Me WATCHTOWER.

Published Semimonthly By

WATCH TOWER BIBLE & TRACT SOCIETY 117 Adams Street •   • Brooklyn 1, N.Y,, U.S.A.

Officers

N. H. Knobb, President               Grant Suiter, Secretary

“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 mau, 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 ORGANIZATlON-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 A.D. 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.

Notice to Subscribers: Remittances should be sent to office in your country In compliance with regulations to guarantee safe delivery of money. Remittances are accepted at Brooklyn from countries where no office is located, by international money order only. Subscription rates in different countries are stated below in local currency. Notice of expiration (with renewal blank) is sent at least two issues before subscription expires. Change of address when sent to our office may be expected effective within one month. Send your old aa well as new address.

Please address the Watch Tower Society in every case.

Offices                                         Yearly Subscription Rate

America (U.S.), 117 Adams St, Brooklyn 1, N.Y.

Australia, 7 Beresford Rd., Strathfield, N. S. W.

British West Indies, 21 Taylor St, Port of Spain, Trinidad 51.25 Canada, 40 Irwin Ave., Toronto &, Ontario

England, 34 Craven Terrace, London, W. 2

India, 167 Love Lane, Bombay 27                            Rs. 3/8

Jamaica, 151 King St, Kingston

New Zealand, G. P. O. Box 30, Wellington, C. 1

Philippine Islands, 2621 Int 2 Herran, Santa Ana, Manila 2 pesos South Africa, 623 Boston House, Cape Town

Translations of this journal appear In many languages.

ALL SINCERE STUDENTS OF THE BIBLE who by reason of infirmity, poverty or adversity are unable to pay the subscription price may have The Watchtower free upon written application to the publishers, made once each year, stating the reason for so requesting It. We are glad to thus aid the needy, but the written application once each year

• 1 required by the postal regulations.

Printed in the United States of America

Entered as second-class matter at the post office at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of Starch S, 1879.

“FEARLESS AGAINST CONSPIRACY” TESTIMONY PERIOD

October is annually a special testimony-period month, and this year it is designated “Fearless Against Conspiracy” Testimony Period. The fact today of world conspiracy against Jehovah God and his kingdom by Christ cannot be denied, and it falls not amiss that during this special testimony His fearless publishers will offer the challenging book “Let God Be True”, making it their initial offer on a contribution of 35c, American, or the equivalent of this in foreign lands. Many new Watchtower readers doubtless feel emboldened by its message to take part in this special effort to place the said book and to lay the foundation for future studies of the Bible with it in the private homes of the obtainers. We invite all such into the ranks of active publishers of God’s presentday message. In harmony therewith we wait to hear from you if wanting to get instructions and any references to companies or groups with whom you can associate unitedly in this privilege of service. For the part that it plays in compiling a world-wide report, we ask for your report of work at the end of October.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES

Week of October 19: “Turning In the Report,” fl 1-15 inclusive, The Watchtower September 15, 1947.

Week of October 26: “Turning In the Report,” fl 16-28 inclusive, The Watchtower September 15, 1947.

Week of November 2: “Turning In the Report,” fl 29-35 inclusive, also “What the Report Showed,” fl 1-7 inclusive, The Watchtower September 15, 1947.

NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING

On Wednesday, October 1, 1947, at 10:00 o’clock a.m,, the annual meeting of the members of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, a nonprofit Pennsylvania corporation, will be held at the registered office of the Society located in the Wabash Building, 410 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh 22, Pennsylvania, at which the regular business of the corporation will be transacted.

Notices of the meeting and proxy forms are being mailed to the members. Every member, whether attending the meeting in person or not, should mail his proxy to the office of the secretary of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn 2, New York, on or before September 15,1947.

EUROPEAN RELIEF

In accord with the announcement by the Society’s president Friday mght, August 15, at the “All Nations Expansion” Assembly at Los Angeles, Calif., the Watch Tower Society is now supervising through its Branch office the sending of relief in the form of food supplies to the needy brethren in Germany. The organization CARE is being used to prepare special 21-pound packages of select food at $7 a package. We remind all Watchtower readers in America, to whom this opportunity is restricted, that the privilege of sending financial contributions for this purpose closes September 30.

ANNOUNCING JEHOVAH’S KINGDOM

TURNING IN THE REPORT

“The man in linen with the ink-horn made his report: 'I have obeyed thine orders’” —Ezek. 9:11, Moffatt.

JEHOVAH God gave Ezekiel a vision in the sixth I year of this prophet's captivity at Babylon and J therefore five years before Jerusalem's destruction in 607 B.C. Jehovah did so for the sake of giving us today a solemn warning of Christendom’s coming destruction and also a comforting hope that some of our generation will escape being wiped out with her. (1 Cor. 10:11) The vision shows that those who are responsible to Almighty God will have to turn in a report of their works on earth, just before or when such destruction strikes the hypocritical religious organization.

• ² The setting for the vision to Ezekiel was at the temple in Jerusalem. By means of his glorious angelic representative Jehovah God came to it for an inspection. “In the visions of God” he brought the prophet Ezekiel along with him. (Ezek. 8:1-3) The inspection shocked Ezekiel, because it disclosed that right there at the temple which had Jehovah’s name called upon it, yes, right there under his very nose, the Israelites were practicing false worship. They were not worshiping the Creator, Jehovah God, although they were in the house dedicated to him. They were worshiping created things such as (1) a hideous man-made image that provoked God to jealousy and resentment, and (2) pictures and engravings of animals and of idols, and (3) the demongod Tammuz, and (4) even the rising sun to the east. They were religious hypocrites, and their idolatrous acts of worship within the house nominally His were disgusting and abominable to Jehovah. They made a joke of his simple, plain words to them through his prophet Isaiah: “I am Jehovah, that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images.”—Isa. 42: 8, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ³ More than 150 years passed after that inspection of the temple at Jerusalem. Then Jehovah God foretold how at a future time he would come by his

• 1. To give and show ub what was the vision given to Ezekiel?

• 2. Why did the inspection of the temple shock Ezekiel?

• 3. What other inspection did God foretell, and when fulfill it?

  special messenger to his spiritual temple for an inspection. At that time he would be a swift-acting witness against those religionists who profaned his name and his worship. “Behold,” says He, “I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. . . . And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me; saith Jehovah of hosts. For I, Jehovah, change not.” (Mal. 3:1-6, Am. Stan. Ver.) There is much in modern history to show that the coming to the temple which Jehovah of hosts here predicted took place in the spring of 1918. He foreshadowed it by the temple inspection in Ezekiel’s day. The Watchtower has published much to show that since 1918 the special inspection has been directed upon all those who claim to be worshiping and serving at God’s temple, and that the glorified Jesus Christ is Jehovah’s Messenger and Judge at the temple. He will act swiftly as a witness and executioner against all those who do not fear Jehovah as God but who bring scorn and shame upon his sacred name.

  ⁴ For this reason Christendom ought to be most interested. At her hands Jehovah’s faithful witnesses have received their worst persecutions and opposition in recent years. She should notice the purpose of God which he plainly declared in Ezekiel’s vision after inspecting the temple and exposing the abominations done there by professed people of God. The vision as written down says: “Then I heard him shouting at the pitch of his voice, ‘Come here, you executioners of the city, each with his deadly weapon!’ And six men came from the direction of the upper gate that faces north, each holding a

  4. Who were God’s executioners in type, and whom do they depict⁷ 275

  
  

battle-axe, and accompanied by another man in linen dress, with a writer’s ink-horn at his side. They passed inside the temple, and stood at the bronze altar.” (Ezek. 9:1, 2, Moffatt) Five years later Jehovah God called the executioners to execute his indignation against religious Jerusalem. They were the armies of the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, who came down from the north. Today ancient Babylon and her Chaldean armies are no more. Who, then, will be the six modern-day executioners whom Jehovah of hosts will call to visit his indignation upon the antitypical city of Jerusalem, namely, Christendom? They will be his heavenly hosts under his anointed and enthroned King, Christ Jesus, at the battle of Armageddon, to which Christendom and all nations on earth are being gathered by superhuman forces.—Rev. 16:14-16.

• ⁵ Hence the visionary six men with battle-axes do not picture six literal men, but picture the organized hosts that Jehovah God uses for executing his righteous fury against Christendom because of her religious abominations. So with that seventh man, in linen dress, with a writer’s inkhorn at his loins. He pictures, not some individual man on earth today, but the organization of Jehovah’s anointed servants on earth who are members of the “body of Christ”. Jesus Christ is their invisible Head, and they are the remaining members of “his body” yet found on earth. By the Scripture rule that “the fine linen is the righteousness of saints” (Rev. 19: 8), this composite man in linen is in the righteous service of the Lord God and has no sympathy and no connection with the unrighteous organization of Christendom and her religious abominations.

• ⁶ Different from the six executioners with battleaxes, this Christian company pictured by the linenclad man are not equipped for violent combat and destruction. They are neutral regarding the conflicts that divide Christendom into hostile camps, because they have a commissioned service from God that assigns to them other work, on which they are bound to turn in a final report. Their God-given righteous work is denoted by the writer’s inkhorn at the man’s side. It has to do with the inspired written Word of God and with the publishing of it to those who stand in danger because the execution of God’s wrath is threatening modern Christendom and all nations allied with her in an international compact. From this peaceable, salutary work God’s anointed servants cannot turn aside to intermeddle with the conflicts and strife of doomed Christendom and her allies. Neither can they presume to take upon themselves the destructive work that is delegated to the six men with battle-axes to do upon Christendom.

5 Whom does the man in linen with the writer's inkhorn picture? G. How do we know what is the work assigned to this man to do?

They have but one special assignment of service on which to report. What it is in actuality, watch that “man clothed with linen” and see.

“SET A MARK”

^T The bronze altar beside which the seven men took their stand awaiting orders was located in the inner court of the temple and before the threshold of the porch of the sanctuary. Just on the other side or west side of the altar, hence between the altar and the temple porch, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the holy sanctuary. (Ezek. 8:16-18) Although they were facing the seven men near to the altar, they were evidently so intent on worshiping the sun to the east that they did not pay any serious attention to those seven men that had just now come in through the north gate. The seven did not stand near to the bronze altar to offer a sacrifice, but to do a work of obedience according to the commands that the Lord should now issue to them. Hence we read the following words concerning Jehovah of hosts, who is said to dwell in the midst of the cherubim: “And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer’s inkhorn by his side. And Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.”—Ezek. 9: 3,4, Am. Stan. Ver.

⁸ The movement of God’s glory to the temple threshold points forward prophetically to A.D. 1918, the time that Jehovah God, by his glorious Messenger, the reigning Christ Jesus, came to the temple. Malachi’s prophecy quoted above foretold that Jehovah’s Messenger at the temple would do a cleansing work upon his consecrated followers and also a judgment work against the religious hypocrites, against whom he would execute a swift witness by destroying them. (Mal. 3:1-5) The cleansed and purified followers are the anointed remnant of the members of Christ’s body. As a united company they are pictured by the man in linen standing alongside the altar and receiving the divine orders. They are at the nominal temple of God which the religionists of Christendom have defiled, and hence they are in the midst of Christendom, with all her abominations, but they are not a part of these things. The orders of Jehovah God through his Messenger to the man in linen now show forth what must be the activity of his approved, anointed remnant on earth from and after 1918. It is important for the members of the remnant to note what those orders say, that so

• 7 Near where did the seven men take their stand, and why?

• 8 . How were the anointed remnant made suitable for this work? they may obey this divine commission and turn in an acceptable report at the finish of the work.

⁹What must they do? Not go home, not stay at home, while God’s executioners are at close hand awaiting the divine signal to go into action! Now is not the time to just enjoy the comforts of home or a pleasant seat in a Kingdom Hall. It is the time to go outside and through the midst of the city, that is, through the midst of Christendom. There put your writing equipment to work and do the work of marking human foreheads. Of course, it is not a work of using a literal ink and putting a visible tau or crossmark on the foreheads of persons throughout Christendom. In the days of Ezekiel and in the five years that remained before Jerusalem’s terrible destruction, no one did such literal marking of Jewish foreheads in that city. But Ezekiel did write messages from God to that city; and his fellow prophet Jeremiah there at Jerusalem or at Anathoth just three miles northeast of Jerusalem preached to its inhabitants and its visitors down till the end of forty years of such preaching work, continuously warning them of the coming desolation of that unfaithful religious city. Thus these two priests, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, together with their devoted helpers, such as Baruch the son of Neriah, who did much writing for Jeremiah, did do a public and private work that affected the minds of those who were humble enough to hear for their good, such as Ebed-melech the Ethiopian.—Jer. 45:1,2; 36:4-32; 38:7-13; 39:15-18.

• ¹⁰ In effect, then, they did do a work of setting a mark in the foreheads of such persons, that is, in their seat of intelligence, which made these openly confess themselves to be for the pure worship of Jehovah God. The city of Jerusalem as a whole did not get such a mark of truth in her forehead. She set her forehead like a “whore’s forehead” and refused to be ashamed of her spiritual uncleanness and adulterous ties with this world; for which reason she was destroyed. Individuals within her, like those twenty-five sun-worshipers, who made their foreheads hard, like flint, against Jehovah’s warning message by his prophets, did not humble themselves in repentance over Jerusalem’s abominable religious practices. Naturally they did not get any mark of truth in their foreheads, figuratively speaking. They refused to take their stand openly for Jehovah and for a worship unmixed with any heathen religion. (Jer. 3:3; Ezek. 3: 8, 9)'But some did receive such a figurative mark through God’s ‘man in linen’. In God’s Word of prophecy he specifically named Ebed-melech and the Rechabites the sons of Jonadab as marked off for preservation from the midst of doomed Jerusalem.—Jer. 35:1-19.

• ¹¹ Today a marking work is going on by the agency

• 9,10. What must they do, as illustrated by Ezekiel and Jeremiah?

• 11. Why must the Kingdom message they proclaim include vengeance? of the anointed remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses. It has progressed from and after the coming of his Messenger, Christ Jesus, to the temple in 1918. That means from and after the close of World War I. Jehovah’s witnesses had been made captive during that internal controversy of Christendom. In 1919 the faithful ones were delivered and made bold and free to proclaim the message of God’s established kingdom to all the nations inside and outside of Christendom. Unavoidably this Kingdom message tells of God’s vengeance against Christendom and her allied nations and kingdoms, for the divine prophecy respecting God’s kingdom declares: “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” (Dan. 2:44) Accordingly God’s commission to his anointed ‘man in linen’ company requires them to tell of his breaking of the nations and kingdoms of this wicked world to pieces in the day of his vengeance at the battle of Armageddon. (Isa. 61:1, 2) Consequently Jehovah’s anointed witnesses must proclaim the day of His vengeance against the abominations of Christendom in order to fulfill the vision of the ‘man in linen’.

• ¹² It is by the righteous, peaceful means of preaching this good news of God’s kingdom and of his vengeance that men today are marked in the forehead. There is no other way of marking them than by the bringing of them to a knowledge of God’s kingdom and of his purposes by it. The King Jesus Christ declared in prayer to Jehovah: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” (John 17: 3) The persons with foreheads marked by the perception and acceptance and confession of the Kingdom truth are the ones that will call upon Jehovah’s name through Christ for salvation in this day of crisis. Hence the questions raised by the apostle are as true today as ever: “How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard ? and how shall they hear without a preacher ?” (Rom. 10:13,14) Today the ‘man in linen’ company must be preachers in order to do the marking work which they are specifically sent forth to do on those who hear.

“FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE”

• ¹³ In obedience to the commission to go through the midst of Jerusalem and use up the ink in his horn by marking the foreheads of those persons sighing and crying, we can imagine the man in linen tramping through the streets of the walled city and going

• 12. By what means is the marking done, and why that way?

• 13. How did the man in linen work, and how has the remnant worked? from house to house and knocking at the doors to summon the people as well as speaking to persons he met on the streets and in the public squares. Will anyone suggest how otherwise he did the marking work? In that very same way the remnant of Jehovah’s witnesses have obediently been doing the marking work since the Lord came to the temple for inspection and judgment in 1918. All Christendom knows that. To the point of persecuting them, she objects and will keep on objecting to this coming of Jehovah’s witnesses to the doors of her people, just as ancient Jerusalem objected to Ezekiel’s and Jeremiah’s preaching because she had the temple built by Solomon in her midst. Christendom has hundreds of religious organizations and hundreds of thousands of religious buildings known as “churches” (253,762 in the United States alone), and she protests against Jehovah’s witnesses for repeatedly coming and flooding the land with their message both spoken and on the printed page.

• ¹⁴ However, through his royal Messenger at the temple Jehovah’s command to this ‘man in linen’ class of today is: “Go through the midst of the city,” that is, through Christendom, which is unfaithful Jerusalem’s modern counterpart; and go Jehovah’s witnesses must and will. They cannot be obedient to Him and stay at home to themselves. They cannot righteously be held back from the doors of the homes of the people, if God’s will is to be done and He is to be pleased. Governments and worldly authorities cannot, without direct opposition to God’s express command, ban, proscribe and prohibit them from spreading the Kingdom message all over Christendom and repeatedly preaching it in order to make on some minds an impression deep enough to leave a mark that will shield persons from execution by God’s “six men” at Armageddon. But, when they are forbidden by worldly authorities to keep on with their work, Jehovah’s witnesses know from God’s Word what to do. As the apostle Paul has said: “Ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God.” (1 Thess. 4:9) Consider here an illustration from God’s Word by which he teaches his witnesses today:

• ¹⁵ The situation in the day of Jesus’ apostles was like that in the days when Ezekiel had his vision of the man dressed in linen. Jesus with weeping had just recently given his dire prophecy concerning Jerusalem’s destruction by Roman armies, saying: “Thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” (Luke 19:41-44) A few

• 14 Why does the remnant keep on working despite bans?

• 15 . How were the Jews warned of the national disaster of 70 (A.D.)’ days thereafter they shed the blood of Jesus, the mob crying out: “His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Matt. 27:25) After that, surely the destruction of Jerusalem and her temple and the slaughter of her inhabitants were impending. The fiftieth day after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead came the feast of Pentecost accompanied by the outpouring of God’s holy spirit upon the faithful Jewish remnant that had followed in the steps of Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. After quoting Joel’s prophecy about the outpouring of the spirit “in the last days” at which critical time only those calling upon the name of Jehovah should be saved, the apostle Peter preached Jesus as Jehovah’s Messiah to the people of Jerusalem and said: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” (Acts 2:14-40, Am. Stan. Ver.) They were facing national disaster which was due to arrive A.D. 70.

• ¹⁶ Many of those there at Jerusalem believed the message. They then engaged in a thoroughgoing educational campaign from house to house, about Which we have this record: “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple [at Jerusalem], and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:46,47) The religious authorities of Jerusalem objected to this intensive and persistent educational activity promoted by Jesus’ anointed followers, and conspired together to persecute them in order to silence them and stop their organized work for human salvation. On the third time that they arrested Jesus’ apostles and brought them into court, the high priest as president of the Jewish supreme court (the Sanhedrin) said to them: “Did we not straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name [of Jesus as Messiah] ? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” (Acts 4: 28) What reply could the apostles now give to this highest Jewish court, especially when it had recognition from the imperial authorities at Rome? It had delegated to it authority and jurisdiction to deal with certain matters that affected the religion of Jewry, as, for instance, when the Roman governor said to the Jewish chief priests and their attendants concerning Jesus: “Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.”—John 19: 6.

• ¹⁷ The imperial powers of Rome, indeed, recognized the Sanhedrin and allowed it certain functions in the land of Judah, but also that Jewish supreme court claimed to represent God and act for him. Did God authorize that court at Jerusalem to forbid the apostles to preach the name of Jesus as His Messiah?

• 16. In court, how did the authorities object to the apostles?

• 17. Whose action did God authorize, and who must report to him?

Or contrariwise, did God authorize the apostles to teach the people in the name of Jesus the Messiah? That question is answered by getting the answer to another question, namely, To whom did God give his holy spirit as foretold in the prophecy of Joel, thereby giving a divine ordination and commission to such anointed ones? Not to the Jewish supreme court, but to the apostles of Jesus Christ, for which reason to obey the Jewish court and quit preaching about the Messiah that Jehovah God had raised up would be to grieve and fight against the holy spirit. Jehovah God is higher than any human court, and the spirit of God is mightier than the orders from any such court. To Jehovah God as the Highest Power and Authority the apostles must turn in their final report to declare how they had carried out their commission from him and co-operated with his holy spirit. There was no other choice for them than to obey him and his holy spirit.

• ¹⁸ It was therefore not with insolence or any finable contempt of court that the apostles made answer to the court. True, the court once before had threatened them, “that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:17-20) Hence the apostles had kept on speaking. Now up before the same supreme court for a rehearing of the case, the apostles did not leave it to the human court to hand down the ruling whether it was righteous to listen to judicial men rather than to the Most High God. The apostles bluntly and fearlessly answered the court’s question as each apostle took the witness stand; and their precedential answer has been written in the law of God recorded in the Bible for the guidance of Jehovah’s Christian witnesses in all like future cases. There we read their precedential answer in these words: “But Peter and the apostles answered and said, We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him on a tree. Him did God exalt with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the holy spirit [which] God hath given to them that obey him.” —Acts 5: 27-32, Am. Stan. Ver.

• ¹⁹ Their being given the holy spirit proved that they were the ones obeying God. Since their witness agreed with that of God’s holy spirit, they did right in ignoring the supreme court’s previous order. They

• 18. How did the apostles answer the court, as a precedent for us?

• 19. How were the apostles proved right In Ignoring the court’s order? and of what was Jerusalem’s destruction an example? did right in ignoring the same court’s order which it now stubbornly handed down again in a losing fight against Jehovah God and against his invincible holy spirit within his faithful witnesses. Less than forty years thereafter, namely, A.D. 70, destruction came upon religious Jerusalem when the Roman armies under Titus laid her and her temple even with the ground, and reportedly 1,100,000 Jews were slaughtered amid her destruction. None of the apostles and their fellow Christian educators perished in that slaughter, but they could turn in a report to God clean of responsibility for the frightful slaughter of the Jews with stubborn foreheads who had resisted the education of their minds in the truths concerning Jehovah’s true Messiah. As for that Jewish supreme court and other religious leaders of Jerusalem, they could not turn in to God a final report that would clear them of responsibility for the deaths of those slaughtered. (Luke 11:46-52; Matt. 23:34-36) Horrible as those destructions of Jerusalem were both in Ezekiel’s time and in the apostles’ time, they were simply local, small-scale examples of the destruction that is predicted in Bible prophecy to come upon Jerusalem’s twentieth-century counterpart, Christendom, which dominates and extends all round the earth.

²⁰ In this most critical period of human society since A.D. 1918, the example of the “man clothed with linen” and the example of the apostles under the prohibitory court order stand forth distinctly as the righteous criterion for Jehovah’s anointed remnant of witnesses to follow throughout Christendom. In these last days before the battle of Armageddon Jehovah’s anointed remnant, in the role of the modern ‘man in linen’, will conform to that righteous standard of conduct, and so will also their fellow workers of good-will. They are seriously concerned with what report they will turn in to the Lord God when the final war of Armageddon breaks out.

CONTINUOUS COVERAGE OF TERRITORY

¹¹ From and after 1918, when Jehovah’s Messenger came to the temple, or for almost thirty years now, Jehovah’s witnesses have gone through the midst of anti typical Jerusalem, or Christendom. Like the man clad in linen, they have been marking foreheads publicly and from door to door. In some territories, particularly in North America and Europe, they have tramped over the field again and again, and the religious enemies complain that they have filled the land with their doctrine about Jehovah God and his kingdom by Christ Jesus. In many places Jehovah’s witnesses are meeting up with general indifference and public apathy or with organized religious opposition. Should they now think they have covered 20. What standard of conduct must we follow, and why with concern? 21. Due to repeated working of territory, what questions arise? their territory and been over it enough times to fill it with the message? Is their territory now too small and ought they to be given new and wider fields for finding new interest? Faced with these questions it is advisable for us to note the judicial complaint of the Jewish court to the apostles: “Did not we straitly command you, that ye should not teach in this name ? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine.” Granted that the apostles and their fellow disciples had filled Jerusalem with Christian doctrine, did they stop giving the witness there as though enough had been done and Jerusalem needed no more testimony and could produce no more converts ? Did they raise the point that their local territory had grown too small, not allowing for enough work among the people?

• ²² Consider this: On the day of Pentecost when the great preaching campaign backed up and guided by God’s holy spirit began, there was reported to be a congregation of 120 members there who received the first outpouring of the spirit. The city of Jerusalem was naturally their territory for giving the witness. How big was Jerusalem? According to the best maps available, Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost was about 4,000 feet long from north to south, and 2,600 feet wide from east to west. That is to say, as to size, it covered an area of less than half a square mile. This included the great spacious temple area. Of course, the city streets were generally narrow and the houses were crowded together and several stories high, so that the population was considerable. But think of it! For this small witnessing territory of less than half a square mile, or, say, 72 residential blocks in New York city, there was a company of 120 witnesses, to begin with. Is your territory for witnessing so crowded as that with Kingdom publishers ?

• ²³ Yet, on that same day of Pentecost, “there were added unto them about three thousand souls,” and the Scripture record tells us of their “continuing daily with one accord in the temple [at Jerusalem], and breaking bread from house to house” and “praising God, and having favour with all the people”. Think of having 3,000 Kingdom witnesses in 72 city blocks, at least that many for the duration of the Pentecostal feast, with, no doubt, a large camp of feasters having their booths and tents pitched outside the walls of Jerusalem! Later, some time after Pentecost, as a result of apostolic preaching publicly at the temple, the record tells us, “many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand." (Acts 4:4) With so many publishers within the confined limits of Jerusalem, how could they provide enough territory for everybody and a field for witness work? But they did, and the record still later tells us, at Acts 6:7, 22, 23. How big was the territory at Jerusalem, and how well supplied with gospel publishers did it become?

“the word of God increased [that is to say, God’s message continued to spread through preaching; with what result?]; and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.” —Acts 6:7; An American Translation.

• ²¹ About twenty-five years later, when the apostle Paul made his last visit to Jerusalem, there was still a company of Christians there in the city among whom the disciple James is specially mentioned. (Acts 21:17-20) That company of Christians continued there in that same territory until shortly before the Roman armies closed in upon Jerusalem in a last assault to destroy it, A.D. 70. (Luke 21:20-24) They stayed put in the city as anointed servants of God charged with delivering a continuous witness in that city, notwithstanding the objection of the religious leaders and the fierce persecutions from the Jewish religionists. They got out of the city and abandoned that territory only when it became necessary to obey Jesus’ prophetic words because its destruction by Roman armies was about to begin. But when they at last got out and left Jerusalem to her dire fate, the work of witness there had really been finished. They could turn in a faithful final report of how they had discharged their responsibilities in that city territory while it still stood with its many thousands of inhabitants. For a certainty, then, after making a comparison with those Jerusalem Christians, we in this day cannot justly say that our territory is too confined and has been covered too many times and there is not room or opportunity for more Christian educational work in Christendom. We cannot with fairness say so at any time this side of Armageddon, when Christendom will be destroyed with a great slaughter because the witness work by Jehovah's faithful remnant and their consecrated companions of good-will is actually finished

• ²⁵ The consecrated companions of good-will are those who receive the mark of truth in their foreheads. The witnessing activity of the anointed remnant, the ‘man in linen’ company, put it there. Under the direction of this anointed remnant the marked ones of good-will join in helping with this educational work. They have been marked because of hearing with faith and coming to the Lord in consecration and public confession of him; and his command through his Messenger at the temple is, “Let him that heareth say, Come,” that is, say “Come” to still others who are willing and in need of receiving the mark in the forehead before Christendom falls at the battle of Armageddon. (Rev. 22:17) Of what benefit can the mark possibly be to them? Ezekiel’s vision shows us most forcefully.

• 24. (a) Why could the company there finally turn in a good report on Its work? (b) What, therefore, are we barred from arguing?

• 25. How were good-will persons marked, and what must they do’

• ²⁶ We read: “And to the others he said in my hearing, 'Pass through the city after him, and slay without mercy or pity. Old men, young men and maidens, little children and women—strike them all dead! But touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary!’ So they began with the elders in front of the house [those twenty-five sun-worshipers]. Then he said to them, 'Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Then go out, and slay in the city!’ As they went on slaying, and I was left alone, I fell upon my face, and cried out, saying, 'Ah Lord God ! wilt thou destroy all that remains of Israel, in this outpouring of thy fury upon Jerusalem?’ So he said to me, 'The guilt of the house of Israel and Judah is immeasurable. The land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of oppression; for they think, “The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see us.” Therefore I on my part will show no mercy or pity; I will requite their doings upon their heads.’ ”—Ezek. 9: 5-10, An Amer. Trans.

• ²⁷ In Ezekiel’s time the benefit of having the mark was to escape being slaughtered by Jehovah’s execu-tional forces with the unmarked religious covenantbreakers, and to receive mercy and pity from him in the way of his protection and deliverance. In our own period since the coming of Jehovah’s Messenger to the temple in 1918, the benefit of having the mark in the intellectual forehead is to avoid being sentenced to destruction by Jehovah’s executioners and being destroyed with Christendom at the end of this world, but to obtain divine mercy and pity through Christ Jesus, that, so, one may be counted worthy of life in the righteous new world under God’s kingdom. After hypocritical Christendom is destroyed without mercy or pity toward her supporters and onhangers at the final battle fought by Jehovah’s executional forces, those marked ones who may have in the natural course of things died before Armageddon’s outbreak will be resurrected to life on earth. The other marked ones will be spared and preserved alive through the tribulation of Armageddon. Thus all such marked ones together will enter into the privileges of life on the purified earth in the righteous world of “new heavens and a new earth”. (2 Pet. 3:13) The forehead mark is therefore one for salvation to life in the righteous new world, on earth.

• ²⁸ In order for persons of good-will to receive this mark before the world's final end at Armageddon, Jehovah God spared his anointed remnant alive beyond A.D. 1918, because he purified them by his Messenger who then came to His temple. This remnant in the flesh are the elect ones of whom Jesus spoke in his prophecy on the “end of the world”, when he said: “For then shall be great tribulation,

• 26. How does the vision show the mark would be of benefit?

• 27 Since A.D. 1918, of what benefit is it to have the mark?

• 28 For whose salvation is the work of marking, and why so? such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” (Matt. 24:21,22) Opportunely in the time interval since A.D. 1918 the anointed remnant must do the marking work, like the man in linen. God sends them out to do this work while he holds back the antitypical six executioners with battleaxes till his due time for the short but thoroughgoing final tribulation at Armageddon. Their doing of this educational marking-work is for the salvation of the anointed remnant to eternal life in the heavens as well as for the salvation of those marked for earthly salvation, because it is solely by obedience to their commission from God to do this work now that they follow their Leader, the Lamb of God, whithersoever he leads, and thus prove worthy of life with him in his heavenly kingdom. The rule is: “In doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” (1 Tim. 4:16) The anointed remnant cannot be self-centered and concerned just about their own salvation. Like the man in linen, they must be interested in the salvation of others, exceptionally so in this time of world crisis.

GIVING OPPORTUNITY TO ALL

²⁰ Now assisted by a multitude of marked companions of good-will, the anointed remnant must continue to go through the midst of Christendom with the Kingdom message of salvation that conveys the mark. Setting the mark on people’s foreheads does not mean the remnant are the ones to judge individuals and decide whether such are worthy of salvation or of execution. We must let the Kingdom message itself do the searching out of those worthy to be marked and willing to submit to the mark. Hence we must keep on preaching the divine message through the midst of Christendom regardless of whether the majority keep on in false religious worship and refuse the mark or not. In the days of Ezekiel and Jeremiah comparatively very few were saved from slaughter at Jerusalem’s destruction. The prophetic vision of Ezekiel and other Bible prophecies make sure that it will be the same at Armageddon.

• ⁸⁰ Christendom’s religious clergymen, Catholic and Protestant, may smile or sneer at such a statement from Jehovah’s witnesses, as if it were overdrawn or were wishful thinking. But no one knows better than do Jehovah’s witnesses the religious attitudes of the people of Christendom and their inclinations or disinclinations toward God. They know better than the American Institute of Public Opinion could

• 29. If not judges, why do the markers keep on preaching?

• 30, 31. Why. better than any Institute of public opinion, should Jehovah !, witnesses today know about the state of the people? know by means of one of its famous Gallup polls, invented by Dr. George Gallup. For information as to public opinion through a Gallup poll, this American Institute sends its agents out to get in touch with only a cross-section of the population. These interview just a representative few of each class of persons whose opinions are wanted for comparison and tallying up. Conclusions drawn from such polls have been substantially right in many cases.

• ⁵¹ Jehovah’s witnesses, on the other hand, are more thorough than any institute of public opinion. They do not keep to a representative few of each class of people. By God’s command through Christ Jesus they call upon all the people in their territories, and try not to miss a single intelligent person. They do so in order to avoid acting as judges of anybody. They let all have an opportunity to hear and to decide for themselves. To this end Jehovah’s witnesses today follow the effective example of Jesus Christ and his apostles by going from house to house to preach to those in the homes as well as preaching publicly. (Acts 20: 20) In this way they get in personal touch with all the people, of all classes, and learn firsthand their attitudes and decisions toward the things of God. Since the year 1920 Jehovah’s anointed remnant and their good-will companions have distributed more than a half billion books and booklets on the Bible, not including magazines and free tracts and handbills, in as many as 88 languages, world-wide, to the end of August. How many homes and shops do you suppose Jehovah’s witnesses have had to visit in order to accomplish all that distribution, and how many times over the territory? During this past service year of 1947 alone these faithful witnesses have been regularly active each month in the field to the number of 202,100, and have delivered to the people 20,000,000 books and booklets, besides distributing more than 12,000,000 individual copies of our Society’s magazines, and making nearly 2,000,000 return visits on interested persons. This has cost them over 40,000,000 hours of time out in the field in direct contact with the people of all classes, friendly and opposed.

• ³² Has this not given them direct information on the state of the people ? Could any organization know better than such active witnesses how accurately God’s words to Ezekiel concerning the Israelites of old fit Christendom today, namely, “The iniquity of Israel and Judah is enormous, the land is full of bloodshed, the city is full of rampant injustice; for men think that the Eternal [Jehovah] has left the land, the Eternal [Jehovah] will never see them”? (Ezek. 9: 9, Moffatt) Notwithstanding such a religious condition in ancient Judah and Jerusalem, there were some persons ready to be marked. God knew that and 32. While having such information and knowledge, why do Jehovah's witnesses still persist in going through the midst of Christendom? sent his “man clothed with linen” through all the city to find at least some to mark in the forehead who cried and sighed over all the abominable religious deeds done in her. Equally so today, despite the low, deplorable religious state of Christendom generally, there are some persons in her that sigh and cry or will yet sigh and cry in disgust and desperation at the religious, political and commercial abominations. Jehovah’s witnesses know that! Hence there is reason for them to persist still further in going through the midst of Christendom in order to find all those distressed ones. Such meek ones they must mark in the seat of intellectuality by bringing God’s “present truth” to them for their salvation.

• ³³ The clergy of Christendom cry out to Jehovah’s witnesses, “Stay out of our religious fields and keep away from our people. We have 592,406,542 Protestants and Roman and Orthodox Catholics in all Christendom. In the United States itself, in 1945, we had 67,722,202 members. Let them be I” But the Most High God, mindful of the oncoming destruction by his executioners, sends his ‘man in linen’ class, his anointed remnant, accompanied by their good-will companions, out ahead of his executioners, and solemnly commands them: ‘Go through the midst of Christendom and mark!’

• ³¹ What, then, if the religious population of Christendom in general will not accept the truth and submit to the saving mark? In the United States, for instance, the number of nominal Protestants and Catholics may be 67,722,202 members, but that is less than half of the total population. What about the other half? Let Jehovah’s witnesses in America go through the land regularly and persistently and see how many of the other half of her population sigh and cry over Christendom’s abominations and want salvation from the destruction that hangs over Christendom’s head. If the religious, church-going people of Christendom will not take the Kingdom message at the hands of Jehovah’s witnesses, then let the nonreligious hundreds of millions scattered in among Christendom have an opportunity to be marked or to reject it. Christendom is not the one to decide on the salvation of any individuals. Our orders from God, as given also to Ezekiel, are: “Thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.”—Ezek. 2:7.

• ³³ Our report must at last be turned in to God our Commander, and not to Christendom, for she will perish forever at Armageddon. Our final report will show either obedience to Jehovah God or obedience to Christendom. Which will it show? We cannot obey both; only one.

• 33. What do the clergy command, but what does God command us?

• 34. If religious churchgoers will not submit to the mark, for whom, then, should we show consideration and work⁷

• 35. To whom must we turn in our final report, and to show what?

THE vision to Ezekiel tells for certain what Jehovah’s faithful anointed remnant will do. Ezekiel tells us: “And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as thou hast commanded me.” (Ezek. 9:11) That report was accepted by Jehovah God. Its being approved is shown in that the next chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy describes the man in linen as being entrusted by Jehovah with something further to do in divine service. (Ezek. 10:1-7) The Almighty God thus informs us that he foresaw a certain company of anointed ones that will unitedly do as he commands them, that is, mark the people of good-will unto salvation. Who the anointed individuals of that company will be, by name, the inspired Record does not reveal. Each consecrated Christian anointed with God’s spirit must determine for himself whether he will be of that obedient and approved company by merging his identity with the company engaged in the marking work and by unitedly working -with it as one of its members. Each anointed one is responsible to do so, for God approves of no schism or split among his organized people on earth. Jesus prayed for their unity, and they must be one in God and in his work. And to be on God’s side of salvation today, the marked ones of good-will must display their mark by joining in the work with the modern-day ‘man in linen’ whose Head is Christ Jesus. They must help others who sigh and cry over Christendom’s death-deserving abominations to a knowledge of the life-giving truth.

² Each one of the anointed remnant and of their good-will working associates is finally responsible to no individual on earth. Each one must make final report to Jehovah’s Messenger at the temple. Hence, when making out the weekly and monthly reports on the work that he has done in this educational campaign throughout Christendom by preaching God’s message both by word of mouth and by scattering the printed page, a full-time pioneer publisher or a local company publisher will not pad his report just to show large figures of accomplishment or to pretend to be meeting special service requirements. We are not the servants of men and of human organizations, but of God. Hence, in making any such reports, each one should observe the rule of honesty: “Not with mere external service, as though you had only men to please, but like slaves of Christ, carrying out the will of God. To your duties heartily and willingly, as though it were for the Lord, not for men, for you know that everyone, slave or free, will be rewarded by the Lord for his good conduct.”—Eph. 6:6-8, An Amer. Trans.

• 1. (a) What does Ezekiel 9:11 show God foresaw? (b) How is the identity of the members of the ‘man id linen' company determined?

• 2. Why be honest in making out our reports on field service?

  • ³ Each one also that has any responsibility to collect and tabulate reports of work done by others should keep in mind that such workers are not his servants serving him and he is not to judge and criticize them over such reports. While such reports may indicate the qualification or disqualification of the workers for other special privileges and places of service, no one handling the report is authorized to find fault, complain, and abuse these willing workers. No one engaged in this educational work has been commissioned by any man on earth to be the servant of such men. All members of the ‘man in linen’ company and all the fellow helpers of goodwill are consecrated to God and are servants to Him and doing the work at His orders. Why, then, should anyone of us try to take the place of God and act as judge of others? As it is written: “But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord [Jehovah], to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God.” (Rom. 14:10-12, Am.Stan. Ver.) Each one should therefore be given credit for what he tries to do as unto the Lord God, and be encouraged.

  ‘Whether the “man clothed with linen” reported the number of persons whom he marked in the forehead, the vision to Ezekiel does not disclose. Why should he not have been interested in personally keeping a count ? He was sent out through the city to mark, and he must have marked some, for he finally reported that he had obeyed his Commander’s orders. So he did engage in the marking work, and he did it before the six executioners came along. His faithfulness in the marking work is what counts. Today the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, and the witnesses of Jehovah who are associated with it, are dedicated to the marking work as being God’s commanded work for these days before Armageddon. It is true that in its Yearbook and other publications the Society does show figures as to the number of active Kingdom publishers engaging in the marking work. This is not done in order to show that our reliance is upon numbers. It is not done in order to brag and make our boast over numbers.

  • ⁶ King David was once punished for numbering the children of Israel, but this befell David because it was contrary to God’s orders to number the Israelites. (1 Chron. 21:1-30; 27:23,24) No such orders apply to the footstep followers of Christ Jesus. The original remnant of Israelites that came back from Babylon to Jerusalem to build the temple were definitely numbered, even as to their livestock. (Ezra

  • 3. Why not complain and abuse another for his reports of work?

  • 4, 5. (a) Did the man in linen count those he marked, or what counted as respects his report? (b) Why is the Society right in counting?

  283

  
  

2:64-70; Neh. 7:66-73) The book of Acts of the Apostles, written by one of his followers, three times mentions the number of the Jewish remnant of believers at Jerusalem in order to give numerical proof of the growth of the Christian church in those days that closed with Jerusalem’s destruction. (Acts 1:15; 2:41; 4:4) His record says: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” “And the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly.” (Acts 2: 47; 6:7) It is fully as right today to number those associating with God’s 'man in linen’ company who take part in the work of marking persons to salvation.

’ There is no limit set for us as to the number marked. Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd is gathering his “other sheep” into his fold of safety and security. (John 10:16) The number of these marked “sheep” is predicted to become a “great multitude, which no man could number”. We are therefore authorized to keep on working to mark as many as we can. We cannot of ourselves know beforehand what number they will be at length, but we can keep on numbering them as we go along in God’s appointed service, in order to make note of the increase and to rejoice at it because of God’s blessings upon our efforts. (Rev. 7: 9-17) We can never stop at any certain number and say the work is finished, because the final number is not foreknown or foretold to us. Therefore, as long as there is time to work before Jehovah God sends his symbolical six executioners into action to start the slaughter work of Armageddon, we are obliged to keep on working in hope of 6. Why work on without stopping at any fixed number?

an increase in the number of the “great multitude” of marked ones. If we are unselfishly interested in the salvation of others and in the increase of God’s praises from the lips of others, we will rejoice in the growth in number of the “great multitude” being gathered.

• ⁷ This is a work of salvation in which we are engaged, by God’s grace through Christ. Nothing is of greater importance to the people within and without Christendom. No grander privilege could there now be on earth than to have a share in this work to the extent of our consecrated abilities. Now is the time to do it. Armageddon comes on apace, at which time Jehovah God will command his executioners under the King Christ Jesus to follow up the 'man in linen’ company and go through all the earth and slay off all the unmarked persons, young and old, male and female. Then the marking work will be carried on no farther. (Rev. 19:14-21) Instead, the fateful time for turning in the final report to our divine Commissioner, Jehovah, will have come. By our course of action now in this gracious period of opportunity, all the faithful-hearted ones will determine to be associated with that company that will then report to Him: “I have done as thou hast commanded me.” Such a report will please and make glad the heart of our heavenly Father, because it will vindicate his worthy name and his sovereignty over us. It will also make record of the salvation of an unnumbered multitude of humankind through Jesus Christ our Lord.

7. Why is this work such a privilege and so important, and what will the faithful-hearted determine about their final report on it?

THROUGH THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

FLIGHT through the air from America to the Iberian peninsula in the spring of the year! The thought of it is enough to make one’s spinal column tingle, but the actual experience is more thrilling. This past May 2 the two representatives of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, F. W. Franz, the vice president, and Hayden C. Covington, the general attorney and legal counsel, had their baggage all in order to begin flight via Gander, Newfoundland, the customary airport for trans-Atlantic take-offs. However, fog and mist hung low over great stretches of the United States, even as far west as Lincoln, Nebraska, and on account of such at New York city and at Gander the 5 p.m. flight of the Pan American World Airways plane from LaGuardia Field, Long Island, was canceled Yes, ships in New York harbor were also affected, and the vessel on which the two Watchtower Bible School graduates, Mr. and Mrs. G. P. Watkins, had gone aboard, with Liberia, West Africa, as their missionary destination, remained lying in its berth for safety’s sake.

Next day the conditions at New York city did not improve, and flight was postponed from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Our Watchtower representatives regretted this, because it meant the loss of a day out of their two-day visit in Portugal. .Afternoon came. The prospects of a take-off from New York later on in the day did not brighten. Suddenly the Pan American World Airways company notified the passengers that the hopping-off place would be transferred to the national capital, Washington, D. C., and the scheduled passengers were transported there by train. Their plane was to fly from the Army Transport Command Section of the National Airport. As the night dragged on and it rained the question became more insistent, When would the plane fly? All through the hours of darkness we passengers sat around and chatted and tried to keep awake. At last Sunday morning dawned and we went through the necessary formalities for flight abroad. At 6 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, we boarded a sturdy four-motored Constellation plane. Our mechanical bird soon took to the air and got quickly above the clouds, winging its way along in the sunshine at 17,000 feet above the sea and attaining a speed of 275 miles an hour. We are not cruising northward to Gander, but southeastward toward the islands of Bermuda. In about three and a half hours we come in sight of these oddly-shaped islands and strangely green waters, and land at the Kindley Field airport, on soil leased by the British during World War II to the United States for an army airbase. Our plane finds itself in company with eight other planes grounded here because of bad weather conditions at landing points to which they are destined. But our plane lies over here for nearly ten hours in order to give its crew a chance to sleep in preparation for the next hop, a long one of over twelve hours’ duration.

The Bermuda islands are delightful. A couple of the graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead are now located there, but, because of the unexpectedness of their visit, Brothers Franz and Covington had not provided themselves with the address of these. They missed the great pleasure of spending the day in company with the two missionaries stationed here. Besides, another day had been lost for their visit in Portugal. In the light of a full moon the plane got on its way again at 8:40 p.m., eastward bound, and at 8:57 o’clock next morning it is touching ground again at the airfield of Santa Maria in the Azores islands. Because we have now come into Portuguese territory, we must here hand over our American passports for an initial inspection by Portuguese officials. In little more than an hour we are aloft again. Time was turning toward 3 p.m. when we came over land and scanned the city of Lisbon, Portugal, from the air. We descended safely to earth at Sacavem airport, Monday, May -5,. the very day that our original schedule set for us to leave' Portugal for Spain. We must see our Christian brethren in Portugal for the time-length we at first allotted, and to do so we clipped two days off from our visit to Spain.

Eight of the brethren were at the airport to meet us. One of them who speaks English fairly well broke through the lines and rushed up to us at the Customs inspection-counter, fairly dancing with joy to meet and shake hands with us. But all those of this voluntary reception committee were most glad to see us, and well we could appreciate this. The last report on Portugal to be published in the Society’s Yearbook was concerning the year 1938 and reported only two persons there during the year able to do anything, doing some good work in the rurals, and with only 6,804 books and booklets all together being placed in the hands of the people. So, at least for nine years, or since before World W^Tar II, our Portuguese friends in the truth have been cut off from visits by representatives of the Watch Tower headquarters in Brooklyn, N. Y., as well as visits by the literature that the Society publishes. They longed to meet with some representative brethren from the Society’s headquarters and to renew their personal touch with it. Along with the rest of the people of Portugal they find themselves under irksome restrictions. Ever since 1932 Portugal has had as its prime minister an ardent Roman Catholic with Jesuit connections, who zealously guards the interests of the Vatican in that land. This has, despite the freedom of worship supposed to exist, cut down on the actual exercise of free worship such as exists in Britain and America. In May of 1925 the Society’s former president, Jos. F. Rutherford, visited Portugal and delivered a public lecture on “How to Live on Earth Forever”, in the Gymnasium of the Camoes Lyceum, Lisbon, at which time an attempt to break up the meeting by causing a disturbance was foiled-by the speaker’s quick presence of mind. During the years that followed, the Lord’s work there underwent some growth and gave promise of good development, but during the years of global war the interests of God’s kingdom declined and lagged and got behind the advances made in other lands. Now Jehovah’s consecrated few who remained faithful in Portugal stood in urgent need of reorganization. But there are obstacles in the way.

For example, what is greatly needed is to get at least a few graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead into Portugal to supervise and promote the work. To this end, the first thing after we get located in Lisbon, we go to visit a well-known and competent native lawyer; but at present he is unable to act in behalf of our matters. He is not interested in the religion of Christendom, and especially not in the Roman Catholic, and for this reason he is unjustly branded as a Communist. He fears that by acting for us the stigma of “Communism” might attach itself to our Society; whereas the Watch Tower Society has no interest in worldly communism and it has and wants to have no link with such communism whatsoever. Consequently, next day it is necessary for the Society’s legal counsel to visit the United States ambassador regarding what can be done. However, the state police, and not the Portuguese department of state, have to do with immigration. Under the circumstances, being actuated by prejudice, suspicion and wrong understanding, the religionists in the key governmental positions controlling the entry and residence of Britishers and Americans in this land can thus debar nonPortuguese representatives of our Society, and this to the pleasing of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, which is the real power here.

As our time here is short, according to prearrangement we meet with our brethren this same day of our arrival. Eight-thirty this evening finds us met with 18 of our Portuguese brethren and persons of friendly interest in the home of a consecrated brother, in the second floor of an apartment house. We gather information about them all, about the qualifications of the several men, and the meetings held and such gospel-preaching as may have been done. We find that seven went out in such witnessing from house to house until 1942. Quite a number had striven to be faithful to Jehovah God and his Christ through the years, and all were filled with a quickened zeal and a consuming desire to be reorganized in accord with the latest organization instructions from the Society’s Brooklyn office. There were only three Watchtower subscribers then; but all wanted translations of its Biblical publications in the standard Portuguese language, which is the official tongue for all Portuguese possessions throughout the earth. They wanted to study these together, and to get them out to all persons interested in God’s Word. At 10:45 p.m. we closed our gathering with prayer to God offered by one of our Portuguese brethren. Then two young men, both of them Jews and brothers according to the flesh, motored us to our hotel.

Next morning we reported to the International Police Headquarters to obtain an exit-permit stamp on our passports. One of our passports was found to be lacking the date-of-entry recording of the police officials at the SacavGm airport, although they had had both of our passports in their hands. Now they refused to surrender this faulty passport. Finally it became necessary to appeal to the American embassy to hasten the release of this passport, which happened late in the day, at 4:45 p.m. Meantime, because of this delay, we were held down in our movements about, even in getting tickets for air passage out of Portugal the next day; and a gathering of 25 persons whom an active witness had assembled that afternoon on the other side of the Tagus river waited in vain for our arrival. They could not get out to our night meetings because their husbands would not allow them out at night. This brother has been conducting a Watchtower study in their midst weekly. We had to send word across to them by messenger that we could not get away to speak to them on God’s Word. They were very much disappointed.

However, another meeting with the brethren at the same brother’s apartment-home came off that night, and 21 Portuguese assembled with us. At 8:45 p.m. we began formally with prayer by a zealous young man. By means of one of the young Jewish boys who spoke fair English Brother Covington first undertook to address the gathering crowded into this front room and adjoining room. He talked earnestly on the importance of preaching, despite difficulties, and the need for studies among themselves and with the people in their private homes. Brother Covington’s interpreter, with but some assistance at times, got along quite satisfactorily, and the audience was very attentive. Thereafter Brother Franz read them a specially prepared paper in Portuguese on Organization Instructions, and then proceeded to show them the various forms issued by the Society for use in directing and making a record of the gospel-preaching and in carrying on the activities of an organized company of Jehovah’s witnesses. He announced the temporary appointment of four servants for the newly organized company of Lisbon, namely, the company servant and his assistant, the servant of back-calls upon interested persons, and the Watchtower study conductor.

The brethren rejoiced to see some of the latest publications of the Society in Portuguese, and all this material was left with them. We assured them we would try to get the latest Portuguese literature of the Society to them. We had already conveyed to them the love and greetings of the brethren at the Society’s Brooklyn Bethel home and at the radio station WBBR and at Kingdom Farm, where the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead is located. Now they, in an upsurge of brotherly love, expressed their appreciation and voted unanimously that we convey their love and greetings to all the brethren with whom we should assemble in our travels until we got back to America. Necessarily it was quite late, in fact, 10:45 p.m., that our meeting closed with prayer by the newly appointed Watchtower study conductor, but the interest in Jehovah’s “strange work” here in Portugal sustained us all. Then for our refreshment the brethren served good things to eat and drink, and all of us had a happy time together till midnight.

In the morning eleven of the brethren rose quite early to see us off from the Sacavem Airport. It was raining, but all of them were in joyful spirits over God’s goodness to them. Shortly after 10 a.m. we two boarded the twin-motored plane of the Portuguese Air Transport Line, waving a last farewell to our new Portuguese acquaintances in the truth. Our plane shot quickly above the rain and got in between lofty strata of clouds, and whirred along eastward toward Madrid.

SPAIN

Just past noon of Wednesday, May 7, two days behind our schedule, we landed at Barajas airport on the plateau on which Madrid is located. In Madrid also the late J. F. Rutherford gave a public lecture to an audience of about 1,200 in a theater in May of 1925, and the Watch Tower Society maintained a Branch office there, equipped with a vertical Miehle printing press and also directing the work in Portugal. But this office underwent dissolution in 1936 after the revolutionary outbreak.

By the Iberia Line bus we ride through the countryside and to its regular terminus in Madrid, where a resident of the city steps forward and accosts Brother Franz, and then we three make one another’s acquaintance. During the time of our stay in Madrid we are to be entertained at this brother’s home, and there we lodge in most comfortable quarters and enjoy a season of unstinted hospitality. This brother proved of invaluable service to us in many ways; and his wife, also consecrated to God, displayed herself as a gracious hostess in the home. While summering in the island of Mallorca, off Spain, last year, this brother noticed in the Spanish paper Ya, under date of August 9, a report of about a dozen lines about the Glad Nations Theocratic Assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Cleveland, Ohio, and this awakened him to the life and activity of Jehovah’s organized people in America. He immediately got in touch with the Brooklyn headquarters. He asked us about the dates 1946-1948, which the news report had falsely stated was the time at which Jehovah’s witnesses believed the world was to come to an end. He was glad to learn we taught no such thing. In the dining room of his apartment we held bur first meeting with the Spanish friends, 11 of them assembling with us around the dining table that night. For our guidance we gathered data about them. We noticed that practically all the men smoked, but we made no comment on this. All of them wanted to be regular subscribers for The Watchtower, and to get the latest literature of the Watch Tower Society.

Our host helped us in dealing with the International Police of Spain, who are maintained by the caudillo, Francisco Franco. They are different from the Civil Guard, Spain’s best-trained police, who are identifiable by their peculiar form of hat. Wherever the International Police are located, travelers must reckon with them and must register. Forms called a triptico must be filled out by these and countersigned by the hotel or private host where they lodge. We registered with them the morning after our arrival and obtained a new triptico in view of our planning to visit another city in Spain. We were treated with courtesy. We were glad they found no occasion to interfere with our Christian gatherings with Jehovah’s witnesses in Spain. It was well so, for Caudillo Franco himself recently told an English lady reporter at an interview that freedom of religion existed in Spain and he pointed to the activity of the “Protestant” religious organizations in the land. The newspapers published this interview. So our second meeting with our Spanish friends, 16 of them, went off nicely that night, and we endeavored to encourage them in the Lord.

We found that no door-to-door work with the Kingdom message had been going on since 1937, after the movimiento started which resulted in Franco’s taking over the power of government by his final victory in 1939. He has a strong grip on the people, and has the needed backing of the military and clergy; and the impression of our friends was that he is due to remain in political control for some time yet. He has instituted some reforms and social arrangements for the workers, which correspond with but counterbalance what the Russian communists have done for the peoples in Eastern Europe. Add to this the fact that the British and American political elements are, in spite of their outward protestations, really backing Franco for the sake of using him as a buffer against the Eastern Communist bloc and for the protection of the stronghold of Gibraltar, at the straits into the Mediterranean sea. But, regardless of the political situation in the land, there is no reason for the Lord’s righteous work of preaching the Kingdom gospel to lag in Spain. What was needed for it was Theocratic organization of Jehovah’s people scattered there. And so we considered this matter with our friends. Likewise they received gratefully the expressions of love from the brethren in America and Portugal, and voted to add theirs to the missive of love that we were bearing to all those whom we should meet and serve in the course of our journey.

We were able to engage second-class reserved seats in the train for Torralva de Calatrava, in the province of Ciudad Real, to the south of Madrid. The following night found us occupying these in a compartment together with three of our brethren from Torralva who had been visiting in Madrid, and with a soldier and a newspaper reporter. Provided with an abundant lunch prepared by the brethren, we five friends shared it with the soldier and pen’o-dista. Our sister jokingly referred to the bread being eaten as pan estraperlo, because of the full content of wheat it contained. And then our periodista friend explained that estraperlo was what they called the mercado negro or black market, and that the name was derived from Straus, the name of a Jew who, with bribery, tried to introduce a money-making invention. According to regular routine the government inspector went through the train and examined our passports. Thus the time passed interestingly until our train prilled into Ciudad Real station at 12:52 a.m. of Saturday, May 10.

Two brothers had cycled the 15 kilometers from Torralva to meet us; and after getting acquainted we rode in a somewhat rickety, decrepit and ancient taxi to Torralva and pulled up in front of the home of the brother who had come with us from Madrid and who was to entertain us. It was 1:35 a.m. by now, but lo, a delegation of brethren at the patio door to greet us! When we got into the small dining room and living room we found 14 brethren had stayed up to welcome us on our arrival. What else was there to do but visit with everyone and complete our understanding and arrangements for meetings in Torralva that day and on the morrow ? When we finally tucked ourselves in the bed which our host and hostess had relinquished for our use, the town clock struck three o’clock in the morning.

First thing in Torralva, we went to the quarters of the Civil Guard to register our presence in town. As we walked through this town of 7,000 in company with three friends the villagers detected our being aliens and “gawked” at us and spoke of us as “los protestantes”. Many of the female folk, old and young, were busy in the doorways and on the sidewalks at weaving lace-trimmings with great speed and dexterity, on little frames between their knees, studded with pins and with threads from which dangled clinking bobbins, the apparatus being almohadilla. A number of our sisters produce such lace in this manner. They earnestly wanted to shower large quantities of this fine work upon us free, but we could not accept any on such a basis. We paid an early afternoon visit of courtesy upon the mayor of Torralva at his office at the town center. A Roman Catholic, like 95 percent of Spain’s population, he treated us friendlily and wanted us to come over to his wineshop to have a drink. In the early evening we began collecting data from our brethren at the home of one of the faithful brethren. At 6:45 p.m. we called the meeting to order, and Brother Covington addressed them for more than an hour through his interpreter. The 24 Spanish brethren in his audience felt greatly stirred and refreshed.

Early Sunday morning, May 1, the train on which we had come to Torralva was wrecked, with some killed and injured, and creating a further shortage of passenger coaches. Could we get back to Madrid by train ? At 5: 30 p.m. we held our final meeting with our brethren at another home near the outskirts of the town. It was marvelous to see 38 of them jammed into the room. For the most part they had been interested. How? Through the zealous talking about the Kingdom on the part of an older and a younger brother. The latter had once been in the fighting forces of Francisco Franco. Now both of their American brethren addressed this gathering. The literature and the printed forms for carrying on a company organization were displayed and explained and left with them, and three brethren were appointed to places of organization service in the company. The men had noticed that we did not smoke, as did most of them, and they wanted to know what the Bible had to say about the matter. At this gathering, therefore, one of us who had been a heavy smoker for years, burning up as many as 52 cigarettes a day, told why and how, after getting Kingdom truth, he had quit this slavish habit, and of the benefits he had gotten from so doing. (2 Cor. 7:1) All appreciated this straightforward talk out of one’s own experience and from God’s own Word, and thereafter none of the men smoked in our presence. Prayer closed our meeting at 8:30 p.m. We then visited the Capitan de Cortes at the quarters of the Civil Guard.

While at a late supper with brethren, we felt a bit of dismay at the sudden news that the driver of our taxi, the only one in town, had punctured a tire! How to get to Ciudad Real 15 kilometers away for our train to Madrid? Texan Covington suggested riding horseback or by cart. At midnight we hit out for the home of a carter and roused him. He hitched up a carrito with a round-top cover and two large wheels, to a tired'horse with jingle-bells below his neck. Bidding some of the friends there good-bye, four of us got up into the cart with the driver. Then through the dark hours we bumped and jingled along, westward. Betimes Brother Covington, perched to the left of the cigarettesmoking driver, would lean forward to prod the weary horse with a pencil to spur him a bit faster. At 3 a.m. we reach the railroad station in Ciudad Real. Tickets for only third-class passage are available. Our train, scheduled for 4 a.m., pulls in, crowded and over an hour late. With the aid of a couple of energetic brethren we get seats right behind a cattle car. Chugging northward to Madrid, our train passes cars of the train wreck. We have a man on stretcher aboard. At 9: 55 a.m. we reach Madrid in safety. A visit to the Comisario de Hospices is needed to get new tripticos from the International Police, at a charge of 50 centimes.

Our farewell meeting with the Madrilenos brethren took place at 4: 30 p.m., and a brother was appointed as a temporary company servant and Watchtower study conductor, from among the 12 brethren present. We learn our host has received a copy of the February issue of The Watchtower in Spanish, containing a report of the Cleveland Assembly of August, 1946, from his son down in Bogota, Colombia, on business. He encountered a Kingdom publisher offering magazines on the street and thus got in touch with the Bogota company of Jehovah’s witnesses. He also sent his father, our host, a copy of the 1947 Memorial week-end program put on by the Society’s missionaries at the assembly in Bogota. The Memorial was observed too in Madrid.

Next day a flight of 2:20 hours in a bimotored Lineas Aereas Iberia plane brings us to Barcelona’s airport. We are now in the province of Catalonia, which has quite a spirit of independence. Not unusual, then, that someone who had taken refuge here spoke of Spain as “a huge concentration camp”. Since the movimiento of 1936 and its eventual success, the clergy have come back into Spain with a vengeance, more seminaries for producing priests have been established, and more of the population have taken up Catholic religion seriously because of abhorrence of the communist threat. The pendulum has swung religion-ward. In Spain the Catholic Hierarchy are now conducting a Bible campaign. They have produced a remarkable modern translation of the whole Bible by excellent clerical scholars, in 1944; but they charge 50 pesetas for a copy of it (at Madrid bank we got exchange at one American dollar for 16 pesetas 40 centimos), which puts this Bible quite out of reach of the poor common people. Even with money, it is not easy to get a copy of this Roman Catholic edition Bible.

At Barcelona we hunted up our friends at once, and quickly located them. They gave us a fine Christian welcome. One family volunteered to pay all our expenses for the rest of our stay in Spain, and at once gave us 2,500 pesetas for our immediate use, so great was their confidence in us. We found they had a copy of the final issue of The Messenger (in English) reporting the 1946 Cleveland Assembly. They had missed copies of The Watchtower for a few months, but had the April 1 issue. As for the Society’s books and booklets, they had no new literature published since 1942.

Wednesday, May 14, there is a bit of stir in Barcelona. Caudillo Franco is due in town this coming Friday, and today many reputed “leftists” or “republicans” are reported arrested on a slight pretext as a safety precaution; and they cannot be released except on signed approval of the bishop as the city’s supervisor. We have a late afternoon meal with our brethren, and finally 10 of them have gathered around the table. After collecting information-about them, both of us speak to these earnest Christians desiring to do Jehovah’s will. Several of the sisters weep, being touched by what is said. The regular service committee of three brothers is appointed temporarily to get the Barcelona company organization going. We conclude with prayer at 9 p.m.

Thursday, May 15, and today we must be going to Bar-bastro, near the northern Spanish border. Three of our Barcelona friends are to go with us. Our hotel management returns our passports to us with new tripticos. The married brother who accompanies us gets a "salvoconducto" for the trip of himself and wife. Our journey consumes in all about ten hours, and landscape along the route is most interesting. As we pass famous Monserrat to our left, where legend has it.that the castle of the Holy Grail was located, part of this mountain’s jagged crest is swathed in mist and cloud. At Selgua-Barbastro we dismount to wait an hour for our train connection to our destination. A brother and his son, together with another brother, have come down to this junction point to meet us, and he has tears in his eyes as he greets us. From Selgua we ride about 45 minutes, and on the way we have views of the snow-capped Pyrenees mountains in the distance, which stand as sentinels between Spain and France, whose borders are at present closed to each other. We alight at Barbastro, a city of some size and population. Its inhabitants are quite anti-clerical, but the rulers are in league with the clergy. Here the brethren show us the same joyful hospitality as elsewhere. The brother at whose home we meet and have our meals has been quite conscientious and has endured much because of endeavoring to be faithful to the truth. He suffered much at the hands of the political religionists at Huesca, where he had a profitable shop and business, and finally came here with his family because it is not fanatically religious. Just today two copies of the Spanish Watchtower have come by mail for himself and a friend. We find he also has the final issue of The Messenger. That night our meeting was held with 15 Espanoles and continued till 10:25 p.m. We gathered data and also gave speeches of encouragement and instruction.

The following morning and afternoon were occupied with personal attention to the local brethren and to factfinding. Four more copies of The Watchtower also arrived by mail, the issues of April 1 and May 1. Our meeting tonight continues for two and a half hours, with 15 besides ourselves. It is marked by appointing the above brother as company servant temporarily, and encouraging the holding of Watchtower studies henceforth and also getting a weekly service meeting going. By their sustaining regular contact with Brooklyn headquarters from now on, the interests of the Lord’s work in this section of Aragon should improve and expand. Next day our new company servant returns with us to Barcelona. On our return journey, as on our going to Barbastro, our passports are examined and checked by the government agent who goes through the train. Shortly after 6 p.m. we again catch sight of Monserrat, this time in clearness. As we gaze at its crest with many spires and jaggedness we can better appreciate the reason for its name, which means “sawtooth mountain”. For more than an hour of our journey it dominates the western landscape, and our last view of it is of it silhouetted against the glowing sunset-skies. At present, this famous spectacular mountain is dominated by a monastery and buildings of the prevailing religion, which perch themselves on its pinnacles. The priests trained here are the foremost in Spain.

Having arrived back at Barcelona, we learn that the caudillo, Francisco Franco, had arrived in town that day (Saturday, May 17), and had paraded through it, guarded by Moorish troops. The city center and main thoroughfares were bedecked with the national colors, much bunting and flags. Posters with his picture had been pasted all around and lauded him on three counts: (1) he delivered Spain from the Bolshevik barbarism; (2) he kept Spain out of World War II; (3) he defends Spain against the Communist peril. Sunday morning we had occasion to motor from the heights down the Diagonal and past the National Palace here, where the caudillo was residing. Mounted Moorish guards, in costume, were guarding the grounds, while throngs of people stood about the- gateway. We, however, went on our way about the King’s interests of the new world of righteousness.

Our friends in Barcelona had gotten word about our visiting at the home of our brethren this Sunday afternoon. As we sat at the dining table they began to come in, till finally 20 of them had gathered about the table to listen to the things concerning God’s kingdom and its interests and service. They were a fine-looking group, and listened with great attentiveness to what we had to say. Since the Catholic Hierarchy is now conducting a Bible campaign in Spain, they can prove these things respecting the Kingdom out of the Catholic edition Bible the same as out of the Protestant editions. Even without the Society’s literature they can preach the gospel, the same as their brethren are doing in the Roman Catholic province of Quebec, Canada, by going forth with the Bible alone and conducting Bible studies with persons of good-will whom they discover.

In view of the Caudillo’s protestations of religious liberty in Spain, and until the Society is able to re-establish a Branch office there, a brother was appointed to temporary supervision over all the activities of Jehovah’s witnesses and their companies in this part of the earth. Prayer by this new appointee concluded our table discussion. Two new persons of good-will subscribed for The Watchtower, and small discussion-groups continued for quite a while afterward. All this evidenced sincere interest on the part of these Barcelonans, and the Society will do all it can to help these dear people. Getting back to our hotel late tonight, we procure our passports from the management, with new tripticos; but we won’t need these in France, for which we are leaving here tomorrow. But the account of this we hold over for our next story.