November 22

Page Two

The toll of the slave trade has been put at twenty million Africans. Many relate this to growing tobacco and cotton. However, two thirds of it must be charged to sugar. Sugar’s past is not sweet. What about its present? That is also a center of controversy. Many rail against it, many more are devoted to it, and very few are exempt from it

Sugar’s Past​—How Sweet Was It? 3

Sugar’s Present​—How Sweet Is It? 8

Sugar’s Past​—How Sweet Was It?

IN THE year 1829 a three-hundred-ton sailing ship weighed anchor from a tiny port in the West Indies, pointed its bow south-southeast and sailed into open seas. Aboard were her commander, sailing master and fifty-five ragged and rugged men of various nations, colors and castes​—crew members all. In her hold were sixteen short iron cannons, powder, twenty-four-pound cannonballs, hand grenades, a cargo of West Indies rum, a miscellany of coral beads and other items, and a store of food and provisions. On deck, fore and aft, were muskets, ammunition and cutlasses.

After seventy-six days of being buffeted by galelike winds and seas foaming with great unrest, the vessel and her crew reached their destination​—a Portuguese port in Mozambique on the east coast of Africa.

After only eight days of unloading and taking on a new cargo, the small sloop put out to sea again bound for Cuba, leaving behind fourteen larger vessels laying anchor waiting to fill their holds with cargo of the same kind.

Riding low in the water, her deck almost constantly awash from the turbulent seas, the vessel’s returning cargo became a constant cause for apprehension for the ship’s crew. Within her hold were stowed a prize cargo​—eight hundred black men, women and children; without exception all naked, all heads shaved, all branded. A prize cargo for the sugarcane growers in the West Indies whose slaves they would become and whose crops by the sweat of their brows they would turn into sugar; and prized by the ship’s owners and commander whose profits from the sale of the slaves could run well over a hundred thousand dollars.

Secured by leg-irons, two by two, those packed on the starboard side faced forward in a sitting position like cradled spoons in one another’s lap, and those on the port faced aft.

The reader must try to visualize a hall seated with eight hundred people​—then literally packing that same number into a very small area only a few feet wide and about the length of a railroad car, and the phrase “packed like sardines” becomes appropriate. The hold being filled in this manner, the remainder of the slaves were secured to the deck.

Eight hundred miserable souls at sea. One of the greatest catastrophes that could strike a slave ship was to cut that number almost in half before they reached Cuba. Smallpox! The very word spread terror through the ship’s crew when the first victim of the hold was struck down by it. The dreadful scourge ran rampant. Dead man after dead man was lowered over the side as he expired. Four hundred and eighty alone remained of a cargo of eight hundred. The ship’s commander also did not survive.

From the beginning self-serving individuals, who saw a chance to make a dollar from the demand for sugar, jumped on the bandwagon. Religious missionaries in Africa discarded their frocks and flocks and stuck their greedy hands into the sugar pie by selling their own black converts to the slave hunters. Even the pope, Nicholas V, seeing the revenue to be made from the sugar trade, gave his blessings to slavery.

Slave ships plowed the waters from Africa to the Western world in such a steady stream that if it were possible for a ship to create a permanent rut as it cuts its way through the water, a great canyon would have been trenched to the very ocean floor from Africa to the West Indies alone in a few short years. Ships were pirating ships on the open seas for the black skins chained and stowed in the holds. Hence, the need for cannons and short arms to protect their precious cargo.

It must be remembered that greed makes for strange bedfellows. It affected white and black man alike. So the slaver was not without his accomplice among the Africans. If the lure was tempting enough it pitted black against black, family member against family member, tribe against tribe. Thus developed the systematic ease with which the slave hunters could purchase their living commodity. The black women would sell their own slaves, a booty from tribal wars, for a new string of coral beads. A warrior would fight harder to become the victor in battle, that he might have the conquered to sell for a keg of rum. Since coins were not then known in Africa, the slave traders filled their holds with needed provisions and with commodities that were of small worth to the white man, but that were considered luxuries by the black man, who accepted them in exchange for his black brothers. In this way the greed of all was satisfied.

Just how many Africans survived the passage from one continent to the other to put their backs and brawn in the sugar rush is not known. One modern demographer has estimated a conservative figure of fifteen million. Said one British historian: “It will be no exaggeration to put the tale and toll of the Slave Trade at 20 million Africans, of which two thirds are to be charged against sugar.”

Dear reader, can you comprehend this: to be uprooted from your land, what’s more​—your continent—​and be transported across open seas that took months to navigate, and when landed, to be placed in cages and sold at public auction, each family member individually, many never to see one another again? Ah, the price of sugar could not be measured in pounds but in lives! As ships plowed the seas, cane growers plowed their lands to make room for more growth and production of this sweet, white gold called sugar.

Although sugarcane was a comparatively new commodity in the Western world up until about the sixteenth century, it was known as far back as the reign of Alexander the Great. Sugarcane was discovered in India in the year 325 BCE by one of his soldiers.

Coming forward to Nero’s time of the first century of the Common Era, a Greek physician may have thought he was the first to discover the fountainhead of sugar. “There is,” he wrote, “a sort of hard honey which is called saccharum (sugar) found upon canes in India. It is grainy like salt and brittle between the teeth, but of sweet taste withal.”

The taste for sugar was catching on. Sugarcane was being uprooted and transplanted from the Far East to Europe. The Arabs brought it with them to Egypt, Persia and into Spain when they conquered that country in the eighth century. And for the next two hundred years the only sugar raised in Europe was in Spain.

It was from Spain that Christopher Columbus brought cuttings to the western hemisphere on his second voyage, planting them in what is now known as the Dominican Republic in the West Indies. China was not to be denied this sweet luxury and dispatched men to India to learn the mystery of producing sugar from the cane. Years later Marco Polo described China’s sugar mills as one of the great wonders of that country.

The Crusaders, under the direction of the popes and with their blessing, had tried to secure Jerusalem from the Turks. They returned home with glowing tales of this strange new sweet called sugar. Sugar trade routes between the East and Europe were soon set up. But sugar was expensive and only the rich were able to buy it. As late as 1742 sugar sold for $2.75 (US) per pound in London. When the poor sampled this sweet commodity they too became hooked on it. The rulers of the countries with foresight saw a whole new horizon of revenues coming into their tills. The chant for sugar was beginning to be heard around the world.

Spain and Portugal saw that some countries were growing rich from the sugar trade with India. They too wanted a piece of the action. Straightaway they sent sailing vessels out into the unknown seas to locate a new and quicker route to India. Columbus was one who went, but what he discovered instead was the West Indies. And his mistake paid off handsomely, for here he found the climate and the soil perfect for growing sugarcane.

Next came the Spanish settlers to take the land away from the natives. The natives became their slaves but proved all but worthless for work in the cane fields. So, in 1510, King Ferdinand of Spain gave his consent to transport a large vessel of slaves from Africa. Thus was started the ruthless trafficking in human lives across the seas. It continued for over three hundred years.

England did not for nothing boast of the greatest fleet sailing the seven seas. And when the precise moment came for her to get into the sugar business and slave running, her mighty fleet arrived in the West Indies and drove the Spaniards out. England was soon to become the center of the sugar industry of the world. “The pleasure, glory, and grandeur of England has been advanced more by sugar than by any other commodity, wool not excepted,” said a knighted Englishman of that era.

England’s view of the slave trade and the incredible pain inflicted on a people may best be summed up by a noted political personality of that nation: “The impossibility of doing without slaves in the West Indies will always prevent the traffic from being dropped. The necessity, the absolute necessity then, of carrying on must, since there is no other, be its excuse.” And ‘carry on’ she did. Sufficient is this observation made public in the eighteenth century when the sugar slavery was at its peak: “No cask of sugar arrives in Europe to which blood is not sticking.”

The English obviously struck a deal with their African accomplices for a reduced rate on a per-volume purchase. Hence this boast from a British lord: “As to the supply of negroes, we have such a decided superiority in the African trade that it is allowed we have slaves one sixth cheaper.”

Since it was obvious to all that sugar was no longer a passing craze but was here to stay and that slaves from Africa were the absolute, needed essential to keep the industry alive, the paramount question that exercised the minds of all concerned was, how long will the flow of slaves last before running out? The answer was not long in coming. From the pen of an African Gold Coast governor the words came back: “Africa not only can continue supplying the West Indies in the quantities she has hitherto, but, if necessity required it, could spare thousands, nay, millions more.”

However, this was not to be. Already there were at work forces that bitterly opposed the inhuman traffic of black humans, and voices of protest were being heard around the world. Every means possible was being used to get their message across and to stamp out slavery. Notice, for example, this circulated advertisement: “B. Henderson China Warehouse​—Rye Lane Peckham, Respectfully informs the Friends of Africa that she has on sale an Assortment of Sugar Basins [bowls] labelled in Gold Letters: East India Sugar Not Made by Slaves.” And then it said: “A family that uses five pounds of sugar per week will, by using East India instead of West India for 21 months, prevent the Slavery or Murder of one Fellow Creature. Eight such families in 19 ¹⁄₂ years will prevent the slavery or murder of 100.”

In course of time one country after another enacted new laws that prohibited slave trade. The United States, however, who had heretofore purchased her sugar from her southern neighbor Cuba, threw herself into the sugar and slave business, and the southern state Louisiana, with her newly developed sugar plantations, became the focal point. Any slaves that she could not use, the cotton plantations of the South could.

For over three centuries King Sugar had reigned supreme in the world, exacting a tribute that staggers the imagination. No commodity on the face of the earth has been wrested from the soil or the seas, from the skies or from the bowels of the earth with such misery and human blood as has sugar. Today, ah, how sweet it is! Yesterday it was as bitter as gall.

[Blurb on page 6]

Eight hundred miserable souls at sea. One of the greatest catastrophes that could strike a slave ship was to cut that number almost in half before they reached Cuba

[Blurb on page 6]

Religious missionaries in Africa discarded their frocks and flocks and stuck their greedy hands into the sugar pie by selling their own black converts to the slave hunters

[Blurb on page 7]

The slaver was not without his accomplice among the Africans. If the lure was tempting enough it pitted black against black, family member against family member, tribe against tribe

[Blurb on page 7]

“It will be no exaggeration to put the tale and toll of the Slave Trade at 20 million Africans, of which two thirds are to be charged against sugar”

[Picture on page 4]

Black women would sell their own slaves for a new string of coral beads

[Picture on page 5]

“No cask of sugar arrives in Europe to which blood is not sticking”

Sugar’s Present​—How Sweet Is It?

DO YOU recognize me? My scientific friends know me as C₁₂ H₂₂ O₁₁. I have not been without prominence since I made my debut on the world scene. Several times in world history, and in many parts of the earth, I was more precious than gold and rarer too. I remember once, in China, when some Indian princes owed tribute money to the emperor, that this Chinese ruler demanded that the tribute be paid by giving me to him rather than gold.

Great debates and controversies have been waged in the majestic palaces and great senate halls the world over due to my presence. I take no pleasure in saying that millions of people have literally been enslaved and millions have died because of me.

Today I am again the center of great controversies. Some say that I should be banned from the face of the earth forever. Others say that I am refined, sweet and needed, and not at all the villain I am accused of being.

Now do you recognize me? I am the spoonful of sugar that the popular song of the ’60’s said “helps the medicine go down . . . in a most delightful way.” I am the spoonful of sugar that was tied in a small cloth and served as a pacifier for you while your mother did her housework. I am the spoonful of sugar that coats the laxative pills you take and sweetens the otherwise bitter medicines you drink. I am in the cosmetics with which you adorn your face and in the synthetic rubbers and plastics that literally surround you. I helped with the curing of the leather for the shoes you wear. Those who smoke tobacco are smoking part of me. When you dye your clothes I am there. If you die and your remains are buried in a plastic casket, there I will be also. I am in your life, literally, from the cradle to the grave.

In addition to all these things and more, there is the thing for which I am the most popular​—the ability to satisfy your insatiable desire for something sweet. And herein lies the paradox. My assets are, to my opponents, my liabilities. Their claim is that I am in everything and everywhere. To deny this, of course, would be for me to disregard the facts. I would be the first to say that more often than not the use of me is the abuse of me.

It is reasonable to say that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. But is it reasonable that a spoonful of sugar also helps tomato ketchup, or horseradish, or relish, or salad dressings go down? Or bread, or canned vegetables, or, would you believe it, salt, to mention a few more? Does a pretzel need sugar? Are you not surprised that a package of processed gefilte fish, of all things, was found to have more sugar per serving than a piece of cake?

Why should I be a prominent ingredient in foods that you don’t expect to taste sweet in the first place? If you have a sweet tooth you know that munching on a cookie would probably satisfy your desire. But what reasonableness is there in the fact that a salted cracker might serve your purpose just as well with its 12 percent sugar content? By eating a certain chocolate candy bar you might well expect to consume 51 percent sugar. But what might disturb your good sense of judgment would be the discovery that you would be consuming the same amount of sugar by eating certain breaded chicken coatings.

I am not a genius, nor does it take one to determine that manufacturers and food processors of almost any consumable product apparently season with the idea that a spoonful of sugar will help their product go down in a most delightful way, whether I am needed or not. I consider this an abuse of me. It is also additional ammunition for my critics.

Consider, for example, the world consumption of me for the year 1982​—calculated to have exceeded ninety-two million metric tons. Americans and many others will consume about seventy-seven poundsa of me (refined) in a year, per person, and the average adolescent three pounds a week. Yet 75 percent of this consumption is nondiscretionary. Only a small portion actually comes from your sugar bowl. Facts show that people are buying less of me, yet their consumption of me is increasing. To plan menus, then, with a total abstinence of me would be, though not impossible, very difficult.

Possibly, most people recognize me only as I appear in their sugar bowls​—white and refined. In this form I am known as sucrose, about 99.9 percent pure and sold in either granulated or powdered form. Do not stop, however, when you see the word “sugar” or “sucrose” on the food labels. Other names of mine to watch for are fructose (from fruits), lactose (from milk), maltose (malt sugar), glucose, corn syrup, corn-syrup solids, dextrose and maple sugar. Raw sugar is banned in the United States unless impurities​—dirt, insect parts, molds, bacteria and other contaminents—​are removed. When this is done it can be sold as turbinado sugar. Although dark in color, this should not be confused with brown sugar, which generally is simply white refined sugar sprayed with molasses.

Now add to the estimated seventy-seven pounds of refined sugar consumed per person for the year 1982 another forty-five pounds of corn sweeteners (becoming more popular with food processors due to cheaper cost) found in foods on supermarket shelves, and the per capita consumption of sugar soars to even dizzier heights.

If you have a very basic knowledge of me you will know that, like starches, I am also a carbohydrate, which provides your body with energy, heat and subsequently the fuel for moving your body. When you consume more carbohydrates than your body can use, the excess is converted to fat.

In view, then, of your body’s basic need for fuel and energy, what’s wrong with eating sugar? The problem is that, unlike other sources of carbohydrates, I contain no proteins, no minerals, no vitamins​—no nutrients except calories. And these I have in abundance​—about sixty to a half ounce, or about a tablespoonful. Nutritionists describe me as being “empty calories.” On the other hand, in consuming foods other than sugar that are also rich in carbohydrates, such as whole grains, beans, vegetables and fruits, you are getting not only good energy sources but many nutrients as well.

Consumer Reports magazine of March 1978 really puts me down. I must agree, however, when it writes: “Essentially, there’s absolutely no dietary requirement for sugar that can’t be satisfied by other, more nutritious foods, such as fruits and vegetables. There isn’t even a need for sugar for so-called quick energy, to fuel a morning of tennis, skiing, or the like.” Your body’s already-stored energy fuel supply will take care of that.

Now what adds additional injury is that when I am consumed in such concentrated doses before a meal, say in a candy bar, pies and cakes, and possibly washed down with a twelve-ounce can of cola beverage, which contains about nine spoonfuls of sugar itself, then these empty calories have satisfied your appetite, and the beneficial foods are shunned at mealtime. You put on additional weight, but you are actually starving for good nutrition. You are aware of your weight, but you are not aware that you are malnourished.

Although I am accused of many sinister things, many of which are debatable, there is one thing that all experts seem to agree on​—I cause tooth decay, and particularly in children. Even the Sugar Association, whose role it is to promote more of me, agrees on this point. The problem, according to dental experts, is that as sugar I am used by the bacteria normally present in your mouth to create a thick gel-like substance that sticks tenaciously to your teeth. It speeds the buildup of bacterial plaque, which, along with other acids, attacks the teeth and leaves them vulnerable to decay.

Experts say, however, that it is not how much sugar you consume that determines the number of cavities you will get, but the form in which the sugar is consumed. If, for example, you eat a candy bar that has 10 percent sugar you can do more damage to your teeth than by drinking a soda beverage with a 25 percent sugar content. The reason is obvious. The candy will stick to your teeth, hence a longer exposure, whereas the sugar in the soda is washed away. However, before you breathe a sigh of relief if you are a soft-drink guzzler, you must be aware of this: Scientists report that several soft drinks a day could do more damage to your teeth than one piece of chewy candy a week. Also, colas and many other soft drinks often contain acids that are harmful to the teeth.

So, children, this points up another fact that your parents have possibly been trying to get through to you: Be diligent in brushing your teeth regularly, particularly after eating sweets. More especially after eating sugar-ladened foods before going to bed. The longer I am between your teeth the greater the chance of tooth decay and cavities.

Here is a hope but not necessarily an antidote: According to recent preliminary findings, as reported in The New York Times of December 16, 1980, cheddar cheese may actually inhibit tooth decay. “We think it’s a valid observation that will have to be pursued, but it is only in a preliminary stage yet,” said Dr. William H. Bowen, chief of the caries (tooth decay) prevention and research branch of the National Institute of Dental Research.

American scientists, following up on the research of a British colleague, who had found that cheddar cheese had a decay-slowing effect on human teeth, tested laboratory rats with a semiprocessed cheddar. The results were the same, reported Dr. Bowen, “provided the animals ate the cheese immediately after eating sugar, a known contributor to tooth decay.” “Why cheese,” continues The New York Times, “should have such an effect is unknown.”

Bad News All Around

Since I am telling my own story, I must tell it the way it is, even though it puts me in a very bad light. But here is more bad news for you lovers of me. This news also incriminates my archrival, salt. It seems to be widely recognized that salt, or too much of it, plays a sinister role in contributing to high blood pressure. Now a recent report has it that the combination of sugar and salt may increase the danger.

According to researchers at the Louisiana State University Medical School, spider monkeys were put on three different diets. One was a standard nutritional diet designed for laboratory monkeys. The second was the same diet, but the monkeys were given additional salt. The third was like the second, with the same amount of salt, but with extra sugar added. Science Digest magazine of October 1980, which carried this report, tells the findings:

“All the animals were carefully tested during a three-week ‘base period,’ then divided into three groups; each group received one of the three trial diets for eight weeks. As expected, blood pressures rose in the animals who received additional salt. But, the team reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, those monkeys fed extra salt and sugar had a significantly higher rise in their pressures.”

In addition to some of the things I have mentioned here, which I agree with, there are also a host of other medical ills that I am accused of, but that are not substantially proved. Controversies will no doubt continue until they are finally laid to rest one way or another.

In the meantime you should exercise moderation and balance in the foods and the amount of sugar you consume. The overuse of anything can make you ill and bring on a multitude of problems. I have my place in your daily diet if you will eat with good sense.

Also, remember, the Great God, Jehovah, who created me, led the Israelites into the Promised Land flowing with “milk and honey,” a form of sugar. That tells me I can’t be all bad. And when everyone worthy is sitting “under his vine and under his fig tree” in the paradise earth, why, I too will be there​—in those sweet grapes and ripe figs!​—Micah 4:4.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 10]

I am again the center of great controversies. Some say that I should be banned from the face of the earth forever. Others say that I am refined, sweet and needed, and not at all the villain I am accused of being

[Blurb on page 10]

I would be the first to say that more often than not the use of me is the abuse of me

[Blurb on page 11]

Are you not surprised that a package of processed gefilte fish, of all things, was found to have more sugar per serving than a piece of cake?

[Blurb on page 12]

Food manufacturers, in order to disguise the high percentage of sugar in foods, will list me under many different names

[Graph on page 9]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

SUGAR PERCENTAGES

Jell-O 83%

Sara Lee Chocolate Cake 36%

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate 51%

Sealtest Chocolate Ice Cream 21%

Cool Whip 21%

Coca Cola 9%

Cremora 57%

Coffee-mate 65%

Quaker 100% Natural Cereal 24%

Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes 39%

Kellogg’s Apple Jacks 57%

Post Raisin Bran 55%

Wishbone French Dressing 23%

Wishbone Italian Dressing 7%

Wishbone Russian Dressing 30%

Shake’N Bake Barbecue Style 51%

Hamburger Helper 23%

Ragu Spaghetti Sauce 6%

Heinz Tomato Ketchup 29%

Skippy Peanut Butter 9%

Ritz Crackers 12%

Consumer Reports listed the percentage of sugar in these products, among others. Of course, quantities consumed determine the person’s actual sugar intake. For example, a teaspoonful of Cremora (57%) in a cup of coffee contains much less sugar than a bottle of Coca Cola (9%).

Are You Waiting for the Rapture?

“IT’S not God’s fault. It’s my fault. I miscalculated,” Bill Maupin, the leader of the group, was quoted as saying. The predicted date, June 28, 1981, came and went​—and nothing happened.

Maupin’s group, having waited together patiently for thirty-six hours, were not the first ones to be disappointed. Back on October 22, 1844, an estimated 100,000 followers of William Miller had waited for hours on housetops and hills for the same event to occur.

What were these two groups, and others in between, so eagerly awaiting? The rapture!

What Is the Rapture?

Essentially it is the belief that Christians will be snatched away, suddenly taken out of the world, to be united with Christ “in the air.” As Tim LaHaye wrote in his book The Beginning of the End: “We will immediately leave this earth. No matter what we are doing we will suddenly be taken out of the world.”

He continued: “The Rapture of the Church will be an event of such startling proportions that the entire world will be conscious of our leaving. Some have suggested that there will be airplane, bus and train wrecks throughout the world when Christian operators are suddenly taken out of the world. Who can imagine the chaos on the freeways when automobile drivers are snatched out of their cars!”

Indeed, some drivers have put bumper stickers on their cars reading: “In Case Of Rapture This Car Will Be Driverless.”

But there are differing opinions about how and when the rapture will take place. Some believe it to be a secret rapture, with those taken away simply disappearing. Others think that Christ will appear visibly and raise the “saints” in visible bodies as the world looks on. Some believe that the rapture will take place after the signs and the “great tribulation” mentioned in the Bible at Matthew chapter 24.

The most popular idea, though, is that there are two separate comings of Christ (or two stages of his coming): First, to the air to collect believers to him before the start of a seven-year tribulation; and second, to the earth to establish his kingdom and begin his millennial rule at the end of that tribulation.

Why Some Wait for It

This thought of entirely escaping future world calamities appeals to many. It has caused such believers to adopt an untroubled attitude toward world conditions.

“The big difference between the scientists and these evangelicals,” says religious writer George Plagenz, “is that, while the former are worried that the world could come to an end soon, the Christians are literally excited over the prospect. . . . The reason for the optimism of the Bible-believing Christians is that, in their view, while the world is teetering on the brink of the Great Tribulation, a cosmic disaster foretold in the Bible, the believers in Christ will be spared.”

Writes John F. Walvoord in his book Armageddon, Oil and the Middle East Crisis: “It would be difficult not to be troubled if Scripture did not clearly show that inevitable martyrdom in the great tribulation would not be the next expectation for believers in this age. True Christians today need not fear the catastrophic days about to overcome the world. Instead, they have the imminent hope of Christ’s return and their being joined to the Lord to enjoy His presence forever.”

“What a way to live!” exclaims popular writer Hal Lindsey. “With optimism, with anticipation, with excitement. We should be living like persons who don’t expect to be around much longer.”

Is It Found in the Bible?

Does the Bible teach that there will be a rapture of all true Christians to heaven? Will they be taken away leaving the rest of mankind behind to face calamity?

Actually, the word “rapture” is not found in the Bible. The belief is based on 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17, where the related words “caught away” are found. There we read:

“The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice and with God’s trumpet, and those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first. Afterward we the living who are surviving will, together with them, be caught away in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

Believers in the rapture give the following literal interpretation to this passage: Christ will again come to the earth. The dead “saints” will be resurrected and the living “saints” will be caught away, or raptured. Given new immortal bodies, they will rise and join Christ in the air, and he will take them to heaven.

This belief, then, is tied in with the return of Jesus Christ. But what does the Bible show to be the purpose of Christ’s return?

Manner and Purpose of Christ’s Return

The Bible does not indicate that there will be a literal, bodily return of Christ to earth. Rather, it shows that he returns in the sense of turning his attention to the earth and to accomplish certain definite purposes respecting mankind.

Christ’s descending, as mentioned at 1 Thessalonians 4:16, is in the same sense as the Scriptures speak of God’s descending to earth. For instance, the Bible says of God: “He proceeded to bend the heavens down and to descend; and thick gloom was beneath his feet.” (2 Samuel 22:10) “Look! Jehovah is going forth from his place, and he will certainly come down and tread upon earth’s high places.” (Micah 1:3) What is meant by these words? Not that God will leave his place in heaven, but that he will turn his attention to affairs on earth.

In the same way, when Christ turns his attention to the earth he resurrects those sleeping in death who will join him in heavenly rule. (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 15; Revelation 20:6) They, like Jesus, are invisibly raised to join him in the spirit realm. Thus “those who are dead in union with Christ will rise first.” Then those anointed Christians still living on earth will, as they complete their earthly course, “be caught away in clouds [resurrected as invisible spirit sons of God] to meet the [invisible] Lord in the air.” Thus, “afterward,” as mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, means that such faithful ones who then die will also receive a resurrection in the spirit.​—1 Corinthians 15:51-53.

But much more is accomplished at Christ’s return. Installed as King in God’s heavenly kingdom, he first ousts Satan from heaven and confines him to the vicinity of the earth. From his heavenly throne Jesus turns his attention to the earth for inspection and judgment. Nations are “gathered before him,” and the people are separated as “sheep” from “goats.”​—Matthew 25:31-33; Revelation 12:7-12.

That separation made by Jesus is based on the attitude individuals have toward Christ’s “brothers,” those anointed Christians, the “living who are surviving” at the time of his return. Jesus’ “brothers” have been given the work of preaching the “good news of the kingdom” and ‘making disciples of people of all the nations.’ (Matthew 25:34-45; 24:14; 28:19, 20) Those separated as “sheep,” in Jesus’ illustration of ‘the sheep and the goats,’ join with Christ’s “brothers” in proclaiming God’s kingdom. But they do not entertain any hope of any kind of rapture, or of a heavenly resurrection to “be with the Lord.” Rather, they have the Scriptural hope of going through the “great tribulation” and of living forever in paradise conditions on earth. In connection with this earthly realm of the kingdom, the King Jesus Christ will extend to them the invitation: “Come, you who have been blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world.”​—Matthew 25:34, 46; Revelation 7:9, 10, 14.

[Picture on page 14]

Some believe there will be airplane, bus, train and automobile wrecks when Christian operators are suddenly taken out of the world

The “Diary of an Unborn Child” Goes to School

MY ENGLISH teacher asked the class to write a report on a recent magazine that we had read. At the time the current issue of Awake! had a series of articles on abortion. Since abortions occur frequently, even among high school students, I chose that subject. When I presented my report to the class I read “Diary of an Unborn Child.” (Awake! of May 22, 1980, page 16) The class listened intently, and at the end when the baby said, “Today my mother killed me,” practically everyone gave a heartbroken sigh.

After class one girl came to me and asked, “May I have that magazine?” She explained that her mother wanted to have an abortion, but she wanted very much to have a little brother or sister​—preferably a brother. I gave her the magazine, she gave it to her mother, and the next morning her mother announced that she had changed her mind. She would have the baby, not the abortion. Later on the mother had a test to determine the sex of the baby​—it was to be a boy. The girl was overjoyed!

So was I. Witnessing to others can save lives in more ways than one!​—From a young Witness in Ontario, Canada.

In my third year of high school a group of us had to work up a play on anything relating to the home. I proposed the theme of abortion, and my companions accepted. The play concerned a family that did whatever they wished. The daughter committed fornication and became pregnant. When it became known to the rest of the family, the different members gave their opinions as to what should be done, but the decision was left up to the girl. As she stands thinking in front of the audience a recording of the “Diary of an Unborn Child” is heard. The play ended with the last entry in the diary: “Today my mother killed me.”

There was silence. Many of the class sat there with tears running down their cheeks. Others were near tears but held them back. All were deeply moved by the “Diary of an Unborn Child.” Finally the teacher, her own eyes misty, demanded: “Well, aren’t you going to applaud?” The spell broken, applause broke loose. The teacher asked where I got this information, and I showed her the diary as it was published in the Awake! magazine.

This play caused many comments among both students and teachers.​—Experience from a Witness in Ensenada, Baja California North, Mexico.

“Annie” Too Clean

It is reported that the big movie Annie was originally rated G. The producer worried that a G rating would not draw well. He asked that one of Carol Burnett’s lines be rewritten to include a “G‐‐ D‐‐‐.” This was done and the movie was reclassified PG. Now, the reasoning went, it would appeal more to the new-morality public.​—New York Sunday News Magazine, May 16, 1982.

Young People Ask . . .

What Future Is There for Any of Us?

RECENTLY, young people in Europe have made headlines. In the Netherlands young rioters caused 2.5 million dollars worth of damage at the coronation of Queen Beatrix. In Zurich rioters caused nearly 5 million dollars worth of damage. In Berlin reports tell of the famous shopping center Kurfürstendamm’s being turned into a “battleground.” In Great Britain white youths attacked racial minority groups.

What was their motive? “Violence is the only way to make people understand the mistakes that have been made,” a protester explained to London’s Financial Times. “They’ve promised us a lot and never made good. What counts is violence against property.” What “mistakes” was he referring to?

In the Netherlands it started with the housing problem. Reasonably priced apartments are very difficult to obtain there, so a group of homeless young people broke into an abandoned apartment building and set up camp. But that was only a beginning. “We started with housing. But we soon saw that all society is rotten,” a young man told Time magazine.

There are other “mistakes”​—joblessness, for example. In the Common Market 40 percent of those out of work are under twenty-five years of age. The nuclear threat is another ‘mistake.’ In Europe young people are visible in the huge demonstrations against atomic weapons. Sometimes, though, the violence seems pointless to an outsider. One pamphlet proclaimed: “Zurich is on fire. People are asking, ‘Why Zurich​—clean, quiet Zurich?’ We don’t have an answer, except that it’s high time this happened.” A protester told a reporter in Zurich: “Everything is perfect, everything is peaceful, everyone is rich. It makes us vomit.”

What alternatives do the young rioters propose? Some have radical suggestions. According to World Press Review, a recent poll in Germany revealed that at least a million students want an alternative culture​—possibly on the model of the North American Indians’ tribal societies. “We want our own reservations,” said a twenty-year-old. “And the cowboys can keep their distance.”

But, more disturbing, many rebels offer no alternatives. They merely fight against the way of life that is offered by modern European states. Graffiti scrawled on the walls in West Berlin reveal a dominant motive: “Self, not society.” They feel things are wrong but have no idea how to change them for the better.

Why So Much Restlessness?

Could the answer be in two principles found in the Bible? What principles? The first was stated by Jesus himself: “Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every utterance coming forth through Jehovah’s mouth.” (Matthew 4:4) The second is found in the book of Proverbs: “Where there is no vision the people go unrestrained.” (Proverbs 29:18) Can you see how these principles hold the key to the problems of young people today?

The words of Jesus indicate that man has spiritual as well as physical needs. Since the last world war some countries in Western Europe have built up materially prosperous societies that are among the wealthiest in the history of the world. Most Europeans, however, have paid little attention to spiritual needs. Hence, now that material security is taken for granted, many find it hollow, purposeless.

The Biblical proverb shows that we need “vision,” or foresight​—a clear view as to where we are going. Faced as they are with unemployment, industrial pollution, the threat of nuclear war, faltering economies, and so forth, the future looms dark to many youths. A sociologist in Germany said: “Today’s young express fear and desperation derived from a lack of prospects for the future.” The world just cannot give them the “vision” that they need. Is there anyone who can?

An Alternative to Rebellion

Yes, there is. Consider the experience of one young married couple. At first, Buz and Becky lived a fairly conventional life, but they were appalled by the crime, violence and other horrible things they read about. So they “dropped out.”

They sold their home and took their two-year-old daughter to live in an army tent in the country. They tried to live very simply, feeling that in this way they were not contributing to the destruction of the earth. But they realized that their small efforts made very little difference. Once, they looked at each other and said: “Man doesn’t care. The earth is going to be destroyed, and our children will have no future.” That night, Becky lay in bed feeling tense and nervous. She knew there was no future. Pollution or something else would eventually kill everyone.

However, they found an answer. It was not violence but something much more positive. They found a hope. How? They were contacted by Jehovah’s Witnesses and discovered something that they had not considered before. God has a purpose for this earth, and that purpose will come to pass no matter what man does. God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth,” yet he will bring a satisfying future to those who harmonize their lives with his way of doing things. (Revelation 11:18) Not wielders of nuclear weapons, nor big business conglomerates will survive, but only the meek ones of earth: “Just a little while longer, 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.”​—Psalm 37:10, 11.

This hope was literally from God because Jehovah’s Witnesses showed it to them in the Bible, which is the Word of God. It added the dimension that was lacking in their lives. They discovered that this hope is not just a delusion​—something to hang on to in order to hide from reality; no, this is reality. Other young people have found the same.

Tony, a teenager from Oregon, USA, said: “The most important change of attitude on my part was the realization that the Bible was true, and doing Jehovah’s will was the only hope for me.” A Central American youth, Mario, once felt forced by circumstances to steal in order to survive. He was shown this hope in the Bible and now says: “Now that I have this relationship with my Creator I can see that all that the world has to offer is a lot of refuse.”

Hence, there is an alternative to violence or “dropping out.” God has offered us a beautiful hope that is believable, logical and that will come true. Why not check it out for yourself? It may be just what you are looking for.

Smoking’s Heavy Toll

In Money

Would it surprise you if you were told that even if you do not smoke you are paying plenty for smoking anyway? While statistics for the United States are more readily available, the situation is very similar in many countries. Every year, smoking-related diseases cost about $13 billion in health-care expenses nationwide in the USA. About a third of that is spent by the government through Medicare and Medicaid programs. Also, it is estimated that about 584,000 wage earners and their families are being put on the Social Security disability rolls every year for the same reason. These programs, of course, are supported by taxpayers’ money​—you are paying for them.

Congress has recently voted to continue spending $80 million of taxpayers’ money a year in tobacco price supports to keep the tobacco industry active and profitable. Meanwhile, however, absenteeism, sickness and death related to smoking result in an annual loss in earnings of some $25 billion in all industries and businesses. The government’s income from payroll taxes is diminished proportionately.

Above and beyond all of this is the human cost of smoking. Each year, about three hundred thousand persons die on account of diseases attributable to tobacco smoking. The worst thing about it is that most of this is avoidable. “Cigarette smoking is clearly identified as the chief preventable cause of death in our society,” says the surgeon general in a recent report.

So, whether you smoke or not, you pay heavily for it in one way or another.

In Health

“Vibrating cilia” are what the tiny hairs on the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract are called. Their job is to keep the tract clean by transporting foreign bodies and mucus back to the mouth. How effective are they? At a world conference held in Düsseldorf, Germany, reports were presented on various methods of measuring the hairs’ activity. According to the German scientific journal Spectrum der Wissenschaft, the vibrating cilia of a healthy person can transport foreign substances a distance of from 1.5 to 2 centimeters (0.6 to 0.8 in.) a minute. The magazine goes on to say that ‘the efficiency of the vibrating cilia in persons suffering from chronic bronchitis is reduced to a fourth or a fifth of what is normal.’ But there is something else that burdens the busy hairs even more. Explains the scientific journal: ‘A deep breath burdened with tobacco smoke stops their activity for as long as a full 60 minutes!’

[Box on page 20]

U.S. Surgeon General’s 1982 Report on Smoking Says:

● Smoking will cause 130,000 deaths from cancer alone during the year

● Of these, 85 percent could have been avoided if the victims had not smoked

● Two-packs-a-day smokers are fifteen to twenty times as likely to die of lung cancer as are nonsmokers

● During this decade more women will die of lung cancer than of breast cancer

● Smoking is also a “major cause” of laryngeal, oral and esophageal cancers and is a “contributory factor” to bladder, kidney and pancreatic cancers

Where Do All Our Languages Come From?

IMAGINE what our lives would be like without language​—no friendly conversation, no exchange of useful knowledge or experiences, nor would you be reading this magazine. And most important of all, no printed Word of God for mankind’s instruction, comfort and hope.

Without language, how could this world function? Upward of three thousand languages are spoken on the earth today, and more than a thousand of these in Africa. How did they all develop? Were the older languages uncultured, and are the modern ones refined? As to complexity, how would you rate such tongues as Sanskrit and Zulu?

A young child learns to speak one or more languages by the age of three. This is considered by some the most difficult intellectual accomplishment a human is ever called upon to perform. “Human speech is a secret; it is a divine gift, a miracle,” wrote the renowned lexicographer Ludwig Koehler. The book Evolution (Life Nature Library), commenting on man’s ancestors, says: “They were only able to survive . . . by developing a system of communication among themselves. . . . An ape man of about one million years ago . . . possibly mastered a few speech sounds.” So the question arises: Is language an invention of man or a gift from God?

Did language really develop through the grunts and growls of some ape-man? If so, ancient languages should be crude and primitive, with modern languages becoming more complex and efficient. Linguists say that about 50 percent of earth’s inhabitants speak languages belonging to the Indo-European language family. The oldest known languages of this family include Sanskrit and Greek. How do these ancient languages compare with modern ones?

Consider Greek, in which there is an abundance of ancient literature. “Our records do not show us an uncultured language slowly evolving a literature from crude beginnings,” wrote Greek scholar Dr. B. F. C. Atkinson. Concerning the writings of the Greek poet Homer, who lived about the eighth or ninth century BCE, he said that these “stand in the first rank not only of Greek literature of every period but also of the known literature of the world.”

Sanskrit, which is no longer spoken, was a language of India. The oldest literature written in this tongue dates to about 1100 BCE, but European language scholars first discovered it about two hundred years ago. One of them, Sir William Jones, stated: “The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident.”

Another important language family is the Semitic. What has come to be known as Hebrew, a member of this family, is evidently the oldest of the languages. The Bible began to be written in Hebrew in the year 1513 BCE. How does it compare with modern tongues?

Hebrew is very expressive and concise, lending itself to a vivid description of events in a minimum of words. The Hebrew vocabulary has been skillfully constructed with words that involve the senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. Thus, they paint mental pictures for the hearer or reader. Because of its brevity, in translation it is often necessary to use auxiliary words to bring out the full flavor of the Hebrew verb. Take, for example, the first verse of the well-known Psalm 23:1: “Jehovah is my Shepherd. I shall lack nothing.” That represents a sentence of eight words containing thirty-six characters, whereas in Hebrew it is said in four words with only thirteen characters. Brilliantly efficient, is it not?

Of the 1,000-odd languages spoken in Africa, some three hundred have a remarkable similarity in their unusual grammatical structure. Known as the Bantu language family, they are spoken in most regions south of the equator. “Bantu,” meaning “people,” is a word common to these languages, hence the name “Bantu family.” Linguists believe that the Bantu family descended from a parent language spoken in central West Africa more than two thousand years ago.

One of the Bantu languages is Zulu, the most widely used tongue in southern Africa. How does it compare to the modern Afrikaans, derived from the old Dutch and which has become one of South Africa’s official languages? Zulu has a much more complicated grammatical form and is difficult for an adult to learn; few English or Afrikaans people have mastered it. In 1927 Clement Doke published Text-Book of Zulu Grammar, which, twenty-seven years later, in the fifth edition, included the following words by the author: “With the language of a people, the more one studies it, the more wonders one discovers in it . . . I have but scraped the surface in regard to many of the phenomena which abound in this rich Bantu tongue.”

What do the above facts indicate? As evolutionist Ashley Montagu admitted: “Many ‘primitive’ languages . . . are often a great deal more complex and more efficient than the languages of the so-called higher civilizations.” Clearly, language did not have crude beginnings.

To settle the issue as to the origin of language, consider the following conversation as recorded in the Hebrew tongue about thirty-five hundred years ago:

“Moses said, ‘O LORD, I have never been a man of ready speech . . . I am slow and hesitant of speech.’ The LORD said to him, ‘Who is it that gives man speech? . . . Is it not I, the LORD? Go now; I will help your speech and tell you what to say.’”​—Exodus 4:10-12, The New English Bible.

The question now arises: If the power of speech is a gift from God, how did differences develop?

Isolation of groups of people from one another is a factor. New situations bring about the formation of new words. New dialects begin to form. And it is not difficult for students of language to discern that all the tongues within a language family are from a common source. But how did the unmistakable differences of language families develop?

Interestingly, language scholar Sir Henry Rawlinson wrote: “If we were to be guided by the mere intersection of linguistic paths, and independently of all reference to the Scriptural record, we should still be led to fix on the plains of Shinar, as the focus from which the various lines had radiated.”

That observation agrees with the Bible, which shows that God created the first man with language and the ability to use it well. After the flood of Noah’s day, it tells us, “all the earth continued to be of one language and of one set of words.” However, in time, disobedient men, with their one common language, united in a harmful scheme. Instead of scattering throughout the earth as God commanded, they converged on the plains of Shinar and began to build a city, Babel, and a tower for practicing false worship.

In order to carry out his will, the Creator took action against the rebellious city builders. Genesis 11:9 informs us: “That is why its name was called Babel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth.”

Today the Creator’s wisdom is being made available far and wide by the fact that his Word, the Bible, is now translated into over seventeen hundred languages, representing about 97 percent of earth’s inhabitants.

The Bible’s explanation of the origin of languages is reasonable and in agreement with the facts. Evolutionists’ theories of their origin in ‘grunts and growls of ape-men’ is contrary to the facts.

That a young child has the ability to master the language of its parents is a marvelous gift from God.​—James 1:16, 17.

[Picture on page 21]

A young child learns to speak one or more languages by the age of three

[Picture on page 23]

At Babel new languages were born from which our present-day languages descend

Oddities of the Namib

A DESERT that’s different. Years may pass without rainfall. One inch is a good year. Sometimes it rains but the drops evaporate before reaching the ground. Its only reliable water is morning fogs carried in by winds off the Atlantic. Yet it teems with life. Beetles that stand on their head for a drink of water. Others that swim through the sand. Spiders that turn into wheels and roll down the dunes. Snakes that pretend to be plants and travel sideways. Plants that look like tangled heaps of barbed wire. Others with only two leaves that look like twenty and live two thousand years. And beneath its coastal dunes, vast treasures of polished diamonds. That’s just a few of the oddities of the Namib Desert, stretching along the western coast of southern Africa.

In the Namib there are fascinating beetles found nowhere else in the world. Most of them live beneath the dunes. They can be seen diving into the sand and “swimming” beneath the surface. One kind prefers the gravel plains and keeps its body off the hot sands by means of long legs​—scurrying about as if on stilts. Then there is the world’s only beetle with a white back, which reflects the sun’s hot rays. While one white-backed beetle forages for food, its mate may serve as a sunshade by perching on its back.

Namib beetles have ingenious ways of getting water from the morning fogs. One kind digs a small trench facing into the wind, then retraces its steps, drinking the moisture that has collected in the canal. Another walks to the crest of a dune, raises its rear high into the wind and with head low opens its mouth wide. With its back to the wind, droplets of water condense on its body and trickle down into its mouth.

A large spider, eleven centimeters in diameter (4.33 in.), known as the “white dancing lady,” builds a house with a trapdoor on the side of a dune. It feeds on lizards, crickets and other insects. When attacked it takes an aggressive stance with forelegs raised high​—hence the name “dancing lady.” Even more fascinating is its method of flight. It folds its legs partially under its body and goes cartwheeling down the dunes. Man, after all, didn’t invent the wheel!

A lovely ball of fur​—the golden mole—​also travels beneath the sands. It surfaces so seldom and for such brief moments that until recently it had never been seen. Its eyes and ears are completely hidden under its fur to protect them from the loose sand, where it tunnels about in search of food.

A terror of the dunes is the sidewinding Namib adder. It bounces across the sand with quick sideway thrusts and thus avoids slipping into or being burned by the hot sand. And what a crafty way it has for acquiring a meal! With body buried beneath the surface, only the eyes peep through the sand. Several centimeters away the tip of its tail protrudes, looking like a small plant. Soon an inquisitive lizard comes to make a meal of this odd “plant” and becomes a meal instead!

Fenestraria, meaning “windows,” is a plant with flat, club-shaped leaves that lie hidden under the sand with only their tips showing. The tips, however, are transparent, admitting light to effect photosynthesis. A tangled heap of rusty barbed wire? No, a closer look reveals green spiky melons wrapped in thin, thorny branches. This is the nara pumpkin, a food sought by both man and beast. Welwitschia is a large, octopus-shaped plant that seems to have many leaves but has only two. They grow eight meters (26 ft) long and are shredded to ribbons by the winds and become swirled about the plant’s core like octopus tentacles. Welwitschia lives for up to two thousand years!

Large animals also inhabit the Namib. The tallest elephants in the world, with unusually long legs, live there. Also the beautiful gemsbok (oryx) can be seen climbing the dune slopes. Also present are “the water engineers of the Namib.” That’s what the zebras living there are called. They have an uncanny ability to find water. With their hooves they dig holes in the dry riverbeds, going down one meter. Soon water seeps into the hole and they satisfy their thirst. Other animals watch them, and they also use these water holes.

But the polished diamonds of the Namib? Real diamonds? Very real indeed! Over thousands of years the Orange River has flushed millions of diamonds into the Atlantic Ocean. From there, strong coastal currents have washed them up onto the coast and into the desert sands. The result is that hidden beneath the coastal dunes is a vast treasure of naturally polished diamonds, 90 percent gemstone quality. Two hundred million tons of earth must be moved to recover one ton of diamonds​—eight million carats. Until recently this was being accomplished about every four years.

There you have a few of the fascinating oddities, and the fabulous riches, of the Namib.

My Search for Comfort

Dear Joan,

My name is Marion. I met your brother Tom, a very fine young man, at the Kingdom Hall. So now you know that I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Please don’t put this letter down. From what Tom told me, we have something in common. You see, I too lost my son in an accident. Mike was twenty-three years old.

When my son Mike died, I had so many questions. I have had other deaths in the family, but they were always older people. Mike was so young and had so much to live for. I could not understand why he had to die. I would like to show you where and how I received answers to all my questions and found real comfort. If you don’t mind reading, I would like to go back some years to start my story.

I was a farm girl. I was also a devoted Catholic, having been educated in Catholic schools. I remember having many questions, such as, How could God be a Trinity, three persons in one? But when I would ask the nuns, they would usually answer me by saying, “Now, Marion, that’s God’s mystery.”

About twenty-seven years ago I met and married Mike’s father. My new mother-in-law was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which I didn’t know at the time. When we would go over to her house for Sunday dinner she would always manage to say just a few things about the Bible. I would listen, but I told her to leave me alone, which she did​—for the next twenty years!

Then Mike was killed. I turned to the Bible for comfort. I went to the modern English translation that my mother-in-law had given me. But it might as well have been written in Greek​—I didn’t understand it. I felt I had reached a dead end in my search for comfort.

My mother kept telling me to pray and make novenas to the “mother of God” so that Mike might go to heaven. (You see, as a Catholic, she believed that at death the soul goes to purgatory but that surviving friends and relatives could pray the soul out of purgatory into heaven.) So I took my mother’s advice. I turned to the Church for comfort. I went to have Masses said for Mike, but imagine my shock when I was told I could have only three Masses said a year because they had so many to say for others! ‘Wow!’ I thought, ‘this is going to take the rest of my life, and what will happen to Mike if I should pass away?’ Another dead end in my search for comfort.

What about my husband? Well, I really couldn’t go to him for comfort either. He took Mike’s death very hard. He became so swallowed up in depression that I had to help him. So, for me, another dead end as far as finding comfort was concerned.

About this time I remembered having talked to my mother-in-law at the funeral home. I had said: “Why did God take Mike away from me? Why didn’t he take someone else​—a bum off the street or one from jail? Mike had a nice girl friend, a good job and a fine personality. He was a good boy.”

“Marion, God did not take Mike from you,” my mother-in-law answered firmly as she put her arm around me.

At the time I didn’t understand what she meant. But for the next six months those words kept coming back to my mind. I had been going through anger, depression, loneliness and was praying just about day and night. I even thought that I might as well join Mike. So I tried to commit suicide, but I failed. At that point, I actually went out looking for one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As I write you today, Joan, all my questions have been answered as a result of my studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses. For example:

Did God take Mike away from me? No! The Bible explains: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Romans 5:12) Thus, the basic reason we die is that we all inherit sin and imperfection from our first human parents. As to why some die prematurely, the Bible further explains that this is due to “time and unforeseen occurrence.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:11.

Is Mike’s soul going through fiery purging in purgatory? No! According to the Bible, the dead are unconscious. “For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all. . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol [mankind’s common grave], the place to which you are going.”​—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10.

Will I ever see Mike again? Yes! I have that hope. The Bible promises that the vast majority of dead mankind will be brought back to enjoy life in a righteous new order of things right here on earth! Listen, Joan, to Jesus’ heartwarming words: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that exercises faith in me, even though he dies, will come to life.” (John 11:25) The apostle Paul similarly stated: “I have hope toward God, . . . that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Acts 24:15) And in describing what conditions on earth will be like at that time Revelation 21:3, 4 says: “God . . . will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”

When will this take place? Joan, I was thrilled to learn that the time is near at hand. The Bible clearly showed, long ago, that the worsening world conditions we see today would be proof that we are in the “last days” of this wicked system of things.​—2 Timothy 3:1-5.

Now I have a different outlook on life. I’ve found the comfort I needed, and I feel that now I can help others who have lost a loved one in death. I can show them from the Bible where their loved ones are and that no harm is coming to them. I can share with them the wonderful hope of the resurrection. Yes, you too can have the joy of seeing your son again, and this time you will be together in peace and with no pain or sorrow ever again.

Joan, isn’t that something worth looking into? Why not look into the Bible and see if it brings you the comfort that I searched for and found? If you would like some help in understanding it, I will be glad to assist you.

I must close for now. If you find time, I would enjoy hearing from you.

Marion

From Our Readers

Cerebral Palsy

Just six days before I received the issue of August 8, 1982, the doctors told my husband and me that our youngest daughter (sixteen months old) had a nerve disease that also affected her muscles. They say she will never walk, or even stand, and that the disease is fatal. The article “He’s Going to Be a Little Boy” has really given me comfort in knowing that with Jehovah’s help our family too can cope with such trials. Thank you for the article at such a time when I needed the extra encouragement.

L. M., Louisiana

We want to express our appreciation for the article “He’s Going to Be a Little Boy.” It was especially touching to us because our little daughter has cerebral palsy. I hope that if I am ever faced with a similar situation I may reply with the same conviction. We were fortunate to find a doctor who detected the cause of our daughter’s problems when she was only four weeks of age. When she was eleven weeks of age we were able to begin neurodevelopmental therapy. She has made steady and remarkable progress and will soon be one year old. Our hearts ache to know that others have not had such a pleasant outcome. But we have faith that God sees all of it and will fully rectify all matters in his due time.

D. N., California

I must put pen to paper and say how much I appreciated the article “He’s Going to Be a Little Boy.” My husband and I have two handicapped little girls, aged two and four, and know exactly how the mother felt when she quoted 1 Corinthians 13:8: “Love never fails.” At times things do become very difficult, and there have been days when I’ve wondered where I’m going to get the energy to keep going, but I just remember Jehovah’s words at Isaiah 41:10, 13 and I’m so grateful that I worship a God who keeps his promises.

A. T., Scotland

I have never read such a heart-moving article as the one “He’s Going to Be a Little Boy.” I prayed that Jehovah will bless the parents of little Sasha for the love, patience and kindness they showed their loving son. I too look forward to seeing Sasha in the new order when Jehovah will restore him to perfect health.

K. F., England

I am twelve years old. When my mother and I were reading the article “He’s Going to Be a Little Boy,” we both started to cry. It just goes to show that even though we don’t know the person who wrote it, our hearts pour out to them. Hopefully, someday soon they will be able to see their dear son again, when people won’t have to die.

C. K., New Jersey

“I Just Want a Job!”

Thank you very much for the article “I Just Want a Job!” (June 8, 1982) The practical suggestions are most helpful. I am often with young people my own age who will soon be faced with this problem. I am sure that in such cases I will be able to make good use of this magazine. Thank you once again.

N. S., Germany

Watching the World

Acceptance of Terrorism

● “Incidents of international terrorism increased more than sixfold during the ’70s,” writes political scientist Robert J. Jackson in the Toronto Star. “The most numerous were political assassinations, diplomatic kidnappings and embassy seizures. And as the violence escalated, the public threshold for tolerance also mounted, giving terrorism an unprecedented degree of acceptance in modern western societies.” Wondering if governments and individuals are “becoming conditioned to accept violence as a proper part of the political process,” he cites examples of governments that “openly sponsor international terrorist acts, treating them as a legitimate means of political pressure.” Terrorist tactics are effective, he points out, as shown by a study of seventy-seven international hostage incidents that revealed that “almost 80 per cent of the kidnappers escaped capture or death” and had a “50 per cent chance of having some or all of their demands met.”

Aging World

● For the first time in history, mankind is faced with a world in which the old outnumber the young. It is said that by the year 2025 the world birthrate will be cut by half, while the average life expectancy will rise to seventy. The implications of a shrinking work force supporting a soaring number of the elderly “has so worried the United Nations,” says the Glasgow Herald, that it called a special conference to discuss the problem. “The main objective of the U.N.,” according to the article, is to help governments “realise that compulsory retirement, once considered a major social achievement, is bad for their economies, as well as for the old themselves.” It is felt that most people can continue to work until they are seventy-five. The biggest problem is expected to occur in the Third World, where a lifetime of poverty and disease will disable a large proportion of the elderly.

Child VD Cases Growing

● “The number of children below the age of 15 who are suffering from sexually transmitted diseases has increased tremendously,” says a report from Africa. According to the Zambia Daily Mail, the annual meeting of the Association of Physicians of East and Central Africa heard a talk by Professor Chilango Mulaisho in which he stated that the “number of cases reported . . . is growing every day,” and that many more go unreported because “children are generally afraid to tell anybody that they have contracted such a disease.” Why such a dramatic increase? According to Professor Mulaisho, it is because of the “apparent free moral attitude existing between children of opposite sexes and lack of control by parents.”

World Smoking News

● Candy cigarettes once were popular with children, and now candy is being used to entice the young to smoke. The Japanese tobacco industry is now marketing a candy-flavored filter cigarette to attract young smokers. The cigarette comes in four flavors: mint, lime, orange and cinnamon. They expect to sell 120 million of these candy-flavored cigarettes a year.

While the tobacco industry seeks to attract new smokers and increase sales, others are working to discourage the practice. Some have put up signs saying Smoking Is a Dying Habit and Go Ahead if You Must Smoke, but Please Do Not Exhale Here. Also, many employers are refusing to hire applicants who smoke. And in London an organization called COUGH-UP (Citizens’ Organisation Using Graffiti to Halt Unhealthy Promotions) is turning posters promoting smoking into antismoking slogans. If an advertisement referred to “the perfect cigarette,” the members would add, “for the perfect dope.” And a poster extolling a certain cigarette brand, urging readers to “make a note of it,” had a new conclusion added: “ . . . a suicide note.”

In Zurich authorities upheld the decision of an insurance commission to cut the disability pay of a man who could not work due to heart and circulatory troubles. Noting that he had smoked twenty to thirty cigarettes a day for the past twenty-five years, they ruled that the responsibility was his, due to “gross negligence.”

Two Million Lawless

● Almost 2 million adults in the United States were behind bars or on probation or parole at the end of last year​—one out of every eighty-three persons over eighteen years of age. These figures, which continue to grow, do not reflect the additional several thousand adults on county or city-run parole. The majority of these​—over 1.2 million adults—​were on federal or state probation, which generally refers to the release of a convicted person under official supervision. This was a 9-percent increase over 1980, according to the government figures.

Mediterranean “Ill”

● “The Mediterranean, which nurtured so many civilisations, is gravely ill,” says London’s Observer. “And the pollution does not merely stifle the life of the sea​—it threatens the people who inhabit and visit its shores.” Sewage from the Mediterranean’s 120 coastal cities, wastes from the thousands of factories that line its shores, inland filth carried by the rivers that empty into it and oil pollution​—have all added together, to make the Mediterranean the “most polluted” sea in the world. According to the report, the Mediterranean “has only 1 per cent of the world’s sea surface, but carries more than half the oil and tar floating on the waters,” making its oil pollution four times as great as the North Atlantic and forty times as bad as the northeast Pacific. As the Mediterranean is landlocked, apart from the nine-mile-wide Strait of Gibraltar, it takes eighty years for the water to be renewed​—too slow a process to cope with the ever-increasing pollution. Since it is the world’s most popular holiday destination​—with 100 million tourists annually—​the article cautions visitors to select less polluted areas, swim in waters away from cities and not eat shellfish.

Ant Communication

● How do ants, known for their organized activity, communicate with one another? It is by releasing chemicals, says Edward O. Wilson, regarded as the world’s foremost authority on ants. His discovery came after thirty-five years of studying the ants’ activity throughout the world. “Ants have between 10 and 20 chemicals in different glands in their bodies which they release to signal alarm, recruit workers to a food site, attack an enemy or to tell them to assemble in certain spots​—any of about 50 standard behavior patterns,” he says. “They have an extraordinary ability to sense chemicals.”

Ants recognize dead ants, he discovered, by oleic acid​—which is released as the dead ant starts to decompose. In experimentation they dropped a spot of oleic acid on a live ant. The other ants carted him out, “squirming and kicking,” to the cemetery outside the nest​—and kept doing so no matter how many times he came marching back. But, says Wilson, “we’ve only begun to understand ants’ complex mode of communication.”

“Arcade Arthritis”

● According to Dr. Gary Myerson, a rheumatologist, because of the repetitious actions needed to operate the game controls, habitual players of video games run the risk of developing chronic problems in their hands, wrists and shoulders. In a study he and his associates conducted, 65 percent of the players in a video arcade had blisters, calluses, pain in joints or inflammation of a tendon due to playing the games. “The study definitely demonstrates the acute injuries that can result from direct participation in the video games,” said Dr. Myerson. “Sixty-five percent of people participating in anything that develops an injury is significant. When one considers what could potentially happen to one’s joints, it should be taken quite seriously.”

No Room​—Alive or Dead

● Tiny Hong Kong, with its population of five million, is now so crowded that it has become increasingly difficult to find a place even to bury the dead. Reports the International Herald Tribune: “A permanent tomb in a private cemetery now costs $25,000 [US]​—if you can find one.” The Hong Kong government encourages cremation by offering to do the service for as little as $20. “But,” says the Tribune, “cremation is unpopular with Hong Kong’s traditional Chinese, for whom ancestral worship is still an important tenet.” A compromise has been reached by making it possible to cremate the dead and yet bury them too. High-rise structures, called columbaria, are being built that can hold the remains of thousands of persons. Each tiny nine-by-nine-inch niche is covered by a plaque containing the name, date of death and a picture of the deceased​—and can be visited like a grave. For those who desire a traditional cemetery, without the six-year burial rotation to make room for others, space has been offered in nearby China for a fee of $2,500. But only ninety-five coffins have been buried there in the past three years due to transportation and visa difficulties.

Finger Fraud

● Police in Fukuoka, Japan, have uncovered a scheme that has fraudulently netted some 300 million yen in insurance claims. To cover debts, people there have been taking out insurance policies and then slicing off their index fingers in order to collect. According to the London newspaper The Guardian, police have already taken eighteen fingerless persons into custody, but over sixty more are believed to be still at large. They have also found amateur “surgeons” who will chop off a finger for a payment of 100,000 yen. In one instance a woman in debt to a loan shark was forced to have her finger amputated after taking out an insurance policy. Of the 3 million yen paid for the “accident” by the insurance company, 2 million was taken by the moneylender.

Back to Stone Age

● Technology is going back to the Stone Age​—at least to recover a process said to have disappeared 3,000 years ago in which “primitive peoples” made stone blades from volcanic glass. According to an article in The Vancouver Sun, “archeologists and surgeons are experimenting with ways of making the stone age tools, called microblades, because the blades’ sharpness surpasses that of the best scalpel.” The blades are made from obsidian glass or basalt, and, says Dr. David Pokotylo, professor of archaeology at the University of British Columbia, “slice through leather like butter.” Surgeons have shown interest in using the blades in eye and cosmetic surgery. Said Pokotylo: “The sharper the blade, the less damage to tissue. These cut so sharp they even cut between blood vessels, making a cleaner, less easily infected and faster-healing incision with less scar tissue.” Further research is being done to check the blades’ strength and durability.

“Let Your Kingdom Come”​—Where?

What is the kingdom that Jesus taught us to pray for? Is it purely a heavenly state? Or is it a condition that dwells in the hearts of men? Or is it a literal government with subjects and laws?

The answer can and will make a great difference in your life.

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The Mysterious Beasts of Revelation

Do you know the significance of these beasts of the Bible book of Revelation? What meaning does the number 666 have?

These symbolic beasts affect you and the entire world of mankind. Learn their meaning. Read the books “Then Is Finished the Mystery of God” and “Babylon the Great Has Fallen!” God’s Kingdom Rules!

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