Can Cancer Be Cured?

Well, Here I Am in Puerto Rico!

THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

N*wv vcureev that ana aJjjIa to keep yuu awake to the vital Igauo* cf our time* mart be unfettered by CEnaorahlp and sei£di Intereat*, “Awake!” haa no fatten. It reccgnita* facta, faces fscti, ta free to publish facto. It U not bound by political ambttton* nr obligation*; it is unhampered by advertioero whose toe* must not be trodden on; It u unprejudiced by traditional creeds. Thio Journal keeps itself free that it nuiy speak freely io you. But it does not abuse it* freedom. It maintain* integrity io truth.

“Awake V* use* the regular news channel*, but is not dependent on them, It* own correspondent* are on all continents, In scores of nations. From the four comers of the earth tlieir uncengored, on* the'scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal’s viewpoint is not nwrow, but Is international It 1* read In many nation*. In many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many field* of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its covers age is as brood as the earth and as high as the heavens,

“Awoke!” pledges itself to righteous principle*, to exposing hidden foe*'and subtle dangers, io championing freedom for all, to comforting moumars and strengthening those disheartened by the failure* of a delinquent world, rraecting sure hope tor the establishment of a right' eou* New Worli

Get acquainted with “AwakeP Keep awake by reading “Awake!”

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CONTENTS

The Failure of Technical Science

Modem Boeiiieaa a Sadiatic Killer

The Children Reap the Harvest

Technology to Blume for a Jittery World G

Which Wsy tn a New World t

KoRAland Enslaved by Religious Customs

Marriage Customs Are Also Strange

Crying Need for Deliverance

Can Cancer Bo Cured?

Description of the Kilter

Exhaustivo Search for the Cause

Treatment and Cure

Wp)L Horn* I Am in Puerto Rico!

Religions Promises

Statue Worship

Common Superstitions

Vegetal ion Bfanhete the Earth

Variety of Specie*

Plante of the Desert

From Jungle to Alpine

‘•Thy Word I* Truth"

Juaepb ud His Good-Will Brother*

Sweden Think)ng About Hell-Fire

Watching tho World

flWAKEl

®^Now it is high time to awake.’’—Romans 13:11 9j

Volume XXXI                        Brooklyn, N. Y., June 22, i960                           Number IS

THE FAILURE OF TECHNICAL SCIENCE

^TVrELLj what about it? So the world

W is not growing any simpler. It grows more complex all the time. And what am I supposed to do about it!” The big gruff man in the blue denim jacket, riding home on the streetcar, sounded snappish and tired out from his day’s work at the railroad yards.

The little man riding beside him, who might have been a timekeeper or a shoe clerk, buried his sharply beaked nose back into his newspaper, piqued. ^<rWell, you needn’t snap my head off, Mister!” the little man defended himself, *T was only reading you what I see here in the paper.”

What Shorty read to him were portions of the interview a reporter had with a doctor who had just published a book entitled “Why Presidents Die Young”. The doctor was saying that eight of the first ten.presidents lived over seventy years, but only three of the last ten lived out their allotted time. That impressed Shorty. He read more about the presidents, to himself.                         ■

"How do you explain that despite all the advances in medicine, the twentieth-century presidents die an average of fourteen years earlier than their predecessors did?” the doctor asked. WVe’ve had thirty-two presidents, and here’s the surprising thing: the first dozen or so died of intestinal disease. The last twelve died from heart disease. Most of our early presidents had served in the army. Sanitation was bad, and most of them suffered from cholera or dysentery. There’s nothing wrong with sanitation facilities today, but the strain of the job has been stepped up.”

But not only the president’s job. A few evenings later Shorty-read about how the president wms finding it impossible to keep a full staff of top policy aides to assist him—it was “fatigue” and “the limelight’s woes” that accounted for a full third of the men he lost—men who surrendered Cabinet posts and the chairmanships of the highest military and civilian commissions the country has to offer. It is a wo rid-known fact that the men who rule the earth are mostly all sick men, desperately sick, many of them. As Burnet Hershey observed:

The Great Man has it, yes, but what precisely is it he has? James Forrestal' had it. Ernest Bevin has it. Stalin has it; the French and Italian leaders have it. But what is it, this international malady that so often strikes suddenly at the life machine of men over fifty? Medical literature abounds with names for it-— hypertension, anxiety, neurosis, nervous stomach; and with it comes that group of frightening diseases—nervous heart, high blood pressure, and finally the cardiac killers, angina pectoris and coronary thrombosis.

Living in a time-clock atmosphere, tensed by a war of nerves that could burst out into mortal conflagrations no one knows when, earth’s high-shining leaders have been debased into becoming “addicts of soda mints, digitalis and sac-

JUNE 22, 1950                                                               3

charine", ‘'Worry and fear" are producing ulcers that are killing government leaders the world over, declared the men who diagnosed them—a group of doctors meeting not long ago at Rhone, France. Take a glance at a sample list of victims of ulcers and similar woes. Among Americans there are Generals Marshall, Eisenhower, Clay and Bedell Smith; Senators Austin, U, delegate to the U. M, and Vandenberg; Hershal Johnson of the U. N. Security Council. Then there’s Britain's foreign secretary Bevin and his tired heart and high blood pressure; Prime Minister Attlee and his “duodenal □leer". Russia’s foreign minister Vishin-aky has the same; Stalin's heart tnmble lias made news for years. The East German Republic’* first premier. Otto Grote-wolt, was recently knocked out by a ‘‘nervous breakdown". Cancer plague* several of France’s present or erstwhile leaders. Italy’s prime minister De Gos-{)eri is a victim of arthritis. On and on the ist goes. None escapes, high or low. "The number <if secondary diplomats in the Foreign Office at the H.N, who are on the aide list shows that there is plenty of grief in a great many less important stomachs. And no wonder!" concludes Mr. Hershey in The Nation. “As we watch these statesmen, high and low, elegant in their striped trousers, but pale, tense, edgy, we ask the disquieting question: Ua the fate of the world, our fate, in the hands of sick men ?’"

Jtodern Bueinees a         Killer

What about the senator who announced, just after his election defeat, that he was “retiring to a soft business job"f Maybe there are some “soft" business jobs, but just as surely as this gentleman starts keeping step with his fellow executives, just that surely he will keep his ulcers, and the first thing he knows he'll wind up in the wilted ranks of those “tired businessmen”. Take the Philadelphia industrialist who sent his 63 top executives to the Benjamin Frank-

4

Llu Clinic of the Pennsylvania hospital for a health checkup. The clinic, charging a fee of $150 per head and providing 57 specialists tolook them over, inside and out, reported that only 13 of the 63 “patients" did not need either a doctor or a psychiatrist. They figured the psychiatrist wns needed in most cases to convince the executives that they “must slow down and stop worrying”.

TIipjsh 63 men were a sample of 2,000 “tired businessmen" studied by the clinic. Why do such a vast number of modem businessmen totter on the verge of an emotional nr physical breakdown, the clinic wanted to know. They mine up with five contributing reasons: (1) He (the businessman) stuffs his troubles into his brief cane and carries them home at night (2) He goes out to lunch and - does more business than eating. (3) He cannot lake a real vacation, thinks he’s too indispensable. (4) He need* a hobby, takes one or two weeks’ strenuous workout during the year, and that’s supposed to cure his ailments. (5) No moderation in work or play. Most common ailments found among businessmen are coronary artery disease, hypertension (high blood pressure) and ulcers of the stomach. Can you sec any difference between the obituary of a politician and a bank president!

Ordinary People Smitten Too

“But I'm just an ordinary nobody," you say. “Like that railroad man mentioned in the first of this article, Zin not getting myself worked up to a case of ulcers over anything." But just in ease, you call up an insurance man and ask him about taking out a policy. He looks over his “Commissioner’s Table”, prepared from a study of the life expectancy of “ordinary nobodies” like you and me. His table shows him that for every 137 persons whose heart stopped 'beating because of the strain of living in 1900, there are 303 being trundled off by the undertaker now.

.4 W A K E I

Then maybe you do get a little worried, like Shorty, ana commence to take notice of such things in the newspapers. One day you read that the U. S, Health Department’s surgeon general Leonard A. Scheele estimates that 976 out of every 1,000 persons, young and old, are suffering from one or more afflictions, and that at least 25,000,000 Americans are victims of chronic diseases. Somebody reminds you that back in 1942 the induction centers rejected 39.2 percent of the draft registrants because of poor health. Cancer deaths have doubled since 1900. How much the living strain has to do with causing cancer is. not known yet. But as for its next-of-kin, the ulcer, Dr. Harry Gauss, an eminent stomach ulcer specialist, says: “It has been well established that the emotions of fear, worry, anxiety and resentment alter the normal secretion of the stomachy resulting in engorgement, increased activity and hyperacidity. These are the very psychic impulses transmitted to the stomach "by the vagus nerve, often called the 'worry nerve’.”

Grandmother used to smile serenely and declare, “Why, Pa and I never had a short word.” How times have modernized!¹ In today’s smart world the- ripsnorting pace of everyday living has changed the atmosphere in the home and upset many a love nest. Mrs. Begina Flesch, of the United Charities of Chicago, wj.wcbi'i'ed. from. Lev vwwei atudis.%. that society has grov/n just too complex for human nature to 'endure. Neither husband nor wife any longer feels secure. Often the wife hesitates to give up her financial independence. Under these or similar circumstances, things are bound to happen. A rash of everyday troubles begins to chaff and fray their nerves. Little things start irking. Trouble brews. Fire smolders. One night there is a minor incident, followed by a major catastrophe.

The Children Reap the Harvest

Under such conditions, how can the average home life provide a good “emotional climate" for the children? Consequently, outweighing all othej causes for upsetting the normal life of children, are the parents themselves. So children too suffer from “nerves”. Dr. George Mohr brands all kinds of childhood problems, such as chronic constipation, bed-wetting, tics of various sorts, loss of appetite, etc., we.        xv,          W Vnt

of emotional disturbances. The Journal of Pediatrics showed from u study of hospitalized infants that there is “an intimate tie between a child's physical health and his emotional care (or lack of it)”. Distraught emotional life can cause everything from tooth decay to osteo-arthritis, the specialists say. Anxiety⁷ is found to be contagious, and, in a world supercharged with anxiety, even the “psychiatrists get it from their patients, babies catch it from their mothers, animals contract it from humans and other animals”.

So the children reap the grim harvest of this twentieth-century civilization, wherein their parents are unable to live normal lives under its strains and stresses. Divorce breaks up one out of every three to five marriages. Broken homes arc so much the rule that the majority of American children have experienced a major family break before reaching eighteen years of age. What is true in kmwnya is Vrue aii vver C'nristwnfitnii, and more so in some lands. The Census Bureau estimates that modern American society is turning out 840,000 cases a year of “markedly neurotic" children, and that one pupil in every twenty in school is a potential mental hospital case.

But think of this ■ It’s bad enough that one out of every twenty American adults is doomed to spend part of his life in a mental institution. Yet not one, but three out of every twenty American children suffer from mental and emotional trou-

bles grave enough to call for profee* aionai treatment Every seventh A inertcan child is a victim of a neurosis. Of these pitiful young lives, Magazine Digest said:

These are the children who commit two murders somewhere in this country every day; who, before they enter their Leena, take their own lives at the rate of one a week; who, white still under 15, are committed to publie mental institutions at the rate of 185 a month. They are the juveniles who perpetrate nearly 1,000 crimes a day—crimee serious enough to be recorded, and the perpetrators fingerprinted by the F.B.l. They are the children responsible for the nation’s all-time high in juvenile delinquency, alcoholism and immorality.

Technology io Blame for a Jittery World

What is that evil genius that is driving the world mad! How can it be combat Ind and the world freed from fear! Political soothsayers I.ry to mollify the peoples' nerves by conjuring up visions of a bright new world of tomorrow freed by man's political control of technological sciences. Educators, like Dr. Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago, point out that it is a different age from mankind's pant because the future clearly holds but one of two possibilities: total extinction of the human race, or life on a paradise earth. Atomic energy, he says, will change all concepls of living, eradicate all limitations such as space, time, communications: cure most if not all human maladies, produce a world of new dements and products; emancipate everyone from drudgery; guarantee everyone unlimited leisure; and prolong the life span until everybody can expect “to live as long as Methuselah".

Then why should not humanity lift up its bead end rejoiee! Why not put away anxiety, fear, the feeling of insecurity, if it is so true that we face a new world! Because even the wildest prognosticators, like Dr. Hutchins, bave to face so many fear-breediug doubts about the fa-taro that hope and faith in it are despoiled, All of Dr. Hutchins' Utopian dreams are dependent, he admits, upon the chance that lifb on earth is not extinguished by atomic wars and other forms of genocide. But, granted this does not overtake us, he sees a worse fear: “Our paramount problem, our chief hazard, in the atomic age, w what to do with our spare time,”

Italics arc added to accentuate the dilemma. Here is humanity already bo bewildered and unnerved and jittery that the world faces a breakdown, because everyone's life is overburdened with fear, worry, anxiety. But if the future, in which scientific technologies offer assurance of abundance of plenty, freedom from overwork and unlimited leisure, if that very future of leisure, of human nature left to itself with limitless time on its hands is the thing to be feared most, then what hope is there for a man-made better life t

No, science and its streamlined methods of production, the technologies, will not solve the problem of how to gain repose and peace of mind and heart. If it could, why is there not some proof of it in the present state! Already the workweek has shrunk from 60 and more hours to 40 hours. People nowadays do not work so hard manually. Thank’s to better tools and mechanical power, one hour’s work by the average American laborer today is worth four times as much ($1.32) as it was one hundred years ago (32c). Mr. American enjoys twice as much spending money now us he did fifty years ago. Eighty thousand new patents are recorded each year. People nowadays are already granted more leisure. But why are they less happy! Why do they feel more enslaved! more crowded! more harassed! Why do they bemoan the loss of the “good old days" the more technology progresses!

It takes more than machines and assembly lines to create an environment wherein people exercise their brains, ini-

tiative and independence, charged the dean of Barnard College at the New York Herald Tribune forum. “Our highly esteemed civilization has resulted in an environment which destroys the very qualities which have produced it A generation which has been born in confusion, suckled in tumult, reared with cars, radios, movies, comics and picture magazines can hardly be expected to mature as reflective, sober, well-rounded young people.”

Probing even deeper for the causes for a sick world, one serious thinker, in the book The Failure of Technology, puts his finger on the fact that men hope to free themselves by the very means that is enslaving them—technology. Mechanism does not create wealth in the true sense; it devours the earth’s resources like a vampire and transforms them into synthetic, artificial, deceptive wealth. Instead of saving labor, it increases labor, by devising more and more ways of channeling more and more human efforts toward making scientific assembly lines turn out more and more tinsel doodads. “The keen unpassioned beauty of a great machine,” in the hands of its exploiters, enslaves more and more human lives, transforms them into robots, “the unconscious realization of which is the ground of modern despair,” said Dorothy Thompson.

The most despairing thing about it is this: You take a highly technical industry, say atomic energy; it demands strict control by some absolute authority. When every other industry and enterprise is highly developed and technical, they too must be tightly controlled. Now when the whole society is so developed, there have to be created vast bureaucracies of business and government to control everything. That means that the technological state cannot exist except in totalitarian form.

Witness Hitlerian Germany. Witness Mussolini’s “corporate state” system. Par from bringing more leisure into human life, such technologically organized societies drive people into perpetual motion.

Why f Because evil minds seize control of the processes of production and government and turn them into instruments that serve selfish purposes. It is this very fear of the devouring machine of the modern mechanized world that creates the “psychological insecurity characteristic of our life”. People are craving Bucuiiiy whidh never can 'be' attained, because the very means they are banking on to free them is driving them into perpetual motion, into permanent enslavement.

Even Thomas Jefferson foresaw from his day that the state of free people would pot survive the immense centralization process accelerated by the machine.

Why so? Well, look -what scientific methods produce: They produce more of 'jiW                    mui “luxu

ries”—things people want; more cars, radios, newfangled homes and furnishings, and a realm of ever-growing gadgetry. In a word, science produces all of the things a man fancies he needs to gratify his pleasure. Man-made scientific marvels offer things that accentuate the cravings of the selfish nature, the love of more and more of everything. But science offers nothing to safe-check human nature against itself. And there is the great unholy fear back of it all.

What is the solution? Some say what mankind must have is a form of centralized government so strong, so absolute, yet so benevolent, that it is capable of taking possession of all earth’s resources and the means of exploiting them, and supervising the operation of government and economics fairly for everyone. That way no individual or group of individuals can seize control of resources or technological methods and exploit them selfishly at the expense of the masses. Men would live in a collee-

tivized society* Witness cornmunifft Russia, they say.

But others throw up their hands in horror at that, pointing out that there is no more ruthless, selfish and nnbenevolent system than communism. What the world needs is a united nations of hu inanity supervised by the month and Rthiee of orthodox religion, they say-Witness the 1,000-year reign of the “holy” Boman Empire.

^lfWhat*s the difference whether it's world communism or world papismT' the history student speaks ujl “T have studied from the Roman Church's own books about the ancient guild systems which wore nothing but 7?b*ad corporations’, *a bastille where a greedy and jealous oligarchy was entrenched? The Church cites modern examples of the kind of society it advocates, and these are Mus-Mulinfs Fascist Italy, Salazar's *Christian Socialisin’ in Portugal, and so on. Hierarchy publications say so, in Relation of Catholicism to Communism, Fascism tend Democracy, The Sound Old Outlets and iVhy lltr, Guilds Decayed, dis tributed by the National Catholic Welfare Society/

Which Way to a New World?

So mankind stands at a crossroads. A call from the “left" would lead him to a collectivized state, wherein supreme authority is chimed to be invested in man. A call from the "right" would lead him to a corporate state system, wherein the supreme authority is claimed to be invested in God through a man posing as Christ's vicegerent on earth. It is a united world of nations of enslavement in either case, wherein whatever technological methods are used will not he operated by unselfish, benevolent hands. -

As for orthodox religion, it mustadmit its own worthlessness. It does little more than send up a desperale death cry for some tiling dynamic, a faith to live by, a transformiug power that will renovate, regenerate, and establish in lasting se-

8

curity the hopes for life in a clean new World. Religion has not one iota of such life-giving power, no curb against man's inner nature. Why not? Became such a power cannot generate from man's own precepts any more than life itself can ^and that is all that religion is compounded of.

Yet the Bible teaches such a power. The Bible teaches a government that in to come to earth. The King of that government will wipe out all wickedness find all tendencies toward sei fish ijess and Hover permit such to operate again. The Bible leaches that God's Kingdom government under Christ, would commence operations toward oarth at the time in history when total wars, famines, pestilences earthquakes, turbulence, violence, and an ever-increasing cresceudo of sorrow and trouble to cause men’s hearts to fail'lbem would prevail. Every prophecy in the Bible poinls to a world crisis that must be here.

So then* is that dynamic power. It io operating earth-wide al randy, drawing the meek, unselfish minority of earth's sincere inhabitants together into an understanding of the Creator’s purposes toward tho earth. They know from the Bible that God is about to takO" out of the way all offending, fear-inspiring things, includhig this world's ruthless systems and its god, the Devil. They know that righteous rulership is about to be inctal/ed over earth, if Gxk? has to appoint His King Christ Jesus to resurrect from death faithful men of old who can be trusted, and in si all them ns princes throughout the earth.—Fsalui 45; Ifi.

Then people won't be left idle in the paradise earth. Theirs will be the happy task of prospering in the constructive works that men dream of and wish to perform under the perfect society. But all sense of insecurity, fear and anxiety will have vanished. Fulfilled will be Isaiahs glorious prophecy (14:7): “The whole earih is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing,’¹—Contributed.

w 4 k e f

^f 1 HE Transkei is that part of the South X African Cape Province which lies between the Kei and Natal. It is here that the Xosa race of people live. In the rural areas of this land, among one and a quarter million Africans, are found only a handful of Europeans, consisting of traders, officials and missionaries. As a result, ancestor worship exists in a very pure form, and every phase of tribal life is controlled by superstitious beliefs that have been handed down by tradition for many generations. Home life, social standing, economics, marriage ceremonies, and the raising and training of children are all controlled by rigid religious customs,

A Xosa kraal is made up of one to ten or more huts, which are circular in shape and six feet or more in diameter. The walls are of sticks and mud, and the roof of sticks and grass. The floor is smeared with cattle dung, because animals, especially cows, are sacred. According to Xosa custom, a man may have as many wives as he can afford to purchase and keep. Each wife has a hut of her own in the kraal, and the first wife is regarded as the senior one. Air the wives have their meals together in the senior’s hut.

The wives are responsible for preparing the food. Pumpkins or melons are peeled' and put in a big pot and boiled. Some mealies, or ground meal, are poured into the boiling pumpkin and stirred until a thick porridge results. This is the most typical meal in a Xosa home. Women are also responsible for thatching the roofs, plastering the walls with mud and smearing the floors with dung. They share hoeing and reaping with the men, and they fetch wood for the fire from the forest. They must also bring up and care for the children.

It is believed that the ancestors, who are supposed to be the guardians of the kraal, dwell with the cattle in the cattlefold and in the space between the cluster of huts and the fold. This area, known as inkundla, is of special religious significance in every Xosa kraal. Wives, therefore, are not to put their feet on it. Cattle and even milk belong to the ancestors. Hence only the men attend to them. Women arc not allowed to approach the area of the house where the milk is stored. Every woman during menstruation must not even taste a single drop of milk.

Respect for ancestors among Xosas is a key to all their customs. For another example, let us take the use of the white clay. Ordinary red clay is used for smearing the body and face, skirts and blankets. This is their way of swanking. But the color white has been dedicated to the ancestral spirits. It is used on special occasions when it is believed that the ancestors are involved. Boys use it when being initiated into manhood, for it is then they are dedicated to the ancestral care. Also a woman who has just given birth uses white clay on herself and her infant up to the stage of weaning, for the ancestors are thought to be responsible for the newborn's life. The witch doctors, the sages and seers of the tribe make great use of white clay.

Marriage Customs A re Also Strange

The father decides that his son is to have a wife. He chooses her for him by appointing a special man, the nozakw-zaku, to moke the purchase. Upon going to the home of a prospective bride, this spokesman is called upon to give something signifying his knowledge of the house, the sazi-mzi, which has a value, say, of about £1, If they accept it, they exclaim: “Do, that we may see,” which means that he should carry on with the payment of the bride price, ikhazi. Lobola is the payment of ikhazi.

Lobola is done in cattle, brought in two by two, not necessarily all on the same day. Unable to reach a settlement on the price, the messengers keep asking to have a loan of the “child”, while the daughter’s parents keep on saying, “we have not yet segh,” meaning they have not been paid enough. All this time the daughter in question may know nothing of the matter, or, if she does, she is considered modest if she says nothing ahout it. It is none of her business. It is the affair of her parents.

Now'lobola is completed. The parents may say to the messengers: “You see, we are going to send the child to the river or somewhere else. She is yours. You can take her away with you.” When the innocent girl, who is ignorant of the

10

whole deal, is sent to the place she is met along the wayside by the messengers, who ask her to go with them. If she refuses to go, she is dragged away. Her struggling and screapiing is in vain, for even though not far from home, nobody comes to the rescue.

Some girls are even killed in the ordeal, because these draggers are usually very rough. They may beat her or strangle her or suffocate her to death by tying something around her throat or mouth to stop her screaming. Her future husband may even be among the group at the time. When brought to the husband’s home she is dressed up as a wife, and there is no turning back then. If still too wild, and the husband fails to win her through sympathy, she is then tied to pillars inside the hut until the husband succeeds in violating her. What is the use of fighting after this, she reasons.

But many times the parents love their daughters too much to follow this procedure. Hence, after lobola is finished, the parents tell the girl: “We are taking you to a new home. You should serve for us there and you should not disgrace our name.” Upon arrival at the bridegroom’s kraal, the marriage ceremony is held in the “holy ground” between the huts and the cattle-fold, the inkundla. The bridegroom and his company move to the inkundla and wait in a tow. The bride and hers follow and go to the bridegroom. All are dressed up in their best attire. All this time women are making a deafening noise as they extol the spouses in poetic bonga fashion. They vocalize in a manner not unlike the shrill clarion of the valiant cock in the small hours of the day, yeyezela, sweeping the way for the bride.

In conclusion, the bride cries and falls on the ground, and is taken into the house. After this the maidens accompanying the bride bring everything belonging to her. All this time they are singing and dancing in a beautiful spectacle. Those that have come to the marriage

awake; are dressed in all colors of the rainbow. Horseback riding and chasing cattle are the sports Of the day.

Cryinff Need for Deliverance

Economically and socially, Xosaland is in a very bad way. People and animals are packed on inadequate lands that are overworked and deeply eroded. Frequent droughts and widespread disease among cattle drive the people into the crowded towns. The huge poll tax also drives men away from their homes. And what a sum it is for the poor Xosa I Widowed women, also seeking a livelihood for themselves and their children, are driven into the. swirling and sinful life of the towns. Some of these resort to the policy of plurality of fathers to their children as a means of solving the subsistence problem.

In these towns there are native locations where a mixture from various parts of the continent are found. Crime is rife, the chief of which are housebreaking, sex misdemeanors and murder. Women brew curious types of kaffir beer and engage in illicit liquor trade. Both men and women, and even girls--and boys of a tender age, become drunk on it. In addition, they smoke dagga, which is another illicit trade. Dangerous gangs lie in wait in dark corners for passers-by. Pregnancy of children is a sight as common as the sun. The death rate at the same time is terrific. How many funeral processions per day leave the location, it is difficult to say. Truly these people are in bondage to sin and corruption as well as ignorance and superstition.

Sickness and disease from unsanitary conditions are high. But this is to. be expected among a people whose medical knowledge is dispensed by ancestorworshiping witch doctors. When a person falls sick, if -witch doctors do not say: “So and so is bewitching him,” they say, “His ancestors are complaining.'* An ox is slaughtered and the hair from its tail is made into a necklace to be worn by the sick person. G oat dung ie smeared on children suffering with the measles.

Education might help to relieve some of these conditions. Every child in the country has the right to attend the mission schools, provided his parents are prepared to supply him -with books, slates and clothing. But because of tribal ideas, many parents are hostile to the idea of sending their children to school. To them it is a waste of time. Boys, they believe, should go to the veld at an early age to look after sheep and cattle. They must learn to plow the fields. When they reach manhood they should prepare themselves to be masters of families.

So, if a boy is kept within the walls of schoolrooms he is despised as a weakling. He finds himself an owl among small birds on leaving the classroom. Young girls also, according to tribal custom, are given early training to be good housewives. Now, if they get up at sunrise and go to school, only to come back at sunset, when will they learn the business of running the home, cooking, nursing children, hoeing and reaping the fields, and plastering houses? A young woman’s chances of being chosen to be a wife are good or bad according to her movements about her home. For these and other reasons the people in general are very illiterate.

No question about it, Xosaland is slavishly held down by its native customs, by its outmoded agricultural methods, by its lack of space for a swiftly growing population, and by its demon-inspired ancestor religion. Human efforts to deliver these people have proved as futile here as in the rest of the world. Liberty for these captives can come only through Jehovah God’s blessed Theocratic kingdom. What joy, hope and gladness it brings to these good people to learn this truth! Native ambassadors as Jehovah’s witnesses are hastening throughout this country proclaiming that God’s new world of righteousness will soon bless all the families of the earth,

DURING a month designated “Cancer Control Month", the American Cancer Sofeiety makes its^r annual drive for money, taking for millions of dollar?. Public officials in federal?state and Meal governments and prominent social and business leaders line up behind the campaign, The radio programs, magazines, newspapers and billboards across the country carry to the people the plea for money under such slogans as “Give to Conquer Cancer”, "Help Fight Can ocr,” “Give and Keep Giving to Help Science?’ Thousands of vohinhwra throughout the nation, 8,000 in New York city alone, are regimented to shako coin cans at entrances to railroad terminals, department stores, postoffiees and on the street comers.

This cancer campaign, run as a repeat performance each year, produces some very definhu results. For one thing, its high-pressure salesmanship, bizarre advertising and crude solicitation methods turn many people away in disgust from the cancer chii^c. ’Wised up” ib the lying propaganda of conunernnl advertisements, these people are inclined to distrust similar soliciting tactics, even if run under the name of charity.

Millions of dollars are coBec ted, yet there is never a puhlic accounting to show into whose pockets all the money goes. Actually only h fraction of the dimes, quarters and dollars ever reach, the worthy cause to which they are contributed. Estimates, such as that of Ei/ff magazine, say no more than 25 percent of the “take” is allocated for research aimed at treatment and cure of the dread disease. This leaves huge sums of money for prim-

ing the annual “suction pump¹', for commercial publicity listed by the organisation as “educational", and for operating the/'i’jisli register”end of the machine.

The American Cancer Society seems to be promoting a fear campaign called “cancerophobia”. The scare stories in their pamphlets frighten people into thinking that every cold sore, lump under the skin, birthmark, wart or pain in their stomach or spleen is a tell-tale symptom of cancer. Dr. IX A. Blain, of the American Psychiatric Association, as reported in the New York Times and Time magazine, struck out against these fund-raising boys and their hair-raising scare program. Asa typical example he cited the following from their circulars r

Every three minutes someone in the United

States dies of cancer. No one is Rafe. Thera is one chance in eight that you yourself will be a victim of this deadly killer. Cancer is the greatest and cruclist killer of American women between the ages of 35 and 55. Guard those you love. Give—to conquer cancer.

Admitting all the evils committed in the name of cancer charity, it would he a grave mistake to assume that no good resulted from the concerted efforts ol medical science in fighting the ravHgeb of this plague There arc more than 20C cancer research projects that receive some support from the money raised, there are some 300 cancer-treating din-j.. . ics, and there are 11 cancel , hospitals. Over the years can-

Yr cer research has made Talus'—'j able progress in detecting anc treating this disease, which is. as a killer, second onlv to af-/. ■; dictions of the heart and cir .culatory system.

Description of the Killer

Cancer is no respecter of persons. Father and mother, son and daughter, rich and poor, black and white—millions have it, millions die from it. Unlike bacterial infections, cancer is nonconta-gious and not inherited. It is a “disease of civilization”, for, as Dr. Charles S. Cameron, medical and scientific director of the American Cancer Society, says: “The more complete our medical services and the higher our standards of living, the more cancer we' seem to develop” Cancer has been on a steady increase since the turn of the century, until today 17,000,000 Americans are slated to have cancer before they die. With 87,800 males and 93,700 females dying from cancer in 1946, it is folklore to say it is exclusively a “female disease”. It may break out in any part of the body, but in most cases it is internal. Life magazine prepared the following table showing where primary cancer tumors usually develop.

Organ	Afatc	Female
Brain	2.0%-	1.2 %
Mouth and pharynx	5.2 -	1.2
Respiratory	11.9	3.2
Breast	0.3	18.2
Stomach	19.3	11.0 .
Intestines	11.3	12.6
Rectum	6.5	4.5
Skin	2.5	1.5
Genital	12.6	30.5
Urinary	6.3	3.2
Other	22.1	12.9
Analysis of these figures		shows that

60 percent more men than women die of cancer of the stomach, and three times as many men die of mouth, throat and lung cancer. Nearly half the women die from cancer of the genitals and breasts.

At first a cancer appears as an elevated nodule or looks like a wart, ulcer or tumor, a purely local growth, and if removed in the early stages it is usually checked. There is no pain in early cancer, which seems to be composed of wild cells that multiply rapidly, choking out normal tissue cells and robbing them of their food supply.. Eventually cancer cells spread .to adjoining lymph glands, oi¹ take hold of surrounding tissues, in keeping with the name cancer, meaning “crab”. Many times cells of a local cancer get in the blood and spread like wildfire to other organs, sometimes quite distant. For instance, cancer cells from the intestines may attack the brain, or cancer of the breast often lodges in the bones, and once it reaches these vital parts there seems to be no means of stopping its deadly work.

Exhaustive Search for the 'Cause

“Doctors are still far from being able to say what causes cancer, but they suspect many things.” [Time, Mprch 7, 1949) They have spent many millions of dollars and many years of research and still they do not know what causes cancer cells to sprout. They are certain that the standard of living, sanitation and personal hygiene have little if anything to do with cancer. Some of the long dark alleys down which the probers of this mystery have groped include the following:

• 1. Parasites. Thought to cause cancer in plant and fish tissues, but no proof that bacterial infection causes cancer in man.

• 2. Viruses. This theory, abandoned by some, is believed in by others. Recently the British* Medical Journal published an article by Dr, William Ewart Gye, a strong believer in the virus theory, in which he said that 90 percent of the other theo-■ lies “can be quietly relegated to the wastepaper basket”. Others, who do not believe the so-called virus found in milk of mice having cancer of the breast is really a virus, refer

to it as a mysterious “milk factor".

• 3. Hormones. Kot fully understood, there are some indications that hormones from caneer caeee cause the disease if injected in others,

• 4. Physical injuries. There is no evidence that cancer develops from bruises or bumps of the skin or breaste, but some evidence that constant irritation of a sore may in time cause cancer.

• 5. Radiation. Overexposure to the sun is thought by some to cause ennccr on the lips, neck, face and hands. Records of 7_?000,000 Ol’s showed that 90 percent having cancer of the lip, usually the lower lip (in women it occurs mostly <m upper hp), were on duty in extreme climates where exposure to sun was great. X-ray technicians are susceptible to skin cancer. Radiation from atomic, fissure is likewise thought to cause cancer. Others suggest that cosmic rays arc the eatfse.

• 6. Heredity. Certain types of cancer arc thought transferable mini one generation to another among lower animals, but not proved so in the case of humans.

• 7. Diet. Very little is known. TTeavy rice-eaters of Asia seem vulnerable to cancer of liver. Deficiencies in vitamin B-complex and proteins (found in meat, fish, egga, milk, cheese) are believed by some to be a predisposing cause of mouth cancer. Others label excessive drinking of milk by adults as a source of cancer.

• 8. Chemicals. Probable cause of cancer in man and lower animals. Chemicalladen soot causes “chimney sweep’s disease", really a cancer of the scrotum. Dr. W. C. Hueper, of the U. S. Public Health Service, warns of danger of occupational cancer in plants and refineries due to fumes and coot containing aromatic hydrocarbons, asphalts, coaltars and petroleum chemicals used in making dyes, plastics, synthetic compounds and medicines. He also pointed to the danger of infecting communities with cancer due to contamination of air, drinking water and soil (hence the food-

14

stuffs grown on it) by canoe r-inducing chemical wastes. Chemical fertilizers, some question aa a possible cause; others wonder whether manure from drseaaed livestock on farmland might conf aminate food and cause the disease.

On the matter of chemical pollution of the air, Collier's magazine a few months ago told bow experiments at the Sloan Kettering cancer institute in New York had shown that chemicals taken from aoot off rooftops could induce cancer growth, pr. William E. Smith, of this research institute, declares: "I am convinced that a great deal of cBncer prevention depends not on medical means but on engineering procedures. . . . The constant, heavy pollution of the city’s air with soot is an example of a preventable hazard.”

Whether out of a furnace chimney nr out of a cigarette holder the smoko contains the same type of unburnt tars. Consequently, it. is believed by many authorities that tobacco smoking is a primary cause of cancer. “During my unusual opportunities over a period of years,” writes Dr. Edwin J. Grace in Medical Times, ”1 have noted that cancer of the lip and tongue was almost invariably iissoriatetl with a smoking habit dating back many years.” The chief surgeon of 1lie Washington University’s School of ilcdieine, after checking hundreds of rases of cancer of the lungs, noted that the great majority had been heavy tobacco smokers for the last 20 years. It goes without saying, that the powerful tobne-co trust, that spends a hundred million dollars a year advertising Ilia "coffin nails”, desperately fights every effort to bring these facts tn the attention of the people. .

Investigators seem to agree on this: “There is no single cause for cancer.”

Treatment and Cure

Not every ache or pain is caused by a cancer. Not every lump beneath the ekin

A W A K■$ f

is a cancer; some are cystic. Cancers are tumorous growths, but not all tumors are cancerous. Of the more than 50 suggested tests for hidden cancer there is only one foolproof method of determining whether an abnormality is cancerous, and that is by examining some of the tissue or cells under the microscope, a technique known as biopsy. Blood tests on the whole have not proved reliable, due to "false positive” readings in cases of pregnancy, kidney diseases, TB, etc. Even the latest blood test devised by Huggins, of the University of Chicago, and which was headlined on April 16, is said to be only a “reasonably sure” test.

The great claims that the multimillion-dollar atom smashers would provide sure cures for cancer have proved disappointing. Dozens of different compounds of nitrogen mustards, carbamates, hormones, antibiotics like penicillin and               wni YadiuacVixfe

isotopes of iodine, phosphorous and strontium are constantly being tried out on human guinea pigs with very limited success. Manipulation of certain glandular functions have been tried in an effort to arrest certain cancer growths. At one'time it was announced that a substance called guanazolo had been found that arrests, but does not kill, cancer growth. “However,” observes the New York Times, “guanazolo has not yet been tried on human beings, and on no other animals except mice. Many more experiments on animals will have to be made before it will become advisable to test it out on human beings, if ever.”

Of all these possible means of treatment the medical profession, including osteopaths, recognize only three methods that are fairly reliable, namely, by cutting the growth out with surgery or burning it out with radium or with X-ray. These methods are 90-percent effective against skin cancer and 50-per-cent efietiAxe in curing cancer oi Vue breast, but against internal cancer (and most cancer is internal) these methods are relatively ineffective. Cancer is not considered cured if it reoccurs within five years- after the treatment ends.

There is a large school of thought which voices the opinion that medical men under the domination of the powerful American Medical Association are not so interested in finding the cause of cancer, and in preventing it altogether, as, they exe,            ww.n

viating the sufferers once they start coming to the doctors for treatment. Emphasis is placed on frequent checkups and “see your doctor often”. Fitz Roy Anderson, of Bar Harbor, Maine, declares: “A cure will never be found so long as hillions of dollars are being made from these ineffective but lucrative methods of treating cancer, so long as millions are being dropped into the lap of research, where to find would be to lose one of the most profitable occupations oi aYl ‘times?'

Admittedly, medical scientists do not know the cause of cancer, and their methods of treating it are far from perfect. In fact, some like Sir Leonard Hill, eminent British scientist, thinks the use of radium should be abolished as a curse, and it should be returned to the ground from which it came, for it kills as many as or more than it cures. But however faulty the standard methods of treatment he, are the so-called “cancer” remedies peddled by many outside the A\tA any more effective ? Is there any scientific proof or evidence that the serums, ointments, mineral waters, radium waters, Indian herbs, religious healing, vibrating buzz-boxes, ouija boards, sweat baths, internal irrigations and dietary fads of the self-made medicine men ever cured a single ease of cancer? Yes, there are plenty of “testimonials” that people were “cured”, but was there biopsy proof that these people had cancer in the W, piactA A person nas a pain. The healer says it is cancer. The pain

goes away. The person is cured d cancer! Simple, isn't it?

Typical of this type of therapy is the case reported by the Herald of Health and Naturopath which occurred in Pittsburgh, Pa., last year, A man and a woman were arrested for operating a phony "<ia?ieer cure” shop in the ba semen t of St. Joseph's Catholic clinreh, run by a "Father” Feldmeier. These people claimed they had not only a simple blood test to diagnose cancer, but also a concoction of whole wheat, yen st, distilled water and salt that would bring relief and lengthen the life of the "cancer” victim, In court it was whown that the blood test was a fake and the "cure” was purely psychological. The expose meant nothing lo the poor ignorant and credulous people that hail "faith” in it. As one woman on the stand sobbed: "So the treatment is only psychology! So what! It helped my husband.” After giving this bit of “scientific testimony”, the hysterical woman had to be carried from the courtroom.

Solution to the Problem

Suffering humanity is confronted by a problem. Longing for good news when assaulted by deadly cancer, they want to believe those who claim to have the cure. And now so many imikedlie claim, so few back it up. It is like the hundreds of religious sects, each claiming to have the way to salvation. Each of the healers swears he has the cure for cancer, and each has his followers that swear by him. The facts prove the majority either failures or racketeers. Some back up their claims, at times. Doubtless none has conquered all cases of cancer brought to him. Who is the distressed and anguished person to believe, when he or a loved one is ufilictcdT

Why can not or will not organized cancer research, with its collected millions, put every one of the claimed cures to careful, supervised test, and establish them as cures or silence once for all the bedlam of clamoring claims! If organized medicine, which claims methods outside its sphere are quackery, could so silence these various voices it would prove its position and render great service in exposing those it dubs quacks; but if these other methods are not, all quackery organized medicine might learn something and progress toward a cancer cure. It would not cost medicine much to do this, only a fraction of the 75 percent of funds collected for cancer research that is never used therefor. Its 25 percent used for its own researtdieH need not be touched, but only some of the bulk of money that sticks to selfish fingers.

In this controversy, some side with organized medicine and brand anything outside its pale as quackery. Others, aware of AMA delinquencies, unjustly condemn physicians and surgeons and champion other healing arts just because such henlera oppose A MA and use more natural methods. Doubtless neither of these extremist views is correct

Looking at the wild picture of cancer as a whole it is very plain to see that the miracle men of science and medicine in all of their wisdom, as well as the multitude of quacks in all of their ignorance, have failed to check the rising tide of killing diseases like cancer. Such pestilences constitute a visible sign, marking the time when this present evil world of sin and death under the rule of the Devil will shortly pass away as foretold. (Matthew 24:7; Luke 21:11) It is also a sign that God’s righteous and perfect Kingdom rule will shortly be extended throughout this earth, replacing every evil and wicked thing, removing all pollution of the air and providing a perfect balance of life-giving food. Then body cells will never run wild in cancerous growths that men cannot cure.

Hence in answer to the question, Can cancer he cured? Yes, Jehovah God can, and will!

fate Sam inJ^ueAia^ea/

Puerto Rico Today,1950

Dear Folks,

How full ib the life of a Jehovah’s witness missionary! How educational are the experiences! How interesting the new contacts and thrilling the joys of aiding the Lord’s sheep into the fold! Here from the battlefront of this great war against error we don’t care to he selfish, but are anxious to pass on to you and share with you what we see, hear and learn. Would that you too could be here; hut I’ll do the next best thing and tell yon about it.

You already know that this island is delightful; that the climate is balmy; that the graceful palm invites one to sit in its shade on the white beach and gaze at the white surf bursting out of an expanse of blue ocean; that the mountains are covered with tropical vegetation of palms and ferns as large as trees; that Irere grow coffee, sugar, bananas, oranges, pineapples, and tobacco; and that many of the country folk live in little huts made of palm branches, with the good earth for their floor. We enjoy all the beauty that Jehovah has bestowed upon this “paradise isle”, as it is rightly called, and there is much to tell; but there is another angle to the life here which we are privileged to enjoy, and that is what I am going to tell you about.

As we go from house to house these exceptionally hospitable people invite us in to hear our message. What an opportunity to become acquainted and ex-JUNE 22, 1950

change ideas’. The North Americans have many superstitions, such as the horseshoe and the rabbit foot and fear of the black cat and walking under ladders. So, here too we learn of customs new and interesting. The majority are of Spanish origin, for, after all, Spain is Puerto Rico’s.political and religious mother.

On November 19,1493, Columbus planted the cross on the western coast of Puerto Rico, and in 1508 Ponce de Leon brought with him priests to baptize the Indians and make Roman Catholics > of them. The Spaniards brought in Cuban prisoners and Chinese slaves from the Philippines to build the mountain roads, one of which required over thirty years. Then came the Negroes, and lastly came the North American to add his ideas. This Indian-Spanish-Cuban-Chinese-Negro-North American mixture of races gave birth to a conglomeration of quaint customs, superstitions and religious practices.

Early colonmevs of Hispanic America, when founding a town, would place it under the “protection” of a patron saint or holy object. Every town celebrates the feast day of its saint with much ceremony. There are games, horse races, cockfights, and special religious ceremonies. With much booming and banging, fireworks are set off to remind the townsfolk of the occasion and to call them to the public square, the plaza. Almost all towns follow the same pattern, having the Catholic church in the plaza, which is always in the center of town. Thus the church is the center of attraction. Each church has a statue of the guardian saint assigned to the town. On this special day the saint, perhaps the “virgin” in this particular town, is given a special treat.

The statue is taken from its place and honored by being paraded around the town, accompanied by chanting priests in all the frills and lace, a choir, religions groups and a throng of worshipers. Around the plaza she is carried and back to the church, where she is welcomed as though it were her first arrival. There follows more ceremony, a dousing of “holy" water, and back she goes to her shelf to await her next hig day, a year later. On these special 'holy days the church's setting is a maze of carnival paraphernalia, the major part lieing gambling devices of every imaginable type. It is all a noisy affair which eon tinucs for wecky, with rmisir loudly amplified to the milling crowd,

Christ is also remembered—that is, at least His birth and death. The native musicians in the country and in the cities begin weeks in advance announcing that the time to celebrate Christ's birthday is near. In little groups of from two to *ix, with home-made instruments to make rhythm, they go from house to house caroling. In their aguinahfus (improvised carols) they ask for gifts in exchange for the blessing they ask to be brought upon the householder, along with the familiar story of the infant Jesus, the cradle at Bethlehem, and the shepherds and the three kings.

Santa isn't popular here. The children gather grass and put it in a box under their beds as food for the camels of the three kings (the three wise men) who come during the night and leave them gifts on JamiHry 6. At least this tale has some mention of the Bible story, while Santa Claus has not. But many are the sad little voices who ask, “Mama, why didn’t the kings stop at our house last night?”- for here poverty abounds.

If you were to come here on the anniversary of Christ's death you could attend His funeral. Yes, a real funeral. It starts from the church and ends there, as the dolls have to all be put back in their places when the sham is over. A statue of Chriat is carried in a coffin and one of Mary held high leading the mourn-era. Eerie, sorrowful music from a few instruments accompanies the procession and a warms of people follow. Little children arc heard to explain, "Murti Dios ' (“God died”). The whole interiors of the churches are draped in black; al) the saints are covered with black, also the altars; all 13 sorrow for the death of “God”, How can Jehovah be patient ho long!

A good lesson can be learned from the common funerals here. Instead of prolonging I he grief the corpse is buried the name day, or the following day if death took place in the evening, and then it is done simply, without clergyman, without the expense of embalming. The family and kind neighbors simply carry the dead to the cemetery, where one or several may speak a few words of the good deeds of the dead onfc and words of comfort, and thus he ii humbly put to rest without fuss, without a clergyman's straining himself in doleful tones to produce oven more tears. It is common to see a group of five or six people carrying a home-made casket decorated lovingly in crepe paper, I have seen one lout* man walking down the middle of the street (.arrying a tiny casket on his head. Of course, if you can pay for it you can have a fnneral with pomp, hundreds of dollars* worth of flower?, police escort, an array of priests, and tufting of the church iieii at a certain price per toll. Puerta Rw&tfs are quickly adjusted to sorrows, with a "God’s will be done” attitude. To any plans or desires voiced are added the words St Dios quiere (if God wishes). Still, God is bargained with in their promesas _f or promises.

AefifliacM Promise*

From somewhere out at the religions mate of the past come these promises. The Catholic Church docs not care to accept the credit for it, and even nonCatholies practice it. It is believed that God can be induced or softened into do

ing something for the good of the one promising or for the benefit of someone else if the promiser agrees to. endure a certain self-sacrificing or self-chastising. Many promises are made in-desperation as, “O God, don’t let me die of this sickness and I’ll wear a white promise dress for six months.” Any time on the street one will see many women in promise dresses with high necks, long sleeves and of solid colors, brown, white, or purple. The color of the dress and small yarn helt is according to the saint by which one chooses to swear. The hair should be plainly arranged, and no cosmetics used. What an admission of vanity this type of sacrifice!

Perhaps one has some plan for the future and wants to be sure.it is carried out successfully. A promise is then made that if God will perform what the petitioner desires, the one entreating will fulfill his part. Some people promise to give money to a hospital or a needy institution. Others give money to beggars, agreeing they will give money to every beggar they meet for a certain number' of days. Some deny themselves sweets or certain amusements. One man, feeling guilty of a certain sin, promised God that he would give two dollars to the very next person in need he met. Whom should he meet but me, going from house to house! Seeing that he was the one really in need, I supplied him with his two dollars’ worth of eye-opening Bible literature.

Some burn candles before saints that are in the churches or they may do it at home before their pictures of saints. The saints are also offered bread, water and even rum. In some of the poorer homes I have seen many walls literally covered with these religious pictures, about fifty. During the war some mothers wore sackcloth dresses to induce God to keep their soldier boys safe. There is a certain church that has a tiring numher of steep steps to its door. It is a practice to make a promise to go to this town and go up the steps on one’s knees. One woman in this town went even further. She started from her own home on her knees before she ever began to climb up the steps. Many times one with a sad face will approach us on the street carrying a picture of a saint and will ask for money in the name of the saint to carry out a promise made to this same saint. Of course, the offering is carried off to the church and presented there.

Statu? Worship

One day .I was in a little store when a most peculiar little parade passed. In all these demonstrations the traffic just has to wait. First went the priest chanting in full ceremony with a small group of women dressed in white singing their echo each time the priest paused. Next followed a group of little girls in fluffy costumes as winged angels. Then followed the object of all this attention, all this honor. Two jnen carried between them on poles a little platform, and on this platform was a little decorated shelter about a foot high. And standing under this little roof, held up by four small posts, gloriously rode—who? Why San Antonio! Like any other doll he was dressed up in a priest-style long brown dress.

Following this little image were its admirers, the good folk of this little settlement. A s the show passed, men carrying large decorated, baskets harried iw wwd out of the stores and among the bystanders to heg for money, which was tossed into the baskets in the name of the little saint. I asked for information, and my friends gladly told me the story and laughingly ridiculed it. Shortly, the procession returned, and these.very people tossed in fifty cents apiece when the baskets were passed to them.

This little image has had a hard time. It ouce held the prominent place in its church. But new priests came and a new church was built. The uew one being larger and with a more spacious altar, poor

little San Airtone looted lust tod tiny. A newer and larger stanie must replace him. It was done j eo, out with the. lit tie one! This caused an uproar and a division in the popnlation. Those who would not accept the new ruler were left super-stitiously clinging to little San Antone, They built a miniature chapel to hopee him. To satisfy hiw ego and theirs, and to make it right with the heavens, a promise was made to display him once a year in a procession with all the pomp. But what to do for a chanting to lead the parade since the new priest swore 1 >y his new church and the new Big San Antonio? The worshipers of Little San Antonio acquired the services of the Episcopal priest, mind you, to officiate in the parade!                .

All this, and still Catholics deny that their saints arc worshiped directly.

Common SupentUloru

The American horseshoe nailed over the*door to bring god3 luck to the home here finds its equal in the piedras imdn (loadstone). This special stone is bought in the market. One must have two, a male and a female! When they have children, then comes the “luck and fortune and a prosperous and happy home”. The porous stones are placed in a jar of water to “drink" and afterward placed in a container with scraps of iron shavings, copper, silver, mercury, corah incense, myrrh and wheat Hour, This is called "food", for, after all, the stones must eat, and in this process of eating the particles of minerals cling to the stones. When put back into the water, which is continually added to, -they will in time raise "children”, for that is what they call the little formations of scraps of minerals which fall to the bottom of the jar. Great powers are attributed to these my stio stones.

Most common of all is to see glasses of water standing on the sills above the doors and windows. This stops the evil Influences in the air from entering the house. As it passes through the water the air is cleansed. Often a piece of broad is nailed up or lies beside the glass of water to insure the (laily bread’s arrival at the home. And, by the way, have you ever tried throwing a little sugar into the fire to. encourage a happy atmosphere? Or, have you tried using a horribly nauseating incense to drive out the demons from your house, in case you are having difficulties! Many times someone will answer our knock on his door by peering out from under an assortment of green leaves across the foreheadand fiehl in place with a rag tied around the head. This is great for headaches. Another kind of leaves rubbed on the floor during the process of washing them is not only antiseptic but discourages the demons. Often a tiny little black stone is pinned on babies’ dresses, or worn on a little bracelet ftronnd the wrist. To it is at-'trihuiwl »nne mysterious power that protects the child and brings it good.

Isn’t it all interesting? But even more interesting is to study the Bible in these homes, and watch the glasses of water disappear, and the pictures and statues of virgins leave one by one, or all in one grand sweep. Yes, it is thrilling to hear the comments and see the expression of understanding and gratitude as they drink in the truths which free them from the bondage of religious superstitions. IIow expressively they then tell others of the Kingdom bopel And now, don’t you agree that we have a grand privilege here in Puerto Rico, the "paradise isle"?

With you preaching the Word, A Ghatefxtl Missionary

44/CONSIDER the lilies erf the field, Vj how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” Thus the wise and*perfect man, Christ Jesus, called attention to how God had clothed the earth in a vegetation of wonderful and spectacular beauty. (Matthew 6: 28, 29) Go to the ends of the earth, scale the mountain heights, search the depths of caves, even explore your own backyard; everywhere, over hill and dale, in green meadows, in black forests and along bleached and desolate beaches, in dripping caverns and on sun-dried deserts, from the frigid tundra of the Arctic to the steaming jungle of the tropics— everywhere, there is plant life aplenty! Also, there is plenty of romance and adventure in the study of botany, a study that is as fascinating and thrilling as it is inexhaustible.

So vast is plant creation that man, after being on this earth for thousands of years, has failed to make acquaintance with them all. Up to now man knows something of the forms, habits and uses of 135,000 flowering plants (trees, herbs, grains, etc.); 110,000 algae and fungi (including molds, blights, yeasts, bacteria); 4,500 ferns; 3,000 mosses. All together, dver 266,000 distinct species have been classified, plus many thousands of subspecies, varieties and hybrids. Year after year man adds many new names to his plant catalogues; daily he learns new things about old acquaintances.

The field of botanical study is therefore not simply vast, it is practically limitless,—in this respect transcending the natural powers of man, which arc small. Therefore, while every schoolboy can grasp the salient facts in that organized knowledge of plants which we call the Science of Botany, no one person can actually master .any more than a limited portion thereof, especially if he has the ambition to know it sufficiently well to aid in expanding the bounds of our knowledge.—The Living Plant, by Wm. F. Ganong.

A few beautiful flowers have been tamed for man's gardens and greenhouses, but countless thousands of wild flowers mingle their rich colors with earth’s green mantle to form a symphony of beauty one never tires of seeing. So great is this variety in plant life that the traveler from continent to continent, or from one part of a country to another, has a new and exciting panorama of splendor continually unfolded before his eyes. Florida has its palmettos and mangroves; Southern states have their bald cypresses covered, with Spanish moss; the Southwest has its cactuses and Joshua trees; California, its redwoods; the Northwest, its Douglas firs. Scotland has its heather; Ireland, its shamrock; the Netherlands, its tulips.

A remnant of the famous cedars of Lebanon still stands on those ancient hills, while on the sunny hillsides of Spain, Corsica, Sardinia and Morocco are found the world's finest cork forests. New Zealand has giant kauri trees; its neighbor, Australia, the huge eucalyptus trees. In the Orient are camphor trees; in the Malay Archipelago are plantations of rubber trees. The East Indian banyan tree props up its branches by sending down aerial rants, and thus expands until a thousand people can be

sheltered under a single tree. In Africa grp vs the baobab trees, some of which are SO feet in diameter But to see majestic greatness at ita greatest, or to see all-OUt massive bigness at its biggest, one must visit the Sierra Nevada mountains in California where the sequoias, or Big Trees, grow, the oldest of all living tilings on earth!

And which is the most beautiful of all trees when in bloom! This if a debatable question. Some say the Lady Amherst of Ceylon, with its two-foot rlualers of flowers which hang down like orchids. Other people think the spectacular clusters of the (laiue-of-tlie-woods found in West Africa are just as beautiful. If it conics to a beauty contest, no doubt there are many trees that might enter the race.

Variety of Species

Among the species of each family of plants there is rar greater variety, both in design and in living conditions, than most people think. Feme, for example, are usually considered rather delicate plants found only in shady, damp forests. Yet there are ferns in New Zealand the size of large trees. Other ferns grow better in open fields than in the shade, and some are especially adapted for the dry desert, where they curl up their leaves when it is dry, and unroll them when it rains. There is a species of dwarf corn raised in the Canary islands that is also a great resister to drought. Unlike Kansas* 12-foot stalks, this variety is only 2 feet high when mailin'.

Alayhc you can name a half dozen different fig trees, hut do you know that around the world there are over 700 species! One species grows until its circumference at the base id nine feet. The Himalayan giant, a peculiar free that bears its fruit all over its branches and trunk and even at the base of the tree, produces figs that arc sometimes 4 inches in diameter!

Doing better, maybe you ran name a dozen or two of the common grasses, including the sedges and rushes. However, there are nearly 1*000 graaaes in the world that have already been given common naffifta ThefiH cover the itakedneas of the prairie and countryside, giving freshneaa and life and beauty, furnishing green pastures for livestock in the summer, providing hay for the winter, carpeting city parks and patches of ground around the homes of the people with ornamental lawns, and making possible grass-cushioned golf courses.

The Loiter Members of Plant Society

Man’s clearance of land for cultivation, the burning off of ihL woodlands by forest fires, and changes in climatic conditions, have altered to a large extent earth's vegetation over the centuries. About the only places that escaped these changes are the hundreds of thousands of miles of seashores where the vegetation is probably the same today as it was more than 4,000 years ago when the terrible inundating Hood of Noah’s dny left the bounds of the seas at approximately their present lovcle. Along these shores there is a great variety of flora. Sotue plards grow only at the highest watermark on the beach; others are found near the low-tide mark; still others require constant immersion in the salty water. Those requiring little light may he found on the floor of the ocean, 150 feet down. Seaweeds, of which there arc many, are divided into three general types: green, brown and red. They do not have roots, but are aided in absorbing their food by the moving tides.

Enter the estuaries and bays, follow up the rivers and fit reams, and as the water gradually becomes fresher the flora also changes. Fresh-water lakes support many types of plant life. Swamps are green with teeming thousands of different species of algae.

In the deep woods non-green plants like mushrooms and toadstools and various fungi each bring forth after their kind. They rely ou the chlorophyll plants to manufacture their necessary foods. Grain rusts, mildews, dry rots and vari

ous molds, of which there are thousands, are really plants that cause disease in other plants or live off decomposing compounds thrown off by other organisms. Bacteria also, though they are so small they can be viewed only by the aid of the microscope, are plants that live as parasites and saprophytes off plants and animals. They, and not “weeds”, are the real rogues of plantdom. No, a “weed”, according to the great botanist Bailey, is only “a plant out of place”.

Plants of the Desert

An oasis in a parched desert ! What a sight to saud-weary eyes! But an oasis is not the only place in the desert where plant life is found. Traveling over the barren sand dunes oft Algeria one may suddenly come upon a solitary oleander bush miles away from another plant. The retama bush found in Morocco wastelands around' Mogador takes very little moisture to quench its thirst and is particularly valued for its ability to bind drifting sands. In these respects it is very similar to the sagebrush found on the arid 'western plains of the United States. The argan tree of Morocco is also capable of enduring long dry spells, and because its foliage affords forage for goats, sheep and cattle through the long dry season it is highly prized. A strange thing about this tree: it takes three human generations of time to develop to where it is of value for stock feed.

Perhaps you have wondered why the cactus is such an enduring fellow in the face of the desert’s scorching heat. For one thing, it has a tough hide that serves as insulation against loss of moisture; also its “leaves” are so designed that there is no evaporation through them. The chlorophyll necessary for the plant’s life, and which is found in the leaves of other plants, is transferred to the trunk of the cactus. Sueh marvelous construction makes possible the retention of great amounts of water. In fact, the bulk of the Arizona tree cactus is nine-tenths water. Almost unbelievable, in the driest season this huge cactus tree retains hundreds of gallons of water weighing as much as three or four tons!

Riotous Jungle Growth

In his book, Exploring for Plants, David Fairchild says that between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer are found not only “the vast majority of the insects, most of the strange and dangerous and exciting quadrupeds, all of the great and most of the poisonous snakes and large lizards, most of the brilliantly colored sea fishes, and the strangest and most gorgeously plumaged of the birds”, but also “the majority of all the plant species”. Consequently, he concludes, the person who has never visited the tropics has really lived only “on the fringe of the world”.

In the temperate zones the forests are rather open and free of underbrush, and the same type of trees meets the eye, but in the tropical jungles there is a tangled mass of vegetation, with as many as 200 species of trees in a single acre, with nothing labeled. Indeed a riotous growth of vegetation! You who have gone fishing with a bamboo pole would feel like a June bug in tall grass if suddenly you found yourself in a forest of tremendous bamboos, each over a foot in diameter at the base and reaching upward to the height of a 10- or 12-story building. Altogether different, other species of bamboo are eaten by Chinese and Japanese.

Members of the palm tree family also offer many varieties. Some are date palms; some are coconut palms. Most coconut palms produce woody husks on the nuts; other have a crisp edible husk that tastes like raw turnips. The Moluc-can rattan palm shoots up to a height of 60 feet in a matter of six and a half years, hut the mysterious “Coco de Mer” palm, first found in 1743, grows so slow it takes 30 years before it blooms, and then it takes another 10 years for the nuts to mature and ripen. And what nuts! Forty pounds each!

From Jungle to Alpine

Leaving the Torrid zone of tea, coffee and rubber gardens, the jungleland of intertwining aerial roots and delicate orchids, and traveling north or south toward the polar regions, one observes that the plants gradually become smaller and more sparse, until finally the desolate, treeless land of the midnight sun is reached. Though treeless the northland is not entirely nude of vegetation. More grows there than reindeer moss and lichens. In fact, one botanist lists 84 species of Arctic plants, 61 of which are found far north of the Arctic circle. Usually perennials, of low stature, having abnormally large roots with small shoots, these rugged individuals of the polar regions are similar to the flora found high in the Swiss Alps and other alpine regions of the earth. And it is this similarity that led to a very remarkable discovery.

Climb a high mountain the base of which is near sea level, and you will pass through the same zones of vegetation as if you were traveling northward, only al an astounding rate of speed. Every 10-foot increase in altitude is equal to a lateral advance of 6 miles. Hence, persons climbing 5,000 feet in five hours’ time will see as great a change in the plant growth as if they traveled 3,000 miles to the north—a change equivalent to that experienced if traveling 600 miles per hour on the level J Going up such a mountain in the northeastern part of the United States one passes through the zones of hickory, elm, beech, maple, oak, ash and hemlock, into the dark forests of spruce, fir and pine, emerging then into the light scrub oaks and dwarf pines. Up there, sharing their beauty with the bare rocks, the trees are widely spaced, wind-swept and stunted. Above the timber line only the alpine herbage grows. On the highest pinnacle, and clinging so tightly to the face of the weather-beaten rock that they look like gray, black or

24

brown patches of paint, one finds those peculiar plants called lichens.

Whether struggling up such a .mountain or leisure!;⁷ traveling on the level, one observes that the zones of vegetation overlap and in many places there seem to be zones of tension, especially between the woodlands and grasslands. Over the centuries the grasses, with the aid of man and fire, have gradually eaten their way into the woodlands. A grass fire at the fringe of a forest first kills off the trees, and then the following wet season new⁷ grass takes over the conquered territory. Contrary to this spirit of competition, the principle of partnership also makes itself manifest among many plants. Vines and creepers wrap their loving arms aromjd bigger and stronger neighbors, or tenaciously clasp hands with other plants. Mistletoe, aerial orchids and certain mosses make themselves at home with the monkeys in the treetops.

Here then, is a brief sketch of the many garments of vegetation with which the earth clothes itself. "Consider again the lilies,’ and not only the lilies but the thousands of other forms of plant creation. Each is a marvel of workmanship in design and construction; each is a wonderment in the way it develops, reproduces and flourishes. Not only docs vegetation make it possible for man and beast, fish and fowl, to live here on earth, but, over and above providing for the bare necessities of life, much of the plant life makes man’s senses of pleasure tingle with joy and happiness.

Sane and sober men and women, therefore, break forth with a song of gratitude and thanksgiving as they bless and praise the great Jehovah God, the Creator of all these wonderful things. With minds filled with keen anticipation these worshipers of Jehovah look forward to the time when the whole earth will flourish as one globe-encircling garden of pleasure, even as the Lord from the beginning purposed it should he.

AWAKE!

Joseph and His Good-Will Brothers

EVERT child that has attended Sunday school has heard something about Joseph and hip brothers. The religious teachers have had much to say about that “Bible story’’, as they call it; but they have understood nothing of its great importance. They have looked upon it as merely' a historical event. Actually, God used Joseph and his ten half brothers to make a wonderful picture prophetically showing the relationship today between the “great multitude" of good-will people and the Lord Jesus Christ. But no one could understand its full significance until God’s due time, and then only if they' were devoted to Him.

The Bible account appears at Genesis, chapters 37-49 inclusive. In that prophetic drama Jacob the father played the part representing Jehovah God; Rachel his wife, the part picturing God's organization ; Joseph, the part of Christ Jesus: and Joseph, together with Benjamin, portrayed the “royal house” of God, otherwise known as the “body of Christ”, or Zion; while Joseph’s ten half brothers pictured those persons in the religious organizations who at first envy and ill-treat the faithful followers of Christ, and who later have a change of heart. These form the multitude of good-will persons who, upon learning the truth, gladly devote themselves to the Lord. —Revelation 7: 9,10.

The Bible record, in brief, is this: Joseph as a shepherd boy was sent by his father Jacob to ascertain the condition of the flocks which Joseph’s half brothers were attending. Joseph thus pictured Christ Jesus, the Son of Jehovah God, who was sent to earth to look after the interest of the flock that had strayed away from the Lord. Joseph’s half brothers hated him and conspired to kill him. Likewise, when Jesus came to earth the Devil put it into the minds of the religious leaders to get rid of Jesus by killing Him. Secretly plotting among themselves, Joseph’s half brothers sold Joseph into slavery and he ■was carried away to Egypt. There, in due time, he became ruler over all Egypt and was next to Pharaoh himself in authority⁷.

A great famine came upon the world, but throughout the land of Egy⁷pt there was bread, due to Joseph’s having bought and stored up corn for seven years beforehand. This part of the prophetic picture has had fulfillment particularly since World War I, even as foretold by the prophet Amos. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Loiw.”—Amos 8:11.

This famine for want of the understanding of God’s Word, due to the unfaithfulness of the religious organizations, has now spread over all the world, but among God's faithful people there is an abundance of spiritual food, “meat in due season.” (Matthew 24: 415-47) This is proof of the strongest kind that the fulfillment of the prophetic drama enacted in Egypt is now taking place. People of good-will toward God find no spiritual food whatsoever in the religious organizations, and. being hungry and thirsty for righteousness, they seek Christ Jesus

the Greater Joseph and are fed by Him. The impartiality of the Lord Goa to all ia shown by the fact that these come from ^fall nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues' and stand before the throne of the Lord. Concerning these it in written; “They ehall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; . . . For the Lamb [Christ Jesus] whinh is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,”—Revelation 7:9-17.

Because of the famine Jacob sent his sons down into Egypt for food. They were brought before Joseph, but they failed to recognize him. A second time they came to Egypt and a second time they were laden down with food, but this time Joseph's silver cup was concealed in one of their sacks of com. On being intercepted as they were leaving, the oup was found in Benjamin's sack. When dragged buck for trial, Joseph declared that Benjamin would have to become his slave and remain in Egypt-

This decision brought great grief upon the ten half brothers, and Judah, acting as their spokesmen, made hti impassioned speech, pleading in behalf of Benjamin and for his old father Jacob, who dearly loved Benjamin. Judah, in his eloquent and touching plea, said that he would become a slave in Egypt in the place of Benjamin. The fervor with which Judah spoke proved that the ten half brothers were now of good-will towards Jacob and Benjamin, and though they did not recognize Joseph, supposing he was dead, they showed sorrow for the wrong they had done to him. This great test upon them disclosed a complete change of heart and their wDL ingness to moke any possible amends.

And what did ibis test in the prophetic drama foretell 11t plainly identified and foretold a class of persons in our day who at one time were antagonistic to the consecrated spiritual children of God, the brothers of Christ; but who, upon becoming acquainted with the conditions of their own situation, show a deep contrition of heart and a sincere desire to do good toward all. Toward Jehovah God, pictured by Jacob, toward Christ Jesus, pictured by Joseph, and toward all of Jehovah's witnesses on earth.

The time came for Joseph to make himself known to his brothers. No doubt Joseph’s brothers exhibited great fear when they recognized the one whom they had sold into Egypt; and Joseph, seeing this, said: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, . . . for God did send me before you to preserve life.” (Genesis 45; 5) In the fulfillment of this prophetic picture, Jehovah sent Christ Jesus to the world to save those who will believe on Him ns the means of getting life in this famine-etricken world, the One sent “to preserve life". (Jolin 3: 16, 36; 6:35) God has made Christ Jesus, as the rightful ruler of the new world, “The everlasting Father*’ in behalf of all subjects of that kingdom. His kingdom, therefore, is the hope of all mon of good, will, and in Hia name shall the good-will persons of all nations hop*? .—Isaiah 9:6,7; Matthew 12: 21.

The subsequent dealings of Joseph and his ten half brothers with the Egyptians disclose the great responsibilities and requirements that are laid upon the good-will multitude at the preswil time. They must be fully and wholly consecrated to the Lord and must render themselves in full obedience to His commandments and joyfully engage in His service. They must bear the life-giving message of truth to the people of this spiritually hungry world, the anti typical Egypt, to the end that those who uro now in the world and who so desire inav learn the way of life and flee to the place of safety and preservation. There are yet many others of good-will toward God whom the Greater Joseph Mill gather and preserve through the threatening battle of Armageddon.

Sweden Thinking About Hell-Fire

By "Awaka!” correapondant In Sweden

JUST before the close of the 1949 fall session of Parliament in Sweden a bill was passed whereby the salaries of the state church priests were increased. This meant an extra ten million kroner for the taxpayers to supply every year. And, although the government pointed out that the clergy had had no increase in their salaries to make up for the lowered value of our currency since the beginning of the thirties, there came a lot of protests, and quite vehement discussions took place in the press and elsewhere. The government’s attitude toward increase of wages for other categories being very negative, as they do not want to lift the ceiling prices for most goods and commodities, and, consequently, must keep wages down also, many were asking what the priests had done that would justify their getting such a benefit at a time when taxes have rocketed sky high.

Others asked of what use the church and her priests really are to society, and they began to concern themselves somewhat more closely about the teachings of the church. It was then found that the church is still holding to the teaching from the Middle Ages that there is a hell of eternal fire for unbaptized children as well as for the great majority of people. “Are ninety-seven percent of our people to pay taxes toward this institution?” one newspaper asked. “How much spiritual darkness has not grown up out of this cruel teaching? How much of human suffering, how much distress of mind during a short earthly pilgrimage has it not been causing? How long will this evil game be allowed to go on?”

One of the leading periodicals of the church, Var kyrka, took an eager part in defending the hell dogma, hut stated (No. 49,1949) that “no one will go to hell who does not in the depth of his being desire to go there". To that some remarked that probably no one who has JUNE 22, 1950

had his senses has ever been wanting to go to hell! “When some are frankly declaring that there is ncfhell in existence, one wonders how they have been able to acquire that interesting knowledge,” the periodical stated, sarcastically.

.The problem has recently been taken up without prejudice by an author, Morten Grindal by name, who wrote the book The Church's Hell and That of Dictatorships, wherein it was pointed out how the church’s policy of scaring resembles that of the Nazis, The author holds that there is the same hatred and desire for power behind the doctrine of hell-fire as there is behind the attempts at dictatorship. The persecutions against people who disagree, the many ruthless religious wars, and the extermination of millions of innocent men have had their roots in the worship of a God who is supposed to have prepared, since He created the world, a place of fire and brimstone where more than ninety percent of all men are to spend eternity in conscious torment.

Grindal knows that the truths of Christianity were taken away and heathen superstitions substituted therefor in the fourth century A.D.: “In reality the council at Niceae in 325 was one of the greatest frauds committed in this world. There the work of the great Master was distorted in its very essence. Even to this day the world is suffering under the church’s imperious command. Out of this false seed there must of necessity grow up much wickedness . .. The church was to become one of the greatest murderers in history.”—Pages 128,129.

Another Swedish author and liberal champion, Dr, Alf Ahlberg, wrote: “If the church does not do everything within her power to fight war in all its forms, she is making herself party to the crime of shedding all the blood that has been spilled in the earth since righteous Abel to the red cataracts of the last World

War.” But many are protesting that it is already too late. The damage is beyond repair. A Stockholm daily wrote: “The hell doctrine is nothing but sheer absurdity. Instead of discussing increased salaries to these hell preachers, the government ought to dismiss them or at least so arrange that the rest of hs would not have to pay taxes toward the spreading of such madness.”

Sweden is professedly a Lutheran country, but Luther’s teachings were long ago forgotten. Some writers have proved that there never existed any creeds in the days of the early Christians, nor were such recommended by Luther, who said to the contrary: “Each one must be sure for himself that his belief is correct. In this matter no one must be forced.” But the clergy of the state church are forced to preach according to the Athanasian Creed and the Augshurgian Confession. In the first-named creed it is stated that he who does not worship a God in three persons must be condemned to eternal torment. And the Augsburgian Confession states that it is absolutely essential to have been baptized as a child in order to escape hell-fire.

It is not strange that thinking people are now beginning to ask whether it be right that men must support a church which is in this way keeping souls bound, in thraldom. The aforementioned author, Morten Grindal, whose book has become much spoken of and discussed, reckons that the time has come for humankind to rid themselves of the barbarian hell doctrine and of those who are teaching it, contrary to the commandment of love. The Nazi terror was terrible, but, writes he (on page 190), “Hitler and all the totalitarian tormentors and wholesale murderers were charitably humanitarians when compared to a single hellfire preacher. The unfortunate victims of Hitler did at least not have to pay salaries to their tormentors, but the religious leaders are exacting both salaries and collections from those whom they are keeping in bondage with the aid of the doctrines which they teach, doctrines that are both dishonoring to God and he reaving men of their common sense.”

Truth, in general, has become unpopular. Only when there is a possibility of personal advantage do the majority of humankind show any concern for it. At other times it lies discarded, a forgotten virtue. How refreshing it is, then, to find an advocate of truth, one that will hold truth high despite the sneers or taunts of lying men! Such an advocate is the book ‘‘Let God Be True'". Beyond contradiction it confirms the truthfulness of God’s Word and shares in maintaining the" light of truth above the dark counsels of this world. A copy may be had for only 35c. If you favor truth, send today for your copy of "Let God Be True”.

1 wish to obtain a copy of “Let God Be True”. Please send me one for the 35c which is enclosed.

Jilame.....................-............................       Street..................................................................................

City........._......................................................................... Zone No. -------- State ...................................................

28                                         AWAKE !

U. N. Official Ooes to Moscow

<§> U. N. secretary general Trygve Lie went to Moscow. (5/11) to confer with top Russian officials abont his proposal to summon meetings' of the Security Council in which the nations would be represented by their foreign ministers or others of high rank. On May 13 he outlined his proposals to Soviet foreign minister Vish Insky and to Andrei Gromyko, deputy foreign minister. On May 15 he had a 90-minute conference with Stalin.

War Possibilities

The first half of May saw varied opinions regarding the possibility of war. The director of the U. N. World Health Organization declared that the nations must either cooperate or perish. The U. S. Defense and State Departments decided that at most there are about fonr years to build strength for defense against Russia. President Truinan expressed a contrasting view. He said (5/5) that he sees no alarming possibility that the cold war will become a shooting war, and he even promised to reduce the defense budget next year.

May Day Around the World

& The two gigantic demonstrations in Berlin oa May Day did not produce the anticipated violence, although a half million persons participated in an anticommunist meeting In the British sector, and other hundreds of thousands in the Russian sector hailed communism. The daywas marked with pomp in Warsaw, where 750,000 inarched. In Sofia, Bulgaria, a quarter million persons participated in the celebration. Twelve were killed in a May Day riot in South Africa. In Brussels 300 steel-helmeted policemen with bayonets prevented the socialist demonstration. lu Belgrade the Yugoslavs put on a four-hour parade lam-iwoning Rnssin. New York city saw the shortest left-wing parade in years, but in Moscow more than a million civilians witnessed the biggest demonstration of Soviet air might in history.

Truman's Tour

<$> President Trnman claimed (5/7) that his 6,400-miIe inspection tour of the Northwest was “nonpolltical”. In the more than 50 talks that he made in 16 states he said that he will not be scared by anybody who calls his Fair Deal socialism ; that ho wants to balance the national budget, but will nat do so ,at the cost of national security or progress; that the. Brannan plan to subsidize formers is in the farmer’s and consumer's interest; that the New Deal and Fair Deal have been the “salvation of private business” ; that under free enterprise the country is doing well; and that natural resources should be used to the people’s benefit and nnt exploited by the greed of a privileged few. Republicans called the trip a “quarter-milllon-dollar junket” by our “commuting pres-, ident”, and contended that it was definitely a political tour.

The tour was climaxed (5/15) when a dazzling parade in Chicago, lit by 2,000 torches and marching to dozens of bands, was followed by Truman’s request for the removal of “some of the worst obstructionists” in Congress who defeated repeal of the Taft-Hartley labor law and prevented the enactment of the Brannan agricultural plan and compulsory health Insurance.

U, S. Strikes

The 100-day Chrysler strike, one of the most costly in U. S. history, ended May 4. Its cost to the company, dealers, workers and suppliers is expected to exceed the $1,450,000,000 cost of the General Motors strike in 1945-48. No increase in pay was granted, but the strikers won a pension for retired workers.

The six-day strike against several major railroads began May 10. Firemen on the New York Central, Pennsylvania, Southern, Atchison Topeka and Santp Fe, and Union Pacific struck in protest to railroad refusal to meet their demands for two firemen on diesel engines, one to tend the engines and the other to stay in the cab with the engineer. The railroads contended that even one fireman has little to do but help the engineer watch dials and track signals, because the diesel engines require little attention.

Communist Jailed for Contempt <§> Secretary general af the Communist party of America, Eugene Dennis, who was found guilty of contempt of Congress after he refused to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, began serving his one-year sentence May 12. His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court.

55,000 Communists In U. S.

<$> Communist party membership iu the U, S. has dropped since the

war from approximately 75,000 or 100,000 members to about 55,000, according to J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Canada Decides Not to Ban Beds

The Canadian Houee of Commons (B/2) debated the best way to prevent the spread of communism, Prime Minister St Laurent felt that the situation was well in hand and expressed disapproval of the ‘'sort of witch hunt’* practiced in the U. S. In Rs anticommunist efforts. They voted against outlawing communism.

Weapon Against Doukhobore

In western Canada members of the Douthobor sect strip nude and burn honsea to protest world conditions and civil authority, but Lt is reported that the police are using a new weapon-—itching powder.

Two Canadian Disasters

<$> A raging fire fanned by winds that reached a velocity of 50 miles an hour whipped over the Quebec town of Rimouskl (5/7) Leveling much of the city, Including the courthouse, jail, convents, schools and hospitals. Two thousand were homeless and many faced a freezing night in army tents that were down in, Hundreds of miles to the west, Canada’s second-largest city, Winnipeg, fled the rampaging Red river. A fleet nf 3.700 cars and trucks and fl emergency trains carried fleeing citizens ont of the city. By May 15 over 80,000 of the city’s 320.000 population had fled, six square miles of the city were under water, and Hie flood’s crest had not yet come.

In ter-American Conference

<$> The Inter-American Conference for Democracy und Freedom, which met (5/13) in Havana, Cuba, will meet every two years and have headquarters Ln Montevideo, Uruguay. It states thot its purposes are to defeod and Strengthen democracy, and that it Is opposed to “communism, to dictators and military governments, and to Generalissimo

30

Francisco Franco of Spain”. A Nicaraguan exile condemned the U. S. “policy of helping dictators in the Americas”. The conference defeated Mexican resolutions requesting that it condemn political action of the Roman Catholic Church in the Americas and approve a statement that North American monopolies are chiefly responsible for the growth of La tin-American tyrannies. The Cuban government denied that it is hacking the conference, hut Cuba's president Socarras sent word that he is in agreement with its purposes. Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela oppose it,

Haitian President Resigns

<£> A Haitian political crisis arose in April when the Senate rejected a proposed constitutional amendment which would have made President Dnmai-sais Esti-m£ eligible to succeed himself. In early May there were demonstrations in and around the government buildings and in the afreets, The cnbinet resigned (5/7) and President Estime’s resignation followed (5/10). His last six months were marked by unrest and attempts to overthrow or assassinate him. An anuy Junta (a council) took over the government aod dissolved Parliament

Foreign Ministers Confer

<♦> London was the scene of the “big three” foreign ministers’ meeting (5/11 to 5/13). Britain was represented by Ernest Bevln, France by Robert Schuman, and the U.S. by Dean Acheson. Mr. Acheson had announced that the London parley was to seek “to accelerate mobilization of the moral and material strength of the free world”. The ministers discussed (1) European economy, including the problem of what to do with Germany, and France’s proposal for German participation in Internationalization of Europe’s steel industry; (2) defease of Europe, which was to be discussed further by the ministers of the twelve Atlantic Pact nations in their meeting scheduled for the following week; and (3) defense of Asia, where the American government agreed to give aid to the Ftench-supported government of Indo-Chlna (n its fight against communist Ho Chi Minh. The foreign ministers stated, that It would not be possible to conclude a final peace with Germany us long ns the Soviet locked its zone behind the Iron Curtain.

Finnish Genera! Strike Averted

<$> Over four thousand Finnish rail engineers demanding Increased old-age pensions struck (5/3), and in retaliation the gov-eronient ordered a draft of train crews for military service, thinking that this would break the strike. The workers ignored the draft, the union declared it illegal, and a general strike throughout the nation was threatened as a protest. The general strike was averted only through a 15-percent iocrease in all union wages, and The rail strike ended (5/8) when the engineers agreed to submit their request for a 30-percent Increase in pensions to Parliament.

Steel-Coal Pool for Europe

A proposal to link the roal and steel production of France, Germany, and oilier European nations waa adopted by the French Cabinet (5/0). It proposes a mutual agreement to equalize Eifm-penn steel prices ond eud the practice of double pricing (charging foreigners higher rate* than domestic users) for steel’s raw materials, a practice that greatly Increases the cost of European steel. Eunqjean experts hailed the*plan. Husein called It a plan for “powerful , , , armament rings”. Prime Minister Attlee pledged “very careful” study of it in a “sympathetic spirit”, uud Secretary of State Acheson said that the plan looked good to him.

Austrian Elections

<$> Election of Lower Austrian burgomasters (mayors), In what were claimed to be the first free inunicipul elections there since

A WAKE!

1029, brought a sweeping defeat (5/7) to the candidates sponsored by the eonupunist occupational authorities- The Communist party received only five percent of the total vote. The vote was called “an almost unprecedented defeat of the communists in an area under Soviet control”.

Polish-Catholic Pact Verified

In u commnniqne signed by all the Polish bishops and read from the pulpits throughout I’o-uLttfr, the hgreeruettt tefcweeti the church and the state that had been announced April 14 was verified. Vatican circles contended that it was merely a “declaration’’ and not a pact or treaty. It is reported that the priests agreed not to encourage or support the guerrilla bands that are opposing the creation of collective farms, aod the government yielded to the bishops’ request that the pdpe be recngnized as the supreme spiritual authority.

Bad Relations Grow Worse

<$> In Czechoslovakia prepartitions for the fifth anniversary of Prague's liberation (5/7) included praise for the Russian army and publication of a picture of the American bombing at Filsen in 1945, calling it “the barbarous American attack”. Shortly thereafter (o/ll) forty of the sixty members of the U. S. Embassy made swift arrangements to leave Czechoslovakia after their safety was threatened. The U. S. retaliated for the second time in three weeks, ordering Czech consulate staffs in the U. S. cut by two-thirds.

The Czechs also ordered the British information offices in Czechoslovakia to close, and in retaliation the Czechs were ordered to close their institute in London and to have their embassy cease its information work.

Where Are the War Prisoner* ?

Russian announcement of the end of repatriation of German war prisoners (5/4) shocked hundreds of thousands of Germans who hoped that missing rel* a fives would be returned. German authorities asserted that 400,000 prisoners are still in Russia, and the German chancellor said that Russia once claimed 3,500,000 German prisoners and had repatriated less than 2,000,-000, and that “therefore the fate of 1,500,000 is still nnclear”.

Complaint was also made (5/10) that the Soviet had not provided an accounting of Japanese prisoners.

Turkish UbwAiwoa

<$> The Turkish ’ People's party that has been in power for 27 years was defeated (5/14) by the Democratic party in a national electinn. Unofficial returns indicated that the Democrats won a majority of more than two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. All parties praised the government for its impartiality in administering the elections, for impartiality is something new in this land that has had a long tradition of military rule.

Pakistan’s Prime

Minister in U. S.

<$■ The prime minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, Visited the U.S. (5/4). He was entertained by President Truman, spoke before Congress, was a guest tn New York, discussed industrial ization of bis country and asked for funds. He declared that the people of Asia are “under the impression” that the U. S. is interested only in the possibility of a Russian war, not in the “peace, of the world”., and requested additional U.S. support for Asia.

Thailand's Ruler Crowned

•$> On a date chosen by rnyal astrologers (5/5), at the moment deemed most auspicious by the chief astrologer, twenty-two-year-old Phumiphon Aduldet crotvned himself King Ramu IX of Thailand (Siam). During the ceremony astroIngers worshiped his guiding stars before au altar of twenty-two candles. Later at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha he paid homage and declared himself defender of the faith.

Separate Peace for Japan?

<S> The Japanese peace treaty came Into the news several times in May. Premier Yoshida favored a peace treaty with the West even if China and Russia would not participate, and over this a no-confidence motion was introduced (5/1) in the Japanese Diet. Yoshida’s action was upheld by a two-to-ooe vote. Eight days later lie said "the United States has virtually entered into a relationship of peace with Japan”, and “Japan also has concluded a trade agreement with Britain and peace is now substantially restored", bnt other countries (presumably Russia and China) “do not want to conclude a treaty with Japan", lienee, lie felt that Japan's interests would be served by making a separate peace agreement with the Western nations.

Australia Plans Modernization

A program costing

is under way in Australia to modernize communications, provide telephones or radio telephones for isolated areas, make television available, and increase mail deliveries to her 8,000,000 penpie. The project was started by the Labor government several months ago, hut it is reported that the conservatives have adopted the program and are hastening it.

Poverty and Hunger,

Vital tauiaa,

<§> At the World Health Organization assembly in Geneva, U. N. secretary general Trygve Lie asserted (5/8) that the "supreme challenge nf the seeood half of the twentieth century” js presented by the 1,600,000,000 pexA pie, more than half of the earth’s population, "whose poverty, hunger and insecurity must be substantially remedied if they are not to result in new and disastrous upheavals.” He stated that this challenge cannot be met “at the snail’s pace of today”,

oA Wealth of Information

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