prospective mothers. He pinned the “bleeding heart of Jesus” on heathen Moorish murderers, and the pope sat in on the whole devilish performance by sending him his “blessing” once more, on January 1, 1944.

Patting Franco the Butcher on the Back

THE Spanish Civil War is supposed to have ended January 18, 1939, when the Spanish Republic was “stabbed to death by Spanish, German and Italian Fascists, and Moors, to the cheers of diplomatic, clerical and Big Business gentlemen in London, Paris and Washington”. That’s the way it was stated in London Cavalcade, which continued as follows:

The cause of the Civil War was the resistance of about 20,000 grandees, supported by a blind and idle officer caste, resisting agrarian reform. They held three-fifths of the arable land, while over 1,000,000 peasants were more or less landless. Over 80,000 priests, monks, and nuns in a population of 24,000,000 clung to their privileges and, through their control of education, claimed the right to perpetuate illiteracy and ignorance. The Church insisted in the name of God that the monastic orders and ecclesiastical magnates must keep their properties, which included vast holdings of real estate, banks, insurance companies and public utilities. Behind these facts is the great human tragedy of a people struggling for food and light, and then being kicked in the face back into the darkness by Franco and his friends in the democracies.

In one of the panels at the head of the above story, and which story is entitled ‘^Franco Must Go”, Cavalcade had these words: “We will have no truck with Fascism in any way, in any shape or form. We will permit no vestige of Fascism to remain, said President Roosevelt.”

Winchell's Letter to the President

Within three weeks from the date of Cavalcade’s charges, Walter Winchell wrote an open letter to President Roosevelt regarding Franco, who, at that time, was very evidently using lend-lease to help Hitler, and was backing up the paper-hanger with troops for use against Russia. A few paragraphs from his interesting letter of February 28,1944, are still very much to the point:

My Dear Mr. President: This is more than an accusation against Franco the Fascist. It is a bill of particulars for the Senate and House Foreign Relations Committee. It screams for investigation. Right now an American ambassador sits with a dictator and a war criminal whom the ambassador has proclaimed as the savior of his country. In the dictator’s jails languish 200,000 people whose sole crime is that they believe in democracy. The American ambassador is Carlton J. H. Hayes; and his crony, the German agent Hayes has proclaimed as the savior of his country, and the builder of its future, is Dictator Franco.              '

Should Ambassador Hayes have any doubt about Franco’s intent ? On December 7, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Franco’s newspaper said:

“Japan has reached the limit of her patience. She could no'longer tolerate the interference of the United States.”

Exactly one year later, December 7, 1942, Franco himself said that

“Spain would follow the road marked out by the totalitarian revolutions of Italy and Germany!”

Franco’s newspaper declared on January 2, 1942, when the Japanese marched into Manila:

“The ancient and renowned culture of the magnificent oriental empire, and its exceptional human values are shown in the important victories of the first days, victories that have won for Japan the admiration of the world.”                          ,

Doesn’t Ambassador Hayes know that Colin Kelly was dead at that time; that MacArthur’s men were surrounded and starving; that American wounded were being bombed, and that these “exceptional human values” praised by Franco resulted in the terrible “March of Death” in which so many American boys were beheaded ?

Hayes should know that Franco is holding Italian ships for Hitler. When, on September 8, 1943, the Italian fleet surrendered to the Allies, Franco seized one Italian cruiser . and four gunboats that were in Spanish ports. He has refused to release them to the Bado-glio government, saying that Berlin would consider that an act of war. However, when in the fall of 1942 our forces drove a damaged Italian submarine into the port of Santander, Franco ordered it repaired. It was then escorted out to sea by a Spanish destroyer and allowed to “escape”, to attack American transports. By Franco’s own statement, isn’t that an act of war?

Having deprived the Spanish Republic of arms and munitions wherewith to defend itself, and having supplied Italy and Germany with arms and munitions wherewith they destroyed that republic, it seems only consistent that Prime Minister Churchill should have acted as spokesman for both Britain and the United States when he patted Franco on the back in this wise:

I have no sympathy with those who think it is clever or even funny to insult and abuse the government of Spain. Spain’s internal politics are a matter for the Spaniards alone.

It was three months after Walter Winchell’s letter to Mr. Roosevelt before Mr. Churchill spoke so considerately about the right of the Spanish people to govern themselves as they see fit. , It is too bad that Mr. Roosevelt and iMr. Churchill’s predecessor did not have 4                                 .....—. this same disinterested high regard for the Spanish people when Franco was conspiring with British Catholics and -with the pope to rob them of their liberties and put the grandees and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy once more as a ball and chain about their necks.

Lest We Forget

THE “Peace Program” slogan of the Roman religious “knights” states its purpose to be “to bring back God into world-government” and “to re-establish the social reign of the Prince of Peace”. Thus are mirrored the sentiments of the Vatican as they were also revealed by a Vatican spokesman at Columbus, Ohio, in February, 1942. This Hierarchy spokesman, an outstanding American archbishop, speaking on the subject of “How Can Peace Come to the World?” said: “With the prophetic Pope Leo XIH let us say: ‘Christ our Lord must be reinstated as the ruler of human society.’ ” (Cincinnati Times-Star, February 24, 1942)        ...

The period in world history in which the Roman Catholic Hierarchy considers that God was in world government and Christ was the ruler of human society was the time when the pope of Rome enjoyed world domination as the spiritual overlord of the kings of Europe in his supposed capacity as the “vicegerent of Christ”. Since this condition of Roman Catholic world domination is one the Vatican is now bending every effort to restore, and since the Bible prophecies show that once again, in these last days of Satan’s world, the time will come when the Roman Catholic Hierarchy will dominate the world’s rulers, let us turn back the pages of history and see just what conditions existed on the earth in the days when this religious Hierarchy controlled the crowned heads of the leading Western nations, known collectively as “Christendom”. How did the Bible and those who read it fare? _

As the Roman Catholic Hierarchy rose in pow’er and influence, the Latin Vulgate Version of the Bible, translated from the Hebrew and Greek texts by Jerome., the secretary of the Roman pontiff, Damasus T, became its accepted Bible version. But the time came when the common people over whom the Roman pontiff held sway no longer spoke or understood Latin. They could no longer read the Vulgate for themselves, and had no Bible in the tongue they spoke. This made them dependent upon the educated Roman Catholic clergy for their knowledge of the Scriptures.

Why Clergy Hate the Bible

The clergy found that the less the common people knew of the Scriptures, the less likely were they to stray from the Roman Catholic fold and the power of the Hierarchy. So they conspired to keep the people in ignorance and bitterly fought anything that tended to enlighten them with a knowledge of the Bible. Beginning with the pronouncement of pope Nicholas I in 860 A.D., Roman popes from time to time issued pronouncements or decrees against the Bible and those who read it.          ‘             '

One of the “offenses” that would bring a person before the diabolical Inquisition was the reading of the Bible in the common tongue. Once before the Inquisition, a defense was of practically no use in obtaining the release of the prisoner. Upon condemnation, the prisoner -was violently whipped or otherwise tortured, sent to the galleys, or put to death by burning, beheading, or other means.

Juliano, a native-born Spaniard, was a victim of the Inquisition for distributing Bibles in Spain. Obtaining the Bibles in Germany, he succeeded in getting them into the hands of many people in Spain. But he was betrayed to the Inquisition by a person to whom he had given a Bible. He was seized by the agents of the Inquisition and tortured unmercifully in an effort to make him tell the names of everyone to whom he had given the Bibles.

_t Eight hundred people were arrested oh the charge of having accepted Bibles from him or having known of someone who did accept one. Juliano and twenty of these people were burned alive at the stake. The rest drew sentences of life imprisonment, banishment to the galleys, or a public beating and exile from Spain.

Christians in the Galleys

Christians who ■were condemned to the galleys by the Inquisition suffered a fate worse than death. Here they were chained to the oar and exposed day and night to all kinds of weather. They were scantily clothed and fed. Cold and vermin from lack of sanitary provisions tortured' them. If they fainted at the oar, they w’ere beaten. They slept, sick or well, on a hard board eighteen inches wide.

If they refused to hear mass, they received the “bastinado”. This consisted of being stretched naked over a huge gun, held immovable, and beaten with a knotted rope-end or a rough club until the skin came off the bones and the victim was nearly dead. Then a torturing mixture of salt and vinegar was applied to the bleeding flesh and the victim taken to the hospital in the dark hold of the ship. Here thousands died on hard boards, covered with vermin and with absolutely no sanitary provisions of any kind.

Burning alive at the stake was another popular means the Roman Catholic clergy used to punish those who owned a Bible, read a Bible or sought to translate or distribute* Bibles in the language of the people.

About 1325 John Wycliffe was born, in England. He translated the entire Bible into English, so that the common people might read it. He died while his enemies were busy gathering evidence for his destruction for this “offense”. So great was the hatred of his enemies for him that, by a decree of the Council of Constance, forty years later, Wycliffe’s bones were dug up and burned. The ashes were then thrown into the Swift river.

Copies of Wycliffe’s Bible were distributed far and wide over England. Printing had not yet been invented, and the Bibles had to be copied laboriously with the pen. It took about ten months’ steady work to copy the manuscript. This made them cost $200 a copy, which represented a greater amount then than it does now, and only the wealthier class could own them. But those who could own them shared with their poorer neighbors, who learned portions by heart, which they⁷ recited to others. There is record of a congregation’s sending for one named Alice Collins to recite to them the Ten Commandments and portions of Paul’s epistles which she had memorized. Many who were not able to buy the entire Bible bought copies of certain epistles or gospels. Where there was only one copy of the Bible in the neighborhood, the people met at night and the Bible was passed from one to another, who read aloud from it in turn.

Jehovah Spread His Word

Knowledge of the Scriptures spread rapidly and widely, with the resultant exposure of the falsity of Roman Catholic doctrines and the withdrawal of the people* therefrom. The bitter opposition of the clergy forbade the use of such Bible translations at the Convocation of Canterbury, on the penalty of excorpmunication, and culminated in a council of the Roman “Church” at Rome. This council called upon the magistrates of every country in “Christendom” to kill everyone who refused to depart from the

beliefs of Wycliffe and his followers.

In England this decree of the Roman Council became part of the common law. It was passed A.D. 1401. Owning some 'part'of Wycliffe’s Bible and being able to read it and recite it to others were offenses that carried the death penalty, t Those who stood by the Bible and refused to submit to the Roman Church were burned. Often the one who was burned had fastened about his neck at the stake such portions of the Scriptures as the clergy found in his possession.

Between 1509 and 1517 five persons were charged with the heinous crime of having met together secretly to read certain chapters of the Gospels in English. The Roman- bishops claimed these Scriptures contained “damnable” doctrines favoring heresy. In 1521 alone, in England, a hundred people were tried by Longland, bishop of Lincoln, for reciting or reading parts of the Bible in English. In 1519, at Coventry, seven persons were burned in one fire because they taught their children and servants the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer in English. At Newbury, Christopher Shoemaker was burned alive for reading to John Say at his home the words Christ said to His followers.

Tyndale’s Work Followed Wycliffe’s

Upon this scene of violent wickedness and the shedding of the blood of the “poor innocents”, there now appeared the earnest, scholarly English youth William Tyndale. At Cambridge he became acquainted with Erasmus, the capable Greek scholar of Holland. Erasmus had just completed a Greek Testament based on ancient manuscripts, and a furore of denunciation among the Romish clergy was raging against it.

Tyndale took up the study of this new Greek Testament. The more he read it, the more wonderful he found it. He tried to get the priests to study it for themselves, and the enlightenment he received from it made him argue with them constantly. It was in such an argument that the one with whom Tyndale was arguing hotly stated that to do without God’s laws was preferable to doing without the pope’s. Tyndale’s indignant reply was that he defied the pope and- all his laws, and that, with God's protection and help, he would one day make the English plowboy know' more of the Bible than the pope himself.

So he set to work to fulfill his vow. Cuthbert Tonstal, bishop of London, refused to allow' him to do the translating work at his palace. So, for almost a year, Tyndale worked quietly at the translating work in the home of a London merchant, Humphrey Monmouth. Then, in 1524, because he feared the clergy would kill him before he finished his task, he left England for ever, and w'ent to Hamburg, Germany. Here, toiling in poverty and distress and constant danger, he finished the translation of the New’Testa-ment’into English and took his work to a printer at Cologne.

No longer did Bibles have to be written laboriously by hand. Printing had been invented, in 1456, at Mainz, Germany, by Gutenburg, and the first book to be printed was a Bible. Tyndale was determined that all England should have printed Bibles in English.

He had done his translating in secret, but a priest named Cochlaeus heard some printers talking, plied them with wine, and got the astounding information from them that an English New Testament was nearly printed. Upon the demand of Cochlaeus, the magistrates went to the print shop to seize the work. But Tyndale had been warned in advance w^That had happened. He got to the print shop before the strong-arm squad, seized his manuscript, and fled to Worms. Here he accomplished his purpose, bringing out the first complete English printed New Testament.

As the priest Cochlaeus had w'arned the English bishops of bis activities, Tyndale kneiy he would have to use strategy to get the books into England. So he had a smaller edition of the Bibles printed, so that they could be more easily hidden. By concealing these in sacks of flour, bales of cloth, barrels, boxes, and every way he could think of, many of these escaped the clergy who were watching for them at the English ports, and the Word of Life was scattered far and wide throughout England.

Clergy Always the Same, Everywhere

Great was the consternation of the clergy. Their henchmen succeeded in discovering thousands of the books. These the clergy burned at St. Paul’s Cross in London, blasphemously stating that they were a burnt-offering acceptable to God.                                ,

' But th$ printing press could print the Bibles faster than the clergy could discover and destroy them, and they became abundant and were read in all England. The bishop Nikke confessed to his primate in despair that its distribution was beyond the power of the clergy to halt and that it would prove their downfall if it kept up much longer. ¹

The clergy increased their efforts to apprehend Tyndale, the man who had caused all this trouble. By treachery practiced by an agent of the Hierarchy who posed as his friend, they finally seized him at Antwerp and confined him in a dungeon of the Castle of Vilvorde, 18 miles from Antwerp. Here in misery, cold, and rags, he remained for almost two years. He was finally tried before a court at Brussels on the charge of heresy, convicted, bound to a stake, strangled to death, and then burned to ashes.

The objections voiced .by the Roman Catholic clergy to Tyndale’s translation reveal their heart condition. One objection was that it was unlawful for the people to read the Bible in their native language. Another was that it was impossible to translate the Bible into English. Another was that it would make all the people heretics. And another was the same old cry of “sedition” raised against Jesus, it would cause a rebellion against the king.

Clergy Imitate Their Father, the Devil

Peter Chapot was executed in France, in 1546, for bringing Bibles in the French language into France and selling them.

Not only were people burned alive for believing, reading or owning a Bible, but Bibles were burned by the thousands by the Catholic authorities. In many parts of Germany, when the pope became enraged upon learning of the existence of this translation of the Bible, people were ordered to give up their copies of Luther’s translation, to be burned.

In Ireland the story was the same. In one instance, where two Bibles in the native tongue were burned, Catholic agents claimed they had “burnt hell-fire”. At other times, they would wet the Bibles with dirty water and throw them in the faces of the owners.

In France the people in the realm of the earl of Toulouse were forbidden by a special order of the pope to read the Bible. In Italy the duke of Savoy, upon the request of Catholic missionaries, quartered troops upon the people in the Piedmont valleys because they refused to surrender their Bibles and other books of worship to the missionaries to be burned. These troops destroyed so much property that many families lost all they had.                            "

These are the conditions that existed and the things that took place during the blasphemously so-called “reign of the Prince of Peace”. Since this is the “reign” the Roman Catholic Hierarchy favors and is persistently seeking to foist upon the world again, it would be a dark outlook indeed were it not for that infallible promise of comfort and hope from the Bible itself, which reads:

“And in the days of these kings shall* the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”—Daniel 2: 44.—G. A., Texas. ’

Studying the Word of Truth

IN A previous article it was stated that the more knowledge of the truth of the Bible that the follower of Jesus has, the better he can serve God, if he also has humility and the desire to glorify God by means of his knowledge. That is where the early disciples of Christ were advantaged; they w^Tere well versed in the Word of God. Other things considered, it may properly be understood that those of them who were the better versed in the Holy Scriptures were of the most service in the church. However, some were called for one reason, some for another. There is evidence that even some of the apostles were not called to be channels of Jehovah God’s interpretations of the Scriptures by Christ Jesus. “Do all interpret?”-!Corinthians 12:30.

On the day of Pentecost, A.D. 33, the apostle Peter said at once that the manifestation which the people saw in regard to the Christians who spoke many foreign languages by inspiration of the spirit of God was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy; and Peter quoted Joel, probably without any reference to the written Scripture roll. It should not be understood that Peter’s mind was miraculously charged with the words of Joel’s prophecy; God’s holy spirit or active force merely stirred them up to remem* brance, but did not put them into Peter’s mind. In exactly the same way, those who now are called apart from the world to the service of Jehovah God can serve Him best if they serve with clear understanding of what Scripture knowledge they have in mind.

’the Bible is more than a collection of ancient writings and of the sayings and doings of good men. It speaks of itself as the living Word, as when Peter said: “Having been regenerated, not from corruptible, but from incorruptible seed, through the living and enduring Word of God.’’ (1 Peter 1:23, The Emphatic Eiaglott) Evidently more is intended than the thought that the Scriptures convey words which lead to life; the Word itself is living.

The words of the Bible can comfort as nothing else can do; and there is a power in its words, when quoted, which seems to be over and above that which might naturally be expected. It is adaptable to every experience in the true Christian’s life. Probably there is no experience which the Christian ^ould describe or relate but that he will find scriptures which express better than his own words that which he would like to say. If he would tell of his gratitude to God, if he wishes to offer praise and to honor God, if he would pray, he finds in the Bible a store of words upon which he may draw to express his heart or to guide his thoughts.

It follows, then, that a disciple of Jesus must ever find the¹ Scriptures a constant source of strength and a guide in all the varying phases of life; and it will ever be to him as life itself. The apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says: “But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. . . . from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”—2 Timothy 3:14-17.

Reading and prayerful meditation and discussion with others upon the Scriptures will make the man of God complete, “thoroughly furnished” in every good work. Every man who, like Timothy, is privileged to serve God as a “man of God” will find all his equipment through the Word. Such a one will have the guidance of the holy spirit; but he will receive that, not apart from the written Word, but by light upon it. The disciples of Jesus must therefore be earnest readers and students of the Word of God if they would make progress in Christian living and service.

What should be the attitude of God’s people'who in this day are gathered together by the fact of Christ’s coming into His kingdom, even as the disciples of Jesus were gathered 'together at His first advent? Should these companies' meet together for direct study of the Word of God alone, ignoring all printed Bible helps? At first sight it seems as if, when “present truth” first began to come making the Bible a readable book, those who rejoiced in the truth should meet for further study of the Bible alone, to acquire more knowledge so as to worship God. To many who follow'ed this course, any question about the fitness of it has been resented. To others very⁷ frequently this course has seemed doubtful, because of the temptation that these have had to forget the reason for the giving of “present truth” which illuminated the Bible, and also because many⁷ began to decide for themselves what truths may be accepted and what teachings may⁷ be rejected, and thus withdrew from cooperation in the Kingdom work under Christ Jesus.

The history⁷ of the early church gives us a lead. At that time the Christian brethren met for prayer and fellowship and to be guided by⁷ the apostles: “they⁷ continued stedfastly⁷ in the apostles’ doctrine.” (Acts 2:42) It would be natural for those Jews instructed in the doctrines of Christ to want to know more of the meaning of their sacred Scriptures, and when they⁷ met together they would surely⁷ delight to have them read. But there is nothing to indicate that they⁷ met merely to study the Hebrew Scriptures without help or comment of the apostles, or that they⁷ wore instructed to do so. They wisely used the Bible helps that Jehovah God by⁷ Christ Jesus provided in those days, as stated at Ephesians 4:11,12, to wit:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, « prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastonivind teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

The Bible shows that whenever God has a message for His people He has raised up a messenger, as in the days of ancient Israel. Or He raised up instructed teachers, as when the church of believers in Jesus was brought into existence. These messengers brought into prominence those portions of the prophecies due to be understood. Thus fresh light on the Scriptures meant more intelligent reading, and the illuminated Scriptures became “meat in due season”; and those who followed the light were encouraged and strengthened. This was what took place at Christ’s advent in the flesh nineteen centuries in the past; and surely⁷ this has been His way at the present time, in these days of His second advent, His presence in the spirit. Accordingly books, booklets, magazines, free tracts, etc., have been published by⁷ the AVatch Tow⁷er Bible and Tract Society since 1879. The fact of Christ’s coming into His kingdom in 1914, and His coming in Kingdom power and glory to the spiritual temple in 1918, has been disclosed through these publications; and thus the truths concerning these most important Scriptural facts have been emphasized in God’s appointed way. And Jehovah God’s consecrated _z people have been gathered round these truths that they might be fully instructed therein. The Scriptures glowed with light, and the personal reading and-meditation upon them with the aid of these Bible helps have been made a constant source of enjoymient, confirming God’s people in His truth and Kingdom work.

Theocratic Victory in Brazil

WITHIN the borders of Brazil falls nearly half the continent of South America. In area it is the fourth-largest country in the world. It is the homeland of-some 42,000,000 persons. The bulk of the population is strewn along the Atlantic seaboard, while the remainder penetrates inland along the banks of the mighty Amazon. The vast and densely jungled land areas of the interior are well-nigh impenetrable, and thus far have repelled civilization’s advances. They have restricted the spread and fanning out of Brazil’s millions. In doing this the opera-i tions of nature have inadvertently served a good purpose, a godly purpose, namely, the preaching of the gospel of God’s kingdom to all parts of the inhabited earth. How is that? By holding the population to the seacoast and Amazon river areas

they have concentrated the inhabitants and thus made them more accessible to Jehovah’s gospel-preachers. Though Kingdom publishers there are still faced by great distances to traverse, the travel problems do not approach the magnitude that they would if the populace were scattered evenly throughout the jungled interior.                                    ‘

Kingdom publishers in Brazil need this aid, and any other assistance they can get. Their numbers do not begin match the needs of the field to be served. During the service year 1944 there was an average of 283 publishers in the witness work each month. It is not possible for this small band to adequately serve the Kingdom message to 42,000,000. They can certainly utter with all their heart the prayer for more laborers. (Matthew 9:37, 38) In the meantime, they work with unflagging zeal. They press on with the work under the power and direction of Jehovah’s spirit. They are not without His aid, and the aid of His visible organization. This was manifest during the early part of 194 5, Brazil’s summertime.

Many times the Witnesses in this vast land had longed for a visit from the president of the Watchtower Society; not just a social visit, but primarily a business visit to aid in proper organization for and conduct of the Kingdom work. Their invitations had been sent several times, and finally, in March of 1945, circumstances permitted the acceptance of the invitation. Toward the end of January the Society’s president, N. H. Knorr, and a fellow director of the Society, F. W. Franz, left the New York city headquarters office on the long journey. Dropping down through the south-

eastern states by rail to Florida, thence they took to the air for the next 20,000 miles. Cities in Cuba, Mexico, and Cen-' * tral America were visited. Winging their way across the equator, the travelers , -touched ground at several South Ameri-\ can cities along the western edge of the * continent. From Santiago they soared . through, passes of the towering Andes and, after brief stops at two Argentine cities, glided into Buenos Aires. Thence the plane nosed northward and eventually landed its passengers in Brazil.

A two-day Theocratic assembly was scheduled for Sao Paulo. Notice flex like the wind to all corners of the land, and from these corners the Witnesses came. Some traveled more than 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles), and were on the trek to the convention city for almost a month. Ten days prior to the convention the public lecture, “One World, One Government,” was being advertised. The gymnasium of one of the largest and best-known stadiums, Pacaembu Stadi-¹ um, was the assembly site. There in a convenient and beautiful outdoor setting a cafeteria was operated during the Assembly. Also conveniently at hand for use in water baptism was the large and beautiful swimming pool of the Stadium. There 32 were immersed in symbol of their consecration to do God’s will. During the sessions the Brazilian witnesses imbibed deeply of the spiritual truths presented by the president and his traveling companion; between sessions they zealously advertised the public talk. Active during these two days were 245 different publishers. Their ranks were swelled to 765 persons at public-lecture time, the increase being due to the response of Sao Pauloans of good-will to the advertising campaign.

This visit by the Society’s president will prove an aid to the publishers in Brazil. Organization for the Kingdom work was advanced, and the encouragement and exhortation and spiritual food presented, especially at the two-day Assembly, will help them to ^cgird up the loins of their mind’ for future activity. This assembly might well be termed more than an aid to the publishers: it was a Theocratic victory. Specific forces were afoot to frustrate the convention and prevent its occurrence. But Jehovah maneuvered the enemy forces as well as His own, and by His power the Assembly went through as scheduled, to a victorious Close. (The details of this Brazilian convention, along with the account of the entire Western Hemisphere tour of the Society’s president, have been reported in The Watchtower, and those desiring complete information are referred to that magazine.)

The Assembly was one victory for The Theocracy in Brazil. Another Theocratic triumph has since been chalked up. You may read it as narrated in Consolagao (Brazilian Consolation)'

Victory for Truth and Justice in Amazonas

Case Decided in Favor of Jehovah’s witnesses by Court of National Security

While the armies of the United Nations fight with all their powers to free the states of Europe from the totalitarian monster, there to establish the “four freedoms”, a signal victory for the most cherished freedom, freedom to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of one’s own conscience, was won on the “home front” in Brazil. The case, originating in the little town of Manaquiri in Amazonas, was finally heard and decided in favor of justice in the Court of National Security at the Federal Capital.

For a number of years prior to 1940 a small group of Christians, Jehovah’s witnesses, assembled regularly to study God’s Word so as to learn all that they could about the Kingdom for which Jesus had told His disciples to pray. In addition they called upon the people at their homes to tell them of what they had learned of Jehovah’s Theocratic Government, and held preaching services to which the public were invited. As Jesus had foretold would happen, they endured many insults and much persecution from extreme religionists.

In the year 1940, when Jehovah’s witnesses suffered the most violent persecution of all ages in many countries all over the face of the earth, this little band of Christians suffered also, although isolated a thousand miles up the Amazon river. It was in this tragic year that the Wateh Tower Bible and Tract Society in Sao Paulo called for pioneer witnesses of Jehovah to volunteer to go to Manaus and Manaquiri to help their brethren there get better organized so as to advance the work of preaching “this gospel of the Kingdom”.

. It was in the latter part of the same year that the family of Raimundo Feliciano Cabral, retired Brazilian aviation officer, disposed of their home in Rio de Janeiro and other earthly comforts in response to the Master’s command to the true Christian: ‘Sell all that thou hast and give to the poor. And follow thou me.’ Tn company with another young couple bent on the same high mission, they departed for Manjfus, Amazonas, to devote their time and substance to ‘preaching this gospel of the Kingdom’, visiting the people in their homes with the message of God’s Word, conducting Bible studies with them, comforting all that mourn, without cost to those so favored by these altruistic ministers of the gospel sent forth by the Watchtower Society on their noble Christian mission. No sooner had they begun their Christian work when they were set upon by mobs instigated by the priests and submitted to all kinds of persecution by religionists who did not agree with the good news they bore. Mindful of their high commission, “Go ye and preach the gospel,” remembering “Ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake”, and under the protection of the Brazilian Constitution, which grants full liberty of worship to all, they continued their work. Their enemies, seeing that they could not move them even with bodily assaults, had recourse to an age-old practice: Denouncing them as “Communists” to the police authorities, they haled them be-

fore the courts and seized their Bible liter a-ture. Fanatical religious leaders busied themselves going from door to door warning the -people against these preachers of the gospel, gathering away from them any literature . which they had received to help them in their

Bible study.

* The above is the first chapter of a long line of persecution of Christians all of whom are sons of this Brazilian soil, in that northern land where some over zealous religionists evidently think that this is Germany where they can force the people to think as they want them to think and can prohibit the free exercise of conscience as is done in Fascist, Nazi and other totalitarian lands. The lq#t chapter to this persecution was written, however, when, on April 6, Justice Pereira Braga of the Court of National Security in the Federal Capital of Rio de Janeiro handed down his decision entirely absolving Guilherme Simoes and three other Brazilian citizens of the absurd charge against them that they were organizers of a religious sect with political aims.

On the Old Santa Fe Trail

THE old Santa Fe trail ran down through the southeastern part of what is now Colorado, and then to the city of Santa Fe, N. Mex., where it stopped. The original name of Santa Fe was La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco (the Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis). The Santa Fe Trail was opened in 1822 by William Becknell when he came to town with 21 men and three wagonloads of goods which he sold at a tremendous profit. Fifty-eight years later, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad followed substantially the route he had blazed from Missouri to New Mexico, and went on through to California, Texas and about everywhere else in the great southwest. It now has 13,157 miles of main track, with revenues of around $300,000,000 a year.

The Santa Fe system got into Denver sometime about 1872. That city, where Jehovah’s witnesses held a notable convention on April 8 and 9,1944, lies at an altitude, at its capital, at just one mile above sea level, i.e., 5,280 feet. With a present population of 322,412, and 304 days of sunshine a year, it has many and varied industries, one of which is that it is the largest sheep market in the world. From the city, the Front Range of the Rocky mountains is in plain sight for a distance of 150 miles. The water supply of the city is from the western side of the mountains, through an eightfoot bore which parallels one of the railroad tunnels which pierces the Continental Divide.

Two or three Denver stories crop up in the news. In Moncrieff Place a 75-pound tramp walked into a mansion, and when he was caught robbing the family icebox he bludgeoned to death the 73-year-old owner of the place. This man’s wife was at the time in a hospital with a broken hip. The tramp looked around, and found an 8" x 15" trapdoor from one of the upstairs rooms, leading into a vacant space under the roof. He made it his home. He remained in that hideout for nine months. During seven months of that time, the wife of the man he had murdered lived in the same house with two nurses. None of these knew that the man .was in the house. Word spread around, however, that the house was haunted, and eventually the police captured the “ghost”.

Here is another item about the Denver police that is not quite as complimentary. It is a quotation from a bulletin of the Colorado chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of December, 1941:                                      ■

A Negro soldier was waiting for a streetear in the waiting room at the loop. A girl, also waiting for a ear, turned around and began discussing with him life at the camp. A plainclothes policeman in the waiting room putted the soldier out of his seat, cursed him, and jerked him outside where an officer in uniform came up and gave his blackjack to the plainelothesman. The plainelothesman then beat the soldier over the head and face with the blackjack, forcing him up an alley, where he pulled his gun and threatened to kill the soldier. After bullying, cursing and beating him almost into insensibility, the soldier was taken to the police station, kicked through the entrance and shoved into a room full of police where he was'again beaten by the plainelothesman. Going from one cop to another the soldier pleaded for help, and was struck by each in turn. He was booked “for investigation", though the plainelothesman apparently intimated that he had been attempting to assault a white woman.

■ Among Denver’s many educational and cultural facilities are the University of Denver, the Regis College (Catholic) for men, the Iliff School of Theology (Methodist), and the Loretto Heights College (Catholic). The Christian Century has a report on an address by Kirby 'Page in Denver from which the following selection is taken:

He declared that we are witnessing the disintegration of the world. It was recently said of Greece that a whole population is perishing; this may be said in many respects of our whole world in this generation, he insisted. Here in America, the most favored land of the earth, we have 27,000,000 engaged in war industries and in uniform. What will happen to these millions when war ends? Can anyone vision the dislocation and suffer-, mg, particularly when one reflects that 75,-000,000 men are now under arms around the world—something that never happened before in history?

Jumping into New Mexico

Jumping Into New Mexico, and away off xdown into the southeastern corner, even beyond the. farhous Carlsbad caverns (one of the rooms of which is a half mile long and 400 feet wide) one comes to Lea county, which is in the great pla-

AUGUST 1, 1M5 teau called the Llano Estacado or Staked Plain. Setting up an oil-drilling establishment at Eunice in this county, a newcomer in the oil*business had gone down 3,795 feet, when he lost his drilling tools. He was about to abandon the well, but wanted to save the tools, which had now been lost in the test for oil. He finally got the tools, and when they came up they brought along a new oil well that produces 4,000 to 4,500 barrels of oil per day. “Thou knowest not [in the oil business) whether shall prosper, either this or that.”—Ecclesiastes 11:6.

Another hop of several hundred miles straight west brings one to Morenci, Ariz., in the southeastern part of the state. Here is an open-pit copper mine which cost $35,000,000 and took four and one-half years to get ready. A mountain was uncapped and 40,000,000 tons of waste were removed, so that the low-grade ore could be dug with steam shovels. The plant now has a capacity of 25,000 tons of ore a day.

One more hop in Arizona, this time to the capital, Phoenix. There somebody who belonged to the Devil’s “church” stabbed in the back, and manifestly hoped to murder, one of Jehovah’s people, a boy of Japanese ancestry who was witnessing for his Redeemer in an American city. Jehovah’s people nursed the lad back to health. Then came the war, and he was placed in one of the camps. But before he went 'to the camp along came the Watchtower free literature. He rejoiced in the Lord’s provision for his witnessing needs and was well content with the provision made for his physical well-being; the food was good; he was well treated; but, best of all, he had many precious privileges of placing Kingdom literature with honest and bungry-for-truth people of his own ancestry. One would think that the Devil would get tired of being so mean, and, ‘knowing that he hath but a short time’ iintil he fades out for good, would feel like giving up the dirty religious business in which he is engaged.

23

“They Never Had Enough”

THE Douay Version of Isaiah 56:10-12 _ does not read exactly like the King James or the American Standard Version, though the thought is practically ’• the same. The clergy are described in * the Douay thus:

His watchmen are all blind, they are all ignorant: dumb dogs not able to bark, seeing vain things, sleeping and loving dreams. And most impudent dogs, they never had enough: the shepherds themselves knew no understanding: all have turned aside into their own way, every one after his own gain, from the first even to the last. Come, lot us take wine, and be filled with drunkenness: and it shall be as to day, so also to morrow, and much more. '

It is plain that this scripture indicates that some people in the religious business are of insatiable greed, and that' they are fond of getting steeped in wine. It looks as if the London Catholic Times knew about this latter feature. In one of its issues it carried an advertisement, "Altar wines ecclesiastically approved by the Hierarchy,” and that they were “for clergy and convent use only”. Also, they could not be had by rail in less than case lots of a dozen bottles, and a dozen bottles would cost $25.50, or $31.50, or $36.00, according to choice.

As soon as the American soldiers got into Italy they began sending back stories of the “world’s most renowned churches which are filled with great treasure”, and said in the next sentence, “Surrounding these churches are a simple people who live in great poverty.” In short, the common people have been robbed by the priests. That’s easy. That’s their business. Do they ever do anything “without money and without price”? Not on your life.

Masses are not mentioned in the Scriptures, and so are perfectly worthless to everybody. But they cost money. If you send $5 to the Seraphic Mass Associa* tion, St. Augustine Monastery, 220 Thirty-seventh street, Pittsburgh, Pa., you can get a perpetual membership. The only awkward thing about it is that it isn’t worth a red cent to anybody. Also, you can get a perpetual membership for the dead for only $2. The cost is 40 percent of the other, and the benefits are 40 percent less.

At the cathedral rectory, Altoona, Pa., the priests wondered if it would be asking too much if each wage earner would put $10.00 in the Easter collection. Not at all. With wine running as high as $36 a case, the dear parishioners should come across with that much without be- ■ ing asked. If there were four wage earners in a family, that would get a case of the very best Chandler’s altar wine ($3 a bottle). “They never had enough”; not yet; so the parishioners should let go and give them all they want.

“Divine Protection for Those-in Service”

That is the blasphemous title of an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times of May 13,1944. It pictures a hideous-looking “Christ”, and then below it occurs this squawk for money:

The Christ light of protection will go with your loved ones on land, on sea or in the air if you will send them this gift plaque. Beautifully colored head of Jesus with mystery shadow cross that can be seen by those inspired. Permanently sealed in plastic. Fits pocketbook, pocket or purse. 50e each, 3 for $1.00. Do not delay sending for this mystery plaque; they need it now! The Shepherd Joseph, P.O. Box 748, Hollywood 28, Calif. The Los Angeles Times must be hard pressed for money when it would accept such an advertisement.

When the “Reverend Father” Peter (L Schoendorf!, St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Toledo, Ohio, had finished mulcting his community, he left behind him a nice little pile of $53,820.74 net. Out of this amount five brothers and sisters were paid $20,000 and 21 pieces and nephews received $17,316.60 additional. There were various other bequests, one of the most comical of which was a provision of a $5 bill for every priest that showed up at his funeral. And 105 came and got their $5 each.

It takes considerable persistence to wheedle $5,000 out of the poor, by causing them to think that the dead are not dead, and that the only way to make them comfortable is to lay down just so much on the barrelhead, come payday. • So “Reverend Father” Stanislaw Elbert, Menasha, Wis., was grieved when he invested $5,000 in a peanut-vending machine, and instead of bringing him a 20-percent profit annually, as was the program, all he got back was $63 ih dividends and his $5,000 had gone where the boatman Charon operates his ferry.

Huss, Reformer and Martyr

John Huss (Joannis Hus in Bohemian ) was born in the town of Hussineez, Bohemia, in the year 1369 (some say 1373), His parents were not rich, but John was, nevertheless, well educated and entered the University of Prague, where he received his degree in 1393, He is described as a man of strict integrity and genuine godliness, modest and kind, tall and of a somewhat pale and sad face. He was of those who “sigh and cry” because of the abominations done in “Christendom”, so called.

In 1398 he was appointed professor in the university and in 1401 became dean of the theological faculty. He took his responsibilities seriously and at length was made pastor of Bethlehem Chapel at Prague. This building was erected by a man who had the people’s welfare at heart, John de Milheim. He desired it to be used for the preaching of the gospel in the language of the people rather than in a dead language as in the Latin religious services. Huss was no ordinary preacher. He proclaimed the truth with fervor and directness and showed a very thorough knowledge of the Bible.

The way in which Huss had been led to the study of the Bible was as follows. Sometime before, a man who had traveled to England in company with the Princess Anne, when she was to be married to Richard II, had heard Wycliffe {Consolation No. 674) while there. He brought back some of Wycliffe’s books, and, being a lecturer at the university, he made use of the newly acquired treas-

AUGUST 1, 1945ure. Among other things, he realized and preached that the monks and friars, whose dissolute and lazy lives disgusted the people, were not the representatives of Christ Jesus. He pleached that the monks and friars, bishops and priests should, like other people, lead decent lives. He saw no reason, either, why respectable people should confess their sins to an immoral priest, or any other priest, for that matter. Confession, said he, according to the Scriptures, should be made to God. The priests were disturbed by the bold preaching of this professor, whose name was Faulfash. They got after him, and John Huss among them. The latter felt, however, that to prove Faulfash wrong he must know all the facts. So Huss himself undertook to examine Wycliffe’s books; and the more he read them, the more he realized, in spite of himself almost, that Wycliffe was right and the priests and monks and friars were in the wrong. And, seeing the truth, he began to preach it.

Multitudes heard his talks, including the queen of Bohemia herself, Queen Sophia, wife of Wenceslaus the king. More and more people came to hear Huss, and the pope at Rome and those with him finally heard of him. The doctrines of John Wycliffe were condemned first by a meeting of the faculties and doctors of the university, in spite of earnest efforts on the part of Huss and others to prevent such a decision.

There were now two factions in the university and two parties were forming

25

■ in Bohemia, one favoring reform in the church, the other opposing it. Huss became the leader of the reform party, which assiduously uncovered the putrid * condition of the clergy. The archbishop of Prague, whose name was Stynko, at , first recognized the honesty of Huss, but t after a while turned against him. He pro* hibited the preaching of the gospel in the language of the people. Latin is all right, but not Bohemian. He also burned more than two hundred copies of the writings of Wycliffe (for which the king made him pay, afterward), and Huss was excommunicated. The king annulled the ban against Huss, however, even though Stynko, in his actions toward'Huss, had carried out the orders of Alexander V, one of the popes. There were two or three popes competing for recognition at the time.

Alexander died in 1410, and was succeeded by John XXIII (XXII if the woman pope, Joan, is omitted). This John was the direct and complete antithesis of the other John (Huss). He was as crooked as^: Huss was straight; as filthy as Huss was decent and clean. He ’ is called the worst of all the popes; which is saying a great deal. He was a former pirate, and the very embodiment of vice. This John summoned John Huss before his tribunal. King Weneeslaus intervened and sent two advocates to Bologna, the seat of the papal court. These representatives of the king were joined by three more sent by Huss himself. Various transactions followed, during which Archbishop Stynko died, being succeeded by Albicus, a weak and poorly educated man. This archbishop, in 1412, received a bull from the pope commanding a crusade against King Ladislaus of Naples, because that king was backing another pope in preference to the notorious John XXIII. The' inducement offered to make people follow the crusade was the granting of indulgences for sin of all kinds. This bull was too much for Huss, who openly preached against it and debated about it in' the university, ably supported by his friend Jerome of Prague, who delivered such a fervent discourse in condemnation of the swindle that the pupils the next day gathered up all the copies of the bull they could lay their hands on and burned them in the outskirts of the city.

King Weneeslaus now became somewhat alarmed and decided to stop the agitation. He ordered that there be no further revilement of the pope or his bull, and made disobedience of this decree punishable by death. Three impetuous students disregarded the decree and were accordingly put to death". Huss preached their funeral discourse and had them buried in the chapel as martyrs. Now John XXIII was sorely displeased. He excommunicated Huss a second time, ordered his arrest and the destruction of the chapel, and placed the whole city of Prague under an interdict, which meant that no one might do business with it or’supply any .of its needs. The king requested Huss to leave for a time. He complied; but with the desire to set the matter before the people in its proper light he wrote out a protest and hung it on the walls of Bethlehem chapel. He appealed in this document to the decision of the only righteous and uncorruptible judge, Christ Jesus. During his absence he carried on his literary activities, writing ably in the defense of the truth of the Scriptures. He wrote his mother tongue with great skill and beauty, and his revision of the Bohemian translation of the Bible benefited from his linguistic ability.

During the absence of Huss from Prague a general council of the Church of Rome was called to meet at Constance on the 1st of November, 1414, under the auspices of Sigismund, the emperor, who was the brother of King Weneeslaus, but a very different character. The emperor invited Huss to attend the council that his cause might be examined. He pledged himself to see to it that no harm came to Huss. Catholic historians generally have tried to deny that such assurance was ever given to Huss. In vain.

Huss joyfully obeyed the summons, hoping for a reformation of all the evils against which he had so sincerely protested. He had returned to Prague and now (October 11) .left to travel through Bohemia and Germany, holding debates on his doctrines in all towns where he stopped, finally arriving at Constance on November 3. He secluded himself for three weeks, Sigismund had not yet arrived, and the pope had temporarily suspended the sentence of excommunication against the reformer, giving him the most solemn pledges for his perSonal safety. But the enemies of Huss were busy and unscrupulous. On November 28 he was arrested, and cast into a dungeon of the Dominican monastery on December 6. When Sigismund came to Constance the friends of Huss appealed to him to release the prisoner; but to no avail. The priests told the emperor it would be w'rong to keep faith with a heretic. Anyone who exposes the dirty work of the priests is a “heretic”, even without a trial, and without proof.

Huss, remained in the dungeon for three months, after which still further affliction awaited him. He was removed to the Castle of Gottlieben and confined in a mere hole, where he could not even stand upright. His feet were fastened to a block with irons and at night his right arm was chained to the wall. The character of his enemies became more and more apparent. For over two months he was detained in this miserable prison, while all efforts made to obtain his release failed, though the whole nation protested against the dastardly injustice.

Finally the day of the council. Huss foresaw his end, but was not afraid. He had maintained his integrity, and was serene. It was a great council. The emperor was there and the pope of Home, seven patriarchs, twenty archbishops, twenty cardinals, twenty-six princes, ninety-one bishops, a hundred and forty 'counts, hundreds of doctors of divinity,

AUQUST 1, IMS                ' and many priests—four thousand or more in all. All were dressed in their best robes and trappings. The towm of Constance itself was filled with multitudes of people drawn there by the great occasion and the streets were alive with them. The council had, in fact, been in session for some months before Huss was finally brought before it. Tie was given three “hearings”, June 5, 7 and 8. But he was not heard. The cardinals and other very religious crooks shouted him down and shut him up. They were in good form, so to speak, for they had been fighting among themselves for quite a while. Now they were all after the faithful John Huss. He was not permitted to explain a thing.

What they demanded of him was that he take back everything he had said, truth or no truth. Tie must recant! He was ready to recant if they could show him he was wrong, proving it by the words of Christ and the apostles. They did not even listen. He was condemned, while the emperor who betrayed him looked on. Huss was calm and looked them all full in the face: then, denied a hearing by men, he lifted his heart to God. He was returned to prison and strenuous efforts were, made to get him to recant. But he would not be untrue to the truth; he would not break integrity with his God.

_# Once more, on Saturday, July 6, he stood before the council. Tie was dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, which wrnre then torn from him. They placed a paper cap cm his head with pictures of devils and the words “This is a heretic”. lie was delivered to the beadle, led to the outskirts of the city, and fastened to a stake surrounded by bundles of dry sticks. The executioner stood ready with a torch. Huss was once more called upon to renounce what he had taught, as error. But he said : “I have taught no error. The truths I have taught I will seal with my blood.” The executioner was ordered to fire the fagots. From the fire came the sound of a song. TTuss was singing the praises of God in the midst of the flames.

27

‘ Quickly the news of the execution of Huss reached his many supporters. Now disturbances arose throughout Bohemia and Moravia. The life of the priests was ' threatened, and even the archbishop deemed it wise to flee for his life. The king, too, was indignant over the execu-\ tion and the queen openly espoused the ¹ cause of Huss’ followers. On September 3 the Diet of Bohemia addressed a manifesto to the council, full of reproaches and, threats; and two days later it voted that every landowner should be free to have the teachings of Huss preached on his estate.

The priests and their supporters were afraid. They formed a league vowing obedience to the council and the Roman . Hierarchy. The council in turn threatened all adherents of Huss with punishment. The faithful supporter and friend of Huss, Jerome of Prague, was summoned before the council, summarily tried, condemned, and burned at the stake on May 30 of the following year,

EH----------------------------:-----------------------------------

Those who signed the protest against the execution of Huss, 452 in all, were also summoned before the council, and so bold did the ecclesiastical crooks become that they would have included the very king and queen in their summons had not the emperor, Sigismund, interfered.

But the end was not yet. Though the voices of Wycliffe, Huss and Jerome were silenced, the truth continued to spread. The Scriptures were read and studied more and more, though amid much opposition. Others took the place of those put to death and always there were some who as witnesses to the truth stood for righteousness. Huss, ^(fbeing dead, yet speaketh.” His writings testify to his integrity. They may be consulted in libraries the world over. The encyclopedias bear record that he was faithful. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia, though it cannot approve him, "treads softly” when it speaks of Huss. His source of approval is not from beneath. There is One that judgeth.—John 8: 50.

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THE GREAT COMMANDER’S WORD

THE HOLY BIBLE

The 1942 Watchtower edition of the Holy Bible contains the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures translated into the English, being commonly known as King James Version. It is printed in minion type with abundant marginal references and other aids as shown below:

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Little Children Suddenly Taken to "the Land of the Enemy”

ALL Christians know that “the land of the enemy"’ is the land of death. They also know that “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26), which will take place when all that are to emerge from that land shall have come forth from the grave. One of the places where it is made clear where little children go when they die is in the prophecy Jeremiah 31:15-17, where occurs the record, in advance, of what took place when Herod’s cruel soldiers slew all those boy babes at Bethlehem. The passage reads:              .

Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord ; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border.

It seems that that statement of facts ought to be plain enough for anybody. Those little folks went into the land of the enemy; they ceased to be; they were not; they will return; they will live again. It is all very simple, plain, truthful,, easy to understand. This is by way of introduction to the following story from a pioneer in Grahamstown, South Africa:

Pioneering in Grahamstown (also known as “The Settlers’ City” because the British of 1820 settled here and in the vicinity, and sometimes, in good-humored derision, spoken of as the “City of Saints”, by reason of its many churches) T often meet people who remember a disaster which occurred at Blaauw Krantz Bridge, near.

A railway connects Grahamstown with a village called Fort Alfred, on the seacoast, about forty miles away. It passes through beautiful scenery, and Port Alfred is the popular holiday resort of the inhabitants of Grahamstown and other places farther away.

The lovely tidal Kowie river empties itself farther away into the sea at Fort Alfred, and a beautiful lagoon in which bathing is greatly enjoyed, a magnificent golf course, fishing and boating facilities, tennis and other games, and a delightful camping site, add to its attractions.

This being the case, a train traveling from Port Alfred to Grahamstown, on the 22nd day of April, 1911, was carrying a fair number of passengers for rather a sparsely populated district. The train came peacefully along. It had passed by miles of pineapple plantations, and nearing Blaauw Krantz (Netherlander name meaning Blue Ridge) the scene was Edenic. Orange, lemon, grapefruit and tangerine groves, and acres and acres of vivid green lucerne, are glimpsed nestling in the verdant valleys between the high hills.

At Blaauw Krantz a bridge spans an abyss 350 feet deep. A majestic ravine it is, and at the bottom a sparkling stream meanders seaward. On the left, rugged rocks rise sheer - from the tracks; towering above, at a little distance, are drab hills profusely dotted with aloes, whose brilliant orange and red spikes of flowers make marvelous splashes of color against their dull background, and higher up make a gorgeous contrast with the bright blue southern sky. On the right the hillside falls slanting steeply. Rugged, jagged rocks and boulders, worn into fantastic shape by wind and rain of ages, make a foreground to a scene of indescribable charm, and as the train crosses the bridge one glimpses a chasm which for depth and beauty is awe-inspiring.

On this eventful day thirty-four years ago, two trucks containing stone that had been quarried at the Blaauw Krantz were included in the train. The stone was to be used in the building of Grahamstown cathedral. As the train crossed over the bridge, one of these trucks became derailed through having been too heavily loaded. It crashed over the side, dragging three coaches, and all but three trucks, with it to destruction. '

One coach, containing women and children, fell 180 feet; the next containing African natives fell 120 feet, and another coach con-

tairing -men fell about 100 feet; 31 lives were lost and many people were injured, some of whom died later. A student who saw the accident said that these were all clear drops; the " carriages toppled over the side of the bridge, turned round and round in the air and crashed on the boulders and rocks below.

t The Reverend Gray, of Trinity Church, * had the following to say, in connection with

the disaster, on a Sunday following;

“The laws by ■which disasters happen arc the great beneficent laws by ■which life and progress are possible. We conclude that no believer engulfed ip that awful disaster but felt the support of the everlasting arms; no swift glance of a penitent soul in the confusion and distress of those awful minutes but got the answering glance of God’s forgiveness; no little child but was borne home in the arms of a loving Savior.”

According to Mr. Gray’s logic, when those cruel soldiers chopped the heads off those boy babies, Jesus was standing right there and actually, as soon as their heads were off, took them home. So that, in effect, it wasn’t anything serious; they were really benefited. If their heads hadn’t been chopped off, they might have had trouble later in life, and so on, and so on to the end of the chapter.

“Ye Worship Ye

AT HAND is a “Litany of the Infant Jesus” composed of appeals to one addressed in one place as “Infant, equal to thy Father”, and in another place as “Infant, Father of ages”. .There is not now, there never was, and there never will be any such infant. Jesus expressly said, “Aly Father is greater than I.” (John 14: 28) And notice this statement by the apostle:

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped.—Philippians 2; 5, 6, Am. Stan. Ver.

The business office of this particular litany is “Father Baker’s Homes of Charities; Rev. Joseph K. Maguire, Supt., Lackawanna, N.Y.” On three of the four pages the litany says, “Have mercy on us”; so, if you don’t like it, don’t be too hard on the business agent that got it up. It’s the only way he knows to make a living, probably.

Another literary product comes along entitled Novena Notes, published in Chicago, and has this one regarding the imaginary crowning of the virgin Alary. It. is entitled “Mary Reigns”:

The Queen comes home, to be crowned by her all-powerful Son. Lowly in her own eyes, yet the holiest human God ever did or will

Know Not What”

create, lifted up from earth, up past the sun, moon, stars (diadems for the Queen), up past massed choirs of angels, archangels, brilliant cherubim, superbly intelligent seraphim, up to the very Vision of God. Then—Welcome by Christ! The King of Kings steps from . His Throne, escorts Mary to hers at his right hand. Even Heaven grows brighter. Mary was here now, in all her glory, in beauty second only to God, in joy unbounded. And forever the Queen of Heaven reigns.

The question is, AVho wrote it? Did God write it? is it a part of His Word, that “Jiveth and abideth for ever” (I Peter 1 :23)? Of is it what newspapermen call “tripe” or “slop”? You know the answer.

Attending to God’s Business

In every business it is good for people to do what they are told and not to do what they are not told. Jesus did that about His Father’s business. When He found that, according to His Father’s law, He was to wait until He was thirty years of age before He began His ministry, He waited until that very day to be baptized, as the Scriptures plainly show. “And he was the Jesus about years thirty beginning” (Luke 3:23, Diaglott interlinear) are the words that immediately follow the account of his baptism.

“And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years of age.”—F oung. ,

Now it so happens that one of the things that Jesus said was not His to give was the designation'of who should sit on His right hand or on His left in His glory. (Mark 10:40) God sets the members in the body, here and hereafter (1 Corinthians 12:18); so for anybody to set Mary down at Christ’s right hand is pure demonism, no matter who does it, and the same applies to her crowning. So weigh for yourself this one from the Jersey Observer:

Virgin Crowning Ceremonies Held at Two Churches. Ceremonies of the crowning of the Blessed Mother were conducted at St Mary’s R. C. Church, Second and Erie streets, and St. Boniface R. C. Church, First street, near Jersey avenue, Jersey City, yesterday afternoon.                                  '

This business of showing Almighty God who is who and what particular part of His business has been entrusted to them goes to great length. The Catholic Universe (London), going over the different things that the religious bigbugs have picked out for their friends, mentions:

, St. Apollonia for toothache; St. Gracian for lost things; St, Ursula for girls; St. Nicholas for schoolboys and St. Aya for sufferers from unjust lawsuits. ... St. Guido for spies. . . . St John Nepomucen for running water; . . . St. Adrian for brewers; St. Hunna for washerwomen, St. Maurice for infantrymen, and St. Martha for housewives.

How about nominating St. Humbug for looking after pain in the neck ?

Prophetess Collides with Facts

It is a hard day for a prophet or prophetess when the thing they have foretold misses the bus. Here is one from the United Press, sent through from the greatest center of falsehood under the skies:

Rome, July 19 [1944]—The New Italian News Service reported today that a peasant girl received visitations from the virgin¹ Mary,

in one of which the apparition predicted the war will be over by the end of July. The visitations began on May 13, when the girl was sitting by a stream in the village of Bo-nata di Sopra, despondent over her failure, in a Sunday-school lesson, the service said. When the apparition suggested that the girl ask her parish priest for another chance, the account added, the priest and other persons returned to the place where the girl said the Blessed Virgin had appeared: “The little girl saw Our Lady and talked with her,” the news service said. “The others present neither saw nor heard anything, but were deeply moved and astounded, noting that the sun, still high in the sky, Suddenly paled and revolved on itself, spreading around a cloud of sparks.” Those that prefer tripe like that instead of the truth from God’s Word can get plenty of it, from almost any paper they pick up. More:                    '

Carmelite nuns, so says The New World, Chicago’s official Catholic paper, have a human skull on the table when ithey eat; they spend eight hours a day in Sprayer”; they sleep on straw ticks mounted on planks; they rest less than seven hours a day; and they never leave the holes in which they live, or have contact with the rest of mankind until they die. The Devil is highly pleased and honored by this arrangement, for it works out as a dishonor to God’s name.

Roman Censor Out at First

♦ One would think the Roman censor would be more on the job than to allow such a bald truth as the following to slip into Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d Edition) and the Collegiate abridgment (Fifth Edition):

Scarlet Woman. The Roman Catholic Church;—an opprobrious epithet in allusion to Rev. xvii. 1-6.

But, after all, facts are facts, and “Webster” doesn’t' make them, he merely records them.—Martha B. Foster, District of Columbia.

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