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In every issue “Awake!” presents vital topics on which you should be informed, it features penetrating articles on social conditions and offers sound counsel for meeting the problems of everyday life. Current news from every continent passes in quick review. Attention is focused on activities in the fields of government and commerce about which you should know. Straightforward discussions of religious issues alert you to matters of vital concern. Customs and people in many lands, the marvels of creation, practical sciences and points of human interest are all embraced in its coverage. "Awake!" provides wholesome, instructive reading for every member of the family.

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and in England by

WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY Watch Tower House, The Ridgeway London N.W, 7, England N, h. Knobs, President                     Geant Suites, Secretary

The Bible Version regularly used in “Awake!¹¹ is the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, 19$1 edition. When ether traulatious ar* ased, this Is riearly marfcad.

--------------_M TH Hn m rn Hr — mi in in — iin in

CONTENTS

What Is Happening to Youth?	3	Evolution Science Fiction	19
The Exploiters of Youth	6	Flight Around the Moon	20
The Burden Parents Must Bear	9	Searching for Sapphires	25
Why the "Generation Gap”?	13	Rain and Snow	27
A Busy Port	15	‘Tour Word Is Truth" Are They Really Prophecies?	28
Miracle Rice—for Asia’s Hungry Millions	16	Watching the World	30

WIAT is happen i n g to modern youth ? That is a question that not only parents, educators, policemen and judges are asking but also all who are sincerely interested in leading a calm and quiet life.

True, according to some statistics, today’s college youths differ little from their elders when they were in college. Philanthropist John D. Rockefeller IH recently stated: “Instead of worrying about how to suppress the youth revolution we of the older generation should be worrying about how to sustain it.”

But that something serious is happening to modem youth is apparent from the reports appearing in the public press. Lawlessness among youths is increasing in viciousness as well as in extent.

In New York city alone youthful vandals destroy $5,000,000 worth of public property each year. One St. Louis slum area policeman estimated that 80 percent of the robberies in his beat are committed by teen-agens. And according to Look magazine, June 11, 1968, the most frequently arrested person in the United States is fifteen years old.

In giving a report on crime in the United States, J. Edgar Hoover, head of

the F.B.I., stated: “A particularly tragic facet of the crime and violence problem in this country is the increasing involvement of young people, A disproportionate share of national crime is committed by persons under eighteen years of age. In 1967, for example, 49 percent of those arrested for serious crimes were in this age bracket; and arrests of persons under 13 years increased a startling 69 percent from 1960 to 1967, while the number of persons in the age group 10 to 17 increased just 22 percent.”

A like picture was painted by the United States Attorney General He reported that young people between the ages of eleven and seventeen make up about 13 percent of the population of the United States, yet account for 50 percent of all convictions for burglaries, larcenies and car thefts.

Not Only Lawless, but Vicious, Sadistic

Among the more disturbing aspects of the situation is the vicious and sadistic nature of much of the lawlessness. For example, there are the roving bands of teen-agers reported on in the New York Times, November 15, 1968. These arm themselves with aerials snapped off autos, long thin steel rods, and then beat up pedestrians “just for the pleasure of it,” not bothering to rob their victims. One of the victims required thirteen stitches to close the gashes on his forehead and left ear.

A leading New York child psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, in his book A Sign for Cain (1966), under the chapter heading “Tired of Home, Sick of School, and Bored with Life,” reports on the great increase in vicious violence among youths, of which the following are representative: A boy of eight years murdered a girl of four years after sexually abusing her. A boy of thirteen raped a six-year-old girl and then killed her with a large rock. When her almost nude body was found, its condition appalled veteran policemen. A girl of ten years threw her seven-month-old baby stepsister out of the window because she “didn’t like the baby.” A boy of nine was shot and killed by a girl of fourteen because he had teased her brother. A fourteen-year-old girl took a revolver out of her loose-leaf notebook and killed a sixteen-year-old student. Until recently violent crimes among girls were rare.

Then again, The Saturday Evening Post, November 16, 1968, under the heading “Law and Order—What It’s All About,” reported on what a policeman in a slum area of St. Louis had to say about a certain crime: “A couple of teen-agers bashed in the front door . . . of a . . . family’s home. They started drinking beer and then took the husband . . . and shot him in the back. Killed him. Then they took the wife and shot her in the stomach. She tried to run, so they shot her again— in the back. Then they raped her. All this took place in front of the couple’s three kids.”

And describing a certain teen-ager he arrested, he said: “I’ll never forget that kid. Thirteen years old. He was the youngest member of the gang, but all the others were afraid of him and I can see why. He was just cold, hard; I couldn’t get near him. I’ve talked to professional criminals who weren’t that hard. ... He had 100 arrest cards, including one for rape.” And only thirteen years old!

A far younger criminal was told about in the New York Daily News, November 19, 1967, The lad was only six years old. Yet he was old enough to settle an argument with a seven-year-old playmate by killing him with a .22-caliber rifle. Since Texas law makes no provision for dealing with six-year-old murderers, Ward County Judge Ernest King released the lad in the custody of his parents.

‘These boys today are just too fresh, said one of Boston’s municipal court judges, Elijah Adlow, as he fined seventeenyear-old Arthur Frederico $100. Of what did his ‘freshness’ consist? He tried to choke his fourteen-year-old “date” or girl friend and then threw her into Boston Harbor. Fortunately for her, a passerby saw him do it and rescued the girl.

This evidence does not tell nearly all the story. Recent surveys show that half of the crimes are not even reported to the police. Yet there are some who would have us believe that there is no more violence today than 100 years ago!

While these reports relate largely to what is taking place in the United States, where admittedly the situation is severe, youth is giving cause for concern in other lands. This is true of the Red Guards in Communist China. That countries such as England, Sweden, West Germany, France and Italy are plagued with the same difficulty is clear from the book Troublemakers, written by English social and political analyst T. R. Fyvel. And that Russia has the same problem is testified to in Allen Kassof’s book The Soviet

Youth Program, Regimentation and Rebellion. The situation is not merely a national one; it plagues the entire world.

Drags and Promiscuity

Youths are also giving concern to their elders by reason of their fling into promiscuity and drug addiction. Especially is the use of marijuana spreading like wildfire. That its use is no mere innocuous pastime was made clear about a year ago by a superior court judge of Massachusetts who upheld the ban on marijuana, citing the pernicious harm that can result from its use. About the same time the American Medical Association went on record as condemning the habit.

According to one report, in some California communities from 50 to 75 percent of high-school students have experimented with marijuana, and one-third of these are habitual users. While the use of marijuana or “pot,” as it is popularly called, first became a fad among college students, now it is reaching down even to the gradeschool students. And some of these, like their exemplars, are indulging in more harmful drugs.

There is also the matter of promiscuity, or, in Bible language, “loose conduct,” “uncleanness” and “fornication.” (Gal. 5: 19) The use of “pot” often results in such loose conduct. It, together with many other factors, has brought about a veritable epidemic of venereal disease. And what in particular disturbs the health authorities who are combating it is its spiraling incidence among youths. Furthermore, a report tells that one out of every six female teen-agers in the United States becomes pregnant out of wedlock, and that one-third to one-half of all teen-age marriages in the United States are prefaced by illegitimate pregnancies. No wonder, with so many ‘shotgun’ marriages among teen-agers, one-half of them soon end in divorce.

The College Scene

The New York Times, June 29, 1968, published the results of an extensive Gallup poll which purported to show that “Polls Find Youths Aren’t So Radical. Shows Most Students Are Involved, Not Rebellious.” Yet the “involved” majority is bound to be judged by the “rebellious” minority if the majority meekly stands by and lets the rebellious minority disrupt the college scene.

Thus, as reported in U.S. News £ World Report, “it was a students’ revolt in France that sparked the uprising that threatened to doom the government of President Charles de Gaulle.” But when he took the issue to the people, the French people voted for De Gaulle and against the radicalism of the students.

The New York Times, November 5, 1968, told of about 500 West Berlin students battling the police. It resulted in more than 150 being injured, the great majority of whom were policemen, some twenty of whom had to be hospitalized.

Still another report tells that Japanese students have been on a rampage for more than six months. About 90 percent of Japan’s 377 universities have been affected. On October 21, Tokyo’s Shinjuku railroad station was closed for fourteen hours, causing inconvenience to a million commuters. Rock-throwing students, several thousand strong, wrecked trains and equipment valued at nearly 4.5 million dollars. This particular violence was part of a demonstration against Japan’s foreign policies.

Some weeks earlier Mexico City was the scene of violent student outbursts day after day. On one occasion 50,000 students marched in protest. “Ten days before the Olympic Games were scheduled to open in Mexico City, October 12, at least 21 persons were killed and 200 wounded in a new outburst of violence.”—US. News <£ World Report, October 14, 1968.

A few weeks earlier the same news weekly told that the United States schools of higher learning were “Hit by New Violence,” calling to mind its report of May 6, 1968: “Anarchy Spreads in U.S. Colleges. Terrorism by Student Mobs Is Creating Turmoil on U.S. Campuses.” It told of one university after another capitulating to violent student pressure.

What does this global upsurge of lawless conduct on the part of youth mean? Some nineteen hundred years ago the greatest prophet that ever lived, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, foretold that the era marked by widespread wars, food shortages, earthquakes and pestilence would also see an ‘increase in lawlessness.’ He pointed out that this would be visible evidence of the nearness of the time when God would intervene to destroy the wicked system of things. And his apostle Paul prophesied to the same effect, saying: “But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming, haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, . . . having no natural affection, . . . without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God.” (Matt. 24:12; 2 Tim. 3: 1-4) We live in those “last days” now.

No question about it, youth, more than any other segment of modern society, is contributing to making these times perilous indeed. But why is this happening to youth? Why all this lawlessness? Why all this resorting to drugs and indulging in sexual immorality? Who is responsible? How can parents protect their children, and how can youths protect themselves from being sucked into this maelstrom of wickedness and violence?

WHY? Why? Why? That is the question that ever so many are asking as they note what is happening to modern youth. What has gone wrong? Who is to blame? Not least among those deserving severe censure for their part in youth’s undoing are the producers of “pop” music, crime comic-book publishers, motionpicture producers, the television industry and those trafficking in pornography and illegal drugs.

Yes, ever so many men in these industries are without principle. They do not believe in doing to others the way they would have others do to them. The thing farthest from their minds is to love their youthful neighbors as themselves. They flatter youth, and by appealing to youth’s weaknesses they spread a snare for youth’s feet, all for the sake of selfish gain.—Mark 12:31; Prov. 29:5.

Concerning some of these exploiters of youth a woman executive in a New York advertising agency stated: "If you could see how shrewdly and calculatedly the kids are led to buy things, almost by push-button control, it would make your blood run cold." And in a similar vein Manhattan psychiatrist Robert SiJbert observed: “Barriers have been removed and the suppressive forces that used to help the young maintain control are disappearing, Just when we should be helping them to master their drives, we surround them with suggestions of things they’re not ready for.”

Thus regarding the “pop” music business High Fidelity magazine says: “No industry manipulates youth with the cool surgical skill of the pop music business. Since the young are, and always have been, rebellious, the industry is shrewdly selling them rebellion.” “It will make and market anything that it thinks will sell, as witness its processing of propaganda for drug use.” And says a report from Great Britain, as published in the New York Times: “There has, in fact, been a general realization among the top groups that the best thing in rock is its excitement, its beat and sexuality and insanity, and the best of English pop [music] sounds fiercer right now than at any time in the last five years.” No wonder we read that popular songs are one of the contributing factor's in the increase of sexual immorality.

The Comic-Book Industry

For years the comic-book industry, especially in the United States, has been producing comics about violence and crime. It does an annual business in that country alone of 100 million dollars. While, due to public protest, some of the most sordid comics are no longer being published, millions of these are still in circulation and being read. And those being published still reek with violence and crime. In one story, which is but one of a number of stories in just one comic book, thirty-seven killings are portrayed. And featured are not only killings but all manner of tortures.

As Dr. F, Wertham notes: “Killing is commonplace . . . Brutality, torture and sadism are featured . . . Shooting policemen to the accompaniment of contemptuous remarks belong to comic-book repertory.” In these crime comics people are shown being dragged behind autos, face down over rough terrain, for the purpose of 'erasing their faces.’ All of this is bound to have an effect on children. Yes, children become fascinated by horror stories and seek to imitate them. No wonder sadistic crimes are committed by preteen-age children.

Motion Pictures and Television

There is also the violence and moral degeneracy depicted on the motion-picture screens. Motion pictures fit to take children to are becoming ever fewer.

There was the film that was advertised: “It is written that you can sin 490 times and be forgiven. This motion picture is about the 491st.” One reviewer described it as “a steady and enveloping climate of evil and corruption [which] pervades the whole picture, a crafty, surly and hopeless lot, an ice-cold warning of insidious evil triumphant.” The plots of such degrading pictures often are preposterous and make those concerned with law and order look ridiculous, merely serving as an excuse to depict sensational and shocking immorality.

The television industry must also share in the blame for what is happening to youth by its portrayal of vice and violence. In one week one American television station showed 334 completed or attempted killings, and in one large city in one week 7,887 acts of violence and 1,087 threats of violence were shown. Not without good reason does Professor Ross Snyder state in his book, Young People and Their Culture, that electronic communications are “a menace of staggering proportions.”

American television is especially bad in this regard. According to the British “Report of the Committee on Broadcasting,” television programs from America, with the exception of comedies and musical shows, almost always contain scenes of violence. As Juvenile Court Judge Phillip D. Gilliam of Portland, Oregon, expressed it: “The communications explosion is the major factor in delinquency. In every poverty-stricken home is a television set—instant violence all around.” Judge Gilliam knows what he is talking about. In the past thirty-two years he has had more than 150,000 youthful offenders appear before him.

No wonder then as a leading New York city child psychiatrist noted: “Younger and younger people are committing more and more crimes of greater and greater violence. Children of 12 and 13 years are killing now. This was not so 15 years ago. We seem to be running a sort of ‘head start’ program for violence, with all the emphasis we give it in films, on television and in those awful comic books.” —U.S. News & World Report, June 17, 1968.

The Pornographers and Drug Traffickers

Then, there are the conscienceless out-and-out corrupters of youth who produce and distribute pornography, lewd, lascivious pictures, motion pictures and literature. At least 75 percent of their products fall into the hands of youth. Recently the United States Supreme Court ruled that material with frankly pornographic appeal may not be sent through the U.S. mails. In the state of California pornography is a 19-million-dollar business annually, and it is estimated that each month 700,000 sex magazines and 1.5 million “dirty” paperback books are published.

Concerning such material J. Edgar Hoover, head of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, in an interview stated: “Pornography in all its forms is one of the major causes of sex crimes, sexual aberrations and perversions. . . . Lewd and obscene material plays a motivating role in sex violence. In case after case the sex criminal has on his person or in his possession pornographic literature or pictures. . . . Forcible rape has increased 10 percent in 1966 over 1965.”

The flood of pornographic material being spread abroad together with lewd motion pictures and television programs helps account for such crimes as that of the eight-year-old boy sexually abusing a four-year-old girl and then strangling her with a clothesline. Neighbors termed this boy “a normal, very nice boy from a wonderful family.”

But without a doubt the most vicious of all exploiters of youth are those who operate the drug traffic, for drugs not only corrupt but also destroy youths. Thus, U.S. News & World Report says that “heroin, marijuana and other illicit drugs are pouring into the U.S. in a rising tide from every quarter of the globe. Prime target is young Americans . . . One certain fact: The drug market, more and more, is a youthful market.” And another report states: “Along with the increased use of drugs by the younger generation, the crime rate has grown rapidly among the same group. Street holdups and robberies of stores and homes are often motivated by the desire to get money to buy drugs.”

No question about it, blame for what is happening to youth today must be shared by the exploiters of youth, the many mentioned above. But what about the parents? and the youths themselves?

Among the most rewarding things that a married couple can do together is to “be fruitful and become many”—provided their children turn

out well. Such is indeed a great joy, even as recognized by wise King Solomon: “Look! Sons are an inheritance from Jehovah; the fruitage of the belly is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the sons of youth. Happy is the able-bodied man that has filled his quiver with them.”—Gen. 1:28; Ps. 127: 3-5.

Yes, when children turn out well they are a great blessing, a source of comfort and joy. But what if they fail to turn out well? Then what? Then there is regret, grief, shame. And who is responsible for it all? Time and again parents have asked: “What did we do wrong? Wherein have we failed our children, that they turned out so badly?” No doubt the greedy commercial exploiters of youth must share in the blame. But to what extent could the parents have counteracted these bad influences? To what extent did they come short, and in what respects?

No doubt one factor in the failure of many of today’s parents is the “new affluence.” On the one hand, this has resulted in youths’ being less dependent upon their parents, and, on the other hand, it has caused parents who lack sound spiritual values to be tempted to sacrifice the interests of their children for the sake of pleasures. In other words, it is the modem trend of materialism, as T. R. Fyvel, British social and political analyst, so well shows in his work Troublemakers.

Quite likely another reason why so many parents have come short is that they have let the theory of evolution crowd out Bible principles. The law of survival of the fittest is credited with bringing man to where he is today, and that law knows nothing of justice, empathy or fellow feeling. As far as the East is from the West is it from the Bible principle: “Just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them.” Would any teen-ager have become delinquent if he had truly learned to adhere to that rule?—Luke 6:31.

Also contributing to making the job of being parents more difficult have been the churches themselves. Generally either the unreasonable creeds of the Dark Ages are taught or modern liberal theories that deny the inspiration of the Bible. Far from teaching their flocks the fear of Jehovah God, which is to hate evil (Prov. 8:13), many clergymen teach either that God is dead or that no human need fear to displease him, for he will do neither good nor bad—Zeph. 1:12.

Some clergymen even go so far as to approve of premarital sex relations and homosexuality. Thus a dub operated by a clergyman was raided by the police, who arrested twenty teen-agers and found in the club “a shotgun, several whiskey bottles, contraceptives scattered on the floor, obscene expressions written on the walls, several drunk teen-agers and one teenage girl who was unconscious because of drinking." (Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1968) So, false religious teaching has been a major factor in loosening moral restraint. Even well-meaning parents, by sending their children to religious organizations that belittle or misrepresent God's wholesome Word, in this way contribute to the corrupting of the lives of their offspring.

Firmness and Discipline Neglected

That neglecting firmness and discipline also contributes to delinquency is a conclusion reached by ever so many having to deal with delinquent youths. Said a New York city official regarding the city’s widespread subway vandalism: “We are not speaking of . . . young hooligans who come under police custody. We are referring to the youngsters who come from so-called good families who will walk through a car and slash seats with a knife or some other sharp tool. Just plain pampered youth. When I was a kid a paddle was used. Perhaps we ought to go back to it." Yes, as the Bible says, “Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him.”—Prov. 22:15.

Of similar import is the testimony given by Ruben Pannor, a district director of a California child-care service. He has interviewed literally hundreds of unwed fathers for the purpose of helping them to shoulder their obligations in one form or another. He stated that young folks actually want their parents to be more firm in teaching them morals. “These kids want someone to say ‘No!’ and say why.” Among other things, he has found that going steady on the part of teen-agers contributes to illegitimacy. Yet, as he said, “parents will find that it isn’t such a tough problem if they take a stand against it.” In this regard it might be said that parents of previous generations were wiser than those of today, for they would not permit young folks to court without being chaperoned.

Thus also there is the testimony of Dr. J. M. Babbitt, Ph.D., who has given many years to the study of mental and emotional problems of youth. When asked about parents’ being to blame for delinquent children in middle-class suburbs, he said: “To a large extent, I suppose the answer is ‘Yes,’—although it is also true that the broad changes ... in society and the economy make child-rearing more complex and difficult than it was for our parents. But today’s parents still have to assume a large part of the responsibility for what is happening . . . One could say that middle-class parents may have been over-indulgent. Too often the middle-class child comes to feel that he should have everything he wants, that he should never be frustrated, that he should never have to work for anything.”

Showing the importance of discipline, psychiatrist Rittwagen in Sins of Their Fathers stated: “In the final analysis parents must be parents. They cannot slough the job onto someone else. And they very definitely do have an obligation to . . . discipline ... Its chief value lies in strengthening the [personality] so that the adolescent can deal adequately and independently with his inner drives and with outer pressures. It prevents the child from becoming a victim of anarchic impulses, narcissistic indulgence, and a false sense of omnipotence. The parent must employ this discipline in a manner that will lead to self-discipline.” As District Judge L. H. Loble of Helena, Montana, who has been successful in reducing juvenile delinquency in his district, put it, “Discipline should begin in the high chair, not the electric chair.”

Among other matters to which parents have failed to be firm is the spending of money. According to the chief of child psychiatry at the New York Hospital— Cornell Medical Center, Dr. New, parents should limit the amount of money they give their children until they are sure that their children can handle it wisely. "One way for parents to protect their children from [drugs and pornography] is by seeing that they don’t have enough money to pay for them.”—New York Times Magazine, June 9, 1968.

Neglect to Set Right Example

Why are so many parents not sufficiently firm with their children? No doubt one reason is that modern theories of child training have popularized permissiveness. Another reason may well be that the parents are not firm with themselves, do not exercise discipline and self-control regarding their own selfish tendencies and so lack the courage and will to be firm with their offspring. Thus T. C. Purtell in Tonight Is Too Late, writes: “The fact remains, inescapable and damning, that there are parents in every community who drink too much and who do not seem to care what their children do. . . . At best one could hope for parent rather than child education.”

A recent American television program that dealt with the “generation gap” was reported, as sketching “with acid strokes the hypocrisy of adults who have one code for their children and another for themselves.” As Dr. Bernard New put it, “Mothers and fathers have to realize that it’s part of their job to be standard setters.” And wrote psychiatrist Robert Silbert: “When mothers dress like little girls and fathers pride themselves on doing the frug [a modem sexy dance], children lose their models of behavior. How can they identify with us when we seem to be identifying with them?”

Without a doubt many children fail in school because their parents fail to take an interest in acquiring knowledge themselves. Thus the New York Times, November 5, 1968, reported that “one of the most serious problems in the education of the city’s Negro children is *a lack of educational enrichment in their home.’ ” It quoted a public-school official as saying that some homes have four television sets but no dictionary.

Need to Show Loping Concern

Not only is it necessary for parents to be firm with their children and set a right example, but they must also show loving concern for them. This means that they must be willing to give their children much affection as well as much of their time. They cannot expect their children to turn out well if the parents are lovers of pleasures or of wealth more than lovers of their own children. Thus regarding a teen-ager who went wrong we are told: “Leon was alienated from his parents, both of whom worked and who were too busy to give him the attention he craved,” and it might be added, he so much needed.

Bearing this out is the report on Bishop Pike’s son who committed suicide: “Pike and his son, as the bishop readily admits, had not been close for much of the boy’s life. While his father kept busy with church affairs, young Jim as a teen-ager was turning on the hippie way of life. In his freshman year at San Francisco State College, he moved out of the family home for a pad at Hashbury [Hippie headquarters] where he experimented with marijuana, peyote, LSD and Romilar. , . . Pike admits he allowed his son to use LSD. 'Had I forbidden him to take trips [with LSD] in the flat, he would no doubt have gone out with friends when he wanted to.’ ’’ (Time, November 15, 1968) Are deep concern and discipline apparent here? Who, then, largely bears the burden for this young man’s suicide?

In particular is the loving concern of the father vital to the proper development of a son’s personality. As long-time Juvenile Court Judge P. D. Gilliam once said: “When a man asked me the one thing he can do to keep his children from becoming delinquent, I told him ‘love your wife.’ If parents love each other the kids will be all right.” Why? Because they will also be loving the kids.

Well has psychiatrist Rittwagen observed: “A father whose attention is concentrated on his wife and children makes the family a strong unit. . . . Here it is that our families fall down most. . , . We . . . tend to underplay the father role which is an extremely important one. . . . It is mainly through him that the young school child internalizes his values and precepts of right and wrong, good and bad, permissions and prohibitions.” But when a father is too busy, either with work or in the pursuit of pleasures, to give needed time to his children, how can he accomplish these all-important things for them?

And as McCann wrote in Delinquency —Sickness or Sin?: “The dockets of our juvenile courts , . . reveal in one child after another a common experience: parental indifference, neglect, rejection.”

Right Principles Not Inculcated

Still another basic aspect in which modem parents have failed their children is in not inculcating right principles in them. God’s Word says: “Train up a boy according to the way for him; even when he grows old he will not turn aside from it.” (Prov. 22:6) As one New York city school official expressed it: Real involvement by parents “means talking to your children and showing them right from wrong in school and out. A lot of times children will say nastily to a teacher, ‘My mommy said you can’t touch me,’ ” —New York Times, November 5, 1968.

The law of Moses put Hebrew parents on the right track. It commanded them: “These words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart; and you must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”—Deut. 6:6, 7.

No question about it, the burden of guilt that so many parents must bear because of the burgeoning of juvenile delinquency is great indeed. Many parents have failed to be firm with their children, failed to discipline them properly. They have failed to set them the right example, have failed to show them loving concern and neglected to inculcate in them right principles. All this, together with changed economic conditions and the greedy exploiters of youth, no doubt largely accounts for what is happening to youth today. But do not the youths themselves also come in for a measure of blame and censure? At the bar of justice are they not also shown to come short? Indeed they are, even as we shall presently see.

What is happening to youth today includes also its estrangement from its eiders, commonly called the “generation gap.” Author G. Grant, writing in the Saturday Review, March 18, 1967, well noted that “there is a qualitative difference

pening now and what traditionally have been the impatient utterances of youth. . . . Those over thirty would be foolish not to see in it the symptoms of deep and alarming disquietude.”

This gap is a worldwide phenomenon. It is apparent throughout Europe, as noted by British writer T. R. Fyvel in his book Troublemakers. And according to the New York Times, December 1, 1968, “The Generation Gap in Japan Is Almost an Abyss.”

Regarding its prevalence in the United States, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

Earl Warren warned that ‘one of the most urgent necessities of our time is to resolve the growing friction between the daring of youth and the mellow practicality of the more mature.’

What accounts for this gap? Without a doubt the same factors accounting for the increase in lawlessness among youth have also contributed to this gap. Included therefore are also the change in economic conditions, television and the knowledge explosion, from all of which youth has benefited ■ most. Concerning the responsibility that adults, the older generation, have for this gap, Harold Howe II, United States Commissioner, observed: “Perhaps we . . . have given too little attention to the youthful questioners and dissenters in our homes and schools. It may be that if we listened to them a little more closely, we could speak to them a little more convincingly.” But youth must also bear their share of the blame for their course of action as well as for the "generation gap." Telling is the point that Mr. Barr, headmaster of the Dalton Schools, makes; “When I was in college we students . . . didn’t make sharp distinctions between ourselves and our elders. . . . Youths today think they can cheat on tests, steal from each other’s lockers, and exploit each other emotionally, so long as they have the right opinions about war or civil rights or something else. That is not morality.”

Muddled Thinking

Look where we will, we see evidences of muddled thinking on the part of many youths. Thus one of the leaders of America's youth rebellion said, “First we’ll make the revolution—then we’ll find out what for.” Does that make sense? A leader of the New York High School Union betrayed the same mentality when he said: “We don’t want to take over the government. We want to destroy it. I believe people should have power over their own lives, but not over other people’s lives.” But how can you keep the stronger from dominating the weaker without an orderly and strong government?

Another instance of such kind of thinking is furnished by the teen-age male star of the film “Romeo and Juliet.” According to him, “in school or anywhere else it’s rotten to take orders from anyone.... No matter how ridiculous it may seem, there are dads who think they have the divine right to rule their offspring simply because they have engendered them.” —New York Sunday News, November 17, 1968.

Parents, however, not only engender their offspring, but they invest much time, money and energy over a period of years to rear, feed and clothe their offspring and to provide them with education and entertainment. Because of this they have a far greater vested interest in the way youth turns out than many youths appear to have. Typical of the calloused attitude of many youths is that of the college editor who treated as a joke a youth’s committing suicide while under the influence of LSD. But did the youth’s parents think it was a joke?

In similar muddled thinking another youthful editor of a college paper wrote: “The reason you can’t trust anyone over thirty is that they lie; they cannot be trusted. You hear what they say drugs are like and you take drugs and find out it isn’t true.” But that makes as much sense as accusing cancer researchers of lying because one has smoked cigarettes for a year or two without getting lung cancer. The UNESCO Courier, May 1968, spelled out in detail the many dangers inherent in taking such drugs as LSD, and both legal and medical authorities have warned against marijuana.

The same youthful college editor further complained: “And about sex. It just isn’t true that sex is bad unless you’re married. Once you’ve had the experience you can’t accept the old standard.” But do adults speak against premarital sex merely to rob youth of pleasure? Premarital sex is self-defeating, even as such an authority as F. Alexander Magoun shows in his book Love and Marriage. It not only carries the risks of venereal disease and unwanted pregnancy but also greatly decreases the chances of continued marital happiness. Underscoring one of these points is the American Medical Association’s report that “the United States is in the grip of a ‘serious’ epidemic of teen-age venereal disease.”—New York Times, December 4, 1968.

Questionable Methods

Youths themselves have also contributed to the “generation gap” by the questionable methods they resort to to gain their ends. When Vice-President Hubert Humphrey visited Stanford University late in February 1967, the students gave him a rough reception: ‘ ‘They rushed at us, threw urine which they had saved up, called out dirty names,” according to a report published in U.S. News & World Report.

The New York Times, December 3, 1968, told of thousands of New York city students going on a rampage, trying to break up classes where students were not striking, beating up teachers, breaking windows and even disrupting subway service on one line. Why? Because they objected to attending school 45 minutes longer each day so as to get caught up with the studies they missed during the teachers’ strike. But for whose benefit were their studies extended? For the teachers?

Youthful demonstrators protest their sincerity, but as political scientist Leo Rosten pointed out in Look, November 12, 1968, such youths are sincerely unhappy, sincerely frustrated, sincerely confused and sincerely illogical.

Many youths think that the Vietnam war is unjust and that racial segregation is unjust, but so do many adults. Does that justify violence?

By its violence and obscenities youth betrays an unreasoning mind, an uncontrolled spirit. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas shows in Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience: “We have an alternative . . . Good motives do not excuse action that will injure others. The individual’s conscience does not give him license to indulge individual convictions without regard to the rights of others.” In other words, as Jesus Christ expressed it: “Just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them.”—Luke 6:31.

What Can Be Done About It?

What can be done by individual families about the “generation gap”? Parents can take their obligations more seriously, be lovers of their children rather than lovers of pleasures. They can alert themselves to the dangers facing their children by reason of the greedy commercial exploiters and bad school associations. They can make a sincere effort to understand their children, to spend time with them and, above all, to keep open communication with them.

Parents can also be firm and exercise discipline, set a fine example and show loving concern for their offspring. And important also is not only inculcating right principles but giving their children a vision of God’s purposes and kingdom, for “where there is no vision the people go unrestrained.” To the extent that parents show understanding and keep integrity, children will be more likely to respect and obey their parents.—Prov. 29:18.

And as for youth? Does not youth owe a debt of gratitude to parents for food, clothing, shelter, education and entertainment? Each year many fathers desert their families because these burdens become too grievous for them. Fathers willing to bear these burdens should be honored and respected for it. Mothers also deserve honor and respect for all their toil in making a house a home and nurturing the young from infancy to maturity.

Not only parents, but also you, their offspring, need to exercise empathy. Put yourselves in the shoes of your parents, as it were, and try to see things from their standpoint and make a sincere effort to communicate. Remember, your parents are far more concerned with what happens to you than are any of your teenage companions. Rightly and wisely God’s Word commands: “Honor your father and your mother . . . that it may go well with you.” “Observe, O my son, the commandment of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother.”—Eph. 6:2; Prov. 6:20.

Where both parents and their offspring follow Bible principles, there will be no “generation gap.”

"Magtanim ay di biro," sings

/Yl the Filipino youngster. That means "Planting rice is never fun.” And it is true that in almost all Asia ricegrowing is a backbreaking job. The truth behind that Tagalog folk song is evident in Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere. It is grimly true in India. In the state of Bihar alone some forty million people are slowly dying of hunger.

In the Philippines, as in most of these other lands, the problem is not merely confined to the fact that it is hard work to raise rice. The great problem is to grow sufficient rice so as to meet the minimal food requirements of a burgeoning population. Today’s population of 35,000,000 may perhaps be tomorrow’s of 40,000,000.

So rice-farming is, in fact, a race against hunger and death.

And when we speak of rice we are speaking of Asia’s staple food crop, her

staff of life. How important a place it occupies in the economies of Oriental lands may be gathered from this comparison; In the United States of America consumption of rice on the average is about seven pounds of rice a year for every person; in Asia it is not uncommon for one person to eat almost a pound a day and to feature it in every meal of the day.

To Ka Tomas, one of the multitude of small farmers in the Philippines, planting rice was a depressing business. The average yield on his farm per hectare was only about 30 cavans (44 kilos or 96.8 lbs.) of unhulled rice per season. Since he only had two hectares or about five acres to cultivate, that meant a seasonal harvest of sixty cavans. If weather permitted a second harvest, the greatest crop he could hope for would be 120 cavans.

But that is not all. Since he and his fellow farmers are for the most part merely tenants, half the crop must go to the landlord. Consequently, there was barely enough rice for his family to tide them over until the next harvest. His wife had to turn to laundering and sewing dresses to augment the family income. And as his children grew up they turned their backs on farm work and sought brighter-looking opportunities in the big city. Not at all a happy situation.

The Breakthrough

Then came the breakthrough for the thousands of Ka Tomases throughout the rice paddies of the Philippines. It was in

1962. A worker at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) took pollen from a short, flowering Taiwanese rice plant called Dee-geo-woo-gen to fertilize the pistils of a tail, tropical Indonesian-Philippine variety called Peta, The result was what the daily press described as "miracle rice.”                 '

It was no sudden miracle, however. It was the result of four years of tireless experimentation at Los Banos, Laguna, where IRRI, the world’s largest rice research center, is located. But though scientists objected to the name "miracle rice,” it has stuck.

From the initial cross-pollination 150 seeds were produced. They were planted in pots, and the seeds from these provided a second generation of 10,000 plants. Those that grew tall, matured late or had other undesirable qualities were discarded. Seeds from the remainder were planted in a blast nursery, and again the undesirables were treated like weeds. About 298 plants survived and were sown separately. And again those that did not measure up to the standards set were ruthlessly eliminated.

In row number 288, plant number 3 had every indication of a promising future. Its seeds were planted, and what resulted? Why, miracle rice! To the technicians it is IR8-288-3, or IR8 for short. Another variety is the IR5-47-2, or just IR5.

It took a lot of hard work. The propagation of the plant itself was only part of the project. It had to be accompanied by intensive study of soils, fertilizers, irrigation methods and weed and insect control. But the hard work finally paid off. With miracle rice Ka Tomas could harvest five times the amount of rice he had formerly harvested. And a good season would now bring him a maximum yield of 164 cavans. In other parts of the country came reports of even better yields— as high as 250 cavans and more! Better harvesting techniques and improved milling methods gave promise of still better production.

The Farm Work Involved

Ka Tomas smiles more often these days. Now he thinks of building a sturdier home, not the nipa-and-bamboo affair that fought a losing battle with every typhoon. And he hopes to pay off all his debts within one more year.

But now, oddly enough, he finds himself bound ever tighter to his plot of land, with less time for leisure. The miracle rice demands constant, loving attention from seed-sowing to the time of the ripening grain. A man may spend double for fertilizer and insecticide, but if he does not spend increased hours with his growing crop, the yield will still be less than expected,

Since weeds grow just as fast as rice on the fertilized soil, Ka Tomas and his whole family have to weed the fields day after day without letup. He hopes sometime soon to use mechanical weeders so as to keep abreast with necessary work. His eye, too, must be quick to detect the early evidences of insect infestation, and chemical spray must be applied right away.

But Ka Tomas is willing to pay the price, for now he can look forward to three bountiful harvests each year. As compared with his former scanty harvest, he can now look forward to a yield of five to seven tons of rice in the wet season and seven to nine tons in the dry season. If only he had more land to plant with miracle rice, he dreams.

Advantages of the New Rice

Rice farmers see many benefits from planting miracle rice. Most other kinds gobble up fertilizer, with most of the benefit going into stalks and leaves—a waste of good money. When the stalk grows too long and gets to be leaf-heavy it will bend over and droop into the mud. The flowers get crushed by the weight of piled rice stalks and leaves, resulting in too many empty rice grains. Grains that do ripen among the tangled stalks sprout prematurely in the mud, and that means more rice lost.

In miracle rice, however, the same amount of fertilizer goes to where it will do the most good—into the grains themselves. And the more fertilizer that is used on miracle rice the more rice grains result—something that was never true of other strains of rice. Even without fertilizer, miracle rice still outproduces other varieties.

Then, says Ka Tomas, this new rice has a high tillering ability, that is, it can produce more tillers or offshoots per stalk. On the spot where two stems were planted you may well get seventeen or eighteen later on. At times there are as many as twenty-six new stems, all heavy with rice grain!

Again, since each stem of the new rice is short and stiff, from 90 to 105 centimeters long, it can stand up under its own weight and refuses to bend. And the ripening rice grains do not easily get dislodged from the stalks in heavy wind or rain. Thus not so much rice is lost in bad weather.

Birds, such as the maya or the pipit, think twice before swooping into a field of the ripe miracle rice, for this strain has razor-sharp stiff leaves that can hurt thieving birds. That is good, for it means less rice for birds and more for Ka Tomas’ bodega or storehouse.

Another thing, miracle rice is nonphotosensitive. That means it is not allergic to a little loss of sunlight. It will go on growing and producing regardless of the number of dark days in the course of the year.

Not a Perfect Rice

No, not a perfect rice, our rice farmer will admit. There is no such thing. It is true that other varieties of rice taste better, and miracle rice does not cook up as fluffy as might be desired. And since it hardens when cold, it is best to eat it while still hot Otherwise one must do quite a lot more chewing. The new rice is chalky, too, and prone to breakage at the mills, with the result that the precious germ often gets thrown away with the hulls. IREI experts are at work on methods of increasing the milling ability of miracle rice. Already it has been suggested that parboiling the unhulled rice and drying it in the sun before the milling process might produce better results.

Those who want tastier rice must be prepared to wait the extra time it takes to grow it and be content with the smaller yields. As against the seven months it takes for other rice strains to mature, miracle rice takes only four months, making it possible to harvest three times a year. Anyway, in lands where there are hungry millions, people cannot afford to be fastidious in taste.

Another drawback to promoters of the miracle rice is the fact that its shorter plants will have trouble in countries where floods are a seasonal hazard. Such countries would require longer-stemmed rice that can hold its head up above the water. Nevertheless, there are signs that the new rice is spreading and easing somewhat the near-famine conditions in various parts of the East.

Miracle Rice for All

The Philippines is no longer dependent on other countries for extra rice supplies, it is claimed. In fact, it can now export the grain. In 1968 much of the miracle rice exported was for seed: 45,000 cavans to South Vietnam, 46 to Laos, 69 to Liberia, 3,545 to Israel, 273 to Spain, 227 to Venezuela, 9 to India and 4,774 to Ceylon. That adds up to 53,943 cavans.

In India, where miracle rice was released for cultivation in 1966, production shot up more than 30 percent. There is now excitement among farmers there as more and more land is brought under cultivation to this new rice with its anticipated greater yields. In Vietnam farmers admit that the miracle rice may not win a medal for taste, but it grows abundantly and fast, and that is just what they want. Heretofore depending on vast imports of rice, this country hopes, with the use of the new rice seeds, to feed its people with homegrown rice in three years. Meantime, those who prefer Vietnam’s own delicious varieties of rice can grow them in garden plots for their own tables.

Taiwan grows excellent rice, but it seems that her subtropical variety is not too well suited to the tropical climate. The miracle rice will be a boon to them. As might be expected, too, the miracle rice will not thrive in the northerly climate of South Korea. In Thailand, where people prefer flinty and tastier rice, scientists have experimented with the crossbreeding of IRS with local rices, and now their Min-istry of Agriculture has reported the "successful development of a new high-yield strain.”

But other countries speak highly of the miracle rice. Malaysians call it Bia or the "happiness rice," and the Vietnamese refer to it as than nong, “rice of the agricultural god." They see an end to the importation of rice, to the perpetual dickering for purchase loans, to the saddening sight of long queues of people waiting with bowls outstretched for rice. It was expected that some 13 to 16 million hectares of Asian countryside would be planted in miracle rice in 1968. That means that within four months of planting there should be a single bumper crop of some 91 million tons of rice.

It must be admitted, however, that miracle rice alone cannot solve Asia’s food problem. As long as typhoons lash the Far East each year, as long as bombs go on tearing up the precious agricultural land, as long as unscrupulous manipulators can toy with the world’s rice market to their own selfish benefit, as long as superstitious attitudes hold people to antiquated farming methods, hunger will continue to haunt vast populations. The population explosion, too, increases the mouths to be fed at a pace that cannot be matched by increased crops.

Nothing short of the replacement of this selfish system of things on earth with a new God-provided system can bring about the removal of want, hunger, sickness and death. Ka Tomas and his family should pray and hope for the coming of that new system, under which the planting of rice will become a delight.

BEFORE the fascinated gaze of television viewers around the world three astronauts left the earth on December 21 for man’s first flight to the moon. Leaving behind an immense trail of fire, their giant Saturn 5 rocket lifted them by stages into earth orbit. On the second orbit the third stage of the rocket fired again for five minutes, giving them a velocity of 24,200 miles per hour. This sent them on their way to the moon.

With that initial shove the spacecraft coasted the rest of the distance of more than 230,000 miles. By the time it had reached a distance of about 212,000 miles the pull of earth’s gravity had slowed it to 2,225 miles per hour. Shortly thereafter the gravitational pull of the moon began to make itself felt, causing the craft to pick up speed. When it reached the vicinity of the moon on December 24 it was traveling at a speed of over 5,700 miles per hour. The rocket on the spacecraft was then fired to slow it down sufficiently so it would go into a moon orbit.

The astronauts thrilled the public by sending back live television pictures of the earth as it appeared to them from their spacecraft. What the viewers saw was a cloud-covered globe, part of it in darkness and the other part in light.

So impressive was the view that the astronauts were moved, while in moon orbit, to read for broadcast to the earth ten verses from the first chapter of the Bible book of Genesis. Each took a turn in reading a few. Two verses in this account of creation speak of the division between night and day that was so evident to the Apollo crew. “God saw that the light was good, and God brought about a division between the light and the darkness. And God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night”—Gen. 1:4, 5.

When commenting on this reading of the Bible by the astronauts, however, the pastor of the Episcopal church attended by Captain Lovell manifested the faithless attitude that so many clergymen have today. He discredited the Bible by claiming that its account of creation is only a “myth.” How different from Jesus Christ, who spoke respectfully of God’s Word, saying; “Your word is truth”!—John 17:17.

During the spacecraft’s ten orbits of the moon, television pictures were beamed back to earth showing the moon’s crater-marked surface. Viewers could see the craters move slowly across their television screens as the craft passed over the lunar surface.

At 1:10 a.m. on December 25 the main rocket on the spacecraft fired again, increasing its speed to 5,400 miles per hour, the speed it needed to break away from the moon’s gravitational pull. This relatively small rocket could do this because the moon’s gravity is only one-sixth that of earth’s. The craft then coasted toward the earth, gaining speed when the earth’s gravity took hold on it. By the time it slammed into the earth’s atmosphere it was traveling over 24,500 miles per hour.

A pilot of a commercial airliner flying over the Pacific Ocean reported sighting the spacecraft as it descended through the atmosphere. He said that it was a red ball of fire with an incandescent white streamer behind it that was about five miles wide and 100 miles long. This was due to the tremendous heat, about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, generated by the craft’s extreme speed in the atmosphere.

If it had not been for a protective shield on the craft it would have been consumed by the heat as many meteors are when striking the atmosphere at great speed. The shield is made of a plastic that chars from the high temperature and melts away, thus dissipating the heat so the spacecraft is not destroyed. The temperature inside remained comfortable for the astronauts.

Eight minutes after the craft entered the atmosphere it had slowed down sufficiently for parachutes to be deployed. The first two parachutes reduced the craft’s speed sufficiently for three eighty-three-foot-wide parachutes to open. These lowered the spacecraft gently to the surface of the Pacific Ocean, only about four miles from the waiting aircraft carrier Yorktown.

What Was Accomplished?

This was a history-making flight, as it was the first time men had traveled so far into outer space and the first time they had actually come so close to the moon. As the Apollo 8 circled the moon it came within a distance of only 69.8 miles of it. The flight tested the equipment that may make possible a manned landing on the moon in 1969.

While orbiting the moon the astronauts took more than a thousand exceptionally clear pictures of its surface. One camera automatically took pictures every twenty seconds when in operation. This allowed for an overlap of each picture so they can be used to create a three-dimensional effect. These stereo pictures will make possible the locating of features on the moon with greater accuracy than before.

But the dangers in this flight were very great. If the rocket on the Apollo 8, for example, had failed to fire when the spacecraft was in moon orbit, it would have remained there. The men would have died when their oxygen supplies gave out. There was no means for rescuing them.

If their velocity upon leaving earth orbit had been a little more than it was and the astronauts were unable to correct it, the craft could have missed the moon and gone into orbit around the sun. This too would have meant certain death for them.

The craft’s reentry into the earth’s atmosphere was especially dangerous. If the angle of reentry had been too steep, the spacecraft could have become overheated and could have been torn apart by the tremendous pressures created from atmospheric friction because of decelerating it too rapidly. If the angle had been too shallow, the craft would have skipped off the atmosphere like a flat stone thrown on the surface of a pond, and it would have gone far out into space on such a wide orbit of the earth that the men would have perished before they could make another try at reentry.

The risks were so great that Sir Bernard Lovel, the British astronomer, was moved to say before the flight took place, that it posed “undue risks to human life.” On the other hand Colonel Borman regarded the risks as “acceptable ones.” But people who are sensitive to the high value God places on human life have serious doubts about the wisdom of such a dangerous venture.

Equipment

The largest rocket ever made was necessary for the moon trip. Standing 363 feet high, it was as tall as a thirty-six-story building. The five huge rocket engines in its first stage generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust for lifting 6.5 million pounds, the weight of the rocket with the spacecraft. Each engine was as big as a two-and-a-half-ton truck and consumed three tons of fuel per second.

The fuel for the first stage was kerosene and liquid hydrogen. The second stage, which was ignited after explosive bolts separated it from the first stage at a height of forty-two miles, used liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for fuel. Its five smaller engines generated a thrust of one million pounds. They pushed the spacecraft to a height of 122 miles, where the second stage separated and fell away. Then the third stage, consisting of a single rocket engine that developed a thrust of 230,000 pounds ignited and put the spacecraft into a 118-mile-high orbit of the earth at a speed of 17,400 miles per hour. On the second orbit this rocket was ignited again to raise the craft’s velocity to that needed for reaching the moon.

Besides small maneuvering rockets on the spacecraft there was a single rocket engine, seven feet wide and more than thirteen feet long, at the end of the thirty-three-foot craft. This was used for getting the Apollo in and out of lunar orbit. To assure its reliability the engine was designed to be as simple as possible, having fewer than 100 moving parts. All of them except for the rocket nozzle and combustion chamber were in duplicate, so if one failed the other could be used. An ignition system was made unnecessary by using a fuel and oxidizer that ignited automatically upon contact. This on-board rocket engine had a thrust of 20,500 pounds.

The electrical power on the spacecraft was produced by fuel cells. These used liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in a chemical reaction to generate electricity. A by-product was water, which the astronauts used for drinking and mixing with dehydrated food.

The remarkable feat of Apollo 8 was part of a carefully planned program to land men on the moon. Some persons may wonder how the United States Congress was ever persuaded to spend 24 billion dollars on this project when it is often reluctant to spend money on projects far more directly affecting the general public.

There is also the question, Why go to the moon? It is such an inhospitable place that many people can see no reason for sending men there, and especially at such great expense. That they have good reason to ask such a question was confirmed by Colonel Borman’s impression of the moon. He said, as he looked down upon its surface from the Apollo 8: “I know my own impression is that it’s a vast, lonely, forbidding type expanse of nothing. It looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone. And it certainly does not appear to be a very inviting place to live or work.” Yet the United States is spending 24 billion dollars to land two men there for twenty-one hours and bring them back. Why?

Moon Race

The answer is actually political. Ever since the Soviet Union succeeded in putting the first man-made satellite into orbit around the earth in 1957 the two nations have been competing with each other for the prestige of being first in performing space spectaculars. When the Russians were the first to put a man in earth orbit in 1961, the Americans were very much upset.

Shortly thereafter President Kennedy, in his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, called for the United States '‘to take a clearly leading role in space achievement.” He called upon the nation to commit itself “to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” And so the race for the moon began. Fear that the Russians might reach the moon first spurred Congress to consent to spending that huge sum of money.

Many people have not been very happy about spending so much money and risking human lives on such a venture. The president-elect of the world’s largest science group, Althalstan Spilhaus, observed, according to New York’s Sunday News of December 29, 1968: “If society is to survive, the United States should spend its billions to rebuild the cities rather than pour money into a race to the moon.”

According to Time of February 10, 1967, Dr. Warren Weaver, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, calculated what could be done with the money being spent on the lunar project. He concluded that its probable cost could provide, among other things, a 10-percent annual salary raise for ten years to every teacher in the country, a $10-million grant to 200 colleges in the United States and the endowment of universities in about fifty nations.

When the mayor of New York city, John Lindsay, made a plea for more money for United States cities he said: “I would not want the U.S. to be described by future generations as a society that stood amidst the filth, the oppression and the violence of its slums and shot rockets to the moon.”

Though some scientists argue that man can learn many things from personal observation in space that cannot be learned by other means, there are other scientists who argue strongly against manned flights. They contend that unmanned space probes are far less expensive and are capable of gathering just about as much information. They firmly declare that what man can learn on these flights that instruments cannot is not worth the difference in cost. So the British astronomer Fred Hoyle commented: “What has been accomplished is not worth a thousandth part of what has been spent.”

Is the Moon Off Limits?

Although the moon and space itself are inhospitable to man, that does not mean they must not be explored by him. They are part of the overall environment in which God put man. But, in exploring, man should have the right motive and should not take unwise risks with human lives.

If the motive for making such investigations is to gain greater knowledge about the things God has created, and then God is given credit for it, that is fine. But if men are seeking glory for themselves, how can God approve?

In ancient Babylon men turned their backs on God and sought to make a “celebrated name” for themselves by building a tower for false religious worship the top of which would reach into the heavens. God expressed displeasure over what they were doing, breaking up their unity and scattering them all over the earth. (Gen. 11:1-9) Today men reach even higher and then claim glory for themselves and their nations. But God’s Word makes plain that the time is near when God will destroy man’s entire self-glorifying system of things.—Zeph. 3:8.

The success of the Apollo 8 is a fine testimony to what man is able to do, but the glory does not belong to men or to any nation but, rather, to the Creator of man. God gave man the brain that made the moon flight possible. The physical laws on which man so heavily relied in this flight are laws God established. The moon and other heavenly bodies that man seeks to investigate were all made by Him. So the honor for what man learns in his space flights should go, not to man, but to God.

Although many of the men who are working on the space ventures are avowed evolutionists who refuse to recognize the Creator, the fact remains that they are simply learning from what he has made.

Will this historic flight to the moon and those yet to come prove to be beneficial to mankind? Or are they opening up a new area for international conflicts? Already there are fears that space will be used for military purposes. And the same skill that makes possible an accurate space probe can also be used to launch deadly intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The flight to the moon and man’s various other space probes are in reality some of the “signs” in the sun and moon that were foretold in the Bible as causing men’s hearts to be fearful of what they see coming. These could eventually lead, some fear, to nuclear attacks from space. Such things contribute to the foretold “anguish of nations” and the evidence marking the last days of the present system of things. —Luke 21:10, 11, 25-32.

What is being accomplished in space causes people to react in different ways. Some boast in what their nation and technology have achieved and so exalt themselves in pride. Many of these people have actually made a god of science and have become indifferent to the Creator. This attitude can only lead to disaster at God’s day of reckoning.

On the other hand there are people who, while impressed by the moon flight and space probes, keep such achievements within proper perspective. They recognize man’s extreme smallness in the vastness of space and how dependent he is upon the Creator for the many unique conditions that make the earth livable and outstandingly different from all the other planets and heavenly bodies man has observed. They give credit to God and exalt him rather than man.—Job 38:1-40:2.

The pictures of the earth and the moon taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts emphasize what God has done for mankind. They show the great contrast between the stark barrenness of the moon and the beautiful, cloud-enwrapped earth that God gave man for a home. No wonder Captain Lovell, when looking at the earth from far out in space, said: “It’s awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on earth. The earth from here is a grand oasis in the great vastness of space.”

So the more man learns about his environment in this material universe the more reason he has for praising, not himself, but the Maker of it all. “How many your works are, O Jehovah! All of them in wisdom you have made.”—Ps. 104:24.

AWAKE!

By "Awake!" correspondent th Australia I

Australia is the land of sapphires, although this is little known outside the gem trade. There are more than ninety-four locations stretched | along the eastern a coast of Australia where sapphires can be found. Searching for gems has become a pastime for an increasing number of families.

The most rewarding field is at Anakie in Queensland, some 200 miles inland on the Tropic of Capricorn. The known sapphire area at Anakie covers more than 350 square miles, and it is claimed to be the largest in the world. Any spot can be prospected, providing it is not on a claim already being worked. So we apply at, an office of the Mines Department for a Miner’s Right, which entitles us to keep what we find regardless of who may own the property.

The Gorgeous Sapphire

As we drive the many miles to Anakie, we think about the gorgeous object of our search, and the remarkable finds that have been made in the past.

Sapphires were first found accidentally by gold prospectors in this area in 1876, and systematic mining began in 1881. The Anakie field has experienced a number of boom periods when it supported a large number of miners and their families, and then periods of decline when almost everyone except a few pensioners left the field.

The five largest sapphires in the world have been dug from the Anakie field.

Four of them were carved into the likenesses of four American presidents and the fifth is a large star sapphire. The Black Star of Queensland, at 733 carats, is a great deal larger than the famous 563-carat Star of India. These star sapphires have a crystal structure that reflects light in starlike rays.

The beauty of the sapphire has long been praised. Bible writers of thousands of years ago referred to it. In her vivid description of her shepherd lover, the Shulammite girl likens his abdomen to an “ivory plate covered with sapphires.” (Song of Sol. 5:14) Similarly, Zion’s husbandly Oimer, Jehovah, said, “I will lay your foundation with sapphires,” when speaking of her coming beautification. (Isa. 54:5, 11) In visions of the glory of Jehovah, Ezekiel twice beheld “the likeness of a throne” that was “like sapphire stone.” (Ezek. 1:1,26-28; 10:1-4) And the beautiful sapphire also constituted the second foundation of the wall of the “holy city, New Jerusalem.”—Rev. 21:2, 19.

Sapphire is a variety of the mineral corundum that is transparent or translucent. Although the best-known varieties are tints of blue, they exist in all the colors of the rainbow. The red sapphire, how-ever, is known as ruby. Large sapphires nearly equal a fine diamond in value. And rubies of four carats or more may be worth several times the price of diamonds of the same size.

A remarkable feature of sapphire is its hardness; except for diamond it is the hardest stone in the world. Only a diamond will scratch it. For this reason, sapphire is often used as an abrasive or polishing agent. It is also used as bearings for instruments, and as a needle in playing phonograph records.

First Impressions

As we drive down the bumpy gravel road to the gem fields we are not very impressed on our first sight of the village of Sapphire. The weatherboard houses appear to be the remains of the township established some sixty years ago. In the six miles from Sapphire to the next village of Rubyvale we see the old diggings, heaps of gravel. Rubies do not appear to have been found here; garnet was thought to have been ruby, which led to the naming of Rubyvale. Also, we see old tin shacks and lean-tos, and many a tent. Since it rarely rains in these parts, there is no urgency to put up a watertight structure.

In Rubyvale we fill up our five-gallon container with drinking water available free to prospectors. Then we drive the five miles to “Reward” field where one of the “President” stones had been found by a woman cooking breakfast.

Here we make our camp and select a suitable digging spot where the “wash” is within one foot of the surface. The wash is the gravel of an old riverbed. In the wash is found hard, dense siliceous rock called “Billy” boulders, the presence of which is considered essential for finding sapphires. In the wash other minerals may be found such as amethyst, zircon, garnet, pleonaste and, occasionally, diamond.

Getting to Work

The tools necessary for working shallow wash are a pick, shovel and 3/16-inch sieve. There are two basic methods of examining the sieved gravel: Either rub the gravel vigorously to get rid of the dirt and turn the sieve into the sun and look for a glint in the sieve; or wash the gravel by a contraption known as a “Willoughby,” in which a sieve is suspended from a pole in a tank of water. Likely-looking stones are held up to the sun and if it is sapphire one can see through it, or at least see patches of color. Many good stones are often found “specking,” which is just looking on the surface. Children are very good at it.

There are many obstacles and difficulties to put up with when searching for sapphires—flies, dust, tropical heat and scarcity of water. We would never continue if we did not keep our goal in mind. As we dig and sieve, the Bible verse at Proverbs 2:4 comes to mind: ‘Seek discernment and understanding as you seek treasure.' We discuss how much more meaning this thought will always have for us after having searched for treasure.

At the end of several days we examine our finds. We have a number of sapphires with many cracks or defects, but these are absolutely worthless as gem material. We have found some blue sapphires, one of which we feel will cut a nice stone. As we turn the stone over we notice how it changes the depth of its color from blue to light green. Another sapphire we have is called a parti-color because it is a stone of two colors.

Traveling Farther Afield

After filling up our water container and restocking with food at Rubyvale we go eighteen miles farther to Tomahawk Creek. This is one of the oldest fields, but it has not been worked extensively. This is because it is so difficult to reach. Only in the last few years have cars been able to reach it easily. The eighteen miles still takes about two hours to cover, even in a good vehicle.

As this place is more remote, and those traveling through are more interested in digging than shooting, we see groups of kangaroos and also a pair of emus, those remarkable large flightless Australian birds.

At Tomahawk Creek the sapphires are more numerous, but first-grade stones are not so plentiful. The stones are harder than elsewhere, having a hardness of up to 9.5 on Mohs’ hardness scale, which gives the diamond a hardness of 10.

It is now time for us to return. So we travel back the thirty-five miles to Anakie and then twenty-three miles to The Willows, which is the youngest field. It is so much in contrast to the others. The homes are modern in comparison with the other fields and neat looking, although simple in design. Here we visit a gem cutter to see if any of our finds are suitable for cutting first-class stones.

The Gem Cutter’s Opinion

After examining our more than a hundred sapphires, he selects only two as possible cutters. The other better stones we have are only good enough to be second grade because of various defects in them.

He shows us the defects common to sapphires, particularly blues and greens, defects which render the stones of little value. A common defect is known as “silk,” which is a silklike appearance on one or more surfaces. When cut this will show as straight milky lines or milky patches. “Sheen” is another defect. It appears as a silver-gray to bronze tinge on the surface of the sapphire, and generally gives black lines to the cut stone. Blue sapphires with “silk” or “sheen” can be cut to a second-grade gem, but greens and yellows with these defects are unacceptable for cutting. The gem cutter also explains that all stones appear darker when cut.

Although we have not any really valuable finds, we are not overly disappointed. We recognize that there is treasure of much greater importance and value. Faithful Job spoke of this treasure, which can be obtained only from studying God’s Word the Bible. He noted that it cannot be bought with gold, or even sapphire, saying: “But wisdom—where can it be found, and where, now, is the place of understanding? Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it, and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. It cannot be paid for with gold of Ophir, with the rare onyx stone and the sapphire.”—Job 28: 12, 15, 16.

A COOKING Lesson as ‘Prophecy’.” 11 So wrote a Bible critic when discussing prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures that applied to Jesus as the Messiah. This critic considered isolated examples and then rashly generalized that it was evident “that not a single word of the . . . ‘prophecies’ culled from the old Hebrew Scriptures in the remotest degree hints at” Jesus. What are the facts? Were the Gospel writers justified in applying the verses to Jesus as prophecies about the Messiah?

We can say at the outset that Jesus’ Messiahship does not depend on just a few of these prophecies. Jesus was proved to be God’s Messiah or Anointed One by his miracles, his teachings, his ability to prophesy and by his resurrection. Additionally, certain prophecies are undeniable in their application to the Messiah. Daniel 9:25, 26 specifically prophesies the time of the Messiah’s appearance. As might be expected, the critic mentioned above carefully avoided this prophecy.

The Bible verse that the critic called “a cooking lesson as ‘prophecy’ ’’ is John 19:36. The context shows that Jesus died without having his legs broken to hasten death, as was done to the men that were impaled with him. The Bible account says: “These things took place in order for the scripture to be fulfilled: ‘Not a bone of his will be crushed.’ ” (John 19:36) The apostle John was drawing on God’s instructions to the Jews as to how to prepare the Passover lamb, roasting it without breaking one of its bones, (Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12; compare Psalm 34:20.) But was John misapplying the point?

We should note that John does not say that God’s command about the Passover lamb was solely a prophecy regarding Jesus. Clearly, the first application is to the literal Passover lamb. Could there, though, be some prophetic import in this procedure?

Faithful Jews before Christ’s appearance looked forward to the Messiah on the basis of prophecies in the Scriptures. They believed that Moses and “all the prophets, . . . from Samuel on . . . plainly declared” about the coming Messiah. (Acts 3:22-24) Yearly each family slaughtered a Passover lamb as a remembrance of their liberation from Egypt. But, despite offering animal sacrifices under the Law, the Jews continued in bondage to sin and death. According to the prophecy at Jeremiah 31:31-34, true forgiveness and liberation from sin were yet future. In a prophecy acknowledged by Jewish scholars to apply to the Messiah,¹ that one was foretold to be “brought just like a sheep to the slaughtering,” and he would carry “the very sin of many people.”—Isa. 53:7, 12.

When Jesus appeared, John the Baptist called the Jews’ attention to Jesus, referring to him as the “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) Did the Jews object, saying that the animal sacrifices and the Passover lamb were not prophetic of the Messiah? No, rather, Jews familiar with Messianic prophecies accepted this “Lamb of God” as the Messiah. (John 1:41, 42) Later an educated Jew referred to Jesus as “our passover,” indicating definitely that the Passover Iamb was prophetic of the Messiah. (1 Cor. 5:7) So, John was fully justified in applying to Jesus God’s command regarding the Passover lamb.

Another prophecy that critics often rail against is Matthew 1:22, 23, where, after showing that Jesus was born of a virgin, Matthew comments: “All this actually came about for that to be fulfilled which was spoken by Jehovah through his prophet [at Isaiah 7:14], saying: ‘Look! The virgin will become pregnant and will give birth to a son, and they will call his name Immanuel,’ which means, when translated, ‘With Us Is God.’” (Matt. 1: 22, 23) Is Isaiah 7:14 taken out of context and misapplied, or was it prophetic?

We should recall that God promised that King David’s seed would be King eternally. (2 Sam. 7:13-16) The Jews understood the Messiah to be this Eternal King. Isaiah opens chapter 7 with comments about King Ahaz, the representative of the “house of David.” (Isa. 7:1, 2) Ahaz was fearful that the armies of Syria and Ephraim would destroy Judah and kill off all in the line of David. Would Jehovah allow his promise to David to be nullified? No, Isaiah assured Ahaz that God would not allow that to occur and he provided a sign, saying: “Look! The maiden herself will actually become pregnant, and she is giving birth to a son, and she will certainly call his name Immanuel.” (Isa. 7:14) Isaiah foretold that God’s nation would not be destroyed and the line of David wiped out, even when powerful Assyria came against Judah. (Isa. 8:7, 8) When Assyria invaded Judah, Jehovah miraculously defeated her, just as the Messiah is prophesied to defeat God’s enemies.—2 Ki. 19:35; Ps. 2: 2-9.

How appropriate, then, is Matthew’s application of Isaiah 7:14 to Jesus. The kingly line of David could end in Jesus, for he would rule as King forever. (Luke 1:31-33) That kingly line would never again be endangered. With Jesus as God’s foremost representative among mankind, Matthew could truly say, “With Us Is God.”

A related example is Matthew’s comment regarding King Herod’s slaughter of babes in Bethlehem in an attempt to destroy Jesus. We read: “That was fulfilled which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and much wailing; it was Rachel weeping for her children, . . . because they are no more.’” (Matt. 2:17, 18; Jer. 31:15) Is that a misapplication?

Chapters 30 and 31 of Jeremiah definitely deal with the coming Messiah. Rabbi H. Freedman states that Jeremiah 30: 9 refers to God’s “Messianic regent . . . of the house of David.” What, then, is the significance of Rachel weeping for her children? Rachel was the beloved wife of Jacob. She died giving birth to the son she named Ben-oni, meaning “son of my sorrow,” and “was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is to say, Bethlehem.” (Gen. 35:18, 19) Later Jeremiah pictured her as weeping because her children, the Jews, were no more, being dead or in exile. Yet she could have hope, for they would return from exile. (Jer. 31:16) When Herod killed the babes, the prophetic comment at Jeremiah 31:15 would apply to the women of Bethlehem weeping over their loss. But again, there was hope, for soon the Messiah would come; on him rested the Jews’ real hope for restoration.

Hence, we can thank Jehovah for inspiring the Gospel writers to provide the proper application of these and many other prophetic statements recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.—2 Pet. 1:20.

Brutality Against Witnesses

In Zambia

• Reports just received indicate that there is an organized campaign of physical attack against Jehovah's witnesses in many parts of Zambia.

In the Samfya area of Luapula Province, where there is a population of some 5,000 Witnesses, these law-abiding Christians have been brutally beaten. On January 5, Mwansa Mabo, one of Jehovah’s witnesses of Milambo Village, Chief Mulakwa, Samfya, was beaten to death outside his home. Many others of the Witnesses have been admitted to a hospital and clinics around Samfya and Mansa, suffering from serious injuries. It is believed that other injured Witnesses have sought medical treatment in the Congo. More than twenty-five families have had their homes destroyed. The members of at least three congregations have fled for their lives into the bush.

From eyewitness reports it is known that upward of one hundred persons have been brutally beaten as mobs of youths, ranging from 200 to 800 in number, terrorize the villages.

Atrocities have been committed against the Witnesses in the Lundazi, Chipata and Petauke areas. In Kabwe, Ndo-la, Luanshya, Kitwe, Kalulushi, Mufulira and Chingola, homes of the Witnesses have been damaged. The Witnesses themselves are being beaten up and their lives threatened.

An official spokesman for Jehovah's witnesses assured the government that, in spite of the vicious attacks against them, the Witnesses would “keep calm and peaceful as far as it depends upon them." But they have also made a strong appeal for the government of Zambia to take action to bring the violence to an end.

Alcoholism Soars in Greenland

Greenland, the largest island in the world (considering Australia as a continent), is apparently “sinking into a state of endemic dipsomania,” says a report from Copenhagen, There is talk about rationing all intoxicating beverages in the Danish colony. The people in Greenland over 15 years of age number about 20,000. But in 1967 Greenland imported 50,000 gallons of spirits, 25,000 gallons of wine, and 14,000,000 bottles of beer, each containing over a pint. This works out to 560 bottles of beer alone for each adult in Greenland. Half of all crimes of violence in Greenland are committed under the influence of alcohol. More than one-third of all fatal accidents, at, sea or on land, were due to what police describe as “complete and notorious intoxication.” Drinking can also inhibit useful work, and it Is reported that there is considerable absenteeism and a great deal of drunkenness on the job.

Fear Soars

• "Men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth” is the state <of affairs the Bible prophesied for our day. (Luke 21:26) The newspaper headlines show that the Bible is right. A recent New York Times headline read: "Fear Soars with Rate of Crime.” The report noted that increasing numbers of people are living ever larger portions of their lives behind locked doors. It said: “Feeling themselves besieged by an army of muggers and thieves, they are changing their habits and styles of life, refusing to go out after dark, peering anxiously through peepholes before opening their doors, side-stepping strangers on the streets, riding elevators only in the company of trusted neighbors or friends and spending large sums to secure their homes with locks, bolts, alarms and gates.” Measures now taken to protect the citizens are inadequate, "We are living like rabbits in a hutch, afraid of the hawks who are waiting outside,” said a New Yorker. Chairman Albert A. Walsh, of the city Housing Authority, said: “No society, no government, no taxpayer, can afford to spend what is needed to assure the safety of everyone.”

"Flying Saucers”

After a two-year study by a group of American scientists on the subject of unidentified flying objects, called "flying saucers,” the conclusion reached was that there exists no evidence that so-called flying saucers are spaceships from outer space. The findings were immediately thrust aside as unsatisfactory by many who were determined to keep alive the subject

Paid to Attend Church

• Not one, but three downtown Louisville churches pay children up to 75 cents a week to attend church programs. The ministers of these churches see nothing wrong with the idea. It may he the only way they can get some parishioners to come.

An Amazed Subscriber

• According to an item published in The United Church Observer, which is the official magazine of the prominent United Church of Canada, a subscriber to that magazine said that she had received the magazine "for two years now and it never ceases to amaze me that I’ve never yet seen an article which really helps to explain any part of the Bible to any degree. It has only been through Jehovah’s Witnesses that I have been able to discuss and argue and finally develop a keener understanding of Christianity, of God and his works, because with them, we always look up questions in the Bible. It’s not possible to absorb much in an hour on Sunday, and there’s so much difference of opinion amongst our clergy that you can’t take any one of them too seriously.”

“Great Worldwide Damage”

• A New York scientist testified on January 13 that man’s pollution of his environment by DDT has reached the level of "great worldwide damage.” Dr. Charles F. Wurster, Jr., molecular ecologist, stated that the pesticide should no longer be tolerated. The pesticide threatens fish and birds with extinction. However, said Paul J. Burbach, executive director of “Izaak Walton League,” “we are dealing with people concerned purely with the profit motive.”

Dr. Richard M. Welch, a biochemical pharmacologist, warned on January 14 that the pesticide DDT could be seriously affecting man through sexorgan changes and by reducing the effectiveness of drugs used for treatment of disease.

Increasing Salaries

American taxpayers are being told that they can expect money to be more scarce during 1969 and that unemployment might rise. At the same time the government has voted a 100-percent increase in pay for Richard Nixon as president, to $200,000 a year. Congressional salaries are now expected to be increased from $30,000 to $42,000 annually.

Religion today is on trial!

Never before in man’s history have so many questions been raised as to the value or validity of religion. Although the Holy Bible of the "Christian religion” outdates all other religious literature in current repute, even the "ministers” of the God whom this Book represents disclaim its truthfulness. But does this make the Bible itself wrong? Could it not, rather, strongly point to the falsity of their claim to be “ministers”?

Learn what qualifications God requires of "true ministers” and the Bible itself will become a new book to you.

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¹

The sixteenth-century commentator, Rabbi Moses Alshech, wrote in                  Judafca about the

prophecy in Isaiah chapter 53: ‘Upon the testimony of tradition, our old Rabbins have unanimously admitted that King Messiah is here the subject of discourse . ♦ ♦ a view which Is indeed quite obvious."