December 22

How Is Science Affecting Your Life?

SOME persons are convinced that science holds the key to freeing mankind from many of its great enemies. They feel that hunger, poverty, sickness and perhaps even death itself may someday be conquered through science. Man’s journey to the moon has reinforced this conviction in their minds.

However, many others are now having second thoughts about what science is doing. They wonder if it is doing more harm than good in the long run. As the Melbourne Herald noted: “Vice-Admiral Hyman Rickover, whose development work made him known as the father of the U.S. nuclear submarine, warned man . . . that unbridled use of technology ‘may become a Frankenstein destroying its creator.’”

There can be no doubt that science has produced many things for man’s benefit. In the Western world science has affected the lives of almost everybody by producing things that are useful. If you look around your home you will likely find something for which science has been, at least in part, responsible​—the radio, television, washing machine, electric iron, various fabrics, electric lights and a host of other things.

Properly controlled, the products of science can be a help to man. But the question many are now asking is whether science has gotten out of control. They see that science has produced things that are plaguing mankind. They wonder if the bad effects will eventually outweigh the benefits.

Effects of Chemicals

Because of their effects upon public health, many chemicals are now coming under close scrutiny by governments and other agencies. This is particularly true of chemicals used in the agricultural and food industries.

One after another of the chemical additives has had to be withdrawn from use. Examples of some are the ‘butter yellow’ dyes and the cyclamates used to sweeten foods. Even the taste enhancer, monosodium glutamate, is under suspicion. Some chemicals have produced serious damage to experimental animals.

DDT and other pesticides were at first heralded as ‘saviors,’ freeing man from dreaded diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. These pesticides also initially tended to increase crop yields by destroying insects. But now many governments have decided to phase out the use of some of these chemicals.

Why? Because it has been found that they are destroying much animal life, some species being pushed toward extinction. Contamination from DDT has spread earth wide. Traces have been found even in Antarctic animals. Indeed, it has been said that there is no water or land, or life of any kind that has not been affected by DDT. This includes man. And in experiments, heavy doses of pesticides caused serious damage to animals.

These bad effects of what was thought to be for man’s benefit have alarmed authorities. What then can be said of man’s scientific inventions that are deliberately designed to exterminate human life? Chemicals for warfare have been developed that are so lethal that only a tiny droplet on the skin will cause death. And some of the bacteria that science has cultivated can annihilate entire populations.

Harmful Effects of Machine Age

While producing things that have worked for man’s good, this scientific machine age has also produced effects that harm man. First of all, to manufacture the products designed to help man, large factories’ were needed. This resulted in people crowding together in large cities. The sad consequences of city life, its congestion and frustration, are becoming more evident each year.

Then too, many of the products produced for man’s benefit have turned into killers. In the United States alone, automobiles kill more than 50,000 persons and injure millions each year!

Also, large industrial complexes damage man’s environment. They consume huge amounts of clean air and clean water. This air is then often polluted with poisonous gases and solids belched out into the atmosphere. Much clean water is contaminated and poured into the streams and lakes, often making them unfit for use by either man or animal.

The problem is further worsened because many of the machines made in factories become polluters themselves. The automobile is a chief offender. In Tokyo, traffic policemen return regularly to headquarters for oxygen inhalation. For pedestrians, oxygen-vending machines in shops and arcades offer whiffs of oxygen for about 25 cents. And according to William Steif, a Scripps-Howard writer, “some 25 million tons of carbon monoxide go into the air of the 10 most populated areas of the United States annually from vehicles.” In New York city alone vehicles spew out more than five million tons each year!

It is said that a person breathing air that contains only 80 parts per million of carbon monoxide for over an eight-hour period will have his body’s hemoglobin affected. Hemoglobin transports oxygen to the body’s tissues and takes away wastes. The 80 parts of carbon monoxide is reported to make about one sixth of the body’s hemoglobin temporarily useless. This is equivalent to the loss of about one pint of blood.

Yet, carbon monoxide is only one of many pollutants released into the atmosphere by man’s scientific inventions. Time magazine of January 12, 1970, said: “Man is filling the air with more than 800 million tons of pollutants per year.” As a result, scientists at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center in New York said that by about 1980 some 10,000 people will die in a metropolitan area because of pollution. The New Haven Register of December 21, 1969, reports that these scientists predicted the following: “In 10 to 15 years from now every man, woman and child in the hemisphere will have to wear a breathing helmet to survive outdoors. Streets, for the most part, will be deserted. Most animals and much plant life will be killed off.”

Then there is another harmful effect of the machine age​—noise pollution. Nerve-racking sounds come from everything from power lawn mowers to jet engines. This sound level is said to be doubling about every ten years. Now it is reaching such alarming proportions that it is considered a hazard to the well-being of all exposed individuals. According to Dr. Lester Sontag of Fes Research Institute in Ohio, even unborn babies are being harmed by noise pollution.

If these unintentional effects of the machine age are so harmful and alarming, what are we to say about those instruments science has fashioned to annihilate life? What of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, missiles, tanks, bombers, submarines and a host of other weapons that have already been used to take the lives of millions of persons? Has science saved that many lives?

Medical Disappointments

Disappointment is now appearing even in medical science. The hope held out by such things as heart transplants is not being fulfilled.

With the advance of complicated instruments, another harmful side effect has developed​—that of hospital electrocutions. At a meeting of the American Hospital Association in Chicago, Dr. Carl W. Walter stated that 1,200 people are electrocuted annually in hospitals. He noted the irony of the situation in that hospital personnel are “so concerned in life-saving of an individual patient that they never unravel the maze of wires that fills up most intensive care (power) receptacles.”

Blood transfusions, once highly regarded, are now found to be disease carriers and also a cause of death. As Dr. M. Simon of Poughkeepsie, New York, stated: “The computed annual death rate from blood transfusions now exceeds that reported for many common surgical illnesses [conditions requiring surgery] such as rectal cancer; appendicitis or intestinal obstruction.”

Growing Disenchantment

In increasing numbers, scientists themselves are beginning to question the ability of man to solve his huge problems by science. In recent months many articles have appeared in scientific journals discussing this problem.

The public is questioning science’s role even more. People in growing numbers are regarding science as a threat to health and life. They note the hideous inventions such as atomic weapons, pesticides that threaten the extinction of wildlife and endanger man’s health, chemicals such as thalidomide that were supposed to help but ended up crippling, chemical food additives that proved harmful, and the industrial pollution that is poisoning the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

Dr. Harvey Brooks, Harvard University’s dean of engineering and applied physics, noted the extent of the public’s growing disenchantment with science. He stated: “This hostility has spread in our time from a small literary elite to a wide section of the educated public, especially some of our most highly educated youth.”

Thus, for all the good that science has done, it is now faced with the hard reality that many of its inventions are damaging the environment and threatening human and animal life. How plain it is becoming that man, however well meaning and intelligent, cannot solve his problems by himself.

Watch Your Wallet! Watch Your Purse!

IT HAS been estimated that fifty thousand New Yorkers will have their wallets snatched by pickpockets in the coming year! And yet few of the thieves will be caught. In 1969 there were only 1,400 arrests for pickpocketing in New York city. In other population centers of the world the percentage of arrests is often far less. So, if victimized, your chances of recovering your purse are very slim.

What can you do about it? Well, if you know a few “tricks of the trade” you can do a lot to protect your purse.

Regarding the picking of pockets, one police official observed: “It’s a family trade. Fathers pass it on to their sons.” Pickpockets actually train for it the same as do members of any other profession. They take lessons and practice until they are experts. Some practice on a dummy that has a lot of bells attached to it. The idea is to go through all its pockets without causing any of the little bells to tinkle!

What they learn to do is well described in Whiz Mob, a book about pickpockets and their language, by David W. Maurer: (1) They learn to adopt a certain attitude toward their “mark” or victim, a conviction that they can succeed because he is the right type. (2) They acquire a certain way of approaching their job, a casualness that will not arouse alarm. (3) They develop an extreme delicacy of touch. (4) Lightning speed in their movements is acquired. (5) They become skilled at concealing their movements from others. (6) And they learn to melt away into the crowd without attracting attention after having picked a pocket.

Pickpockets usually work in pairs, although sometimes in troupes of three or four or more. So their allies are usually close at hand. An item in the New York Times, April 28, 1970, told of the police breaking up an eighty-member ring of pickpockets operating on New York subways. Its members had come largely from South American countries and were each said to realize from $600 to $800 weekly.

Those who have made picking pockets their profession usually have a keen understanding of human nature and are very good at judging who is likely to be a good “mark” or victim​—those who daydream or who are so intensely involved in what they are doing that they become oblivious to what is going on around them. The professionals even seem to have a “nose” for money, and some will garner more than $1,000 a day. The elite among them make a yearly circuit of the leading racing events in the United States and Europe where large crowds of the rich gather.

Pickpockets are a proud lot. Because their profession does take considerable skill, each one likes to think that he is among the best there is. In fact, so much is this the case that some of them are most crestfallen when they are caught plying their trade. They have even been known to ask their victims how it was that they noticed when their pockets were being picked!

That picking pockets takes considerable skill can be appreciated when we note how entertainers have trained themselves in this matter. They are skilled at removing not only wallets but rings, wristwatches, stickpins and all manner of other jewelry from men and women at parties without their being made aware of it. They even have been known to remove the suspenders from men without their noticing it until their trousers began to fall down! One such Swedish entertainer currently earns $100,000 a year.

Professional pickpockets, like specialists in other trades, have their own language or argot. There is the “stall,” whose job it is to distract the “mark” or victim so that the “tool,” “wire,” “hook” or “mechanic” can take the wallet without a “rumble,” that is, without being detected. “Fall dough” refers to a mob’s total capital, held in reserve to pay for “fixes” with the police.

You Can Protect Yourself from the Pickpocket

Now, what can you do to lessen the likelihood of having your wallet stolen? One way to discourage pickpockets is to have a determined and wide-awake look; just the opposite of the daydreaming, naïve and trustful mien when among strangers. Be alert to what is happening around you. Never make a display of how much money you have and, if convenient, keep your money inside your coat pocket rather than in a hip pocket. Also, your carrying traveler’s checks when traveling away from home, and never carrying more money than you have reason to spend on any one day, will reduce your loss if victimized.

Pickpockets themselves admit, “You cannot steal a man’s money so long as he has his mind on it.” When carrying a considerable sum it might be well to do just that. And should you be brushed up against or jostled in a subway or an elevator, or when standing in line at a food market, a cafeteria or at the theater box office, then what? Then it would be well to have not only your mind on your wallet but also your hand and to keep it there until all danger of having your wallet lifted is over.

Today there is also much bold-faced and violent robbery. Many thieves, operating by two’s or three’s, threaten victims with knives or at gunpoint. The best safeguard against this is to avoid traveling alone in large cities, and especially at night.

Protecting Yourself from Purse Snatchers

Women’s purses are also a prime target of thieves. Muggings, that is, robberies accompanied by physical assault, are becoming ever more frequent. Others simply snatch women’s pocketbooks and make off with them.

What can women do to protect themselves from having their pocketbooks snatched? They, too, do well to avoid traveling alone in many localities. For another thing, they can always carry their purses between their upper arm and their body, with a hand over the clasp. It will take a bold thief to try to snatch a purse being carried in this way. Women should also avoid leaving their purses lying on counters in stores, on seats next to them in theaters, or on their desks when going for a coffee break.

Some men carry their money hidden in their clothes; for example, in special money belts, under the arches of the feet inside their socks, or in special pockets inside their coats or pants. Women also often hide their money on their person so that the purse-snatching thief gets little except some cosmetics and a handkerchief. Women wearing suits or two-piece dresses sometimes slip their billfold under the top of their girdles; others hide money in their bosom. Even as men must be alert to keep their wallets from being stolen, so women must be alert to keep from having their purses stolen.

According to one veteran pickpocket, now in prison because of his profession: “The danger of purse snatching can virtually be eliminated by little more than awareness of the problem and willingness to take simple precautions.”

I Wanted to Be a Professional Golfer

As told to “Awake!” correspondent in Japan

I FIRST played golf when I was twenty years old. I had gone to the golf course with my older brother just for the fun of it. And I can still recall my first effort at hitting the ball. It veered beautifully to the right. Though I tried as hard as I could, it kept up the same tendency​—off it went to the right. A “slice ball” is what they call it, while one veering in the other direction is a “hook ball.”

Soon after, I had the opportunity to watch a professional golf match on television. Here I realized for the first time that people make a living at this game, that there is such a thing as professional golf. I decided then and there that this was to be my goal that I would become a pro golfer. To my young mind there could be nothing greater than to make this wonderful sport my profession.

Father wanted me to attend university and graduate and have an ordinary way of life, while keeping golf at the hobby level. But no, my mind was made up. Despite his protests, I was bent on entering the world of professional golf. My parents had reason to worry about how a mere twenty-year-old could make a living playing golf. Of course, I had a rosier outlook.

Implementing My Decision

My first move was to get a job at a golf practice range at seventy cents a day, with the provision that I would be free to practice during work hours when there were no customers around. But it turned out that there was always someone around with experience, and I was hesitant to practice in front of them. So I would practice after the range closed for the day, using the light from an overhead bridge. Since I had no instructor, I bought books on golf and studied and practiced lessons from them. I was thrilled at being able to have a golf club in my hands almost continually. And then there was the sheer delight of hitting the ball!

Two, three, yes, four years went by, and, as a Japanese saying puts it, “I was with golf from morning till night.” I was making good progress, but achieving the aim of being a pro golfer was taking more than I ever imagined. Both mind and skill met with obstructions. Golf has often been compared to life​—in one round there are happiness, distress, adventure, frustration, endurance and stress. It takes strong motivating power for success, and that I did not have. And it showed up particularly in the art of “putting” on the “green.”

Here is an example. On a “long hole” (par 5) on my second shot the ball came to a stop fifteen inches (40 cm.) from the cup. My joy was great, for with one putt I could have an “eagle” (achieved by sinking the ball in two strokes under par on a five-par hole). Because of the incline of the green I made a “soft touch,” but the ball missed the cup and stopped a little over a yard (1 meter) away. Only a golfer can appreciate my frustration and anger. My next shot failed. To think I could hit the ball twice with accuracy for 500 yards and then fail so miserably on three tries for a fifteen-inch putt! On my way to the next “tee” what do you think I did? I beat a tree with my putter as if it had done something wrong.

Stronger Motivation Needed

“You need a bolder heart, that is, some stronger motivation,” one senior advised me. “You should have a greater desire for fame, position, money. Get to know this world better. Become adult by tasting both the bitter and the sweet,” he went on. Also, he encouraged me to bet on my own game so as to gain the “spirit to win.”

Now I began to realize that to achieve my goal as a pro golfer would mean a drastic change in my thinking. True, the years spent in mastering the skill were years of enjoyment, but now to compete as a “pro” I must develop a selfish outlook and gain my goal at the expense of others. If that was needed to become a “pro,” then I must do it. I would bet my opponents, make money, make a name for myself. I began to think that it was the right, the natural way. Why show fellow feeling for an opponent? I was on the way to fame, position, money.

Amazing, is it not, how one’s environment, one’s associations, influence the thinking and make changes? I was getting to be like those pro golfers. Besides, there was old age to think about. Now, during youth, was the time to build a secure future, I thought. Like a cancer the idea of making money spread into all facets of my life. Golf was not a pleasure anymore it was merely a means to an end.

An Inner Struggle

Now a strange thing happened. In May 1967 a lady called at our house. Usually at that time of day I would still be upstairs, but this day I was reading a newspaper. Overhearing some of the conversation between my mother and the visitor, I went to the door and met her. I never dreamed it would have such a profound effect on my life. She was one of Jehovah’s witnesses.

Three days later the lady called again and I responded favorably to her offer to conduct a Bible study in our home. Why, when I was so close to achieving my goal? I really had joy when I started at golf, but now that my game had become skillful my heart was empty. My aspirations seemed vain. I could not understand this inner struggle, but I now wanted a drastic change in my way of life. So I grasped at this chance to learn about the Bible.

The first Awake! magazine I read (issue of April 8, 1967, in Japanese) featured the subject “Why Does God Permit Wickedness?” Till this time I had not even thought of God’s existence, but the article explained that God had created man with free moral agency. Also I learned of Adam’s creation in 4026 B.C.E. This really impressed me. Why? Because in the mid-1970’s man will have been on the earth for a period of 6,000 years​—and a climax in man’s history is at the door! But, most of all, I was impressed by the regular visits of the Witnesses at my home, all without any selfish motive.

I resolved to study regularly and meet with them at meetings whenever I could. Gradually the Bible study was getting more and more interesting. Daniel’s prophecy and its fulfillment were really fascinating. I was indeed getting to know something about the Great First Cause, Jehovah, but I must admit that it was as yet merely head knowledge. It had not yet motivated me to start doing something meaningful with my life.

The Turning Point

In the fifth month of my Bible study, in September, the time came for the professional-golf test. This was the goal toward which all my months of practice had been directed. The first round I shall never forget. It is required that one play to par on the last half. From the eleventh to the fifteenth hole I did play par, but on the sixteenth on a one-yard “sliceline putt” I missed for a “bogey”​—one stroke over par. For some mysterious reason I retained my calm. Then came the seventeenth hole. My second shot landed in the middle of the green, but the cup was at the far end of a slope. Even at this distance I find it hard to know how I could be so bold as to hit the ball the way I did. It rolled up and around to land beautifully in the cup. A “birdie”​—one stroke less than par! Then on the eighteenth hole I played par and passed my test to enter professional golf.

What a joy! When I got home to report my success, father clapped his hands with gladness. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had always worried about our future, but now this son of his had made a success of golf. Family, relatives, friends, all came by to congratulate me. It seemed that my happiness was at its zenith.

But at this point my Bible studies were finally penetrating my heart, challenging my way of life. I began to realize that the road that Jehovah outlined for man to follow was exactly opposite to the one I was trying to follow. God’s Word counsels that we should be satisfied with “sustenance and covering” and that “the love of money is a root of all sorts of injurious things.” (1 Tim. 6:6-10) The Bible tells us to serve God, but I was looking for fame, for people to look up to me.

Here the Bible was saying that we should not become like people of this world, and was I not doing the very opposite? The world of pro golf was full of betting and competition. Failure at a shot meant anger; failure of an opponent brought relief and joy. Is this not an ugly way of looking at things? The road I was walking was just as opposed to God and the Bible as evolution is to creation.

There could be no compromise. I must choose one course and reject the other. But, reject pro golf? How could I ever do it? And God’s truth? I could not give that up either. But God’s way offered the reward of everlasting life, and I did want life. Compared to God’s precious Word of truth, pro golf should have been no problem. But at this point pro golf was only half removed from my heart. I decided to decrease my time and effort devoted to golf and increase my time and effort at studying the Bible.

From that time on, it seemed that my viewpoint continued to undergo a change day by day, week by week. It seemed that Jehovah’s spirit resulting from my increased study was directing matters. Though I still liked golf, it was no longer a way of life for me. Association with the Witnesses at a circuit assembly in March 1968 made an impression on me that I cannot put into words. But so powerful was it that I put through a phone call from the assembly auditorium to the golf club and announced that I was quitting pro golf. The following month I sought new employment, and was able now to attend all meetings of the Witnesses. At these meetings one can really strengthen one’s faith and have much pleasurable enjoyment. I should have started sooner.

Of course, quitting professional golf seemed, for some reasons, no easier than getting into it, from my experience. Father again opposed me, and he had good reason to be upset. I had quit university over his objections, and now within six months of achieving pro-golfer status I was quitting that too. How frustrating it must have been for him. He has tried to be a good father, that I must admit. But now I am again bringing him worry and heartache. What keeps me going is the hope that this situation is only temporary, for I pray that by my maintaining faithfulness to God and his precious truth my parents may yet learn the way to life also and have everlasting joy with me.

Right now I am enjoying the privilege of being a full-time minister, as one of Jehovah’s witnesses, spending at least 150 hours each month in the ministry, seeking to share with others the rich and satisfying truths of the Bible and its message of hope for all peoples. During the past two years I have been free of the feeling of frustration that often assailed me in the golfing profession. I have come to know that there is no greater satisfaction or joy than for man, made in the image of God, to use his life in harmony with the will of God. I wish that more men and women and youths could appreciate that truth!

Eagle’s Nest

● Most persons think of birds’ nests as measuring several inches across and a few inches deep. Indeed, many are this size. However, the golden eagle, whose wingspread is about seven feet, builds king-sized nests. Found in lonely mountainous regions of North America, Europe, northern Africa and Asia, the golden eagle builds its nests on rocky shelves of steep mountainsides or high in tall trees. One nest of a golden eagle was found to be seven feet high, and six feet wide on top! It took large quantities of material to build!

To Wear or Not to Wear?

THE SCENE: A men’s clothing store in a city almost anywhere in the Western world.

The cast: A modern, modishly dressed clothing salesman and a man who desires new apparel.

“Is it a new suit that you would like?” asks the salesman. “We have a wide variety you can choose from. You know, you’re no longer limited in your choice of fabrics, styles and colors. Not long ago there were only suits of brown, gray or blue. But now the selection is as colorful as the rainbow.

“We have the latest trend​—the shaped silhouette. This is a subtle contouring of the waistline. It is enhanced by wide lapels and pocket flaps in proportion. You can choose from a variety of checked fabrics, stripes, houndstooth or geometric patterns. Which would you like?”

“Let me think about those. What do you have in shirts?”

“Would you like to see some of our latest-style shirts? More and more men prefer shirts with bold patterns or solid colors, such as bright yellows, greens, reds and blues. Others prefer shirts in pastel colors. We do have white shirts, but they are losing popularity these days.”

“Do you have matching ties?”

“Of course, and they are the latest style​—big, wide and colorful. But we also carry ascots or scarves, because many men wear them in place of ties. For others, tunics, turtleneck sweaters and ruffled frills have replaced the tie. We can supply you with chains, pendants and necklaces, if you wish this added touch. Since so many are interested in astrology these days, some of our jewelry for men bears various signs of the zodiac.

“And, by the way, why not take a look at these overcoats? You can choose from such styles as a wraparound coat made of pewter-gray fleecy wool with a wide collar and a sash-tied self belt. You can buy a maxi coat, the extra-long variety, with shaping at the waist and a flare at the hem. Here is a mink fur coat, double-breasted, with a large collar and broad lapels and belt, also a Brazilian leopard fur coat with matching knickers.”

Yes, a vast variety of clothing styles are available for men. There are combinations of colors, patterns and designs that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. As the Easton Express put it: “Men today have a greater variety of dress than at any time in the past 100 years. . . . Not that the single-breasted three-button suit is out. It isn’t. But it isn’t the ONLY THING a man can wear and be termed well-dressed. He can wear anything from a one-button, to a six-button (if it happens to be a double-breasted). And he can wear a patterned tie with a patterned shirt, an unthinkable combination a decade ago.”

The question is: To wear or not to wear?

Events Leading to the New Fashions

Why this explosion of colors and styles that not many years ago would have made the wearer a laughingstock or caused people to question his sanity and masculinity? And when did it all begin?

In a special report the 1970 Britannica Book of the Year traced the history of the new fashions. The so-called “Peacock Revolution,” it stated, began in 1957 in Carnaby Street in London. The first major customers of Carnaby Street were the Mods, youths affecting extreme neatness of appearance and a strong liking for very fine or stylish clothes. One of the main things the Mods sought was that their clothing be completely different from what their elders wore. So they chose, for instance, pastel-colored shirts, well-cut two-piece suits with no cuffs and slip-on shoes with exceptionally round toes.

Then in the 1960’s the general menswear industry took another look at Carnaby Street, overcame their skepticism and “exploded into a frenzy of activity.” Even conservative stores jumped on the “bandwagon” of the new fashions. Virtually every town in England soon had a boutique where youths could buy the kind of clothing worn by popular entertainers such as the Beatles.

Next, many youths turned to the use of drugs. And these drug-taking youths “wanted clothing that reflected their total war with society, that had nothing to do with anything that had happened before​—that must, in fact, be as wild as their minds.”

Another major event that spurred the new fashions was the rise of the designer cult for menswear. Designers went to work to tone down the design of the new fashions to make them seem less extreme to the public. They sold their names to clothing manufacturers and made their designs available to a mass public. And so with the close of the 1960’s men were wearing virtually anything that they felt suited them.

The designers themselves see another factor in their ability to sell the new fashions to a mass public. Most of them, as Life magazine reported, “credit the distinctly undandy hippies with making possible the return to dandyism, simply by proving that a fellow can wear almost any outlandish costume in public​—if he has the nerve.”

Also accounting for the kaleidoscope of color is the emphasis on youth. Accustomed to color, noise, bright lights and psychedelic art, young persons dress to fit their surroundings; and now many older men have adopted similar styles.

Not to be overlooked either is the effect of color television on the public, with even news reporters appearing in very colorful attire. Another factor is the subtle influences and preferences of women. Many women want their boyfriends and husbands to dress as colorfully as they do.

Obviously with so much to choose from in men’s fashions, the question keeps coming up: To wear or not to wear? What will help you to answer the question?

Dress a Reflection of Morals

The matter of morality is involved with clothing. A leading authority on modern male fashion, John Taylor of London, expresses the point of view that certain extreme clothing styles reflect the attitude and morals of the generation. He explains: “The form of fashion emerges from attitudes which are already extant.” As another reference puts it: “There is an intimate connection between costumes and manners.”

Well known are the morals of this fast-deteriorating system of things. You know that everywhere there is a breakdown of morals, with immodesty, loose conduct and fornication, adultery and homosexuality being rampant. In some areas homosexuals, for example, dress in a manner that identifies them. While the articles of clothing may not be wrong in themselves, if you dress in that manner it is bound to cast some reflection on your standard of morality. Likewise, if you realize that a high moral standard cannot be harmonized with trousers that fit so tight that they reveal every contour of the body and emphasize that which is sensual, you can shop around for less tight-fitting apparel. Some menswear is now so tight fitting that those who wear the style often carry handbags to make up for the lack of pocket space in their close-fitting garments.

Hence morality is bound up in the question: To wear or not to wear? And especially if you are a Christian you do not want your choice of clothing to reflect an attitude that you do not really possess or share in common with those who have thrown off moral restraint. If you want to be recognized as a Christian you cannot be guided by the example of those whose way of dress is really a reflection of immoral thoughts.

Modesty and Moderateness

If you really wish to avoid extremes or clothing that may reflect unfavorably upon you, consider the guiding principles of the Holy Bible. The Christian apostle Paul, in writing about proper apparel for women, said that they should dress “with modesty and soundness of mind.” (1 Tim. 2:9, 10) This principle applies to Christian men too. Following it is the wise course, as the inspired proverb says: “Wisdom is with the modest ones.”​—Prov. 11:2.

The Bible also lists as some of the requirements of a Christian overseer that he be moderate in habits and sound in mind. (1 Tim. 3:2) He ought to avoid going to extremes, trying to stand out as different from his Christian associates. So the principles of modesty and moderateness need to be considered when buying clothing.

Being too fashion conscious tends to undermine one’s modesty. And it also tends to reflect a disposition to imitate readily this worldly system of things. One may develop a frame of mind of always imitating the world, and this can lead to difficulties not only in manner of dress but also in other avenues of life. The Bible’s wise counsel is: “quit being fashioned after this system of things.”​—Rom. 12:2.

How Will Others View You?

If you are a Christian, another factor to consider in selecting clothing, especially for more formal occasions, is this: The effect of what you wear on the attitude of others toward your Christian ministry. The apostle Paul, in counseling Christians, said: “Whether you are eating or drinking or doing anything else, do all things for God’s glory.” (1 Cor. 10:31) And he also wrote: “In no way are we giving any cause for stumbling, that our ministry might not be found fault with; but in every way we recommend ourselves as God’s ministers.”​—2 Cor. 6:3, 4.

Thus a question to be seriously considered is: ‘Does my mode of dress evoke amazed comments?’ If the amazed comments come from mature Christians, it is something to think about and ought to call for a reappraisal of the clothing. If fellow Christians show amazement at your style of dress, what may those to whom you preach be thinking?

Another thing for you to ask yourself is this: ‘Would the clothing I select, even if it is not extreme, cause people to identify me with rebel or violent groups of society?’ The true Christian is not in rebellion against society but is “obedient to governments and authorities as rulers.” (Titus 3:1) So if this is what you profess, you would not want to convey by your dress a rebellious attitude; this would not recommend your Christian ministry.

No rules can be set for selecting clothing, because styles differ from continent to continent, from country to country. What is acceptable in one land may cause a person to be jailed in another. And even in a single country, one style may be acceptable in part of the country and not in another. But wherever you live, the guiding principles of the Bible enable you to select clothing that expresses your personality and yet allows you to be properly dressed in the eyes of mature Christians.

Dress to Suit Your Personal Traits

Another point to keep in mind is that clothing is oftentimes selected because of its particular eye appeal and interesting color combinations when really it would be much better to select styles and colors that enhance your own appearance.

You can be guided in your selection of clothing by the color of your hair and eyes, the shape of your face, your body build, your complexion, and so forth.

With the wide range of colors in men’s clothing today, there are few problems in choosing the right colors to suit one’s hair and complexion. You can hold material near your face. If one tone of a certain color seems uncomplimentary, then perhaps another shade of the same color will be more suitable. Make the test in the daylight as well as under artificial light, since the latter, if tungsten, has a softening effect on colors.

In selecting clothing, it is wise to keep in mind the general rule of contrasts. Thus a man with dark hair, or one with a deep suntan, usually looks good in light-colored clothes. Men with blond hair, on the other hand, look good in dark clothes.

Clothing that is comfortable, within one’s means and in good taste is to be desired. Most men find that it pays to buy good-quality clothing, even though there is more of an initial outlay of funds. Good-quality clothing lasts longer and, if properly taken care of, will continue to be serviceable for a much longer period than a cheaper and poorer quality of material.

Making the Decision

It is a wise person who is not the first to adopt a new fashion, nor the last one to leave it. Besides, fashion today in many parts of the world imposes no strict conformity. So a person is free, even from the standpoint of fashion itself to dress in a way that is modest and pleasing.

To wear or not to wear? That is a question to be answered, not merely on the basis of personal likes and dislikes, but in harmony with godly standards. When considering clothing styles, ask yourself: ‘Are they modest? Would wearing them be consistent with the principle of being moderate, and so avoiding extremes? Would they tend to identify me with any undesirable group in the community?’ Remember, if you want to prove yourself a Christian, then it is not what a morally decadent society approves that will govern your choice. Rather, it will be your desire to be found well pleasing in the eyes of God.

The Terrible California Fires

HOMES blazed like torches. Flames leapfrogged from house to house. People ran for their lives, as fireballs swirled past survivors. Where was this catastrophe? Within sight of Los Angeles​—one of the world’s major cities!

An extremely dry summer, and winds gusting up to eighty miles an hour, combined to turn the smallest fire into a roaring inferno. Smoke rose 10,000 feet into the sky. Some 150 miles to the southeast, other angry smoke clouds hung over San Diego County. Few residents of southern California were out of sight of a major blaze.

In less than a week fires burned 680 square miles of southern California​—the equivalent of an area ten miles wide and sixty-eight miles long! It destroyed more than four hundred homes, and took ten lives.

One major fire started about 10:30 on the morning of Friday, September 25, in the hills west of the San Fernando Valley, where about half the population of greater Los Angeles lives. In five minutes it swept across more than fifty acres. Within an hour, 250 acres were afire. The flames whipped across the mountains through prosperous Malibu Canyon. They danced sixty feet into the air, sweeping mercilessly toward the Pacific Ocean at speeds of up to eighty miles an hour. Flames, visible for almost forty miles, consumed luxurious homes in a matter of minutes. Sparks and burning firebrands, driven by the wind, carried the fire. Wooden shingles, ripped from the roofs of burning houses, were flung, still afire, onto other homes hundreds of yards downwind.

In its relentless race toward the sea, the fire leaped across the main Pacific Coast highway, and consumed clusters of houses along the beach. At one time twenty expensive Malibu homes were burning at the same time!

From the air the coastal plain resembled a region devastated by war. The heat was so intense that window glass, and even metal, melted in the flames.

One Malibu resident felt confident her home would not burn. “Suddenly,” she reports, “the clouds turned coal black, and were laced with fire.” The fire came over the top of the mountain ridge, about a half mile away, then “within a matter of seconds it was all around us, and the wind sounded like a locomotive coming through the canyon. We drove out with fire on both sides of the road, without even stopping for my purse.”

Nothing was salvageable. The only thing that survived were two little ducks, found sitting motionless but unburned, on a pond filled with charred debris. She said: “They were the only cheerful thing in the whole mess.”

More Fires!

But this was not the only fire. Near Newhall, some twenty miles inland from where the Malibu fire started, roaring winds felled power lines, and sparked a second disastrous blaze. A third started about ten miles to the west, near Thousand Oaks. By midday Saturday the three fires had met, to form a thirty-five-mile crescent of flame around the western end of the San Fernando Valley. This merged fire had a perimeter of 147 miles!

“It is not unusual to have brush fires here in the valley,” Forrest Tanner said, “and seeing smoke in the area is not uncommon. What really woke people up around here was when we heard that houses were on fire in Chatsworth, and that the fire was completely out of control.” In Chatsworth thirty-five homes burned​—houses in the $70,000 class.

A resident of one of the first Chatsworth homes to burn said: “I thought we had nothing to worry about. I didn’t think about watering the roof​—we never had a drop of water on the place.” He pointed to a small round hill behind his house, and said: “I was on that hill less than five minutes before the fire, and I didn’t see a thing! There was a lot of smoke, and I thought we’d better get going, but I didn’t see the fire.”

Within less than five minutes, he said, the wind whipped the fire like a blowtorch through the grass on the hill. His house burned to the ground. The fire blew from one house to the next. The roofs would go, then the entire house would be consumed in fifteen to twenty minutes. On the south side of one street fourteen new homes burned. A fifteenth, in the middle of the row of burned houses, completely escaped the fire!

People in many areas of the world will think it strange that such houses are not made of stone, with roofs of tile, but wood is the normal construction material here.

The San Diego Fire

About 150 miles to the southeast of the Los Angeles blaze, another terrifying fire was being whipped by the same winds. It started on Saturday, high in the Cleveland National Forest. The winds had knocked over a power pole, and ignited the dry brush. Whipped along by gusts that reached seventy-five miles an hour, it roared up mountainsides, and down canyons, through lush valleys, and into residential areas.

An estimated 40,000-60,000 persons evacuated. “It was like a ghost town here, with everyone gone,” said Leon Crooks, of the wooded community of Pine Valley, about fifty miles east of San Diego. “The sheriff’s department patrolled very thoroughly, so there would be no looting.”

A cyclone-shaped cone of fire consumed one house, then split into two forks, one of which went through the wooded lot next to Crooks’ house, burning right along his fence edge, to within two feet of the house, without even scorching the paint. He pointed out several trees where one side had been burned, while the other remained green​—depending on the whim of the changing winds.

In the rural community of Alpine, thirty miles east of San Diego, Clarence Engebretson had to evacuate twice. The first time, the fire passed about a quarter of a mile from his house. Of the second evacuation, his wife said: “The wind was so strong you had to brace yourself to walk. You wouldn’t believe how fast it came. It was the way fire burns along a dynamite fuse. We just collected the animals and kids, got in the cars and left.” On returning, they fully expected to find their home burned to the ground. But the wind had whipped the fire through the lot next to theirs, missing their house completely.

At La Cresta, about seven miles west of Alpine, Albert Davis said he woke up Sunday morning at about 5 o’clock. “We could see fire raging from Alpine, over there,” he said, gesturing across the valley, “all the way around as far as you can see.” Harbison Canyon lay between La Cresta and Alpine. It was to be the scene of particular destruction. “When we evacuated on Sunday,” his wife said, “we saw the wind blowing the fire over the edge of the canyon. Fireballs were blown over the bluff, and fell into the canyon below.” During the afternoon, about eighty homes in the canyon were either destroyed or damaged.

Then the wind swept the fire up the hill to La Cresta, an area of $30,000-$40,000 homes. “Right in here there were several houses,” Davis said. Parts of chimneys remained standing. In one yard there was the metal frame of the children’s swing. A reporter counted forty homes in La Cresta damaged in varying degrees.

The fire went “skip and miss” among the houses of rich and poor alike. Some homes would be burned, others inexplicably untouched.

“No one really thinks about a fire until it is right on top of him,” said Joseph Taschetti of El Cajon, just eighteen miles east of San Diego. He had gone to help a friend whose home was endangered. “The fire came in tremendous jumps,” he said. “It would leap perhaps one hundred feet, then burn and leap again. Cars were blowing up. Houses were being burned to the ground.” Bruce Jenson said: “There was no way anyone could outrun the fire, if he had been in front of it. You just had to be in a clearing, as we were.”

When the San Diego fire finally was contained at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, more than 185,000 acres had been burned, and at least 250 homes destroyed.

How Could Such Fires Occur?

How do such terrible fires occur, and why can they not be kept under control?

Southern California is a dry area. Grass, bushes and small trees hold water in the winter, but during the long summer months these small plants turn brown. They wait, dry and oily, for an accidental spark to cause them to burst into flames. The danger is so great that large signs along highways forbid smoking in hazardous areas.

Another factor is the wind. Occasionally hot, dry desert winds funnel through the canyons from a high-pressure area over the inland deserts to a low-pressure area over the Pacific Ocean. Locally called “Santa Ana” winds, they greatly multiply the danger from fires. The fiercest Santa Ana condition in recent history was responsible for this disaster. The winds were unseasonally early, unusually strong, and almost totally devoid of humidity. They turned sparks into disaster for anything downwind.

“Fire Storms”

Under such conditions, terrifying “fire storms” develop. Firemen speak of temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The hot air rises so fast that wind is drawn in from every direction. Swirling flames leap seventy to one hundred feet into the air, sending sparks a mile high.

Fires get out of hand in inaccessible mountain regions, then breathe destruction on the edge of inhabited areas. Yet people continue to live in danger areas. The edge of the mountains offers better air, the luxury of a high location overlooking the surrounding area, or a sense of the “Old West” that can be enjoyed so near a great metropolitan area.

When such a fire gets out of hand, there just is not enough fire-fighting equipment to protect every home. Firemen try to pinch the fire in at its flanks, and save what they can.

Thousands of men battled for days. Owners saved their homes with garden hoses, buckets and shovels. Yards were watered down. Lawn sprinklers were left on rooftops. People used wet rugs to beat out flaming embers that blew near their buildings. Homeowners faced winds that sometimes were strong enough to rock a car, or knock a man off his feet. When they lost, they saw their homes devoured in a thirty-foot tower of flames.

Water and chemicals were dropped from the air. B-17 bombers, twenty-five years old, thundered over ridges at one hundred feet, dumping water. A special plane from Canada flew low over the nearby Pacific Ocean, sucking water up hose lines, then dropping 1,440 gallons of it on the fire every six minutes.

Firemen bulldozed fire lines, and set controllable backfires to destroy brush on which the main fire could have fed. “Containment” was the firemen’s first goal. It was to contain the fire within an area, rather than to extinguish all fires under way.

When the winds died down, exhausted firemen contained, then extinguished, all the southern California fires. The new problem was flooding. Such large watershed areas, denuded of their normal ground cover, could become a horror of mud slides and floods. It was feared that winter rains might cause as much damage as the fire itself!

Neighborly Aid

Firemen fought valiantly. Public agencies were inundated with offers of help. More aid was volunteered than could possibly be used. Everyone talked about the assistance others offered. One man, whose own home had just burned, was on top of another endangered house, helping to save it.

Overseers of numerous congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses checked to see that everyone had a place to go (about 85 percent of the Pine Valley congregation had to evacuate). Other congregations offered facilities, and provided material aid where needed. Overseers often found that the neighborhood Bible study conductors had already seen to evacuation, and were out helping to water down houses.

Lloyd Harding, overseer of one of the Saugus congregations, said: “One of the things that impressed us most was that everywhere we went our brothers had already been there individually, caring for one another.” Thirty-five to forty members of his congregation had come down out of the threatened mesa, and were sheltered in one Witness’s home.

Glen Chart had been away. He had no idea his home was endangered. Returning, he saw that the hill behind it was afire, and assumed his house had burned. Instead, some twenty persons were there. “So many brothers’ cars were around our house,” he said, “that we had to park in someone else’s driveway.” Important things had been removed from the home, and his pets evacuated. People were watering down his house and yard, and, as he said, “everything was fine!”

Jeanne Fuchs’ home was completely burned in Malibu. She said: “Everyone was very kind. There have been a lot of kindnesses shown. People have really gone out of their way to help​—all different kinds of people.”

One man asked: “Why can’t people be like this when there is no catastrophe?”

“God made man with this kind of compassion,” one of Jehovah’s witnesses later said. “Man is not a self-seeking product of evolution. He is not an animal, seeking only the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Instead, men are God’s creation, made in His image, and still manifesting traces of His divine attributes of wisdom, justice, love and power.” No matter what men have done to squelch those attributes, and how much modern society, based on competition and materialism, has done to deaden them, the fact remains that those desirable qualities are still there!

Atheists, agnostics, unbelievers, and people of all religious persuasions, still manifest them when the need is really great.

Jehovah’s witnesses are happy to know that soon such God-given compassion will be practiced by all men, when the Creator of mankind replaces earth’s present self-seeking system with a truly righteous one.

You Can Improve Your Voice

WHEN you speak, do others listen? Do they get the right impression of you? If they do not, it may be due to your voice. A good voice is round and strong, with a suggestion of power. It is one that instills confidence and trust. It holds attention. A bad voice detracts from what is being said. It can give a wrong impression.

Your voice is influenced by your personality. When people hear you speak they draw conclusions as to what kind of person you are. In some instances the conclusions may mean the difference between getting a job and not getting it. There are employment agencies that prefer an applicant to telephone them rather than to write, so they can judge the applicant’s personality from the sound of his voice. But what a person’s voice seems to reveal about his personality may not be true.

At one time he may have had bad traits that affected the quality of his voice. Since voice production is a mechanical habit, that particular voice quality may have continued even though the person improved his personality, as Christians are admonished to do. (Eph. 4:22-24) Perhaps his voice is gruff and harsh, but he does not intend it to sound that way. Whatever the unpleasant impression is, it can be changed by voice improvement.

If you do public speaking, your voice can cause an audience to react favorably or unfavorably to you. Just think of the various speakers you have heard. Did the speaker with a weak and thin voice keep you attentive? Did the speaker with a trembling voice and shortness of breath instill confidence? Did the one with a constantly recurring inflection of his voice up and down make you feel that he was sincere? Or were you not more favorably impressed by the speaker with the clear, full, strong voice that had variety in inflection?

So if you do any public speaking you have an added reason for improving your voice. But first you must recognize the need for it.

Listen to Yourself Speak

Although you hear yourself speak every day you do not hear yourself as others hear you. The vibrations your voice sets up in your body make it have a different sound to you than it has for others who hear only the sound that comes to them through the air. If you have never heard your voice on a high-fidelity tape recording you would most likely be greatly surprised if you were to hear it. Usually a person, upon hearing a recording of his voice for the first time, will say in disbelief: “Is that my voice? I don’t sound like that!”

So to hear yourself as others really hear you, make a tape recording of your voice in situations that include conversation, reading aloud and a public talk, if you have an occasion to give one. See if the voice you hear reflects the personality you feel you have. Note whether it is pleasant and easy to listen to. Is it sufficiently loud or too loud? Are the tones and words clear? Is the range of pitch wide enough? Does it sound affected? Is it a voice you would like to listen to? After hearing it you will be better able to determine what to work on for improvement.

What Affects Voice Quality?

The column of air you send up from your lungs when you are speaking is the foundation of the sounds you produce. It enters the voice box, called the larynx, where there are two folds of muscle tissue, called vocal cords. These are set vibrating by the air passing them. Their tone changes as muscles tighten or relax them, just as the tone of a violin string changes when it is tightened or loosened. When they are widely separated, ordinary quiet breathing is permitted. But when they are brought together, you are able to make the sounds you use in speaking.

The sound from your vocal cords travels through the air in your throat to your mouth and sinus cavities. These help to amplify the sound coming from the vocal cords, just as the progressively widening tubes in many wind instruments do. The cavities are also resonators and are important factors in voice quality. Unlike a brass musical instrument, they can be modified through muscular contraction and relaxation, making them large or small and of various shapes according to what you do with your jaws and lips. The result is a change in tone quality.

These resonating cavities of your head and throat might be compared with the body of a violin. The sounds produced by the vibrating strings are reinforced by the hollow box or body under the strings and become easily heard even at a distance. The shape and size of that box affect the tone. Thus a violin has a different tone from what a viola or cello has. Your resonating cavities are just as important to the sounds coming from your vocal cords as the bodies of these instruments are to the sounds coming from their strings.

The way you use your lips, mouth, throat and breath affects the quality of your voice. That is why a trained singer who knows how to use his breath and resonating cavities to optimum advantage can produce sounds that are much more enjoyable to listen to than those coming from an untrained singer. The same is true of trained and untrained speakers.

If you do not open your mouth but speak through clenched teeth and tight lips you cannot have good resonance and a pleasant voice. This habit also makes it difficult for you to be understood. By opening your mouth you can become more audible with less effort and be able to produce clear, full tones.

Breath Control

Improving voice quality begins with breathing. For firm and smooth tones of adequate volume, a good, steady supply of air is needed with good control. This is achieved by breathing from the diaphragm, which is a muscular sheet under the lungs, rather than from the shallow, upper part of the lungs, as so many people do. Singers are often reminded to do this by being told to ‘pack their tones against their belt.’ By means of diaphragmatic breathing you fill your lungs right to their bottoms. When this is done you can feel the pressure of your belt or other clothing on your abdomen.

Having a good supply of air and controlling its use with your diaphragm muscle rather than the muscles of your throat, you can give your voice adequate support without straining. Persons who have not learned to relax throat muscles and develop the habit of diaphragmatic breathing put such a strain on their voice muscles that they often become hoarse after speaking for a length of time. This is particularly true if they are trying to make their voice carry over an outside noise.

A trained speaker or singer can use his voice for hours without strain because he keeps the muscles of his throat relaxed. He gets the force he needs by relying upon the strong column of air resulting from using his powerful diaphragm muscle. By doing this an opera singer can sing intermittently for two or three hours with a volume that fills an auditorium and without getting hoarse.

How to Improve Your Voice

Learning to control your breathing is the first thing to work on. Make a conscious effort to avoid expanding the upper part of your chest when you inhale to speak or sing. Make your lower lungs expand. Pull in your abdomen to support the diaphragm. Then control the outflow of air by gradually letting your lungs breathe out with good diaphragmatic support maintained by abdominal muscles. At the same time try to keep your throat muscles relaxed. This can be practiced by counting as far as possible, without strain, on a single breath of air. Reading aloud is also good practice.

Resonance can be improved by getting the feel of it in your head. This can be done by exaggerating the vibrant tones and prolonging them. Humming and sounding the letters “m” and “n” will help to improve your resonance. Blend these letters with vowels in words such as men, mind, and, end, sun, and so forth. Hold the “n” and “m” sound twice as long as usual while practicing.

For the words you speak to come out full and distinct you need good articulation. This requires free movement of the lips, tongue and jaws, for they shape the sounds. If you have the habit of speaking through tight lips and jaws you need to practice exercises that will make them more flexible. By practice you can also improve articulation so your words come out distinctly. The sounds should not run together and become slurred. You may need to work at it patiently for many months. A good exercise is to read aloud. While doing so, pronounce each word correctly and make each sound carefully. But be careful not to overdo it and develop an affected manner of speaking.

Suppose you have the problem of habitually talking with your voice pitched too high. What can you do to overcome this? A high pitch is due to tenseness of the muscles controlling the vocal folds or cords. They tighten the folds and so raise the pitch of the voice. By relaxing the jaw and throat muscles and by using diaphragmatic breathing you can develop a more pleasing tone and bring the pitch of your voice down to a middle range, which is a more natural level and which sounds less strained. Then you will have a wider range for inflection.

A soft, mellow voice with clear tones is pleasing to hear, but the voice should not be too soft. When it is, people may have difficulty in hearing what you say. With proper breath control a person with a soft voice can control his volume, keeping it adequate in all kinds of situations.

On the other hand, some persons have voices that are always bombastic. Such voices are out of place in quiet surroundings and can be irritating to other persons. This is especially so when listening to such a person on a telephone. Sometimes it is necessary to hold the receiver several inches from one’s ear because the voice on the other end is inconsiderately loud. Learning to vary the volume of your voice to fit the circumstances is one of the factors that make for a good voice.

If a person with a perpetually loud voice will listen to himself on a tape recorder and hear how he sounds to others it will help him to see the need of lowering his volume. All that is necessary to improve such a voice, as far as volume is concerned, is a little conscious effort to speak more softly.

Temperament and Attitudes

What is particularly reflected in your voice that leads people to draw conclusions about you are your emotional temperament and attitudes. You can appreciate this when you think of various people in your neighborhood. Their emotions color their voices.

A quick-tempered woman, for example, may have a harsh, angry voice when emotionally upset. Another person may reveal his opinion of someone by speaking in a voice heavy with sarcasm. Still another may exude meanness in his voice like the venom of a snake. On the other hand, a person that is happy may show it by a sparkle in his voice, and the one in love may show it by a dreamy tone.

A chronic attitude of complaint might be reflected in a voice by a whine. A person with selfish indifference to others might have a voice with a tinge of hardness. A person who is sympathetic might reveal this attitude by a warm, understanding voice. So there are many emotions and attitudes that a voice may reflect. These cannot be improved by voice exercises but require a change in personality. By applying the upbuilding spiritual counsel in God’s Word such a change is possible.​—Col. 3:5-10.

With this done, a person is in position to work on his voice so that it no longer reflects his old personality. Even if nothing else were achieved, this change in impression alone would make the effort at voice improvement worth all the effort involved.

Compulsory Retirement

✔ Dr. I. S. Wright, president of the American College of Physicians, after thirty years of studying the problems of the aged, says that the present system of compulsory retirement is deplorable: it is a waste of human energies and capabilities; it is discriminatory; it is detrimental to economy. Records show that workers over sixty-five years of age have less absenteeism than workers in their twenties. Insurance statistics seem to indicate that men who keep on working live longer, while those who retire unwillingly apparently do not even live out the years allotted them in life insurance tables.

Amazing Animal Doctors

ANIMAL doctors? Why, that may sound like something out of a child’s storybook. Yet it is a fact that many animals are quite successful when it comes to treating their ailments. And they do this in ways that frequently prove to be more effective than those used by man. Yes, animals have been endowed by the Creator with an instinctive ability to treat themselves when they have certain afflictions.

Archibald Rutledge, a writer and naturalist, recalls that when he was a plantation boy he kept many wild animals as pets, one of them being a little white-tailed deer. One day he found that his pet had torn a nasty gash in its side on a barbed-wire fence. To help heal the wound, he cleansed it and carefully bandaged it.

However, the deer seemed to know better what to do about this than did its human friend. The fawn pulled the bandage off, carefully licked the hair away from the injured area and then exposed it fully to the fresh air and sunlight. What happened? In a short time the wound was healed.

How was this little deer able to get such good results? It has been found that animals have a first-class antiseptic dressing on their tongues. The enzymes of their saliva act as a natural, mild germicide. Experiments have shown that when it was added to cultures of bacteria, the bacteria did not thrive. But germs flourished in cultures that were not treated with the saliva. So, right in the mouths of many animals there appears to be a built-in medicine chest.

Their Medical Methods and Medicines

When some injury or sickness threatens the health of an animal, its God-given instinct diagnoses the problem and dictates what it should do. This enables it to have the right prescription and to apply the best medication to cure what may be ailing it. As Frank W. Lane observes in his book Nature Parade: “Animals act as if they knew different illnesses require different treatments.”

For example, if an animal is injured, it will seek solitude where it can get complete rest. If it has a fever, it seeks an airy, shady place near water. There it remains quiet, eating very little and drinking often. If the animal is rheumatic, it exposes itself to the sunlight so as to soak up the heat to relieve its pain. Sometimes grass is eaten to induce vomiting. When an astringent is needed, certain animals will eat bark and twigs of oak trees, which contain tannic acid, an astringent medicine.

The effectiveness of animal medicine was demonstrated to Joseph Delmont, a wild-animal collector, in a rather amusing way. One day he found his pet orangutan sunning itself and holding both hands to its left cheek. He noticed that the orangutan had smeared the left side of its face with wet clay and that it was holding another large lump of clay pressed against its lower left jaw. He also saw that the orangutan had filled its mouth with clay. Was this some orangutan antic? No, for Delmont soon noticed that his pet’s jaw was swollen and that it had a severe gumboil.

It became rather obvious what the orangutan was trying to do. He was doctoring his malady by applying a cold clay poultice to it. Did he effect a cure by this method? Three days later the orangutan pulled out the ailing tooth and, to advertise the success of his medical achievement, brought the tooth to his master with obvious pride. Yes, Dr. Orangutan was not at a loss as to how to care for his painful dental problem!

Mr. African Buffalo is not one whit behind when it comes to coping with his health problems. Delmont relates that he once came upon a herd of these buffalo that were badly afflicted with scabs. He followed them to see what would become of them, and after ten days of travel, they reached the shores of a muddy lake. There the buffalo went on a partial fast and spent most of the day wallowing in the mud, standing up to their necks in the water.

After a month, Delmont was able to examine one, and he saw that the afflicted areas were beginning to grow hair again and that the troublesome mites were almost gone. Since the herd showed no signs of moving on, he continued to watch them. After a few days they began working on their necks, rolling them often in the mire and forming hard, thick mud crusts over the last of these infected places. The buffalo did not go back to their regular diet nor did they stop their muddy medications until they were completely healed.

Preventive Medicine

Of course, it is one thing to cure an ailment and it is quite another thing to take precautions to avoid it. And in this latter regard, we find that God has equipped animals with the instinctive ability to practice preventive medicine. Yes, many creatures, large and small, take steps to help themselves to stay in good health.

“Both birds and animals,” says Rutledge, “bathe regularly to rid their bodies not only of parasites, but of possible sources of infection. These baths are of many varieties​—water, sun, mud, dust. . . . It is almost a daily habit of such game birds as the quail, ruffed grouse and wild turkey to take dust baths to discourage insects.”

Consider what a wild turkey does to keep its youngsters in good health. When it rains, the young turkeys’ resistance to disease is lowered. So mother turkey forces them to eat the bitter leaves of a spice bush. Though these leaves are not regular turkey food, they supply the necessary tonic that the young need at this critical time.

Even vultures that eat the dead bodies of other creatures follow a sanitation program of practical hygiene that is really preventive medicine. They keep their eating utensils, their large beaks, scrupulously clean. Also they choose a high place in the open sunlight and sit there with their wings outstretched in order to clean their feathers. Rutledge notes that the way of the vulture’s life “calls for special caution in sanitation, and he takes it.” This helps explain why these carrion birds are not infected by what they eat.

Black bears coming out of hibernation in the springtime are susceptible to sickness because of being out of condition. What is their preventive medicine? They eat berries and dig up plenty of certain flower bulbs the laxative action of which helps them get into condition.

Did you know that when certain furry animals such as dogs and cats lick themselves, it is really preventive medicine? Most of these creatures do not get vitamin D in their diet. However, the action of the sun on their furry coats produces it. So they lick themselves to get this vital vitamin crop into their stomachs. In so doing, they avoid getting rickets.

We tend to think that creatures who live in the sea enjoy a continual bath, yet these denizens of the deep are constantly cleaning away dirt that gets on their bodies. Many crustaceans use their feet to do this. Some fish have tiny crustaceans sticking to them and these act as filth devourers. Yes, water creatures also use preventive medicine.

Sir Ray Lankester, once head of the British Natural History Museum, said: “It is a remarkable thing that the adjustment of organisms to their surroundings is so severely complete in Nature, apart from man, that diseases are unknown as constant and normal phenomena under those conditions. Every disease to which the animals are liable, except as a transient and very exceptional occurrence, is due to man’s interference.”

Their Eyes Fit Their Needs

● “Nature’s eyes, I found, long ago anticipated many man-made conveniences with counterparts of venetian blinds, tinted glasses, storm windows, bifocal lenses, and windshield wipers, as well as features of the finest cameras,” wrote Constance P. Warner in the National Geographic Magazine. This widow of an eye specialist spent many years photographing the eyes of different creatures; she went on to say: “I marvel at the logic that shines through nature’s eyes. Each fits its owner alone. . . .

“The burrow-hiding prairie dog, for example, wears its eyes high upon its head and widely spaced, like many other hunted creatures. The eyes themselves can focus full circle without telltale movement. A dissected prairie dog eyeball reveals an amber-tinted lens that filters the glare of the plains. . . .

“The common eel dwells in both fresh and salt water, among stones, in mud, at times even in drying air. Its eyes roll, well protected, beneath tough, transparent picture windows, clear places in its head skin.

“The Cuban shovel-nosed toad squatting in its burrow folds its upper lid far over the lower, forming a dirt-proof seal that rivals any envelope. The Southwest’s Gila monster digs through rough sand for water and eggs of other animals. Its tiny eyes, ringed with beaded scales, are shielded by thick third eyelids that resemble heavy white satin.

“Birds have shown me nictitating membranes​—third eyelids—​in incredible variety of color, pattern, and texture. The hooded merganser wears a glasslike membrane appropriate to underwater pursuit of fish. The northern eider duck nuzzles the dim sea bottom for starfish, sea urchins, and other spiny food; its third lid appears waxy and opaque.

“The speedy duck hawk has a crystal-clear third lid that can take the buffeting of a 180-mile-an-hour power dive. The slower bluejay’s third lid flashes across its eye, opaque and beautifully cross-hatched; that of the American robin is streaked like onion skin.”

Anableps is a Central American fish that “rides at water level, its bulbous eyeballs separated into halves adapted to vision in air and water. These diverse media demand two focal lengths from a single lens.” This is no problem to the anableps because he has “an egg-shaped bifocal lens. Air-vision rays pass through the short dimension; water-vision rays through the long.”

Was all this excellence in optics the result of blind chance? It would be foolish to think so. Rather, it gives unmistakable evidence of intelligent design, the handiwork of God.​—Prov. 20:12.

“Your Word Is Truth”

‘You Must Not Selfishly Desire Another’s Possessions’

THE Tenth Commandment of the Decalogue reads: “Neither must you desire your fellow man’s wife. Neither must you selfishly crave . . . anything that belongs to your fellow man.”​—Deut. 5:21.

Was covetousness or selfish craving forbidden only to the Israelites, or are Christians also to be on guard against it? Christians most certainly are to be on guard against it. Thus the apostle Paul wrote: “Deaden, therefore, your body members that are upon the earth as respects . . . covetousness.”​—Col. 3:5.

This commandment is unique with Jehovah God, for no man could enforce it. In fact, only God himself could tell whether it was being violated or not. As a nineteenth-century English scholar and author so well noted: “Search all the laws of the world and you will not find one which resembles it. The sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth you will find in all codes, although only as prohibition of crimes amenable to judicial punishment. The Tenth Commandment is the complement of all the rest. It shows that God requires of us not only outward virtue but inward holiness; . . . that sinful imaginings are a crime against him, as well as wicked acts.”

That God can read the hearts of men his Word repeatedly shows. God made that point when he sent the prophet Samuel to choose a successor to King Saul. (1 Sam. 16:7) And he said by his prophet Jeremiah: “The heart is more treacherous than anything else and is desperate. Who can know it? I, Jehovah, am searching the heart, examining the kidneys [the deepest emotions], even to give to each one according to his ways.” The Tenth Commandment made it clear to all of God’s people that they were accountable to him for their very thoughts, their very desires.​—Jer. 17:9, 10.

Of course, this fact would not act as a deterrent to those who hold that God is dead or that he never did exist. But for the Israelites there was no question about their God Jehovah as being very much alive. As the preamble of the Decalogue reminded them, it was their God Jehovah who had brought them “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.”​—Ex. 20:2.

Besides, since selfish desire is by and large the motivating force among men of this world, they would not even think of putting a law against it in their lawbooks. All that counts with them is success, regardless of the means used to gain it. As the late author Aldous Huxley so aptly put it: “Covetousness, which was a deadly sin in the days of our medieval ancestors, is now one of the cardinal virtues.”

As in the case of the others of the Ten Commandments, the Bible gives us warning examples. Satan the Devil coveted the worship that rightfully can go only to Jehovah God. This can be seen from his offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would do an act of worship before him. For coveting the worship due only to Jehovah God, Satan will be destroyed in God’s due time.​—Matt. 4:8-10; Heb. 2:14.

There was the Judean Israelite Achan who coveted some of the treasure of Jericho that had been dedicated to Jehovah God. For yielding to this selfish desire he paid with his own life and even the lives of his family.​—Josh. 7:20-26.

Wicked Queen Athaliah coveted the throne of the two-tribe kingdom of Judah, although as a woman she had no right thereto. To gain her goal she committed many murders, but in the end she too paid for her selfish desire with her life. Well has the Tenth Commandment been termed “the Counterpoise of Greed.”​—2 Ki. 11:1-20.

To get rid of selfish desire, with what do we have to start? With the heart, even as Jesus noted: “Out of the heart of men, injurious reasonings issue forth: fornications, thieveries, murders, adulteries, covetings, acts of wickedness, deceit, loose conduct, an envious eye, blasphemy, haughtiness, unreasonableness. All these wicked things issue forth from within and defile a man.” And why does the heart have this downward tendency? Because of inherited sin and because of the influence of Satan and his demons.​—Mark 7:21-23; Gen. 8:21; Ps. 51:5; Eph. 6:12.

What will help us to combat this ingrained selfish desire of wanting things that belong to another? Reasoning on the matter should prove helpful. As Jesus expressed it: “Just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them.” We would not want another person to desire our own possessions, our wife, our house, our auto or our position in secular business or in the Christian congregation, would we? So, consistently, we should not desire such things belonging to another.​—Luke 6:31.

Being truly spiritually minded, always conscious of one’s need for God’s holy spirit and its fruitage will also help one to combat innate greed, to deaden selfish desire in one’s heart and keep such desire from taking over. ‘Seeking first God’s kingdom and his righteousness’ will keep one from desiring that which belongs to others. (Matt. 6:33) If we do that we will have no shortage of spiritual blessings. As the apostle Paul so well expressed it: “He who did not even spare his own Son but delivered him up for us all, why will he not also with him kindly give us all other things” that we need?​—Rom. 8:32.

Still another aid in combating greediness in our fallen natures is learning the lesson of contentment, self-sufficiency. The apostle Paul had learned this lesson, for he was able to write: “I have learned, in whatever circumstances I am, to be self-sufficient. I know indeed how to be low on provisions, I know indeed how to have an abundance.” Being spiritually minded helped him to be content. And that being content is most reasonable Paul shows in one of his letters to his friend Timothy: “It is a means of great gain, this godly devotion along with self-sufficiency. For we have brought nothing into the world, and neither can we carry anything out. So, having sustenance and covering, we shall be content with these things.”​—Phil. 4:11, 12; 1 Tim. 6:6-8.

But above all will love, agápe, the unselfish, principled love, help Christians to combat selfish desire. This is the kind of love that “is not jealous, . . . does not get puffed up, does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests.” If it does not even look for its own interests, how far it is from selfishly desiring that which belongs to others! (1 Cor. 13:4, 5) Unselfish ‘love works no evil to one’s neighbor; therefore love is the law’s fulfillment.’ Such love heeds the apostle’s advice and seeks, not another’s wealth, but another’s advantage: “Let each one keep seeking, not his own advantage, but that of the other person.”​—Rom. 13:10; 1 Cor. 10:24.

Truly, though covetousness or selfish desire may be deeply ingrained and at the root of all sorts of wickedness, there are many aids to combat it for those who truly desire to do so.

Watching the World

A Losing Battle

◆ It is feared by some that the medical world is losing its battle against germs. Antibiotics have brought victories against them in the past, but now drug-resistant germs are appearing in growing numbers. Some have proved to be major killers, one class killing 50 percent more people than are killed in automobile accidents each year. The drug-resistant germs are called gram-negative bacteria. They have become one of the major hazards to hospitalized patients.

Raft Travels to Australia

◆ A log raft, carrying four men, successfully traveled from Ecuador, South America, across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. It was a journey of 7,000 miles that took 161 days. This long, perilous journey was undertaken to prove that it was possible for American Indians to have made this trip centuries ago. In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl made a trip from South America to French Polynesia on the famous raft Kon-Tiki, but this latest voyage by raft was 3,000 miles longer.

No Protection in Bankruptcy

◆ People who declare bankruptcy and believe that in this way they are protected from creditors are finding that this is not necessarily so. Creditors do not automatically mark off a debt when a person declares bankruptcy. They file suit in 20 percent of the bankruptcy cases upon the basis of exceptions provided in the bankruptcy laws of the United States. In seven cases out of ten the creditors win. Creditors often pursue a person in one court after another if the person moves to different cities. The legal fees for defending himself can mount to the point where he may decide that it would be cheaper to pay the debt. Would it not be better to assure creditors that they will be paid and make payments regularly until the debts are erased?

Drug-caused Disease

◆ A medical team in Los Angeles, California, has linked a potentially fatal disease of the arteries to drug abuse. The disease has appeared after as little as three months of drug use. Methamphetamine, also known as Methedrine, is suspected as being the drug that causes this disease. This finding, according to Dr. B. Philip Citron, who is head of the team, “was frightening, especially since amphetamine abuse in this country appears to be on the increase. . . . Perhaps 10 per cent of those who abuse amphetamines may fall victim to the disease, although the incidence in the hospital population runs as high as 30 to 40 per cent.”

Dangerous Noise

◆ Nervous disorders and ear illnesses are mounting in Mexico City because of noise, according to protesting physicians. It appears that the worst noise is caused by motor traffic, because mufflers are not required by law. Most trucks and taxis do not have them. It is said that when noise reaches the range of 70 to 100 decibels it is dangerous. The noise level in Mexico City ranges between 100 and 130 decibels from eight in the morning until ten at night.

Light for Babies

◆ It was reported in the Scottish Daily Express that an infant can be saved from brain damage caused by jaundice if it is bathed in the glare of fluorescent lights. This treatment, being given at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, makes exchange blood transfusions unnecessary. The paper said: “Each year 15 babies with jaundice of prematurity have to have transfusion, but last year, thanks to the treatment, no transfusion of this type was needed.” Asked about the ‘phototherapy,’ Professor John Forfar, consultant in charge, said: “It is remarkably simple and highly effective. The baby is placed under a bank of these powerful lights for about three or four days, and without our doing anything else, the jaundice is cleared.”

Sheep-eating Sheep

◆ In western Queensland, Australia, there has been an eight-year drought. Sheep are so hungry that some have been eating the flesh of dead sheep, leaving only bones and wool. An estimated two million sheep have died in the drought.

Decay That Leads to Collapse

◆ Moral decay is evident throughout the world. Is there significance in it as to the future? The Moncton Transcript of Canada observed in its issue of October 17, 1970: “The decay and fall of the Roman Empire didn’t happen overnight. . . . It is probably the most striking, though far from the only example, of how shaky a foundation military strength, economic power and riches can be for enduring greatness.” It then listed five things that marked the decay of the Roman Empire that are commonplace conditions today. These are: (1) increasing divorce and family breakdown; (2) rising taxation and extravagant spending; (3) mounting craze for pleasure and brutality; (4) massive armament production; and (5) decay of religion. Along the same line the Dean of Perth, Australia, remarked: “Pornography was particularly rife at the fall of the Roman Empire. I cannot help wondering whether it is a sign of the imminent collapse of our own civilisation.”

Military Spending

◆ The money the United States has spent for military purposes since 1945 amounts to $1,100 billion. This exceeds the value of all business and residential buildings in the country.

Drug-oriented Society

◆ It is the view of Dr. R. M. Hayes, the medical officer to the Workmen’s Compensation Board of British Columbia in Canada, that people are too ready to take medicinal drugs. After pointing out that few drugs are free from unwanted side effects, he said: “Aspirin is a potent pain killer and is consumed annually by the ton, yet how many know that it can cause, or certainly aggravate, a peptic ulcer and disturb profoundly the very delicate blood clotting mechanism?”

The Vancouver coroner, he observed, is alarmed at how frequently he finds large amounts of various drugs in the blood of accident victims. Dr. Hayes observed that multitudes are “turning to chemical comfort rather than learn or be taught to handle their problems in a mature and natural way.”

Chemical-caused Cancer

◆ According to Dr. Samuel Epstein, Chief of Laboratories of Carcinogenesis and Toxicology, the majority of human cancers are probably due to cancer-causing chemicals. Widespread lung cancer in the United States and Great Britain has been clearly associated with the smoking of tobacco. In Asia, mouth cancer, which accounts for 35 percent of all Asiatic cancers, has been related to the chewing of betel nuts and tobacco leaves. In Japan, Iceland and Chile there is a high incidence of gastric cancer, and this appears to be related to eating a large amount of fish contaminated with nitrosamines, formed when nitrite preservatives are used on fish. Since man has brought himself into contact with so many chemicals, especially with respect to his food, is it not possible that he is the cause of many of his own sicknesses?

Deadly Smoke

◆ In Great Britain cigarette smoking is killing 100,000 people a year. This was the report of Sir George Godber, Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health. He warned: “This is no harmless indulgence but the biggest single avoidable menace to health in contemporary life, causing, all told, perhaps ten times as many deaths as road accidents and nearly as many deaths as all cancers unrelated to smoking put together.”

Unemployed Veterans

◆ Veterans of the Vietnam war are returning to the United States in growing numbers, and many are having difficulty in finding employment. In August, 211,000 were unemployed. One veteran remarked: “I think I should have a decent job. . . . They taught me to kill. That’s the only real skill I have.” This situation worries many officials, as they fear that unemployed veterans will join militant groups and use their deadly skills against the police.

Radios in Fish

◆ Hundreds of spawning salmon are being tracked by radio receivers along the Columbia River. They were pulled out of the water and a three-inch-long plastic capsule containing a miniaturized, battery-powered transmitter was put down the throat of each. After being put back into the water they are tracked by radio receivers. Each transmitter gives out its own beep code. By means of the transmitters scientists determine the navigational routes of the spawning fish.

Clergymen Quitting

◆ According to a report appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle of October 12, 1970, an “average of 3000 Protestant ministers a year have been leaving the church. Since 1965, 10,000 Roman Catholic priests have applied officially to the Vatican for return to status as laymen.” The paper went on to observe that it “is estimated that twice that number have left the priesthood without applying formally.”

Dangerous to Babies

◆ Pregnant women have been warned by Michigan Medicine, the journal of the Michigan State Medical Society, against eating fish that contains even small amounts of mercury. Because mercury tends to concentrate in the fetus, amounts considered safe for adults are dangerous for the fetus. Babies with brain damage have been born to mothers who have eaten fish containing mercury in amounts that did not affect the mothers. Genetic damage can also be caused by mercury in extremely low concentrations.

Dangerous for Bees

◆ When some large canning companies discontinued using DDT on their crops of corn and peas, they switched to a neural-acting insecticide. This was devastating for bees. Since they have elaborate nervous systems, they are highly sensitive to insecticides such as Sevin, Malathion and Parathion. Sevin seems to be more dangerous because it takes much longer to break down than the latter. The use of Sevin in Minnesota has resulted in bees’ dying in enormous numbers. This has hurt not only beekeepers but also farmers who raise alfalfa, fruit trees and other crops that benefit from the pollinating work of bees.

Mercury in Seals

◆ The livers of Alaskan fur seals have been found to contain 116 times the amount of mercury that is considered safe for human consumption. The seals live in deep water that is fifty miles or more off the Pacific coast of North America. Since they migrate along the coast between the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea and Baja California, they could have picked up the mercury from industrial wastes emptied into the Pacific Ocean. This is another indication of the extent to which man is polluting his environment. As one food company owner in California said: “You can just figure from this that there isn’t any place in the whole world that isn’t contaminated.”

130 Kilometers of Dead Fish

◆ A vast layer of dead fish several meters thick was found in the North Sea. (A meter is slightly longer than three feet.) It stretched for 130 kilometers (about 80 land miles or 70 nautical miles) between Scotland and Denmark. The nautical research vessel, Johan Njort, which discovered the fish traveled for ten hours before passing beyond them. When reporting this in its issue of October 19, 1970, Het Vrije Volk of the Netherlands observed that the fish had been killed by industrial wastes from industries processing synthetic materials. What is especially disturbing is that the fish were found in an area where they breed. Around the world man is ruining his environment.

Insight into the Meaning of the Bible

Would you like to have more insight into the meaning of the Bible? especially the portion commonly called the “New Testament”? Since English versions are only translations, sometimes the finer shades of meaning of the original language are lost. You can, of course, read the “Christian Greek Scriptures” in one of the fine modern-English translations​—but you can, in addition, follow the original Greek with the exact word-for-word translation written between the lines. Now you can know the exact meaning of the original language of the Christian Greek Scriptures. You can make your own comparison with any other translation and determine its accuracy.

THE KINGDOM INTERLINEAR TRANSLATION OF THE GREEK SCRIPTURES

Send today, only $2

I am enclosing $2. Please send me The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures. For mailing the coupon I am to receive free the booklet “This Good News of the Kingdom.”

A Report to the World​—From All Over the World!

Yes, that is the 1971 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses​—just off the press! You will want your copy at once to read this fascinating account of the greatest advance of true worship yet recorded.

In 1970 Jehovah’s witnesses all over the world were busy spreading “this good news of the kingdom,” and the largest number yet shared in the blessings that resulted. Now you too can share those blessings by obtaining and reading the

1971 YEARBOOK OF JEHOVAH‘S WITNESSES

Here is a vibrant, living account of the preaching of the Bible’s message to the peoples of the world in modern times. Avail yourself also of enriching daily Bible study through the section “Daily Texts and Comments.”

The 1971 Yearbook is available in English, French, German and Spanish. Send today. Only 50c a copy.

Please send me the 1971 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the language indicated: [ ] English; [ ] (specify other as available; see above)‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐. I am enclosing 50c.