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“And all thy children shall be taught of Jehovah; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” - Isaiah 54:13.

THE BIBLE CLEARLY TEACHES

THAT JEHOVAH Is the only true God, from everlasting to everlasting, and Is the Maker of heaven and earth and Giver of life to his creatures; that the Word or Logos was the beginning of his creation and his active agent in creating all other things; and that the creature Lucifer rebelled against Jehovah and raised the issue of His universal sovereignty;

THAT GOD created the earth for man, made perfect man for the earth and placed him upon it; that man yielded to unfaithful Lucifer, or Satan, and willfully disobeyed God’s law and was sentenced to death; that by reason of Adam’s wrong act all men are born sinners and without the right to life;

THAT THE LOGOS was made human as the man Jesus and suffered death in order to produce the ransom or redemptive price for obedient men; that God raised up Christ Jesus divine and exalted him to heaven above every other creature and clothed him with all power and authority as head of God's new capital organization;

THAT GOD’S CAPITAL ORGANIZATION is a Theocracy called Zion, and that Christ Jesus is the Chief Officer thereof and is the rightful King of the new world; that the faithful anointed followers of Christ Jesus are Zion’s children, members of Jehovah's organization, and are His witnesses whose duty and privilege It is to testify to Jehovah’s supremacy and declare his purposes toward mankind as expressed in the Bible;

THAT THE OLD WORLD, or Satan’s uninterrupted rule, ended AD. 1914, and Christ Jesus has been placed by Jehovah upon the throne, has ousted Satan from heaven, and now proceeds to vindicate His name and establish the "new earth”;

THAT THE RELIEF and blessings of the peoples can come only by Jehovah's kingdom under Christ, which has begun; that His next great act is to destroy Satan’s organization and establish righteousness completely in the earth; and that under the Kingdom the people of good-will surviving Armageddon will carry out the divine mandate to “fill the earth” with righteous offspring, and that the human dead In the graves will be raised to opportunities of life on earth.

ITS MISSION

HIS journal is published for the purpose of enabling the people to know Jehovah God and his purposes as expressed in the Bible. It publishes Bible instruction specifically designed to aid Jehovah’s witnesses and all people of good-wilL

It arranges systematic Bible study for its readers and the Society supplies other literature to aid in such studies. It publishes suitable material for radio broadcasting and for other means of public instruction in the Scriptures.

It adheres strictly to the Bible as authority for Its utterances. It is entirely free and separate from all religion, parties, sects or other worldly organizations. It is •wholly and without reservation for the kingdom of Jehovah God under Christ his beloved King. It is not dogmatic, but Invites careful and critical examination of Its contents in the light of the Scriptures. It does not Indulge In controversy, and its columns are not open to personalities.

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WELCOME, “WATCHTOWER” READERS

You are cordially invited to attend the Glad Nations Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah's witnesses, Cleveland, Ohio, August 4-11, 1946.

Jehovah’s witnesses world-wide are looking to the Glad Nations Theocratic Assembly as a time of feasting upon the Lord’s Word, assembling with their brethren from all parts of the earth and engaging in the true worship of the only true God. Jehovah. Representatives from many nations will be assembled to tell you about Jehovah’s witnesses and their activities in other lands. The August 1 issue of this magazine will carry the full program of the convention on its last page.

We hope that you will be one to enjoy all the convention (its eight days) ; or, if not, at least a portion of it. All Watchtower readers are entirely welcome to attend these sessions. Make your plans now and arrange for your room accommodations. Cleveland will be a crowded city, for it is expected that upward of 50,000 delegates will come from the United States, Canada and other parts of the world. Address your inquiry on rooming accommodations to Watchtower Convention Rooming Committee, 2515 Franklin Blvd., Cleveland 13, Ohio.

Bring people interested in preaching “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” to this Glad Nations Assembly. For details about special trains in all parts of the United States and Canada, and other means of travel, consult the local company of Jehovah's witnesses. Come and feast with the Lord’s servants at the Glad Nations Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses!

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of August 18: “Return from the Land of the Enemy,” fl 1-19 inclusive, The Watchtower July 15, 1946.

Week of August 25: “The Way of Return,” fl 1-24 inclusive, The Watchtower July 15, 1946.

CLEVELAND MUNICIPAL STADIUM

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM

Vol. LXVII                             July 15, 1946                                  No. 14

RETURN FROM THE LAND OF THE ENEMY

"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”—Jer. 31:16.

JEHOVAH has recently again distinguished himself as the Deliverer of his people from the land of the enemy. Those who have tasted his deliverance are the only happy and blessed people on this earth. They are the only free people, breathing a freedom which even the peoples of the modern democracies and republics do not enjoy. Such peoples under forms of political democracy are not free from man’s great enemy, and their present-day difficulties prove it. Some centuries before our common era began Jehovah God brought about the deliverance the details of which are set down in the thirty-first chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah. But the deliverance which he performed in that far distant past was only partial and temporary. Hence it was only typical of the greater and true deliverance which was yet to come. It guaranteed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in a larger and complete way in Jehovah’s due time. This is the time of the complete fulfillment upon His people. For that reason these are glad and rejoicing; and hence, too, the cheerful invitation can now go out to all races and nationalities today: “Be glad, ye nations, with his people.”—Rom. 15:10, Rotherham, as quoted from Deuteronomy 32:43.

’Who are the people today to whom Jehovah God has brought this great deliverance? Shall we say it is the Jews about 600,000 of whom have been restored to the land of Palestine in the Near East? Many religionists would like to apply the prophecy to mean such repatriated Jews. They interpret such relocating of the natural Jews to Palestine to be a sign that the coming of the Messiah, or the Anointed One, the Christ, is getting very close. The religionists of “Christendom”, therefore, take this to mean that the mass conversion of the Talmud-observing Jews to Jesus Christ is also getting very close. But careful study of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah in its entirety shuts out such an application of the prophecy to the Jews who, under great difficulties indeed,

• 1. Wbat deliverancefl were foretold at Jeremiah chapter 31? and why can all nations now be invited to be glad with Jehovah’s people?

• 2. To whom would the religionists like to apply the prophecy, but why Improperly so? are trying to restore and reconstruct the homeland of their forefathers.

’ It is true that, in its first or miniature fulfillment, a part of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah did apply to the fleshly Jews or' Israelites who were regathered to Palestine, beginning in 537 B.C. That was after the city of Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, and had lain desolate for seventy years. In 625 B.C., nineteen years before Jerusalem’s destruction, Jeremiah had foretold its seventy-year desolation, saying : “Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jer. 25: 8, 9,11) At the time that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and destroyed it Jeremiah was being held there in prison as a victim of religious persecution. He was spared alive, though, and carried along with other captives first to Ramah, about four miles north of Jerusalem.—Jer. 40:1.

* It is thought that Jeremiah wrote the prophecy of chapter thirty-one just after Jerusalem was demolished. He may have delivered it while he was at Ramah, in which case his words concerning that city of Benjamin would be very appropriate: “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.” (Jer. 31:15) Rachel, here mentioned, was the mother of Benjamin, and so she is pictured as interested in the children or inhabitants of the Benjamite city, Ramah. In fact, there are some who think that Jeremiah’s words concerning 3. Upon whom did the first or miniature fulfillment of the prophecy come, and after what desolation?

• 4. When was Jeremiah’s prophecy of chapter 31 written? and wbat In general did it foretell?

Hamah were transposed from their proper place in the book of Jeremiah; and hence Moffatt’s Bible translation puts the prophecy concerning Ramah and Rachel after the first verse of chapter forty, to read thus: "A message that came from the Eternal to Jeremiah, after he had been released from Ramah by Nebuzaradan the commander-in-chief, who had found him there, chained among the prisoners who were all being carried from Jerusalem and Judtea into exile at Babylon: ‘Here is what the Eternal says: “A sound is heard at Ramah, a wail, a passion of tears—’tis Rachel sobbing for her children, sobbing for her children gone, refusing to be comforted.” ’ ” {Moffatt) For Rachel’s comfort her children are promised a return from the land of-the enemy. Of course, that meant a return of all their fellow tribesmen, but it means much more today. So, whether written after or before Jerusalem’s destruction in G07 B.C., Jeremiah’s message from Jehovah, at chapter thirty-one, foretold joyful t'imes to come. The real times meant are here, now. Therefore, “rejoice, ye nations.”

“ALL THE FAMILIES OF ISRAEL”

⁵ In 537 B.C., after Jerusalem’s seventy years of desolation, a remnant of the Israelites did return from the northland territories of Babylon, the land of the enemy that had taken them as exiles. They did rebuild the city of Jerusalem and its temple and repair the other cities and recultivate the land. The overthrow of their enemy, Babylon, by the conquerors, Darius king of Media and his nephew Cyrus king of Persia, in 539 B.C., cleared the way for restoring the Israelites to the land of their forefathers. But no new covenant was made immediately with this restored remnant. More than five hundred years pass, and yet there is no record of the making of such a new covenant to supersede the old covenant made by God through the prophet Moses. There is no record of such, not even in the apocryphal books written during those four centuries after the Hebrew part of the Bible was finished and closed. Hence chapter thirty-one of Jeremiah’s prophecy which foretold the new covenant had only a partial and miniature fulfillment upon that remnant of 537 B.C. Who, then, are the “families of Israel” whose history shows the complete fulfillment! It is now our pleasant task to see.

• Turning to the first verse of the chapter, we read: “At that time, saith Jehovah, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:1, Am. Stan. Ver.) “At that time” joins up this verse with the last verses of the preceding chapter, which read: “Behold, the tempest of Jehovah,

• 5. Why does Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the new covenant show chapter 31 was fulfilled only in miniature on the remnant of 537 B.C.? 6. With what does the expression ^uA.t that time” join up Jeremiah 31:1? even his wrath, is gone forth, a sweeping tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of Jehovah shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it.” —Jer. 30:23,24, A.S.V.

^T All the signs point to these as “the latter days”. Now it is the time to understand, because the prophecy is reaching the climax of its complete fulfillment. In the typical fulfillment more than twenty-five centuries ago the sweeping tempest of Jehovah’s wrath burst forth in fury upon the head of the wicked, particularly Babylon, whose military battalions had destroyed the city of Jerusalem and its temple in 607 B.C., thereby interrupting and interfering with the worship of Jehovah God there. That same Babylon held captive a faithful remnant of worshipers of Jehovah, such as Daniel, his three devoted companions Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and Ezekiel, Zerubbabel, and the high priest Joshua. Hence upon that aggressive and oppressive nation of demonworshipers Jehovah God performed his further prophecy by Jeremiah, saying: “And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it perpetual desolations.” (Jer. 25:12) In fulfillment, in 539 B.C. Babylon’s highly organized power was overthrown; and in 537 B.C. its Israelite captives were let return to Palestine to rebuild the temple of Jehovah’s worship. It was His tempest of wrath that swept literal Babylon down off its seat of international power.

• ⁸ Mark this, however: God’s Word uses Babylon to symbolize another organization which has continued till this day. This organization was not destroyed when ancient Babylon fell to its conquerors, whom Jehovah God used, namely, Darius and Cyrus. In sacred Scripture Babylon is used to symbolize the great worldly organization of the false god whom ancient Babylon worshiped, namely, the Devil, Satan. Hence more than six hundred years after the ancient city of Babylon fell, the fall of the real and larger Babylon was predicted as something yet future, in the last book of the Bible.

* The original city of Babylon, or Babel, on earth was founded by a mighty servant of the Devil, namely, Nimrod, shortly after the flood of Noah's time. Nimrod, in defiance of Jehovah God, established himself before the people as a mighty hunter before or in opposition to Jehovah God. "Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a

• 7. In ancient time, upon whom did that “sweeping tempest” of Jehovah burst? and why?

• 8. Besides as a literal city, how also does God's Word use Babjlon? and what proves it?

• 9. How was ancient Babylon founded, and of what did it come to be a symbol?

mighty hunter before Jehovah: wherefore it is said, Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Jehovah. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel,” or Babylon. (Gen. 10: 8-10, Am.Stan. Ver.) In such manner Nimrod permitted himself to be worshiped, adored and obeyed as a mighty one in preference to the true God Jehovah. He also made himself the first king of earth, with Babylon as the seat of his government and of his worship. Other worldly rulers, including Nimrod’s successors, tried to act and appear mighty that it might be said of them: “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Jehovah.” So they warred against Jehovah’s servants and witnesses, and tried to force Babylon’s religion upon them. Hence Babylon came to be a symbol of the Devil’s organization with religion to the front, and which organization insists upon obedience to it and its religion rather than obedience to Jehovah God.

• ¹⁰ The faithful Israelite remnant returned to Jerusalem after the fall of the ancient city of Babylon, but in course of time their offspring came under the power of the greater Babylon, namely, the Devil’s organization, visible and invisible. Thus only for a time was the prophecy true concerning the Israelite remnant and their descendants: “At the same time, saith the Lord [Jehovah], will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:1) This fact shows that in the final and complete fulfillment the expression “families of Israel” does not apply to the natural Israelites or Jews now restored in Palestine; because the enemy from whom the great deliverance is wrought is not ancient Babylon of Jeremiah’s time, but is the larger and longer-enduring Babylon. It is the Devil’s world organization, with its demonism known as “religion” and its selfish commerce and its un-Theocratic politics.

• ¹¹ The Jewish convert to the worship of Jehovah as Jesus Christ taught it, namely, the apostle Paul, makes this fact clear concerning “all the families of Israel” when he writes to the Christians at Rome: “1 could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; . . . For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel.” (Rom. 9: 3-6) That is to say, According to the flesh they are called Israelites, but just because they are fleshly descendants of the man Jacob or Israel they are not members of the true Israel of God. They are not necessarily Israelites spiritually, members of spiritual Israel. Hence Paul also says: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one

• 10. Why was Jeremiah 31: 1 true of the remnant of 537 B.C. only for a time’ and why. too, does It not now apply to Jews In Palestine? 11 For the clearing up of this matter of "all the families of Israel” what does Paul say in his letter to the Homans? inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter.” (Rom. 2:28,29) Even Moses and Jeremiah spoke of such circumcision of the heart. (Deut. 30:6; 10:16; Jer. 4:4) Neither Paul nor the other servants of God pointed out such things in order to stir up a wave of antiSemitism, and neither does The Watchtower by calling attention to theste things. Paul had good-will, and so do we also have good-will, toward sincere Jews who are enmeshed in religion but who are feeling after the true worship of Jehovah God.

• ¹² Paul spoke of himself as “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel”. (Phil. 3:5) But he also tells us he was a most zealous follower of the “Jews’ religion” or Judaism and of its “traditions of my fathers”, and hence he was a persecutor of other Jews who had become Christians. “For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: and profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” (Gal. 1:13,14) The Jewish high priest was with the persecutor Saul of Tarsus in this course, and hence both their hearts were uncircumcised and they were not Israelites spiritually or Jews inwardly. —Acts 9:1, 2.

• ¹³ The historical facts are plain, therefore, that the Jews living in Palestine were descendants of the remnant who left Babylon from and after 537 B.C., but that Saul of Tarsus and the other Jewish religionists of his day were in bondage to the Greater Babylon. This was due to being in bondage to religion, even though called “Judaism”. Such religion put them on Babylon’s side, for it put them in opposition to the Son of God and so in opposition to Jehovah God himself. The Son of God was the Leader whom Saul of Tarsus later chose to follow, and he said to the tradition-keeping Jewish religionists: “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do. . . . Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men.” (Mark 7: 9,13, 6-8) Rome, with its pagan Caesar, was a part of the Greater Babylon, Rome being the strongest visible part of the Devil’s world organization. And the religious Jews showed they were in captivity to

• 12. Why was Paul, although circumcised and of the stock of Israel, yet not an Israelite spiritually or inwardly?

• 13. How was It true that, in Jesus’ day, the religious Jews were in bondage to the Greater Babylon? the Greater Babylon when they objected to Pilate’s releasing Jesus of Nazareth, crying out: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Csesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Csesar.” And “the chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar”.—John 19:12,15.

• ¹⁴ For such reason the apostle Paul spoke of religious Jerusalem in Palestine a’s "Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children”. (Gal. 4: 25) Hence the religion-bound Jews of Paul’s day needed the deliverance from the Greater Babylon, which Babylon is the mother of religion in opposition to God and his Son or Seed. Such needed deliverance came to those Jews who followed Christ Jesus, the true Seed of Abraham, that is to say, the true Son of God. He said to the religious Jews: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.” But to Jews who believed on him Jesus said: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” —John 8: 39,40, 31, 32, 36.

• ¹⁵ Those Jews who followed his word and continued in it were made free and delivered from the Greater Babylon that is exposed by Jesus in Revelation, chapters seventeen and eighteen. Such obedient and faithful followers became members of the true “Israel of God”, the true “children of Abraham”. There was only a remnant of natural Jews who followed the Son of God and became children of God with him as heirs of God’s kingdom. Hence Paul says as respects the Israel according to the flesh: “At this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” (Rom. 11: 5, 7) All Gentiles, steeped in religion of the pagan nations, were also in bondage to the Greater Babylon. But such Gentiles as believed the message of the truth and followed the Truth-teller, Christ Jesus, were made free and delivered from Babylon and were made a part of the genuine “Israel of God”, or spiritual Israelites. In talking of the grace or favor of God that came to such Gentiles due to their faith, Paul writes: “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law [of Moses], but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.”—Rom. 4:16.

• ¹⁶ Finally, exhorting both Jewish and Gentile

• 14. How did the needed deliverance come to such Jews then?

• 15. Of what did the remnant of faithful Israelites then become members? and who else became members with them, and how?

• 16. As regards Babylon, what did Paul exhort them to do? and how did Jeremiah 31:1 begin going into fulfilment at that time?

Christians to stay free from Babylon and its religious bondage, the apostle writes: “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Gal. 4:26, 31; 5:1) As far as these were concerned, Babylon had been overturned and they were free, back there in that first century of Christ’s coming to the earth in the flesh. At that time Jeremiah 31:1 began going into fulfillment toward these Christians of the faith of Abraham, namely: “At that time, saith Jehovah, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” (Am. Stan. Ver.) They became the people for Jehovah’s name.

^1T In 1946 what specially interests us is that the final and complete fulfillment of this prophecy of deliverance and restoration finds its location in our century, from and after A.D. 1919. It is useless for anyone to deny that all of “Christendom” as well as Jewry is in bondage to the Greater Babylon, this ■world of which Jehovah’s great adversary is the god. Stark-naked proof of this is found in the fact that confusing religion is rampant everywhere, with hundreds of sects and cults, all of which participated, Catholic against Catholic, Protestant against Protestant, religion against religion, in the bloody first world war, of 1914, and then in the more frightful second world war, of 1939. According to Christ’s words at Luke 21: 25, 26 and at Revelation 12: 7-13, that first world war was accompanied by “war in heaven” in which Satan the Devil and all his heavenly hosts were beaten by the newborn kingdom of God and were cast down to the vicinity of our earth. Thus the superhuman, invisible part of the Greater Babylon was debased to the earth because of God’s ■wrath, and this was done by the newborn King, Christ Jesus, the Conqueror greater than Cyrus of old. Now the final burst of Jehovah’s sweeping tempest of wrath against this Greater Babylon merely waits for His appointed time to begin the battle of Armageddon. Then the visible as well as the invisible part of this Greater Babylon will be destroyed with an everlasting destruction.

³⁸ Following the close of World War I in November of 1918, who was it that was made free by a deliverance from the Greater Babylon? Not “Christendom”, nor Jewry! It was the remnant of consecrated Christians who obeyed the word of the Greater Cyrus, Christ Jesus, and who are today known the world over as “Jehovah’s witnesses”. During World War I they were oppressed and subjected to great 17. (a) What proves “Christendom’s” bondage to Greater Babylon? (b) When did Jehovah’s tempest of wrath begin and when will it finish against Greater Babylon?

18. After World War I, who actually were made free from Greater Babylon? and how?

restraints by the warring powers of “Christendom”; but, contrary to the expectations and wishes of her religionists, these oppressed and restrained witnesses of Jehovah were released in 1919 and went forward with the work of bearing witness to God’s name and kingdom. In the light of the truth they have continuously endeavored to wipe out all trace of Babylonish religion from their midst and to adhere strictly to God’s Word of truth; and thus the truth has made them truly free from Babylon and its bondage. They are no man’s slaves, nor any manmade government’s slaves, nor Babylon’s slaves, but are the free servants of Jehovah Godby Christ Jesus.

¹⁸ Their liberty in Christ and their freedom from Babylon they demonstrated during the total war of 1939-1945, which war tended to regiment everything and everybody to the service of this bedeviled world. By the truth and by the backing of the God whose name they bear they have stood fast in the freedom 19. (a) How did they demonstrate their freedom from Greater Babylon during the total war of 1939-1043? (b) How has Jeremiah 31:1 been proved to be true concerning them? with which Christ has made them free from Babylon. Not by any pressure from her have they been impressed into the service of this world. In their Godgiven freedom they come forth from the fiery crucible of war and totalitarian rule and march on in Jehovah’s service, worshiping him with no fear but heralding the glad tidings of his kingdom and its blessings to the peoples of all nationalities. By preserving them in their integrity as his witnesses possessing his Kingdom message, Jehovah has proved to these spiritual Israelites that he is their God, their Mighty One whom they worship. They by their united fight for Christian freedom have proved that they are his people. Thus has come the final and complete realization of Jeremiah’s words: “At that time, saith Jehovah, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Does the rest of Jeremiah’s prophecy, chapter thirty-one, add support to these conclusions? Yes, as further explanation of this prophecy below will show. It will disclose God’s people with whom all nations are called to be glad.

THE WAY OF RETURN

TEHOVAH’S deliverance of his faithful remnant I from Babylon was a matter dictated by justice to J his own name and also by his loving-kindness to those who agreed to uphold the honor of his name. Hence we read in Jeremiah’s prophecy: “Thus saith Jehovah, The people that were left of the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. Jehovah appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee [or, continuedlovingkindness unto thee].” —31:2, 3, Am. Stan. Ver.

² In Jeremiah’s day some Israelites survived the brandishing of the sword of war and aggression by Babylon’s lung, Nebuchadnezzar. But they were forced out of their homeland and into the wilderness of this world as dominated by the great world power Babylon. Yet out there, by taking the right way of return to God’s favor, they did find his grace and favor, and he satisfied their desire for rest by restoring them to their homeland where they could again worship and serve him freely. Likewise during World War I (1914-1918) the belligerent nations of “Christendom” forced Jehovah’s consecrated people out into the wilderness of this Babylonish world, where they were subjected to great persecutions and abridgments of their liberty. They found no rest there, because they gave way to fear of men under the religious idea that the Babylonish powers of this world

• 1. By whnr two things especially is Jehovah’s deliverance of his remnant from Babylon dictated?

• 2, How did Jehovah cause those “that were left of the sword” to find re&t, both in the type and after World War I? are those “higher powers” to which all Christian souls are instructed to be subject. They fell victims to the various schemes and conspiracies of the religious, political enemies to separate them from the obedient worship and service of the Lord God. Within themselves they were greatly disturbed and hence they sought rest from God. He showed grace and favor toward them in this wilderness of separation from His organization and its service. He showed them the way by which they might return to him and find rest for their hearts and minds. A faithful remnant then returned.

’ In both the ancient and the modern case such mercy was proof of God’s loving-kindness. From ancient times Jehovah has loved this people for his name. And the ancient typical people of natural Israel foreshadowed the modern antitypical people of spiritual Israel. Therefore the apostle Peter quoted Jehovah’s words to ancient typical Israel and applied them to antitypical spiritual Israel, saying to his fellow Christians: “But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Pet. 2:9,10, Am. Stan. Ver.) Consistently, then, at the close of World War I, when His people were afar off from him in the wilderness of exile and captivity under

• 3. How is it true that Jehovah loves bls people “with an everlasting love’’? and how has he appeared to them?

Babylonish world control, Jehovah God appeared with favor to them. He did so, because from old time, from the time that Christ Jesus began leading the spiritual Israel of God, Jehovah has loved them, since they are his consecrated witnesses, a people upon whom His name is called.

• ⁴ Therefore Jehovah prolonged or continued his love to them, even during their temporary alienation from him. By means of such loving-kindness extended to them he drew them back home to him. From and after 1918 he lovingly revealed his further truths and purposes to them and renewed their privileges of serving as his witnesses and as ambassadors for his kingdom by Christ Jesus. “Christendom” makes loud claims to being his people, but what evidence is there today to show she has shared in this divine loving-kindness ? However, by such mercy and favor to his consecrated remnant of witnesses, Jehovah has showed these that he is their God and that they are his favored people whom he is pleased to use as His witnesses.

• ⁵ Before considering the further words to the faithful remnant of Israel, let us remind ourselves of some historical facts which explain matters. Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, showed faith and devotion to Jehovah God and hence received a change of name to Israel, meaning “prince with God” or “ruling with God”. By his two wives and their handmaids Jacob (or Israel) had twelve sons, from whom sprang the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. Jacob’s specially loved wife was Rachel, and by her he had two sons, Joseph the firstborn and Benjamin. Joseph had two sons, Manasseh the elder and Ephraim the younger; but Jehovah God expressed a preference for Ephraim to become the greater, as if he were the firstborn. (Gen. 48:17-20) Ephraim and Manasseh became the heads of two tribes of Israel, in place of their father Joseph, who was Israel’s firstborn by Rachel. This splitting of Joseph’s offspring into two tribes was because God took out the tribe of Levi from the original twelve to be separated to His special service at the tabernacle of worship.

“ After the death of King Solomon two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, stayed faithful to Solomon’s descendants on the throne, but ten tribes under Ephraim’s leadership revolted and set up a separate kingdom. The first king was an Ephraimite, Jeroboam. This separate kingdom came to be called “the kingdom of Israel”; and, owing to its leading tribe, it was also called “Ephraim”. On the other hand, the other kingdom, owing to its leading tribe, was called “the kingdom of Judah”. By Jeremiah’s time the kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim, had been overthrown by the Assyrian empire and the Israelite survivors of that overthrow had been deported to the lands of Assyria. (2 Ki. 17:5-23) The kingdom of Judah remained.

• ⁷ The Lord God, by Jeremiah, speaks further to all the families of Israel, that is, to all twelve tribes, as if to a woman, saying: “Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, 0 virgin of Israel: again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit thereof. For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto Jehovah our God.” (Jer. 31:4-6, Am. Stan. Ver.) Here Jehovah describes how his loving-kindness will be manifested to his reclaimed people, namely, by putting them back again in their old God-given territories and reconstructing them there as an organized nation. The fact that he addresses them as a maiden or virgin, saying, “0 virgin of Israel,” proves one important thing: that for this restoration to occur they must abandon all worldliness and must return to virgin purity in the worship of the true God.

• ⁸ That Jehovah would then be the God or the One worshiped by all the families of Israel is shown in the prediction that the watchmen on the hill country of Ephraim would cry out to all his brethren of the once rebellious ten tribes who worshiped the golden calves. The watchmen would call to them to arise and go up to Zion, there to worship Jehovah as their God at His holy temple. This shows that all Israel would once again be unified as an organization and that they would unitedly worship and serve the God of their faithful forefathers. No religious disunity would exist among them. Because of this, Jehovah’s people would be filled with joy and gladness and be like a clean virgin making joyful noise with musical tabrets and dancing -with all her virgin companions. And all parts of the organization would be fruitful and be enjoying freedom from want.

’ The Lord God fulfilled this prophecy toward the faithful remnant that came back from ancient Babylon from and after 537 B.C. They came back, not as a disunited nation, politically divided between two kingdoms and carrying on a state religion of worshiping golden calves or other religious idols; but as a united nation, to rebuild Jehovah’s one temple and together to worship him as the only true and living God. Likewise in the days of Jesus and his apostles, the remnant of Israel were recovered from the servitude of the antitypical Babylon and were made members of God’s spiritual temple under Christ Jesus the Chief Corner Stone. The Gentiles to whom the message of deliverance from Babylon was brought and who believed were also made members of the one and indivisible “Israel of God”, spiritual Israel. In it neither Jew nor Gentile is looked on with discrimination, neither bond nor free; but all are one in Christ.

• ¹⁰ Finally, from and after A.D. 1918, the remnant of Jehovah’s consecrated people received his newly revealed truths and were freed from the bondage of fear and subjection to anti typical Babylon. They sought to be clean like a virgin from all religion and worldliness. Other believers who consecrated to God since 1918 and whom He accepted and justified have been made members of the remnant, with no discrimination against them. In this way all made up one indivisible Theocratic organization dedicated to unitedly worshiping one Almighty God, Jehovah. They worship him at his capital organization under Christ, which organization is called Zion and through which he rules all the universe. Thus the virgin organization of Jehovah’s remnant today is filled with joy and moves harmoniously in his happy service. It knows no spiritual want, because the one God whom it worships has blessed it and made it fruitful.

A REGATHERING TO PROSPERITY

• ¹¹ This restoration and unification of the remnant of Israel is not to be kept secret from the world. It is to be made public among all the nations of the earth as a testimony to the faithfulness of God to his word and also in vindication of his name. It is to be published to the nations in order that those in search of the true and faithful God may believe and may join themselves to His people and may be made glad and sing with his people. “For thus saith Jehovah, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, 0 Jehovah, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.” (Jer. 31:7, Am. Stan.Ver.) Spiritual Israel is the “chief of the nations”, because Christ Jesus, God’s most highly exalted Son, is the Chief Member of this “holy nation” of God, and all nationalities of goodwill must line up under this capital organization of God. Some modern translators would make the Hebrew text read, instead: "Shout aloud on the hilltops" (Moffatt); and, “Shout on the top of the mountains.” (An Amer. Trans.) Such translations, while doing away with the phrase “chief of the nations”, show that the news of the remnant's deliverance and salvation from captivity to the Babylon of this world is to be proclaimed boldly and widely, as from hilltops and mountaintops. A great multitude must hear and learn how Jehovah has saved His people since 1918.

” The countries of Assyria and Babylon, to which the survivors of the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah were taken into exile from 740 B.C. to 607 B.C., lay north of Palestine. Jeremiah refers to these northern countries as he tells how Jehovah regathers his people: “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”—Jer. 31:8,9.

• ^1S The regathering of the remnant of God’s elect nation from and after A.D. 1919 was evidently what Christ Jesus meant as a special sign of the end of Satan’s Babylonish world, when he said to his disciples: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days [beginning A.D. 1914 with war in heaven against Satan and his demons] shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens [Satan’s invisible organization in heaven] shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory [of his kingdom]. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”—Matt. 24 : 29-31.

• ¹⁴ From and after 1919 the Lord God, by Christ Jesus his Son, has gathered together this remnant of spiritual Israel from all parts of the visible world, spoken of prophetically as the northland and coasts or ends and uttermost parts of the earth. They have been gathered, not bodily, but in an organic way, by their united acceptance of the Kingdom truth which has made them free and which God has caused to be preached in all nations since A.D. 1914 as a witness to such. (Matt. 24:14) In all nations the members of the remnant have been gathered into a unity of faith and of action. All of them hold to Jehovah’s Theocratic organization and rule, and all of them receive his spiritual food and instructions through that organization, and all of them unitedly give a worldwide witness to God’s holy name and his established kingdom under Christ.

• ¹⁵ With mercy God has led the faithful remnant back to their free homeland, their true and harmonious relationship with him as His servants and witnesses. He has done this by making the Kingdom truths plain and also by making comfortable and helpful organization-arrangements. Thereby the way back has not been too hard, but the spiritually blind, the ones hobbling along spiritually, and those who have been trying to nourish and bring up others spiritually have been able to travel the road to renewed peaceful relations with God within his Theocratic organization. It has not been a dry, parched road; but the Kingdom truth like a river of water of life has issued forth from the throne of God and of his reigning King and has followed and run alongside of the returning remnant all the way. His truth and organization instructions for service have straightened out the road so that no one has had real reason for stumbling. All along the way they have supplicated God’s mercy and goodness for his own name’s sake, that the reproaches might be lifted from his name and it might be honored and exalted by them.

• ¹⁶ The modern versions agree with the ancient Greek Septuagint translation when they render verse 9 to read: “They went away in tears, but I lead them back consoled”; or, “With weeping they went away, but with consolation will I bring them back.” {Moffatt; An Amer. Trans.) When Jehovah’s consecrated people came under the enemy’s oppression during World War I and were led away captive in fear and were thus cut off from God’s free service, they came under his anger and displeasure and they wept. (Isa. 12:1) Now, due to being reinstated in his favor and in his witness work since 1919, they are consoled and comforted. And why has all this been so? God explains, saying: “For I have become to Israel a father, and as for Ephraim my firstborn is he!” {Rotherham; An Amer. Trans.) God extends fatherly treatment to his faithful remnant and loves them with a father’s love of his firstborn son. He has begotten them as his spiritual children and they have become a “kind of firstfruits of his creatures”. (Jas. 1:18) Christ Jesus, their Leader and Commander, is the “beginning of the creation of God” and so is God’s “firstborn of every creature”; and they are heirs of God ■with him. (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:15) Therefore God dries their tears of sorrow and repentance and brings them home from exile in “Babylon”.

• ¹⁷ The nations of this Babylonish world are far mightier than the small remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses, who engage in no politics and maintain no standing army equipped ■with carnal weapons. Hence let all the people of good-will of all nationalities take note of Jehovah’s power and know that He has delivered the weak remnant from their strong foes. “Hear the word of Jehovah, 0 ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off; and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. For Jehovah hath ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow unto the goodness of Jehovah, to the grain, and to the new -wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and ■will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I -will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith Jehovah.”—Jer. 31:10-14, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ¹⁸ His witnesses have been fearlessly making a united, organized proclamation of God’s name and kingdom in all parts of the earth since the close of World War I in 1918. Such united action stands as visible evidence that Almighty God has ransomed and regathered his faithful remnant and that they are singing the praises of Him and his kingdom at his temple “in the height of Zion”. He has filled them ■with rejoicing and -with spiritual abundance, so that, since their restoration, they have borne the “fruits of the Kingdom” to all nations by more than a half billion copies of Bibles, books and booklets; also by other hundreds of millions of magazines and free tracts, backed up by public lectures on platforms and on the radio and by testimonies at the doorsteps and by private Bible studies in numberless homes. They are satisfied with God’s goodness through his King Christ Jesus; and their widespread witness activities are carried on for the purpose of ushering persons of all nationalities now into the gladness of His people, so as to rejoice with them.

COME AGAIN FROM THE ENEMY’S LAND

• ¹⁹ In a final and complete way, therefore, in this twentieth century the faithful and true God has fulfilled his comforting words to the symbolic Rachel, to whom he said: “Thus saith Jehovah: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not. Thus saith Jehovah: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith Jehovah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith Jehovah; and thy children shall come again to their own border.” (Jer. 31:15-17, Am. Stan. Ver.) The Latin Vulgate and the Catholic Douay Version Bible read, at verse 15: “Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.” This reads as if referring to a high place near Bethlehem rather than to Ramah in the tribe of Benjamin.

• ²⁰ Nineteen centuries ago it was quite proper for the apostle Matthew to quote verse 15 above and to apply it to the slaughter of the babes of Bethlehem-judah after Jesus’ birth. (Matt. 2:16-18, King James Version and Douay) Rachel, beloved wife of Jacob, died near Bethlehem, which was then called Ephrath, and there she was buried. (Gen. 35:16-20) She was the mother of Jacob’s well-loved son Benjamin, and in the territory of her son Benjamin’s tribe the city of Ramah was located. Hence when the children or sons inhabiting the Benjamite city of Ramah were either killed or deported in the days of Jeremiah, Benjamin's mother Rachel is pictured as greatly distressed and weeping bitterly and seemingly inconsolably. Her great grief and lamentation then became a figure or symbol of intense sorrow and weeping, and hence now the lamentation and tears of the mothers of Bethlehem-judah over Herod’s slaughter of their babes is compared with it. Rachel herself is represented as rising from her grave close by Bethlehem and weeping over these slaughtered babes; for Rachel’s descendants, the children of Benjamin, were always the staunch upholders and allies of the royal line whose first king was born at Bethlehem-judah, namely, David, and which city was therefore called “the city of David”. (Luke 2:11) That slaughter of the innocents came because the religious Jews of Jesus’ infanthood were in bondage to the Greater Babylon, and the Jewish chief priests and scribes had disclosed to King Herod, Caesar’s representative, where the Bible foretold Jesus’ birth was to occur.

• ²¹ Rachel thereby became a symbol of the mothers in Israel, particularly those in Ramah in the tribe of Benjamin. Jeremiah saw her grief in 607 B.C., both when he was Babylon’s prisoner in chains at Ramah and also after his release. Rachel’s consolation began to come seventy years later. Then the faithful remnant of Israelites, including Benjamites, came again from the land of the enemy, Babylon, and took up residence once more in the territory of Israel, including Ramah. (See Ezra 2:1, 26 and Nehemiah 7:6,30; 11: 31-36) Hence the return of Rachel’s children was a part of the return of the entire remnant of faithful Israelites from enemy Babylon, and back “to their own border”. According to Jehovah’s unfailing words Rachel’s hope for the future was realized. Her work and labor to bring forth and rear children was rewarded, for God’s own name’s sake.

• ²² The slaughtered babes have not yet come back from the graves in a resurrection, although Jesus, who as a babe was obliged to flee to a foreign land (Egypt), did come back to the land of Judah and doubtless preached God’s kingdom in his native city of Bethlehem, just a few miles from Jerusalem. However, the prophecy has come to its complete and crowning fulfillment from A.D. 1919 on. Beginning ■with that postwar year the remnant as foreshadowed by Rachel’s lamented children did come back to their own domain. They came back from the enemy’s land, from antitypical Babylon, where they had been in bondage and exile particularly during the year 1918.

• ²³ The remnant’s mother is God’s woman, namely, his universal organization, to whom Paul refers, saying: “Jerusalem -which is above is free? which is the mother of us all.” Hence Rachel represents this mother, particularly as she grieved when Jehovah’s consecrated servants and witnesses were dragged off into Babylonian captivity during World War I because of fear of men and because of yielding to them as the supposed “higher powers”. Now the great antitypical Rachel refrains her voice from weeping and stops her eyes from tears, because her foretold comforting future has arrived and her labor is having its reward. Her children, the remnant of Jehovah’s -witnesses, now recognize Jehovah God and Christ Jesus as “The Higher Powers” and submit themselves to them, and are now returned from Babylon’s power and control. (Rom. 13:1) They are returned to their God-assigned place in Jehovah’s Theocratic organization, where they work hard as His witnesses and engage in-the great reconstructive work of Jehovah’s worship in all the earth. And just as the Nethinim and other non-Israelites returned with the remnant from Babylon back in 537 B.C., so now: A great multitude of companions of good-will have broken loose from Babylon and returned with the remnant of spiritual Israel to God’s organized service and worship. They are glad with His people, and the antitypical Rachel is fully comforted. Her work and labor have not been in vain.—Ezra 2:1, 58, 70.

²‘ More regarding Jeremiah’s prophecy, chapter thirty-one, we must leave to the next succeeding issue of The Watchtower to say.

UP THROUGH CENTRAL AMERICA TO THE U.SA.

THE king’s business required haste,” or, “the king’s mission was urgent.” Those words of David seemed fitting to the mission in behalf of the earthly interests of God’s kingdom as undertaken by the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, N. H. Knorr, beginning March 6 of this year. Since then twelve countries outside the United States and in the Caribbean sea region had been visited by air travel, namely, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, Dutch Guiana, British Guiana, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica. Just a few days could be spent in each country, but six new Branch offices of the Watch Tower Society were set up in lands not till then thus provided. So with further arrangements to set up branches in two others, all the foregoing countries will shortly be served by local Branch offices for the better spread of the Kingdom gospel.

After three days of visit in Costa Rica, April 25 saw our Brother Knorr and his companion in travels, F. W. Franz, vice-president, on their way to the thirteenth country of their scheduled tour of eighteen countries outside the United States of America, More than thirty of their brethren, both American members of the Branch office family and also natives, were present at the “La Sabana” airport of San Jose, Costa Rica, as their plane took off, at 7: 30 a.m., for its northwestward flight to Managua, Nicaragua.

Flying out over the central plateau of Costa Rica we soon come over a sea of clouds. In a little more than half an hour we are at Lake Nicaragua, 100 miles long. As we pass over it the broken clouds hide from our view the belching island-volcano of Omotepe. Soon we reach the northwestern shores and come over the flat neck of land that lies between Hike Nicaragua and Lake Managua, on the lower shores of which lies Managua, capital of Nicaragua, about 43 meters or 140 feet above sea level. No wonder, then, that it is so hot in Managua, lying as it does about 12° north of the equator. We come to land at Las Mercedes airfield, about six miles out of the city, and are given a refreshing reception by eleven missionaries, all graduates of the Watchtower Bible College of Gilead. The first two of these arrived from the States in June of last year; the others came in later, beginning with October. Prior to that no known witnesses of Jehovah were in all of Nicaragua except one at Leon, about fifty miles away, and he had been holding an assignment from the Society of all Nicaragua as his territory for witnessing. The growth in the witness work and in the organization for it was laid bare to us that very night. This was at the weekly service meeting of the Managua company of Jehovah’s witnesses, established since the coming of these graduates from the Watchtower College.

The general meetings of the Managua company are conducted in Castilian or Spanish. The eleven missionaries were given basic preparation for this in their specialized training course at College, and all of them are making commendable progress in the mastery of the language. Meetings are held in the Kingdom Hall, which is in the front and main room of the missionary home. Being on the second floor, the Hall and missionary home enjoy considerable relief from the high temperatures of Managua owing to the breeze which blows quite stiffly at times and which is quite regular because of the trade winds of the Caribbean sea. Poor people of Managua, living in the one-story houses and hence in close, poorly ventilated rooms on the ground floor, suffer measurably from the great heat. And when the missionaries make return visits upon such ones and when they carry on Bible studies with such interested ones by means of the Watch Tower publications, the missionaries have to perspire and endure the heat for the time being with the inmates. What adds to the trying situation, and which calls also for fortitude in God’s work, is that there is so much dust in the city_x Within a few blocks of the center of the capital where the streets are paved the streets are just dirt, with a thick layer of hot, dry dust. The stirring up of this by breezes or by oxen drawing carts or by the six-seat covered carriages behind two skinny ponies continually going at a trot causes much of the dust to be inhaled by pedestrians. Much gets into their shoes to irritate tired, hot feet. Much of the house-to-house work done by the missionaries is on such unpaved dusty calles.

However, the missionaries are grateful to God to have this assignment of foreign territory, and are not anxious to quit it for a return to the territory in the United States. They prefer their Nicaraguan territory; as they keep on working it, “it grows on one,” they tell you. Because of their love for the poor people who are hungering and thirsting for the Kingdom message, they endure the heat and burden of the day, thereby promoting with God-blessed success a grand Bible-education work, and are conducting many Bible studies in the humble homes of the people.

We looked interestedly to the service meeting, which was at 7: 30 p.m. of the day of our arrival. One of the young men, a missionary, presided and the meeting went forward for three-quarters of an hour, all its features being strictly in Spanish except for a brief consideration of the Informant article, which was in both Spanish and English. At this meeting 34 were in attendance, the majority of them therefore being natives. At 8:15 p.m. Brother Knorr was privileged to address the gathering. By means of his interpreter he told of his tour through the twelve countries thus far. He held out hopes for still larger increase in the Lord’s work in Nicaragua by calling attention to the startling increase in such other lands, by God's grace and blessing. His remarks, of about an hour, put fresh zeal and confidence into all present. It was good to see the service meeting not merely put on in Spanish but also with an interesting, well-managed program, just as these missionaries had been instructed to conduct at the College. The Memorial of Christ’s death having so recently been celebrated, on the night of April 16, inquiry was made, with the reply that at this newly established company in Managua there had been a Memorial attendance of 52. Just 5 of these partook of the bread and wine served on that occasion. This proves that the majority doing the Kingdom witness work there in Nicaragua are consecrated ones of good-will, companions of Christ’s remnant.

The best display of interest, proving the effectiveness of the witness work being done by the missionaries and by their native associate-workers, came Sunday afternoon, April 28. It was at the talk on “Be Glad, Ye Nations”, by Brother Knorr. True, 400 special letters of invitation were sent out to all names on the missionaries’ files; and this was amplified by invitations given by word of mouth to the interested ones upon whom they made calls; but not so large an attendance was awaited. At public addresses delivered at the Kingdom Hall by missionary speakers there had been attendances around 45; but now came a special occasion to invite out new interest. The roof garden or azotea on a four-story building about a block away from the missionary homes was offered free for Brother Knorr’s address, by the dueha with whom one of the missionary sisters is conducting a home Bible study. It is a beautiful, breezy roof garden and overlooks the city of Managua. Extra seats were hired and brought up and put under the roofed part of the garden. At 3 p.m. sharp the meeting was opened by the chairman, a missionary, and then Brother Knorr began his delivery. His message was interpreted in Spanish to an intensely interested audience, whose numbers swelled to 158. One of the missionary girls rejoiced to see ten of her interested ones there. At close of the meeting the booklet ‘The Meek Inherit the Earth’ (in Spanish) was offered free to all of good-will.

Present at the meeting was the Nicaraguan who once had been the only local witness, at Leon, and with whom the missionaries had tried, seemingly in vain, for ten months to establish contact He sent a telegram advising he would arrive in town for Brother Knorr's meeting, and be was lodged there at the Kingdom Hall over Saturday night. He was highly pleased at assembling with those of like precious faith. Henceforth he will be visited at Leon by missionaries, who will join him in local witnessing, trying to round up all the interested and to organize a Le6n company of Jehovah’s witnesses.

An evening meeting at the Kingdom Hall closed out this day of gladness. This was for the study of the assigned paragraphs of La Atalaya, the Spanish Watchtower. At the close of the hour’s study Brother Knorr was invited to the front for a half-hour of final address to this gathering of 42. He there disclosed at what he had been working during these several days of his presence, namely, the establishment of a Nicaraguan Branch office and the organizing of a regular company of active publishers in Managua. He announced Wm. Eugene Call as the Branch servant, and then named the appointments of the various missionaries to posts of duty in the now organized Managua company of Jehovah’s witnesses. At this benefit to the work in Nicaragua all the brethren

rejoiced. They all felt stronger. They entertained larger hopes of a steadily mounting increase in the Kingdom interests in that land. They look to the Almighty God, whose due time for this increase has come, and for this reason they redouble their efforts and push ahead determinedly with His work.

HONDURAS

Tegucigalpa, capital of Honduras, was our next destination. The name is derived from Teguzgalpa, meaning “cerro de plata” or “silver hill”, and which was applied originally to an Indian village. The Spanish mining camp, set up near by this village, in 1578, grew to become this picturesque city of Tegucigalpa on the Rio Nacaome or Rio Grande. It is an inland city with no rail communications whatsoever with other cities or countries, but accessible by bus, truck or airplane. We were due to reach it by plane, and must climb up airy heights to it, because it lies 3,300 feet above ocean level. Being given a good send-off by the Nicaraguan missionaries at the airport, we got on our way skyward about 10 a.m., Monday, April 29. Making a left turn, it was just two minutes till our PAA plane was out over Lake Managua and soon passing by the peninsula Chiltepe, which juts out above Managua city, and then we swept by volcano Mometombo to our left as we flew northwestward. Lake Managua, just 38 miles long, was crossed in little more than ten minutes. Next plains, but Anally also mountainous terrain, over which our riding became rough. Our landing in Honduras at the airport was quite violent. Our shake-up was quickly offset by the reception given us by seven College-graduate missionaries at the airport. From here we taxied over dusty Honduran roads into Comayaguela, which is on the south or left bank of the Rio Grande. Tegucigalpa is on the right or north bank.

Although isolated as far as railroad ties are concerned, Tegucigalpa we found to be generally more improved and progresista than Managua. It also has a large reading public. As a result our missionaries place literature with considerable ease, many’ taking the magazines as these are offered on the street corners, and others frequently hailing the missionaries passing by on the streets to procure literature from these dispensers of the printed message. While the majority of the population are rated as Roman Catholic, they are such only in name. Our missionaries find that in their work from house to house they have their principal difficulty with fanatical old women. The expressed opinion in high financial circles of nominal Catholic Hondurans is that the Roman Catholic Hierarchy has lost out in Central America, and that with only the old women as religious devotees the Hierarchy cannot wield control over the male population. Hence there are many hearing ears in Honduras, and in one month a missionary carrying around his portable phonograph with recorded lectures in Spanish had an audience of 600 in the many homes of the people. Also the work of revisiting the interested obtainers of literature and of arranging for book studies in their homes moves forward with good progress and expansion.

The missionaries are well housed in a newly-constructed two-story house, and their front room on the first floor is set aside as a Salon del Reino. In the large-dimension front window they have an attractive sign advertising that this is the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s witnesses, and announcing the time of evening meetings on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, in Spanish, and a 3 p.m. meeting on Sundays for the study of the English Watchtower magazine. Our three-day stay not permitting otherwise, a semi-public meeting was set for the open night of Tuesday, April 30. Donald Burt, the servant of the missionary home, presided. Meeting opened at 7: 30 p.m. The speech that followed, by Brother Knorr, translated into Spanish, was the same one that had thrilled so many thousands during this tour of the Caribbean area. Again at this meeting was demonstrated the effectiveness of advertising by word of mouth as in Jesus’ day, to invite the interested ones to come and hear, for there was an attendance of 57, which filled all seats and overflowed to outside the doorway. At the close of the speech the pleased audience accepted free copies of the booklet One World, One Government (in Spanish).

Besides the missionaries, there were 8 company publishers that joined with them in publishing the Kingdom message to the homes of the people and on the streets. On Wednesday night came the regular Tegucigalpa company service meeting at the Kingdom HalL A total of 18 attended this. The program, wholly in Spanish, was put on by six of the missionaries, and it was good to see with what courage and purpose they carried on, even though young in the use of this foreign tongue. But they made their meaning clear. Three of the girls put on a demonstration, to show how a Kingdom publisher calls upon an interested woman and then invites and takes her along to make a back-call upon another interested woman and conduct a book study in her home. At the close of the hour’s program Brother Knorr came on as an added feature. He talked briefly about the increase and progress of the work generally. Then, in behalf of the work in Honduras, he announced the setting up of a Branch office there, with Donald Burt as its servant, and also the organization of a regular company in Tegucigalpa whose appointed servants he then proceeded to name. Of course, the effect of this was heartening. All were thankful for such arrangements for more efficient operations in this land, and joined in sending love and greetings to the Brooklyn headquarters family and to all other brethren yet to be met on Brother Knorr’s trip.

EL SALVADOR

From Tegucigalpa’s airport to San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, is a flight slightly south by west, of about 42 minutes. Starting off on this flight late Thursday morning, May 21, we soon came over mountainous El Salvador and landed shortly after midday on the plateau on which lies San Salvador, some 2,135 feet above the level of the Pacific ocean. The eighteen members of the welcoming committee at the airport to meet us were both Watchtower College graduates and native Salvadorans. They were all an initial token to us of the growth of the witness work here during the year since the first two College graduates arrived here the end of February of last year. The information we picked up shortly after our arrival bore witness to the same thing, namely, that at the April 16, 1946, Memorial celebration 36 attended of which just 2 ate the bread and drank the wine in testimony of their being anointed members of the “body of Chnst”. Also besides the ten missionaries stationed in El Salvador there were 13 native publishers then active in the San Salvador company of Jehovah’s witnesses.

We found San Salvador to be a fine city, well paved and well lighted. Off to the west the volcano of San Salvador looms up 2,060 meters (6,758 feet) high. Its last eruptions, m 1917 and 1919, laid the city tn ruins, and it appears that a much better city was built. Work begins early in the day, at 7 a.m. generally, and allows for a noontime siesta, but the wages of the average workman are low. This has affected the 1946 campaign in El Salvador for obtaining new subscriptions for The Watchtower, because many Salvadorans could not afford a year’s subscription. But before we left, the Kingdom publishers had secured 173 subscriptions, which all helped toward reaching the 250,000 set as the goal for the entire earth.

The home of the ten missionaries has a large interior patio with trees and bushes, and the porticos or porches which run around this allow for the placing of chairs and holding of company meetings. This arrangement serves, therefore, as a Kingdom Hall. However, it appeared to us that this will soon prove inadequate, and that another Kingdom Hall will become necessary. Friday night is service meeting night in San Salvador, and our schedule allows us to attend the one on May 3. There are 39 in attendance. Before us we see a neat Monthly Service Chart, showing the course of the San Salvador company and its work during the past year. The program of nearly an hour is put on by native Salvadorans as well as a number of the missionaries, the missionary Roscoe Stone serving as chairman. There were four demonstrations of how to present the Kingdom message, and particularly in connection with the Watchtower campaign. A study of Organization Instructions was also included. Then experiences were related of how a company publisher obtained a subscription and how another made 10 back-calls during the past month. Four College graduates had arrived just a few days ago, on April 30, and these were introduced to the assembled company and given the opportunity to say a few words (in Spanish). The next fifty minutes was taken up by Brother Knorr in reviewing the expansion of God’s work in West Indies and South and Central American countries.

A number of Salvadorans indicated their desire to be baptized in water in token of their full consecration of themselves to God through Christ Jesus. The baptismal service for these took place Sunday morning, May 5. Of the goodly number that turned up at the Kingdom Hall for this there were four candidates for immersion. After the baptism speech we all went out to a set of fine municipal bathing pools, known as La Chacra, on the outskirts of the city. There in the pool one side of which is a ravine wall the four were dipped in the waters. Thereafter the missionaries and company publishers went out into the field service announcing the lecture “Be Glad, Ye Nations”.

The attendance at this 3 p.m. lecture was very gratifying, namely, 66, and the Kingdom Hall was well occupied. The various missionaries felt repaid to see present those of interest whom they had personally invited in their back-call work; one missionary counted ten of hers in attendance. The booklet One World, One Government was offered free to all wanting a copy, and they were invited to attend the company’s regular meetings, including the Watchtower study that night. Many responded to this invitation, for we had an attendance of 60 at this study, at 7: 30 p.m. After the hour’s study the assembly listened intently, for another hour, as Brother Knorr recounted the experiences of the brethren in Europe during the epoch of the Nazi-Vatican-Fascist terror, including World War II. This served to show that, though organized religious-political opposition should develop in El Salvador, the Lord’s work had no reason to fall off, no more than it did in Europe during the epoch of terror mentioned above. Now, with a Branch established, with R. Stone as its servant, the work should grow as never before.

Toward the close of the meeting it rained, with thunder anH lightning, and the patio got a wetting, but the assembled company were very happy and filled with appreciation over the blessings of association which they had enjoyed the past several days.

BRITISH HONDURAS

Monday, May 6, and today we must be off to Belize, British Honduras, on the Caribbean sea. We board a plane of the Transpose Aerovias de Centro-America (TACA) at the airport, 6 miles out from San Salvador. About 10:45 a.m. our plane starts its dash to get into the air. We soar over the blue-green waters of Lake Hopango, a lake of volcanic origin ten miles long and six miles broad, just six miles southeast of San Salvador. Then we come around and pass the cone-shaped volcano of San Salvador, to our left. We run into some mist, but can still see some distance. Shortly after 11 a.m., off to our right, we sight Lake Coatepeque with its two volcanos at its left side. Our plane bumps along, and ten minutes later passes the frontier lake, Lago de Guija. We are now over Guatemala territory, and are headed for the capital city. Just before 11:30 a.m. we come to land at the airport outside of Guatemala city. Here we make a stop of thirty minutes. Nevertheless, the ten College-graduate missionaries stationed in Guatemala consider it worth while to come out and see us and to regale us with their company. They give the good report that 65 attended the recent Memorial celebration in Guatemala city, of whom 6 partook of the emblems. It made us glad to note how pleased they are with their foreign assignment for work, and they asked not to be shifted back to the United States. We are pleased that we shall be coming back here to spend some days with these missionaries. And so, refreshed, we reboard our plane and fly to Belize, a city of 26,700 inhabitants.

At the airport we are met by the two lone missionaries of the Society then in British Honduras. This colony is predominantly of English-speaking colored population. For some time during World-War II there was a government ban against Watchtower literature. This was lifted shortly before these two young men arrived, but in the interior a Roman Catholic priest still tries to have the ban enforced against the literature received by mail The Roman Catholic clergy resent the presence of these two missionaries of Jehovah’s witnesses; and one Irish-American priest, to whom a native druggist casually introduced them, grew indignant that the British Colonial Government should let them into the country. He declared that the British Hondurans are happy and contented in the way they are living and that these American missionaries are contaminating the common people and stirring up discontent in their hearts by giving them this Kingdom knowledge. The two boys reminded the priest that he claimed to be an American himself, and they sent him scurrying away by showing him from American prison statistics that the Roman Catholic system was no real guardian of the morals of the people of the United States. The American consul in Belize also informed the boys that he was a Catholic and that the house where the consulate was stationed was a Catholic home, but the boys reminded him that the consulate was in itself not a Catholic institution.

Following these boys in a car ahead, we motored along the Belize or Old river and crossed the bridge over the Haulover creek, which is the real mouth of the delta-mouthed Old river. This creek divides Belize in two, the Northside and the Southside. Belize lies just one foot above sea level, being built upon filled-in ground, Hence, at this latitude it is hot, and there is difficulty in the drainage of the city and in maintaining a water supply. Large vats of wood adorn the yards of the houses to catch the precious waters from the skies which drop during the rainy season from July on. About the level of the second floor there is a breeze blowing, and it helps to offset the intense heat. A hurricane demolished Belize in 1931.

Our two missionaries have, temporarily at least, installed themselves in a two-story frame house, on stilts like the rest of the native houses. In this they do their cooking, and sleeping under mosquito bars, and planning and arranging for their own field activities and those of the Belize company of Jehovah’s witnesses. For the present the Kingdom Hall is located in a long room above the grocery store of a native witness. Here we attend a weekly company book study on Tuesday night, May 7, conducted by the missionary Charles Heyen. The small hall is filled with 36 attenders. After the regular study of the book “The Kingdom Is at Hand” Brother Knorr was invited to speak and took good advantage of the occasion to talk on “Organization”, showing the need for such a thing and hence, too, the necessity for the use of printed forms for reporting, etc. On invitation F. W. Franz, his airflight companion, talked to the group, especially stressing God’s mercy to those of the Belize company, according to the fulfillment of Matthew 24: 21, 22, and he urged them to show mercy to others by bringing such the Kingdom message before Armageddon’s tribulation breaks. Certainly this means that more should get out into the witness work afield than the nine company publishers who reported time in the field during the previous month. There is reason to believe more will do so.

In Belize the two missionaries have started the series of public lectures as announced by the Society for 1946. Just the Sunday previous, May 5, Elmer Ihrig had delivered the third of the series of eight, at the Liberty Hall on Barracks Road, with an attendance of 46; and the coming Sunday at the same Hall Charles Heyen was scheduled to deliver the fourth of the series, on “Swords into Plowshares”, for which 1,000 handbills had been printed for circulation. But now the semi-public address of the president of the Watch Tower Society in the midst of the week, Wednesday, May 8, was announced as due at the same Hall. There was no handbill advertising for this, but all notification was given by word of mouth and thus was noised among the persons of friendly interest, by missionaries and company publishers alike. An audience much above what attended the regular public meetings was not expected. The meeting was opened about 7 p.m., and to the delightful surprise of us all a total audience of 102 showed up. After explaining the reason why they should be glad with Jehovah’s people, Brother Knorr expressly invited them to study regularly with Jehovah’s witnesses. He also extended the courtesy of calling on his companion, Brother Franz, to offer some words of exhortation to them all, which exhortation showed how they could, despite these times, live in harmony with 1 Thessalonians 5:16: “Rejoice evermore.” Then Brother Knorr told them of the all-nations convention scheduled for Cleveland, Ohio, this coming August, and he invited them to attend, if possible.

He also comforted those unable to attend by disclosing that a local convention of three days would be held after the Cleveland event, to be served by a Society’s representative in attendance at Cleveland. A vote by the audience to send their love and greetings along with Brother Knorr in his further travels till reaching the Brooklyn Bethel home drew forth words of appreciation from him. There was a song, and then he closed the meeting with prayer. Thus, with such encouragement, the new Branch office of British Honduras was due to begin operations, with Elmer Ihrig in the capacity of Branch servant, and with more missionaries due to come to Belize.

GUATEMALA

Early Thursday afternoon, May 9, saw us back again in Guatemala city, although about three hours behind our flight schedule. This city has a population of 201,430 inhabitants, and is located among the mountains of Guatemala at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above the Pacific ocean. Our missionaries, ten at that time, are well situated here in a comfortable home on the second floor of a corner building on Fifth Avenue South. On the balcony at the corner angle of the house they had two metal signs, in color, one advertising the Watchtower magazine and the other alongside advertising the book “The Truth Shall Make You Free”, all in Spanish, of course. The hallway staircase up to their apartment is open at the top, but divides their dining-room space from the space used as a Kingdom Hall. In May, 1945, the first couple of this missionary group arrived in Guatemala city, and then the real organization and operation of a company of Jehovah’s witnesses took place here. Two more missionaries joined them in August, and then the remainder arrived on March 1 of this year. During that month 21 company publishers (aside from the missionaries) reported field activity in giving the Kingdom news to the people. We compared this with the eight natives with whom we met in a private home of a believer on the night of February 24 of last year when we were stopping overnight on our way south to Argentina. What an increase!

With great desire we attended the 7: 30 p.m. weekly service meeting in the missionary home Kingdom Hall the day of our arrival. The company servant, C. T. R. Peterson, missionary, presided and the full program went forward in Spanish, being carried on entirely by the College-graduate missionaries. It was a varied program. Besides the regular features, it included a demonstration by two missionary girls of how to get a book study started in a private Guatemalan home. After having observed how this service meeting went, Brother Knorr addressed the 22 listeners present through his interpreter. Of course, having marked the increase all along in his trip through Europe and now through Latin Am prim, he cheered them with a review of the increase taking place in the personnel and activities of Jehovah’s witnesses in these lands in recent years.

A meeting for the interested was planned for Kingdom Hall for Sunday afternoon, May 12; and for this 100 extra chairs were hired. This number was thought to be enough for the occasion. There were 235 special letters of invitation sent out to interested ones whose names were in the company’s files, but aside from this the general inviting of the people was done by word of mouth, particularly in making return visits on the interested. If 100 attended it would be thought noteworthy. But Sunday afternoon the speaker, Brother Knorr, and his interpreter were obliged to stand at the head of the staircase to address an audience which filled all available chairs in Kingdom Hall and the adjacent dining-room and which overflowed into three of the missionaries’ bedrooms. It summed up to an audience of 188. They gave the best of attention and did not refrain from applause. One missionary was elated to see 15 of her interested ones there; another, 14, and another, 10. At the close 138 free copies of Freedom in the New World (in Spanish) were distributed to them.

The Sunday night La Atalaya study was advanced to within less than- an hour after the close of the lecture, and as many as could do so were invited to remain for it. There were 65 of them that chose to stay. What was the surprise of them all when, at 5:15 p.m., a plate lunch of a sandwich, potato salad, a cup of cold tea and a fruit salad was served free to all of them there at Kingdom Hall, prepared by the loving hands of the missionaries. The hour’s Watchtower that followed the lunch was crowned by a quarter-hour of speech by the Society’s president with information that gladdened still more the hearts of all those present. They voted to send their love and greetings along with him to their brethren in other lands.

It was a very pleasant time visiting with these Guatemalan friends and the Society’s missionaries. Tuesday, May 14, was therefore seemingly too soon in arriving for our moving from their midst. The 1:45 pan. flight, however, allowed for our taking breakfast with the missionaries at their home and enjoying the morning Bethel service with them in Spanish. Brother Knorr also gave them sincere and faithful counsel for their best interests in the Lord’s work. They were comforted too at the new Guatemalan Branch office set up among them, with John N. Parker as its servant. After early dinner we all departed for the airport. Here, about twenty minutes before our flight time at a quarter to 2 p.m., the inspectors notified us that our registration with the police was not sufficient for taking our exit from the country; we should have had, instead, an exit permit issued at the National Palace. The offices of the National Palace would open first at 2 p.m., or fifteen minutes after our flight time. They were adamant in this requirement, and hence we were obliged to taxi to the Palacio Nacional. Meantime our plane flew. At the Palacio the granting of our exit permit was speeded up from a usual 16 hours’ time lapse for attention to just 10 minutes, and we returned to the airport under arrangements to get the plane leaving there at 5: 30 p.m. for Mexico city. The time of interim was filled in happily by further companionship with the missionaries.

MEXICO

During an interval of cessation of the rain we boarded the PAA plane, and shortly after 5: 30 p.m. we are off into clouded skies and over mountainous country. At times we fly blind and again in between strata of clouds through which the light of the descending sun penetrates and at last come out into its uninterrupted beams. Thus aloft, we take supper. The sun gets below the clouds, reddening up the western heavens. About 8: 24 p.m. we are passing Vera Cruz, all lit up below, and then we turn inland on a more directly westerly course for Mexico city. In the moonlight the mountains loom up dark along our course. Getting on toward 10 p.m. the lights of the national capital show up in the far distance. About 10:18 p.m. our pilot, flying as a test by instruments, makes a safe, smooth landing at the airport. While in Mexico city we are to lodge at the Society’s new Branch office building. In a car driven by the Branch servant, John Bourgeois, we reach the Branch quarters about 11: 24 p.m., where we are greeted by members of the family, including four instructors graduated from the Society’s College of Gilead.

The new four-story Branch building, completed less than a year ago, is a fine acquisition for the Society’s’ educational work in Mexico. It adjoins the old building, in which printing, shipping and office work was carried on for years, and which old building is now being renovated, remodeled and improved and made ready to house conveniently together many instructors for the educational campaign. At the time six instructors, besides two that were in transit for their stations in Honduras, were being housed at a home more than a mile away. At the Branch it was pleasant for us to take meals with the regular family of eleven members, and especially, before breakfast, to enjoy the morning Bethel service with its discussion of the day’s Bible text, followed by prayer upon the day and all its activities by Jehovah’s people everywhere.

Naturally the big event for Mexico was the three-day convention just ahead, on the coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 17-19. For this the three servants to the Mexican brethren came in from off the road and were entertained at the Branch quarters. Many other brethren also came to town from parts of Mexico north and south, some even from Mercedes, Texas, across the border. The notification which was dispatched to all the interested ones generally on April 1 granted them a measure of time to make ready for the Mexico city assembly, but even then the time allowance was not long enough for many of the Mexican brethren to lay aside enough money to undertake the trip.

However, the many eager out-of-towners began arriving in the city days in advance, and we could not fully inform ourselves on the self-denials and the hardships that these earnest and faithful brethren underwent to get here and to convene with persons of like precious faith. In a way the assembly began Thursday night, May 16, at the weekly service meetings in Mexico city. The Mexico city company, growing out of all proportions of one assembly place, has now been divided up into two units. Brother Knorr was announced to attend the original unit’s meeting on San Jeronimo street, and this Kingdom Hall was packed out. After the regular service meeting features Brother Knorr addressed the crowd on “education”, encouraging those brethren still analfabeticos to put forth efforts to learn to read and write in order to be able to feast on all the educational literature for themselves unaided. At the other unit hall in Colonia Condesa the gathering of 45 were pleased to have Brother Franz talk to them after service meeting.

Next day, May 17, the real convention opened about 9 a.m., with a field service rally, at the Arena Mexico, the site of last year’s memorable convention. Field service did not dampen the ardor of these Mexicans young and old, and there were 760 present at this opener, after which they all issued forth into the field, to spread the Kingdom message throughout this capital city. Thus with good momentum the convention started off, aud the three-day program of activities and meetings moved forward smoothly. At the hour of 3 p.m. came the formal address of welcome by the convention chairman, John Bourgeois, after which came speeches by one of the graduate instructors from the United States, and by two members of the Mexican Branch. The attendance rose up to 1,052 for the afternoon, but reached its peak with 1,120 at the evening meetings. At that time there was a preliminary speech by Brother Franz, and then the Society’s president spoke upon the theme “Jehovah’s witnesses in the Crucible”, to much applause, lie topped off this speech about maintaining integrity under crucial trials and persecutions by announcing and exhibiting the new publication in Spanish, The New World, and then advising the convention that a gift copy would be bestowed upon all above six years of age who would read the book. He surprised even the Branch servant and convention chairman by next holding aloft a question booklet for use with The New World. He had to advise them, though, that this lone advance-copy had just been received by mail from Brooklyn during his stay in Mexico city, but that copies would, be available for all students of the new book in a short time. Then through three exits, and four abreast, the con-ventioners poured out. of the Arena and joyously accepted each his copy of El Nuevo iLundo.

Outstanding on the second day, May 18, was a special assembly at 1 p.m. At this the conventloners were told of the disdainful attitude the Catholic Action press took toward the magazine work of Jehovah’s witnesses on sidewalks and street corners, and how they had crowed because the departing of so many of .last year’s conventloners took them off the capital’s streets and they had interpreted it to mean a falling away of many from the Lord’s work. So now the 1946 conventioners had the opportunity to go forth with the magazines and to make the religious press swallow their words; and they did. Next of the outstanding features, after several afternoon speeches, was the disclosure and the release to the convention of the new Nuevas de la Teocracia (or Kingdom News) with its stirring article “World Conspiracy Against the Truth”. After an all-too-short interval for supper came a platform demonstration of a model “company service meeting” and a model “Theocratic ministry school”. For this, more than 40 brethren were seated on the Arena wrestling-match ring, and they put on a typical well-arranged, well-conducted service meeting of an hour and Then a 25-minute class of a Theocratic ministry school. This showed how it should be done as regards these important weekly meetings; it provided a good example for companies to follow.

The climax of the day came with Brother Knorr’s account of the experiences of the brethren in Europe during 1934 to 1945, and also the developments of his tour around the Caribbean sea basin. Added to the thrills of this account was his reading of a telegram that he had just received announcing the lifting of the ban against the Watchtower literature in West Africa; and then another telegram, received that day, and announcing that the 1946 Watchtower subscription campaign had attained to 310,600, or 60,600 subscriptions more than the goal of a quarter of a million. Finally came Brother Knorr’s invitation of our Mexican brethren to the Cleveland convention, his disclosure that his interpreter, J. Bourgeois, was appointed to attend that convention as Mexico’s special delegate, and then the joyful news that, after the Cleveland assembly, three conventions on successive week-ends would be held in Mexico city, Monterrey and Mazatlan, for the convenience of the brethren. These three-day events would be served by Brother Bourgeois and also another convention delegate, T. Siebenlist, the Costa Rican Branch servant. All this news raised this gathering of 1,288 to grand heights of joy and thankfulness. Thereupon a conventioner, a servant to the brethren, gained recognition of the chairman and mounted the platform to read a resolution of appreciation and determination. It was unanimously adopted with a loud shout of Sil Brother Knorr acknowledged it.

Sunday, May 19, closed the convention. At the morning service rally 876 turned out; 57 of these were registered as pioneer or full-time publishers. All were instructed to be back in their seats at 11: 30 aun., and so the time allowed for just a few hours of field work. There was no information marching with placards nor public distribution of handbills nor newspaper publicity, to advertise the 12 noon presentation by Brother Knorr on “Be Glad, Ye Nations”. There were special printed invitation announcements which were given to persons of friendly interest as encountered during the field work, and which invitations they must show on admission at the Arena. Hence the 1,574 that came represented no curious public but persons of genuine interest seeking education on the truth. Their more than a score of applauses proclaimed their gladness at the message of God’s people. They were given free copies, of Freedom in the New World.

For convenience a baptismal service was held at the main King-ddm Hall at 3 p.m., and many out-of-towners stayed for this. The 75 candidates, nr 52 brothers and 23 sisters, were immediately thereafter baptized in the pool of the Banos del Chopo.

TEXAS

Next day, May 20, Brothers Franz and Knorr made their departure for the United States. Their Mexican Aviation Company (CMA} plane successfully took off at 7:50 a.m., and at 11: 20 a.m. deposited them in the airport of Nuevo Laredo. Here they transferred to a Braniff Airways plane, which flew them across the international boundary, the Rio Grande, and brought them to port at Laredo, Texas. A storm was threatening from the west, and to avoid eating aloft with rough air-currents, dinner was served on the ground after they got through United States customs at the airport. By now the ugly black cloud covered the whole area, and the winds tore through the airport. About 12: 45 p.m. the storm broke and developed into a destructive, death-dealing tornado. The lashing rain was added to by hailstones which grew in size to about 2 inches in diameter. For 45 minutes the tornado raged, the worst in the lifetime of many employed there at the port, and when it had passed our plane was completely out of commission. Its entire control service was wrecked, to wit, its big rudder, its tail elevators, and its ailerons aback the wings. Damage was estimated at $10,000. On an emergency plane ferried in from Dallas, Texas, over 400 miles distant, we got away at about 7: 43 p.m. and reached the San Antonio airport about 8: 45 p.m. There it was a grateful meeting with 17 or more long-waiting, wondering brethren.

We found ourselves in a city under quarantine due to the outbreak of sufficient cases of infantile paralysis or poliomyelitis. For this reason none under 22 years of age were permitted to attend our one-day assembly in the San Pedro Playhouse of San Antonio on Tuesday, May 21. Such juveniles and minors were not even permitted by city authorities to enter the San Pedro park around the Playhouse. About 200 adults attended the morning service assembly, brethren coming from many points in Texas, such as El Paso, Corpus Christi; Houston, etc. In the afternoon Brother Franz addressed the assembly on “Vindicated on the Covenant by Sacrifice”, after which Brother Knorr gave an extemporaneous talk on the proper conditions within God’s visible organization. This took under special consideration Matthew 20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45; and Romans 14:1-23. It was most timely and hence was especially appreciated. For the evening, at 8 p.m., while Brother Franz addressed about 140 Spanish-speaking brethren at the San Antonio company Kingdom Hall, the Society's president addressed 518 adults at the San Pedro Playhouse, giving them the benefit of his fact-finding and observations and experiences on his now-closing trip in the Western Hemisphere. And the good exhortation, intermingjed throughout, made the time very helpful to all sincere listeners.

The homeward flight for the Society's headquarters .began the following day shortly after 6 p.m. and continued on through the night. Next morning, about 10: 30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Saving Time, a happy landing was made at LaGuardia Field on Long Island, where five brethren of the Brooklyn Bethel family were on hand to bid us welcome home. Inside an hour we were back at headquarters, with due gratitude to God.