October 8

Why the Cry for World Peace

PEOPLE around the earth are weary of war.

For a quarter of a century now since the end of World War II​—the major powers have waged a “hot-cold war.” This has produced the biggest arms race in history. It has held all mankind in a state of uncertainty, on edge.

Will world peace come? Will the major powers one day join in triumphantly announcing an end to their strife?

Yes, they will! And the evidence is that they will do it in the near future.

Do you find that hard to believe? If so, surely it is not because of any lack of desire for peace.

What World Peace Could Mean for All of Us

True, you may not be in a “hot war” zone right now. But you do not have to be killed, wounded or crippled, or see members of your family suffer violence, to feel the crying need for peace.

Are tax pressures getting heavier and heavier? Does the struggle to meet the daily cost of living keep getting harder? Then realize this:

Each year the world spends some $200 billion on military expenses. This is equal to a year’s wages of the 1.8 billion people who make up the poorer half of earth’s population!

Another reason why many desire peace is the disgust they feel at the sheer waste war brings. Products costing enormous sums of money are being ‘blown to bits.’ By 1971, for example, more than $150 billion had already been spent on the Vietnam war. What if that same amount had been distributed to the Vietnamese people?

Then each family in both North and South Vietnam could have received some $20,000​—more than most of them earn in a lifetime!

Instead, their country is largely devastated, pocked with an estimated twenty-one million crater holes from the intense shelling and bombing.

Yes, world peace could bring welcome relief from crushing economic burdens affecting all of us.

Still another reason for desiring peace is that our whole outlook on life is affected by today’s uncertainty. We seem to pass from one crisis to another and from one outbreak of violence to another. After twenty-five years of this, it is little wonder that people around the world feel increasingly irritated and frustrated.

Granted, like most people you may feel that it is unlikely that an all-out nuclear war will break out. But knowing that the combined arsenals of the United States and Russia now contain destructive power equal to five tons of dynamite for every man, woman and child on this planet​—is this not enough to keep most persons from looking to the future with any real peace of mind or confidence?

So, what a change, then, world peace could mean! What a blessing it would be for human efforts and resources to be turned to constructive goals! What a relief to be free from continual tension and uncertainty!

Yet, no matter how desirable peace may be, that does not make it a certainty, does it? So, where is the evidence that an unprecedented peace arrangement is coming?

As we will see, there is strong evidence pointing to that conclusion. In fact, the coming of such peace will fulfill prophecies written long ago in the Bible.

[Picture on page 3]

Each year the world spends $200 billion on military expenses​—equal to what the poorer half of earth’s population earns annually

[Picture on page 4]

In the combined arsenals of the United States and Russia there is destructive power equal to 5 tons of dynamite for every man, woman and child on earth today

5 TONS

5 TONS

5 TONS

Why Hopes Grow for a “Generation of Peace”

STRANGE events are taking place in our time. And their true significance goes much deeper than their surface appearance.

No doubt you are aware of the surprising series of world changes that have happened in the short span of less than a year. Among these are:

● After twenty-two years, Communist China​—controlling more than one fifth of earth’s total population—​finally gained membership in the United Nations Organization. By late 1971 it had become one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

● For the first time in history, a U.S. president went to mainland China, making a “journey for peace” in February 1972. Trade, travel and communications barriers that have separated these nations for decades are steadily disappearing.

● A crucial four-nation agreement was signed to bring about freer and closer relations between East Germany and West Germany​—divided since the close of World War II.

● At a Moscow summit conference in May 1972, the leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States officially ratified a series of agreements. The agreements included:

A joint U.S.–Soviet space flight projected for 1975.

Mutual exchange of scientific and technological data.

Cooperation in solving medical and public health problems.

Joint research and mutual effort to protect the human environment against growing pollution.

A pact aimed at preventing dangerous confrontations between the two nations’ naval vessels on the high seas.

And, of particular importance, an arms-control pact to curtail the costly nuclear arms race.

After signing these accords, the two superpowers soon began implementing them by major trade agreements, including a $750 million Russian purchase of U.S. grain. Negotiations also were completed for a multibillion-dollar deal between the Soviet Union and an American oil company to provide technical help in developing Russian oil and gas fields.

● Then, beginning in June 1972, there has been a period of unequaled diplomatic activity by the great powers. Their representatives have been hurriedly crisscrossing the earth from one capital to another. Hopes rose for a solution to the long and bloody Indochina conflict. India and Pakistan held a summit conference to settle their differences. At a meeting in Seoul, Korea, of the nine-nation Asian and Pacific Council, the majority of members manifested a changed attitude toward Communist China. The governments of North and South Korea surprised the world with announcement of an agreement on principles for unifying that divided land.

Something New Developing?

The dramatic moves by the United States, China and the Soviet Union toward what the French call rapprochement (a coming together in cordial relations) have stirred worldwide comment. Voices are heard in many nations expressing hope that something new may indeed be developing on a world scale.

An editorial in Life magazine said: “We seem just now to be standing at some great doorstep, all three nations, ready to trade our fiercer ideologies for common sense and common good.”

Writing in The Observer (London), Robert Stephens described President Nixon as having “set his international sights high, no less than laying the foundations of a new world order.”

Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin called the Moscow summit results “a victory for all peace-loving people because security and peace is the common goal.”

But why view these moves toward ensuring international peace and security as anything different from past efforts? What is unusual?

Consider, for example, what took place back in 1918 when World War I ended. Shocked by that war’s unprecedented slaughter, the nations determined: ‘It must not happen again.’ So they formed the League of Nations to ‘guarantee world peace and security.’ But nineteen years later it failed and an even greater conflict erupted. In the book Swords into Plowshares, Professor I. L. Claude, Jr., suggests a major reason for this failure was that “the League was created to prevent the outbreak of [another] World War I,” just as “the French Maginot Line was also built to win the battles of [another] World War I.” Thinking of the past, they did not foresee the new circumstances that brought about the second world conflict.

After World War II dwarfed the destructiveness of World War I and ended with atomic bombs exploding in Japan, the League of Nations was revived in the form of the United Nations Organization. According to its Charter, it, too, was to “maintain international peace and security” among the nations. But within a few years the major powers who were its principal formers​—the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China—​were already seriously split, with an “iron curtain” separating East from West.

So where does the current peace effort differ from these?

Where the Difference Lies

First, unlike the League and the U.N., this peace drive has not come in the heat of global conflict nor in the immediate aftermath of global war, with the horrors of such slaughter fresh in mind as a moving force. This peace move is being pushed in a time of relative peace to ‘defuse’ the potentially explosive circumstances that could trigger all-out nuclear war.

This means, too, that it is not a case of victorious nations imposing their own peace arrangement on defeated and weakened foes unable to offer effective opposition. This, in fact, is what has caused many to express amazement over the recent developments.

On the one hand, they see the United States, vastly superior to China in wealth and nuclear power, taking a conciliatory attitude. They see its president, in effect, making a pilgrimage to Peking to attempt to draw the earth’s most populous nation out of isolation and into new avenues of communication and commercial relations.

And, on the other hand, the “Moscow Summit” saw the United States declare itself willing to accept a state of “nuclear parity” with the world’s second superpower, the Soviet Union. During the 1960’s the United States insisted on “nuclear superiority.” Now it talks only of “nuclear sufficiency.”

Calling it “the strangest summit meeting to date,” Time magazine pointed out that the Moscow summit took place despite the fact that the United States had just mined North Vietnam’s harbors and was steadily destroying its rail lines. Yet the Soviet press played down this all-out American effort to stop the flow of armaments to the Communist’s ally and played up Russian persistence in going ahead with the summit as a major achievement in its quest for peace.

There is, however, an even more distinctive factor about these peace movements, one with a significance few realize. What is this largely unnoticed but significant factor?

It has to do with religion.

You may object, “But what has religion to do with all this? Where has it entered the picture?” Consider the following evidence.

[Picture on page 5]

Unusual moves toward international peace and security are now under way. What is their significance?

A Surprising Reversal

THE U.S. overtures to Peking and Moscow were remarkable in themselves. But an even more astonishing change had already preceded this. What?

Think back just a decade or two in the past. Do you remember how, throughout the Western world, Communism was regularly and violently being condemned as “godless, atheistic Bolshevism”?

Who were the chief sources of this denunciation? It was the churches of Christendom, particularly those of the West. Yet a surprising reversal has taken place. To appreciate how big the change has been, consider this:

Religious “Cold War” Against Communism

In 1937, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical (Divini Redemptoris) in which he said: “Since Communism is intrinsically evil whoever wants to save Christianity and civilization from destruction must refrain from aiding it in the prosecution of any project whatever.”​—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. IV, p. 924.

This was, in effect, an official declaration of war on the part of the Vatican against Communism. What followed?

During the second world war, Nazi Germany suddenly broke its pact with Russia and, on June 22, 1941, attacked the Soviet Union. The Roman Catholic bishop of Eichstätt, Germany, then sent out a pastoral letter calling the German invasion “a crusade, a holy war . . . for faith and church.”​—The Catholic Church and Nazi Germany (1964), by Guenter Lewy, pp. 230, 231.

Similarly, in Italy, Archbishop Constantini referred to “Bolshevik Russia” as that “boundless land where Satan seemed to have found his instruments and his best collaborators,” and he prayed God’s blessing on the Italian and German soldiers who, “at this decisive hour, are defending the ideal of our freedom against Red barbarism.”​—Pius XII and the Third Reich (1966), Saul Friedländer, p. 79.

The German invasion failed, of course, and the war ended with Russia among the victorious Allied powers.

But, if anything, the Catholic Church’s opposition now stiffened. When postwar Italy came to have the largest Communist party outside the Soviet Union, the Vatican issued a new pronouncement. In 1949 it decreed that, not only those enlisting in the Communist party, but even anyone ‘showing favor to the Communist party’ should be excommunicated.

Though this decree was never clearly enforced, a steady barrage of denunciations continued to flow from religious authorities on through the decade of the 1950’s. In 1955 Richard Nixon, then vice-president of the United States, praised the Catholic Church as “one of the major bulwarks against communism.” Though not so prominently, the Protestant organizations voiced similar animosity toward world Communism.

A Religious Turnaround

Then, suddenly, beginning in 1963 a “thaw” set in. That year the icy Vatican-Communist relations began to warm up.

A major sign of the “thaw” came with Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). In it he said, in effect, that world peace could not wait upon settling ideological rivalries, political power struggles or even the triumph of religion over atheism.

Then, to the consternation of conservative elements, the pope followed this up by receiving in private audience the daughter and son-in-law of the then top Communist, Khrushchev.

The next year, on September 15, 1964, the Vatican signed a major agreement with the Communist regime of Hungary​—this just fifteen years after the Vatican decree of excommunication against anyone ‘showing favor to Communism.’ Rome now allowed Catholic priests in Hungary to take an oath of loyalty to the Communist government of Hungary.

Further ‘peace feelers’ went out. In the spring of 1966, for example, Pope Paul VI carried the “thaw” along by granting papal audience to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Reporting the audience, Newsweek magazine relates that the pope, “smiling broadly, met Gromyko at the door of the library and held out both hands in greeting.” The years following saw continued Vatican negotiations with Communist lands.

So, now in 1972 when the Peking and Moscow summits took place there was not even a murmur of disapproval from church leaders. An amazing transformation has thus taken place. The “red barbarians” of Communism have suddenly become socially acceptable, respectable. The “godless” ideology of Communism, which holds that religion is the “opium of the people,” is no longer viewed as a serious obstacle to cordial relations.

The changed attitude of the religious leaders has been paralleled by the political powers of the West. In his television address from Moscow to the Russian people, for example, President Nixon stressed that the Soviet Union and the United States should view each other no longer as ‘hostile enemies’ but as ‘peaceable competitors.’

In their “Declaration of Principles” both countries agreed that “differences in ideology and in the social systems [which, of course, includes religious systems and attitudes] . . . are not obstacles to the bilateral development of normal relations.”

What seemed to be mountainous barriers appear to have been hurdled. Attention now focuses on a “European Security Conference,” agreed upon by the world powers for 1973. And the French newspaper Le Monde (June 25-26, 1972) quotes Monsignor Casaroli, head of Vatican diplomacy, as saying that “the Vatican proposes to participate” and is already recommending what the agenda should embrace, including a balanced reduction of the NATO and Warsaw Pact armed forces.

What will the coming months bring? Is what we have seen been just ‘run-of-the-mill’ political maneuvering, mere ‘window dressing,’ or is something big in the making? There is reason to believe the latter is the case.

[Picture on page 8]

Pope John XXIII signing encyclical “Pacem in Terris,” April 11, 1963, initiating the “thaw” in the Vatican’s attitude toward world Communism

[Pictures on page 8]

Pope Paul VI continued the “thaw” by granting papal audience to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko

Why Such a Peace Effort Now?

NINETEEN hundred years ago Bible prophecy foretold a time when men would be proclaiming, “Peace and security!” That prophecy seems to be rapidly nearing its fulfillment.

World leaders, in fact, use these words repeatedly. But it is not the mere use of a phrase that is so significant.

We live in a unique time in many ways. Stop and think of the grim realities the world faces today. Consider why now, of all times, world leaders would be both stupid and insane if they did not make their greatest efforts ever to gain peace and stability.

World Peace or World Suicide?

Never before our time have men had the means for literally ruining the whole earth. Consider:

The United States has forty-one nuclear missile submarines. Each one carries more explosive power than all the bombs used by both sides in World War II​—the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan included! Russia is developing forty-two such submarines. France began testing its nuclear missile submarine in July.

The Russians have about 300 huge SS-9 hydrogen bombs, each with a capacity of twenty-five megatons. That is the equivalent of twenty-five million tons of TNT each. Just one of these bombs would make a hideous shambles of any great city on earth.

Right now, at this minute, besides its submarine missiles, the United States has 1,000 land-based Minuteman missiles, equipped with one- or two-megaton warheads, aimed at the Soviet Union and China. The Soviet Union has about 1,300 equally powerful missiles aimed at the United States aside from its SS-9’s.

One push of buttons by the opposing nations and an estimated three hundred million people would perish in less than an hour.

Yet the superpowers have kept on stockpiling more and more warheads. Thus physicist Ralph E. Lapp some time ago pointed out that the United States has stockpiled “enough nuclear explosives to overkill the Soviet Union at least 25 times.”

China is now rapidly heading toward superpower status in nuclear weaponry.

More than that​—a report by the International Peace Research Institute of Sweden shows that about one third of all countries will have “significant nuclear programs by the end of the nineteen-seventies.” This, it says, could lead to “a totally new situation in military and strategic affairs.”

With good reason, President Nixon warned: “In a nuclear war there would be no winners​—only losers.” “If we are drawn into conflict, the possibility of mutual suicide is very great.”

In the past, when war threatened, national rulers had to weigh the prospects of losing power, losing a portion of the population, losing some industrial strength, and having large sections of major cities destroyed.

But they never had to contemplate the loss of virtually the entire country, of seeing their nation become a place uninhabitable for living things.

Now they face those very prospects.

Threat to Human Environment Demands Global Action

Mankind needs to make peace with the very planet it inhabits. For decades man has been ‘at war’ with his own environment, polluting it nearly to death. He is now reaping what he has sown.

We reap polluted air. In 1970 scientists at an atmospheric research center predicted that, at the present rate, “in a decade urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution.” In Tokyo, Japan, traffic policemen already must resort to oxygen machines at intervals.

We reap polluted water from poisoned rivers, lakes and even the seas and oceans. Despite all the warnings, the polluting goes on. The Daily Yomiuri of June 27, 1972, reports: “Contamination of the seas around Japan is aggravating at an alarming rate.”

This, and other contamination, cannot be solved by separate nations, piecemeal. Commenting on the United Nations conference in Sweden on the threat of world pollution, Editorial Research Reports magazine said:

“Anything less than a full-scale international effort seems futile. The world’s ecosystem is one; it is such that no nation alone can clean up its environment. The atmosphere carries industrial pollutants and pesticides all over the earth. Virtually every international waterway is polluted, and becoming worse year by year.”

The danger of world disaster by pollution is as real and as grave as that of nuclear war.

The Human Bomb​—Near Exploding Point

It took thousands of years for the human population to reach one billion persons (in 1850). In just eighty years it reached two billion. It is now 3.6 billion and estimates are that it will increase​—not just another billion—​but to double the present figure in just the next thirty years!

Every day there are some 200,000 more mouths to be fed on this planet. But the planet remains the same size. And agricultural production is not keeping pace with the need.

World leaders know that there is great ferment among the peoples of the so-called Third World, those in the poorer, ‘developing nations.’ Those nations have more than twice the population of the richer, industrial nations and are increasing at a faster rate.

To meet growing discontent among this huge population, the big powers have tried to give technological aid. Gains have been made; but the problems are great and the population growth just about wipes out any advancement made. Thus, a recent United Nations survey shows that “the gap between have and have-not nations is steadily widening.”

The threat now posed by the “human bomb” grows worse every day. To defuse it, the big powers recognize the need to turn from their rivalries and work to improve conditions world wide.

Domestic Problems Demand Attention

World leaders also face growing internal, domestic problems. They see their major cities in crisis, many decaying at a frightening pace. Money is badly needed, but military expenses and ‘cold-war competition’ keep it in short supply.

There is a growing consumer demand in the Soviet Union and other countries that must be met if the people are to remain submissive. And something needs to be done to stop the tidal wave of crime engulfing all nations.

Also, people note the successful space activity of major powers. They have seen men walking on the moon. They see that the nations are successful in space, so they wonder why they should not do the same on earth.

The United Nations​—Can It Merit That Title?

Once proudly acclaimed as mankind’s crowning achievement, the United Nations Organization is in trouble. It is in danger of losing all prestige unless some major world change occurs.

However, with Communist China now in its ranks, for the first time it embraces virtually the world population. What if the major powers were to work out a peace arrangement with the U.N.’s help? What if it could aid in defusing the fights and quarrels between smaller nations?

Then the United Nations might appear to live up to its exalted title. It could gain great support and praise.

World Religion in Crisis

World religion, particularly that of Christendom, has been in severe decline in recent years. Internal disputes within the churches have cost them much respect. Their apparent ineffectiveness to bring peace and to solve human problems makes many begin to doubt their worth. But the religious leaders now see prospects of great gain from a world peace settlement.

If the pronouncement of ‘world peace and security’ were soon to be heralded around the earth​—with the churches in position to claim some share in bringing it about—​this might restore at least some of their diminished influence, prestige and favor. They need it​—and they know it.

Pope Paul VI admitted that dissent, criticism and protest were afflicting the Catholic Church and causing “a state of uneasiness that we cannot and will not conceal.”​—New York Times, June 24, 1972.

A world peace arrangement could do much to calm that uneasiness and increase confidence about the future. It could stir hopes of a religious revival and renewed strength on the part of world religions.

The reasons, then, why men should make an all-out effort for world peace and security are many and very powerful. There is evidence that they will bring matters to a point soon where the cry of “Peace and security” becomes the slogan of the day!

But the big question is: Will it last?

We can know the answer to that question, now.

[Box on page 11]

HUMAN BOMB NEAR EXPLODING POINT

Population now 3,600,000,000

Predicted to double in 30 years

The fastest increase is among the poorer nations, which already have twice the population of the richer nations

[Picture on page 10]

On both sides, the United States and Russia, there are over 1,000 land-based missiles aimed and ready to be fired at the push of a button

One of these missiles can race through space at 15,000 miles per hour and rain nuclear death on an entire city within a half hour from the time the signal is flashed

[Picture on page 11]

Each day there are some 200,000 more persons to be fed. Food production is not keeping pace with the need

A “Generation of Peace” or a Short-lived World Peace?

A WORLDWIDE détente, or relaxation of strained international relations, is now in the making. How long will it last? Will it bring a “generation of peace” in a “new world order,” as some foresee?

Despite all the urgent reasons for seeking world peace, despite all the hard effort put into negotiations, despite all the determination and desires of world leaders, and despite all the intelligence of their counselors, the coming world peace they are fashioning will be of short duration. Why?

For two basic reasons, both powerful.

One is because it will not​—in fact, cannot—​solve the human problems that disrupt peace. World leaders either overlook or prefer to ignore this fact: War is not caused by bombs or battleships or bullets. War is caused by people. Any peace arrangement the nations make will never remove human selfishness. And that is obviously the root cause of all disunity, violent clashes and war.

Actually, the coming peace arrangement is itself founded largely on a selfish basis. Do you not associate peace with mutual confidence and trust? Yet, of the U.S–Russian accords, principal negotiator Dr. Henry Kissinger said: “We advocate these agreements not on the basis of trust, but on the basis of the enlightened self-interests of both sides.” “Enlightened self-interest” is only a polite way of saying “astute selfishness.”

Underlining the lack of mutual trust, Time magazine, when discussing the recent arms limitation pact, said: “Both sides are expected to spend heavily on observation satellites to detect any cheating by the other.”

Do you not associate peace with calmness and freedom from fear? But the coming international peace relies on what is called a “balance of terror” as a principal means of preventing war. The idea is that each side will retain such power that, even though attacked by surprise, it can still retaliate with a devastating hail of hydrogen bombs. This is supposed to prevent any attempt at an all-out war.

But this is rather like two persons agreeing to dance together while each one holds a pistol at the other’s heart​—with his finger on the trigger. What genuine calmness and peace of mind can exist under such circumstances?

What of These Problems?

Furthermore, even though people were able to put out of their minds the ever-present possibility of nuclear destruction​—yet how much peace could they have if rampant crime continues? How much would any world peace setup mean if they still felt fear on going out at night, or even felt insecure inside their homes behind locked doors?

Even though major international divisions should be healed, what of the internal disunity within each nation?

Would a political world peace heal the rift between religious groups, as in Ireland where the Catholic-Protestant conflict has brought death to more than 540 men, women and children, plus untold property damage, in the past three years?

Would it eliminate racial disunity and hatred as found between Arab and Jew, or tribal rivalry such as that in the African country of Burundi? In Burundi, hatred between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes has, in just a few months, resulted in the brutal massacre of an estimated 120,000 men, women and children​—more than double the total U.S. combat deaths in the eleven years of the Vietnam war!

And what of all the corruption, cheating and fraud in political and commercial life that has plagued the nations for centuries? What of the abuses of power and authority that bring injustice, inequality and actual oppression? How peaceful will this earth ever be as long as these things continue, even on a local scale?

But we said there are two powerful, basic reasons why the coming peace arrangement will be short-lived. What is the second one? And what hope does it leave us?

[Picture on page 13]

Even though an international world peace agreement is reached, how peaceful can the earth really be so long as disunity, selfishness, corruption and injustice continue within each nation?

When Men Say “Peace and Security,” Then Sudden Destruction!

THE major reason the coming world peace set up by human leaders will be only momentary is because Bible prophecy foretells this. How so?

Writing to Christians nineteen centuries ago, the apostle Paul said these words:

“Jehovah’s day is coming exactly as a thief in the night. Whenever it is that they are saying: ‘Peace’ and security!’ then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman; and they will by no means escape.”​—1 Thess. 5:1-3.

But why apply this Bible prophecy to present-day peace efforts and pronouncements? Is not peace a good thing and does not the Bible say, “Blessed are the peace-makers”? Do not even the religious leaders of Christendom applaud the efforts now under way? Why, then, would the Bible foretell failure for such a major peace effort as appears to be in the making?

Why “Sudden Destruction” in Our Day?

For one thing, we live in a time clearly marked by the fulfillment of yet other Bible prophecies that point to the arrival of “Jehovah’s day” and his divine execution of judgment upon the nations. Because they have been fulfilled, we have basis for conviction that the apostle’s prophecy of “sudden destruction” hard on the heels of a “peace and security” pronouncement will also be fulfilled in our day.

As far back as 1879, the publishers of this magazine pointed to the year 1914 as a marked year in Bible prophecy, as the starting point for what the Bible calls “the time of the end.”a

From 1914 forward our generation has witnessed the “sign” that Christ Jesus said would identify that period and would preface the foretold ‘day of Jehovah.’ The sign he gave had multiple features. Those seeing it could be sure of two things:

First, that this sign would be the prelude to a “great tribulation such as has not occurred since the world’s beginning until now, no, nor will occur again.” And secondly, that those seeing the sign could positively “know that the kingdom of God is near,” so near that the observing generation would “by no means pass away until all things occur.”​—Matt. 24:21; Luke 21:31, 32.

What was this multifeatured sign? Do we now see it? And have people in fact been seeing it from 1914 on? Compare its features, found at Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and Revelation 6, with events and conditions of our generation as set out below:

Nation rises against nation in global warfare (Matt. 24:7; Rev. 6:3, 4)

Military analyst H. W. Baldwin in the book World War I states: “World War I [1914-1918] ushered in the century of Total War, of​—in the first full sense of the term—​global war. . . .”

President Nixon recently pointed out that just since the end of World War II one hundred or more wars have been fought.

Massive food shortage, spiraling prices and famine (Matt. 24:7; Rev. 6:5-8)

In the same period, from 1914 on, despite agricultural advances, food costs have soared upward. Famine spreads throughout the earth, at times dramatically, more often through slow, less conspicuous​—but nonetheless killing—​malnutrition.

A New York Times report shows that just in the past decade malnutrition-caused illnesses were striking down 10,000 persons in some part of the world every day​—over 3,500,000 every year. People in industrialized lands may balk at believing it but it is still true: one out of every three persons on earth today is either slowly starving or suffers from malnutrition.

Deadly plagues reaching epidemic proportions (Luke 21:11; Rev. 6:8)

Even without considering the “Spanish influenza” epidemic of 1918-1919, which killed 21,000,000 persons in a matter of months, we cannot deny that our generation has been plagued with cancer, heart disease, mental ailments, venereal disease, drug addiction and pollution poisoning in genuinely epidemic proportions.

Earthquakes in one place after another (Matt. 24:7)

Virtually every year brings one or more major quakes in some part of the earth. Entire towns have been wiped out in Peru, Iraq and other lands in just the past few years. Since 1914 over seven hundred thousand persons have lost their lives in earthquakes.

Increasing of lawlessness (Matt. 24:12)

We live in what many call an “Age of Violence.” Life was never more insecure, particularly in large cities around the world. Now crime is also increasing rapidly in suburbs and rural areas. Sex crimes increase and sexual immorality seems to know no limits; it reaches farther and farther into the lower age groups, through the teens on into the pre-teen age group.

Good news of the Kingdom preached in all the earth (Matt. 24:14)

During this same period from 1914 till today, the greatest publicity campaign in history has been carried on earth wide in announcing God’s kingdom has begun active rule from the heavens and will shortly take control of all the earth. As the book These Also Believe, by Charles Braden, says: “Jehovah’s Witnesses have literally covered the earth with their witnessing.”

Hundreds of millions of homes in over 200 lands have been visited not once or twice but dozens of times by these Kingdom proclaimers. The result? Not world conversion, for that is not what the Bible foretold. Instead, Jesus’ prophecy says: “And this good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.”​—Matt. 24:14.

Destruction of What?

As the rest of the Bible shows, the “end” refers not to the end of planet Earth nor of all the inhabitants on it. It refers to the destruction of a world system of things that has been unrighteous from its start.

Refusing to be guided by God’s law and to settle their differences by it in peace, for thousands of years men have made this earth a battlefield in which, not justice, but ‘might makes right.’ They struggle to gain or retain commercial advantage, political influence and power, or expansion of territorial rights. They give vent to religious prejudice, nationalistic pride or racial hatred. And to accomplish these selfish aims they have not held back from ruthless killing, almost invariably accompanied by looting, raping and other acts of cruelty. Can we believe that the Almighty God will never require an accounting for all this? Could he merit our trust and worship as a God of righteousness if he did not?

The ‘day of Jehovah’ of which the apostle wrote is God’s time for just such an accounting. But there will be survivors. And for all those who have repudiated the godless way of the nations and who love righteousness and want to escape the “sudden destruction” coming, these encouraging words spoken to ancient Israel will apply:

“Go, my people, enter into your interior rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for but a moment until the denunciation passes over. For, look! Jehovah is coming forth from his place to call to account the error of the inhabitant of the land against him, and the land will certainly expose her bloodshed and will no longer cover over her killed ones.”​—Isa. 26:20, 21.

Why God Rejects World’s Peace Moves

In his Word, Jehovah God is called “the God who gives peace.” (Rom. 15:33) But he does not favor ‘peace at any price.’ With him there can be no peace unless it is peace with righteousness. Nor will he bless any peace arrangement that leaves him and his purposes out of the picture.

That is exactly what the coming peace arrangement of the nations is doing. They want peace, but only so as to be able to keep on in the same way of life they have chosen over the centuries. They are concerned with material prosperity, but not spiritual prosperity. The words of James, the disciple and half brother of Jesus Christ, well describes them, including the nations of Christendom. He writes:

“From what source are there wars and from what source are there fights among you? Are they not from this source, namely, from your cravings for sensual pleasure that carry on a conflict in your members? You desire, and yet you do not have. You go on murdering and coveting, and yet you are not able to obtain. You go on fighting and waging war. You do not have because of your not asking. You do ask, and yet you do not receive, because you are asking for a wrong purpose, that you may expend it upon your cravings for sensual pleasure.”​—Jas. 4:1-3.

Would, then, the nations use a time of “peace and security” to turn from wrong ways and seek righteousness? Would they use that time to learn more about their Creator and to devote themselves to the carrying out of his will and purposes?

What you read each day in the newspapers, what you hear on the radio, or see by television, and especially your own daily experiences and contacts​—all this should tell you that such sincere motive is lacking. Love of God and love of neighbor are obviously not uppermost in the minds and hearts of the vast majority today. For that very reason mankind finds itself in its present deplorable situation and faced with deadly crises.

Why Religion’s Blessing Does Not Guarantee Success

It would be a grave mistake to think that the approval, support and participation of the world’s religions in today’s peace movement in any way guarantees God’s blessing on it. All to the contrary, it points to its doom.

In reality the world’s religions have followed a course exactly opposite to that set forth by God’s own Son. Christ Jesus said that ‘his kingdom was no part of the world’ and that his true followers would be no part of the world. (John 18:36; 17:14) But for centuries the world’s religions have prostituted themselves to the political powers to gain influence with them.

This has been especially true of the religions of Christendom. They cannot escape identification with the symbolic harlot called “Babylon the Great” described in chapter seventeen of Revelation as having intimate relations with the kings of the earth. Babylon the Great, as a symbolic city that “has a kingdom over the kings of the earth,” accurately fits the combined ‘spiritual’ empire that the religions of this world have for centuries held over earthly governments.

This Bible book of Revelation shows that Babylon the Great directs the nations, not to God, but against him so that they battle against “the Lamb,” Christ Jesus. They do this by rejecting his Kingdom rule and rejecting, even persecuting, those who announce and advocate it.​—Rev. 17:1, 2, 14, 18.

Though the religious leaders of Christendom may applaud the world’s present peace movement and offer up prayers for its success, we know how God will view this. At Isaiah 1:15 we read:

“And when you spread out your palms, I hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I am not listening; with bloodshed your very hands have become filled.”

Yes, Christendom’s religious systems themselves have bloodstained hands. From the ravaging Crusades of the early centuries, through the “Religious Wars” and Inquisition of the Middle Ages, on down to the global wars of our generation, Christendom’s churches have supported the political states in their warfare, even urged them on, assuring them of God’s blessing. Their ever deeper involvement in politics now proves they have had no genuine change of heart. Their prayers, therefore, can gain no receptive audience with God.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 15]

WARS

[Picture on page 15]

FOOD SHORTAGES

[Picture on page 16]

EARTHQUAKES

[Picture on page 16]

PLAGUES

[Picture on page 17]

CRIME

[Picture on page 17]

KINGDOM PREACHED

How Genuine World Peace Will Come

THE “God who gives peace” has his own provision for bringing world peace, genuine peace. That provision is the government of his own Son, the Messianic kingdom. Of the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah under inspiration long ago wrote:

“The princely rule will come to be upon his shoulder. And his name will be called . . . Prince of Peace. To the abundance of the princely rule and to peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom in order to establish it firmly and to sustain it by means of justice and by means of righteousness, from now on and to time indefinite. The very zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.”​—Isa. 9:6, 7.

That heaven-based government will bring lasting peace, not by some “balance of terror,” but by the elimination of all causes for terror. It will accept as earthly subjects only those who have fulfilled the words of Micah 4:3 and who have therefore already beaten “their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. They will not lift up sword, nation against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.” With peace-loving subjects like these, one can see why the prophecy continues, saying, “And they will actually sit, each one under his vine and under his fig tree, and there will be no one making them tremble.”​—Mic. 4:4.

United in the pure worship and service of the true and living God, the earthly subjects of the Messianic rule will not experience the divisive effect of giving allegiance to a confusion of political kingdoms and ideologies. There will be none of these. God’s Word tells us that his Son’s kingdom “will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.” (Dan. 2:44) “Sudden destruction” faces all such political kingdoms because they stand in opposition to God’s rule over earth and favor continued man-rule of earth despite the evidence of its utter failure.

Then earthly survivors will be able to be at peace with the earth, not polluting it in commercial greed, nor poisoning it with radioactivity from nuclear weapons, but making it into a restored paradise, an earth-wide garden of God. More wonderful yet, God’s government will provide the healing means to enable its earthly subjects to enjoy peace within their own bodies. By the ransom sacrifice of God’s Son, their fleshly weakness and imperfection, and the sickness, old age and death that this brings, will be erased. Even countless victims of war, as well as persons dying from other causes, will be resurrected to an opportunity to prove worthy of life everlasting under that Kingdom rule. Thereby God “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”​—Rev. 21:4.

If you wish to escape “sudden destruction” with the present unrighteous system of things and enjoy life under the rule of the “Prince of Peace,” what should you now do?

[Picture on page 19]

Those who survive the coming “sudden destruction” by God’s kingdom will be at peace with one another, with the animals and with the earth, making it into an earth-wide paradise

What Choice Will You Make?

WE ARE all faced with a choice. We can choose to put our trust in the plans of men and political systems to avert what is today a very real possibility​—world suicide. We can wait on them and rely on them to make life more peaceful and secure on earth.

Or, we can choose to put our trust in Jehovah God and his Kingdom government to bring about​—not just a partial peace with many nagging and hurtful problems remaining—​but a total peace. We can show confidence in his Word and in the evidence it supplies that his “Day” to set matters straight on earth is near at hand.

Which course will you choose? Which do you believe is the more realistic? Which has proved more reliable​—the word, promises and predictions of political and other world leaders, or the word, promises and prophecies set forth in the Bible?

A Case in Point

A similar situation faced the people of Jerusalem and Judea in the first century of our Common Era. The results provide a vital case in point to help us to make the right decision today.

Christ Jesus foretold with marvelous precision what was due to happen to Jerusalem. The people there and throughout Judea had followed their leaders, both political and religious, and had rejected Jesus’ message about God’s kingdom. Christ Jesus then gave this warning to his followers:

“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolating of her has drawn near. Then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains, and let those in the midst of her withdraw, and let those in the country places not enter into her; because these are days for meting out justice, that all the things written may be fulfilled.”​—Luke 21:20-22.

For three decades after Jesus’ death Jerusalem continued on as part of the Roman Empire. Then, in the year 66 C.E., the Jews revolted against the Roman yoke. Rome sent its imperial forces under Cestius Gallus against Jerusalem, and the city seemed doomed to fall. But, inexplicably, the Roman commander “suddenly called off his men . . . and flying in the face of all reason retired from the City,” as Jewish historian Josephus testifies. (Josephus, The Jewish War, The Penguin Classics, p. 163) Those who believed Jesus’ prophecy now fled the city. But the vast majority remained.

Three years later, despite Roman advances throughout the country, Jerusalem still stood. When the spring of the year 70 C.E. rolled around with its Passover season, thousands of Jews from many places flocked into Jerusalem for the celebration​—in apparent peace and security. They were confident that ‘God was with them’ as they shared in their religious festival.

Now, however, Roman troops under General Titus marched on the crowded city, quickly encircling and laying siege to it. Those inside were trapped. Within the short span of five months​—during which famine, disease and fratricidal combat inflicted a terrible toll within the city—​Jerusalem fell and the sword now claimed thousands more victims. Historian Josephus places the total cost in lives at 1,100,000. Sudden destruction had hit them.

A Modern Parallel

What has that to do with us? This:

Jehovah God states: “I am Jehovah; I have not changed.” (Mal. 3:6) His standards are the same today as they were in the first century. Today, Christendom has taken a course parallel to that of unfaithful Jerusalem. It has rejected the kingdom of God’s Son in favor of the political kingdoms of this earth. Christendom’s religions have cast in their lot with the world leaders and placed their trust in them, not in God. The majority of the people have followed them in this course.

Do we see this? Then we need to heed the warning Christ Jesus gave after describing the very conditions we now observe on earth. He said:

“Pay attention to yourselves that your hearts never become weighed down with overeating and heavy drinking and anxieties of life, and suddenly that day be instantly upon you as a snare. For it will come in upon all those dwelling upon the face of all the earth. Keep awake, then, all the time making supplication that you may succeed in escaping all these things that are destined to occur, and in standing before the Son of man.”​—Luke 21:34-36.

This counsel is vital, lifesaving. The ‘day of Jehovah,’ his time for executing judgment, must come unexpectedly, as the inspired apostle said, like a “thief in the night.” It is true that many persons today can see the steady deterioration in the structure of human society, in the very fabric of daily life. Many see the grave crises threatening because of worldwide pollution, because of the expanding human population and because of the growing gap between the “have” and “have-not” peoples of earth. Many even discern a significant decline in the churches. Yet despite all these grim factors, when the ‘day of Jehovah’ breaks on the world scene it will not be expected. Conditions will still allow people who prefer this world’s way to be thinking that “things are going to get better now,” yes, even to express confidence that a brighter future is on its way. In fulfillment of prophecy, God’s action in expressing judgment must spring shut upon them instantly, like a snare.

Place of Safety

Where is the place of safety? Certainly it is not within Christendom’s religions. Nor is it within the other world religions. They have followed a course like that of Christendom and, with it, form the symbolic woman Babylon the Great. Like a figurative harlot they have been ‘riding high’ on the backs of the political powers, including their United Nations Organization, symbolized in the Bible by a seven-headed beast with ten horns on which Babylon the Great rides. But God’s Word foretells a sudden reversal for the world empire of false religion. It shows that the political powers, the symbolic beast with its ten horns, are going to “hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire.”​—Rev. 17:16-18.

For that reason God’s call is: “Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind.” (Rev. 18:4, 5) The destruction of the world empire of false religion will be swift, as if in “one hour.”​—Rev. 18:19, 21.

Is it enough to withdraw from such doomed religious systems? No, for God’s prophetic word shows that the beastlike political systems will themselves thereafter come in for destruction in what is called God’s war of Armageddon. (Rev. 16:14, 16; 19:11-21) The only place of safety therefore is on the side of God’s kingdom by his Son. Only by firmly taking your stand there can you step out from under the huge debt of bloodguilt for which the nations must shortly be brought to an accounting.

Do you wish help in learning how to do this from God’s Word the Bible? Write the publishers of Awake! magazine and they will be happy to have a qualified minister, one of Jehovah’s witnesses, call and answer your Bible questions, even offer you a regular Bible study in the privacy of your own home. The only cost to you will be some of your time and effort, during approximately one hour a week.

Do Not Be Deceived

Do not wait until Jehovah’s judgment action comes upon this world and grips it like “the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman.” Of those who thus postpone action, the apostle’s words apply: “They will by no means escape.”​—1 Thess. 5:3.

Neither let men, whether they be world statesmen or high religious officials or just the people of your neighborhood, lull you into a state of complacency with soothing expressions of confidence in this warring world’s future. The admonition of Christ Jesus and of his apostle is:

“Keep awake, then, all the time making supplication that you may succeed in escaping all these things that are destined to occur, and in standing before the Son of man.” “Let us not sleep on as the rest do, but let us stay awake and keep our senses.”​—Luke 21:36; 1 Thess. 5:6.

The living God is wide awake to what is going on. His King, Christ Jesus, with his mighty armies in the heavens stand alert and ‘at the ready,’ prepared for action. “Jehovah’s day” draws near. Show that you have faith in him by your action now and you will not let deception rob you of your life. Make your choice now for life everlasting in unending peace in God’s new order!

[Picture on page 21]

Those who heeded Jesus’ warning fled Jerusalem and thus avoided the sudden destruction of 70 C.E. Their example can benefit us today

They Began Pursuing Peace

THE Bible counsels: “Seek peace and pursue it.” (1 Pet. 3:11) That inspired advice is possible to follow even in this age of violence. Each year tens of thousands of persons are beginning to do so. Many of these at one time were unable to control their temper. Their family life was marred by violent quarrels. Some felt that they should resort to violence to end social evils. Why did such persons change their attitude and begin pursuing peace? It was their study of God’s Word with Jehovah’s Christian witnesses and applying the things learned that made the difference.

● In the British Isles an Irish Catholic woman had a serious marital problem. Wanting help, she sought advice from a neighbor lady, one of Jehovah’s witnesses. The Witness presented to her a Bible study aid, directing her attention to a chapter entitled “Building a Happy Family Life.” The woman was so impressed with the information that she encouraged her husband to read it. “If the book is so good on this subject, it must be on others,” he commented. So he started on the chapter entitled “Where Are the Dead?”

When the Witness called, he exclaimed: “The dead are dead! Wait till I see that Catholic priest.” Both the man and his wife agreed to study the Bible. Soon they asked about attending the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses. They came to the congregation’s study of the “Watchtower” magazine. At the time the Scriptural discussion was about self-control and dealt with drunkenness. Although both were in the habit of getting drunk on Saturday night, they thoroughly enjoyed the study.

The next Saturday the husband decided not to go out drinking but took his wife and family to the park. This was the first time in years that they had done this. He also stayed home that Saturday night.

Eventually he gave up certain underhanded business he had engaged in. Yet he found that he was not short of funds, for he had stopped his expensive heavy drinking. Before long both the man and his wife were baptized as Jehovah’s witnesses. Their family in Ireland was shocked to hear this. The Irish mother wrote: “Go and confess your terrible sin to the priest and burn your Bible.” She told of a Catholic woman who had “become a Protestant and died of cancer the same year.” “And,” she warned, “Protestants aren’t half as bad as Jehovah’s witnesses.” But the man and his wife continued steadfast. They are delighted that a study of the Bible aided them to gain a peaceful family relationship.

● A Witness from a Central American country writes: “While waiting for the lady of the house to get ready for her Bible study, I talked to the maid. The maid told me that her son badly mistreated his wife, even kicking and beating her for not heating the tortillas or beans properly. I suggested that she give her daughter-in-law one of our Bible study books and the ‘Watchtower’ magazine containing the articles ‘Why the Unhappiness in Family Life?’ and ‘Enjoying Real Happiness in Family Life.’

“Three days later I met the daughter-in-law. She said, ‘I am so happy to see you, because my husband read the book and wants to talk to you.’ I visited him on Sunday and answered questions from 10 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. He had read the book through twice. The following week a study was begun with him.” What was the result?

He made a remarkable change. Within three weeks he was telling others what he had learned and completely stopped fighting with his wife and mother.

● One of Jehovah’s witnesses tells about his attitude before he began studying the Bible in Chicago, Illinois: “I had so much hate built up inside of me that I really wanted to fight against what I then called ‘the establishment.’ I was ready and willing to join some movement to bring about a change by violent means. I kept loaded guns to prove it.” But what prompted this man to begin pursuing peace?

He continues: “When first called on by a Witness, I was just being polite when I listened. I told him what I intended to do soon because of all the wickedness in our society. He explained to me that, even if I were to blow up a building or two and kill a few people, eventually I would be killed or put in jail and nothing really would be accomplished. Things would still be the same no matter who was in power in this system of things. Then I began to see just how small and insignificant I really was. When the Witness showed me a book that explained the answer to the question, ‘Why has God permitted wickedness until our day?’ and we read together in the Bible just what God purposes to do about the situation, I really got to thinking.

“I never realized that the Bible promised that God would put an end to wickedness in due time. In fact, up to that time I had never read the Bible.”

After this initial conversation with one of Jehovah’s witnesses, this man made fine progress in his understanding of Bible truth. Soon he began helping others to see that God’s kingdom, not human attempts at violent overthrow of existing governments, is the means by which all injustices will come to an end.

● A witness of Jehovah from El Salvador relates: “My wife left a Bible study aid with an interested woman in a store. A return visit produced little in the way of results, as the woman was busy with the store. But she said that she wanted her husband to study the Bible so that he would change his ways. Therefore I decided to visit the man.

“When I called, he was taking a bath. His wife said that, if I would wait just a few minutes, I could talk to him. An hour later I was still waiting. She finally told me that he had disappeared. This left me quite discouraged, and I told myself that I wasn’t going back. But a short time later, by chance, I saw the man in the patio in front of his store. He was friendly and showed a sincere interest in the Bible.

“Some time thereafter a Bible study was finally started. But it was not held regularly. Most of the time the man was away. Finally I told him that he had to decide, Was the store his god or did he want to worship the true God, Jehovah? From then on the study was conducted regularly.”

Then his four children began studying the Bible with the aid of the book “From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained.” Feeling left out, the woman also wanted to study. The Witness writes: “My wife started a study with her another day when the husband could take care of the store.”

Progress was rapid, especially in the case of the children. The whole family began to come to the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses. But there were still problems that had to be overcome. Although living together for some twenty years, both the man and the woman were legally bound to other mates. Also, the man had been a drunkard and had engaged in other bad practices. His Saturday night sprees were the scandal of the little town. He would stand in the street without a shirt on and fire his pistol into the air. He viewed his pistol as his best friend and always carried it with him. Even when he began going to the Kingdom Hall, he would always carry the pistol in his briefcase. Later, however, his conscience began to bother him and he began leaving the pistol at home.

In time, because of applying what he was learning from the Bible, this man began to taper off in his drinking habits. He also began to make an effort to control his temper and to avoid violence.

After over two years and, at great expense, they were finally able to legalize their marriage. The man disposed of his “best friend,” the pistol. And both he and his wife as well as two of their children became dedicated, baptized witnesses of Jehovah. The two younger children are also sharing Bible truth with others.

In their town, the members of this family were the first to accept the Bible’s message as proclaimed by Jehovah’s witnesses. Now there are many other Witnesses in the area. About sixty persons regularly attend the Bible study conducted there with the aid of the “Watchtower” magazine.

Truly the Bible can help people to cultivate self-control, remove hatred from their hearts and get along peacefully with others. If it is your desire to improve your relationship with others, and particularly with the “God of peace,” Jehovah’s witnesses will be glad to aid you with a study of the Holy Bible.

Can the Sun Supply Man’s Power Needs?

TO OPERATE modern conveniences​—automobiles, air-conditioners, electric ranges, and the like—​requires tremendous amounts of power. However, the coal, oil and natural gas used to produce this power are beginning to run out. Nuclear energy, which is being looked to as a replacement, is considered by many as too dangerous to public health and safety.a Well, then, is there any other source of power?

Fortunately there is. “Enough solar energy falls on the United States every 20 minutes to fill the country’s entire power needs for one year.” (The World Book Encyclopedia, 1970) Another estimate is that every day the sun provides our earth with energy equal to “about as much as is locked in all the earth’s reserves of coal, oil, natural gas and uranium.”​—Science Digest, June 1965.

Truly, the amount of available energy from the sun is fantastic. And think: That energy from the sun is renewable day after day. And it is pollution free! Could it be that it was the purpose of the Creator for the sun to fill all of man’s energy needs?

Common Use of Solar Energy

The sun always has been the source of man’s bodily energy, providing him with the physical power to do things. This has been according to the Creator’s marvelous design. ‘How so?’ you may ask.

Well, sunlight provides the energy necessary for living plants to transform carbon dioxide and water into the basis of all food, a simple sugar.

From this sugar all the other carbohydrates, numerous fats and proteins are produced. So, whether humans eat vegetation or the animals that live off it, they are actually being powered indirectly by energy from the sun! It is really amazing how plants were designed to capture radiant energy from the sun and store it for man’s use​—something that humans cannot do.

In still another way man has been using sunlight for some of his power needs. Over a hundred years ago the engineer George Stephenson showed appreciation of how sun power is thus utilized by man. While watching a railroad train as it disappeared in the distance, he turned to his friend and asked: “What moves the engine?”

“Why, one of your Newcastle engineers, of course,” came the answer.

“No,” replied Stephenson, “sunlight!”

To his bewildered friend, Stephenson explained: “It is light that has lain stored in the earth for many thousands of years; the light absorbed by the plant during its growth is essential to the condensation of carbon, and this light, which has been buried in the coal for so many years, is now unearthed and, being freed again as in this locomotive, serves great human ends.”

So, as astonishing as it may seem, modern machines, including the tremendous turbines in electric generating plants, are, in fact, powered indirectly by energy from the sun!

However, not only coal, but petroleum and natural gas, too, represent preserved sun power, since it is believed that such deposits were likely formed by heat and pressure on plants and animals long ages in the past. Even the water that turns turbines in hydroelectric plants was first “pumped” from the oceans by the sun to fall as rain or snow before running back again to the seas. (Eccl. 1:7) Thus it is that sun power indirectly drives our automobiles, buses and airplanes, as well as our electric appliances!

Wise Use of the Sun’s Energy?

But consider: Is man wisely utilizing the sun’s energy? Is it wisdom recklessly to gouge and pump from the earth at accelerated speed this marvelous storehouse of energy? Is it the course of wisdom to squander this reservoir of stored-up sun power, polluting rivers and lakes with much of its heat energy, and belching poisonous wastes into the air?

As an alternative, would it not be much wiser to use directly the sun’s tremendous amount of pollution-free energy that daily showers the earth? Man has demonstrated ability to harness energy radiated from outer space. For example, even distant starlight has been used to trip a relay to light electric candles. Why, then, does not man directly harness solar energy?

Direct Use of Sun Power

The fact is, man has already done this, but only in a limited way. For example, a number of houses have been built that are solar heated. A collector area, consisting basically of a black plate that absorbs the sun’s rays, is installed on the roof. The sun’s heat is used to raise the temperature of air or water, which is then circulated throughout the house, or is stored in an insulated tank and used when needed.

Probably the most widespread use of solar energy today is to heat water. In Japan over a million hot-water solar heaters have been produced, and these can be seen on many Japanese rooftops.

A still more direct and spectacular use of solar energy is in giant industrial furnaces. The largest of such furnaces, located at Odeillo in southern France, will burn holes through thick steel plates almost instantaneously! Sixty-three large flat mirrors are arranged on a hillside. These each track the sun across the sky and reflect its rays onto a fixed point on a huge parabolic reflector, which, in turn, focuses the many rays on an area only about twelve inches wide. In this superheated area, the heart of the furnace, temperatures reach 7,000° F., which demonstrates the tremendous power of sunlight!

Sun-powered Generating Plants?

Over the years a number of engines powered by the sun have also been built. Sunlight may, for example, be used to heat a liquid that produces steam, which, in turn, drives a turbine engine. However, generation of electricity by such a method has been dismissed as impractical. But there are some who are beginning to take a closer look at the possibilities. This is because, on paper at least, methods of more efficiently converting solar energy to electrical power have been worked out.

Last year the National Science Foundation was said to be so intrigued with one proposed method that it was looking for money to build a 100,000-kilowatt experimental plant in the desert near Yuma, Arizona. It is said that it would be able to convert up to 30 percent of the energy received from the sun to electricity.

Of course, large sunlight-collecting areas would be required to capture the energy necessary to generate large amounts of electricity. How much area? Theoretically, only about a hundred square miles of Arizona desert, less than one percent of that state’s land area, could produce all the power and heat requirements for Canada and the United States. However, due to energy losses in conversion of sunlight to electricity, and the need to keep solar collectors spaced to avoid shadows, much, much larger collecting areas would actually be needed. There are, of course, other problems associated with such a power system.

Use of Solar Cells

In 1954 a scientific breakthrough was accomplished that made possible, on a commercial scale, an even more direct use of solar energy. In that year scientists devised a solar battery, consisting of a number of individual silicon cells. This device directly converts to electricity as much as 12 to 14 percent of the energy of sunlight falling on it, and hopes have been expressed of improving this efficiency.

Sunlight’s transformation to electricity takes place instantaneously and silently. The light striking the solar cells causes a flow of electrons that can be harnessed to play a radio, drive a motor, charge a storage battery, and so forth. The development of the solar battery thus opened up entirely new horizons for using the sun’s energy.

However, while noting the grand possibilities of the solar battery, D. S. Halacy, Jr., also points to a problem in his book The Coming Age of Solar Energy:

“Back in the early days of the solar battery, the solar-shingled roof was an eye-catching idea. A roof 20 feet by 40 feet, converting solar energy to electricity at 10 per cent efficiency, would provide sufficient kilowatt hours to service a home on only 5 days of sunshine a month! The obvious fly in the ointment then, as now, was the price of the solar shingles. At current prices [1963] such a roof would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The price is still high. It is true that silicon, the raw material used, is plentiful. But it is an expensive and painstaking job, requiring skilled handwork, to prepare these solar cells. Thus the primary use of such solar batteries has been in providing power for space satellites, where high costs can be afforded.

Nevertheless, solar cells have already been used on a commercial scale to power such things as radios, clocks, TV sets and movie cameras; and some of these appliances have been marketed. For long-distance radio communications, stations 3,000 miles apart have each used a twenty-square-foot panel of solar batteries containing more than 7,800 individual solar cells as the sole power source. Even an experimental automobile has been driven several miles on sun power!

Future for Solar Power

Surely, a person might conclude, by now all-out efforts are under way to develop this marvelous potential of pollution-free power, since, as one engineer remarked: “The technology required to utilize solar energy is within our grasp.”

Yet what is being done? Last year S. David Freeman, as United States government aide on energy policy, said: “Solar energy is one of our neglected opportunities.”

Admittedly, there are many problems yet to be overcome if solar energy is to relieve the power shortage. For example, the cost of the photovoltaic material for solar batteries is high, and the present means of storing electricity is expensive. But with concentrated effort, could not such problems be solved?

Some scientists think they could. They believe that the photovoltaic material could be turned out at the cost of just a few dollars per square foot of surface, making it possible to roof your home with solar shingles! But do not build your hopes too high, since the neglect of efforts to develop solar energy for man’s use has dimmed such a prospect.

And why this neglect?

Problems of Developing Technology

The technology to solve some of our many fuel problems is often within grasp, yet not seized. For example, an Atomic Energy Commission official declared: “If we had done the research 15 years ago, we’d have had clean fossil-fuel (conventional coal, oil or gas) plants for the past 10 years.”

Why, then, did the electric power plants not do the research to develop pollution-free facilities? Because it costs money.

It is similar with the automotive industry. S. Smith Griswold, as chief of the Los Angeles Air Pollution Control District, said: “To people interested in profits, expenditures for the development and production of exhaust controls are liabilities.”

So one wonders if one of the main reasons why radical new developments in harnessing solar energy have not been made is due to fear of damaging the present profit-making corporations. How so?

Well, consider this: Say that with concerted efforts sunlight could be converted cheaply to electricity, as some scientists suggest. And say that each home could have a small panel of solar cells attached to its roof that would provide all its power needs. Why, in a short time the utilities companies would be practically put out of business! Oil, coal, gas and nuclear energy interests would also be adversely affected. Is it likely to expect these vested interests to be the primary promoters of such revolutionary developments? Hardly.

Obviously, a major change is needed. The present industrialized way of life, to a considerable extent, needs to be dismantled, and an end be put to the trend toward further industrialization. But it is apparent that governments of today will not voluntarily cooperate to do this.

A Righteous Solution

However, what human governments have not done and cannot be expected to do, we can have full confidence that man’s Creator Almighty God will do. In fact, the time has drawn close for Him to assert his almighty power to wipe out this entire wicked system of things. This means that man’s whole system that has so polluted the earth will be permanently disrupted.

However, the earth will not be completely depopulated; there will be people left who genuinely love God and who appreciate his marvelous creations. They will thus use the earth’s resources in such a way as not to bring harm to the environment. Does this mean mankind will live a primitive way of life without power to operate modern conveniences?

No, that is not necessary. The earth has energy that can be harnessed without polluting the environment. Under the guidance of God’s righteous administration man will learn to tap earth’s energy resources effectively, and he will use them wisely, in a way that is totally beneficial. Everyone will have all the power needed to live comfortably and to enjoy life to the full. There will be no power shortages then, nor will there be an ugly pollution problem!​—Ps. 37:9-11, 29; Rev. 21:3, 4.

[Footnotes]

Watching the World

Campaign Emphasizes Peace

◆ U.S. News & World Report noted that the Republican campaign theme for this autumn’s presidential election has already been picked. The central theme of Mr. Nixon will be: “Peace and prosperity,” with “considerable emphasis on international affairs.”

East-West Trade Increases

◆ United States trade with Russia and other east European Communist lands increases. Commerce Secretary P. G. Peterson sees “great promise” in possible joint ventures to exploit Russia’s vast natural resources. Russia considers that such moves would partially offset anticipated large imports from the United States. Rising consumer demand there and in other Iron Curtain countries is reportedly one of the reasons for increased trade with the West.

Arms Race Continues

◆ Though the United States and Russia have signed arms-control pacts, the nuclear race has not slowed. Both countries continue to press areas not affected by the agreements, such as underground testing. At the same time France carries on atomic tests in the Pacific and, like China, refuses to halt atmospheric explosions. Almost two dozen smaller nations are getting closer to developing atomic weapons.

Passport Oath

◆ United States passport applicants will be interested in the following statement from the August 3, 1972, Postal Bulletin: “On the basis of recent court action and until further notice, the requirement that an oath of allegiance be sworn to or affirmed is no longer a part of the passport application process. Accordingly . . . any applicant who desires may strike the oath of allegiance from the application. Postal officials should, of course, continue to administer the oath as to the truth of the statements in the application and that the photograph is a likeness of all persons to be included in the passport.”

Courts Uphold Request for No Blood

◆ Charles Osborn, a 34-year-old Hughesville, Maryland, man, was told, after an accident, that “he had only one in four chances of surviving without blood transfusions.” Physicians at Cafritz Memorial Hospital had been instructed on his hospital entry to use no blood. In an attempt to force transfusion on Osborn, hospital officials went to the home of Superior Court Judge Sylvia Bacon. Members of Osborn’s family, supporting his stand, went along. The judge denied the hospital’s request. The hospital carried the case to the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals; another judge, J. Skelly Wright, had earlier ordered blood given to a woman. (Awake! May 8, 1964) Judge Bacon, asked to reconsider her decision, went to the hospital to interview the patient personally. Again the hospital’s motion was denied. In a final session the appellate court refused to overturn Judge Bacon’s decision. A Washington Post report says: “Most of the patients in Osborn’s situation would have died, according to Dr. Albert Rolle, Osborn’s attending physician. ‘But we can’t always predict what will happen,’ he said. ‘It varies with the patient.’” Doctors were amazed when he went home in a week.

Current Catholic Activities

◆ More than doctrine is changing in the Catholic Church. At St. Francis de Sales in New Orleans, Sunday’s 9:30 a.m. Mass includes Dixieland, jazz spirituals, rock and “old Baptist hymns” for music. The priest wears a long dashiki for vestments. The congregation claps, sways, gyrates and shouts. Recently, while singing “We Shall Overcome,” they raised fists in the black power salute. Meanwhile, in the Chicago area twenty Catholic churches and schools one night a year are converted into miniature nightclubs. Some reportedly make up to $43,000. At St. Jude the Apostle Catholic School’s “Port-O-Call” event, only persons over twenty-one are allowed. A burlesque performer admits some of the jokes are a “tiny bit off color.” But, she notes, “unless people are incredibly narrow minded, they had to accept this as good adult fun.”

‘Crime Woven into Society’

◆ In June, New York Police Commissioner P. Murphy noted: “The tremendous progress of the United States has been accompanied by an astonishing record of tragic, abysmal failure. Crime has been increasing for many years. And let us not delude ourselves, it will continue to rise. The criminal mind will not repent. Criminal activities will not abate. Crime is woven into the fabric of our society.” His accuracy was underscored on August 21 when the city totaled a record fourteen murders for one day. The next day 3,000 bystanders cheered their ‘favorite side’ as two robbers held hostages in a Brooklyn bank.

Danger in Crop Uniformity

◆ Blame for 1970’s corn blight, which wiped out 15 percent of the United States yield, has been fixed on uniformity of crops. Now, according to the National Academy of Sciences, similar crises could face fourteen major U.S. crops. Interestingly, consumers affect the situation. Faced by their demands for uniform, inexpensive produce, farmers consistently plant a few high-yield varieties, even buying machinery that efficiently handles a standard-size seed. Of course, once foreign parasites appear, the whole crop is jeopardized, a danger that is minimized by crop diversity.

Philippine Flooding

◆ July was the rainiest month since August 1919 in the Philippines. Several typhoons brought almost 62 inches of monsoon rains to Manila. The entire central Luzon area, including over 185,000 acres of farmland, was heavily flooded. North of Manila rivers overflowed and dikes broke, turning the central plains into a huge lake; to the south, coastal towns were inundated. Hundreds died. Thousands are homeless, facing food shortage and disease.

Evangelists’ Salaries

◆ How financially well off are well-known evangelists? A recent New York Times article says six years ago Billy Graham received a salary of $19,500 a year; he commented that it was “far less than what the poverty workers employed by the U.S. Government get or labor leaders.” Kathryn Kuhlman currently receives $25,000 annually. Rex Humbard of the Akron, Ohio, Cathedral of Tomorrow owns a Brooklyn girdle factory; he flies to appearances in a private turboprop airplane. A. A. Allen, before his death from acute alcoholism in 1970, took in millions of dollars from regular contributions and, the Times says, “huckstered ‘prosperity cloths’ made from pieces of his old revival tent for donations from $100 to $1000.” What a contrast with Jesus, who had “nowhere to lay down his head”!​—Matt. 8:20.

Environment Report

◆ The 1972 report of the United States President’s Council on Environmental Quality estimates that it would cost about 287 billion dollars to clean the environment during the 1970’s. Simultaneously experts admit that man has learned little about the complexities of pollution. Any noticeable change for the better will contrast with the past. As Science News comments: “In spite of a decade of growing public awareness, political verbiage, and a few years of frenetic activity, the environmental quality is not much better, and in some cases, worse.”

Beef in America

◆ Beef continues to be a problem in the Americas. Prices in the United States are expected to rise again before year-end. The country has more than doubled its average-per-person beef consumption in twenty years. Now ranges will not support many more beef cattle. Meanwhile, limited supplies compel Argentina and parts of Peru to allow beef sales only half the month. On July 15, Uruguay began four months without beef, and in Chile and Colombia sales are allowed only on certain days.

Presidential Limousine

◆ The United States president has a new limousine. The car, which took three years to build, weighs five tons, twice the usual weight of a car its size. Added weight comes largely from quarter-inch armor plating on the bottom, roof and doors. Windows, metal-reinforced tires, and a hydraulically controlled plexiglass bubble are bulletproof. Estimated to cost a half million dollars, the government will lease the car for about five thousand dollars a year. The manufacturer, for prestige reasons, pays the difference.

Athletic Records

◆ Why are sports records of a few decades back now far surpassed? For instance, in the 1896 Olympics a toss of less than 96 feet won discus competition; it was over 212 feet in 1968. Medical World News lists a number of reasons: a larger pool of talent to draw from; more time and money for intense training of people thought to be physically stronger; extreme specialization of athletes; technological advances, like fiber-glass poles for vaulters. Too, the fact that records exist makes them something aimed at and usually topped. Will records continue to fall? No, says one expert, Dr. Ernst Jokl, who claims that man has neared his physiological limits.

Teen Fan Magazines

◆ Five teen fan magazines​—Star, Fare, Flip, Tiger Beat and 16—​have a combined circulation of about two million copies. How much truth do their articles about current teen-age idols really contain? “About half have a grain of truth in them somewhere,” according to Star editor Nancy Hardwick. “We just write what we think the girls will want to read, but we have to come up with new stuff every month and, let’s face it, these guys just aren’t all that interesting.”

Unnecessary Surgery

◆ H. S. Denenberg, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, claims that American doctors perform two million unneeded operations a year. A West Coast surgeon, writing in How to Avoid Unnecessary Surgery, would make the figure even higher. Denenberg asserts “there is a tendency for surgeons to do their thing​—which is operate.” He advises the public to consider operations “a last resort.”

Police Ordered to Shave

◆ The police chief in a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suburb ordered his men to shave off beards, mustaches and sideburns to give the public “an impression of moderation, maturity and settled confidence.”

Driving and Marijuana

◆ Tests indicate those who drive after smoking marijuana are as dangerous as alcoholics. Twelve subjects, says a West German report, went through red lights, zigzagged down straight roads and sped around curves. According to another report, a subject experienced hallucinations while driving. Interestingly, a law officer who talked to the driver was unable to detect any impairment.

Forest Fire Damage

◆ Some 4.3 million acres of forest were ravaged by fire in the United States during 1971, about a million more acres than in 1970. Lightning accounted for over one third of the lost acreage. But man was responsible for most of the destruction. Almost every fire in the East was man-caused, many by trash being burned near wooded areas.

Anger Can Be Deadly

◆ Anger can kill. Sometimes enraged people purposely destroy others or themselves. But more often, because of being accident-prone when upset, they may kill or harm by their driving. Additionally, doctors know that anger triggers lethal heart attacks and strokes. American Dr. T. R. Van Dellen recently observed: “Anger rarely is listed on a death certificate, but the emotion is a more common cause of death than many people believe.”

Do You Want to Hear the Truth?

Once Jesus healed a blind man, but some did not want to hear the truth regarding this grand miracle.

Are you genuinely interested in truth? How deep is your desire to know the truth about God and his purposes for mankind? Will he bring an end to wickedness, and provide a righteous rule for earth?

You can find truthful answers to these questions. Learn where in your Bible to look for them. Read The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. This 192-page hardbound book will be sent to you for only 25c.

Please send me the hardbound book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life, for which I enclose 25c.

Are You a Christian?

Many people who profess to be Christian are Christian in name only. They do not follow Jesus’ example, living by the principles he taught.

The Watchtower is a magazine that is designed to help people to become Christians in fact. It has helped many thousands of people to transform their lives.

You can benefit from having The Watchtower come to your home regularly. It will arrive twice a month for one year for only $1.50.

Please send me The Watchtower for one year for which I enclose $1.50. Send also the three gift booklets Divine Rulership​—the Only Hope of All Mankind, “This Good News of the Kingdom,” and When All Nations Collide, Head On, with God.