May 8

Beware of the Power of Evil Suggestions

JUST how easily a human being can be influenced by suggestions is not generally appreciated. The extreme case, of course, is that of hypnotism, the power of which borders on the uncanny. Yet, even aside from hypnotism, it is noteworthy what has been learned about the suggestibility of people.

By way of experiment, a group of adults were asked to close their eyes and then were told over and over again that they were falling. The result? Nearly all of them began to sway at least a few inches and some lost their sense of balance entirely and fell to the floor. Other research has revealed that persons even while under ether on an operating table were adversely affected by injudicious remarks made by the medical personnel.

This human characteristic of being susceptible to suggestion can also be used in a beneficial way. It is a great aid in influencing people to do what is right. Nowhere, in fact, is appreciation of this truth more apparent than in the pages of the Holy Bible. From beginning to end it contains such suggestions as, “Be courageous and strong,” and, “Let us” do this, that or the other thing. Thus we read: “Let us not give up in doing what is fine, for in due season we shall reap if we do not tire out. Really, then, as long as we have time favorable for it, let us work what is good toward all.”​—Deut. 31:6; Gal. 6:9, 10.

At the same time the Bible warns us against following the bad suggestions of others: “My son, if sinners try to seduce you, do not consent. If they keep saying: ‘Do go with us. Do let us lie in ambush for blood,’” and so forth, “do not go in the way with them.” The same Bible writer, King Solomon, also warns against the blandishments of a wicked woman. (Prov. 1:10-19; 5:3-14) Not without good reason do Bible lovers who are interested in your highest welfare suggest that you ‘read God’s Word the Bible daily.’ Doing so will most likely have a good influence upon you by reason of its examples and suggestions, even apart from its specific commands.

Indeed, for us to read an interesting account of a noble deed well done is of itself a suggestion ‘to go our way and be doing the same ourselves.’ Doubtless the many fine examples or illustrations that Jesus gave, such as that of the neighborly Samaritan and the prodigal son, have served to influence countless Bible lovers to be more understanding and compassionate, more merciful and more helpful in dealing with others.​—Luke 10:29-37; 15:11-32.

If good can and does follow from fine suggestions, how can it be otherwise than that bad will result from evil suggestions? That is why ever so many Americans were scandalized with the report made by a presidential commission appointed to investigate pornography. After devoting three years and spending $2,000,000, the majority of the commission said that they did not consider pornography a threat to the well-being of the nation. (Readers Digest, January 1971) However, outraged minority members of the commission warned against the harm that could result from such a report, as well as exposing the unscientific methods by which such a conclusion was reached.​—U.S. News & World Report, February 22, 1971.

It might well be asked, What accounts for the lure of pornography and why should one beware of it? It is due to the sin of our first parents that “the inclination of the heart of man is bad from his youth up.” (Gen. 8:21) These bad inclinations feed on, and are strengthened by, what reaches the mind and heart through the senses. When we let the newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the movies fill our minds with sexual immorality, we are feeding these inherited bad inclinations and making them ever stronger and harder to control. By doing so we are also weakening our loyalties to God, to truth, to righteousness and to our neighbor.

Thus the New York Times, December 27, 1972, carried a report on what a leading New York psychiatrist thought of a “hardcore” pornographic film. Among other things, he stated: “It will not enlighten the viewer; on the contrary, it will blind him to the true nature of female sexuality.” He also noted that, while some might not be harmed by viewing such a picture, most likely for the majority the film would “confuse them and produce sex fantasies of an unhealthy nature.”

Keenly aware of the great harm that pornography can and does do are such members of the medical profession as Dr. C. A. Domz, a California internist. Writing in a leading medical journal, he chose the theme: “Doctors against pornography: Who’ll join me?” Referring to his own experiences, he warned of the harm that young women were doing to their bodies because of their being “enthusiastic about today’s sexual revolution.” Wrote Domz: “As I initiated treatment [for a cervical oozing], I wondered whether Nancy was emancipated or just victimized [by her boy ‘friends’]. Physicians are treating more and more sick girls like her, performing more abortions, and coping with a pandemic of venereal disease. All this free sex does not come free of consequences.” He underscored that for sex to bring happiness it must be within marriage and have associated with it giving, caring, helping and loving. If knowledge alone were the key, he went on to say, no educated man would be obese or an alcoholic. “The key is self-restraint, self-control, or that ugly old word, discipline.”

That is why the apostle Paul, who was fully aware of the power of unhealthy suggestions, wrote: “Let fornication and uncleanness of every sort or greediness not even be mentioned among you, . . . neither shameful conduct nor foolish talking nor obscene jesting.” And since, as a Chinese proverb puts it, “a vacant mind is open to all suggestions,” the course of wisdom is to keep the mind filled with “whatever things are true, . . . whatever things are chaste, whatever things are lovable, whatever things are well spoken of.”​—Eph. 5:3, 4; Phil. 4:8.

Do You Hope to Go to Heaven When You Die?

“NO INTEREST in Heaven or Hell.” So read a headline in The Morning Call newspaper (February 12, 1969) of Allentown, Pennsylvania. It reported on a poll of the “Typical American,” twenty-seven years of age, graduated from high school. His principal interests were said to be “football, hunting, fishing, and tinkering with automobiles.” While this may be true of the “Typical American” twenty-seven years of age, there are ever so many millions of other Americans, as well as millions of other nationalities, who take their religion more seriously. Many of them expect to go to heaven when they die.

Are you among those? If so, why do you hope or expect to go to heaven when you die? Quite likely one reason is because you have been taught that you have an immortal soul separate and distinct from your body, which at death goes either to heaven or to a hell of torment. Of course, if you had to choose between those two destinies you would want to go to heaven.

But could it be that the Bible does not teach that you have a soul that lives on after the body dies? Yes, it could be; in fact, such is the case, and it is being recognized by more and more people. Thus, as reported in Time magazine, Roman Catholic Theologian Peter Riga of St. Mary’s College in California acknowledged that the old idea of a man’s having a soul that departs from the body at death “makes no sense at all. There is just man, man in God’s image and likeness. Man in his totality was created and will be saved.” Similar expressions are to be found in the “Glossary of Biblical Theology Terms” appearing at the back of the Roman Catholic New American Bible, published in 1970.

And that is exactly what the Bible teaches. It states that in the beginning “man came to be a living soul,” not that he received a soul. Just as there is a great difference between having a wife and being a wife so there is a great difference between having a soul and being a soul. Also, the Bible tells us that “the soul that is sinning​—it itself will die.” So it could not be immortal. Further, God’s Word shows that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” That is why the Bible speaks of death as ‘sleep.’ Interestingly, Martin Luther at one time taught that believers who died were unconscious until the resurrection.​—Gen. 2:7; Ezek. 18:4, 20; Eccl. 9:5; 1 Cor. 15:20; 1 Thess. 4:13.

Some Do Go to Heaven

Yes, the Bible shows that the dead are unconscious until the resurrection. But it also makes clear that some are then raised to heavenly life. First of all, there was Jesus Christ. Of him, the apostle Peter said: “This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.” Thereafter “he was exalted to the right hand of God.” We are also told that “Christ entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us.”​—Acts 2:32, 33; Heb. 9:24.

Further, Jesus promised his apostles a place in the heavens so that “where I am you also may be.” (John 14:2, 3) That his apostles had this hope is clear from their writings. Thus the apostle Paul wrote: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, should be dissolved, we are to have a building from God, . . . everlasting in the heavens.” (2 Cor. 5:1) Such Christians have “a living hope . . . to an incorruptible . . . inheritance . . . in the heavens,” where they will be “sharers in divine nature.”​—1 Pet. 1:3, 4; 2 Pet. 1:4.

Then, could it be that the countless millions who have entertained hopes of going to heaven will have their hopes realized? The Scriptures make it very clear that the number of those going to heaven is, comparatively speaking, small indeed. Thus Jesus said to them: “Have no fear, little flock, because your Father has approved of giving you the kingdom.” And in three places in the book of Revelation, the number of spiritual Israel, the number of those with the Lamb Jesus Christ upon the heavenly Mount Zion, is given as just 144,000. Of these, it is said that “they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will rule as kings with him for the thousand years.”​—Luke 12:32; Rev. 7:4; 14:1, 3; 20:6.

For a man to be eligible for the heavenly hope, certain steps are required on his part and on God’s part. He must repent from his past sinful course, must convert by turning around to follow a course of righteousness, must dedicate himself to do God’s will and be baptized. However, that is as far as he himself can go. The rest depends upon God.​—Acts 3:19; Heb. 11:6; Acts 4:12; Matt. 28:19, 20.

Then, if God so wills He individually calls such a man and chooses him through His Son, Jesus Christ. (2 Tim. 1:9, 10; 1 Pet. 2:9) Such a man God also declares righteous on the basis of his faith in Christ’s blood, and by His holy spirit the man is brought forth as a spiritual son. (Rom. 5:1, 9; 8:15, 16, 33, 34; Jas. 1:18) Once having received this heavenly hope he must keep integrity, proving faithful until death. That includes keeping separate from the world, ‘pummeling his body’ so that he controls it and not it him, and being on guard against the snares of the Devil. (Jas. 1:27; 1 Cor. 9:27; 1 Pet. 5:8) Doing so, he can look forward, even as did the apostle Paul, to receiving the “crown of righteousness.”​—2 Tim. 4:8; Rev. 2:10.

The Earthly Destiny

Is the destiny of everlasting life limited to those going to heaven, to just 144,000? By no means! Did not Jesus tell us to pray for God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven? (Matt. 6:10) Besides, we read that “the earth will certainly be filled with the knowledge of Jehovah as the waters are covering the very sea.” (Isa. 11:9) And still more, we are assured that ‘the tent of God will be with mankind’ and that He “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.” (Rev. 21:2-4) Those words must refer to this earth, for there never was death in heaven where God is. Surely these and many other scriptures of similar import indicate that there are people who will be rewarded with a fine earthly existence. The hope and prospect of thousands of millions who have died lies in a resurrection of the dead to life right here on this earth, for did not Jesus say, “the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out”?​—John 5:28, 29.

That others, aside from those whose destiny is heaven, will gain salvation is clear from the context of one of the scriptures that mentions the 144,000 spiritual Israelites: “After these things I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: ‘Salvation we owe to our God, . . . and to the Lamb.’” Incidentally, the fact that this great crowd cannot be numbered argues that the number given for the spiritual Israelites is a literal number.​—Rev. 7:9, 10.

Does this mean that there are two kinds of destinies for those who gain salvation through exercising faith in Jesus Christ? (John 3:16) Yes, for there is no question about the Scriptures speaking of both heavenly and earthly blessings and rewards. The logic of this fact will be apparent if we will but reason on the subject. If all the countless millions who will eventually gain salvation were to go to heaven to serve as priests and kings, in behalf of whom would they serve as priests and over whom would they rule as kings? But when we understand that only 144,000 will thus serve and they will bless the countless millions who will be raised from the dead and live right here on this earth, it all makes sense. Besides, when we consider that the vast majority of those resurrected from the dead will at the first have little knowledge of Jehovah God and of his righteous requirements, we can see how much work there will be for the heavenly priests and kings to bring these back into harmony with their Creator. The Bible shows that a thousand years will be devoted to this work, for which reason it is called the Millennial kingdom.​—Isa. 11:1-9; 2 Pet. 3:8; Rev. 20:4-6.

Serving as earthly representatives of the heavenly kingdom will be “princes,” even as it was prophetically foretold of Jesus Christ: “In place of your forefathers there will come to be your sons, whom you will appoint as princes in all the earth.” (Ps. 45:16) These princes will include all the men of faith from Abel on to John the Baptist. Will none of these be in heaven? No. How do we know? Because Jesus said that up until then, 31 C.E., no one had ascended to heaven. And, of John the Baptist, he said that no “mother’s son” was greater than he, yet “the least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than he.” The Bible also says that even King David, a man approved by God, did not ascend to heaven.​—Matt. 11:11; John 3:13; Acts 2:25-35, New English Bible.

Why did not any of these go to heaven? Because the way to heaven waited for Christ’s sacrifice to open it up. Besides, none could precede him, for he was to be “the firstborn from the dead, that he might become the one who is first in all things.” It therefore follows that only those dying after Christ’s death and resurrection and ascension to heaven could hope to gain life in the heavens.​—Col. 1:18; Heb. 10:20; 2 Tim. 1:10.

The facts indicate that the general call or invitation by God for the heavenly prize has ceased, the full number having been called and chosen. That is why today the Christian witnesses of Jehovah herald far and wide the good news of everlasting life in a Paradise earth by means of God’s kingdom. In view of the time in which we are living, the hope is held forth that a “great crowd” of “other sheep” will not need to die but will pass from this old system to a new system of things, in which they can live forever. To make this hope fully your own, accept a Bible study with one of Jehovah’s witnesses.​—John 10:16; Matt. 24:14.

The Bahamas Seeks Independence

By “Awake!” correspondent in the Bahamas

THE spirit of independence and self-determination is everywhere. Not only do individuals want to be free to decide what is good and what is bad for themselves, but whole communities and colonies of people are struggling for the right to govern themselves. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is no exception. Here, too, the cry is for independence.

Foreign rule had its beginning years ago when Christopher Columbus mistakenly came ashore on the island of San Salvador (or Watlings Island), an island in the Bahamas, thinking he was in the East Indies. That was in October 1492. Since then the Bahamas has been anything but independent or self-governing. Within twenty years its native Arawak and Lucayan Indians were displaced; all of them enslaved and shipped off to the mines of Cuba and Hispaniola. For over one hundred years after its discovery, the Bahamas remained in Spanish hands.

A British Colony

It was first in 1629 that England made its formal claim to these islands. On October 30 of that year Charles I gave a grant to his attorney general, Sir Robert Heath, and the islands came under the yoke of British colonialism. The colony attracted religious Englishmen looking for freedom of worship, while at the same time serving as a haven for others, including such notorious pirates as Edward (“Blackbeard”) Teach and Anne Bonny.

In 1718 Captain Woodes Rodgers, the first royally appointed governor, drove out the pirates. For two weeks during the American Revolution, Nassau, the capital of these islands, was held captive by the young United States Navy. In 1782 the Bahamas fell to Spain again, but was restored to the British a year later.

The Bahamas has thus been a British colony, with only short interruptions of rule, for well over 300 years. Since 1729 in particular the country has had a representative assembly under a constitution, one older than that of the United States. This constitution is similar to the one drafted for the original thirteen American colonies.

Unlike other independent states of the British Commonwealth, such as Jamaica, Barbados, and Ceylon, the Bahamas depends upon Britain for directives concerning (1) Foreign Affairs, (2) Defense and (3) Internal Security, or police. Britain, of course, will no longer have any say in these matters when the Bahamas becomes independent.

Political Parties

Political parties in the Bahamas have been important in the steps toward independence. The Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) was formed in 1953, being spearheaded by H. M. Taylor. Up to that time, and especially before the universal application of the secret ballot, elections had been very corrupt. In A History of the Bahamas, Michael Craton observed: “Bribery, intimidation and the tiny electorates made the Bahamian elections similar to those in England during the eighteenth century.”

This new Progressive Liberal Party dedicated itself to reform. It obtained six seats in the House of Assembly, and, by its united front, provoked the formation of the United Bahamian Party (UBP) in 1958. The United Bahamian Party was in the majority in 1958, with nineteen members in the House. At that time, however, there was little if any talk of independence.

A New Constitution

By 1962 the two parties in government, the UBP and PLP, both were in favor of a greater measure of self-government, and therefore included this in their political platforms. A constitutional conference was held in May 1963 at the London Colonial Office. The outcome of this discussion was that the Bahamas would be given a new constitution.

Thus it was that in January 1964 a new constitution came into effect. Declared Sir Roland, the premier of the Bahamas: “We now have the internal freedom . . . to move swiftly when swift movement is needed, to act decisively when decisive action is called for, and to shape our destiny to our best advantage.” The new constitution was a significant step toward independence.

A Change in Status

The Progressive Liberal Party, the one claiming to represent mainly the Colored voters, became the governing party in 1967. The following year a general election gave it a large majority in the House of Assembly​—twenty-nine PLP members, seven UBP members and one member each for the Independence Party and the Labor Party.

In an address before the House on October 7, 1968, Prime Minister Lynden O. Pindling explained that the recently held talks in London did not have as their aim independence, at least not immediate independence. Rather, their purpose was to “ensure that the Bahamas would have more responsibility for self-internal government than hithertofore.” This purpose was achieved, evidenced by the change of the Bahamas from a British colony to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. While the traditions of the British monarchal system remained, the stage was set for obtaining independence.

The Growing Issue of Independence

There has been no struggle with Britain over independence. The Colonial Office has made it clear that Britain will gladly relinquish all ties with the Bahamas, granting it full independence, if this is the expressed desire of the populace. But the population as a whole has not been pressuring for independence. The issue has been one primarily involving the political parties, with the question being, not if to seek independence, but when to seek it in earnest.

A power struggle within the ranks of the PLP resulted in the formation of the “Free-PLP.” These dissident members of the PLP realized that without the support of the UBP-oriented voters they could not hope to win the general election. Thus these two groups merged to form the Free National Movement (FNM). Every attempt was made to free this new alliance from any vestige of racial pride and prejudice, which for many years has been a political issue in the Bahamas.

In the meantime, Black nationalism began to affect the thinking and philosophy of young intellectuals and pseudorevolutionaries. The Bahamas is 85 percent Negro. The cry for change, at first faint, became louder. The desire to be completely free from any and all colonial restraint grew. Many became enchanted with the prospect of political autonomy.

The Progressive Liberal Party, which held the majority in the government, decided to shy away no longer from the issue of independence. It became their wish and purpose to make the Bahamas truly Bahamian​—culturally, economically and politically. In the ardent pursuit of this objective, an independence seminar was launched early in 1972. A target date was set: INDEPENDENCE​—JULY 1973. The issue became one of public concern, debated freely, for not everyone had the same desire for independence.

However, nothing less than an election could really determine public opinion. Would the electorate support the Progressive Liberal Party in its quest for an independent Bahamas? The FNM opposition party was confident that the masses were in no hurry for independence. They believed that it was best to postpone the change until all was in readiness, economically, politically and socially.

The issue was soon settled. Although a general election was not due until April 1973, the House was dissolved August 10, seven months early, and September 19 set as election day.

The Outcome

Election fever ran hot. There were several shooting incidents, a spate of fires, and vandalism ran rife. Both political camps became the object of bigotry, intolerance and outright violence. Hecklers abounded and meetings on both sides were disrupted, depending on who was favored in a particular locale. Election eve was tense, taut with anticipation. Would violence flare if any were disappointed with the outcome?

Strangely, the expected storm never came. The Progressive Liberal Party received a vote of confidence, most of its members being returned to power. The issue was settled. The machinery to bring about the will and desire of the majority was to be put into motion. On December 20, 1972, Britain agreed to the granting of independence this coming July.

But to what extent will the people benefit when independence is an accomplished fact? This will depend, in part, on them and their leaders. These men are still only human and imperfect, as are those who have directed the affairs of these islands until now. The transfer of authority will not root out pride and selfishness. Only one government can do that. It is the one foretold in God’s Word the Bible​—the kingdom of God, which Jehovah’s witnesses are proclaiming as mankind’s true hope. This righteous government will bring mankind freedom in a way that no human administration can, for it will liberate mankind from disease, sin and even death.​—Matt. 6:9, 10; Rev. 21:4.

Doing Much with Little

SUPPOSE you were paralyzed from the neck down, the only muscles you could move being those of your neck. Would you indulge in self-pity, despair, and long for death? Or would you realize that you could do something useful, that you could lead a rewarding, happy life and even support yourself? The latter is exactly what more than one such handicapped person has done.

Take, for example, a certain man who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. At the age of nineteen an attack of polio left him paralyzed from the neck down, a quadriplegic, that is, one not having the use of any of his four limbs. What did he do? With special instruction he learned to paint, both with a brush and with a palette knife, by holding these in his mouth. He paints from what he remembers of scenes on the coast of British Columbia where he worked until his illness. His paintings decorate government buildings, hospitals and private homes, and at present he is also teaching an art class at Vancouver City College.

He has been able to purchase a delivery van for use in transporting himself and his wheelchair wherever he wishes to go. In order to sleep comfortably he has to use a rocking bed at the hospital, which is really his home. This meant that for ever so long he could not sleep anywhere outside the hospital. So he painstakingly modified the construction of the rocking bed, redesigning it for portable use. Now he is able to stay overnight at his mother’s home and also visit other relatives living some distance away.

But what has made him truly a happy person is his coming in touch with the truth of God’s kingdom, as a result of which he has dedicated his life to God and has been baptized by total water immersion. With the aid of his wheelchair and van he is regularly able to attend the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses. At the Kingdom Hall a fellow Christian holds his Bible for him as well as whatever Bible study aid is being used. That one also raises a hand when the quadriplegic wants to volunteer a comment. More than that, he regularly gives talks in the congregation’s Theocratic Ministry School. He is also happy for the privilege he at times has of leading his congregation in prayer.

In spite of his great handicap he zealously witnesses for Jehovah at every opportunity​—to members of the hospital staff, to friends and relatives, including his sister and his two brothers. His mother is also a Witness. He makes return visits on persons interested in knowing more about the Bible and conducts a regular Bible study with another young man, the friend of a hospital patient.

He also engages in the distribution of Bible magazines on the streets; when the weather is nice you will see him on a busy corner calling the attention of passersby to the real source of his joy. Another way he engages in sharing the good news is by writing letters. These he types with the aid of a stick in his mouth. Still another way that he witnesses is by means of the telephone, when visiting at his mother’s home.

Doing much with little? Certainly that is true of this dedicated Christian witness of Jehovah. It is a strenuous schedule he has worked out for himself​—supporting himself by painting four to five hours a day, attending all the congregation meetings and preparing for them and having a full share in spreading the Kingdom message to others. All of this, together with his cheerful example of faithfulness, determination and hard work, makes him a source of real encouragement to those associated with him.

How Great Was Charlemagne?

“CHARLEMAGNE” is French for “Charles the Great.” Uniquely he was called “the Great” even during his own lifetime. Why? Because of his military conquests, his empire building, his statesmanship, his furtherance of agriculture, bridge and road building, culture and education, as well as for his great interest in religion and in the morals of the clergy and of the common people.

However, while called “the Great” by contemporaries and the historians of this world, his life certainly was not an exemplary one to set before youths, and especially not before Christian youths as a model to try to imitate. Great as were his interests, exploits and achievements, so great were also his ruthless ambitions, his cunning and his crimes.

Charlemagne was born an illegitimate son, about the year 732 C.E., his father and mother being persuaded to legalize their marriage first after he was born. Beginning in 768, upon the death of his father, Pepin the Short, Charlemagne shared the kingdom of the Franks with his brother. Then in 771, upon the strangely sudden death of his brother, he became sole ruler of the Franks. He was crowned as emperor by the pope in 800 and died in 814.

His Military Exploits

Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel, was nicknamed “the Hammer” because of his military exploits, particularly his stopping the Turks from overrunning Europe in the Battle of Tours, in 732. The son of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, likewise made a name for himself by military exploits. He got the pope to approve of his usurping the throne of the Franks on the premise that it was better to have the throne occupied by one who had the ability than by one who had the legal right but was a pleasure-loving weakling. Accommodatingly, the Catholic dignitary Boniface anointed Pepin as ruler, and so he came to be the first European monarch to refer to himself as king “by the grace of God.” At that time the kingdom of the Franks consisted mostly of what is France and western Germany today.

While still quite young and coruler with his brother, Charlemagne forcibly put down a rebellion in Acquitaine, in what today is southwestern France. It was the first of more than fifty military campaigns in which he engaged. When the pope called for his help because of being threatened by the Lombard ruler, King Desiderius, Charlemagne defeated that ruler and used the occasion as an excuse to annex the territory of the Lombards and become king of Lombardy.

Charlemagne’s military conquests in Italy, however, were cut short by his need to repel the Saxons, who were continually making forays on Frankland. He launched eighteen expeditions against them over a period of thirty-three years before finally and completely subduing them. According to the New Catholic Encyclopedia (Vol. 3, p. 497), these wars were “accompanied by extreme brutality and enforced deportation . . . Saxon resistance was nourished by Charles’s efforts to compel the Saxons to accept Christianity.” What a mockery to use “extreme brutality” to compel people to “accept Christianity”! Of course, Charlemagne was neither the first nor the last to commit crimes in the name of the “Christian” religion.

Pursuing his ambition to be ruler of a great empire, Charlemagne, by means of intrigues and threats of force, was able to add Bavaria to his kingdom. This, in turn, brought him up against the Avars, a greatly feared predatory people related to the Huns. For centuries they were the scourge of Europe, on one occasion taking 270,000 prisoners from Constantinople. The historian Lord speaks of them as barbarians who “only thought of plunder,” who “were more formidable for their numbers and destructive ravages than for their military skill.” Their resistance to Charlemagne was such that by the time he had overcome them he had nearly wiped them out.

His one great military reverse was when returning from an expedition into Spain. At Roncesvalles the Gascons attacked his unsuspecting rear guard, wiping out 20,000 of his soldiers and getting away with all the spoils that Charlemagne had taken.

As a result of military expeditions and his political cunning, Charlemagne was able to extend the dominions of Frankland to include most of what today is France, West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, part of Spain, and a good half of Italy. It might be said that success crowned his territorial ambitions, at the cost of his scruples. But does success in itself entitle a ruler to be called “Great”?

His Statesmanship

It is said that Charlemagne changed Europe not only outwardly by his conquests but also inwardly by his statecraft. He had laws refined and put in writing and issued a “voluminous flow” of ordinances known as “capitularies.” Not content with these, he also sent out agents, the missi, by twos, to check on the men he had put in positions of power in his various dominions. Generally one of these was a secular official, the other a religious dignitary. These listened to complaints and corrected matters, for, as he put it, “the emperor cannot exercise the needful care and discipline upon each individual.”

He also concerned himself with repairing and building roads and bridges, encouraged improved farming methods and resettled peoples in the interest of his realm. He established a uniform system of weights and measures and replaced the sixty-seven different kinds of currencies that were minted locally with one for the entire realm; again a masterstroke as far as profit for himself and his government was concerned. His system of 240 to 1 (pence, shilling and pound) was adopted by a king of England; a system which the English only recently have remodeled. Far wiser were France and Germany, which long years ago dropped the 240 to 1 system of Charlemagne for the decimal system.

His Cultural Interests

Charlemagne has been described as “a man of insatiable intellectual curiosity, many-sided in his interests and demanding of those from whom he could learn.” All of which might be said to be but another aspect of his selfish ambition. He persuaded the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin, one of the most learned men of his day, to come to his court to “sow the seeds of learning in Frankland.” Many others from various lands were also attracted by Charlemagne to reside at his royal estate. He commanded priests to establish schools in all towns and villages, where parents could send their children without cost to themselves unless they felt obligated to and were able to pay for their children’s education. Because of this, until quite recent times, the children of France had a day set aside for this “inventor of schools,” namely, “Saint Charlemagne.”

He also took a great interest in art, resulting in the ‘Carolingian Renaissance,’ as it is called.

The style of letters used by most Western countries today was developed at his instance. It is generally known as the “Roman” or “Latin” type of letters as distinguished from the ornamental Gothic or old German type of letters. Charlemagne’s efforts at education bore such fruit that, years later, King Alfred of England sent to the Franks for scholars to help out in the reeducation of his country. As one French scholar put it, “Charlemagne laid the foundation of all modern education.”

His Religiosity

Charlemagne in his religiosity might be said to have resembled the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who in effect said, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’ and who were straining out gnats and gulping down camels. (Matt. 23:2, 3, 24) He fancied himself to have a divine commission to set up God’s kingdom on earth, but he employed cunning, intrigue and extreme brutality. Every important project of his he invested with religious significance. He destroyed the pagan idols and groves of the Saxons and gave them the choice of being baptized or killed. However, toward the end of his reign Alcuin was able to persuade him that forced baptisms are meaningless, for a man can be forced to be baptized but not forced to believe. While he professed friendship with the popes and on more than one occasion came to their aid when they were threatened by military forces, a historian tells us that “the outcome of his policies seemed always to be a slap in the face for the pope.”

In certain religious matters he showed himself superior to the popes and the bishops, and felt free to admonish them as to doctrine, morals and the discharge of their duties; in all respects of which they were coming woefully short. Among the many councils or meetings of ecclesiastics that he summoned was one for the purpose of condemning the teaching that Jesus was the adopted rather than the actual Son of God and to condemn the worship of images, although granting freedom to worship them. When the pope remonstrated, Charlemagne yielded not an inch.

He was quite familiar with the Bible and was fond of quoting it to support his measures. He showed his interest in it by having a revision made with the help of his scholar Alcuin, of which work Charlemagne exclaimed: “God helping us in all things, we have already procured a careful emendation of all the books of the Old and New Testament, which copyists in their ignorance have corrupted.” While his personal life came far short of God’s righteous requirements, he warned his subjects that his own salvation depended upon their conduct, since God would hold him responsible for their actions.

As to his own role in being crowned emperor by pope Leo III on December 25, 800,a there is a wide difference of opinion among scholars of history. Many hold that he knew all about it and was very much in favor of it. But others hold with his personal biographer Einhart, who said that had Charlemagne known in advance about what the pope intended to do he would not have entered the cathedral that day. Giving weight to Einhart’s contention are the observations that in later years “the aging Emperor pursued a course . . . suggesting that the imperial title meant little new in terms of the internal administration of the kingdom. Occasionally a royal action seemed to contradict the entire idea of an empire. . . . In 813, after two of his sons had died, he personally crowned Louis (the Pious) as his successor, thereby excluding the papacy from any part in the selection or installation of the emperor.”​—New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 499.

How Great?

Few men, indeed, during their own lifetime were called “the Great,” as was Charlemagne by many of his contemporaries. But not all of them agreed to this. His ruthlessness in carrying out his ambitions caused more than one plot to be hatched to take his life, and one of these, which involved his firstborn son (whom Charlemagne had slighted because of his being a hunchback), nearly succeeded. But more important than any man’s opinion is what God must have thought of Charlemagne. God looks at the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7) The laws of Jehovah God on the sanctity of human life and blood meant nothing to Charlemagne. No doubt he proceeded on the maxim that “the end justifies the means.” More than that, while he preached morals to others, from the pope on down, especially singling out the clergy and the monks who, in his day, were notorious for their sexual immorality, yet he himself had mistresses and concubines. As one of his biographers put it, his was a “reign that was to see murder, purge and plunder take place side by side with reform, enlightenment and the unification of [parts of] Europe.” Counting also against him were his unscrupulous schemes by which he acquired Bavaria and defeated the Avars. He was even willing to marry murderous Empress Irene so as to unite the Byzantine Empire with his own.

Historians generally consider his having 4,500 Saxon prisoners beheaded in one day​—because of their part in an uprising—​to be “the foulest blot on his life.” And while he often expressed a concern as to how he would fare at God’s hands, there is no record of his having been overcome with remorse at this bloody deed. He had intended it as a lesson to the Saxons, who were ever rising up in rebellion against him. But the deed was futile, for instead of instilling fear into the Saxons, it caused them to become even more rebellious! In his religious conceit he wanted to be known as “King David,” but he could point to no divine commands for his wars as could King David. Besides, King David expressed sincere grief and repentance when he transgressed.

And it must also be acknowledged that the unity of his empire depended chiefly on his own strong personality. He did not build well, for “the political structure that Charlemagne had created disintegrated . . . soon after his death,” his biographer Winston relates. Though known as “Charles the Great,” he was great neither in God’s eyes nor in the eyes of those whose standards are set by God’s Word.

[Footnotes]

A Voice from the Wild

By “Awake!” correspondent in Canada

HELLO! Let me introduce myself. My name is Ursus Horribilis; I am a grizzly bear and I head a delegation of grizzlies. The reason we would like your attention is that there appears to be a great lack of communication between us furry quadrupeds and you humans. The feeling among us bears is that our public relations can be greatly improved by a friendly confrontation. May we come in? . . . Thank you.

At the outset, let us explain that although you humans have always given us the hare-and-hounds treatment, we have little ill feeling toward you. We would like to be friends if you will let us. The misunderstanding between us is not of our making, and we feel it is about time that you stopped the gun smoke and settled down to a more responsive behavior.

Let us tell you the story from the ground level. It will help you to see that we have a legitimate cause. First of all, this is not just a matter involving us Canadian grizzlies. Our protest embodies the grievances and pent-up feelings of the entire animal world, and it is presented in the hope that it will help you humans to turn over a new leaf and give us animals a better deal.

In doing so we acknowledge that you have exercised certain delegated rights in using us as a source of food, shelter and clothing. It is not to this that we object. But do you have to be so wanton in your slaughter? Ever since the time of Nimrod, the great bloodspiller, there have been those among you who seem determined to wipe out every last one of us.

History

Before the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century when weapons were handmade, the balance between us and you people was fairly equal, for we could generally outrun or outsmart you. However, with the advent of the machine we faced the beginning of the end, and the steady decimation of our numbers began.

Since that time it has been reported that hundreds of kinds of birds and animals have been irretrievably cut down or entirely destroyed. Is it your purpose to continue such practice? Do you really want to annihilate us? Please think about it.

Up to about a hundred years ago millions of buffalo roamed the vast North American plains. These animals were an abundant source of food and supplies to the natives. However, they were soon systematically slaughtered by professional hunters who killed them for sport, taking their heads as trophies and leaving the carcasses to rot on the field. If it had not been for the intervention of a few conservation-minded individuals, the American buffalo would be extinct today.

As with the buffalo, so it has been with other forms of wildlife. As humans crossed the continents, various kinds of animals were driven before them. Some animals were able to adjust to the changes, but others were driven into extinction or backed into the hinterlands and away from their natural habitat.

The Encroachment

As the swamps were drained and marshlands cleared, more and more acres came under the plow until the land teemed with people, and wildlife had to move. The sandhill cranes, the prairie chickens, the Canada geese, along with the limitless flocks of wild ducks that at one time darkened the sky for numbers, were driven north, ever north, toward the permafrost and the tundra.

For hundreds of years America’s original inhabitants, the native Indians, dwelt with the animals surrounding them. They killed for food and left some for the future. However, white men hunted indiscriminately, not merely for their needs, but to fill the endless demands of world markets for profit.

Prince Philip, in his book Wildlife Crises, wrote: “Sea-fishing is a typical example of the free-for-all exploitation of wild populations. The same applies to taking wild crocodiles or leopards for their skins. This is nothing less than a primitive scramble to cash in while the going is good in the boneheaded belief that there is an inexhaustible supply.” But there is a bottom to the barrel, and your scientists and wise men should take notice of this before irreparable damage has been done.

Think of what you have already done! The steel traps used on us grizzlies had double springs and were up to six feet in length. Some weighed as much as eighty pounds, and had bone-crushing jaws with jagged clincher teeth. Today hunters use airplanes and helicopters to track us down without mercy. By driving us to the wall, how do you expect any of us to survive?

It has been charged that we are ferocious beasts and dangerous killers. But the evidence is that such behavior usually results from severe provocation and the fear of what man will do, based on the background of bitter experience. Not too many of our kind deliberately seek out a confrontation with man, and, if given the choice, we invariably seek safety in flight. Do you blame us?

Read the appalling record of our treatment as told by your own historian in The World of the Grizzly Bear:

“In the old (American) West, wild animals were exploited. They had many enemies and few friends. Ignorance and illiteracy prevailed so that even the Catholic churches failed to recognize the rights of animals. Cruelty was not only condoned, it was encouraged. Animal fights were staged (between tethered grizzly bears and bulls) on holy days and on Sundays, at Spanish missions as well as elsewhere. And priests and churchmen joined the throng in order to enjoy bloody spectacles of death as the Romans who had cheered the massacre of early Christians.”

The same writer continues:

“Practically all of the so-called outlaws had been mutilated by man. Bloody Paws, a Wyoming grizzly, when killed carried three old bullet wounds. Old Mose of Colorado had escaped from a steel trap but left two toes between the iron jaws. Three Toes had lost two toes in a trap. Red Robber was a Utah bear: When skinned, the hunters found two old bullet wounds, an arrowhead imbedded in his back, and many scars on his head, neck, chest, and sides. The Bandit, an Oregon grizzly killed in Idaho, had a recent bullet wound high on the hump of his left shoulder. A grizzly killed in Idaho had a recent bullet wound high on his rump and another in the fleshy part of his back.”

One hunter reported having seen a mother grizzly and her two cubs. He shot the mother, whereupon she charged him. In the fight that followed, he cut her belly open with his hunting knife and when she had lost so much blood that she could no longer stand up she crawled back to her cubs and tenderly fondled them in a last attempt to console them until she was dead. The hunter confessed: “I was sorry that I had shot so affectionate a mother.”

Disruption and Imprisonment

Your giant dams span our rivers, your behemoth, earth-moving bulldozers are changing the natural terrain, disrupting our dens and hiding places. Your polluting oil spills and pesticides wreck our feeding grounds and cut off our source of livelihood. And the wastes from your cities, mines, mills and smelters poison our streams, making life unbearable. You leave us no chance!

How thoughtless and ruthless you have been! You have taken our pelts to dress your lovely ladies, and our heads you have mounted as trophies in your billiard halls and drawing rooms. How careful were you when you slaughtered millions of defenseless mother seals with their newborn babies on the frozen ice floes in the sea? And what about the great auk, that flightless bird, whom your hunters killed to the last remaining member just for its prized feathers? We grizzlies believe that you could have been more humane.

Furthermore, do you know how it feels to be left to freeze in a trap, with broken bones, while waiting in agonizing terror, for perhaps days, before being dispatched by the blow of your captor? We speechless animals have few advocates to plead our cause and there are no medical facilities for our wounded who must crawl away to die in silent misery. We acknowledge your prerogative to hunt us, but please, be more considerate​—or use a camera!

And do you show empathy when you imprison us in your zoos in restricting cages to be gawked at? How do you think we feel? Would you like to change places with us?

What of the Future?

There are no convictions among animals about constitutional rights or wrongs; we do not understand such matters. However, humans claim for themselves a higher intelligence, and you claim to be the custodians of just laws. Therefore, it must be that you have been endowed with understanding and responsibilities far beyond our intellect. If so, we wish you would exercise them.

Of course, in fairness, we agree that not all of you are guilty. Some of you have been very kind, and for that we are thankful. But in the main, we grizzlies feel that ours is not the only record that is grisly! It could all have been so different.

We bring this matter to your attention because, if there is no change, your present course could well lead to the total destruction of all life and to the ruination of the earth. It is that serious, and we are greatly concerned. We love the earth as our home, and if you humans will quit being so greedy we will be happy to share it with you. So how about moving over and giving us more room?

Some progressive steps have already been taken at conservation, but the results are still insufficient. There are large areas around the world with terrain that is unsuitable for industry or cultivation. Such territories could be turned into vast sanctuaries where animals might live in freedom and where you could maintain a balanced control of our numbers and where we, in turn, could be visited by you in our own environment. Do you get the picture?

So, come on, folks. Let’s shake a paw and be friends.

Was There a Prehistoric “Stone Age”?

DOES mention of the “Stone Age” make you think of a so-called “prehistoric period” in man’s existence? Evolutionists say the “Stone Age” began about one and a half million years ago and lasted down until about 3000 B.C.E. A dictionary describes it as: “The age in the history of mankind (preceding the bronze and iron ages) marked by the use of stone implements.”

Does this mean that the Bible errs when it speaks of mankind as being on earth for only about 6,000 years? No. The Bible is not wrong. This is readily apparent when one considers how evolutionists arrive at “Stone Age” dates.

Evolutionists admit there are no written records from the “Stone Age.” That is why it is called pre-, or “before,” history. So they must use assumptions as the basis for their dates. Assuming that man slowly evolved, they reason that man first used “primitive” tools. Gradually, they believe, through thousands of years, he employed metal ones. Thus, when an evolutionist finds an oval-shaped “pebble tool,” he interprets it to be older than a flint “blade tool.”

Dating by certain radioactive clocks cannot corroborate evolutionists’ claims. The reliability of these clock instruments is seriously questioned. Results are open to wide speculation.

The Bible is not in error, therefore, simply because evolutionists place arbitrary ages on stone tools to try to satisfy a theory. The Bible alone provides a carefully dated record back to the time of man’s creation. Because of the Bible’s reliability in historical matters, we are encouraged to accept what it says about man’s beginning. It makes no allowance for man evolving through thousands of years of “pre-history.”

But can the thousands of stone axes, arrowheads and suchlike items indicating ‘stone tool cultures’ be fit into the 6,000-year Biblical record of history? Yes. Consider the explanation in the book of Genesis.

In the seventh generation after Adam’s creation, the Bible says, lived a man named Tubal-cain. He was “the forger of every sort of tool of copper and iron.” Possibly men used only stone implements before Tubal-cain’s time. But within his lifetime copper and iron were being forged. This does not necessarily mean that such abilities were possessed by all men.​—Gen. 4:22.

Then, sometime after the Noachian flood of 2370/2369 B.C.E., Jehovah scattered mankind to the ends of the earth. Many groups were isolated from the ‘mainstream’ of mankind by cultural, linguistic and geographic barriers. Logically, some of these people carried far from Shinar in Mesopotamia a knowledge of how to work metals.​—Gen. 11:1-9.

Many of their contemporaries, however, likely did not possess this skill. Or they may have settled where metal ores were scarce. Consider, for example, the first groups that may have made their way from the central European mountains to the lowland moraine territory of Denmark. They would not have found a great deal of metals, though later on some did learn to work the region’s bog iron ore. Primarily they utilized the abundance of flint in that area, building up a stone-tool culture. Therefore, both stone- and metal-working peoples thrived at the same time. But this should not seem surprising.

Stone- and metal-working peoples coexist right down to our time. World Book Encyclopedia says: “In some isolated parts of the world, almost every stone-toolmaking technique known in the past continued in use into the A.D. 1900’s.” Yes, while modern technology rockets some men to the moon, others continue to use stone tools.

But are these modern stone-toolmaking peoples part ‘animal,’ as depicted in “Stone Age” drawings? Well, consider the Tasaday tribe in the Philippine Islands. Writer P. Durdin describes them in the October 8, 1972, New York Times Magazine: “Though the Tasaday are literally ‘cave men’ and ‘stone age’ men​—they live in caves and until recently used only stone implements—​they hardly resemble the hairy, half-crouched, apelike primitives with receding foreheads and brutal expressions normally conjured up by these phrases.” They are human.

Nor do modern ‘stone’ people lack intelligence. Careful minds are often revealed in their social and legal customs. Dr. G. C. Baldwin in Stone Age Peoples Today discusses the Arunta of Australia. He says: “Arunta social and ceremonial organization is not easy to understand. Their marriage regulations, for example, are the most complicated of any in the whole world.” Concluding his study of many similar peoples, Baldwin emphasizes: “The fact that these people differ from us in so many ways does not of itself mean that they are backward.”​—Pages 32, 172.

Moreover, intelligence is evident in what might be called technical abilities. Vladimír Kozák lived among the Héta in Brazil. He says they are “as primitive a group of Indians as I knew of in all of South America.” Kozák describes the technical skill necessary to manufacture one stone ax. Regarding the ax’s efficiency, he notes: “Almost any tree could be felled with a stone ax. I have seen trees four feet in diameter that the Héta had felled to serve as a bridge across a deep stream.” Carefully made stone tools once did all their work.

Nevertheless, the Héta were introduced to the metal ax from outside the jungle. Were they too backward to see its advantages? Did it take many generations of evolving for them to start using metal tools? Kozák answers: The Héta “gives up his stone tool without the slightest hesitancy. Indeed, the change occurs so swiftly that there is usually no one around to note it.”​—“Stone Age Revisited,” Natural History, October 1972.

Yes, there are stone-tool peoples today. Similar groups of people have coexisted with “advanced” cultures through much of man’s history. This does not conflict with the Bible. Rather, it vindicates what the Scriptures say regarding the scattering of men throughout the earth.

Is It Truth?

● Some people insist that they do not tell lies, yet they scheme to present the truth in such a way that no one recognizes it.

Why the U.S. Dollar Is Buying Less

IN FEBRUARY the United States dollar took another plunge downward when it was devalued by 10 percent. This was its second devaluation in about fourteen months. Why did it happen?

To understand the basic reasons for the dollar’s recent slide in value, we must look back at the international role it has played since the end of World War II.

The Dollar’s Role After World War II

The United States came out of World War II as the wealthiest nation on earth. Because of its huge gold reserves the dollar became the basis of international fixed exchange rates. In other words, the exact value of other currencies was expressed in terms of their worth in relation to the U.S. gold-backed dollar.

This had, at the time, certain advantages. American factories had not been destroyed during the war as had those in Europe. Europe needed American products. America needed to keep its huge wartime work force employed. A fixed rate of exchange between various currencies, based on the dollar, speeded up rebuilding the war-torn world. Large American corporations could buy and sell internationally, knowing that foreign currencies would stay fairly constant in value over a period of time.

For a few years after the war the U.S. prospered. Wealthy corporations sold abroad to former ally and enemy. As American businesses prospered, they, in turn, brought the U.S. government increased tax revenue.

Then what happened to reverse this process? Why has the dollar declined in value?

The Dollar’s Decline

In a phrase, there has developed what is called a ‘balance of payments’ deficit. That is, Americans are spending more money outside the country than they are bringing into it. As we have seen, American industry has spent huge sums abroad. Also, American tourists carry dollars overseas. The maintenance of American military operations and foreign aid send yet more dollars outside U.S. borders.

But at the same time Europe has been growing stronger industrially and economically. European nations are making more of their own products rather than buying them from the U.S. Further, more and more goods are sold to the U.S. Now the U.S. actually imports more than it exports. The country buys more than it sells.

For twenty years the dollar’s problems have mounted. America’s Time magazine summarizes:

“The root cause of dollar weakness is that ever since the early 1950s the U.S. has been living beyond its means in the world. Consumers, businessmen, tourists and the Government have been spending tens of billions every year to build factories in Europe, buy Japanese cars and cameras, bask in the Riviera sunshine, dispense foreign aid, station troops round the globe and wage the costly war in Viet Nam.”

Understandably, foreigners slowly lost confidence in the dollar’s worth. Nevertheless, foreign central banks always bought excess American dollars in their countries. Why?

To keep the number of circulating dollars reduced. Too many dollars would lower its price. If the dollar’s value fell, the local currency, based on the dollar, would increase in value. Then, any item the foreign country was exporting would cost more on the major U.S. market. Americans would stop buying. Sales would drop off. Business and government would suffer. That could not be allowed to happen.

Thus, dollars continued to accumulate outside the U.S. By February 1973 a pool of up to 80 billion dollars is estimated to have collected.

Money ‘speculators’ holding large sums in American dollars abroad have added to the dollar’s problem. Corporations and even individuals sell their dollars for another strong currency, usually German marks or Japanese yens. When the value of those currencies rises, the speculators sell once more. But in this transaction they buy more dollars than they sold.

When there is a massive sale of dollars by many speculators at one time, a crisis is created. Foreign governments do not have the resources to keep pace with the selling. What can best be done in such a circumstance? Devalue the dollar!

The Dollar Devalued

Devaluation means dropping the value of the U.S. dollar while allowing the value of strong foreign currencies to remain stable. This is what happened for the first time back in December 1971. But further measures were necessary! One devaluation was not enough. Why not?

Because the basic reasons for the devaluation lingered. The U.S. continued to import more than it exported. Further, inside the country, inflation persisted; basic commodities such as food were expensive and rising in price.

Thus a second devaluation was necessary in February 1973. Did that still the fears outside America? No! In fact, right after the second devaluation one of the largest sales of U.S. dollars in history occurred. Further adjustments were obviously necessary. What was done?

The Floating Dollar

The United States agreed with thirteen major non-Communist countries no longer to have a fixed currency exchange rate. Rather, dollar rates would henceforth float, that is, find their own value in each nation as determined by supply and demand.

At least six European nations agreed to a “joint float.” They established a fixed rate of exchange among themselves but floated as a bloc against the U.S. dollar. Speculators are discouraged by the floating dollar system. Previously they knew in advance that certain exchange rates would prevail; but that guarantee is now gone.

All of this is not to say that the dollar no longer occupies a central position in the financial world. It does. One strong reason for its clinging to that spot is candidly noted in the March 19, 1973, issue of Newsweek, a U.S. periodical:

“The U.S. also still possesses the ultimate ‘financial’ reserves of all: the nuclear deterrent and military might that alone insure, as one high German official put it, ‘our freedom, our entire way of life.’”

But for now, the net result of what has occurred since late 1971 is a dollar that buys less at home and abroad. How will these alterations be reflected in average daily buying?

Effects on Those Using the Dollar

For Americans the long-range effects of recent economic moves remain to be discovered. But the immediate result is increased prices for foreign items and services.

One popular German-made automobile rose from $2,059 to over $2,200 in cost after the February devaluation of the dollar. Japanese cars will go up even more in the U.S.

Vacations and travel will be more expensive as the dollar buys less lodging, food and transportation in Europe, Russia and Japan.

However, the hardest blow for many American families is the soaring cost of necessities. Food prices, for instance, already high, can be expected to continue rising due to devaluation. Why? Because emphasis is now on exporting goods; selling, not buying, is being stressed to try to build up the balance of trade in the U.S. favor. As food is sold overseas, less is left for Americans to buy, driving the price of the smaller supply higher.

Oil​—another virtual necessity in the modern world—​comes more and more from the Middle East and South America. It will cost even more American dollars. Thereafter, heating oil, gasoline and eventually electricity will no doubt be costlier.

Necessities, too, are affected in another way. U.S. industry uses raw material from foreign sources. Bauxite for aluminum comes from Jamaica and Surinam; wool for coats, sweaters and suits is from Australia. Since the U.S. dollar buys less in each of those foreign countries, the finished American product will surely show a corresponding rise in price.

Will the floating dollar solve its problems for good? Many economists welcome the loss of fixed exchange rates. But most also confess that the future is uncertain. The current ‘floating’ rates appear, at best, to be a transitional move. Says Harvard economics professor H. S. Houthakker: “The search for a more stable international monetary system should not be abandoned.” Experts are not certain what changes may be ahead for the dollar and other currencies.

Regardless of what future moves economists may make, there must be further great changes before mankind can ever enjoy real security. The changes required are far more extensive than what men can accomplish. But God has promised to bring them about, not by patching up the present selfish arrangement, but by wiping it out and bringing in a completely new system of things, one in which righteousness will control.​—2 Pet. 3:11-13.

That God has the power to do such a thing, there can be no doubt. Furthermore, in the Bible he has specifically stated that it is his purpose to do so, and in this generation. Does your heart yearn for life in such a righteous new order? If so, ask Jehovah’s witnesses for more information. They will be glad to help you to learn about it, free of charge.

“In the Name of God”

● In his book The Men I Killed, Brigadier General F. P. Crozier related his experiences in World War I and pointed out: “Strange things are done in the name of God, and God is put to strange uses. Military force adopts Him as its protector and inspiration, and so every military campaign becomes a justifiable war, a war of right, with God popularly elected to the side of self-described ‘justice.’” Concerning the clergymen, he notes: “When war breaks out, the pulpit is transformed immediately into a recruiting platform of the subtlest kind. And this kind of military ritual goes on on both sides.”​—Pp. 176, 179.

Yet, concerning the early Christians, Dr. William Storey of the Theology Department at Notre Dame wrote in Ave Maria for August 9, 1969: “The pre-Constantinian Church [before 325 C.E.] was devoted to a nonviolent resolution of human conflict.” So the earliest Christians did not join in war, but, rather, were peaceable.​—Rom. 12:18.

Gilead Graduation Stresses Expansion

PUSH on with continued preaching of the good news of the Kingdom! Step up the disciple-making work! This was the dominant spirit of the Gilead missionary school’s fifty-fourth graduation exercises, held at Jehovah’s Witnesses Assembly Hall in New York city, Monday, March 5, 1973.

The forty-nine students had come from six countries to attend the School. All successfully completed the intensive five-month course, each receiving a diploma of merit before an audience of about 2,000 friends and relatives. They were assigned to twenty-three lands, including Canada, Ireland, Japan, Taiwan, Chile, countries in Africa, New Zealand, the Philippines and other islands.

The keynote was struck by F.W. Franz, vice-president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, when he posed the questions, ‘Have Jehovah’s witnesses reached their peak, now that the end of this system of things is so near?’ ‘Will the trend be downhill from now on?’ Not at all, was the emphatic answer. Then he quoted from Colossians chapter 1, citing the example of the first-century Christians and their forward-looking view. He pointed out that they did not diminish their activities because Jerusalem’s end was near​—they zealously increased in vigorous preaching.

N. H. Knorr, the Watchtower Society’s president, then further encouraged the prospective missionaries as he spoke on the subject “Your Faith Is Proved by Your Lips.” He drew heavily on the Bible letter of James, showing the need of Christian works in order to prove faith. The many examples of faith found in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, all made it clear that those approved for their faith were energetic in works to God’s praise and for the good of their fellowman.

Gilead an Effective Instrument

The Watchtower Bible School of Gilead has received international attention since its establishment in February 1943. It has graduated 5,332 students, a large number of them from foreign countries. These have been sent to well over a hundred lands, including remote islands of the sea. In many of these places there were none of Jehovah’s witnesses, or only a few. The graduates, however, followed the apostle Paul’s advice to Timothy: “The things you heard from me with the support of many witnesses, these things commit to faithful men, who, in turn, will be adequately qualified to teach others.”​—2 Tim. 2:2.

The training received at the School enabled the graduates to teach the good news to the natives in their own languages. The response was marvelous, tens of thousands hearing with open hearts, changing their lives, often from pagan customs, forsaking their gods, their immoral or polygamous life, and dedicating themselves to Jehovah in true worship. (Col. 3:5-11) The graduates trained them in preaching and teaching, in congregational organization and in arranging local and even international assemblies.

Evidence that God’s spirit has backed up the work of the Gilead missionaries is seen in a simple comparison. In 1945, before missionaries from the School had had time to make their influence felt, there were, in the world, 127,478 of Jehovah’s witnesses actively proclaiming the Kingdom. Of these, 65,207 were residents of lands outside the United States. Twenty-seven years later, in 1972, there were, in the world, 1,596,442 engaged in this preaching work, 1,178,203 of these in countries outside the United States. This represents, for the world, an elevenfold increase, and for countries outside the United States, to which the missionaries were primarily sent, more than seventeenfold!

Of course, to Jehovah the Almighty God goes the credit for this expansion of his Kingdom interests in the earth, for, as the apostle stated: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God kept making it grow.” (1 Cor. 3:6) But the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead has indeed been an instrument in Jehovah’s hand, directed by his spirit, in training missionaries to go to far-flung fields. It has equipped them to have a hand in gathering together and training nuclei of Kingdom proclaimers so that they, in turn, have helped hundreds of thousands of others to become strong servants of Jehovah.

The Motivation to Be Missionaries

What moves people, most of them young and healthy, to take up a work in a strange land, often to sacrifice the comfortable life they could have in their own country? In the new land they have to learn a new language, call on the people and study with interested persons in their homes, patiently take time to help them, often teaching these meek ones to read and write. Yet they are eager to do this. Why?

These missionaries take seriously the words of Christ, who said: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, . . . teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:19, 20) They see the great spiritual need the people in these nations have, who have been “skinned and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd” by their religious leaders. (Matt. 9:36) Typical of the attitude of the students, one of them expresses himself:

“My wife and I began to think seriously about what we were doing with our lives after hearing a talk by Brother Knorr, in which he discussed how Witnesses in countries such as the United States could be caught up with easy living, performing only token service in the field ministry. We began to ask ourselves, What are we looking to as our future? Here we were, with no family responsibilities, working, both of us, yet wondering on payday which bills would get paid. Yes, we were seemingly satisfied to continue in our routine, spending some time in preaching each month, but certainly in a position to expand our service to Jehovah.

“We prayerfully considered the matter of entering the pioneer [full-time preaching] work and, a few months later, I had quit my full-time job, we had moved out of our apartment and began to engage in pioneer service September 1, 1967. We looked for a place where there was a real need for more Kingdom publishers, and moved to a town in Kentucky.

“In our five years there we met a real challenge, but it was a great aid in our spiritual growth, teaching us to lean upon Jehovah and trust in him. We worked hard to qualify by increasing our preaching and teaching activity, and were finally invited to Gilead School’s 54th Class, that began in October, 1972.

“The School has provided a faith-inspiring experience, giving us a broad background of Bible history and prophecy as well as deep, meaty information as to the doctrines taught in God’s Word. It is so good to see that our efforts as individuals are a part of the whole work being accomplished to Jehovah’s praise. Thus we find great satisfaction in our labors.”

Many of the students said that, from the time of their learning God’s purposes, it had been their desire to attend Gilead School, not primarily for the education it offers, but so that they could effectively serve as missionaries, helping as many as possible to come out of the darkness of this world to God’s marvelous light.

[Picture on page 24]

Fifty-fourth Graduating Class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead

In the list below, rows are numbered from front to back and names are listed from left to right in each row.

(1) Breyer, S.; Burgos, S.; Fix, N.; Toguchi, Y.; Ploeger, B.; Salazar, R.; Niebergall. A.; Toy, V. (2) Tiganish, D.; Jess, C.; Myers, J.; Clair, B.; Bean, D.; Makin, M.; Richter, I.; Andrews, M. (3) Mannings, I.; Pichurski, O.; Jess, K.; Smallwood, R.; Pompl, P.; Fry, C.; Angelo, Y.; Madsen, M. (4) Niebergall, W.; Salazar, R.; Garza, A.; Mihank, L.; Malpass, D.; Makin, R.; Breyer, M.; Skantz, D. (5) Nickerson, G.; Latham, C.; Myers, J.; Bean, R.; Burgos, J.; Angelo, M.; Kasten, W.; Fix, T. (6) Ploeger, S.; Andrews, P.; Richter, F.; Shanafelt, G.; Tiganish, R.; LeVenton, L.; Oehm, R.; Mroz, T.; Sørensen, N.

What Is the Bible’s View?

Is It Right to Eat Blood?

LIFE is closely associated with blood. It is the blood that transports needed nourishment and oxygen to all parts of the body, and carries away the waste products. Blood being so intimately involved in the life processes, the “soul” or life of a creature is referred to in the Bible as being “in the blood.”​—Lev. 17:11.

Since life is sacred, blood is also sacred. Respect for the sanctity of blood is therefore respect for life. The Giver of life, Jehovah God, has laid command upon mankind to respect life, including that of animals. When he permitted Noah and his family to add flesh to their diet, he stated: “Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul​—its blood—​you must not eat.” (Gen. 9:3, 4) Having descended from Noah through his three sons, all of us are under that command.

In the first century C.E. this prohibition respecting blood was repeated by formal letter to Christians. The occasion was the settling of a controversy as to whether non-Jews who embraced Christianity were to be circumcised and placed under the commands of the Mosaic law. The evidence presented as well as the guidance of God’s holy spirit made it plain that circumcision was not to be imposed upon non-Jews. The decision, composed in written form by the apostles and other elders of the Christian congregation at Jerusalem, read, in part: “The holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication.”​—Acts 15:28, 29.

This was no temporary direction to appease Jewish believers but it involved things necessary for gaining salvation. Those who persist in idolatry and fornication are debarred from entrance into the Kingdom. (1 Cor. 6:9, 10) Disrespect for the sanctity of blood is just as serious. Why? Because men really do not have the right to deprive any creature of life, for they are unable to restore that life. Accordingly, for them to take life without acting in harmony with God’s command respecting blood means taking God’s property, that is, the life represented by the blood. It means making themselves responsible for taking the life of the creature in defiance of God.

Even many who do not know God’s law about blood are not wholly without guilt when they show disrespect for its sanctity. Is it not true that most people have a feeling of revulsion when it comes to drinking blood? They have an awareness that it is not fitting to drink blood. That internal sense or conscience is reason enough to abstain from blood. As the apostle Paul pointed out at Romans 2:14, 15: “Whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them and, between their own thoughts, they are being accused or even excused.”

It is also noteworthy that from the time of Adam’s creation until the statement on blood made at the spirit’s direction in the first century C.E. no faithful servant of Jehovah God had ever eaten blood. From the time of Adam until the flood of Noah’s day there was no divine authority for eating meat and so there was no need for a specific prohibition respecting the eating of blood. With divine permission being granted to eat meat, the prohibition on blood was announced and continued in force without any indication that this was but a temporary measure. In view of that, no faithful servant of Jehovah God would take it upon himself to say that the prohibition about blood had been lifted.

Historical evidence proves that those professing Christianity in the first few centuries abstained from blood. They did not use it in any shape or form. Minucius Felix, thought to be the oldest of the Christian apologists, writes: “So much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food.” Tertullian, of the second and third centuries C.E., states: “Blush for your vile ways before the Christians, who have not even the blood of animals at their meals of simple and natural food; who abstain from things strangled and that die a natural death . . . . To clench the matter with a single example, you tempt Christians with sausages of blood, just because you are perfectly aware that the thing by which you thus try to get them to transgress they hold unlawful.” In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius quotes a woman who professed Christianity and died a martyr’s death: “‘How,’ said she [contradicting the blasphemers of Christians], ‘could such as these devour children, who considered it unlawful even to taste the blood of irrational animals?’”

In later centuries, however, the situation changed among professed Christians. In the eighth century C.E. the pope of Rome took action to repeal the apostolic decree prohibiting the eating of blood. From that time onward churches recognizing his authority did not treat the Biblical injunction about blood seriously.

Today many people have no regard for the sanctity of blood. Millions do not find it objectionable to eat blood sausages and blood pudding or to use whole blood in cooking. In some lands it is difficult, if not impossible, to get sausages that are free from blood. Businesses mix blood into ground meats and other food items.

Slaughtering processes in various parts of the world show no regard for the sanctity of blood. In some lands pigs are killed by sticking them through the belly and then stopping up the hole. The animal thus bleeds to death internally but the blood can be drawn off and used for other purposes. Often chickens are slaughtered by snapping the neck in such a way as to break the jugular vein. This causes the neck of the chicken to swell up with blood, but it does not result in proper bleeding.

Many hunters fail to bleed animals properly. Maintaining that when deer are shot blood collects in the thorax, some hunters take no immediate steps to drain the blood from the animals.

While disregard for the sanctity of blood may be prevalent in your locality, how do you feel about it? Do you make reasonable personal investigation so that you do not violate God’s law on blood? Do you make sure that the meat you use comes from animals that have been bled properly? For the person seeking to be a faithful servant of Jehovah God, abstaining from blood is a matter of no little importance. So if we desire divine approval, we must demonstrate ourselves to be persons who uphold the sanctity of life and blood.2

Watching the World

Churches Emphasize Money

◆ As money grows tighter the churches put even more stress on it rather than on the spiritual condition of their flocks. Mrs. A. Babalola points this out in a recent issue of Nigeria’s Sunday Times: “Christianity seems to be losing its hold on its members and yet the fold is ‘hungry.’ . . . The preoccupation with how to get money has become a bane on the church. . . . Why must pews be sold to the wealthy members of the church when Christianity preaches equality before God? . . . Precious time that should have been useful in delivering a much-needed sermon to ‘hungry Christians’ is wasted on reading out long lists of defaulters in paying church dues . . . Hundreds turn away disappointed from our churches every Sunday. They have come hoping to share in the spiritual feast at the feet of Christ but somehow they never get fed. There is always an impediment​—the huge monster—​commercialism.”

Green Revolution Wilts

◆ A few years back the Green Revolution was predicted, because of its high-yield seeds, to end hunger forever. Has it been successful? Says Columbia anthropologist M. Harris in a recent issue of Natural History: “The Green Revolution has not brought any significant respite from hunger and malnutrition in Asia. Despite a total of more than 50 million acres planted in high-yield varieties of rice and wheat, grain production fell to dangerously low levels throughout Asia last year. . . . India . . . may be on the verge of a disaster. . . . India’s [per person] grain production has fallen below the levels of 1960-61, which was before the Green Revolution began. . . . You have to be brutally frank with some experts, you have to push them into realizing it: the Green Revolution is a hoax.”

Abortion Effects

◆ A pair of British researchers, Mr. and Mrs. A. Wynn, claim that each year hundreds of children are born seriously handicapped because the mother has had a previous abortion. Wynn says: “A man is more likely to have a sterile wife or a stillborn or premature or defective child if he marries a girl who has had an induced abortion.” Gynecologist John Peel agrees with the Wynns’ findings: “I have no doubt whatever that there is a percentage of serious consequences, particularly on patients who are having their first pregnancy terminated.” At the same time a Gallup poll of British nurses shows that two of every three involved in abortion operations find their work so upsetting as to consider withdrawing their services. There were 156,714 abortions in Britain in 1972.

Gasoline Shortage

◆ U.S. drivers may be inconvenienced by gasoline shortages this summer. Limited gasoline may also raise prices. The shortage results from more demands for crude oil. It, in turn, is increasing in cost due to limited supply and higher drilling costs. Much crude oil was diverted to make heating oil during last winter’s crisis. This cut gasoline stocks. Some industry spokesmen anticipate future government rationing.

Medicine and Human Kindness

◆ Despite advances, one of the areas where the medical profession can still make improvement is referred to in the Westchester Medical Bulletin: “The simple, uncomplicated term human kindness is not even heard in clinical conversation. . . . The best and most modern medical care is defective if it is lacking in this simple element of human kindness. One may call it empathy, sympathy, compassion, or any other term, but it is essentially that crucial element of humanness that we dare not take for granted.”

Teachers Under Attack

◆ Increasingly, U.S. schoolteachers are the object of student attack. Recent reports indicate that Detroit averages one assault per day. At some schools teachers come to work in groups and carefully keep their purses under coats. Herb Cooke, executive director of Classroom Teachers of Dallas, says students call teachers “every four letter word in the book.” A group of girls there recently kicked one teacher in the back; another student, smashing light fixtures with a hammer, threatened an observing teacher: “You didn’t see a thing.” A New York Daily News article observes regarding that city: “School violence over the past several years has increased to the point where, in many schools, education has become all but impossible.”

Chaplains’ Manual

◆ In March 1973 the latest Catholic manual for chaplains was issued. In the foreword of Vademecum for the Priests Serving the Military Vicariate of the United States of America, Terence Cardinal Cooke of New York writes: “My admiration has ever grown for the important work that you are doing for the spiritual life of our military personnel and their families. In fact, I do not know of any greater apostolic work than that of a chaplain in the armed forces of the United States. . . . Praying that God may continue to bless you in your dedicated ministry, I am gratefully yours in Christ.” But does not the Bible say: “You shall not kill”?​—The Catholic Jerusalem Bible at Romans 13:9.

Sex and U.S. Teen-Agers

◆ Fifty-two percent of all U.S. 13- to 19-year-olds recently surveyed had had sexual intercourse. The report, Adolescent Sexuality in Contemporary America by Robert G. Sorenson, is based on over 600 interviews and questionnaires. Most were children of parents in the $10,000-or-more-per-year income bracket. A majority of parents, the youngsters reveal, have not discussed sex with them other than warning of possible pregnancy. Most sexual activity by teen-agers takes place in the home. Some parents even know about their youngsters’ sexual activity but refuse to instruct or discipline them; other parents seem willingly ignorant of their youngsters’ views and acts. The adolescents describe the churches’ attitude toward sex as irrelevant. “The Sorenson Report,” one reviewer says, “brings out very clearly that whether elders like it or not, teen sexual attitudes and actions . . . have radically changed in the last decade.”

Church of England Declines

◆ London’s Westminster Abbey is considered the pride of the Church of England. But is the Bible really taught there? A Seattle Post-Intelligencer writer visited recently and reported this: “When the cleric at the lectern read the Garden of Eden story with enthusiasm, two in my row began giggling over whether he wasn’t an ‘old, frustrated Shakespearean thespian.’ . . . He used illustrations concerning Auschwitz, Voltaire and Socrates, and concluded: ‘I suspect that Adam and Eve at the end of their days never regretted they left the Garden.’ Delivered from that very pulpit during another age, that sermon might well have caused all of England to rock with a heresy trial.” But today? Few even care. According to a newly published book, The Church of England in Crisis, by priest-journalist T. Beeson: “The church’s influence has declined to a point lower than anything experienced since England became a Christian nation.”

Farm Profits

◆ Food prices continue to rise. But how much of the money goes to farmers? For each dollar Americans spent on food in 1972, 33.4 percent, on the average, went to the farmer; this compares with 32.2 percent in 1971. The remainder of the food dollar is divided like this: 33.1 percent to retailers; 22.1 percent to processors; 6.1 percent to wholesalers; 5.3 percent to transportation firms. The farmer’s percentage, of course, depends on volume and the item produced. Thus, chicken retails for 41.5c per pound; 20c goes to the farmer. But on a 38c can of peaches, the farmer only earns about 7c.

Project Tiger

◆ The Indian government has launched Project Tiger in an effort to save the country’s remaining 1,800 animals; there were 40,000 in 1900. Shooting has been only partly responsible for tiger decimation. Expanded cultivation, irrigation schemes and the clearing of forests for timber and pulpwood have crowded the tiger and his prey out of their home. Russia now has less than 200 tigers; Malaysia, Burma and Thailand may, all together, have 2,000. But, says W. Schwartz in the Guardian, the Indian project will not be easy: “Saving an animal species in a land where so many humans need help is an uphill task.”

Catholic Doubts

◆ More and more Catholics are at odds with what their church officially teaches. Over twelve hundred members of Philadelphia’s St. Peter Celestine Parish were recently surveyed. Results show that about 68 percent would not object to married priests; 63 percent say few people would attend Mass if it were not obligatory; 54 percent claim the pope is not infallible. Clear teachings of the Bible are also doubted: 55 percent believe “the virgin birth of Jesus is meant to be taken symbolically, not biologically.”

Oil’s Origin

◆ A one-hundred-year-old theory is that oil was made from minute organisms, slowly transformed chemically. But many ask how so much petroleum could possibly have been formed from such tiny living things. Another theory has been newly published by L. Gaucher in Chemical Technology: “I suggest that oil could have been formed, in much larger quantities than was ever considered plausible before . . . long before there was any plant or animal life at all. . . . Instead of assuming that oil was formed under surface and atmospheric conditions similar to those that we find on earth today, as the organic theory does, I suggest that oil was formed through chemical reactions of components of the atmosphere at the time when the earth was still hot and devoid of life.” Gaucher, a chemical engineer, suggests that an “oil rain” brought this mixture to earth.

Communist in a Baptist Church

◆ The ‘thaw’ in cold-war relations between the U.S. and Russia is affecting even so-called fundamentalist churches. Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., recently invited a Communist Russian diplomat to speak. The journal The Christian Century says: “We applaud the efforts of our Southern Baptist brethren.”

Paper Demand, Cost Up

◆ The demand for paper is now exceeding supply. As a consequence, prices are edging up and orders must be submitted early. Many plants have been closed down for environmental reasons, partly explaining the shortage. Some paper companies are now dropping their less expensive grades. The journal Industry Week tells why: “Producers know they can sell any grade of paper they make, so they are dropping less costly lines to increase their profits.”

Sight-seeing Americans

◆ A combined total of about 20 million persons visited the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., in 1972. So says the recently released Smithsonian Year 1972. It also shows that the capitol building has seven to ten million visitors annually. In New York the Metropolitan Museum is said to draw some 2.25 million every year, while the American Museum of Natural History attracts 3.2 million. Disneyland, California, claims 9.5 million visited there last year, and Florida’s Walt Disney World is said to have hosted about 7 million. The National Park Service claims that as many as 200 million persons visited all their public installations last year.

Australia Drops Draft

◆ The military draft has been abolished in Australia. Draft evaders will be released from jail; draftees in uniform may be immediately discharged if they desire. The draft law is not being repealed, but the government will simply not exercise its option.

Uplifting Music and Songs

Enjoy 119 delightful musical compositions on long-playing records. These match the songs on Scriptural themes in the songbook “Singing and Accompanying Yourselves with Music in Your Hearts.”

The full set of ten long-playing, 12-inch records can be had for $8.50. The songbook is 20c.

Please send me the following items I have checked and for which I enclose $‐‐‐‐‐‐ [ ] One set of ten musical records​—$8.50. [ ] One songbook “Singing and Accompany Yourselves with Music in Your Hearts”​—20c.

The Order in the Universe​—From Where Does It Come?

Our solar system, the sun with its orbiting planets and their moons, reflects impressive order and harmony. From where does this order come?

Could it have all happened by chance? Or was an intelligent Creator responsible? How did man himself get here?

You will find of intense interest the book Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation? This hard-covered book of 192 pages will be sent to you, postpaid, for 25c.

Please send me Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation? for which I enclose 25c.