June 8

When Others Are Unkind​—How Will You React?

HAS anyone said or done something unkind to you today? Perhaps at work or at school someone was rude, making some insulting or demeaning remark. Or, while you were shopping, a person may have crowded in ahead of you in line.

Similar things may occur in one’s own family. One member may speak slightingly or disrespectfully of another. Or he may be rude or unkind in some other way.

How do you react when these things occur?

Wise to Retaliate?

Is there not an immediate inclination to retaliate? But have you found that this really helps? The fact is, many marriages have deteriorated and broken up because mates retaliate. An opposite course is much wiser.

For consider: When tired or irritated, have you not said or done unkind things to persons you love? We all have. And have we not wished later that we could retract what was said or done?

But if retaliation to the unkindness follows, does not a cycle often start? Yes, unkindness quickly follows unkindness, and hostilities grow. Some persons may feel that they should repay injury with injury to keep others from taking advantage of them. But, time and again, experience has shown how unwise this is.

Feuds can result. Sometimes these have lasted so long that participants do not even recall how the strife began. Even whole nations and peoples have become involved in this cycle of rendering injury for injury.

How can it be stopped? What is the best way to react to unkind remarks or acts?

A Wise Course

An example of nearly 150 years ago illustrates. At that time there was a practice, when one was insulted, to challenge the offender to a duel. Thus, when the American statesman Henry Clay felt insulted by remarks of John Randolph about him in the United States Senate, he challenged Randolph to a pistol duel. Eyewitness Thomas H. Benton wrote:

“I withdrew a little way into the woods, and kept my eyes fixt on Mr. Randolph . . . I saw him receive the fire of Mr. Clay, saw the gravel knocked up . . . saw Mr. Randolph raise his pistol​—discharge it in the air; heard him say, ‘I do not fire at you, Mr. Clay’; and immediately advancing and offering his hand.”

Though pride had moved Randolph unwisely to accept the challenge to a duel, he obviously felt no hatred toward Clay. Yet having taken offense at Randolph’s remarks, Clay was willing to kill him. It could have cost Clay his own life! Truly wise is the inspired advice of God’s Word: “Do not hurry yourself in your spirit to become offended, for the taking of offense is what rests in the bosom of the stupid ones.”​—Eccl. 7:9.

But is it really wise to take abuse from others without retaliating? Well, even though Randolph had at first foolishly let pride put his life in danger, what happened when, after refusing to return fire, he kindly extended his hand to Clay? Benton continues: “He was met in the same spirit. . . . On Monday the parties exchanged cards, and social relations were formally and courteously restored.”

Yes, it is best to show kindness even when others are unkind to you. We are wise if we heed the apostle Peter’s counsel to Christians, in which he urged them not to be “paying back injury for injury or reviling for reviling, but, to the contrary, bestowing a blessing.”​—1 Pet. 3:9.

Others may feel that they should return evil for evil, but the wise course is that recommended by God’s Word: “Return evil for evil to no one. . . . If possible, as far as it depends upon you, be peaceable with all men.” (Rom. 12:17-19) So, instead of trying to get even with those who may be unkind to you, wisely obey the Bible proverb: “Do not say: ‘Just as he did to me, so I am going to do to him. I shall repay each one according to his acting.’”​—Prov. 24:29.

God’s way is to show kindness. “He is kind toward the unthankful and wicked.” So his Son Jesus Christ, who follows His example, urges: “Continue becoming merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:35, 36) This course will be a protection.

For one thing, it can protect you from hurting yourself. How so? Well, what may happen if you angrily retaliate when someone is unkind to you? May not your blood pressure rise, with possible serious consequences to your health? However, remaining calm and under control is good for you. The Bible correctly says: “A calm heart is the life of the fleshly organism.”​—Prov. 14:30.

But, furthermore, your kind reaction may have a good effect on the one who has acted or spoken unkindly to you. You may win the goodwill of that one and preserve peaceful relations. Time and again, the Bible proverb has proved true: “An answer, when mild, turns away rage, but a word causing pain makes anger to come up.”​—Prov. 15:1.

Another Aspect of Matters

What will you do when others are unkind, not to you, but to someone else? At times, many people join in persecuting true Christians. In doing this, they may ‘follow the crowd.’ (Compare Exodus 23:2.) Under such circumstances, would you be kind to persecuted Christians?

A woman in the African country of Malawi faced such a question squarely when persecuted witnesses of Jehovah were fleeing from that land in October 1972. This woman, though of another religion, kindly hid fleeing Witnesses in her home and helped them to cross the river by night to safety in neighboring Mozambique. A traveling overseer of Jehovah’s witnesses told her about Rahab of Jericho, who hid Israelite messengers, with the result that Rahab and her relatives later were spared during the fall of Jericho to the Israelites.

The African woman was encouraged by this Bible account. In time, she and her husband and children crossed the border to study the Bible with the Witnesses. As a result, she symbolized her dedication to serve Jehovah God, and has been richly blessed spiritually.​—Matt. 25:34-40.

So, how will you react when others are unkind? If you prize God’s approval and your own welfare, you will not retaliate. And neither will you ‘follow the crowd’ when others are unkind to those who do not deserve ill treatment.

A Worldwide Flood​—What Does It Mean to You?

UNTIL the middle of the nineteenth century most people in Christendom believed that a worldwide flood had once snuffed out almost all earthly life. The best-known account of this is found in the Holy Bible, which states that only eight humans and selected animals survived the Flood in an “ark,” or a massive floating chest.

Today it is popular for people to view the Flood as a myth. Many Bible scholars claim that it recollects a merely local inundation of ancient times, perhaps in the area of Mesopotamia.

Did the Biblical flood really occur? How extensive was it? What does that event mean to people living today?

The Flood, According to the Bible

The Bible’s first book, Genesis, sets forth the details of the Flood. In Genesis, chapter 6, we note that conditions in the world had deteriorated to the point that God said: “And as for me, here I am bringing the deluge of waters upon the earth to bring to ruin all flesh in which the force of life is active from under the heavens. Everything that is in the earth will expire.” (Gen. 6:17) God provided for the preservation of the human family and the animal kingdom by commanding Noah to build an ark, or oblong chest, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high.​—Gen. 6:14, 15.

Do you realize how large that vessel was? If we calculate according to the conservative estimate of 17.5 inches per cubit, the ark measured 437 feet 6 inches by 72 feet 11 inches by 43 feet 9 inches. As the ark was divided into three levels, it would have a total of more than 91,000 square feet of floor space and an overall capacity of 1.2 million cubic feet. That is enough space for 445 standard railroad boxcars, or 10 trains of some 44 cars each. Would it be necessary to build such a massive structure to survive a local flood? Could not Noah simply have moved to an area unaffected by a local flood? Let us note carefully what the Bible, at Genesis 7:11, 12, 17-24, says as to the extent of the Flood:

“All the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And the downpour upon the earth went on for forty days and forty nights. . . . and the waters kept increasing and began carrying the ark and it was floating high above the earth. And the waters became overwhelming and kept increasing greatly upon the earth, but the ark kept going on the surface of the waters. And the waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered. Up to fifteen cubits the waters overwhelmed them and the mountains became covered.

“So all flesh that was moving upon the earth expired, among the flying creatures and among the domestic animals and among the wild beasts and among all the swarms that were swarming upon the earth, and all mankind. Everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died. Thus he wiped out every existing thing that was on the surface of the ground, from man to beast, to moving animal and to flying creature of the heavens, and they were wiped off the earth; and only Noah and those who were with him in the ark kept on surviving. And the waters continued overwhelming the earth a hundred and fifty days.”

Does a local flood fit that description? The book The Genesis Flood observes: “It would not have been possible for water to cover even one high mountain in the Near East without inundating Australia and America too!” The same publication then quotes the observation of well-known Hebrew scholar S. R. Driver:

“It is manifest that a flood which would submerge Egypt as well as Babylonia must have risen to at least 2000 ft. (the height of the elevated country between them), and have thus been in fact a universal one . . . a flood, on the other hand, which did less than this is not what the Biblical writers describe.”

The Christian Greek Scriptures, which include the testimony of Jesus Christ, confirm that the Flood was world wide. (Matt. 24:37-39; 1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5; 3:6) Does the earth bear testimony to such a deluge? What would one look for?

Effects of Water in Motion

River floods in recent times give an idea of the enormous power of water in motion. A publication of the United States Department of Agriculture says of certain floods in the state of Utah: “[They] destroyed houses . . . and deposited debris to a depth of several feet, including boulders of all sizes up to 20 tons in weight. Some larger boulders were moved about 1000 feet from the canyon’s mouth down a 4° gradient. Several of these weigh from 75 to 100 tons each, and two, previously mentioned, weigh 150 and 210 tons respectively.”

The opening of “the floodgates of the heavens” does not refer to a simple rainstorm. (Gen. 7:11) It meant the pouring down of thousands of millions of gallons of water that had been suspended in the upper atmosphere as a globe-encircling water canopy, which the Bible called “the waters . . . above the expanse.” (Gen. 1:6, 7) The weight of these additional waters plunging earthward would surely contribute to considerable tectonic movements. Shifting and buckling of earth’s crust would generate immense tsunami waves that would sweep across land areas. According to an article in Scientific American, waves churned up by a storm at Cherbourg, France, “hurled 7,000 pound stones over [a] wall and moved 65-ton concrete blocks 60 feet.”

Is There Worldwide Evidence?

Do we see similar effects of flooding throughout the earth? A. M. Rehwinkel gives an example in his book The Flood:

“Large masses of granite and hard metamorphic rock, for example, which can be traced to Scandinavia, are scattered over the plains of Denmark and northern Germany. Some of these blocks are of an immense size, weighing thousands of tons. The same phenomenon is found here in America in the New England States and in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, in eastern and western Canada, and elsewhere. . . . In many cases the distance over which they have been transported is very great, and sometimes they are found at an elevation apparently much higher than their source.”

Some have theorized that these huge masses of stone were carried to their present locations on top of glaciers during an ice age. “However, these boulders are also found in warmer climates far from any signs of glaciation. For example, in Southern California,” notes the book Target: Earth. Too, glaciers cannot account for many of these “erratic” rock masses resting on ground higher, sometimes thousands of feet higher, than their apparent original location. “And there is still another problem connected with the erratics for which the glacial theory has no satisfactory answer,” observes Rehwinkel:

“And that is the question of the mixture of rocks in one locality brought there from sources lying in opposite directions. This phenomenon has been observed in several places of the earth. One of them is in Saxony, where rocks are found lying together of which some had their source in Scandinavia in the north, while others were carried there from some source in the south. . . . Moving ice cannot accumulate boulders from opposite directions and deposit them together at one place.”

“All Flesh . . . Expired”

According to the book of Genesis, outside the ark “all flesh that was moving upon the earth expired” during the worldwide flood. (Gen. 7:21) Is there widespread evidence of such a watery destruction of living creatures?

Interestingly, in the United States, England, France, southern Spain, Germany, Russia and elsewhere huge fissures in the earth have been found filled with the remains of large numbers of animals. They include mixtures of bones of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, reindeer, horse, hog, bear, and many others. One such cavern near Palermo, Sicily, yielded more than twenty tons of bones for commercial purposes. Often these fissures are located on isolated hills at considerable height where animals would be expected to flee from floodwaters that “kept increasing greatly upon the earth.” (Gen. 7:18) With regard to the variety of animal remains found in one bone cave, the book Earth’s Most Challenging Mysteries asks:

“What made rabbits run into the same cave as coyotes? And an antelope with a wolverine and a grizzly? Bones of the mastodon were found, also a few reptiles . . . The whole mass of bones was covered and preserved by a flood deposit of gravel and rocks.”

An extraordinary testimony to the widespread watery destruction of animal life is the remains of the mammoths found throughout northern Siberia and into Alaska. Hundreds of thousands (some estimate as many as 5,000,000) of these creatures were rapidly buried and quick-frozen in icy muck. They are sometimes found in a near-perfect state of preservation, with undigested tropical vegetation in their stomachs and between their teeth. As to the type of catastrophe that could sweep away creatures over so widespread an area, Earth’s Most Challenging Mysteries observes:

“There is one significant fact that is always connected with every dinosaur fossil and every mammoth fossil, and that is that every fossil is almost invariably dug out of water-laid sedimentary rock. Every fossil is either dug out of shale, which is just floodwater mud hardened into rock, or out of floodwater sand hardened into sandstone, or frozen into permafrost.”

Target: Earth notes with regard to the Yukon district of North America: “The presence of bones, trees, peat, and other debris all mixed together down to a depth of nearly 100 feet, points to a cataclysmic flood of tremendous proportions that must have moved across the land, grinding the bodies of the animals with stones and trees and spreading the whole out over the Yukon Valley.”

And when the destruction had been accomplished, what happened to the floodwaters? A sinking of the sea basins would cause the waters to collect there, allowing dry land to appear again. (Compare Psalm 104:8.) In the oceans today there is more than enough water to have accomplished what the Bible describes; 71 percent of the earth’s surface is water, with an average depth of two and a half miles.

Human Testimony to an Earth-wide Flood

A worldwide flood would surely make a deep impression in the memories of those who survived it. It is only reasonable that they related this event to their offspring. Since it was from “the families of the sons of Noah,” the builder of the ark, that “the nations were spread about in the earth after the deluge,” we would expect to find references to the Flood in the traditions of different peoples. (Gen. 10:32) Is there such testimony to a worldwide flood?

In his book Die Sintflut in Sage und Wissenschaft (The Deluge in Legend and Science) Dr. Johannes Riem of Germany notes: “Among all traditions there is none so general, so widespread on earth, . . . as the Flood tradition.” Some 150 separate flood legends have been found from every part of the earth, including ancient Greece, Rome, India, Australia, and the Americas. Though these legends differ in details, there is remarkable agreement on basic points. For example: (1) There was a moral cause of the Flood, namely, man’s wickedness; (2) Global destruction of the human race took place; (3) One man was forewarned and saved himself and a few others in an ark or boat. The Historical and Critical Commentary of the Old Testament: Genesis says:

“The harmony between all these accounts is an undeniable guarantee that the tradition is no idle invention; a fiction is individual, not universal; that tradition has, therefore, a historical foundation; it is the result of an event which really happened in the ages of the childhood of mankind.”

What Does the Flood Mean to You?

Abundant, indeed, is the evidence of a worldwide flood. What does this mean?

First of all, it reveals the Creator, Jehovah, as a righteous God who “did not hold back from punishing an ancient world” that had sunk to the depths of wickedness. (2 Pet. 2:5; Gen. 6:5-7, 11-13) It underscores God’s faithfulness in fulfilling what he promises to do, and his loving interest in mankind by providing both advance warning and a way to escape the Deluge. (1 Pet. 3:20) But that is not all.

“For just as the days of Noah were,” said Jesus Christ, “so the presence of the Son of man will be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.”​—Matt. 24:37-39.

The Bible’s time schedule and the fulfillment of numerous prophecies indicate that the invisible “presence” in Kingdom power of Jesus Christ, “the Son of man,” began in 1914 C.E. The present generation, therefore, faces a global “great tribulation” that will wipe out the present violent and morally corrupt system of things and that will outstrip even the worldwide flood of Noah’s day. (Matt. 24:3-34) Will you be among the “great crowd” who survive that tribulation?​—Rev. 7:9, 14.

That depends upon whether you act on the advance warning as did Noah and his family. Will you take the time to study the Bible and find out what God’s will is for people today? Doing so can mean survival of the “great tribulation” into a paradisaic new order.​—Rev. 21:4, 5.

How Safe Are the Banks?

THE phrase “as good as money in the bank” once meant that the investment or possession was considered to be very safe. This comparison was made because banks were regarded as very safe places to put money.

But times have changed. Today many people are not so sure about the safety of the money they have in banks. And there is good reason to feel that way. The financial experts are not so sure either.

The Wall Street Journal declared in a headline: “Fears About Stability of the Banking System in West Are Spreading.” It noted that many banks in the Western industrial nations are in trouble. Their financial position has deteriorated. An increasing number of economists feel that the banks are in worse shape now than at any time since the Great Depression that began in 1929.

Recent bank failures have been a shock. In October 1974 the Franklin National Bank in New York was declared insolvent. It had been the nation’s twentieth-largest bank, the largest to collapse in the history of the United States. Several others closed during the year. In Germany four banks failed, including the largest private bank, I. D. Herstatt. Some other European banks closed, while still others announced huge losses. And a growing number of banks were stretched to the limit of their resources.

These problems brought to mind the grim days of the Depression. At that time banks all over the world failed. In the United States about half the banks closed, 4,000 in 1933 alone. Most never reopened.

Could such a thing happen again? Are the banks heading for another catastrophe? Just how safe are they now?

Growing Anxiety

Banks are directly connected with overall economic conditions. So they reflect the health of the economy and the direction it is taking.

All indicators show that the world’s economies, especially those of the Western world and Japan, are in a very serious state. Never have so many countries had such economic difficulties at the same time.

French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing summed up the feelings of many. He warned that the world was in the grip of a general economic crisis and that “all the curves are leading us to catastrophe.” Country after country has been hit with rampant inflation, money shortages, declining real income of workers, persistent unemployment and poverty.

The seeds for this condition were sown decades ago. But the situation was made much worse by the recent fourfold rise in oil prices. Now nearly every oil-importing nation has been going deeply into debt to try to pay its staggering oil bills.

Thus, after several European banks closed and others, including a Swiss bank, suffered sharp losses, The Wall Street Journal said: “The system is sick.” It added:

“Not even the highly vaunted Swiss banking system is immune. So is anything really safe today? . . .

“There never has been a time when so many imponderables hung over markets and over those elements which control actions of markets. . . .

“When even the biggest Swiss bank is clipped in a foreign exchange deal, then one might well ask: What’s the world coming to? Pessimists already are answering the question.”

Why Are Banks Troubled?

Why are so many banks troubled? Why have some of the largest failed? For much the same reason that any business or individual fails financially. That happens when expenses grow faster than income; and when it continues too long, bankruptcy ensues.

Bank expenses include such things as the interest paid out to depositors, the salaries and benefits to employees, and the cost of operating buildings. But some banks have lately added another growing cost: they have relied more on borrowing money themselves so that they could loan it out to others. But the cost (in interest payments) to the bank borrowing such money is usually high.

During 1974, in a period of recession, banks were hurt in other ways. Some made too many high-risk loans. When borrowers could not pay the loans back as scheduled, or at all, due to bad business conditions, the banks incurred losses. Also, banks that had money invested in such things as stocks and bonds suffered when these lost value. And some banks lost very heavily by speculating, and guessing wrong, on foreign money markets, where the exchange rates of currencies fluctuate in relation to one another.

During the year some banks were additionally hurt by withdrawal of money by depositors. Out of fear, or to invest in other areas that brought greater returns, money was pulled out of some banks in substantial quantities. This meant that the bank did not have that money to loan out to make a profit, and income suffered.

Hence, for a variety of reasons, bank expenses have mounted. But in too many cases income has not kept pace. Resources were stretched thin. And for some banks it stretched too far, like a balloon that has been inflated too much and bursts.

The startling bank problems during 1974 have officials worried. Among the things that concern them is how so many authorities could have been caught unawares. Business Week noted: “Now there are the recriminations and the questions about how not only the banks but also the banking regulators could have made so many wrong guesses over the past 10 years.” This business publication further commented:

“Taken as a whole, the [U.S. banking] system is in more trouble today than at any time since the 1930s, with a distressing number of banks over-loaned, over-borrowed, over-diversified, and undercapitalized. . . .

“There may very well be an unprecedented wave of bank mergers and consolidations as weaker fish seek shelter, and there almost certainly will be some failures.”

Basic Cause

Why all this economic instability? There are various factors, of course. But of all the answers, one stands out above the others. It is repeated by economists over and over again as being a main cause of the problems: too much debt!

For decades now, people, businesses and governments have been living far beyond their incomes. They have been borrowing more and more money to finance their affairs. Their desires have grown faster than their ability to pay. To make up the difference they have resorted to ever-increasing amounts of debt.

But sooner or later the time comes for debts to be paid off. If income does not rise enough, debts cannot be paid. And if more money cannot be borrowed because of becoming a bad credit risk, then failure or bankruptcy follows. That is what is taking place now to a growing number of individuals, businesses, and even banks. In the book The Coming Credit Collapse, investment adviser Alexander Paris writes:

“There does indeed exist a single fundamental cause of all the financial ills. They may all be traced to a long trend of excessive credit [debt] growth, which is rapidly approaching its final phase. . . .

“Over the entire postwar period [since 1945], the amount of credit outstanding has grown at a rate that, on the average, has consistently been two to three times faster than the growth in the nation’s ability to produce goods and services. Moreover, the rate has been accelerating in recent years. . . .

“This trend in credit has resulted in a growth in demand that has been highly artificial and, through its primary and secondary effects, has been responsible for most of the economic and financial problems facing the investor today.”

Business Week also singled out this basic cause, saying:

“The United States, like the world around it, is in sad shape today. Having borrowed too much in the expectation of perpetual plenty, Americans are desperate for answers to questions for which there are no pat answers. . . .

“The world’s great economies were running out of control long before [the huge price rise in oil] . . . and all that the oil situation has done is to hasten an inevitable day of reckoning.”

Extent of Debts

The extent of debt has become truly staggering. During 1974 the debt in the United States reached over two and a half trillion dollars! That is more than the total value of goods and services produced in an entire year. Of that debt, corporations owe about one trillion dollars, the federal government about $500 billion, state and local governments about $200 billion, consumers about $200 billion, and the mortgage debt was about $600 billion.

Now corporate debt amounts to more than fifteen times after-tax profits, about double what it was in 1955. Household debt is about 93 percent of income left over after other basic expenses are paid, a huge increase in recent years. And the mount of money available in the entire country is only a small fraction of the total debt.

The world’s debt is estimated to be over $10 trillion. It is not likely that it will ever be paid back. The debt psychology has permeated every corner of the economy. The Western world is so geared to debt that living within current income would wreck it as easily as would continued inflation. Why so?

If borrowing were cut back to pay current bills, people would not buy as much, nor would businesses or governments. Production would have to be cut back drastically. Masses of people would be thrown out of work. The industrial way of life, which has concentrated so many people off the land and into cities, could not absorb such shocks.

The “prosperity” of the Western nations has been built on borrowed money. It has not been genuine. Now the bills are coming due and cannot be paid. And that is an aspect of the problem that frightens leaders. So many people, businesses and governments are near bankruptcy that even a small number of them failing could start a chain reaction that would bring the Western world’s economy to its knees. The New York Times observed: “The impact of a staggering increase in oil prices on top of already soaring inflation and rising deficits in payments abroad has sent governments reeling everywhere.”

How Banks Would Be Affected

With debt at such an all-time high, major defaults could wreck the banking system. Business Week noted that “corporations are sick​—and they are sick largely as a result of their overdependence on debt.” Consumers are also “sick,” as are most governments​—due to debt.

Every bank lives with the knowledge that if a few major customers that have borrowed money cannot pay it back, the bank can be in deep trouble. If, due to economic difficulties, many businesses and individuals default on their payments, there is no way that any government can make up the difference, since most governments are also deeply in debt, much of it owed to banks!

For instance, during 1974 a U.S. federal agency, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) insured individual bank deposits up to $20,000, then later in the year raised this to $40,000. But this agency had only about $5 ¹⁄₂ billion in its reserve, while the deposits it “insured” were nearly $470 billion! Obviously, the closing of even a small number of banks would bankrupt this insurance agency.

Yet banks themselves are much to blame for their present condition. Investment adviser Alexander Paris states: “The banking system has been a willing partner in the long postwar financial deterioration that has occurred in the United States and the world.” He observes that the financial health of the banking system “by all measures, has deteriorated steadily throughout the entire postwar period, and all former limits of propriety have been far exceeded in the pursuit of profit maximization.”

The Coming Collapse

Does this mean that the banks will soon collapse? Authorities point out that there is much that governments can do to prevent this, for a while. No doubt some measures will help, temporarily.

It is suggested that governments can pump more money into the banking system. But that creates more debt, and furthers inflation. It only postpones the day of reckoning and makes the final reckoning more severe. As one financial expert stated: “This cannot be the cure. It is analogous to giving a drunk a drink to sober him up.”

There are many people who say that authorities will simply not allow a banking collapse. But if that were so, then why have they allowed the situation to get so desperate? If they had the solutions, the world’s economies should already have been stable, secure, prosperous, instead of near collapse. Remember, “authorities” were saying that the Great Depression could not happen just weeks before it did!

In Western “free” economies, events have a force of their own. They cannot always be controlled. This is obvious by the fact that there already have been depressions and crises in such countries. In this regard, Hyman Minsky, a professor of economics at Washington University, says:

“There is a greater likelihood of a serious financial crisis now than at any time since the nineteen-thirties.

“Conventional wisdom has it that a financial collapse and deep depression cannot happen again because the Federal Reserve and the Government will not let it happen.

“However, in today’s financial environment the authorities are not that powerful: What they do to slow inflation is likely to trigger a financial crisis, and what they do to abort a crisis and offset unemployment tends to accelerate inflation. . . .

“The margins of safety have decreased markedly over the postwar period. When safety margins are thin the financial system is unstable: One failure can lead to many failures. A wave of failures, especially among financial institutions, constitutes a financial crisis. . . . The deep depressions of history followed financial crises.”

Other economists speak of this as the “domino theory,” a few big failures triggering a chain reaction. The Wall Street Journal describes it this way:

“Even some of the practical men involved in daily dealings privately confess to fearing the worst. . . .

“In its starkest form, the domino theory holds that the collapse of a single sizable bank could weaken many others around the world that had money in it, provoking panicky withdrawals of large deposits that could send them tottering, too.

“Triggering the initial collapse could be anything from speculative foreign-currency losses to the default of a big borrower, either a government beset by staggering oil-import costs or a corporation caught in an inflationary slump.”

Franz Ulrich, managing director of Düsseldorf’s Deutsche Bank, says: “Sometimes I am not able to rid myself of the feeling that such a day cannot be too far off.” And Guido Carli, governor of the Bank of Italy for fourteen years, states: “The world cannot go on this way indefinitely. We will have to accept the consequences of a recession. It will start in the weaker countries, like Italy, and spread to the stronger ones. And the monetary and trade system we built after World War II will disintegrate.” As a financial adviser told a New York reporter: “The old system is finished.”

Hence, Wall Street Journal writer Ray Vicker concludes: “So there are no real havens anywhere, no matter how men might seek them.”

Is this to say that people who have money in the bank should withdraw it? What any individual chooses to do with his finances is his own responsibility. But how secure is any other place where you might put your money today? Keep in mind that when a collapse comes, money itself often becomes worthless.

Is another financial collapse near? Yes, and it will be a total one. In that coming collapse, no money of any nation will be safe. That will be true no matter where it is​—in a bank, safe deposit box, cookie jar, invested, or hidden under a mattress.

How can we be so sure? Because God’s Word, Bible prophecy, tells us that the very governments that have issued the money will be put out of business, crushed completely. (Dan. 2:44) Indeed, it shows that even precious metals will afford no protection against the execution of judgment on a self-seeking world: “Into the streets they will throw their very silver, and an abhorrent thing their own gold will become. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Jehovah’s fury.”​—Ezek. 7:19; Zeph. 1:18.

That will pave the way for an entirely new order of God’s making. In that new order, gone will be the contrasts of abject poverty alongside extreme wealth, as exist now. Deep depressions and rampant inflations will be things of the past. All of earth’s economic affairs will be justly administered by the heavenly government of God for which Jesus Christ taught his followers to pray.​—Matt. 6:9, 10.

Teaching Children to Be Unselfish

“JEFFREY, would you please help me to fix your sister’s toy?” a mother asked her young son. Do you, too, invite children to do things that will benefit others in the family?

Admittedly, it is not easy to steer children from a selfish course. The fact is, we are born selfish. A new baby wants what he wants when he wants it. And he tolerates no delays, as is sometimes evidenced by unrestrained screaming for attention.

However, when provided with loving care and guidance by parents, a child begins to take notice of others. Gradually his selfish tendencies diminish. Needless to say, this involves much time and effort on the part of the parents. Yet, in time, those who persist in their efforts see results.

Role of Parental Example

Whether parents like it or not, their children are going to imitate them. Thus the importance of setting a good example in being unselfish. One father observed: “Our ten-year-old son has seen us give to others since he was small. Now when we give to those in need, he asks to be included. We’ve seen him do little things for others without being prompted, which indicates to us that he’s not just doing it to please us.”

His wife added: “If husbands are generous with their wives, the child notes this and will do things for his mother the way his father does. I know that’s true with our son.”

This mother also had some interesting observations regarding the effect upon children of their parents’ attitude toward material possessions. “Our son,” she explained, “never hears us argue about money or hears us say, ‘We can’t afford this or that.’ Not that we’re well off financially; to the contrary. But we’re not anxious about it, and because of this he feels secure. We have observed that in homes where the parents constantly argue over money, the children tend to be more selfish, and they, in turn, fight among themselves over trivial things.”

It is often observed that a selfish child is one who gets, not too much attention from his parents, but usually too little. When a child can depend on his parents for help when he needs it, he generally becomes helpful. When a child is loved by his parents, he becomes loving. Yes, how a child is treated when young will, in large part, be the basis of how he will treat others in the future.

Ways in Which Training May Be Given

The importance of early training can hardly be overemphasized. Thus if a child is properly trained in his early years to think of others, giving and helping others will usually come naturally to him.

Recently a mother was observed putting this principle into action. She was overheard to remark to her little son: “Now that you’ve found those two pennies, would you like to put one in your piggy bank and the other in your sister’s bank?”

“OK, Mom,” was the happy reply.

Thus the seed was planted and, if properly watered, it can be the basis for loving action in the future.

Other parents revealed that they include their children in discussions about family matters. The father makes the final decision, but the children are free to express their wishes, which are taken into consideration. The father of a thirteen-year-old daughter observed that making his children feel a part of family activities and decisions cultivates in them a loving, unselfish spirit. As an example, he said: “Recently I went with my daughter to buy shoes. She saw a pair that she liked, but when told the price, she said: ‘Oh, Daddy, I don’t need such an expensive pair. That cheaper pair will be all right.’ Is it any wonder I think she’s special?”

Another father similarly explained how he and his wife try to help their children to make wise decisions. “While they are still with us,” he noted, “we can detect any flaws in their thinking, and help them.” Illustrating the matter, he described a recent dinnertime discussion.

“The subject of cars came up,” the father recalled, “and our oldest boy, who is car crazy these days, said that if he had the money he’d buy a small sports car, naming the make. I remember saying: ‘Having a car is OK, Alvin, but a small sports car doesn’t leave much room for the wife and kids, does it?’

“He responded: ‘What do you mean, “wife and kids,” Dad? Why, I’m not even married yet.’

“‘I know, son, but you will be someday and you’ll have to consider them, won’t you? You know it’s all right to plan for the future, but you should consider how your plans will benefit or hinder others, don’t you think?’

“‘Well, yes, I guess you’re right. A sports car doesn’t have much room, but it would be nice to have.’

“‘Then, too, son, that’s a pretty expensive car that you want. You could be driving around in that fancy car, having a good time, while your family goes hungry. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that.’

“‘Of course not, Dad. I wouldn’t do such a thing.’

“‘I know you wouldn’t mean to. But I know you’ve seen many men in this very neighborhood do just that​—get what they want at the expense of their family’s needs.’

“Well, he thought for a minute or so and then said: ‘I guess you’re right, Dad. OK, I’ll get a family car​—when I get one, that is. But that’s still a long time off, isn’t it?’

“‘Yes, son, but what you think about now will shape your future plans. So it’s best to think along the right track even now.’”

Is that how you go about guiding your children to think of others? Do you do it in a natural, loving way under relaxed conditions? It will have a better chance of success than if done in a stern lecturing way. Also, if you use empathy in your approach, your children will appreciate your taking their feelings into consideration and will be more inclined to take the counsel.

Unselfishness Toward Old and Young

There is much that children can be taught to do for grandparents and others well along in years. They can read to such ones who may have poor eyesight. They can include them in family games or activities. Just because these have slowed up physically does not mean they have done so mentally.

Even outside the home, in public, children can be encouraged to notice and help older persons. They can be encouraged to give up their seats to them on buses and trains. They can show respect by not interrupting them in conversation, and by not monopolizing a conversation. Yes, instead of merely tolerating elderly ones, as is the custom in some places in the world today, children can be taught to benefit from the wisdom and experience that such ones often have.

Children should also be encouraged by parents to show loving attention to their younger brothers and sisters. Otherwise, they may resent a newcomer’s intrusion on their mother’s time. One mother, who had a six-year-old son, noted:

“From the time I was pregnant with my daughter we referred to her by name, and she became very real to my son. When she arrived, he was eager to help me with her. Years later, he told us how happy he was when she was born.”

Parents who skillfully prepare their children for the baby’s arrival find that they have little to worry about, as illustrated by the case of a seven-year-old. When asked how she liked her baby sister, she replied: “Oh, I love her. I like helping Mommy fix her up. But I don’t like it when she cries. I think she’s getting spoiled.” When asked what she intended to do about it, she said: “Well, as soon as she can understand, I’m going to have a talk with her.”

It is often typical for brothers and sisters to grow jealous of one another, or to become resentful. But by avoiding showing favoritism and explaining their actions, parents can do much to counteract this problem. One mother of three observed:

“As the children grew, the younger two showed some resentment when our oldest boy received some extra clothing or gift. But we explained that at his age he needed more than they did. We assured them that they, too, would receive the same treatment when their time came. Now that our daughter is at that age, she appreciates the truthfulness of this.”

Serving Others Brings Benefits

One of the greatest gifts you can impart to your children is the desire to serve others, to give of their time, sympathy and attention in behalf of those in need. Consider the remarks of a twelve-year-old boy who learned this lesson:

“A boy on our block lost his father recently, and I really felt sorry for him. I wanted to do something to help him so talked it over with my dad, and he said we could include him in some of our family activities. I’ve invited him over to our house, but he doesn’t seem to want to be with anybody now. But I intend to keep trying.”

Do your children get involved like that? Are they concerned for others? They will be, with encouragement from you.

Truly, children who are encouraged to be unselfish receive many benefits. They have a sense of well-being and security. They are more poised and balanced. They are better prepared for their future roles as husbands, wives and, eventually, parents. And they come to appreciate that the words of the Lord Jesus Christ are really true: “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.”​—Acts 20:35.

The Amazing Ability of Hearing

IF YOU possess good hearing, you have something truly precious. Just think! You can listen to the melodious song of a bird, the ripple of a brook, the voice of a loved one. Through your ears you can receive lifesaving messages, too​—perhaps from an automobile horn, a siren or a fire alarm.

Yet, have you really given much thought to your amazing sense of hearing? And what about that possessed by other creatures? Even a brief investigation can be intriguing.

How Are You Able to Hear?

A glance at the accompanying illustration shows that your ear is much more than that trumpetlike organ on the side of your head. That part is merely the auricle. It catches sound waves and sends them inward, along the external auditory canal. In it are tiny hairs and wax-producing glands. Their purpose? To prevent dust, insects, and so forth, from going deeper and causing damage.

When sound waves reach the end of the canal, they strike your eardrum, composed of thin, taut tissue. Its resulting vibrations are amplified and transmitted in your middle ear by three minute bones, the auditory ossicles. They are commonly called the hammer, anvil and stirrup because of their shapes. The stirrup “taps” the membrane of the “oval window,” transmitting the vibrations to your fluid-filled inner ear. Sound waves also enter the inner ear through the “round window,” below the “oval window.” Some waves even travel through your skull bones into the inner ear.

Above the inner ear’s central vestibule are the semicircular canals. Movements of fluid within them enable you to maintain physical balance. However, hearing is associated with the cochlea. Sound waves passing through fluid set in motion the cochlea’s basilar membrane. In turn, its movement causes vibration of the hair cells making up the organ of Corti. This motion stimulates the nerves attached to the hair cells. Finally these nerves, through the auditory nerve, send messages as electrical impulses to your brain’s hearing center. All of this is well known, but just how a person can understand such signals continues to baffle men of science.

A Word About What You Hear

You cannot hear every sound that surrounds you, and that is a good thing. As a babe in arms, your auditory range may have run from 15 to 30,000 cycles, or vibrations, a second. But say that it was very far below 15 cycles. Why, then you would hear your own heartbeats, even your bone and muscle movements!

Though it has certain limitations, your hearing range is astounding. While individuals differ, in general the loudest sound that one can tolerate is 2,000,000,000,000 times as great as the least perceptible sound! Indeed, the human ear has the maximum sensitivity practical for its needs.

As the years pass, of course, imperfect humans experience progressive loss of hearing ability. Among other things, this is because tissues of the inner ear lose their elasticity. The upper level of the auditory range reportedly drops from 30,000 cycles when one is a baby to around 4,000 cycles by the time one is eighty. Nevertheless, even that is enough for normal conversation.

Truly a Masterwork!

Your ears have built-in protection against extremely loud noises. Of course, a sudden nearby explosion can result in excessive vibrations that could cause irreparable damage to your intricate hearing apparatus. But if a very loud sound develops gradually, quick-acting muscles can ‘turn down the volume.’ The eardrum’s membrane is tightened to reduce its vibrations, and middle-ear muscles twist the auditory ossicles. Thus the stirrup does not transmit such great vibrations through the “oval window” into the inner ear.

Protection also is afforded by the Eustachian tube, running from the nasal cavity to the middle ear. This passageway carries air and equalizes the pressure inside your eardrum with that outside. Here, then, is a safeguard against the breaking of your eardrum due to a great change in external air pressure.

Think, too, about the sounds you hear. In an amazing way, you distinguish between the rumble of thunder and the clatter of wagon wheels, the footsteps of a person and the hoofbeats of a horse, even if you cannot see their source. Moreover, usually both ears can be ‘tuned in’ on sounds. Perhaps you dropped a coin and did not see where it rolled. Yet, you heard it hit the floor, possibly bouncing a time or two. Then you listened as it rolled and struck a chair. Finally, you heard the coin flop over and reverberate before coming to rest. Both ears help you to locate the spot.

Not without good reason, it has been said of the human ear: “If an engineer were to duplicate its function, he would have to compress into approximately one cubic inch a sound system that included an impedance matcher, a wide-range mechanical analyzer, a mobile relay-and-amplification unit, a multichannel transducer to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, a system to maintain a delicate hydraulic balance, and an internal two-way communications system. Even if he could perform this miracle of miniaturization, he probably could not hope to match the ear’s performance.”​—Sound and Hearing, by S. S. Stevens, Fred Warshofsky and the editors of Life, page 38.

Yes, the human ear truly is a masterwork. How well it demonstrates the wisdom of Jehovah God, the incomparable Maker of the hearing ear!​—Prov. 20:12.

Hearing in the Animal World

You have a right to be impressed with the wonder of human hearing. But what about that of other creatures? Well, people can see the external ears of dogs, cats, horses and monkeys, and they know that such animals respond to sounds. Also, though birds lack external ears, most persons are well aware that these creatures can hear. As a matter of fact, a bird’s auditory range is about the same as man’s. What about snakes? Can they hear?

Some naturalists contend that snakes cannot hear. Actually, however, recent findings show that these animals have an auditory mechanism and can hear fairly well. For instance, researchers Peter H. Hartline and Howard W. Campbell found that not only substrate vibrations but also airborne sounds evoked electrical responses in species of three snake families. Concerning a boa constrictor, they wrote: “If a brain response is accepted as indicative of hearing, these snakes can hear airborne sound.”​—Science, March 14, 1969, Vol. 163, No. 3872, page 1222.

The Bible implies that the cobra can “listen to the voice of charmers.” (Ps. 58:4, 5) In this regard, the New York Times of January 10, 1954, stated: “Dr. David I. Macht, research pharmacologist of the Mount Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, is one of the world’s leading authorities on cobra snake venom. . . . Dr. Macht reported that in working with cobras and cobra venom he became acquainted with a number of Hindu physicians, well educated, and from different parts of India. All agreed that cobras respond to some musical tones, from musical pipes or fifes. Some forms of music excite the animals more than other forms, the physicians reported. Indian children, playing in the dark in the countryside, are even warned not to sing lest their sounds attract cobras, he said. Dr. Macht commented that Shakespeare, who repeatedly referred to serpents as deaf . . . merely repeated a common misunderstanding. On the other hand, Dr. Macht said, the psalmist was right who implied conversely, in Psalm 58, Verse 5, that serpents can hear: . . . Contrary to the claims of some naturalists, Dr. Macht said, snakes are ‘charmed’ by sounds, not by movements of the charmer. Revise the textbooks, the physicians recommended.”

What About Insects?

Some researchers have concluded that not all insects can hear. Yet, many of these little creatures have remarkable hearing ability. Some respond to sounds below man’s auditory range. Others can detect those over two octaves higher than any that humans can perceive.

Insect auditory equipment varies and often turns up in unusual places. Eardrums of short-horned grasshoppers are on the sides of their abdomens. The male attracts a lady grasshopper by rubbing the edges of his front wings with spines attached to his back legs. This is ‘music to the ears’ of the female that hears it and decides to become his mate.

Katydids and crickets have “ears,” too. Where? Just below what you might term the “knees” on their front legs. Of course, these are only tiny openings. But all the female katydid must do to pick up the male’s mating sound is to move her legs in the direction of the call!

The Marvel of Echolocation

Some creatures employ the sense of hearing in quite an extraordinary way. They are equipped for echolocation. These animals emit high-frequency sounds and are guided, by listening and responding to rapidly returning echoes as the sounds are reflected by objects. For instance, bottle-nosed dolphins use this method to avoid underwater obstacles.

Among echolocators is a well-known flying mammal​—the bat. If you were to release a bat in a completely dark room, it could-fly about without hitting the walls or other objects. This is because the animals emit sound pulses of high frequency; as the sounds strike obstacles, they listen for the echoes. Why, they sometimes send out over 200 pulses a second! By interpreting the messages resulting from these echoes, the creature-charts a safe course.

The bat also uses its astounding guidance system to locate the insects on which it dines. But just how it tells the difference between echoes reflected by obstacles and those returning from potential meals remains a mystery to man. For that matter, certain bats catch their prey right on the obstacle, a leaf.

Another remarkable factor is that the bat does not hear the sounds it emits. Every time one is sent out, ear-muscle contractions ‘turn off the sound’ so that only the echo is heard. Furthermore, each bat may possess and follow its own pattern of sound because there is not mass confusion when hundreds of these creatures flock together.

What a system of sound emission and hearing the Creator has given the bat! It has been said: “Scientists estimate that, ounce for ounce and watt for watt, the bat’s sonar is a billion times more sensitive and efficient than any radar or sonar device contrived by man.”​—James Poling, in Marvels & Mysteries of Our Animal World.

Protect Your Hearing Ability

Whether you look at the animals or consider yourself, doubtless you will admit that hearing ability truly is amazing. And surely you will want to care for and protect your hearing apparatus.

Your ears are being assailed by many unwanted sounds in this modern world. Noise pollution has become quite a problem in many places. If you must work around excessively loud machinery, for example, the use of earplugs may be advisable. They may protect you against ear injury and hearing loss.

If you now are a tobacco user, another way to protect your hearing is to stop using tobacco. The nicotine in tobacco causes constriction of inner-ear arteries. This, in turn, reduces blood flow and consequently the flow of nourishment that the inner ear needs in order to play its vital role in your life.

Never probe in your ears with objects such as hairpins or matchsticks. If you break the skin in this way, infection may result.

Do you have your ears examined from time to time? Well, having periodic ear examinations would not be amiss. It certainly pays to protect your amazing ability of hearing.

[Diagram on page 18]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

THE HUMAN EAR

AURICLE

STIRRUP

HAMMER

SEMICIRCULAR CANALS

ANVIL

VESTIBULE

AUDITORY NERVE

COCHLEA

EUSTACHIAN TUBE

EARDRUM

AUDITORY CANAL

OVAL WINDOW

ROUND WINDOW

A Tower with Its Top in the Heavens

By “Awake!” correspondent in Canada

THERE​—poised majestically in Toronto, like a giant rocket ship ready for lift-off, its needle-nosed upper end pointing skyward—​is a tower that truly has its top “in the heavens”! One feels excitement as one looks with unbelieving eyes up and up to its imposing 1,815-foot elevation, five times as high as the Saturn V rocket used in the Apollo 11 moon shot. What has caught one’s gaze is the “CN Tower,” the tallest self-supporting structure in the world. (“CN” for Canadian National, the government-owned railway and communications system in Canada.)

From very early times in human history man has been occupied with building towers that ‘reach into the skies,’ first for purposes of false religion and then for military advantage. (Gen. 11:1-9) Though the earliest of these of which we have any record, a temple tower or ziggurat, did not have a noble objective, men since then have at times shown amazing abilities to achieve some worthwhile purpose with towers. Sometimes they have been erected solely for architectural beauty and symmetry, but at other times they have been designed for more practical reasons, such as in supporting huge spans in bridges.

The CN Tower strives to combine these latter goals, being both aesthetically pleasing to the eye and serving a number of practical purposes. As the federal Minister of Mines, Energy and Natural Resources, Donald McDonald, expressed it when work on the tower began: “The CN Tower will not only be impressive but will be very practical as well.”

Impressive it is! Have you seen the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Put another Eiffel Tower on top of it and the pinnacle of the CN Tower would be only about 150 feet under that doubled height. Or, have you been to the top of the Empire State Building in New York city? You were only a little more than two thirds of the way to the topmost elevation of this tower. Yes, it is almost 400 feet higher than the tallest office building in the world, the Sears Tower in Chicago, U.S.A. Though it is admitted that there are TV transmitters higher than the 1,815 feet of the CN Tower (about 553 meters), they are supported by guy wires or other external sources of stability, whereas the CN Tower is “freestanding.” More than one third of a mile high, it dominates the Metro Toronto landscape.

However, it is not just the lofty altitude of the tower that impresses. It rises from its foundation in the form of three rocketlike “fins,” this Y-shaped base tapering gracefully upward for about 1,100 feet. At this point the line of ascent is pleasingly broken by a seven-story circular observation deck/​revolving restaurant complex. Above this “skypod” the ascent, blending into a hexagonal column, continues skyward for about another 400 feet to an upper observation level. Finally, a gradually tapering 335-foot antenna mast crowns the structure, bringing it to its needle-pointed tip. Once you see it, its simple, graceful form leaves an indelible picture on the mind.

An Engineering Marvel

‘How did all this mass get up there?’ you ask yourself. It was not a simple operation. After intensive testing down to as much as 90 feet in the area where the foundation is, excavations began in February 1973. They went down to around 55 feet (the last 25 feet into rock), requiring more than 62,000 tons of shale to be removed. Wet burlap was applied to the exposed surface of the pit and then a “blanket” of concrete a foot thick was laid down to avoid deterioration in the base rock. On top of that another layer of concrete was poured, this one 18 feet thick! Then came a foundation of 9,250 cubic yards of concrete.

Next was the pouring of concrete for the Y-shaped portion of the tower and its hexagonal column. This was accomplished by using a “slipform” that moved steadily upward under hydraulic pressure (held in place by a ring of climbing jacks), extruding concrete around a maze of steel bars and post-tensioned steel at the rate of about 20 feet of ascending growth each day! This pouring continued until February 22, 1974, to the 1,464-foot level, just below where the upper observation deck is located. A “topping off” ceremony was held March 21, 1974. At least 106,000 tons of concrete had been used, along with 5,000 tons of reinforcing steel, 600 tons of structural steel and 1,000 tons (80 miles!) of tensioning cable.

This unusual method of construction produced an engineering marvel. For such great heights structural engineers will allow for a variance of up to three inches from absolute vertical plumbness. Using a giant plumb bob and precision-made optical instruments for regular checks, it was possible to complete the pouring with a variance of only 1.1 inch!

Another thing that had to be checked daily was the tendency of the structure to twist as it rose from the earth. This “torsional oscillation” is said to be related to the earth’s rotation, in the northern hemisphere twisting tall, narrow structures in a counterclockwise direction during their erection. It goes the other way in the southern hemisphere. The above-mentioned instruments and some survey stations up to 1,000 feet away gave readings that allowed for any needed adjustments in the jacking system. A “true” building resulted.

On top of all of this rests the more than 300-ton antenna mast, installed by helicopter. It is planned that this steel transmission mast will have a glass-reinforced plastic radome to protect it in the winter months from accumulations of ice and snow.

Strength and Safety

Is the tower strong​—and safe? Those connected with the project believe so. Great effort was made to assure strength and safety, as already seen in the foundation work and the method of strengthening the concrete. Additionally, according to Dr. R. A. Bandeen, president of CN Tower, Limited, the concrete itself has a strength of 6,000 pounds per square inch, well beyond the 5,000 pounds per square inch called for in the specifications. This is felt to be more than what is needed for safety. A staff of technicians and field engineers used an on-site laboratory for testing the quality of the concrete every day.

But, what if something like a jumbo jet rammed the tower? The answer of the tower’s analysis expert, Dr. Bruno Thurlimann of Switzerland, assured that damage to the tower would be minimal. The effect on the aircraft would be another matter.

Even in high winds the top will sway very little. Already, in a gale wind the skypod level moved only about five inches. Some researchers claim that it may move as much as twenty-four inches at that level in a hurricane-force gust. That seems a lot until you hear about reports that the Ostankino communications tower in Moscow (1,748 feet high) has swayed many feet in high winds!

The secret to the ability of the CN Tower to withstand high winds was found to be in its final design and shape. As wind-tunnel expert Dr. Alan Davenport commented after wind-testing various models of the structure: “It’s taken [many] years to discover that the shape of a tree, tapering from a broad base, is the best to withstand the wind.” Man continues to learn that created things reflect a great Intelligence.

Use and Purpose

But why build such a soaring column? Was it not an expensive undertaking if it was just to lay claim to having the world’s highest self-supporting structure? The first answer given is that it is meant to be primarily a communications tower. One reason for it is that Toronto, as all cities with a large number of skyscrapers, has a television transmission problem: double images on the TV screen due to slightly delayed waves created when their paths are affected by the high-rise buildings. It is hoped that this tower’s antenna is high enough to eliminate the bothersome “ghosting.” It is also designed so that it can increase the “reach” of some stations by 50 percent.

Indicating other communications use, Norman J. MacMillan, chairman and president of the Canadian National System, pointed out: “With its microwave facilities, the Tower will help speed the flow across Canada of all forms of vital business communication, of computer data, weather maps and information, reservation data for trains and airplanes, and even stock market reports.” Improved communications for municipal services was also mentioned by him as a benefit from the tower.

Now, all of that is the reason for the more than $3-million antenna complex at the topmost portion of the tower. It is planned that it will transmit for eight television channels and eleven FM stations.

The tower is also ideal for some forms of scientific research. It is felt that it “could help unravel some mysteries that have baffled structural engineers and environmental researchers.” CN Tower will cooperate with the University of Toronto, the National Research Council and Environment Canada on a program of instrumentation for the tower. The Toronto Star reports that some 15- and 30-foot retractable booms will spike the tower at four levels to “aid aircraft safety” and measure “wind speeds and air pollution.” It described a $200,000 program using about 100 instruments to test such things as structural stress. Instrument data will be processed by computers as readings are taken every three hours.

In addition, its planners believe that the dartlike edifice will become a major tourist attraction, a “people tower,” after its opening, scheduled now for early in 1976. The seven-level skypod of aluminum and glass will offer tourists two observation decks (one glassed in, one “outdoor” type) and a revolving dining room, all with a spectacular view​—a 75-mile (120 kilometer) panorama! And there will be plenty of room: 70,000 square feet of it. The restaurant will seat 400 and the observation levels will hold another 600 people. You can reach them by one of four elevators that will ride upward in glass-fronted outside chutes, giving a thrilling view as one is lifted almost a quarter of a mile in about one minute! And if that isn’t enough, an inside elevator will take you up the rest of the column to the upper observation area at 1,500 feet.

Plans are being made for it to be the focal point of a $1.5-billion redevelopment site to be called Metro Centre. It is proposed that the present railroad tracks and roundhouses will give way to an attractive parkland and a residential/​commercial development covering about 190 acres. A convention center is to be among the many facilities to be offered there. According to plans, the tower itself is to rise out of a reflecting pool situated in a landscaped area. A pedestrian bridge is to provide access to the glass-walled rotunda at the tower’s base. As to how much of all this will finally be accomplished, time will tell.

Another reason for the edifice is revenue. Of course, that is one of the more important reasons why enterprises such as this are undertaken. Though the cost of the tower will run about $30 million, its planners envision an estimated annual income of $6 million. Antenna rentals, they say, will involve more than a million dollars annually. Rent from those managing the skypod restaurant and lounge and the shops and restaurants in the rotunda is to add to the profits. With the tourists, expected to number about 2 million annually, revenues from elevator use alone would add up fast.

There is no doubt that the erection of this tower required ingenuity, innovation and conviction. Hard work, long hours, revisions and frustrations are all a part of such mammoth undertakings. Its original concept called for vision, initiative, courage​—and a positive attitude. It is hoped that much that has been learned and that will yet be learned will be used for the benefit of man. The earliest of towering edifices, that temple tower at Babel, with its wrong motive, ended up producing a communications problem​—a diversity of tongues. It is hoped by those connected with the CN Tower that it will improve communications and contribute to advancing human knowledge.

An Ancient Means of Detection

● Electronic checking of airline passengers is common today. Its purpose is detection of armed would-be skyjackers. But the Chinese were using a similar means of detection some twenty-three centuries ago. At the imperial palace near Peiping, the Moon Gate was made of lodestone, which has magnetic properties that attracts iron. Why was this stone used? Says The Royal Bank of Canada Monthly Letter: “This was done to prevent assassins from entering the imperial residence carrying weapons concealed in their clothing.”

Democracy Returns to Its “Cradle”

By “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN GREECE

THE Mediterranean country of Greece has always been proud of its having been the “cradle of democracy.” However, it is interesting to see what the “infant” looked like in its Grecian cradle, back in the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C.E. During that period considerable progress was made in many fields of human knowledge. Philosophic thinking and the fine arts in general broadened out, yet the Greek style of democracy remained quite restrictive and applied only to individual city-states, which seldom had more than 10,000 inhabitants. And, even in these towns, only a small minority enjoyed this form of democracy, since voting was denied to slaves, women and all foreign-born.

For some two thousand years, as far as Greece was concerned, it seems that the “cradle” was empty. From the nineteenth century on, Greece had a number of different kinds of government​—constitutional monarchy, republic, dictatorship, and foreign occupation during World War II. After the second world war, democracy again flourished, until April 21, 1967, when a military government robbed the “cradle.”

The colonels who formed this government severely curtailed civil rights, abolished elections, dissolved all political parties and ruled the country with an iron hand, declaring that the Greek people were not mature enough to live under democratic rule. As a result, the Christian witnesses of Jehovah had to carry on their work of Bible education underground, though they had no social or political affiliations. Foreign Witnesses traveling from Nuremberg to Athens in 1969 were searched at the borders and all their Christian literature, which they had hoped to bring to fellow believers in Greece, was taken from them. Other Witnesses, when they applied for passports to visit relatives abroad, or to attend Christian assemblies, were denied exit from Greece for “reasons of public order and interest.”

Another surprising event that occurred during this abnormal dictatorial period was the issuing of a circular by the Ministry of Interior on November 13, 1970, referring to marriages between Jehovah’s Christian witnesses as “non-existent” and ordering the country’s Registrars not to register these marriages or the children born thereby, because “the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses is an unknown one”!

Only a dictatorial government could devise such a monstrous and manifestly unjust circular and thus cause a tremendous social problem. The religion of Jehovah’s witnesses, besides being well known in all countries of the world, has also been well known in Greece in every respect and for decades. The public attorneys at the Supreme Court, the Council of State and the law courts have all made pronouncements of the fact that Jehovah’s witnesses are a “known religion.” Moreover, the marriage unions solemnized according to the religious rites of the Christian witnesses of Jehovah were registered at the Greek State’s Registrar Offices for over seventy years. Four generations of children believing in this well-known religion had never had problems of registration!

But then, six years after the curtailing of civil rights, something unforeseen occurred. In November 1973 another military junta took over. It became even more oppressive, but it proved to be short-lived. Wretched economic conditions combined with political and social unrest to weaken its position. So when severe difficulties developed over the Cyprus issue, and the government felt the need to mobilize the country because of the trouble with Turkey, the junta faced complicated problems.

They felt that there was nothing for them to do but to plead with Constantine Karamanlis, self-exiled former prime minister, to return to form a government, which he did on July 24, 1974. He had governed from 1955 to 1963, when, having disagreed with the then Royal Court, he went abroad and resided in Paris. So without any strife and bloodshed, an uncrowned democracy was brought about by free parliamentary elections on November 27 and a referendum on December 8, 1974.

The new government has three big jobs on its hands: (1) Restoring political, social and economic conditions to normal. During the rule of the juntas the country lost about $400 million in tourism, foreign remittances and shipping, and had considerable drop in industrial production. (2) Establishing the Constitutional Charter of the “Hellenic Democracy” by the parliament. (3) Resolving the many thorny problems arising from the Cyprus issue and related ones.

As a result of the return of democracy to its onetime “cradle,” the Christian witnesses of Jehovah can again meet in the open. Late in 1974 the Witnesses rented a large basketball stadium for a special meeting, but, apparently due to religious, not political, pressure, the management at the last minute canceled the contract. Arrangements were then made to hold a series of meetings in a hall of a large hotel owned by a Witness. Another meeting was held two days later in a basketball gymnasium. As a result, a total of 11,644 Witnesses were able to attend a special program to hear two members of their governing body from Brooklyn, New York.

Needless to say, the Witnesses here in Greece were thrilled. It was the first time in more than seven years that they were able to meet in the open, thanks to Jehovah and a change of government from military to democracy. Not that the Witnesses were idle while under a ban. Year after year they continued with zeal their preaching work.​—Isa. 54:17.

At present, under the democratic government in Greece, the Witnesses are free to hold public lectures, and they hope that in the near future they will also be able to have their own places of worship known as “Kingdom Halls.” They are also making plans for expanding their publishing facilities to care for the increased demand for Bible literature in Greece. Now that the government is forming a new Constitutional Charter safeguarding human rights, they hope that their problem concerning registration of their marriages will also finally be resolved.

What Is the Bible’s View?

Accept or Refuse Blood Transfusions?

LIKELY you have read newspaper headlines such as: “Jehovah’s Witness Near Death, Refused Blood: Lives to Tell” and “Refusal to Accept Blood Worries Doctors in Kobe [Japan].”

Reading such headlines, some persons have wondered, ‘Why would anyone refuse blood if his life is at stake?’ Yes, why do these Christians refuse blood? It is not primarily because of a fear of medical complications, but because of their firm religious convictions.

Of course, informed persons realize that blood transfusions can be dangerous. As a lecturer on blood transfusion techniques, at a college in Scotland, wrote: “The risks of transfusion are many. Chance bacterial contamination, transmission of disease, blood group incompatibility and the risks of blood group immunisation, are especially important. Blood is not a magic substance and the advantages to the patient . . . should be carefully balanced against the risks.”

Because of such dangers many doctors now try to avoid transfusing blood. But even if such dangers did not exist, Jehovah’s witnesses would refuse blood transfusions.

They take this position because of realizing that this is not merely a medical issue to be decided by doctors or the local courts. It is a matter of Bible law involving Christians who specialize in Bible law, who recognize that they are under Bible law and who are determined to uphold Bible law. It is no passing whim, but is a vital moral issue as to God’s law against a human’s taking in blood in order to sustain his life. Note the evidence for this.

Bible Statements on Blood

While blood is often mentioned in the Bible, certain passages are particularly pertinent to the question of blood transfusions:

As recorded in Genesis 9:3-6, Jehovah God presented to Noah and his family two regulations about regard for life. First, God said: “Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. . . . Only flesh with its soul [life]​—its blood—​you must not eat.” And, while man might kill an animal for food, about human life Jehovah decreed: “Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man.”

High regard for life​—represented by blood—​was also reflected in the law that God later gave the ancient Israelites: “Whenever your soul craves it you may slaughter [animals for food] . . . Only the blood you must not eat. On the earth you should pour it out as water. Simply be firmly resolved not to eat the blood, because the blood is the soul [or, life].”​—Deut. 12:15, 16, 23; Lev. 17:10-14.

After the death of Jesus the Christian congregation was formed. Were Christians under all the restrictions of the Mosaic law? No, but God was still opposed to the misuse of blood, which represented life. The Christian governing body ruled: “Abstain from things [sacrificed to] idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.”​—Acts 15:19, 20, 28, 29; 21:25.

Animals? Transfusions?

It is true that some persons feel that these texts do not rule out blood transfusions. They believe that these verses present just dietary rules about animal blood, which seem to have little to do with transfusing human blood into the veins so as to save human life. And, furthermore, some persons say that these restrictions applied to Jews and Jewish Christians but are not binding on Christians now. Do you agree?

It is true that Israelites receiving the Mosaic laws about blood would have had in mind the blood of animals killed for food or sacrifice. (Deut. 12:15, 16; Lev. 17:11) But how would they have treated human blood? For example, since the Creator designated blood as representing life, a Jew was prohibited from sustaining his life with animal blood. Even if his life were in jeopardy, it would have been a sin for him to consume animal blood. (1 Sam. 14:31-34) Now, do you think he would have concluded that animal blood was sacred and could not be used but that human blood was less sacred and could be? On the contrary, the Bible plainly shows that human life is higher than animal life. So if even animal blood (representing life) was too sacred to be used, would not human blood also be sacred?

Some persons claim that the Bible restrictions about blood applied only to Jews. But is that so? Recall that long before the law was given through Moses, God had warned Noah​—the progenitor of the whole human family—​against misusing blood. Was God’s command a mere dietary law?

Professor Gerhard von Rad has pointed out that Genesis 9:3, 4 “is not an isolated ‘dietary law’ at all . . . but an ordinance for all mankind.” (Genesis​—A Commentary, 1961) Remember, too, that in Genesis 9:3-6 the prohibition on blood was linked with God’s statement about man’s having even higher regard for the life of other humans. Rabbi Benno Jacob observed:

“The two prohibitions belong together. . . . The permission to eat meat, but without its blood, and the prohibition against shedding human blood indicate the place of man within the world of the living . . . In summary: the reason for the prohibition of blood is of a moral character. . . . Later Judaism regarded this passage as establishing fundamental ethics for every human being.” (Italics added)

This is borne out by the decision of the Christian governing body recorded in Acts 15:19-29. Some persons have claimed that it was a mere temporary extension of the Mosaic law recommended for Christians so as not to offend Jewish sensibilities. But the Christian governing body clearly showed that Bible law requires Christians to continue to hold blood as sacred.

What if, in an emergency, it seems that a blood transfusion apparently offers the best chance to “save a life”? One medical man points out that a patient in

“full possession of his faculties has the right to accept or reject any particular form of medical treatment offered to him. This right is widely recognised already in the case of Roman Catholics . . . By the same token it is difficult to understand why a Jehovah’s Witness should not be allowed similar freedom to refuse blood transfusion. . . . Once one allows the principle that an individual has the right to choose for himself, then any action which over-rules that right is liable to become the thin end of a long wedge. . . . The State is gradually taking over the function of making decisions for the individual. It is in this way that free countries cease to be free and become totalitarian.”

In virtually all situations there are alternative treatments that can be used if blood is not available or is refused. Even if that were not the case, is it not the course of freedom and regard for the rights of others to allow a person to choose what treatment he can accept? And this is even more vital if a Christian is refusing a treatment that violates his understanding of Bible law and the “fundamental ethics” by which he lives!

Watching the World

Embattled Baptists

◆ The issue of charismatics has severely divided the First Baptist Church of Quinlan, Texas. Says a report from the nearby Sherman Democrat: “Baptists in this small town have traded blows during a church service, voted under the eye of the police, had church records stolen from the home of the church treasurer and have split into two factions led by rival groups of deacons. One group claims it cannot worship safely at the First Baptist Church.” The church’s pastor, Ron Howard, says: “It’s been kind of a shock to me. I never thought Christians would react like this.” True Christians, of course, would not.

Religion in Sports

◆ Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal sportswriter Billy Reed wrote about the Easter religious service that University of Kentucky basketball players attended in San Diego, California: “Next came Mass at poolside. Only in California can you expect to see a bunch of people gathered by a swimming pool to worship. Some of the congregation wore sunglasses, others sat under beach umbrellas. The altar was set up on card tables, with palm trees forming the backdrop. . . . At the end of the service, Father Sales said: ‘This concludes the Mass. Thank you for inviting me to share Easter with you. I hope you become national champions. That’s what I’m going to ask for in my Mass.’” However, Kentucky lost the championship game.

Growing Up

◆ People are growing taller. Americans average 5 feet 8.2 inches, putting them among the tallest in the world. The Watusi and Dinka of East Africa are even taller. In just two generations Americans added an average 1.5 inches to their height. But in only one decade Japanese junior high students have become, on the average, 2 to 2.5 inches taller.

Bible Illiterates

◆ The Roanoke (Virginia) Times recently commented on a test given by a Newton, Massachusetts, teacher. Among the answers given on exams were that Sodom and Gomorrah were lovers, that Jesus was baptized by Moses, and that “New Testament” Gospel writers included Matthew, Mark, Luther and John. The article notes: “These results are testimony to what a poor job Sunday schools, churches and homes are doing.”

When the Patient Says “No”

◆ Should doctors be overly critical of patients who refuse medical advice on religious grounds? No, says a Perth, Australia, gynecologist. He says: “Providing the doctor is made aware of any restriction that may be placed on his management of a patient he has the right reasonably to refuse to take on that management . . . On the other hand, he may be prepared to respect the patient’s views and accept the limitations. Mostly, tragedies do not occur. When they do there can be no blame on the doctor​—and there is nothing to gain in being critical of the patient.”

Drug Demand

◆ Cocaine comes from coca leaves, which are grown mostly in Latin America. The demand for the drug has risen intensely: since 1973 the price of coca leaves has gone up 1,500 percent, from four dollars to sixty dollars per bale.

More Rats than People

◆ The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that there are 4,250,000,000 rats in the world, annually consuming over forty million tons of food.

Hepatitis and Transfusions

◆ The National Institutes of Health in the U.S. report that hepatitis following blood transfusion may be caused by an unknown virus that is not related to either of the disease’s two forms, commonly called A (infectious) and B (serum). The report says that this may explain why serious liver disease occurs even after careful testing of blood.

Limited Value of College

◆ “College is a waste of time and money,” says an article in a recent issue of Psychology Today. Author Caroline Bird says: “As I crisscross the United States lecturing on college campuses, I am dismayed to find that professors and administrators, when pressed for a candid opinion, estimate that no more than 25 percent of their students are turned on by classwork. For the rest, college is at best a social center or aging vat, and at worst a young folks’ home or even a prison that keeps them out of the mainstream of economic life for a few more years.”

Fetal Murder

◆ An Illinois woman was only wounded when a bullet struck her abdomen. But an examination revealed that her nine-month-old fetus was killed. A jury recently decided that the man who fired the gun was guilty of murder. How can it be, then, that when a four- or five-month-old fetus is aborted, this is not murder?

Lifeboat Medical Ethics

◆ Increasingly one reads unusual suggestions for dealing with population problems. Some propose that “lifeboat ethics” be employed; the rich, to save themselves, would not feed the poor. Now a government doctor in one African nation says, Do not treat the ill. He writes in the Central African Journal of Medicine: “The unnecessary saving of human lives in a world that is bursting its seams should be made a criminal offence, punishable by slow strangulation.”

Scientific Paradox

◆ “If the human race is to survive into the next century,” warns noted scientific historian Loren C. Eiseley, “scientific technology will have to learn how to control the devastating forces it has unwittingly turned loose on the planet”​—from exploding population and pollution to the arms race and energy waste. “All of these disasters are rooted in the successes of our scientific technology . . . This is the great paradox of the scientific age.”

More than Money

◆ Current economic problems are often blamed for growing U.S. crime. “But,” says the Boston Sunday Globe, “the hypothesis fails to account for the persistent rise in crime in the 1960s, a period of relative prosperity, or of the 1974 increases in areas where the economy is booming. In Houston, for instance, unemployment is a scant 3.6 percent, but serious crime jumped 11 percent in 1974.”

Fastest-growing Crime

◆ What is said to be the fastest-growing major crime in the U.S.? Not rape or murder​—but arson. Known losses from the crime, it is thought, will exceed one billion dollars in 1975. And losses are rising 10 to 15 percent every year. Reasons for the rise vary, but the most familiar form of arson is called “insure-and-burn,” where property is burned for the sake of getting insurance payments; the recession is said to contribute to this increase.

Evolution Unreasonable

◆ The theory that genetic mutations are responsible for evolution has been severely questioned in recent months. When comparing forty-four different proteins from man and chimpanzees, scientists concluded that they are more than 99 percent identical; thus, they say, man and the chimps are relatives. Yet what happens when creatures that appear to be even more closely related are compared? Says the New York Times: “Two species of frog that are similar in anatomy and behaviour may have protein differences 30 to 40 times greater than those between man and chimpanzee.”

Church Decline in Britain

◆ Church membership in England and Wales is dropping fast. The Roman Catholic Church admits that it loses about 250,000 members each year. The Methodist Church fell from 750,000 to 601,000 in the last decade. But the figures are most significant for the Church of England, since it is the national church. In 1956 the attendance at Easter Communion was 2,348,000. By 1970 the figure was down to 1,814,000. In the same period, however, the adult population in England rose from 32 million to 35 million.

Rock Concert Firetrap

◆ Many parents, fearing that their youngsters may be hurt in a riot, or be exposed to drugs and bad company, keep them away from rock concerts. Columnist Mike Royko in the Detroit Free Press adds another reason to the list after visiting one of the country’s finest auditoriums during such a concert: “Throughout the theater, we found exits locked, some with chains. . . . Of the 12 doors leading out of the south end of the auditorium, we found 8 were locked.” Most of the youngsters, 14 to 18 years of age, were smoking marijuana. “The no-smoking law didn’t seem to apply. If any of these hundreds of cigarets touched off a fire, or if some nut decided to throw a smoke bomb, the results would have been a mad rush to . . . to where?” Royko adds that in their condition “the kids would have been stacking up like long-haired cordwood.”

Name Change

◆ In recent years a number of leading American corporations changed their names, feeling that they needed a new image. It became popular to use only initials. As a result, Industry Week reports: “Today there’s a bewildering jumble of companies with initials in their names.” At least one major company wants to get out of the “corporate alphabet soup” by reverting to its old name.

Family Breweries Dying

◆ Family-owned breweries once proliferated throughout the State of Pennsylvania. There were forty-two in just the city of Philadelphia. Now there is only one. The next to last recently sold out. Why? Because of increased advertising expenses, soaring malt and corn prices, as well as a recent 25-percent increase in the cost of canning.

Less Back Trouble

◆ Can any exercise or special sleeping position help one to prevent back trouble? Dr. Henry L. Feffer, professor of orthopedic surgery at George Washington University, answers: “If every one of us could swim every day, that would be perfect. Walking is good. You don’t have to lift weights. . . . I think you’re better off if you sleep on your side, curled up, or on your back with your knees up, because your back then flattens out.”

Food for Emergencies

◆ The threat of worldwide food shortage grows. But the nations do not seem to be able to organize and take advantage of provisions that are available. Strangely, however, they can regiment in wartime. Says Ceres magazine (of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization): “Since the remotest times, man has been able to plan the food supplies of armies, even when located very far from their home base. . . . The science of nutrition, well known to soldiers and veterinarians, was long neglected in the case of civilians and was put into practice only during the second world war. Must we agree with Lord Boyd Orr that we know how to arrange for the supply of food only in wartime?”

Highly Paid Athletes

◆ The highest-paid athletes in America are boxers. The three top ones earned a total of $12,800,000 in 1974. A leading harness racer was fourth-highest wage earner in sports, with $500,000; another earned $400,000. Six basketball players each made over $400,000 in 1974.

Lifesaving Belts

◆ What is currently the best way to survive an auto crash? “Among approximately 500 users of lap and shoulder belts in the 30,000 accidents investigated . . . in Western New York since 1969, there was not a single death reported,” says a recent report in Machine Design magazine. This confirms a past Swedish study of 28,000 accidents indicating “that none of the motorists wearing the three-point lap and shoulder belts was killed in impacts up to 60 mph.”

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