$100 BILLION AT STAKE!

Public lands in danger

The Next Fifty Years in Aviation

Marvelous foregleams of the future

More Corruption in High Places

Bishop shames State Church

Physical Health by Divine Intervention?

What to believe about faith cures

THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

News Sources that are able to keep you awake to the Vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish interests. “ Awake 1” has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

“Awake 1” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four corners of the earth their uncensored, off-the-scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal’s viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—why, its coverage is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens.

“Awake !’* pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.

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

PUBLISHED BY THE

WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, Inc.

117 Adams Street                                 ^J Brooklyn 1, N- Y., U, 8. A,

J. D. Wright, President                              Grant Suiter, Secretary

Five cents a copy

Published monthly in new York

Committee            to

of considerable money. Being located where we are accepted at Brooklyn from which no office is maintained. By international mail only. F-tihMTiption rfKr'? in            iywaH"* nrf- lipff rtai*il in locni

currency. Journalists and translators with own bank accounts are sent at least two months before subscription ends. Change of address should be sent to our office may be expected effective within one month. Send four weeks advance notice as soon as address changes.

Y Ait of March 3, IRTfl. brimM tn U. S A

CONTENTS

The Most Practical Approach	3	Profits Make Miracles Suspect	20
A Hundred Billion Dollars al Stake!	5	Capitalizing on the
“Too Hot for a Sermon”	8	Mind-Body Relationship	21
The Next Fifty Tears in Avia lion	9	Bebop Trips Translators	24
Caracas Cuts Collisions	12	“Your Word Is Truth”
More Corruption In High Places	13	Physical Health by Divine Intervention?	25
The Brain and Brain Power	16	Jehovah's Witnesses Preach
The Modern Scientist: ‘Illiterate		in All the Earth—Costa Rica	27
and Irresponsible’	18	Do You Know?	28
The Anima] with a Million Mouths	17	Watching the World	29

The Most Practical Approach

rpiIE United Nations organization has X been hailed by many as¹'man’s greatest achievement in international co-operation.’ However, anyone who heard its program "United Nations—On the Record,” which presented a resume of speeches made in the United Nations during 1953, as broadcast over a network of radio stations on January 2, 1954, would find it difficult to become very optimistic about either its past record of international co-operation or the prospects for it in the present year.

Far from co-operation, it is conflict, friction and competition that seem to have been the themes stressed during the past year. Among the voices heard on this program was that of China’s representative, who said that “the question which the General Assembly should consider is not the admission of red China but the expulsion of the Soviet Union.” Russia’s Vishinsky sarcastically dwelt on the subject of peace by referring to America’s pact with Franco’s Fascist Spain, for the building of "bases which have an obvious objective.”

Britain’s Selwyn Lloyd lashed out against those in free nations who would brand every effort at negotiation with Russia as “appeasement.” Iraq’s spokesman complained of the terror and bloodshed in Morocco and Tunisia and asked whether the people in those lands are expected to "sit idly by while their liberties are being strangled.”

Pearson of Canada observed that it was a “sure knowledge that weakness in this world is a temptation and not a protection,” which was not saying much for the United Nations, The narrator then touched on other matters that were discussed by the United Nations during the past year, Chinese troops in Burma, Arab refugees in camps, racial conflicts in Africa, Trieste, etc., after which the newly elected president of the General Assembly, Mme. Pandit, was heard: “We must discover a means of directing our resources and researches of science into peaceful instead of destructive channels. We must learn to co-operate effectively in Safeguarding peace.” Mme. Pandit states that "we must,” but admits that they have failed in the past eight years to discover the way to peace. Eisenhower was heard speaking in a like vein: the “fearful atomic dilemma” must be solved.

Why, in spite of all the time, money and energy spent; why, in spite of all the professional, scientific and propaganda assistance extended to it; why, in spite of its elaborate departmental setups and widespread activity, did the United Nations’ record for 1953 present such a dismal picture?

Ihiplying an answer to this question are the words of the secretary-general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, also heard on this program: “Ultimately peace

can be achieved only as the result of positive development of the attitude of individual men and women toward life and their neighbors. Only in true surrender to the interests of all can we reach that strength and independence, that unity of purpose, that equity of judgment which are necessary if we are to measure up to our duty of the future, as men of a generation to whom the chance was given to build in time a world of peace.”

Mr. Hammarskjold comes close to the truth. Before peace between nations can be expected peace must be inculcated in the individuals of those nations; there must be peace between individuals; there must be unselfish interest in others.

But, pray, who are working at creating or producing in the individual person this positive attitude toward his neighbors? Who are advocating this surrender in the interest of the common good? Do we find this being done by the political leaders? No, for they are preaching nationalism and self-interest. Is it being done by the religious leaders? Not by them either, for they but mirror the prejudices and passions of their political allies while each one of them looks for gain from his own quarter.—Isaiah 55:11.

Then, is it expecting too much of men, this advocating of a positive attitude toward their neighbors and self-surrender in the interest of others? No, it is not, for such things are being practiced on an international scale by the members of the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses. They are practicing ‘loving their neighbors as themselves’ and ‘doing to others as they would have others do to them,’ which is, in fact, what Mr. Hammarskjold is asking for.—Matthew 22:37-39; 7:12, New World Trans.

And how have they been able to accomplish this, the ‘only way to ultimate peace' ? By recognizing the supremacy of Jehovah God, as well as of God’s Word and law. By taking the Bible seriously in spite of all the talk by clergymen that it advocates a camel-train philosophy impractical in this diesel-engined civilization; by recognizing that the principles enunciated in the Bible are timeless and that the same wise God who created man also provided him with a guide that he cannot ignore with impunity.

Yes, the world shakes its head in disappointment and chagrin at the endless and futile debates held under the aegis of the United Nations, and trembles at what the future might bring. But it also shakes its head in amazement at what it sees Jehovah’s witnesses accomplishing behind Iron Curtain countries in spite of bans and bitter persecution, and what it sees them do at their international assemblies, such as the one held in July, 1953, at the Yankee Stadium, New York city, where representatives of ninety-six lands from the four corners of the earth and from many different races dwelt together in peace and unity for eight days.

Jehovah’s witnesses employ and apply the principles taught in the Bible. The United Nations ignores them, being too timid even to give lip service to the Ai-mighty God for fear it may offend some who deny his existence. Judging by the results, whose approach to peace is practical?

“We must regretfully conclude that the Security Council cannot at present be relied upon to cope with any aggression other than a minor one in which the interests of the great powers are not engaged.”—Sir Gladwyn J ebb, recent British representative at the United Nations, March 18, 1954.

who boasts of his generosity and care for his children when at the same time, to fulfill his own ambitious desires, he turns over their wealth, parks and playgrounds to unscrupulous men for private exploitation? Is it not, therefore, shocking to hear that the American taxpayer may have just such a father in the present administration? In its profuse professions of concern for the people, it voices in the same breath its approval of “giving” or transferring to states and private interests some of the people’s most cherished lands for private exploitation. At least, so say the leaders of the opposing party.

' During the heat of the 1952 presidential campaign, the Republican candidate remarked that he would favor transferring public lands to states and private owners. Giant oil, mining, lumber and cattle interests pricked up their ears. They rallied to the support of the Republican campaign. Now, in return for their services (votes), they are ready to collect all the nation has locked up in her federal empire.

Transferring the nation’s natural wealth to states or private owners is no simple problem. But it can be done and is being done. Already the long-disputed offshore oil properties have been transferred from the federal government to several states. Powerful private interests prefer the state or states to control the wealth, because they know that they can more easily dominate a state government than they can a ty, because of the precedent that it established, For example: Plans for the S458,-000,000 public dam in Hell’s Canyon on the Snake River have been withdrawn, paving the way for private owners to take over. Big lumber companies are clamoring for the 56,000 acres of the nation’s most magnificent virgin timber tied up in the Olympic National Park. Cattlemen have bills in

Congress to grant them access to grazing meadows in the national forests. There are pressures from private housing contractors where the boundaries in national parks are not settled; in another location pressure is exerted for the building of dams and reservoirs as a part of a hydroelectric scheme; in others oil and mining interests or the armed services are demanding the right of entry. Each is demanding a share of the profits.

The Coveted Prize: $100 Billion

But just how much does the federal government own that it could possibly sell or give away? “As of April, 1953,” according to Wallace Stegner, “the Federal government owns 458 million acres of the continent proper, and on this land it owns and operates scores of storage and flood-control dams, pumping stations, and power stations. Through a public corporation it owns also the whole vast development of the Tennessee and its tributaries. Through the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other

federal bureau. This oil transfer directly agencies it administers 139 million acres

of national forests, 147 million acres of grazing land, 12 million acres of defense installations, and 9 million acres of Indian reservations. It also owns ninety-five per cent of the total area of Alaska. The acreage in Federal lands in 1951 was twenty-four per cent of the area of the nation; West of the Rockies, about half the land was government-owned.” More than 2,000,000 cattle, 92,000 horses and almost 7,000,000 sheep forage on this land. During 1952 the sale of selected logs from the national forests brought the government $63,722,000; forage fees from the states of Colorado and southern Wyoming, another $1,078,578; and hunting and fishing license fees totaled $4,546,327. On federal property are firs that are higher than a twentystory building, a fortune in fish and wildlife and areas that may be rich in metals and oil. No one accurately knows the value of this land, but when Commissioner Straus had a detailed analysis made, the man who was retained for the job quit when his estimates got above $100 billion, saying that after appraisals got that high they became meaningless. If the federal government can be made to sell or give away some of this public domain, the pickings are going to be lush indeed!

Uncle Sam Is His Own Greatest Landlord

Perhaps by understanding how the federal government acquired this property and why it has placed certain restrictions over it, one will first appreciate why previous administrations were reluctant to expose it to private enterprise. Uncle Sam became his own landlord, not by choice, but quite unintentionally. In fact, at one time he tried to give away all his property but no one would have it.

When foreign governments through the Louisiana purchase, Texas annexation, Mexican cession, the Oregon treaty and the Gadsden purchase relinquished vast territories west of the Mississippi to the United States, title to the vacant and unappropriated land went to the federal government. Uncle Sam became a landowner. The new states that were formed out of such territory received various grants upon admission to the Union, but in all other respects the title to the unappropriated property within their borders remained with the federal government.

Originally these lands in federal ownership embraced two-thirds of the continental area of the United States. The policy of the government was one of disposal. What the nation needed was population and the development of its resources. So the land was free to anyone for the taking. There was no thought of the federal government’s becoming a property owner or an administrator, nor even a custodian. The government merely acted as an agent through whom title to the property could be passed to private hands. Over its entire history, the federal government has disposed of more than a billion acres of the public domain. Its disposal of public lands was at an average rate of seven million acres a year over the past century, but this has not always been fast enough to suit those who think that it should release all its holdings.

At one time all of this property was within reach of private enterprise. Why it is not today, private owners have mainly no one to blame but themselves. In years past they have turned out to be miserable managers of earth’s soil and resources. Grasslands they overgrazed, timber they recklessly turned into planks and two-by-fours, farmlands were overworked. Erosion was allowed to set in. Treasured topsoil floated down rivers in muddy floods or went up in dust storms. When the land was exhausted of jts value private owners moved on, leaving behind waste and devastation.

It was mainly this plundering of natural resources that caused the federal and state governments to move in and conserve for the nation’s interest some of its remaining resources. Conservation laws were passed. Grazing and timber-cutting practices were restricted to support a sustained yield of forests and grasslands. In 1830 the medicinal springs of Hot Springs, Arkansas, were set aside as a national reservation to protect them from passing into private ownership and exploitation.

National parks had their beginning when on September 19, 1870, members of the Washburn-Doane expedition were discussing the wonders of the Yellowstone region. They knew that the area would someday become a mecca for tourists. Some suggested that it would be “profitable” to take up land surrounding the principal phenomena and exploit them as commercial enterprises, Cornelius Hedges, a member of the party, objected to this point of view and expressed his desire to see that the wonderland of Yellowstone never be allowed to pass into private ownership, but that it should be set aside for the use and enjoyment of all the people. The other members of the expedition quickly accepted this more unselfish and appreciative line of thinking and .all of them agreed to work to make it an accomplished fact. The idea was so popular that in less than two years the Act of Dedication creating the Yellowstone National Park received the signature of President Grant.

What those early pioneers desired was well expressed in the law that provided that the Yellowstone region be “a public park or pleasuring ground”; a provision making mandatory “the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition”; a provision for making mandatory the protection of the fish and game in the park area against “wanton destruction” or “capture or destruction for the purpose of merchandise or profit?’ Actually a provision was desired to protect areas from private enterprise.

From time to time other lands were set aside for national parks, each park containing some outstanding feature that the nation desired to preserve for the education and enjoyment of all people. Yosemite Valley, the Grand Canyon, Crater Lake, the Olympic forests, each possessing distinctive sites of national importance, became national parks or playgrounds. Today, some 40,000,000 persons flock to these scenic and historic preserves. In these parks there remains some semblance of the unspoiled natural vastness, of scenery and of wildlife that existed when America was discovered.

Fortunately the nation has had a few unselfish, farsighted men who protected these resources from private exploitation. The large part of the federal land purchases in the past twenty years has been of overgrazed, eroded or otherwise submarginal land that private interests exhausted. Now with almost nowhere to turn, private interests have set a covetous eye on the natural riches bound up in the nation’s parks, monuments and reservations.

Pressure Groups at Work

The Bureau of Land Management in the Interior Department and the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture are under constant attack from stockmen, lumbermen and oil men—all urging transfer of forest or park lands to private owners or to the states. One observer warns that “conceivably, concerted attacks at this time could overturn the whole policy of federal management.” He cautions further that “the grazing lands, including those within the national forests, are in danger;

public power is in danger; and the 160-acre water limitation within reclamation project is in danger?* He goes on to say that “maybe these riches will ultimately be restored, but they will probably return gutted, eroded, and mined out, when they are of no further use to private owners. Then the nation can try to restore them/’

For private interests to demand the last remaining wilderness areas represented by the national parks and monuments betrays an utter disregard for the people’s welfare. These “playgrounds'* have been specifically set aside for the pleasure of the nation’s children, and were not to be exploited to satiate the desire of any enterprise. But Dr. Ira N. Gabrielson, president of the Wild Life Institute, warned that “chiselers of public lands” were at work to influence the new administration. These “chiselers” are determined to invade these carefully guarded areas as soon as “the public goes to sleep.” And from all indications they feel that that expected moment has arrived. What the present administration will do remains to be seen, but recent developments are not too promising. Douglas McKay, secretary of the Interior, in charge of the public domain, stated that “some changes might be expected in resources policy.” What these changes might be is anybody's guess. But one Western conservationist stated that these changes will most likely amount to “skim milk for the taxpayer, higher rates for the power User, and cream for the private utilities.”

As hopeless as the situation may appear to the common observer, the Bible assures us that plunderers, destroyers, greedy persons, wasters and despoilers will be brought to final account at the battle of Armageddon. The true Father of our earth, Jehovah God, gives us his word that he is going “to bring to ruin those ruining the earth,” (Revelation 11:18, New World Trans.} After Armageddon mankind's Everlasting Father, Christ Jesus, will restore the earth to its original Edenic beauty. Then plenty will exist for all, leaving no cause for senseless spoiling of the earth for commercial greed. Carelessness and neglect will be unknown.

Not just a handful of parks will be set aside for mankind to enjoy, but earth’s metals, minerals, timber and wealth will be properly managed and devoted to the promotion of contentment and the spreading of paradise to every comer of the earth, transforming the whole earth Into a beautiful global park for the eternal enjoyment and preservation of man. What a glorious hope the future holds!

GENTLE GIANT

A Catholic magazine entitled “Information’’ (August, 1953) carried the following item under the heading “Gentle Giant”: “Maybe it could only happen in Brooklyn, and maybe even there only on a hot and humid New York day. But when the priest entered the pulpit to announce that it was too hot for a sermon everyone breathed a huge sigh. It was then the good Father and a loyal Brooklyn Dodger fan asked the people to please pray for Gil Hodges, Brooklyn first baseman. Fortunately, for Hodges, he was neither lately deceased nor dying but even worse. He was in the midst of a terrible batting slump. The massive 200-pound Hodges was not hitting his weight. This, of course, is tragic for any ball player, but when the ball player is acknowledged one of the finest gentlemen in baseball, a real Catholic gentleman, then, certainly, a few extra prayers are right in order.” Are not such religionists like those James spoke of who ‘ask, and yet do not receive, because they are asking for a wrong purpose'?—James 4:3, New World Trans.

VIATION’S future is L about as unpredictable as women’s fashions, perhaps even more so.

Some fifty years ago a magazine writer concluded that “the limits of success have been reached with this type of flying machine [meaning, of course, the airplane].” Now we know how inaccurate his prediction was. Right along this same line, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, president and general manager of Eastern Air Lines, said that during World War I they thought the old, rickety flying crates of 1918 were “as nearly perfect as planes could be.” Today these ‘nearly perfect planes’ are choice museum pieces. And too, as recently as World War II, the giant B-29 American bomber was hailed by engineers as being the peak in aviation. But before the war ended the B-29 was obsolescent. Its 30,000-foot ceiling was too low, its speed too slow. Even present-day commercial transports can outmaneuver fighter planes of the last war.

Modern jet aircraft streak through the sky at speeds faster than sound, pull out of power dives intact under pressures that could crumble steel, and climb to unbelievable heights of 60,000 feet in a few minutes’ time. Passengers of today traveling in air liners sup their soup on tables that are vibrationless while cruising at eight miles a minute, walk up and down stairs and lounge in luxury eight miles above the earth, listen to staticless music above raging storms, breathe normally in thin air, Almost ail of these accomplishments have been made possible by relatively recent discoveries in aviation. Even female fashions have not changed as radically, nor they been as revolutionary.

The present trend in aviation is propeller-driven craft to jet flight, piloted planes to guided missiles. Experts say that if these complex and brainstaggering problems are solved, there is no telling what aviation’s future may be. Prognostications over the past half of the century have demonstrated how futile and frustrating is any serious attempt to predict the shape of things to come. However, the direction in which aviation is heading and the goals that might reasonably be attained are clearly indicated by past accomplishments. As a word of caution, often unforeseen circumstances intervene and alter or completely change the design of things. So no prediction is related with any positiveness. .

Jets to Dominate Future

Authorities, however, do feel certain that within the next five years jet liners will be crossing the Atlantic. These will streak from New York to London in six hours, to compare with the present twelve hours with several stops. Fred B. Lee, Civil Aeronautics Administrator, is convinced that in another ten years air travel will more than double. Some 400,000,000 people will be flying yearly. They will be taking two and three trips a year instead of one. Traveling will be cheaper. Flying will be accepted as implicitly as the automobile, the telephone and the electric light are today. The Pullman train will be a thing of the past. Speed will eliminate the need for sleeping berths on airships. Flights will be of shorter durations and at higher altitudes, thus decreasing exposure to accidents.

Ten years from today it will be common for Londoners to shop and spend their week ends in New York city and for New Yorkers to spend theirs in California or Alaska. In flight, passengers will entertain themselves with color television or the latest movie. Some will prefer to lounge ground in the plane’s capacious compartments or to mount a stairway to the flight deck for a tour of the radio room and quarters of the engineer and the navigator. Airplanes will be pressurized and airconditioned, eliminating almost entirely air sickness.

At the airport helicopters with room for at least forty passengers will act as taxis. Private helicopters will compete with the family car. Something new will be the “helicopter house trailer,” which will combine transportation and relaxation. The "flying house trailer” will take off from the backyard and gently settle down in some quiet mountain escape or at the seashore. You will have brought house and equipment with you.

The convertiplane, a combination of airplane and helicopter, will also be a common sight in another ten or fifteen years. These planes will rise straight up like helicopters and fly forward like conventional planes. Their principal use will be for short hops between cities. Distances from two to three thousand and more miles will be served by the stratocruisers. The 1970 stratoliner will resemble the British-made Delta, which is a triangular-shaped craft that gets its name from the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. At that time presentday models will still be around, but jets will dominate the skies.

Within the next twenty years, electronic devices will do most of the flying. Experts say that pilots will merely go along for the ride and to make the few human decisions that the “black boxes” and the pushbuttons cannot make, as yet. Radar will become the pilot’s eyes at night or in bad weather, guiding and automatically taking precautions against collisions. “Flying blind” will be a thing of the past. A combination radar-and-television device will show the pilot exactly where he is every second of his journey. This device will guide the plane from city to city, find the airport, and lower the plane to the earth with the same ease as does an escalator with shoppers from the mezzanine to the main floor.

Instead of carrying massjve landing gear, which literally weighs tons, future airplanes will be without wheels. When coming in for a landing, radio will synchronize the speed of the landing plane with a landing car that will travel along on tracks. The plane will settle down into its cradle without a jar at about 100 to 150 miles an hour and will come to a jarless, gentle stop at an airport building. -The same cart will be used to launch the plane.

Greater Power, More Speed

The experts predict that twenty years from today power and speed will still be major factors in aviation. Within twenty years the turbo-jet engine will be exploited to its limits, developing power sufficient to thrust planes twice the speed of sound. After that the ram-jet power plant will take over. This engine requires atmospheric oxygen for combustion, but it does not have a compressor as does the turbojet. Therefore, the engine must be set in

motion at such a speed that the air rushing into the forward end causes a pressure increase of three to four times that of the outside air, then the expanding gases from the burner will be driven rearward and the plane will be thrust forward. After the ramjet era, pure rockets will be used for propulsion beyond the earth’s atmosphere into space. The rocket carries its own liquid oxygen.

The more conservative authorities believe it will be some time before sufficient power can be generated cheaply enough to justify supersonic air travel. According to C. W. La Pierre, general manager of General Electric Company's Aircraft Gas Turbine Division, the world's largest manufacturer of jet engines, it is doubtful if that era will arrive before 1970. To propel a 125-passenger transport through the sonic barrier would require at least twice the power available in the largest jet bomber known today. The fuel requirement would be staggering.

On November 21, 1953, Scott Crossfield flew a swept-wing rocket plane, developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company, twice the speed of sound—1,327 miles per hour! The plane’s power lasted only three minutes, and during those three minutes it consumed three tons of fuel! Hardly a month later, on December 16, 1953, Major Charles E. Yeager climbed into an experimental rocket plane and streaked through the sky at 1,600 miles an hour! What tomorrow’s record will be is anyone's guess.

Despite the many obstacles in the way of supersonic travel, Hall Hibbard, engineering vice-president of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, remarked that he was “positive that in 25 years the transport airplane will be supersonic.” Just as convinced is Donald W. Douglas, president of the Douglas Aircraft Company. He wrote: “Supersonic speed, unlimited range, electronic operation and navigation of aircraft are clearly ahead. Advance in metallurgy and design, already here, or in the offing, will make possible conquest of the sound and heat barriers.”

Atom-Liner a Solution

Many authorities believe that the solution to the fuel problem lies in harnessing the atom for commercial use. Advancements along this line appear encouraging. But experts caution against overoptimism. To protect passengers from dangerous radiations it is estimated that at least 100 tons of shielding would be required. Despite this fact, some experts feel quite optimistic. Dr, Plesman, president of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, stated that an atomliner could be designed and flying by 1975. It would weigh over 150 tons and carry over 180 passengers. It could stay in the air almost indefinitely, and its speed would exceed 900 miles an hour. Its cost would be $25,000,000, to compare with $2,000,000 for present-day transports. But its low operating cost would more than offset the initial investment. But there are many complex problems to be ironed out before the atom-liner becomes a reality.

Gazing at the crystal ball of aviation's future, Dr, Wernher Von Braun, chief of Guided Missile Development Division at Redstone Arsenal, sees even more astonishing developments. He said that “fifty years from now oceans and continents will be crossed with atomic-powered airliners at supersonic speeds. Propelled by ramjet engines, these planes will cruise at altitudes of 12 to 15 miles and speeds in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. . . . The ramjet liners will be needle-nosed and their fuselages and wings will be skinned with steel, monel or titanium alloys to withstand heating through air friction.”

What will these atom-powered planes look like? Well, they will look like an ordinary jet plane, because jet propulsion will still drive the plane forward. The nuclear reactor will simply take ever the work of the combustion system. “Heat from the reactor, located in the fuselage, would enter the combustion chambers of the engines, where it would function like ignited jet fuel. The engine would operate just as it does today, except that the terrific nuclear heat would produce far greater power,”

Will atom power then propel man into space, perhaps to the moon? Dr. Wernher Von Braun thinks that “by 2003, man will have set foot on the moon and plans will be under serious consideration for the exploration of the nearer planets.” Igor I. Sikorsky, engineering manager of Sikorsky Aircraft Division, writes that “the approach to interplanetary travel and at least flights out of and beyond the atmosphere into space, will very probably be started during the next fifty years.”

But as for perfect unanimity on aviation’s future, there is not any. One authority will emphatically say “yes” as to the development of atom power, supersonic flight and interplanetary travel; while just as emphatically another will say “no.” And, too, human predictions seldom take Into consideration Jehovah God and his purpose toward our earth. God’s purpose is to make this earth a paradise, and If that begins to take place within the next fifty years, man may lose all desire to fly in the stratosphere, to the moon or to other planets. Who knows, with an eternity before him he may find greater pleasure walking through the soft grass of a paradise earth than flying over it at supersonic speeds. Living at the close of this system of things, any kind of crystal-ball gazing is a rather hazardous business.

Nevertheless, the accomplishments in the field of aviation over the past fifty years well demonstrate the potentialities locked up in the human mind. Should not all these “marvels” teach us that New World living will be wonderful—even beyond all human expectations and imagination? It should. The next fifty years no doubt will be one of the greatest periods of all time. Happy will be the people who will live to see AD. 2004.

under the title “Corruption in High Places?* It told about certain unfortunate happenings in Swedish Court circles and also in the judicial sphere of government. Another case has now attracted unheard-of attention in Sweden, even wide publicity in other lands. Not just legal proceedings are now involved, but even the State Church!

So grimly electrifying was the disclosure of the case that the public press called it not only an unequaled affair in the history of Swedish law courts but also a terrible blow to the State Church’s reputation. Said the Göteborgs Handelstidning, November 5, 1953: “It is a scandal and a shame without equal/’ Some declared that the time had come to bring everything out into the full daylight: “The truth must come to the fore in all circumstances, even if it is disgraceful. The moral and religious slackness, the lack of discretion, and the plotting attitude that have been shown in this affair demand that radical steps be taken, if general distrust is to be avoided.” —Stockholm Aftonbladet, June 12, 1953.

The feared distrust came after all. People began to speak of an open church crisis. Writing in the Stockholm Dagens Nyheter, December 17, 1953, one of the biggest dailies, Sven Lagerstedt, a welbknown headmaster, said that we must see “the falsity of the veneration for the Church and her servants that nas been created by the fear of man.” This, he said, “has confronted us with the question whether the priestly office is at all needed/’ He questioned whether the time had not come to do away with the priestly office as such, because the church is nowadays just a worldly institution and that “the disfiguring, corrupting varnish” of the church has nothing to do with true Christianity as found in the Bible.

Morbid Desire for a Bishopric

A short review of the history of the church organization in Sweden will show the background of the happenings. The Catholic Church entered Sweden in the tenth century. By the twelfth century she already had established seven dioceses. Until the thirteenth century the inhabitants were asked to express their desires, because the ancient Swear had stated in their local laws that the voice of the people was always to be considered when rulers were elected. But this was later done away with. The Catholic bishops played an important role in politics until the Reformation in the sixteenth century. When Sweden joined the Protestant movement the bishop sees were retained, but from then on they had only “spiritual” authority. The law of the church, which was given in 1686 by the then-autocratic king, provides that the clergy of the diocese are to elect three candidates for the bishopric, the king (now the government) appointing the one who is deemed most suitable. Through extension of territory and dividing of dioceses the number increased. It is now set at thirteen, the foremost of. which is the archbishop see at Uppsala. This place has been the religious center of Sweden since time immemorial.

The office of bishop has always been a keenly desired one. It carries with it many privileges not afforded secular office holders. As often before, there was a heavy fight for the office of bishop of Strangnfis. It seems that this time a greater number than usual were suffering from the jokingly called “morbus episcopalis,” illness caused by the desire to become a bishop. Among those suffering from this “illness* was Professor Dick Helander of the university at Uppsala. After a first failure to be nominated among the proposed three, Helander succeeded at a second election. About Christmas time in 1952 he was finally appointed by the government.

Now it was known that before the election a great number of anonymous letters had reached most of the clergy in the diocese advocating that Helander be nominated. In these letters Helander was praised; his competitors were belittled. Such things had happened before at elections; but this time the matter was reported to the police for investigation. Many church-shaking circumstances then came to light.

The bishop, meanwhile, applied for leave of absence and later for sick leave. He stayed abroad for a while. His leaves became prolonged, the last one because he was "suffering from psychic insufficiency with depressive symptoms.’’ While the bishop was in low spirits the police investigation dragged on. Efforts were put forth by the newly appointed bishop and other churchmen to get the church-embarrassing case buried in the tomb of silence.

A Bishop Exposed

But the facts of the shocking case refused to lie quiet. At the final hearing at Uppsala, on December 10, 1953, the public prosecutor galvanized the court by disclosing what the investigation had revealed: “Bishop Helander himself has penned, written out in full and circulated the libelous letters!’’ Since the bishop denied all this, the court ar first believed him. However, as the proceedings went forward, step by step, bit after bit of the shield around him was broken down. When the court finally delivered its sentence, on December 22, 1953, it summed up the facts that were held to prove the guilt of the accused bishop. Among them was the incriminating fact that his thumb print had been found on some of the letters. The bishop was sentenced to forfeiture of his office. He appealed this sentence to the court of appeals at Stockholm.

In his last speech the prosecutor beseeched the court to consider that since this was a case against a servant of the church, it made it more serious than if it had been an ordinary person on trial: “A prerequisite, in order that the preaching of the servants of the Church may bear fruit, is without doubt that what they preach should also mark their actions and ways. As an applicant for the bishopric, Dick Helander has not hesitated to use clandestine weapons in order to fight for the see which he evidently longed for so intensively, although he himself had stated that he was placing the choice in the hands of God and of the voters. Far from the humility, which he has so often preached, he has filled the anonymous letters with panegyrics in honor of himself. But not that alone. To these panegyrics he has added such testimonies against his neighbor that can hardly be in harmony with a Christian disposition of mind. That the intention behind these testimonies was to cast suspicion upon a neighbor who was a fellow competitor for the bishopric is an additional charge against their author. Helander has placed another burden upon his shoulders by his attitude during the court case: tergiversations, efforts to lead up a wrong track, evasive answers and sheer untruths. It had been more becoming

if he had stood forth and shouldered his guilt.” The prosecutor felt it a heavy duty to prosecute in this case because the proceedings “exposed so much baseness, where one had expected to find loftiness.”

What Did His Colleagues Say?

The darkest chapter in this case, so far as the church herself is concerned, wrote a daily, was that the other bishops were silent. The archbishop, when asked for his opinion, contented himself with saying: “A formerly unknown dissension has been revealed in the clerical office, and happenings within the Church have been causing offense in wide circles.” Not until the sentence was rendered did some of the leading churchmen express themselves. Said the bishop of Gothenburg, Bo Giertz: “The Church is mourning, as a mother is mourning for her child. There remains only to accept the fact. We have occasion to examine ourselves because of the plotting mind and lack of brotherliness that has been shown. . . . Helander’s actions cannot be explained on the basis of normal experience. One has here either to reckon with a hardness of heart that must seem utterly improbable to Dick Helander’s old friends, or else one must ask oneself if there might not be some psychical defect.” But others were retorting that if he were a mentally sick man, how strange that the clergy had recommended him for the bishopric!

“Many Sins to Confess”

Describing the case, the bishop of Vaste-ras, John Cullberg, said: “What has happened must be taken as an isolated occurrence in the life of the Church.” Many, however, were pointing out that the case was not just an isolated occurrence. One priest, editor of the periodical Stiftskroni-kan (chronicle for the diocese), at Gothenburg, wrote: “The Church is to be blamed. There is not much to be gained by finding a scapegoat. The sad story has laid b^re such things within the theological faculty [at Uppsala] and the Church and her clergy, that we, one for all and all for one, must confess our partnership to the guilt. There are more elections for the bishop’s office than the one at Strangnas that have uncovered our lack of spirituality. And what is true with regard to elections for bishoprics is often true also with regard to ordinary elections of priests. Slander and scheming, disputes between different factions, half truths and sheer lies ... all this mixed into a ‘witch’s brew’ that is often being served in such connections. Here priests and church-goers have many sins to confess.”

If the priests and the church-goers would confess these their sins, as the Stiftskronikan suggested, it would, of course, be well and good, but many are thinking, first that such confession would come rather late, and further that the talk about it does not have an honest ring. The Stockholm Morgon-Tidningen, as reported in the Aftonbladet (December 23, 1953), drew a comparison between the main character of the gospels, Jesus, the poorest among the poor, and those men today, 1,900 years later, who claim that they are his followers, and who are now “fighting with bloodshot eyes for promotion to an office that gives them 35,000 kronor I $7,000] per annum.” The newspaper did not find any likeness.

Regarding the convicted bishop, one daily wrote that “his fall was great because so many had put confidence and hope in him.” How true this is when applied to the whole church system! The religious leaders have been regarded by many almost as gods and their systems of teaching as infallible, something that simply must not be criticized. But already the magic nimbus is being removed. This case has been for many an eye opener.

may s, 1954

The Brain and Brain Power

BRAIN power is said to be made up of at m least seven things: memory, speed of Jt perceiving, facility in handling numbers, flu- [ ency with words, reasoning with words, visual ! imagination and seeing general relationships. ( ' Does brain power ever stop growing? One M authority has said: "It grows most rapidly w during the first ten years of life, then steadily loses momentum. By the time many people ; are twenty, growth in brain power has stopped. People who keep studying, reading, thinking, however, continue to add to their » brain power until about fifty years of age surely, maybe longer.” But if there is no impairment of the brain, why should brain pow- ; er ever stop growing? The truth is that it. W appreciably stops growing when the activities that develop brain power are neglected. Since } most people cease serious study and thinking { at about the age of fifty, it appears that their W brain power has stopped growing—and so it Ij has to a large extent. Man was originally created to live forever; hence there is every j reason to believe that mental growth never }} completely comes to an end.                   i

<L Thus it is not really strange that a lead- I ing authority in the study of the aging process, Dr. Nathan W. Shock, in expressing his <« views on mental growth in a feature article in U.S. News <£ World Report (October 23, m 1953), declared: “I don’t think growth of the mind, in the sense that we are using it, ever j j stops. It shouldn’t. ... I think mental growth m must of necessity go on throughout a life- < time.” To the question, Is there any point at | which the mind would be expected to turn 1 down? this leading authority answered: “I would expect that the limiting factor again is jjj the adequacy of the blood vessels which sup- ffi ply the brain with oxygen and glucose—because as far as we know that is all it takes to run a brain.”

ft. Man still does not know very much with any degree of certainty about the functioning of the human brain. One thing that he certainly does understand is that ‘the little gray engine? is incredibly economical to operate. If it were possible for man to make a mechanical brain capable of functioning as the human brain does, he would have a herculean problem on his hands: how to cool and house the machinery! Explaining this, Science News Letter for September 5, 1953, said: “Most of the Mississippi River would probably be needed to get enough water to cool an electronic ‘brain’ as capable as a human brain. And it would take a Pentagon-sized building [the world’s largest office buildingl to house the machine. The building would be crammed with wiring and tubes, and would use up as much electrical power as that consumed daily by this city, servo-mechanism engineers at Minneapolis-Honeywell estimate. Capable as electronic ‘brains’ are, the engineers stress, they do not come close to matching the human brain. The most elaborate models may some day equal an ant’s brain, however, they estimate.”

ft An ant’s brain—the best man can do! And they are not even sure they can make one as good as that! Already electronic "brains” are bulky. What a vast structure would be needed to house a man-made brain as good as that of the tiny ant’s! And if the facts could be reliably ascertained, a man-made “brain” capable of matching the human brain more likely would need a dozen Mississippi Rivers to cool it and a dozen Pentagon-sized buildings to house it!

ONE of the oddest things alive is the animal with a million mouths. Indeed, it is so incredibly odd that few people really know that it is an animal. Most people believe it is some seaweedlike plant. This is not strange since science itself was puzzled for centuries over the queer animal that has no arms, no legs, no head, no brain, no sense organs, no heart and no blood—the sponge. Despite its believe-it-or-not structure this animal is not handicapped in winning its living. For the sponge has myriads of mouths, tiny pores into which it sucks water. The food and oxygen that the water contains are used and the exhausted water expelled. Most of the sponge’s pinholelike mouths are so tiny that they cannot be seen by the naked human eye, but they are there. Indeed, an animal with not one mouth but a million!

But just what is a sponge as a housewife knows it? It is simply the cleaned skeleton of the animal that once lived attached to the sea bottom. The skeleton of the bath sponge is formed of spongin, a substance resembling silk. How did man ever learn that some sponges have such a useful skeleton? Probably as a result of finding cast-up specimens with the skin and flesh partly rotted away from the more durable skeleton.

So it is not really strange that in ancient times sponges were a fairly common article. Ancient Greek soldiers used sponges to pad their helmets. At a very early date Greek fishermen learned to go down into the sea and pluck sponges from the reefs. So common were sponges for the Romans that they used them on wooden handles for mops. In Roman Jerusalem the sponge was very common; so we read that when Jesus was impaled at Calvary, "a certain one ran, soaked a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and began giving him a drink.” (Mark 15:36, New World Trans.) But in spite of the fact that the sponge was used from early times it took centuries before man understood much about the singular animal with a million mouths.

Aristotle, who lived during the fourth century B.C., was the first to give a scientific account of the sponge. He taught that the sponge was half animal, half plant and that the sponge sucked in water through its large holes. But the Greek philosopher was wrong. For 2,000 years after Aristotle’s time naturalists and scientists were wrong, the sponge was still an enigma, a riddle that could not be unraveled. Not until the early years of the nineteenth century did man begin to learn the truth about the sponge. In 1825 Dr. Robert Grant, a Scotch naturalist, established its true animal character. It was Grant who first discovered that the sponge is really an animal with a million mouths. He proved that the sponge sucked in water, not through its relatively few big holes, as had been supposed, but rather through its tiny pores.

Stationary, Yet Globe-girdling

Belonging to a big family called “Porif-era,” sponges come in some 2,000 different species. Sponges are found in all seas and at all depths, from the shore margin to several miles deep, certain species even occurring in fresh waters all over the globe. When alive they are of all shapes, sizes and colors. Some sponges are snow white, some grass green, and some sky blue, some red and some yellow. The variety in the shape of sponges is amazing, there being shapes like cups, vases, spheres, tubes, branched treelike growths, baskets and fans. And for added variety some sponges are even shapeless, no two being exactly alike. In size these extraordinary animals may be as tiny as a pinhead or as tall as a man, and in weight they may vary from a grain to over a hundred pounds. ,

Are there papa and mamma sponges? Yes, in some species. The females produce eggs that develop into single cells. At the right time these eggs are washed out of the parent’s body in the flood of water ejected through the larger openings. These hatch into free-roving little animals. However, in most cases sponges reproduce by a vegetative growth, a budding-off of tiny sponges from the parent. Young sponges are energetic and have the wanderlust. They scurry about in the sea, their youthful activity widely distributing a fixed and stationary animal. Of course the adventurous life for Junior Sponge is short. He soon decides to settle down—to the bottom of the sea. Once attached to a rock Junior Sponge is content ever after to let the rest of the world flow by.

How Sponges Breathe and Eat

The taking in of oxygen and nourishment is now the sponge’s big concern in life. But how does the sponge generate the power to suck in water so as to get its food and oxygen? Well, the sponge's tiny pores or mouths on the outside lead into a network of tubes or canals large and small. These canals are lined with hairlike projections called “flagella.” Like little living lashes the flagella beat the water. Each stroke of each flagellum draws and pushes a little water ever inward into the sponge’s canals. Thus the whiplike flagella produce a current that is a veritable life-giving one to the sponge, bearing to its inner cavities not only oxygen but also vital organic and vegetable matter upon which a sponge feeds. At the junction of the little canals a delicate membrane catches and filters out the food. After dining upon the tiny tidbits the sponge must get rid of the used water. But how?

If one will observe a bath sponge he will note neat round holes on the upper surface that are just big enough to allow a man to put in his little finger. These holes are not part of the sponge’s million mouths. Rather, they are called “oscula” or “vents.” Through these vents the sponge expels the exhausted water. Usually the vents are very few in number, some species having only one. The cavity from which a vent opens is called the “cloaca” or main drain. So from the main drain out through the vents goes the exhausted water.

Now how does the sponge prevent used water from polluting the intake water? Certainly the hungry sponge can get no nourishment by sucking in the same water again! Also the exhausted water is not only devoid of oxygen but filled with poisonous waste matter and carbonic acid. So the sponge, even with its million mouths, if it had to suck in the same water again and again, would die of suffocation and starva-

tion. Fortunately for the sponge it had a Master Designer, who foresaw all the possible problems of a sponge’s life: the Creator provided the sponge with a marvelous hydraulic engine so efficient that it can separate used water from its new supply!

Comprising a sponge’s hydraulic system are its various canals and main drain. These form a pressure chamber from which jets of water escape through the vents. Pressure is kept up by the continuous work of the whiplike flagella, the force pumps of the sponge’s hydraulic system, sucking in water through the pores and delivering it in a continuous jet from the vent. Now for a sponge the longer the Jet of water expelled from a vent, the purer will be the intake water. Water in the sea is rarely absolutely still, even at the bottom on a windless day. Yet if the bath sponge expelled a jet of water for only six inches, foul water would settle down to pollute about three quarters of the intake water. So to assure itself of a constant supply of pure water the sponge ejects the exhausted water to a height of about four feet! As with a garden hose the distance a jet of water will go depends upon the nozzle or size of the opening. Here, then, is another marvel of the sponge: It has -been shown for certain sponges that the diameter of the vent is that which will carry the water to the greatest possible distance for that make of sponge.

The Sponge Has Visitors

Once a sponge settles down to a stationary life it may have visitors. Certain tiny shrimp, looking for a place to live, may take up residence within the sponge’s canals, making of them a veritable marine apartment house, rent free! And there are other marine animals that sponge off the sponges. Certain crabs, badly in need of housing, methodically cut out material from a sponge, using their chelae or claws as cutting tools. Like a man with his caravan or trailer is the hermit crab with his portable sponge house. But this portable residence, which the crab totes about for life, has a special purpose: the living sponge house so well camouflages the crab that, unless on the move, the crab can be spotted only by the closest observer!

Another visitor to the sponges’ seabottom realm is man. He is particularly interested in about six species, sponges that are marketable. From the Mediterranean and the Red Sea come the finest quality sponges, the most durable and the softest. The United States gets about 90 per cent of its sponges from waters around Florida, which contain a variety of sponges, the better grades being sheep’s wool and yellow sponges. When sponges are brought up from the deep by divers they are by no means ready for use. Covered with a rubbery skin and pores filled with a slimy sticky substance, the life matter, the sponge must go through quite a complex process, being pressed, squeezed, cleaned, washed, dried, and sometimes bleached.

Zoologists call the sponge the "lowest” or “simplest” form of life among the manycelled animals. But “simple” as the sponge is, there are few animals whose form and structure man has been so late in correctly explaining. So if this, the “simplest” form of many-celled animals, is so complex, so wonderfully constructed that it completely baffled scientists until the nineteenth century, then how unknowably infinite must be the wisdom of the Master Designer! Man too often forgets that "a foolish thing of God is wiser than men.” Here in what men call “low” and "simple” a perfectly operating hydraulic engine and a million mouths bespeak the matchless handiWork of the Creator. “O Jehovah, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.”-l Corinthians 1:25, New World Trans.; Psalm 104:24, Am. Stan. Ver.

Profits Make Miracles Suspect

TIE Bible repeatedly tells of miracles' being performed by Jehovah’s servants In times past, from Moses to the time of Christ’s disciples. But did any of them allow a selfish consideration to enter? No; Moses did not personally profit; Elisha refused gifts; Jesus, in spite of all the cures he performed, had “nowhere to lay down his head/' Personal gain would have been the last thought to enter their minds* In fact, God considered the receiving of personal gain by such means with such loathing that when Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, sought to gain by the miracle his master had performed by curing the Syrian general Naaman of his leprosy, God smote Gehazl with that awful plague*—Exodus 4:6-9, 30, 31; Luke 9:58, New World Trans,; 2 Kings, chapter 5*

'if In striking contrast to the above Scriptural unselfish principle is the course taken by modern healers or workers of miracle cures. They offer selfish inducements to those who would be healers themselves, such as one Dr. Parker, who advertises that his “Suggestive Passivity Induction” training will enable one to earn as much as ten dollars an hour and $10,000 a year* Then there is the Institute of Christian Healing which offers to teach how to use 'Sacred Laws” In a fifty-dollar course free for the asking. However, the order blank suggests that a two-dollar contribution be made to help defray the postage and clerical expense and adds that if more is contributed it will be used to spread the work of the Institute.

Perhaps most respectable of all is healer D’Angelo of Rome, who call? himself the “Wizard of Naples.” Among his patients have been orchestra conductor Toscanini, grand opera singer Gigli, Queen Maria Jose of Italy and the late statesman Carlo Sforza. Many reputable physicians send patients to him and none less than the pope's own physician, Dr. Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, says: “I am struck by his power.” He uses what seems to resemble hypnotism and collects $16 for each treatment, provided, he claims, the patient is able to pay.

*1? Foremost faith healer of England seems to be one Edwards of Inches, SI a des bridge, who claims to be no miracle worker but merely a bonesetter and to whom also physicians send

many patients. Says he: “I am doing God’s work, it is true, for healing the sick surely is the work of God.” Although he charges no fees each one is expected to pay what he can afford. Regularly the junkman calls to take away the crutches and other supports people no longer need after visiting Edwards.

One of America's outstanding healers is Kathryn Kuhlman, who likes to dress in pink and wear orchid corsages. She packs out movie houses in city after city, sometimes several times a week, broadcasts over radio stations and averages a weekly collection of $8,000 in the larger cities, according to the New York Sunday JVews, September 13, 1953. Then there is faith healer Susie Jessel, who averages upward of $500 for a fourteen-hour night spent laying hands on sick people on the basis of a voluntary contribution of one dollar each.

*1? Nor are only such independent healers of the opinion that their power to heal should be materially rewarded. A phone call to a Christian Science Reading Room in New York city elicited the information that “you receive treatments from our practitioners much as from a physician. Some charge $2, some $3 and some $5, It depends upon whom you want.” And as for Roman Catholic shrines: The Pilgrim Prayer Book, distributed at the shrine of Saint Anne de Beaupre, Quebec, Canada, gives a price list as follows: "Rate for mass offering, $1.00 for low masses, $5.00 for high masses, $7.00 for high masses with organ.”

Jesus told his apostlea, in sending them forth to perform miracles as well as to preach God's Word, “freely ye have received, freely give,” but modem faith healers do not seem to have such altruistic motives. And so, apart from what else may be said against those who claim to heal by supernatural power, such as that their favorite Scripture texts, Mark 16:17, 18, are no part of the inspired Scriptures and that with Christ and his apostles performing cures was incidental to their preaching work, the fact that they commercialize their activity makes suspect their claim to use divine power. God does not work through selfish men.

Psychosomatic Facts Show Why "Healers” Sometimes Cure

ii.“Faith healing” shows up the incon-I? sistency of the twentieth-century civilization. On the one hand it views with skepticism the accounts of miracles found in the Bible and on the other hand It evinces mass hysteria over its own “faith healers.” Especially in the United States, from one end of the country to the other, and most of all in California, are these faith healers packing out theater and church auditoriums and circus tents by running such advertisements as : “See God Answer

Prayer Right Before Your Eyes! See Miracles, Wonders, Signs. The Deaf Hear Instantly, The Blind See. The Lame Walk.”

In Great Britain so much interest has been shown in faith healing that the Church of England in October, 1953, appointed a committee of 23, consisting of bishops, physicians, psychiatrists, etc., “to consider the theological, medical, psychological and pastoral aspects of divine healing with a view of providing within two or three years, a report designed to guide the Church to a clearer understanding of the subject.” Nor are other lands far behind in such interest in faith healers, judging by reports from Italy and Germany.

Christian Scientists tell of increased interest in their particular form of faith healing. Nor should we overlook the ever-increasing numbers that flock to Roman

many more expected during the present “Marian” year. That shrine boasts of some 7,000 physician-authenticated cures as having taken place since 1854, in which year it was first erected. Then there are the two Canadian shrines of St. Anne de Beaupre and Saint Joseph, both in the province of Quebec, which vie with each other for the greater number of crutches, braces and trusses left behind by those cured. Many others could be mentioned. None other than Nobel prize winner, the late Dr. A. Carrell, vouches for the genuineness of at least one miracle performed at Lourdes in his book Journey to Lourdes.

That there are obvious quacks among the faith healers cannot be denied. In 1952 the Cuban government closed down the Union Radio Station for twenty-four hours because it had ignored a government directive barring the use of the station to the healer, Clavelito, who had thousands of Cubans put a glass of water on their radios, “He claimed the water was magnetized by his songs and if they drank the ‘remedy’ it would cure their ailments or bring good luck, whichever his listeners desired most.”

In the summer of 1953 a certain faith healer in Joplin, Missouri, branded all physicians and nurses as “tools of the Devil”; but how strong his own faith was

Catholic shrines. According to reports.

appears from the fact that, just the week

about a million each year visit the Our Lady of Lourdes shrine in France, with before, his wife resorted to such tools of the Devil at a hospital when she gave birth

to a child. In September, 1950„at Amarillo, Texas, a large tent collapsed upon a faith healer’s audience, injuring sixty, of whom sixteen were hospitalized for days, two Of them being critically injured. What an opportunity the faith healer overlooked to heal those trusting sheep who came to him for help but were injured instead!

While it may be debatable concerning to just what extent quackery enters into this faith healing, there is altogether too much evidence of thousands being helped, improved or cured to dismiss the subject on any such basis, and therefore the question remains, What is the explanation? Is it the power of God as claimed by so many, or is it dependent upon the denial of the fact of sickness and evil as required by Christian Science practitioners, or is there some other explanation?

Let any who would put himself in the same class with Christ Jesus go to a leper colony and cure all its inmates, for he cured lepers time and again. (Luke 5:12, 13; 7:22; 17:12) The facts are that the Bible does not support the claims of faith healers.¹ Then how are we . to understand such cures? Could it be that they are performed by the power of the Devil? Such would not be impossible in view of the miracles that the Bible records were done by pagan magicians in the time of Moses and this may be one way in which the Devil transforms himself into an angel of light. (Exodus 7:22; 2 Corinthians 11:14) However, it does not seem necessary to attribute all cures to demon power, especially in view of what has been learned in recent years regarding psychosomatic medicine.

The Psychosomatic Concept

As we probe the subject of faith cures, it would seem that it is largely a matter of psychosomatic techniques curing psychosomatic symptoms; termed such because they are due to the interdependence of the mind, psyche, and the body, soma, But this is not to say that all such cures related to merely imaginary sicknesses as that term is generally understood; it is not as simple as all that. It may be a case of the unconscious or subconscious mind playing a trick on the person.

For example ; Modem medicine has what is known as the “placebo,” which is defined as any inactive material, such as sugar pills, given to a patient as medicine just to satisfy him. These placebos are so effective that in trying out new medicine doctors use not only one set of “controls,” a group that does not get the medicine, so as to compare it with the group that does, but two sets of controls, one that gets placebos, thinking they are getting medicine, and one that does not get anything. According to Dr. Berglund, It's Not All in Your Mind, ‘it takes pretty good medicine to come out ahead of the harmless sugar pills,’ so strong is the effect of the mind upon the body. If mere belief in a pill can cure why not belief in a person?

Further, our minds play tricks on us in other ways. A person may suffer for a long time from some bodily affliction such as sciatica, and, having tried many doctors but all in vain, resigns himself to his affliction. But at times the vital powers in man will cure without any aid from physicians, thus removing the cause. But the mind and the nervous system may have become so used to the symptom that they feel it even when actually the cause is no longer there. At times this may be the case because of some pleasant compensations, because of the attention, sympathy and help that others give because of one’s being so afflicted. Such may be termed residual symptoms, and these, of course, any faith healer could cure.

Then again the value of hormones is well known. In strong emotional stress, such as at a shrine or at a faith healer’s meeting, beneficial hormones may be poured into the blood, resulting in a cure. Patients crippled with arthritis have jumped out of their hospital beds in a time of emergency, such as a fire, and not only ran to safety but ever afterward were cured of their arthritis. Of course, such is not always the case, but neither are all arthritis sufferers that visit shrines or faith healers cured.

Disease’May Be Iatrogenic

Iatrogenic disease is that disease which is caused by a physician. A wrong diagnosis, telling the patient he has heart trouble when he does not, or some tactless or discouraging remark may actually cause a patient to come down with a disease or feel the symptoms of heart trouble, although not having it. The mind has a powerful effect upon the heart and stomach, and worrying about either of these two organs will seriously interfere with their normal activity. One investigator found that of those reporting unable to work in New York city because of heart trouble, twenty-five per cent were suffering from iatrogenic heart disease. Obviously, any faith healer could help such cases.

, The converse of this principle also works for the faith healer. Often a patient’s confidence in his physician is of more value than the medicine his physician gives him. No doubt Mesmer owed much of his success to this fact. Incidentally, although denounced as a fraud by the French Academy, on which at the time sat Benjamin Franklin, Mesmer did effect remarkable cures. But he was unable to satisfactorily explain the principles involved, and that, together with his extreme greed for money, a trait not altogether unknown among the modem orthodox medical fraternity, as evinced by ghost surgery, fee splitting and unnecessary operations, proved his undoing.

Thus, aside from any help that the medical practitioner gives in the way of prescription of drugs; or that the chiropractor may give by relieving nerve impingements; or that the osteopath may give in stimulating circulation; or that the masseur may give by helping a person to relax; all of these doubtless owe much of whatever effectiveness they have to the confidence that their patients have in them, which causes the patients to cast their physical worries upon their doctors.

That is why the radio listeners who followed the Cuban faith healer’s instructions to put a glass of water on the radio so that he could magnetize it with his songs, and then drank it, may have actually obtained results, because they believed in him. A similar instance was reported by the London News Chronicle, July 16, 1952. A certain vicar was asking, Should he continue to supply water from the “Well of Cures” to sick people in view of the fact that laboratory tests showed that it was unfit for human consumption? According to a tenthcentury legend a religious incident gave it curative powers. People were clamoring for it, many claiming to have been repeatedly cured by it!

Herein may lie the explanation of cures attributed to machines whose principles and mode of operation cannot be scientifically demonstrated. Fantastic theories yet striking results. Why? Because of the faith the patients put in the machine or its operator plus whatever good sound advice along other lines such as diet are able to accomplish. But in view of the prices that manufacturers of such machines charge, often from 100 to 1,000 per cent above the cost of producing them, it makes their motives suspect to say the least.

The Will to Live

The Bible tells us that 'the heart of man is deceitful above all things and exceedingly corrupt, who can understand it?’ (Jeremiah 17:9) Those words apply especially to the unconscious mind. It is very easy to deceive ourselves. Without realizing it we may become sick, or once being sick remain so, because of a negative outlook on life, because of wanting to run away from problems instead of facing them, a manifestation of introverted selfishness. But by undergoing a strong emotional experience, such as a visit to a faith healer’s meeting, or to a Catholic shrine, or a love affair, or a new religion, to which one becomes suddenly and wholeheartedly converted, such diseases may be cured. -

In fact, it is amazing what the “will to live" is capable of causing the body to do in times of stress. “Terribly injured men have performed great physical labor, stuck to posts for hours, or landed airplanes under difficult circumstances, and collapsed or died as soon as their responsibility was discharged.”

The religious surroundings of shrines, faith healers’ meetings, and suchlike, usually are conducive to cure. The good principles of the Bible are stressed and such exercise a beneficial effect upon the sick, even though the motive may be a mercenary one on the part of the healer. Especial-]y do faith, hope and love strengthen the will to live, although afterward the cured one may find that his faith was misplaced, and his hope a false one.

Hatred, malice, bitterness and like selfish negative emotions have a deleterious effect upon the body. On the other hand, love, as the most powerful force in the world, is conducive to good health. To the extent, therefore, that faith healers, Christian Science practitioners or visits to Roman Catholic shrines can awaken unselfish impulses, to that extent they enlist the body’s constructive forces to work for health.

In summing up: while there are, without doubt, many quacks parading as faith healers, and though many faith “cures” are but temporary, some lasting but a day, yet it cannot be denied that many people are being aided by faith healers, Christian Science practitioners and by visits to Roman Catholic shrines. However, their cures find no Scriptural precedent, for Christ Jesus not only cured all that came to him, but he also performed many other mighty works, and made healing incidental to preaching the good news of the Kingdom. Furthermore, the emphasis on financial remuneration makes suspect the claims of all such to divine power. (See page 20.)

The most logical and reasonable explanation for such miracles is that, while not excluding the possibility of such miracles’ being performed by the power of the demons', they simply are examples of the psychosomatic principle at work, because of the powerful effect that the mind, and especially the emotions, have upon the body of man, as well as revealing the workings of the unconscious mind in both causing and curing disease.

Bebop Traps Translators

(L. Pity the poor U. N. translators who encountered “bebop” during a comment by British Minister of State Selwyn Lloyd last September. Commenting on an apparently repetitious speech by Andrei Y. Vishinsky of the Soviet Union, Mr. Lloyd said: “If I may use the terminology of bebop, I am tempted to say of those speeches, ‘dig that broken record.’ ” The Russian, French and Spanish translators merely repeated the word “bebop” without trying to translate it, but the Chinese translator, .apparently making a value judgment, called it “vulgar music,” for it is a form of “jazz" music. The broken record was “dug" a variety of ways.

Physical Health by Divine Intervention?

^413 ELOVED one, I pray that in all D things you may be prospering and having good health, just as your soul is prospering?’ (3 John 2, New World Trans.) Those sentiments, written by an aged apostle, John, to his old friend Gaius, without doubt express the way all of us feel toward our friends, and for that matter, what we also wish for ourselves.

With good health one can enjoy so many of the good things of life, food and drink, one’s family and friends, the beauties of nature, not to say anything of sports and wholesome amusements. And still more important, with good health one can accomplish much; there is so much to learn and so much that needs to be done and done well—true especially of the Christian minister—that it behooves us to take good care of our health.

But suppose we do get sick, then what shall we do? To whom shall we go? To an orthodox medical practitioner? Or to one of the unorthodox types, such as the osteopath, the chiropractor or the naturopath? All that is strictly a personal matter that each one of us must decide for himself, based upon his knowledge and experience. But suppose we are unable to procure relief and cure, then what? Shall we look to God for help by going to a Catholic shrine, or by consulting a Christian Science practitioner or by applying to a faith healer? What does the Bible have to say?

Of course if the Bible authorizes our going to one of such shrines or spiritual

“healers,” it would seem logical to go to them first, rather than as a case of last resort; but do the Scriptures authorize us to expect such miracles today?

In the first place let us note that the main purpose that Jesus served in coming to the earth was not to cure the sick or to feed the multitudes with loaves and fishes. That is why he rebuked the multitude for following him just because they had been fed and why, time and again, he told those whom he had cured not to tell others about it. What was his main purpose? Well, what did he say to Pilate? “For this purpose I have been born and for this purpose I have come into the world, that I”—should heal the sick?—no, but that I “should bear witness to the truth.”—John 18:37; 6:26; Luke 5:14, New World Trans.

Secondly, let us note that these cures were not performed solely or even primarily to bring relief to the suffering but rather to establish the divine commission of Christ and his disciples. In fact, the power to perform cures was just one, and a minor one at that, of the manifestations of the power of God upon his servants. Regarding this, note the words of Jesus: “The works themselves that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father dispatched me.” —John 5:36, New World Trans.

That is why this power passed away with the death of the apostles and those upon whom they had laid their hands. The divine origin of Christianity being established, such power was no longer needed. Thus Paul gives us to understand, at 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that gifts of tongues, supernatural knowledge and suchlike would

pass away but faith, hope and love will remain.

Nor can it be claimed that the cures at Catholic shrines, by Christian Science practitioners or by other faith healers are analogous in any way to those performed by Jesus and his immediate disciples. They healed whoever came to them, not just a few. They did not turn the afflicted away with the excuse that their lack of faith made it impossible for them to be cured. In fact, even those not exercising faith were benefited by others who did, such as in the case of the servant of the centurion. —Matthew 8:5-13.

Further note that neither Christ Jesus nor his apostles resorted to divine power for their own physical well-being. When Jesus was weary he did not miraculously restore his physical strength but rested at a well. (John 4:6) When the Devil suggested that he turn stones to bread, after having fasted forty days, Jesus refused to do so. Why? Because the power to perform miracles was not given for his own benefit. That is why Paul continued with his “thorn in the flesh”; why Timothy suffered stomach trouble and many infirmities; why Epaphroditus was sick “nigh unto death”; and why Paul had to leave Trophimus behind at Miletus sick. Miracles were to strengthen the faith of others, not for personal benefit.—2 Corinthians 12:7; 1 Timothy 5:23; Philippians 2:27; 2 Timothy 4:20.

Clergymen claiming to practice divine healing request generous contributions and profit greatly in a financial way. Christian Science practitioners have their regular rates. At some Catholic shrines regular rates are stipulated for the various masses, low, high and with organ. Faith healing has become a profitable profession today. But neither Christ nor any of his apostles or disciples ever took up a collection or charged fees for their services.

But perhaps someone will say, Have not you overlooked James 5:15, which states, “The prayer of faith shall save the sick”? Surely that indicates that divine intervention can be expected when we are ill. But not so, for spiritual, not physical, sickness is here referred to, as is apparent from the next verse, which admonishes Christians to confess their sins to one another that they may be healed.

Is it reasonable to expect God to cure us? Should we think of defying the laws of physics and gravity and step out on the sea or ocean just because Jesus was able to do so and enabled Peter to do likewise? Should we expect to feed from ten to fifteen thousand at an assembly with just five loaves and two fishes just because Jesus did? Should we expect the sun to stand still so as to help us to catch up with our schedule because we Overslept, just because of what the Bible shows took place in the days of Joshua when a day was stretched out to permit the Israelites to gain a victory over their enemies? Of course we should not!

Those miracles were not performed for personal convenience, but because Jehovah’s name, his cause and his Word were at issue. For Christians today the wise course is to recognize the laws of cause and effect and be governed accordingly. As one physician well expressed it: “Health is not thrust upon us but requires our active participation and is maintained only by the constant practice of [the] rules and which are accessible if we seek them. It is the function of medicine to discover these laws but it is our responsibility to follow them.”

Yes, we may not flout God's laws and expect him to intervene. It is neither reasonable nor Scriptural to expect physical health by divine intervention today.

Costa Rica

OSTA RICA is called “the land of eternal springtime’’ and rightly so. The birds fill the morning with their music. It is artistically decorated with rolling mountains exquisitely covered with green vegetation. Even the volcanoes are fast “asleep” and their sight is a rare beauty.

This is also a land of opportunity. For the farmer there are thousands of acres of virgin soil; for the businessman the cities are still free from large chain stores and corporations. Yet it is not a backward country.

In this land of eternal spring, the Watch Tower Society opened a branch office in 1944. At that time there were only about one hundred of Jehovah’s witnesses in all Costa Rica. But Jehovah’s witnesses are ministers, real preachers, and God has blessed their efforts with a tremendous increase. Today, about one person in every five hundred is one of Jehovah’s witnesses. More than 1,800 of them have reported preaching activity in a single month.

It is a thrill to minister to these humble folk. The only major problem is to find sufficient territory for all to share in the witness work. Even in the inaccessible spots one is pleasantly surprised to find that at nearly every house someone professes to be one of Jehovah’s witnesses. In fact, there are in some villages so many witnesses that there is no one to preach to. Though modern conveniences are lacking, Jehovah’s witnesses have an enjoyable time making arrangements to preach in isolated territory. One traveling Watch Tower minister relates this experience:

“While visiting the congregation at Argentina de Tilaran, which is located on the northern hills of the Pacific coast near the Nicaraguan border, and where all travel is done on horseback, arrangements were made for working in a group every day. One day we made plans to visit a little town called ‘Tilaran’ with the good news of the Kingdom. At sunrise we began to meet at the Kingdom Hall. Shortly before 7 a.m. we were on our way. En route we passed other homes where more witnesses were waiting for us. As we continued our journey we gathered more until there were some fifty of us on horseback. What a sight! For three hours we rode over hill and dale, across shallow rivers, in open spaces and in thick underbrush. Some of us sang, some told of experiences, others discussed different Bible points. Upon reaching the little home of a person of good will we received a pleasant surprise. Fifteen more witnesses from a neighboring congregation had come to help. The group now consisted of sixty-five preachers of the good news.                        ■

“Since the town had little over a hundred houses, it did not take long to inform them that the witnesses were present. Almost at each door the people would say, ‘Soy Ca-tolico, Apostolico y Romano’ (meaning, ‘I am an Apostolic Roman Catholic’). Many harsh words came our way, but we had a wonderful time talking with those who would listen. In less than an hour we were through. Sixty-five men, women and children, with bookbags in their hands and slung over their shoulders, represented a tremendous force. The village people were awed at the spirit and the efficiency of the organization. Soon we were back on our horses, sixty-five of them, headed for home.”

Jehovah’s witnesses have such a wonderful time serving their God Jehovah. Down on the lower end of this same part of the country, where the land meets the gulf, there is a little town called La Mansion de Nicoya. A year ago there were no Jehovah’s witnesses there. It so happened that one witness made La Mansion de Ni-coya his home. He began talking about God’s kingdom to his neighbors. They listened and liked it. It was not long before a congregation was formed. Now there are more than forty-one reporting regularly as Jehovah's witnesses.

There is considerable opposition to the work of Jehovah’s witnesses by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant organizations. They fear Jest the people listen and learn the truth. They are trying desperately to hang on to their flocks. But the spiritually starved people are looking elsewhere for food. Many of these people cdme in . contact with "Christianity” by attending schools operated by religious missionaries. Very often they leave these schools quite confused about the subject of "Christianity,” or opposed to the false religious doctrines altogether. Jehovah’s witnesses quite frequently meet these students and are able to study with them. Some have become Jehovah’s witnesses.

The big question in Costa Rica is, What does the future hold? The Bible gives the answer, and it is grand to see so many turning to it. Jehovah’s witnesses are pushing ahead in this grandest of all educational campaigns. They are eager to prove their faith in these troublous times. They know that there is much work yet to be done and many more of the Lord’s other sheep to be found in Costa Rica. So they look ahead to even grander privileges, while instructing those thirsting after righteousness. To one and all, Jehovah’s witnesses say, “ ‘Cornel’ And let anyone thirsting come; let anyone that wishes take life’s water free.”—Revelation 22:17, New World Trans.

\  • How the United Nations’ secretary-general

\ thinks peace will come? P. 3, H6.

• Who show the attitude the s>ecretary-gen-■ eral thinks the world needs? P. 4, 113.

f • How much United States’ land is still j government owned? P. 5, H.

\   • Why the United States government still

i owns so much land? P. 7, Hi.

•   • What outstanding feats military and com-

f mercial aircraft now perform? P. 9, 113.

y  • What problem at present prevents super-

\   sonic commercial air travel? P. 10, III.

• Whether atomic power may prove prac-- tical for airlines? P. 11, 114.

f • What baseness instead of loftiness was \ found in the Swedish State Church? P. 14, V5. \ • What a Swedish priest said about that i land’s religious appointments? P. 15, 112.

• * • How to continue adding to your brain

/ power? P. 16, 111.

• • What use ancient Greek soldiers had for sponges? P. 17, 113.

• • How sponges eat? P. 18, T3.

• • What other sea creatures use sponges tor houses? P. 19, 112.

• • Whether financial gain should be a factor in godly work? P. 20, Ui.

• • Why commercialization makes the activity of faith healers suspect? P. 20, 117.

• • Why illogical ‘healing machines’ may sometimes actually work? P. 23, 115,

• • How the matter of faith cures can be summed up? P. 24, f4.

• • How the Biblical accounts and modern-day faith healing differ? P. 26, Hl.

• What major and unusual problem Jehovah's witnesses encounter in Costa Rica?

P. 27, 14.

• Where sixty-five ministers on horseback served a village of 100 houses? P. 27, 115.

Tile Hydrogen Age

<$> Events have occurred so swiftly In the atomic age that people hardly realize that they are now living in the hydro* gen age. There has not been a hydrogen age for long, though, as only four dates chronicle the new era: (1) In February, 1950, President Truman ordered the hydrogen bomb built; 12) in November, 1952, the first hydrogen device was exploded; (3) in August, 1953, Malenkov claimed Russia possessed the H-bomb and (4) on March 31, 1954, the U. S., after conducting tests on March 1 and 26, reported that the H-bomb can wipe out any city. Thus for March and April the fast, fantastic, developments in the hydrogen age dominated the world's news, and people began to learn the hydrogen-age vocabulary. Whereas the atomic age brought the word "fission/' the hydrogen age brings In the word ''fusion,’* This means that in atomic bombs, atoms of heavy elements are split into atoms of lighter elements, but in H-bombs atoms of lighter elements are fused into atoms of heavier elements. Another difference between the hydrogen age and the atomic age is this: although atomic bombs were limited in size, this is not the case with H-bombs; they can be made of any size desired. When the U. S. released a mo-. lion picture of the world's first hydrogen explosion, mankind caught a glimpse of the awesome sight of an explosive fireball three and a half miles in diameter, a radioactive cloud pushing itself to the height of 32 Empire State buildings, or 40,000 feet, in two minutes, the mushroom portion finally rising ten miles and spreading out for 100 miles.

Measurement in Megatons

Prior to the hydrogen Age the term "megaton” was strictly for Scientists, but now in the hydrogen age it seems destined to become a word known even by schoolboys, A “megaton" is defined as the explosive power of 1,000,000 tons of TNT, The first full-scale hydrogen device exploded with the power of five megatons (5,000,000 tons of TNT) and was the "largest man-made explosion ever witnessed to that date.” Then came March 1 with "a stupendous blast in the megaton range,” a blast rated as "double that of the calculated estimate.” A member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy put the blast’s power at 12 to 14 megatons! This means explosive power 600 to 700 times that of the bomb used to wipe out Hiroshima and which bomb killed 60, ■ 000 persons. But taking a conservative view of the March 1 explosion and putting it at ten megatons, what would such a ten-megaton bomb do? It could wreak total destruction within an area of 50 square miles, severe damage within an area of 200 square miles, moderate damage within an area of 600 square miles and partial damage and destruction by fire within an area of 800 square miles. The limit of incendiary action would cover a total area of almost 2,000 square miles. But even all this is hardly a complete estimate of an H-bomb’s power, for much larger bombs are in the making and the damage by “fall-outs” of radioactive particles driven by winds Is beyond calculation.

The Far-echoing Pronouncement

After the March 1 blast, there was a demand for official information. This demand was intensified when a member of the Joint Atomic Energy committee said that the blast was' "so far beyond what was predicted that you might say it was out of control.” So President Eisenhower brought the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Admiral Lewis L, Strauss, to his news conference (3/31). The admiral'explained that the blast that startled the world “was a very large blast, but at no time was the testing out of control.” He said U. S. personnel was exposed to a “fall-out” of atomic ash because "the wind failed to follow the predictions.” Then in answer to a question about the area covered by an H-bomb blast, Admiral Strauss declared: “The nature of an H-bomb ... is that, in effect, it can be made to be as large as you wish . . . large enough to take out a city, to destroy a city.” (New York Times, 4/1) Asked how big a city, the admiral replied: “Any city!"

The Repercussions

The March 1 blast had far-reaching repercussions. In New Delhi the term used by top officials was "barbarous." Prime

Minister Nehru asked for a “standstill agreement” on further tests pending progress toward prohibition of them. He called on nonatomic nations "to arrest” progress of nuclear weapons. In Russia the press carried stories of the Pacific tests. The Soviet press said that people in the world were in despair because nuclear weapons could “destroy the fruits of a thousand years of human toil.” In the U. S., newspapers did everything but calm jittery nerves. They explained that there was little hope of defense against H-bombs and they applied areas of a ten-megaton bomb blast and fire damage to large maps of their own cities. In Britain, 104 La-borites signed a petition (3/29) calling for an end to further tests and control of nuclear weapons. Britain’s influential Manchester Guardian declared that there should be no more explosions of H-bombs, for the reason that physicists would be moving into the unknown. Although most U. S. diplomats felt Britain’s concern over the H-bomb was exaggerated, one government official drove home a point when he remarked; “If that weapon had been exploded in the Irish Sea there would be very little left.”

Japan: Radioactive Troubles

Like the rest of the world Japan is seriously concerned about thermonuclear explosions, but much more so! For according to a member of the J apanese Diet (Parliament) radioactive ashes, not only from the U. S. tests in the Pacific but also from Soviet atomic explosions in Siberia, have been raining on Japan. To heighten Japan's concern medical officials have revealed that the long-lived radioactive substance called "strontium 90” was in the ash that fell over extensive areas of the Pacific. Since strontium 90 does not disappear within a relatively short time, Japan is really concerned. In fact, strontium 90 has a half-life of 25 years, which means that after that period there would still be half the original amount of radioactivity in existence. One doctor pointed out that strontium 90, being of the same chemical family as calcium, could have invaded the bones of Japan’s affected fishermen, thus exposing the victims to radiation for many years. The U. S. Atomic Energy Commission acknowledged (3/25) that strontium 90, if it enters the human body, will “tend to concentrate in parts of the bone.”

U. S.: A “New Look”

The new policy expounded by the U. S. has been called the “New Look.” Briefly, it is strategy employing greater reliance on nuclear weapons and less on conventional arms. So the policy depends on the threat of atomic reprisal against major Communist centers, such as Moscow or Peiping, rather than meeting on the conventional field of battle, where the West would be overmatched. As expounded by Mr. Dulles the "New Look” means that "the main reliance must be on the power of the free community to retaliate with great force by mobile means at places of its own choosing." The "New Look” did not bring any happiness to a troubled world. In fact, the Western allies are now more frightened than ever, fearing that they would be the first to be wiped out if the U. S. started an atomic war. Even U. S. congressmen are not so sure about the “New Look,” especially the democrats. Adlai Stevenson phrased the democratic objections in a nutshell: "Are we leaving ourselves the choice of inaction or thermonuclear holocaust?”

"Just a Trojan Horse”?

•$> Russia's attempts to sow confusion and division among the Western allies has taken many forms. Of course, the chief targets of the Soviet diplomatic guns are NATO and the European Defense Community. At the Berlin conference Russia proposed a “general European treaty” with the U. S. relegated to just an “observer” role. Failing in this, Russia loaded its diplomatic guns with another charge by handing the Big Three ambassadors identical notes (3/31) requesting “U. S. participation in a general treaty for collective security in Europe.” The notes expressed Russia’s "readiness” to participate In NATO. To the diplomats Russia’s "readiness" to join NATO was the most ironic part, for NATO was formed for the very purpose of defense against Russia. U. S. officials appraised the Soviet bid as “a maneuver to gain admittance within the walls of the West to undermine its security!” British officials put it more succinctly; they called it “just a Trojan horse.” General opinion was that the Soviet bid was an attempt to undermine NATO and sound the death knell for E.D.C. One Washington official took a slightly different view of the "Trojan horse,” saying that under the trappings there was just a horse that has been worked to death.

The U.N.: A Weak Voice

■$> For seven years the 11. N. has been the key voice in the Palestinian conflict. But the U. N.’s voice is growing weak: The armistice between Israel and Jordan, arranged by the U. N. in 1949, has been rapidly deteriorating. Violations of the truce have been mounting, to the extent that the whole armistice might blow up at any time. There was even war talk on the side of both parties. The Arabs oppose even talking peace with Israel This tense situation has spawned some notorious incidents, such as the "Kibya incident” and the one at Scropion Pass, where an Israeli bus was attacked by Arab

marauders, killing ten persons. A few weeks later (3/28) the Jordanian village of Nah-halln was attacked by a band of well-armed Israelis. Assaulting the village with mines, grenades, automatic weapons and “Molotov cocktail” Are bombs, the Israelis left behind ' nine dead Jordanians, In the wake of the Israeli attack was a ground littered with spent cartridges marked with the Israeli Star of David; other cartridges bore U. S. markings. "The attack was well planned,” said the Arab Legion Chief of Staff, and it was “carried out by regular Israel armed forces.” The U.N.'s action? Previously the U. N. expressed “the strongest censure” of the Israeli raid on Kibya. This time a U. N. board condemned Israel also in the “strongest terms.” But observers believed, as evidenced by the growing number of incidents, that the U. N.'s voice In Palestine was fading fast.

New York's Costly Dock Strike <$> Nature endowed New York with a magnificent harbor with sheltered bays and deep, wide channels to the sea. This rich endowment enabled New York to emerge as the greatest port in the world. This giant is equipped with 700 piers and wharves, and the length of its water front is about 770 miles. Each year this gigantic port handies 9,000 ships, 900,000 passengers and about 200,000,000 tons of cargo worth $7,000,000,* 000. But in March the colossus was a cripple. The cause; a fight for dock control between the International Longshoremen's Association and the American Federation of Labor. For almost forty years the I.L.A. dominated the port. But in 1953 the State Crime Commission revealed that the union was riddled with corruption. State authorities pressed to get rid of I.LA. Pressure mounted as a new union, the A.F.L., appeared on the scene. The issue now was: which union would rule the dock domain, the I.L.A. or the A.F.L. ? To stay in business the LL-A. began a walk-out, hoping that a strike would rally dockers around its banner. But in spite of “hoodlum squads” that roamed piers intimidating A.F.L. members, the new union brought one . fourth of the workers back to work. On April 1 the Labor Board ordered an election, warning the I.L.A. that it would not appear on the ballot unless the strike ended. This, together with a State Supreme Court order, brought an end to New York’s costliest and longest dock strike, It lasted 29 days and cost New York $400,-000,000, in trade that went to other ports.

1954 District Assemblies

Last summer you read of the outstanding New World Society Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Yankee Stadium, New York. If you were one of the well over 150,000 persons fortunate enough to attend, you personally know of the marvelous spirit of Christian love that existed there.

So that even more persons can benefit this year, twenty-one smaller assemblies will be held throughout the United States and Canada. You can share in these meetings, benefiting from all that is done here. Which one you attend is immaterial, though convenience would indicate the one near your home. All are free; all will add to your knowledge and strengthen your zeal and determination in Christian service.

Pte* mmp C4 tittofd¹/        Cozied ew ftec* fcteat.'

June 24-27: Boston, Mass.; Cincinnati, Ohio; Richmond. Va.

July 15-18: San Antonio. Tex.; San Diego, Calif.

July 21-25; Toronto, Ontario, Can.

July 22-25; New Orleans, La.

July 29-August 1: Billings, Mont.; Charleston, S.C.; Pueblo. Colo.; El Paso, Tex.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Oakland, Calif.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Sioux City, iowa; Tampa, Fla.

August 5-8; Portland, Oreg.; New Westminster, British Columbia, Can.

August 12-15; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Can.

August 19-22: Halifax, Nova Scotia.

DISCOURAGED?

Many persons are, and they have rea

son to he. Man’s present life span is very short, filled with trouble and sor

row. During his few years of life man desires security, peace, happiness and good health, but finds only insecurity, -war, gloom and sickness. These conditions cause many to won-der if life is worth living at all.                —

--- TAKE COURAGE!

Just ahead, for all lovers of righteousness, is unending life in a paradise earth of God’s making. There will be no sickness, sorrow, pain or death in his

new world. After reading of God’s loving provisions in the 384-page book **New Heavens and a New’ Earth” and how he is carrying them out, you will be greatly comforted and encouraged. Your copy is waiting for you, together with an arresting 32-page booklet After Armageddon —God’s New World, on a contribution of 50 cents.

WATCHTOWER                117 ADAMS ST.               BROOKLYN 1, N.Y.

Enclosed is 50 cents.

Please send me the           book “New Heavens and a New;       ' and the 32-page booklet

After Armageddon - God’s New World,

Street and Number Manic....................      or Route and Box .. ...................... ...........................

City.................................................................................................. Zone No......... Stale ...........................................................

32

¹

See page 25.