November 22

Page Two

Pollution​—its victims are many, those profited are few. Now the cry is, Cut controls to save the economy! But which is greater, pollution’s profits or its costs? Which is greater, love of money or love of life? Or does the answer depend on whose life it is, the polluter’s or the victim’s? The web of life is closely woven. Endanger a few and you endanger many. At first it’s a few butterflies, then it’s us. All become involved, ultimately

3 IF YOU WERE THE LANDLORD, AND THESE WERE YOUR TENANTS . . .

4 WHAT EARTH’S TENANTS HAVE DONE

6 EARTH’S TENANTS MAKE BAD MATTERS WORSE

9 WHAT EARTH’S OWNER WILL DO

If You Were the Landlord, and These Were Your Tenants . . .

ON A cliff overlooking the ocean, you’ve built a beautiful house on 20 acres of gently rolling woodland. The inside of the house has been flawlessly decorated by a talented artist. Outside, near the house, landscaped flower beds give dazzling color, as also do the window boxes on the house itself. Fruit orchards and vegetable gardens provide ample food.

Beyond these cultivated areas, towering trees surround a meadow through which a brook gurgles and winds its way. Sea breezes sway the wild flowers that add splashes of color to sunny glades. Everywhere you look is a feast for the eyes, and for your nostrils as they draw in deep breaths of sea air scented by flowers, and for your ears as birds fill the air with song and the wind adds its rustling of leaves. And in the background you hear the subdued sounds of the ocean surf as it rolls in on the beach far below.

You survey the results of your work and feel satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment. You want others to enjoy it. You bring in a large family and turn all of it over to them, along with instructions for its care. You leave.

Later you return, and you’re shocked! The ocean is a yellowish brown, globs of oil and garbage litter the beach, the trees have been chopped down, the meadow has turned brown, the brook is a mere trickle and it’s polluted. Trash is everywhere. The birds have left, the flowers are gone, the fruit trees are dead and concrete covers where the garden was.

The paint has peeled off the house. Inside the house the floors are filthy, the walls marked up, the furniture scratched. The kitchen is littered with leftover food and the sink is filled with dirty dishes. Blaring music comes from some rooms, cursing is heard in others, and in some gross sexual immoralities and perversions are being practiced. The family left in charge has greatly increased, and its members quarrel and fight and even kill one another.

As you survey the damage to your house and its grounds, and note the moral decay of its inhabitants, what thoughts go through your mind? This was the work of your hands. You’re the landlord. These people are your tenants. Obviously, they don’t appreciate what you did for them. They have ignored your instructions as to the care of your property. Will you leave them there? What will you do?

Similarly, “to Jehovah belong the earth and that which fills it.” (Ps. 24:1) After he created it he “saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) He put people on the earth and told them to take care of it​—the plants, the animals, the environment. Now, after 6,000 years, what does he see? How does he feel about what he sees? What will he do?

What Earth’s Tenants Have Done

“We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests, leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air. That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago.”​—Rose Bird, chief justice of the California Supreme Court.

Recent Headlines Pile Up the Evidence

A FLOOD OF HOT WASTE

“An ominous question: how to dispose of the rising flood of radioactive waste? . . . buried wastes will remain radioactive for thousands of years,” some “for a quarter of a million years.”

TOXIC WASTES ARE DAMAGING AMERICANS’ HEALTH

“More ‘Love Canals’ to come in an American future increasingly clouded by chemicals dangerous to public health.”

SOVIET CONSERVATION: A BEAR WITH NO CLAWS

“Nearly 10 per cent of the habitable territory of the Soviet Union has already been laid waste by environmental pollution.”

POLLUTION ENVELOPS MADRID

“In a single week, 700 persons with respiratory or cardiovascular ailments are believed to have died from the effects of the oppressive smog.”

POLLUTION STALKS THE MEDITERRANEAN

“The Mediterranean, in fact, is well on the way to becoming a vast open sewer.

DEFORESTATION AND DISASTER [IN BRAZIL]

“Many once plentiful plants and birds are gone, and human beings who live there are disfigured by skin cancer.”

GROWING DESERTS A THREAT TO MILLIONS

“Deserts are creeping outward in Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas because of unsound use of land.”

NORWAY’S KILLER [ACID] RAIN

“The acid originates all over Europe, from as far west as Belfast and as far east as Moscow.”

TOXIC SMOKE CHOKES MEXICO CITY

“A recent report on Mexico’s air pollution said it was ‘an indirect cause in the death of 150,000 children each year’ and ‘seriously affects 175,000 adults each year.”’

DIOXIN TURNS UP IN THE GREAT LAKES

“A series of reports in Canada and in the United States is establishing the Great Lakes Basin as the most heavily polluted area in the Western world.”

FREE USE OF PESTICIDES IN GUATEMALA TAKES A DEADLY TOLL

During the 90-day cotton-growing period “we treat 30 or 40 people a day for pesticide poisoning.”

KARACHI FACES WATER POLLUTION CRISIS

“Drinking water in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and main port, is heavily polluted by untreated sewage and industrial waste.”

MORE EVIDENCE OF THE DANGERS OF LEAD POLLUTION

“Lead is responsible for subtle damage to children’s brains.”

SUPERBUGS

“Insects once decimated by pesticides have developed immunities enabling them to multiply at a fantastic pace.”

SPERM FOUND ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE TO ENVIRONMENT

“Miscarriages, defects, infertility linked to damage by toxins.”

USE OF FOSSIL FUEL CALLED THREAT TO WORLD CLIMATE

“A carbon dioxide buildup over the next 200 years could lead to dramatic changes in the earth’s climate, . . . the floating Arctic ice pack would melt.”

NO OFFSHORE OIL SPILL HAS EVER BEEN CLEANED UP TO ANY SIGNIFICANT EXTENT

“Marine organisms . . . accumulate oil hydrocarbons in their tissues. These fish and shellfish pose a public health hazard because some of these hydrocarbons are carcinogenic.”

EXPOSURE TO NOISE FOUND TO POSE NEW HEALTH RISKS

“Linked not only to loss of hearing, but also to high blood pressure, nervous disorders, learning problems, insomnia, underweight newborn babies and perhaps even some forms of heart disease.”

POLLUTION OF OCEANS IS ENORMOUS THREAT

“But few people care; ‘business as usual,’ pending annihilation.”

REPORT URGES GLOBAL ACTION ON RESOURCES

“Time is running out for international action to prevent a starving, overcrowded, polluted, resource-poor world.”

Earth’s Tenants Make Bad Matters Worse

Their remedies not only boomerang; they also set in motion calamitous chain reactions that claim millions of victims

RACHEL CARSON’S deeply moving book Silent Spring marked a turning point in worldwide concern for the environment. It was her book that first aroused the world to the danger of pesticides. But the world in general gave no heed, and that bad matter continues to worsen.

Insect pests destroy crops. To kill the pests, farmers spray with pesticides. Bugs die by the millions, but a few possess a natural immunity and survive. They pass on this immunity to their offspring, and soon a race of superbugs is eating the crops. The remedy has boomeranged. A bad matter has been made worse.

But it has done more than boomerang. It has touched off a series of chain reactions creating new calamities and new victims. The pesticides kill valuable insects that preyed on the pests, rain washes the poisons into the ground where they damage soil bacteria, water carries them to lakes and oceans where microorganisms and plankton are destroyed and fish are contaminated. Birds of prey eat the fish and can hatch no eggs. People eat the fish and the pesticides. Or the poisons enter people through another food chain​—the pesticides land on grass, cattle eat the grass, the poisons enter their milk and meat, which people drink or eat.

Pesticides are but a small part of the pollution problem. Newspaper headlines alone reveal pollution’s worldwide scope. It is not the purpose here to review what has already been widely publicized. There is a growing awareness on the part of some, however, of major crises that loom ahead, namely: The loss of topsoil. The loss of plant and animal species. The loss of caring about others. Please consider these, briefly.

Topsoil is being lost earth wide, but concentrate on the United States, which has been called “the breadbasket for the world’s hungry multitudes.” Three million acres of farmland each year are being paved over, subdivided or industrialized. Four million acres are lost annually through erosion. In Illinois 181 million tons are lost yearly​—two bushels of dirt for every bushel of corn produced. A century ago Iowa averaged 16 inches of topsoil; now it approaches 8 inches. Every second 15 tons of topsoil flow out of the mouth of the Mississippi River. “The best topsoil of Iowa,” farmers say, “can be found in the Gulf of Mexico.”

And the topsoil that is retained is being damaged. Healthy soil teems with life​—algae, worms, insects, bacteria, fungi, molds, yeasts, protozoa and other minute organisms. It is this vast community of living organisms​—five billion to a teaspoonful of temperate-zone soil, according to some estimates—​that causes organic matter to decay, becoming humus. Humus is vital. It is nourishment for plants and prevents erosion.

One authority said: “Soil losses increased 22% in the early 1970s with [the beginnings] of intensive farming.” Commercial fertilizers do not replace humus. When ammonium sulfate is used the sulfate becomes sulphuric acid, which kills the soil organisms that make humus. Pesticides also take their toll on soil life. Deep plowing buries the soil organisms inches below their natural habitat​—the upper three inches of soil. It also exposes the loosened dirt to eroding winds and waters. Nitrate fertilizers are not all used by the plants​—up to half of it is leached out into water supplies that end up in lakes. There it produces excessive algae growth, and when the algae die and decay, the oxygen in the water is depleted and the fish die. In this way dead lakes are created.

The consequences of soil abuse are far-reaching. Even more far-reaching, however, is the loss of plant and animal genetic material.

The highly productive food-crop strains developed over the last 20 years are from varieties that grew wild for thousands of years. The wild plants had a natural resistance to disease and pests, but man’s new hybrid plants, intensively farmed on damaged soil, have to get their protection from herbicides and insecticides. In many cases, the wild strains that were used to breed the new hybrids in the first place have themselves become extinct, taking with them perhaps the most precious substances on earth, their germ plasm. Without a large pool of this genetic material from wild plants, man will not have the raw materials to develop new hybrids to meet the new challenges posed by superbugs, plant diseases, weather and increasing populations.

Over 95 percent of human nutrition comes from 30 plant crops and seven kinds of animals. There is a danger in depending on so few food sources, especially in view of the intensive farming and the inbreeding that weaken resistance to pests, disease and climatic changes. An example of the value of wild species is the mustard plant. From it were developed broccoli, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage and cauliflower. Also, from a relative of corn, a wild perennial, there is hope of developing a high-yielding corn species that would be a perennial, not needing to be regrown each year from seed.

Once a plant or animal species becomes extinct, its gene pool is lost forever. And that is what’s happening earth wide. More than 200 species of animals have become extinct within the last three or four centuries. More than 800 are currently in jeopardy. The greatest threat to both animals and plants is the loss of habitats.

Every year some 27 million acres of tropical forest are lost. In the world’s temperate zones there are 1.5 million kinds of organisms; tropical forests contain 3 million. They can make big contributions to the development of new medicines and new food sources. But the forests are disappearing, and along with them their gene pools. We may never know whether there was an obscure plant in the Philippines that could cure cancer or an unknown fungus in the Amazon that could prevent heart attacks. Aside from nuclear war, it may be the worst crisis of man’s making.

More than this: When tropical forests are cleared, rains erode the soil, which is poor anyway and won’t grow crops or support cattle for more than a few years. Then farmers and cattlemen move on and repeat the cycle of destruction. The prognosis is that what was the Amazon jungle will become the Amazon desert. And still more: When forests are burned, great quantities of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. This adds to the vast amounts already being spewed into it by industry. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s, carbon dioxide in the air has increased from 15 to 25 percent. This growing blanket of carbon dioxide could change the climate and imperil food production and our survival.

Last year environmentalist Norman Meyers said to a global conference: “Of earth’s five million species, we could well lose at least one million by the end of the century. We are already losing one species per day, and by the end of the 1980s we could be losing one species per hour. . . . Species and tropical forests are the great sleeper issues of the late twentieth century. It is difficult to imagine two issues of greater potential significance to humankind, yet less recognized by the general public and its political leaders.”

Whether the world’s politicians recognize this or not, they have other priorities. President Reagan reportedly has called environmental regulations an albatross around the neck of American industry. His overall aim is less regulation, less enforcement, lower standards and reduced penalties. The secretary of the interior, James Watt, has set about scuttling the environmental protections for plants, animals, air, water and soil​—and for people. Other countries are also reshuffling their priorities to put the economy ahead of the environment.

Yet, in its annual “State of the World Environment Report,” the United Nations Environment Programme claimed that pollution damage in developed countries costs more than environmental protection. The report also pinpointed a trend​—the relocation of polluting industries from developed to developing countries. It says the Japanese do this. Also American industries hazardous to the environment are being relocated in Mexico, Brazil and other developing countries.

Does this not reflect a calloused indifference to the welfare of people? A loss of caring about others? No love for neighbor, just love of money? A case of profits before people? Illustrating this disregard for others is Cubatão, Brazil. Foreign industry has so polluted the city that its four rivers are dead. Fish taken from the nearby ocean outlet are blind or deformed from ingested mercury. There are no birds, no butterflies, no insects of any kind, and when it rains it’s acid rain. Many babies are born deformed or dead, many others perish within a week. Since such flagrant pollution is not allowed in developed nations, the managing director of one of Cubatão’s steel companies very callously said that “the iron foundry is an activity more suitable to third world countries.”

We need a return to old values. Love of neighbor is the only practical course. Care for the environment is for our survival. Too often, before the danger is seen the damage is done. And even after the danger is seen, the damage continues to be done. The web of life is closely woven. Endanger a few and you endanger many. At first it’s a few butterflies, then it’s us. All are involved eventually.

“Is it really necessary,” asks Romain Gary, “to keep on saying that no man is an island? How many warnings do we need? How many proofs and statistics, how many deaths, how much beauty gone, how many ‘last specimens’ in those sad zoos? . . . The heart either speaks or it does not. . . . It is absurd to cram our museums with art and to spend billions for beauty and then to let beauty be destroyed wantonly in all its living splendor.”​—From the introduction to the book Vanishing Species.

The all-important question is, however, What will earth’s Owner do about the polluting of his earth?

[Blurb on page 6]

“The best topsoil of Iowa can be found in the Gulf of Mexico”

[Blurb on page 8]

“How many deaths, how much beauty gone, how many ‘last specimens’ in those sad zoos?”

[Blurb on page 9]

Every year some 27 million acres of tropical forest are lost

[Picture on page 7]

From the Mustard plant come

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Kohlrabi

Kale

Cabbage

Cauliflower

What Earth’s Owner Will Do

Put yourself in his place and ask yourself, What would I do?

THE first article in this issue tells of a beautiful home you’ve provided for tenants who proceeded to ruin it. Undoubtedly, you would evict them. Succeeding articles show just some of the ruin people have brought upon the earth. Which is worse, for a family to wreck your house or for humankind to ruin the earth? If you would not tolerate tenants who wreck your house, can you not understand why God would not allow those who ruin his earth to remain on it?

This is exactly what Jehovah has said, that he will not allow this ruining of his earth to continue indefinitely. Moreover, he has set the time for halting it, a time known as “the last days.” Wars, famines, earthquakes, diseases, moral breakdown, juvenile delinquency, burgeoning crime, a me-first pleasure-oriented society with no time for God or godliness​—these were the features that were foretold to characterize the “last days” of this present system. The overall effect of all of this is exactly what was foretold for it and which we now see​—“anguish of nations, not knowing the way out,” and peoples everywhere “faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth.”​—2 Tim. 3:1-5; Matt. 24:3-14; Luke 21:25-27.

Do some scoff at this? Their presence was also predicted for this time: “You know this first, that in the last days there will come ridiculers with their ridicule, proceeding according to their own desires and saying: ‘Where is this promised presence of his? Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as from creation’s beginning.”’ (2 Pet. 3:3, 4) The scoffers are present, as foretold, and they do delight to say that all these things have happened before.

But this is not so, not to the degree that they now exist earth wide, and something more has been added which has never been before. John Oakes, former senior editor of the New York Times, identified this new addition: “The environmental crisis . . . is different in quality and degree from anything that has gone before in the history of the human race.” Jehovah God declared this additional thing as another one of the evidences of the “last days.” After mentioning Christ’s enthronement and the international turmoil, the Bible book of Revelation states that the time has also arrived “to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” (Rev. 11:18) Men may have been willing to ruin it before, in their greed and love of money, but they did not have the power to do so. Now, however, their scientific technology has given them the power to ruin the earth and they are doing so as they greedily exploit it. And, as the prophecy also shows, it is Jehovah who will stop their destructive course.

Jehovah God did not create the earth on a whim of the moment. He did not make it to allow it to be turned into a wasteland. He acted with a purpose in view. “God, the Former of the earth and the Maker of it, . . . did not create it simply for nothing, [but] formed it even to be inhabited.” And it is to endure forever in an inhabited and beautiful paradise condition.​—Isa. 45:18; Ps. 104:5; Eccl. 1:4.

The first man on earth was placed in the garden of Eden and told “to cultivate it and to take care of it.” Plants were to be food for all living creatures, not just man. Some plants were for beauty​—how gloriously he clothed the lilies of the field! The land was to be cared for. Later, God decreed that every seventh year was to be “a sabbath of complete rest for the land.”​—Gen. 1:30; 2:15-17; Matt. 6:28-30; Lev. 25:3-7.

Have people thus cared for the earth as commanded?

Regard for animals was to be shown. God calls righteous the man who cares for animals, but brands as wicked those who are cruel. His law given through Moses provided for the preservation of species​—mother birds were to be spared. One was not to plow with an ox and an ass yoked together​—it’s unfair to the smaller, weaker animal. One was not to muzzle the ox that treads out the grain​—it has the right to eat while it works. Under that Law, domestic animals were to rest, along with their masters on the Sabbath, and men were to work to aid an animal in distress, even if this was on a Sabbath day.​—Matt. 10:29; Prov. 12:10; Deut. 22:6, 7, 10; 25:4; Ex. 23:12, 5; Luke 14:5.

Are those principles followed today?

God gave instructions as to how people should treat one another. Jesus expressed it this way: “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them.” “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” And just as we would like to see appreciation on the part of tenants living in our beautiful home, so we should show gratitude to the Owner of the earth, Jehovah God. “You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart,” Jesus said. (Matt. 7:12; 22:37-39) Interestingly, to do this you must also love your neighbor, “for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot be loving God, whom he has not seen.”​—1 John 4:20.

Do we see this kind of love guiding man’s current pollution of earth’s air, water and soil? And do we see it in the calloused and indifferent and even cruel destruction that he is wreaking today upon plants and animals and peoples? And, especially, do we see it on the part of industrialists who move their operations to vulnerable third world developing nations where they can flagrantly pollute, maim and kill without any troublesome environmental regulations to curtail their rape of those lands and their defenseless people?

Finally, there is another kind of pollution that ruins the earth​—moral pollution. It also calls for the ousting of earth’s tenants. When God told the Israelites to take over the Promised Land of Canaan, he was not callously removing one people to make room for another. The Canaanites were being thrown out because they had polluted the land by their gross immorality and religious bloodshedding. After listing some of these heinous crimes, God warned Israel: “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, because by all these things the nations whom I am sending out from before you have made themselves unclean. Consequently the land is unclean, and I shall bring punishment for its error upon it, and the land will vomit its inhabitants out.”​—Lev. 18:24, 25.

But Israel did as those nations had done: served idols, spilled innocent blood, practiced despicable immoralities, until once again “the land came to be polluted.” And because God is impartial, Israel was vomited out of the land just as were the Canaanites before them. “Look!” said the prophet, “Jehovah is emptying the land and laying it waste, and he has twisted the face of it and scattered its inhabitants. And the very land has been polluted under its inhabitants, for they have bypassed the laws, changed the regulation, broken the indefinitely lasting covenant. That is why the curse itself has eaten up the land, and those inhabiting it are held guilty.”​—Ps. 106:35-39; Isa. 24:1, 5, 6.

Just as you would not let tenants remain in your lovely home if they ruined its beauty and turned its rooms into brothels, so Jehovah will oust earth’s tenants who pollute it. Thereafter it will become a beautiful paradise home for all mankind who will appreciate it and care for it. “Just a little while longer,” sings the psalmist, “and the wicked one will be no more; and you will certainly give attention to his place, and he will not be. But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth, and they will indeed find their exquisite delight in the abundance of peace. The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.”​—Ps. 37:10, 11, 29.

The earth is for all living creatures; all creation is to praise their Creator God, Jehovah. ‘Praise him, heavens, earth, sea creatures, birds, animals and all peoples,’ says Psalm 148. And the last verse of the last Psalm in the Bible sounds the glorious finale: “Every breathing thing​—let it praise Jah. Praise Jah, you people!”​—Ps. 150:6.

[Blurb on page 10]

‘The environmental crisis is different from anything that has gone before in the history of the human race’

[Blurb on page 11]

There is another kind of pollution that ruins the earth​—moral pollution

[Blurb on page 11]

“Look!” said the prophet, “Jehovah is emptying the land and laying it waste . . . the very land has been polluted under its inhabitants”

[Blurb on page 12]

The earth is for all living creatures; all creation is to praise Jehovah!

[Picture on page 12]

“It’s my world too”

How Old Are the Fossils?

“Chinese Unearth Fossil of 500,000-Year-Old Peking Man”

DO YOU see headlines like this from time to time? Maybe you wonder how they know the fossil is half a million years old.

There are several ways scientists estimate the age of fossils. The one in which they put highest confidence is the radioactive method. How does it work? Is it really accurate?

Usually it is not the fossil itself that is dated, but a radioactive mineral found in the same stratum of rock with the fossil.

URANIUM-LEAD DATING. Uranium is a radioactive element that very slowly changes into lead. The common form of uranium, U-238, disintegrates at such a rate that in 4,500 million years half of it changes into lead. The age of a mineral containing uranium can be determined by measuring how much lead has formed in it.

So from a chemical analysis of a mineral for its uranium and its lead content, a simple calculation gives its age. But the analysis is complicated by the fact that there are different isotopes of lead, and only lead 206 comes from uranium 238. So the chemist must get the help of the physicist with his mass spectrometer to see how much of this particular isotope is in the lead.

However, there are two very important assumptions that must be true if the answer is to be correct:

First, that there was no lead mixed in the uranium mineral when it formed in the cooling magma of molten rock. If there was any lead present, then the newly formed rock would look as if it was already millions of years old.

Second, that no lead has escaped from the mineral. If some of the telltale lead had been leached out of an old mineral, it would appear much younger under analysis.

So, you see, the method is not foolproof. Nevertheless, with proper attention to such possible pitfalls, acceptably reliable dates have been put on many old rock formations. Based on this method, the age of the oldest parts of the earth’s crust has been set at over four billion years.

But uranium minerals are not found in the same rocks as fossils. This is because in igneous rocks, or even those that have been metamorphosed by heat, any fossils would have been destroyed. So other radioactive clocks must be used for dating fossils.

POTASSIUM-ARGON DATING. The element potassium is widespread in the mineral world. It has a very rare isotope, K-40, which decays with a half-life of 1,300 million years. Most of it changes into calcium, but 11 percent of it decays in a different way, to argon. Now argon is an inert gas. It does not combine with other elements and is usually found only in the atmosphere. But minerals such as feldspar, containing potassium that has not been disturbed for a long time, do contain trapped argon because of the radioactive process.

This property of potassium is utilized in a situation where fossils have been buried in a fall of volcanic ash. The theory of dating by the potassium-argon method is simple. When a volcano erupts, the molten rock that is thrown out loses the argon that was previously formed from the potassium in the rock. The rock solidifies as the volcanic plume cools, and its potassium, now free of argon, starts over again making it. Thus the potassium-argon clock has been set to zero, and anything buried by the eruption can be dated by analyzing the surrounding ash.

The theory sounds good, but in practice difficulties arise once more in the basic assumptions. On the one hand, the possibility that argon has leaked out of the mineral would make the age measurement too small. On the other hand, if not all the argon was boiled out of the molten rock by the volcanic heat, the clock would be set in error at the beginning.

This can be especially serious in cases where the potassium-argon method is used on relatively recent deposits​—say, younger than a few million years. The slightest trace of argon remaining in the ash will cause a huge error. For example, if a potassium mineral had been buried, building up argon for a billion years before it was ejected in an eruption, then as little as one eighth of one percent of the argon left in the ash would date a freshly buried bone in it as being already a million years old.

This might not be a serious error in sediment a hundred million years old. But you can see how wrong it would make any claim for a supposed ancestor of man found in the Olduvai gorge in Tanzania​—a claim that the fossil is one or two million years old. It is hard to read seconds on a clock that has only an hour hand.

Corroborating the undependability of scientific dating, note the following. Two scientists wanted to relate a new find to a previous one, which had been dated as being 65 million years old. However, potassium-argon dating said their new find was only 44 million years old​—21 million less. No problem​—where there’s a will there’s a way. The two scientists “attribute this to loss of argon or to impurities,” reports Science News, July 18, 1981. Wishy-washy when it suits their purpose, dogmatic when it doesn’t.

RADIOCARBON DATING. The radiocarbon clock, based on a half-life of carbon 14 of 5,500 years, is much more useful for measuring ages in the span of man’s history on earth. In this case we are not using a radioactive element that has been here ever since creation. With such a short life, the radiocarbon would have all disappeared ages ago. But this isotope is being formed continually by the rain of cosmic rays upon the earth’s atmosphere.

All living things have carbon in their every body part, and while they are living they have the same proportion of carbon 14 as the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When they cease to live and are buried and cut off from the atmosphere, the carbon 14 gradually decays and disappears. So if an old piece of wood or charcoal is exhumed, one can measure the proportion of carbon 14 remaining and tell how long ago it was part of a living tree.

Again, that is the theory. In practice, there are many things that can cause false readings. One thing that can easily spoil a sample is possible contamination with other materials that might contain carbon either older or younger.

The most serious question, especially about very old specimens, is whether the radiocarbon was in the same proportion in the atmosphere in ancient times as it is today. There is no way to be sure of this, because it depends upon cosmic ray showers, which are notably variable and sporadic. If, for instance, for some reason during mankind’s earliest history, the cosmic rays averaged only half the intensity they have today, any sample from that era would appear to be 5,500 years older than it really is.

Since we have no way of knowing how intense cosmic rays were in past ages, we are wise to accept carbon-14 dates only for the period for which the clock has been calibrated with historical materials, back to about 3,500 years ago. Older than that, they may be increasingly inaccurate.

SO HOW CREDIBLE ARE THE DATES? Is the fossil Peking man really 500,000 years old? Let’s see what the Encyclopædia Britannica says about it. Speaking of matching fossils of similar animals in strata in different parts of the earth, it says:

“Such lines of evidence have led to the tentative conclusion that the species Homo erectus is essentially of early middle Pleistocene age. . . . the youngest accepted hard-core representatives of H. erectus in the fossil record would seem to be the group from Peking in China, Trinil in Java, Ternifine in Algeria, and the braincase of Olduvai hominid 9 from Tanzania. Repeated potassium-argon datings of the Trinil beds has yielded an estimate of their age in years as 550,000 BP (before present). . . . it would seem reasonable to suggest 1,500,000 to 500,000 BP as a time range for Homo erectus.”

Note all the hedging to avoid a definite assertion​—words such as “tentative,” “would seem,” “estimate,” “reasonable to suggest.” It is not stated that the Peking fossil has been dated. After a patchwork of inference, the conclusion ultimately stands on an analysis in which the retention in the potassium mineral of only a thousandth part of the argon that had previously accumulated could account for the whole 500,000 years. When we look behind the headlines we find no sound proof for the widely touted claims to antiquity of the Peking fossils.

If a person wants to find fault with the Bible history of man’s creation, he can use the contradictory claims of scientific dating methods to justify his position. But, to be fair, he really ought to acknowledge that such methods are too fallible and unreliable to challenge successfully the faith of one who accepts the Bible as God’s word of truth.

[Blurb on page 13]

Two very important assumptions must be true if the answer is to be correct

[Blurb on page 14]

It is hard to read seconds on a clock that has only an hour hand

[Blurb on page 15]

Wise to accept carbon-14 dates only when they can be calibrated with historical materials

[Blurb on page 15]

When we look behind the headlines we find no proof for the claims to antiquity of the Peking fossils

Missionaries​—What Really Should Be Their Work?

FOUR missionaries were gunned down in a Central American country and the shots were heard around the world. The 1979 killing of these women brought to the front page an old question: What really should be the work of Christian missionaries?

The role of these four missionaries has been hotly debated. Viewpoints differ about what a missionary should do. One graduate of a Catholic missionary school reportedly declared: “We don’t want to change people​—we only want to help them.” Many feel that missionaries should help by establishing hospitals, secular schools, refugee centers or orphanages​—principally, care for people’s material needs.

Others now believe that they should make the poor people that they serve more conscious of their situation and rights. “It used to be God’s will to accept the suffering,” stated one South American Catholic missionary. “Now it’s God’s will to denounce the suffering.” This attitude has brought missionaries in conflict with some national governments.

Are such activities really the work of a Christian missionary? Are they the best way to help people?

A Different Kind of Missionary

At least one missionary school is convinced that the role of a Christian missionary is to teach people the Bible. Established nearly 40 years ago, while World War II was raging, the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead began producing missionaries who would engage only in Bible education. “Your principal work,” stated the then president, N. H. Knorr, on the school’s opening day, “is that of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom from house to house as did Jesus and the apostles.”​—Matt. 28:19, 20.

Those successfully completing the course receive a diploma that states that the graduate is “specially qualified to engage in educational work, promoting goodwill and working in behalf of permanent peace.” So those of the current graduating class (see picture) are to promote peace, not strife. “Our missionaries are to be Bible educators,” stated the first registrar of the School, A. D. Schroeder. “They are to give people the finest education of the heart with the Word of God.” To help the students to fulfill this role, Bible courses are featured. A detailed study of each book of the Bible forms a major portion of the curriculum.

But is such Bible education practical? ‘Many people today need medical attention, proper food and housing,’ exclaim missionaries of traditional religions. ‘They need material help first. Then we can tend to their spiritual needs.’ So is the role of Gilead-trained missionaries unrealistic? What have the results of nearly 40 years proved?

“An Education in Living”

“I came home in tears the first few days of my working in the poor areas of my assignment in a Central American country because of the living conditions,” stated Charlotte Bowin Schroeder, a member of the first class. Julia Clogston, who accompanied Charlotte, added, “but when persons began following the Bible, their family life would improve, their home would become cleaner, they even dressed better. In fact, at one of our conventions the daughter of a former president of the country was working alongside several other young Witness girls. Yet you couldn’t tell the difference in the way the girls dressed. Those from unfortunate circumstances were dressed as clean and neat as the former president’s daughter!”

But how did Bible education accomplish this? Julia illustrates: “A husband whose wife was already studying the Bible with a Gilead missionary asked me, ‘What do you have to do to become a Witness?’ I showed him Galatians chapter 5 [verses 19-21], where it says to stop such practices as sexual immorality, fits of anger, drunkenness and the like. He too began to study the Bible.

“At the time he was sharing his meager earnings with ‘another woman.’ This adulterous practice was common. Some men even supported several families. Applying the Bible, he stopped his adultery. His family had more money, for even though he earned a small amount, it all went to one place! As a Witness he now took pride in his family. I have seen scores of cases just like this,” said Julia.

This Bible educational work was not limited to the poor. Among those taught by the graduates of that first class of Gilead was a government official who certainly did not need the material help of any missionary. Yet why was Bible knowledge so valuable to him?

“The Bible helped our family to appreciate the realities of life and not live in a dreamworld,” reflected this official’s son, Baltasar Perla, Jr. “Dad realized from the Bible that having a ‘big name’ did not make you a better person than others. As a result, we developed warm, lasting friendships, for we could see the real worth and value of others. We learned how to treat people of all backgrounds with respect.” Then pausing, as if to look back on his life, Baltasar added, “I think of the wealthy persons in our country who overnight lost everything. Or those in high positions who are too busy working to enjoy their families, perhaps paying maids to care for the children. How empty my life would be if wealth had been the biggest thing in our lives! Though we had maids to do household chores, I’m glad that my parents didn’t have one to care for us children, but gave us their time. The Bible education by the missionaries gave our family right values in living!”

Is Bible Education Practical?

Among the 27 graduates of the most recent Gilead class, the 71st, was a couple born and raised in the Philippines, Jamir and Rufina Dela Paz. Jamir, before coming to Gilead, taught people the Bible in a area served by missionaries of other churches. “If yours is a true Christian religion, why don’t you give food to the poor as we do?” said one of these missionaries. “I am giving out ‘food!”’ replied Jamir. “No, not like yours, but spiritual ‘food.”’ He added: “Wait till you run out of food to give to those people, then we’ll know who is doing the work of God.” Which method was really practical?

“Sure enough, the food ran out,” reported Jamir. “One by one persons stopped going to the church, which today is practically abandoned. But what a contrast with the still-thriving congregation I helped to establish there by using the Bible!

“One of these families, before becoming Witnesses, received food handouts from this mission. The man ran around with many women and was not married to the woman with whom he was living. Being poor, neither they nor their children had proper clothing and shelter,” explained Jamir. “Then I began to study the Bible with him. He soon wanted to straighten out his life so he asked the woman with whom he lived to marry him.” Her reply: “Absolutely not!” She told Jamir: “You can never trust that man. I know as soon as I turn my back he will have another woman!”

Only after observing the faithful conduct of the man for a year did she concede to marriage. “But what changes!” exclaimed Jamir. “Both became Jehovah’s Witnesses and stopped smoking, overdrinking and playing the lottery. They now could buy proper clothing and food​—even fix up their home. Their neighbors talked about their better way of life. Now they not only have the necessities but also a rich family life, self-respect and a solid hope for the future.”

But can Bible education create genuine peace? Can it promote goodwill among people, as the diploma given to the Gilead missionaries promises?

The Key to Real Peace

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed,” so states the preamble of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), admitting the need for proper education to bring peace. Many government leaders recognize that it is a strong moral fiber in a country that contributes to peace. In fact, Charlotte Schroeder recalls making several visits to the president of the country wherein she served to discuss the work of missionaries. “We told him that our work helped the country,” explained Charlotte, “for it teaches people to get along with others and to refrain from violence.” So impressed was the president that he also began a study of the Bible with the Witnesses after his term was completed.

“When you have over 7,500 persons of all social classes who refuse to kill, cheat or steal, and who are talking about these high principles with their neighbors in a country of some 4 1/2 million people, it has to improve the moral fiber of the country and promote peace,” argued Julia Clogston.

Because Gilead missionaries unselfishly give of themselves, many warm friendships have been forged with the local people. Rufina Dela Paz reflected on the relationship she and her parents had with the Gilead missionaries who helped them to apply Bible principles when they were becoming Witnesses many years ago. “Our family felt so close to the missionaries because they did even more than study the Bible with us,” said Rufina. “They visited our home frequently just to encourage us and help my parents with their problems.”

Yet the love was not one-sided. While attending Gilead, Rufina received a letter from the former missionary who had helped her family. Though 30 years have passed, he wrote: “Your mother is one of those many mothers Jesus promised to those who would leave home and family for the sake of the good news. How much I appreciate the attention she gave to me when I was stung by the stingray and was very sick! I will never forget her love.”​—Mark 10:29, 30.

An ‘unforgettable love.’ Yes, it is this same love that those who graduated on September 13, 1981, contemplate giving and receiving as they leave for 14 lands. Their work: Bible education​—the only Scriptural and practical work of a genuine Christian missionary.

[Picture on page 17]

Watchtower Bible School of Gilead

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

(1) Boissiere, D.; MacNerland, K.; Dela Paz, R.; Weathers, B.; Widen, S.; Kaemmer, L. (2) Larsson, L.; Larsson E.; Smith, S.; Dela Paz, J.; Guttau, G.; Larsson, E.; Larsson, W. (3) Boissiere, P.; Palviainen, A.; Rehurek, J.; Dalcius, A.; Du Raan, M.; Moreau, D.; Widen, D. (4) Forster, D.; Guttau, B.; Welch, J.; Weathers, J.; Du Raan, R.; Rehurek, P.; Tipton, S.

How I Appreciate “the Kindly Quality of God”!

As told by Myrtle Quackenbush

It saved members of my family, and it continues to save countless others

I AM now 91 years old, but I was only a small girl of five when Kingdom truth entered my family, in 1895. It was then that a colporteur​—a full-time house-to-house minister of the Watch Tower Society—​called at our home in Indiana. My mother took the first two bound volumes of a set of Bible helps called “Millennial Dawn” (later known as “Studies in the Scriptures”) for my father. His chief interest was religion, but it had not always been so. The shift of emphasis in his life came soon after I was born, in Riceville, Indiana, in 1890.

Soon thereafter we moved to Jasper, Indiana, where we ran a hotel and were mildly prosperous. My father was in politics, screamed himself hoarse campaigning for Grover Cleveland, and when he was elected a severe depression set in. We lost our hotel, and my father went to work wiping oil off railroad engines in the roundhouse, for $1.25 a day​—to support a family of eight. One day I sat on the porch crying. A passing neighbor asked: “Myrtle, why are you crying?” I wailed: “I’m starving!” She brought me a piece of watermelon. The depression disillusioned my father with Cleveland and politics. He then turned to religion.

Bible Helps Arrive

He became what was known as a “Shouting Methodist.” The “shouting” was especially prominent at the revivalist meetings. He would return home after such meetings bubbling over, to a family more inclined to make fun than to take him seriously. My mother discerned hypocrisy in the preachers, yet believed the Bible. So when the Watch Tower representative came to the door, she obtained the books for my father. He reveled in them and would come in from work and ask, “Where are my little Dawns?” as he called the books. However, the issue was not as sharply drawn then as it is now, and he remained a Methodist. His stand for true religion was still years away.

In 1898 we moved to Arkansas, to a farm in an area known as “The Promised Land.” It was far from that​—some swampy sections literally crawled with snakes. The post office was Egypt. I hated it, and longed to make an exodus from Egypt. It was here that my father became aware that Pastor C. T. Russell’s sermons were being published in a weekly paper, the Kansas City Star, and he subscribed in order to get them. We all went to church​—there was nowhere else to go—​but my father was the only one really involved with religion.

Some of it must have rubbed off on me. I had pet chickens, and whenever one of them died I would hold a funeral for it. One funeral was especially tearful. After a Sunday chicken dinner, I discovered the head of my favorite pet rooster by the chopping block​—he had been the dinner entrée. I was both horrified and grief-stricken. That funeral with the head only was a doleful lament, and I remember the song I sang at that ‘service’ was the old spiritual “Tomorrow’s Sun May Never Rise.” I was religious enough to conduct funerals, if only for chickens. As for my father, he still studied his ‘little Dawns,’ and he still went to the Methodist church.

To Indian Territory by Covered Wagon

When I was 10 years old, in 1900, in two covered wagons, with a team of horses and a team of mules, a cow, a dog, six hens and a rooster, we set out for the Indian Territory​—later to become Oklahoma. White settlers had previously raced to establish claims on Indian land, and now more was being opened up for settlement, this time assigned by lottery.

After a month of jolting travel with our menagerie, crossing streams so swollen that the horses and mules had to swim, and cooking over campfires, we arrived in the Indian Territory. My father and older brother signed up for the lottery, but did not get any land. We stayed camped near Fort Sill for a year. My father and two brothers worked laying the roadbed for railroad tracks heading west. Indians were everywhere​—Comanches and Kiowas and others who had been put on reservations. The Apaches under Geronimo, however, refused to sign a treaty, and at regular intervals Geronimo had to come in to Fort Sill to report. He died there in 1909.

But in 1901 we had returned to Arkansas, back to the “Promised Land”​—back to the preachers and to the circuit riders that traveled on horseback from town to town to hold revival meetings, and back to the Methodist church. Yet my father still read his Studies in the Scriptures. We later moved into Jonesboro, and there my father met the Andrews, a couple who were actively engaged in telling others about Bible truths and distributing Watch Tower literature. At this time my mother died, my father was attending home meetings with the Bible Students, and I met Ralph Quackenbush.

Getting Out of Babylon

Finally, in 1908, 13 years after first studying the Watch Tower publications, my father stood up one Sunday morning in the Methodist church and, before the entire congregation, requested that his name be taken off the church roll. By this time he was the Sunday school superintendent. Yet he announced that he was now a Bible Student, associated with the Watch Tower Society. It took him a long time to break away, but finding someone active in the witness work apparently gave the needed impetus. It shows the value, the need, for right association. From this time on he was actively telling others about God’s kingdom, until his death in 1914.

He was at a meeting, the showing of the Photo-Drama of Creation​—a combination of slides and motion pictures synchronized with sound recordings. Near the end of the meeting, a woman next to him asked him to visit a friend of hers to tell her about the truth, and gave him a slip of paper with her friend’s name and address on it. When they all stood up for the final prayer, he didn’t stand. When the prayer was over, the woman looked at my father. He was sitting there, the slip of paper crumpled up in his clenched fist. He had died of apoplexy during the prayer.

I became active that same year, 1914. By then I was living in Paragould, Arkansas, married to Ralph Quackenbush. I’d had my third son in June of that year, and two months later World War I started. Was this the start of what my father had talked about for so long, saying the Kingdom was to come in 1914? It started me studying seriously, as it also did my three sisters and one of my brothers. Still, I waited four years to be baptized, in 1918. My husband was baptized shortly afterward. We requested that the Watch Tower Society put us on the list of persons who would like to have the Society’s traveling representatives​—called “Pilgrim brothers” at that time—​visit our home and speak in our town. For several years thereafter we were spiritually benefited by having these visitors in our home.

In 1922 my three boys and I distributed the first of the series of seven special judgment messages against Christendom. By this time we were living in Glendale, California. We attended the meetings there until we moved to Chatsworth, out in the far end of the San Fernando Valley. We were rather isolated out there, and our activity waned. We were drifting spiritually.

An Argument Leads to Our Revival

Then my youngest son started attending U.C.L.A. Two other students rode with him. One of them was a strong Methodist, and one day he commented on some criminals who had escaped punishment and said that they would get their just deserts in hellfire. My son told him there was no such place. He came home to me to get scriptures to prove his point. The family got involved looking up Scriptural arguments, such as the following, quoted from a modern version of the Scriptures, The New English Bible:

Psalm 146:4: “He breathes his last breath, he returns to the dust; and in that same hour all his thinking ends.”

Ecclesiastes 3:19-21: “They all draw the same breath. Men have no advantage over beasts; for everything is emptiness. All go to the same place: all came from the dust, and to the dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit [breath] of man goes upward or whether the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth?”

Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10: “The living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing. . . . Whatever task lies to your hand, do it with all your might; because in Sheol [the common grave of mankind], for which you are bound, there is neither doing nor thinking, neither understanding nor wisdom.”

Ezekiel 18:4: “The soul that sins shall die.”

Romans 6:23: “Sin pays a wage, and the wage is death.”

The young Methodist, however, was never convinced by these and many other scriptures that there was no eternal torment for the wicked in a fiery hell. But our family became so stimulated spiritually by this Bible searching that we became active again and never thereafter stopped.

We moved to Burbank, closer to Los Angeles, where the regular weekly meetings were held. We started attending regularly and going out in the witnessing work. I worked with a sound car, going all over San Fernando Valley, which was mostly orange groves, wheat and bean fields.

The sound car played Bible lectures, then our car group followed up by calling on all the homes within hearing distance. At that time we used testimony cards, asked the householders to read them, then offered Bible literature on a contribution. Later on we carried portable phonographs, playing brief Bible lectures for the people. Eventually, we concentrated on giving brief sermons at the doors, and presenting literature. We followed up by making return visits where there was interest and started free Bible studies in the homes of those desiring them.

In 1935 my two younger sons were baptized, and the following year they went to Bethel, the headquarters of the Watchtower Society in Brooklyn, New York, contributing all their time to serve in the printing plant there. In 1947 my husband died of cancer​—he was a servant in the Burbank Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. All this time my eldest son did nothing about the truth. But, eventually, in 1954, he was baptized and remained active until his death in 1979, during which year he was the presiding overseer of the Sherman Oaks Congregation. Three months ago another one of my sons, Myron, died while serving at the Society’s “Watchtower Farm.” My third son is still serving in New York, at the Society’s printing plant in Brooklyn.

I am still living in California, still hoping to see God’s kingdom under Christ come to cleanse the earth of wickedness. If I do not live to see that time, then I have the hope that God will remember me, my husband and my two deceased sons when the resurrection will awaken millions and perhaps billions of those now sleeping in death​—awaken them to opportunities for everlasting life in a paradise earth.​—John 5:28, 29.

“The Kindly Quality of God” for All

At 91, I have much to look back on. My family and I took a long time to see the importance of dedicating ourselves to Jehovah God, getting baptized and witnessing about his kingdom. That makes me appreciate so much Jehovah’s ‘kindness and forbearance and long-suffering, that kindly quality of God that tries to lead us to repentance.’ (Rom. 2:4) And now if I become impatient and think of the many long years I’ve waited and yearned for his kingdom to come to cleanse the earth of wickedness and bring in an earthly paradise, I recall the scripture at 2 Peter 3:9: “Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed [not tormented in hellfire] but desires all to attain to repentance.”

The kindly quality of God’s forbearance and long-suffering that was so vital for me and my family is still allowing time for countless others to repent and gain everlasting life. Now world conditions are rapidly worsening, the evidences that we are nearing the end of this old world under Satan are mushrooming, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are working efficiently worldwide to get the preaching work done. (Matt. 24:14) Many people see the urgency of taking a stand for God’s kingdom and are doing so quickly. And this delights me very much.

I can no longer read and my legs are unreliable, but my mind and heart are still filled with God’s Word and my faith burns as strong as ever. I would like to live to see the Kingdom come and terminate this wicked system under Satan. But I do not want it to come before it is God’s due time, before the witness work is completed to his satisfaction, or before the remaining people of honest heart toward God avail themselves of this same “kindly quality of God.” May it lead many of them to repentance and salvation​—just as it was extended to me and my family, and which we needed so much.

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

“I saw Philip come out of this restaurant with Arthur’s wife. He drove her to her house, it was dark, they both went in and stayed there. Obviously, Arthur wasn’t home. Looks like adultery might be involved . . .”

“Just a minute. Maybe so, but don’t jump to any conclusions. Things aren’t always what they seem to be. Remember the case of Hannah in the Bible, first chapter of First Samuel.”

THE STORY OF HANNAH

Hannah is making this vow to Jehovah God, but in her heart, not audibly:

“If you will . . . give your slave girl a male offspring, I will give him to Jehovah all the days of his life.”

High Priest Eli, seeing her mouth quivering but hearing no words, “took her for drunk.”

“How long will you behave drunk? Put away your wine from upon you.”

“No, my lord! A woman hard pressed in spirit I am; and wine and intoxicating liquor I have not drunk, but I pour out my soul before Jehovah.”

“Do not make your slave girl like a good-for-nothing woman, for it is out of the abundance of my concern and my vexation that I have spoken until now.”

High Priest Eli judged by the outward appearance, was wrong, and had to reverse himself.

“Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of him.”

THE NEXT DAY

“Whew! I’m so glad I talked to you before I made any accusations! I checked and found out that her husband had been injured in an accident at work. Philip had taken her to see him at the hospital. Afterward they grabbed a bite at the restaurant. Then Philip took her home and he went in to get some of Arthur’s personal things and took them back to him in the hospital.”

“The Bible has many lessons for us today. As we discussed yesterday, Eli judged by the outward appearance and was wrong. Years later, the babe that Hannah gave birth to and presented for Jehovah’s service, called Samuel, also looked on the outward appearance. Jehovah corrected him, saying: ‘I do not judge as man judges. Man looks at the outward appearance, but I look at the heart.’ (1 Samuel 16:6, 7, “Today’s English Version”) So we don’t want to repeat Eli’s mistake and judge our brothers by outward appearances. These can be deceiving.”

Now It’s ‘Why Johnny Can’t Write’

You have been hearing for years why he can’t read, so it is no surprise to learn he can’t write either

“Educators acknowledge that much student writing ranges from mediocre to hideous.” So reported “U.S. News & World Report” last year. Some professors point to a rising incidence of what they call “straight-A illiteracy.”

Blame for this inability to write is put on the telephone, which has replaced the personal letter for many, and on television, which many use as a substitute for reading. Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, however, does not think these outside influences relieve the schools of responsibility. “To complain about the environment outside the classroom,” he said, “is not the solution. We have kids within four walls for extensive periods of time.”

How well do the schools make use of those extensive periods of time? Not well at all as far as the basic skills are concerned. Modern innovations have crowded them out. Samuel Halperin, an educator at George Washington University, says: “Schools can’t teach drug abuse, sex education, driver’s education and still teach reading, writing and arithmetic well.”

Many schools have not taught any of these subjects well. They have gobbled up huge chunks of time from basic skills to make these forays into other fields, and have not succeeded there either. Drug use has skyrocketed. Venereal disease, pregnancies and abortions have mushroomed. Nor has any increase in the expertise of youthful drivers been noticeable.

Then there is the faddish program called “values development.” In schoolroom discussions, thousands of American children are asked such questions as, “If you are a teenage girl, should you go to bed with your boyfriend if he asks you to?” Do morally upright teachers assist students to correct answers? No, they are not to influence the children. The students are “to make up their own minds about how to feel and act.” Sidney Simon, education professor and leader of the values movement, reflects the approved teacher attitude: “No adult knows all the answers, and the children’s responses are never judged right or wrong.”

Critics of this ‘values education’ say students should not be led to believe that their own opinions are always right. Teachers, these critics contend, should exert their own moral influence. This is questionable, however, in view of the values of some of today’s teachers. One of the leading newsmagazines of the United States ran a picture of a teacher conducting such a class. He was perched on a stool, slovenly dressed in plaid shirt, jeans and moccasins. Two students were pictured with him. One had on a T-shirt and short skirt; the other a floppy shirt, tight slacks and was barefooted.

More and more companies are offering employees courses in remedial English. Four years ago 35 percent of 800 companies surveyed were instructing employees in subjects they should have been taught in school. Today even more companies are doing so.

Some companies, however, say that these are only stopgap measures. JLG Industries is one of them. “We’re adding robots as fast as the technology is allowing us to,” their spokesman said. “Once a robot is in place, it’s very productive day in and day out, and produces high-quality work.” General Motors expects to use more robots. “That should be a warning to schools,” their director of employee relations said, “that students are going to have to be better educated.”

Businesses are not charities. For them to give Johnny a job, and for Johnny to hold that job, Johnny must know how to read and write and do arithmetic. Otherwise, he may be replaced by a robot!

Is It Worthwhile to Play the Lottery?

By “Awake!” correspondent in Brazil

“THE major television event of the week is the 9:45 P.M. Saturday drawing of the TV lottery. Millions of Germans​—lottery cards in hand—​watch a mechanical scoop pick out . . . the winning numbers.” “The Sports Lottery is an integral part of the weekly routine of millions of Brazilians, from north to south.” Similar reports from other countries indicate the intense interest in lotteries.

The lottery seems to offer a means to get rich quick. ‘Someone has to win; next time it could be me’ is the hope that drives many to try their luck at lotteries. Also, the news media call attention to the good done with lottery receipts. For instance, the magazine Manchete stated that with the funds received from the Brazilian Sports Lottery, up to November 1977, there were provided 930 sports grounds, 336 gymnasiums and several other sports facilities. In Germany it is claimed that part of the money received from lotteries is used to finance homes for the elderly, youth clubs, river dikes and the Red Cross.

Nevertheless, thinking persons are taking a second look at the negative aspects. One editorial declared: “These lotteries absorb the savings, lower the purchasing power and impoverish families.” D. McCormack Smyth wrote in the Toronto Star: “Lotteries are damaging to the incentive to work and productivity.” Many began to play the lottery as a lark, then discover it’s a vice difficult to escape.

For this reason, Deputy Ruy Codo reportedly submitted a project to the legislature in Brasilia that would require that all forms used in the Brazilian soccer lottery carry the warning: “Gambling is a vice. Before staking your money, think of the milk for your children. In the soccer pool, your chance of winning is one in a million.”

‘But,’ someone may object, ‘think of the benefits for the poor!’ But who buy the tickets? Recognizing that it is generally the poorer class, one newspaper frankly said: “The idea of financing works to aid the poor, with resources taken from the poor, looks a little paradoxical.” Another commented that the estimated revenue of 900 million dollars derived from Brazil’s state lotteries is supplied by “a populace having acute difficulties in paying for the most elementary needs of life.” And two Brazilian senators agreed that lotteries “are contributing to an even greater impoverishment of the poorer States.”

A Better Way to Find Contentment

Admittedly, lotteries bring financial benefits to a scattered few. But to the vast majority who play them, the results are detrimental. Loss of incentive, impoverishment, enslavement to a vice and quarrels are but a few of these. Read in the Bible what can happen to those who ‘set in order a table for the god of Good Luck.’ They “go hungry,” “go thirsty,” “will suffer shame” and “will howl because of sheer breakdown of spirit.”​—Isa. 65:11-14.

Better it is to listen to the wisdom of Solomon: “Do you know a hard-working man? He shall be successful and stand before kings!”​—Prov. 22:29, The Living Bible.

From Our Readers

CRITICISM OF CATHOLIC CHURCH

I like your magazine. I really thought you were above prejudice and I am very disappointed. I’ve noticed a few times the Catholic Church is the butt of your criticism. Slurs at the Church, the pope and now at the Catholic schools. Of course, I am referring to your story “Controversial Fishing.” It is too bad you didn’t stay with just the tuna story instead of bringing his religious convictions into it. It all seemed so untrue. In bad taste, to say the least. I am so sorry. I really admired your people. Why are you not like Jesus? Perhaps your motive was good.

A subscriber, New York.

We published the true life story of a man and his wife and their observations. He tells about his fishing, and also why their religious convictions changed, as well as why he left his fishing to become a fisher of men in the Biblical sense. Our purpose is not to criticize the Catholic Church, but to help all people to see what is Scripturally right. Jesus had great love and compassion for his fellowman. And it was this love, plus his honesty and zeal for righteousness, that moved him to expose falsehoods wherever such appeared, especially falsehoods in the matter of worship. Please read the account in Matthew chapter 23. We are moved by the same love for our fellowman and the same zeal for truth and righteousness.​—ED.

IRRITATION

I enjoyed your article “When People Irritate Us.” It is really going to help me with my brothers and sisters. I learned that I need to exhibit the qualities of humility, mildness and love. [From a young girl]

D. P., Florida

WE KEEP OUR HOMES CLEAN

I liked your article on “We Keep Our Homes Clean Despite the Neighborhood!” It helped me to think about trying to keep my home more clean. I will be 10 years old in September.

C. P., Florida

I am seven years old. I liked the article about “We Keep Our Home Clean Despite the Neighborhood!” After my mama read the article to us we went from room to room and did just as the article said.

R. P., Florida

Your household hints for cleaning were appreciated. Lining the bottom of the oven with aluminum foil does make for easier cleanup. However, a recent newspaper article stated that this procedure could cause oven problems due to uneven heat distribution from the element.

M. B., North Carolina

KILLER WHALES

The article on killer whales was nice because it was an interview. It is enjoyable to have interviews in the magazine.

S. B., New Jersey

I just wanted to thank you for the article about killer whales​—that they are not really killers but are pussycats. The article says ‘it kissed the lady on the cheek.’ [From a young boy]

K. D., Massachusetts

Watching the World

Witnesses “Worry” Soviets

◆ “Soviets Worry Over Jehovah’s Witnesses” headlines a news article from the Moscow bureau of the Agence France Presse news service. “The religious sect Jehovah’s Witnesses, founded more than 100 years ago in the United States, appears to be worrying leaders of the Soviet Union’s ideological front,” said the report. “Several anti-religious publications have recently revealed that many young Soviet citizens are joining this sect, which is banned in the Soviet Union.” The article also states:

“Witnesses are criticised harshly for their indifference to Soviet social life: they do not join the Communist Party or trade unions or vote in elections and they refuse to let their children join the Pioneer or Konsomol (young communist) movements. . . . On the other hand, believers show impressive energy in spreading the good word of their faith, for missionary zeal is a duty of each witness.”

‘More Hungry than Ever’

◆ “There are still more hungry people in the world than ever before​—both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of total world population,” reports the New York Times. “By most estimates, more than 500 million people​—roughly one out of every nine—​suffer from serious malnutrition today, compared with 100 million to 200 million​—one out of every 14 to 25 people—​in the 1950’s.” Major causes of the problem are said to be rapidly rising food costs and unequal distribution of rising incomes, not less available food. “As more countries​—particularly the rapidly developing middle-income countries—​and wealthier people in those countries gain in purchasing power, they consume more food,” explains the Times. “This in turn puts pressure on food prices, and means that poorer people everywhere have a harder time buying enough to eat.”

‘Moral Majority’s’ Morals

◆ After Israeli F-16 jets bombed an unfinished Iraqi atomic reactor, clergyman Jerry Falwell of America’s so-called Moral Majority movement reportedly spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Begin on the telephone. Falwell proudly told 4,000 gathered at Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, what he had said to the Jewish leader: “Mr. Prime Minister, I want to congratulate you for a mission that made us very proud that we manufacture those F-16s.” And of the U.N. vote condemning the Israeli bombing, he told the crowd: “We ought to be congratulating them for doing what we haven’t had the backbone to do in Cuba.”

Changing Times

◆ “Do you think that a couple should live together for a time before deciding to get married or not to get married?” asked a recent Gallup poll of Canadians. More than twice as many people said “yes” as did 10 years ago. In fact, more agreed (46 percent) than disagreed (40 percent). In more conservative times 10 years ago, 70 percent said “no.” Showing the direction in which public morality is heading, 70 percent of those under 30 now approve of trial marriages compared to 40 percent 10 years ago, and among those 50 and over, three times as many now approve (27 percent) as did 10 years ago (9 percent).

Etiquette of Permissiveness

◆ Called the ‘British bible on manners and morals,’ the book Debrett’s Etiquette and Modern Manners has apparently decided to accept the realities of today’s permissive society. The Sydney Morning Herald of Australia observes that the decorum guide “gets to the point at once, and says that attentions paid by either sex to the other may ‘legitimately’ have sex as their object.” Among other things, the understanding by each party of the other’s sexual aim is said to be part of good manners. “When Debrett gives its imprimatur to unmarried love you know the permissive society has really come to stay!” declared the Herald.

Witnesses as Neighbors

◆ A columnist for New York’s Brooklyn Heights Press recently published part of a complaining letter sent in by someone using the pseudonym “Miles Standish.” In response to the complaint that the Watchtower Society’s headquarters staff was taking up too much space in the neighborhood, the column satirically observed: “Sorry to hit you with this Miles Standish, but we’re glad to have the Witnesses as neighbors. First, they’re so clean. . . . there’s not a dirty one in the whole bunch. They sweep their own sidewalk, so to speak . . . can you imagine what Montague Street [a local business district] would look like if the Witnesses had anything to do with it? . . . We say, Give those holies a building on Montague . . . give ’em two! We’ll all have a nicer looking place to shop.”

Getting in on the Action

◆ Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland in 1979 was “said to have cost almost $8 million,” reports the Financial Post of Toronto, Canada, and “the Church had to come up with almost $6 million . . . while fly-by-night entrepreneurs cashed in by selling trinkets and souvenirs.” According to the Post, to see that the Church gets a share of the booty this time, a new company called Papal Visits, Ltd., has been formed by the bishops of Scotland, England and Wales. The company reportedly has appointed a commercial organization to manage the sale of commemorative programs, T-shirts, books and a multitude of other souvenirs​—all carrying an official logo, of course.

Unwanted Attentions

◆ A scientist who had worked with synthetic insect sex attractants was the object of amorous attentions by male gypsy moths as much as two years later. Writing in the Journal of Chemical Ecology, Dr. E. Alan Cameron said that the synthetic pheromones, as they are called, must be far more potent and less biodegradable than had been thought. Even though he had all new clothing, the window screen near his desk would be covered with male moths seeking his attentions as late as a year after his last contact with the chemical. The scientist concluded that the long-wearing attractant must have contaminated his body.

Fat and the Heart

◆ A so-called Seven Country Study of how fat in the diet affects the heart was recently published in England’s medical journal Lancet. The 10-year study of 12,000 men in five European nations, Japan and the United States reportedly revealed a link between high-fat diets and the risk of death from heart disease. According to the report, there is evidence that “saturated fats not only promote an increase in the cholesterol in the serum [the blood], but also increase the probability of early death.” Men on low-fat diets were found to have no greater risk of other diseases such as cancer. The meat and dairy industries and some experts have claimed that there is no dietary link between high-fat diets and heart disease.

More Climbing Deaths

◆ The Alpine Club of New York has reported a total of 664 mountain climbers killed in climbing accidents in the United States from 1951 to 1979. For 1979, the last year reported, there were 40 deaths, compared to 29 ten years previously. Earlier this year, 11 men died in an icefall while climbing Mount Rainier in Washington. Hours later five others died when a climbing group fell 2,000 feet (610 m) on Mount Hood, Oregon, 100 miles (160 km) away.

Smokers’ Jobs Endangered?

◆ Employers are beginning to find that smokers are costing them too much to keep on the payroll. This is according to a study by William Weis, professor of accounting at Seattle University in Washington. Of 371 managers interviewed, he found that 55 percent already hire nonsmokers over smokers when both are qualified for the job. He pointed out that there are good economic reasons for such “discrimination.” A firm whose cost per employee is about $20,000 per year may be paying a smokers’ premium of over $4,600 because of higher absenteeism, lower productivity, higher cleaning costs and higher medical costs (including nonsmokers affected by the smoke). Smokers were found to be absent from work 50 percent more often than nonsmokers, and time lost on the job to “smoking ritual” was about 30 minutes a day for cigarette smokers and 55 minutes for pipe smokers.

Cigars Safer?

◆ After all the medical warnings about the dangers of smoking cigarettes, some smokers have switched to small cigars in the belief that they are safer. But instead of being safer, a recent Danish study found them to be twice as dangerous as cigarettes in causing heart attacks. Dr. Finn Gyntelberg, the author of the study, said that cigarette smokers were found to have twice the number of heart attacks as nonsmokers, but smokers of small cigars had four times as many heart attacks. The findings were published in Britain’s well-known medical journal Lancet.

Last Puff

◆ An elderly Englishman suffering with chronic bronchitis was on an oxygen inhaler at London’s Colindale hospital. Even under these conditions, he felt he had to have a cigarette. With what result? Oxygen from the inhaler caused the cigarette to blow up in his face, ending a life that cigarettes no doubt had already contributed to shortening.

Where Are the Doctors?

◆ Dr. Rosalinda Valenzuela of the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO) says that “there is a flagrant discrepancy in the distribution of physicians” in the world. For example, she noted that “East Africa is the world’s most disfavoured sub-region, with a ratio of six physicians per 100,000, or a doctor for 17,480 people.” On the other hand, Dr. Valenzuela pointed out that “the most favoured is the sub-region of western Europe, with a ratio of 190 physicians per 100,000, or one doctor for 528 people,”​—33 times as high as East Africa! In all of Africa, there is an average of about one physician for 5,400 people, while in Asia the ratio is one for 2,800 and in North America, one for 600.

“Protection” Backfires

◆ Fearful Americans rapidly have been arming with handguns to “protect” themselves from crime. Some incidents from this past summer illustrate the value of such “protection.”

● “Do I pull this?” a three-year-old tot in suburban Maryland asked his mother as he played with the .357 magnum handgun his father had bought for “protection.” Rather than protecting her, the gun sent a bullet to the mother’s chest at the hand of her own bewildered child. She was taken to Baltimore’s Shock Trauma Unit in critical condition.

● A Chicago divorcee bought a .22 caliber revolver to “protect” herself and three sons. She showed her 13-year-old where the gun was hidden, in case there were intruders when she was away. Hearing noises in the basement, he got the gun out, but found it was the family dog. Then the youth began loading and unloading the gun in the living room. “The gun was cocked,” related Chicago police detective James Houtsma, “and he apparently didn’t realize how little pressure it took on the trigger to fire it.” The boy’s 10-year-old brother was struck in the chest and killed.

● ‘Shoot first and ask questions later,’ was the advice from an elderly woman’s husband on how to handle intruders, should they invade their Bronx, New York, home. She did, and he died. He had risen from an afternoon nap to throw some refuse away. His wife, napping in another room, thought her husband was still in bed, so ‘shot first’ when she saw a shadowy figure approaching her. Her spouse of 40 years had bought the gun for “protection” after their apartment had been robbed twice.

Now! Romans Comes Alive on Tape

Now you can enjoy the complete Bible book of Romans on a cassette tape. Listen in your car on the way to work. At home. Or bring the book of Romans to life for those who have dimming eyesight.

Please send me the cassette tape of the Bible book of Romans. I enclose $2 (U.S.).

Many Now Living Will Never Die

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