The Watchtower — April 1, 1956

Making All Mankind One Under Their Creator

This leading article that you are about to read takes on special interest. It is the public talk that N. H. Knorr, president of the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania, is now in the course of giving to audiences in the major cities of the southwest Pacific and of the Far East during his ten-week tour, beginning February 29 of this year and taking in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand, Indochina, the Philippine Islands, Formosa, South Korea and Japan, as well as Alaska. Read this and see how appropriate his message is for us all.

1. As a human family how should all mankind be, but what is their actual condition?

ALL mankind should be one! All mankind will yet be made one. Happy will be that time! It will mean far more than tying mankind together by means of travel and communication and by international alliances. Never before has mankind been more closely tied together by such means than now. Yet never was mankind more seriously divided than now. We talk of the “human family,” but we do not act like one. On every level of human society and in every field of activity and thought differences meet us, such as racial differences, national differences, religious differences, language, money, social, traditional differences and others. The results of these have been so calamitous that they eloquently argue for the speedy making of all mankind one in a true way.

2. According to the sure rule stated by the Christian teacher Jesus, what will happen if mankind’s divided condition keeps up?

² By the many divisive influences mankind is steadily being broken up into fragments. It is no wonder that world leaders are seriously concerned over the lack of oneness and are seeking to unite mankind before we are broken up into still smaller fragments by atomic and hydrogen bombs. Recently one religious clergyman said that the great sin of human society is “fragmentation.” There seems to be some force trying to make humankind fly apart in every direction, so that we have come near to the state of affairs foretold by the Christian Bible when ‘every man’s hand will be against his neighbor’s.’ (Zech. 14:13; Isa. 19:2) Disastrous selfishness is being given free rein by mankind today, and it has at last become uncontrollable by the human spirit. The continuance and spread of division throughout the earth must end up later in only one grand result. Jesus, the great Christian teacher, said that if a nation is divided against itself it comes to desolation, and if a city or household is divided against itself, it will not stand; and if Satan the Devil is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? (Matt. 12:25, 26) That principle or rule of action stated by Jesus may be a homely one, but history bears out its truthfulness. So, then, mankind divided against itself cannot continue existing.

3. What is really the effect of men’s schemes for making mankind one?

³ Men seek to heal the great breach by various schemes that they propose. But look at these schemes! Why, there are even great differences among them, and this very disagreement of human plans for making mankind one is divisive in its effect. Since 1918 the totalitarian scheme has pushed forward to a challenging position and has caused a deep split among men.

4. What is one of the oldest totalitarian religious systems, and has it changed its final goal?

⁴ Totalitarian political rule may be recent, but there has long been totalitarian religious rule. There are religious systems that are totalitarian in their rule. History shows one of the oldest of these to be the Roman Catholic religious system. By its spokesmen the claim is made that the salvation of all mankind rests upon the obedience of everybody to the pope at Vatican City. Because it considers itself to be the only agency for human salvation, that religious system has undertaken the program of world conquest. Today, after all its failure to conquer, it has no more changed its final goal—world Catholicism—than has the Russian Soviet changed its ultimate objective—world communism.

5. How have totalitarian religious systems acted to bring about religious oneness, but with what success?

⁵ Religious systems of a totalitarian kind cannot of themselves bring about world control by strictly religious means. They have had to call upon the strong arm of the political state in order to enforce outward harmony of the people with their religious ideas, doctrines and demands. Where these totalitarian religionists are in the majority this use of force has resulted in the practice of intolerance; but where they are in the minority they call for toleration and plead for it and demand it. Just as soon as they get the upper hand, then they abuse their power and position and they themselves practice intolerance and all other methods to take away religious liberty from others. Yet oneness has not come this way.

6. How do the East and the West and also religion stand with regard to what democracy is or means?

⁶ A system contrary to totalitarian rule is that of so-called “democracy.” What is democracy? There are various definitions of it. The United States of America and other Western countries have their definition of it. Russia and its satellites have their definition of what real democracy, that is, “people’s rule,” is. For instance, right at the boundary line dividing Berlin between East and West, on the Russian side stands the sign saying, “Beginning of the Democratic Sector of Greater Berlin.” So there is great confusion in defining the same word. Hence one group may speak of “democracy” and another group may speak of “democracy” and yet they will mean opposite things. Not only is there the political definition of democracy, but there is the religious definition, the Roman Catholic one. If we go to the Catholic Encyclopedia and read the article on democracy we learn that in the year 1901 Pope Leo XIII issued a letter to all Roman Catholic bishops throughout the world, in which he defined democracy according to Catholicism. He summed it up as being “Catholic Action,” and the ones taking part in Catholic action were termed “Christian Democrats.” Our latest newspapers inform us that the Christian Democrats are active on the European scene today. All this does not produce democratic oneness.

7. What hot question is now under debate, and what world organization now tries to help answer the question, and how?

⁷ Today the hot question under debate is: Call mankind be one under these two systems, democratic and totalitarian? Can these two systems keep living side by side, ruling at the same time on the earth? A political attempt at holding them together is the organization of the United Nations. The United Nations of today is really the successor to a failure, the now buried League of Nations. The League was proposed by the American president Woodrow Wilson, but was never joined by his country. In 1955 the United Nations grew to a membership of seventy-six nations, with further nations trying to get in but long being blocked one way or the other. All member nations have held onto their own national sovereignties, thus preventing a stronger oneness.

8. What other schemes for unification do men propose and act upon?

⁸ Some, not satisfied with the United Nations, argue for world government, with a world capital city and with all the rest of the earth divided up into states, but these without national sovereignty. For defensive and other reasons some advocate a united Europe. Likewise, others propose Pan-Islamism, a union of all the Mohammedan countries in one political body. Meanwhile, ambition for world domination causes cold wars to be waged in the postwar period of peace. Along with these a battle for the control of the people’s minds goes on, great propaganda barrages being hurled over boundaries into other lands to influence the people there mentally. In an effort to overcome the language barrier a committee of linguists appointed by the United Nations recently invented a new language called “Inter-lingua.”

TIME HAS TOLD

9, 10. (a) What has time told regarding the Communist experiment? (b) Why is the totalitarian system feared today?

⁹ Time has told how effective the various plans and schemes of men are in bringing about world unity or less disunity. Have the thirty-eight years of the Communist experiment proved so full of blessings that now we want all mankind made one by totalitarian rule? No! say those who know it for what it is. In practice it produces a police state. As a whole it is dominated by fear—fear on the part of men high and low. The men high up who are in seats of control are in fear lest there be a popular uprising to try to overthrow them, and they are suspicious of one another. They are afraid of the dreadful purge, that they will be purged from the party because of some unintended misstep. The people underneath are also in a constant state of fear that they will be punished if they do not line up with the men in power. The freedom that is boasted of proves to be the mere freedom to join the Communist party or to vote for its candidates. So a uniformity is forced on everyone below; all elements religious, political, literary, educational, publicity, business, agricultural, scientific, medical, social, theatrical, yes, all fields of human endeavor are regimented and everything is lined up like a monolith underneath those few who are on top. State worship is demanded of everybody beneath, but this state worship is not willingly paid by everybody.

¹⁰ The totalitarian system, therefore, has to be enforced by compulsion and is at war with all democratic individuality, with free undertakings and private ownership of property. Today it is looked upon as a threat to the “free world.” It is feared because of its aggressiveness, because of its merciless methods, because the state is a law to itself, in that it determines what is right and what is wrong in its own eyes. So today totalitarian rule is the broad basis for a divided East and West.

11. What facts show up about American democracy, and why is there no real oneness under it?

¹¹ Well, then, do the people generally want democracy? No, for not everything they see about it is good. In America democracy is infested by men who are out for their own selfish interest. The people’s rule is being misguided by crafty politicians and perverted by self-seekers. Dishonest, selfish interests seize the opportunity to take control. Free enterprise is allowed, yes, but it leads to cutthroat competition or to monopoly or to forming international trade combines. In sections of the land freedom is stifled by men who consider themselves to be the law locally. When running for the American presidency back in 1952 General Eisenhower said at St. Louis, Missouri, that the “only way to get an incorruptible government was to axe out the present administration, root and branch, and replace it with ‘incorruptible men and women.’” (New York Times, September 21, 1952) Did his political Republican party bring in such an incorruptible government after he became president of the United States of America? Ask the Socialist party! Ask the Democratic party! Ask those who mix in politics, not us. Then you will find out the disagreement. Democracy shies away from the one-party state such as exists in totalitarian lands. It has rival political parties, but this rivalry blocks unselfish, united cooperation for common good, so that there is no real oneness.

12, 13. (a) What have some understood the slogan “Make the World Safe for Democracy” to mean, but how do Asia and Africa take to democracy? (b) What has democracy no mandate to do to the world?

¹² Not all democracies are alike. Not all prefer the American kind. Today “democracy” is a popular term. During World War I Woodrow Wilson as American president invented the slogan, “Make the world safe for democracy!” Ever since then democratic efforts have been made in many parts of the earth. By many that slogan “Make the world safe for democracy!” has been interpreted to mean, “Make the world democratic.” But not all the world wants to be democratic, and not all who want to be such look to America as the model democracy. M. A. Thomas, a clergyman from India, at an assembly in Dayton, Ohio, of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., December 5, 1955, declared that “neither American democracy nor American Christianity could be taken seriously so long as racial segregation was common practice in many areas.” (New York Times, December 6, 1955) At the seventh national assembly of the United Church Women held in Cleveland, Ohio, a number of clergymen spoke. According to the New York Times, of November 9, 1955, “the United States plays directly into the hands of Communists by not understanding the desire of the masses in Asia and Africa to control their own destinies the Reverend Dr. James H. Robinson told the 3,000 delegates. . . . The Reverend Dr. M. A. Thomas . . . warned that democracy would not have ‘a ghost of a chance’ in Asia unless a radical social and economic adjustment took place soon.”

¹³ No, democracy has been given no mandate to democratize this world. She must allow other people throughout the earth the freedom to choose their own local or national government. That is their right. Unhappily, however, this does not make for mankind’s oneness.

14. (a) How was Pope Pius XII disappointed about religious unity in 1950? (b) What did the religious conference at Lund, Sweden, in 1952 have to say about religious unity?

¹⁴ Religious clergymen criticize, but world religions can offer no solution to mankind’s problem. In 1950 the Roman Catholics celebrated a “Holy Year.” Pope Pius XII called it the “year of the great return,” hoping and praying that the Protestant sects would return to the religious fold of the so-called “Mother Church.” The year 1950 passed, but the “great return” of the Protestant branches of religion to oneness with Vatican City did not happen. Protestants are not only divided from Vatican City but divided among themselves. In August, 1952, the Third World Conference on Faith and Order was held at Lund, Sweden, and reports were drawn up by its five subcommittees on “how to attain unity among Christian churches on doctrine, worship and communion.” These reports revealed such wide differences in idea and interpretation that, to quote the New York Times of August 26, 1952, “Archbishop Athenagoras of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus asserted: ‘We may look for church union two centuries hence, but not before.’” At the close of the two-week conference the New York Times of August 29 reported: “The world’s divided churches have failed in their efforts to map a blueprint for a united Christendom, their representatives declared today at the conclusion of a two-week conference. ‘We have not resolved our differences nor brought forth before the world a simple method of achieving unity,’ the report to the Third World Conference on Faith and Order stated.” Now the great question is, Can the people of Christendom and of the rest of mankind wait two centuries for unity of the human race? The threatening future answers No!

15. So what do we see regarding human schemes and proposals for unity?

¹⁵ So, surveying the most prominent human schemes and proposals, we see that no one of them has swung the whole world. None of them has proved big enough singly, nor have they proved big enough all together, for the job. They have merely divided and splintered human efforts. Men will never come forth with a successful unifier.

NOT JUST A DREAM

16. Why is the uniting of mankind in brotherhood no mocking dream, and what failure by men has made their own schemes fail in this?

¹⁶ Is, then, the uniting of mankind in brotherhood just a mocking dream? No! But why not? Have not the schemes and efforts of man all failed to take this “brotherhood of man” idea out of the dream realm and put it into reality? Yes, but even then it is not a dream, for it is the will of the one all-important Ruler, whom men have not taken into consideration, mankind’s own Creator. What has proved impossible for imperfect, selfish, dying man is possible for God our Maker. His will certainly will be done on earth just as it is done up in heaven. He gave all mankind just one common start in life. Hear what an Asiatic, the Christian apostle Paul, said to the European philosophers at Athens, Greece, nineteen hundred years ago: “The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples, neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all persons life and breath and all things. And he made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed seasons and the set limits of the dwelling of men, for them to seek God, . . . For by him we have life and move and exist, even as certain ones of the poets among you have said, ‘For we are also his progeny.’” (Acts 17:24-28, NW) Men have failed to seek this God and follow his ways. So their own schemes have failed.

17. Why are we all one as to body, flesh, dying, marriage and blood?

¹⁷ Under the skin we are all one. No matter where people live on earth, we are all alike as to body, although of a different skin color. Why? Because God the Creator started off mankind from just the “one man,” Adam. This first man’s wife, Eve, God built up from a rib taken from Adam’s body. Is that a childish idea? No; for Jesus Christ himself said: “Did you not read [in the Holy Scriptures] that he who created them at the beginning made them male and female and said: ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh.” (Matt. 19:4-6, NW; Gen. 2:21-24) So we are all one flesh, all human, of the dust of this one earth upon which we live. At death we all return to its dust, the lighter-colored races as well as the darker-colored races, there being no absolute white. As one dies, so dies the other, both under one common curse of death, so that no race is superior to any other in this regard. (Eccl. 3:18-21) We can all intermarry. By such marriage of any race or color with any other come children, children not of mixed blood but of one blood, although through different family lines. The specialized marrying within a certain family relationship has made certain features, traits and other things more pronounced in the children of such inbreeding, still the blood is one human blood.

18. Because of man’s cradle of birth, why should the West not dominate the East? Whose domination is predicted soon to end?

¹⁸ Why, then, are we not all one? The evidence is that man sprang from an Oriental cradle, not an Occidental cradle, from an Asiatic one, not a European or African one. So why should the West dominate the East? Recently at New York city the famous German Pastor Niemoeller predicted that the end of the “white man’s domination” was near at hand. (New York Times, November 12, 1955, page 8) But why any human group dominate? Why not all live as one?

19. (a) With whom was mankind at one to begin with? (b) What is the Creator’s name, and how does Egypt’s experience show we should not brush his name aside?

¹⁹ Where did all our present disunity have its start? To begin with, mankind on earth was at one with God the Creator and with his invisible spirit sons in heaven, for all were creatures of the one Creator. But what is the Creator’s name, so that we may know about whom we are talking? Down south in Egypt, almost thirty-five centuries ago, the Israelites asked God’s prophet Moses: “What is his name?” God told Moses to answer: “‘Jehovah the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name to eternity, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation.” Now do not brush this name aside with contempt. Egypt’s ruler Pharaoh snarled at Moses: “I do not know Jehovah at all and, what is more, I am not going to send Israel away.” As a result Pharaoh and his Egypt suffered great punishment from Jehovah God, Pharaoh’s many chariots and military forces finally being drowned in the Red Sea like trapped rats.—Ex. 3:13-15; 5:1, 2; 14:23 to 15:19, NW.

20. Who started the disunity in God’s great family, and what did God call him, and why?

²⁰ One of Jehovah’s heavenly, spiritual sons started the disunity in God’s great family in heaven and on earth. He set himself against Jehovah God in order to gain control over mankind, just as Pharaoh opposed Jehovah to try to keep control over the Israelites as his slaves. In the Hebrew language Jehovah God called this unfaithful son’s name Satan, which means “opposer, adversary.” Because this opposing spirit told the first lie by slandering God to deceive the mother of all mankind into sin against Him, Jehovah God called him Malshín, or Devil. This name means “slanderer.” (Job 1:6, 7; Rev. 12:9; 20:2) Complete, universal oneness will come first after Satan the Devil and his followers are destroyed.

21. From whose family did mankind get a new, righteous start, and when and where?

²¹ The tenth man in line of descent from the first man Adam was Noah, who walked in harmony with God. When the great earth-wide flood came it drowned all who were at disunity with God. It left just one family from which mankind could get a new, righteous start, Noah’s family. From Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, sprang the three great branches of the one human family, beginning from Mount Ararat in Asia, where the great ark landed in which Noah’s family had lived through the flood.—Gen. 8:4, 15-18; 9:18, 19.

22. How was mankind’s disunity started again, and what did Babylon have to do with our many languages and with world domination?

²² For a while now there was oneness between God and mankind. Then Satan the Devil took advantage of man’s free will and his inherited sinfulness and began breaking up the oneness between Noah’s descendants and God. Later at Babylon in southwest Asia those who were disunited with God tried to unite in a scheme against God’s good purpose toward mankind. To break up their unity in a wicked scheme God miraculously broke up their oneness of language by causing them to speak suddenly many languages different from that of Noah, and he provided no interpreters. So, being unable to understand one another, they scattered from Babylon. Today 2,796 languages have been counted by officers of the French Academy. Later Babylon became strong enough to establish the Babylonian empire to dominate the world. But in less than a century Jehovah God caused the Babylonian world power to be destroyed. His witnesses who were held captive in Babylon he set free to restore his pure worship to Jerusalem. (Isa. 43:8-21, AS) From Noah onward the faithful witnesses of Jehovah God since the flood have kept at one with God.

23. How has Satan the Devil tried to unify his world, but with what success?

²³ The Christian apostle John wrote to his fellow Christians: “We know we originate with God, but the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” (1 John 5:19, NW) How true that saying is needs no discussion here. The wicked one, Satan the Devil, has tried to bring unity to his own world by blotting out Jehovah’s witnesses, who would not be one with his world. He even brought about the death of Jehovah’s greatest witness, Jesus Christ the Son of God from heaven. But Almighty God raised his “faithful and true witness” from the dead on the third day and later had him return to heaven. (Rev. 1:5; 3:14; John 18:37) Satan the Devil has never been able to blot out Jehovah’s witnesses nor to unify even his own servants, with whom Jehovah’s witnesses do not mix as respects their politics, religion, social institutions or commercialism.

24. (a) Why can Satan never unify his earthly organization? (b) What dominating question does it face, and who will settle it?

²⁴ Satan will never be able to unify his visible organization on earth. How can he do so when he himself broke up the oneness of the living universe when the perfect man Adam was living in his paradise home, the garden of Eden? Satan cannot supply the perfect bond of union, which is sincere love. He cannot supply such unifying love to his visible organization because he hates love, for he most of all hates God, who is love. “Love is from God.” (1 John 4:7, 8, 16, NW) Today there is one dominating question that Satan’s visible organization faces. It is not the question, All mankind under democracy or all mankind under communism? No, but the dominating question is, All mankind at disunity under Satan the Devil or all mankind at one under God their Creator? Almighty God will settle that question, not man. This will mean an eternal blessing to us.

25. How was the saving of all obedient mankind made possible through one human redeemer, and how did God’s only-begotten Son become that one?

²⁵ The first perfect man, Adam, joined his wife Eve in breaking away from God. His sin of disobedience brought imperfection and death not only upon himself but also upon all his offspring, including us today. (Rom. 5:12) Because we are one as a human family and because the source of all our sinfulness and dying is one man, the saving of all obedient mankind by just one perfect human redeemer or rescuer was made possible. That one could not be a son of sinner Adam. That one had to be the Son of sinless God. So Jehovah God sent his only-begotten Son from heaven. How? He transferred his Son’s life from heaven to the womb of the virgin Jewess Mary that he might be born as a perfect human creature. Jehovah God himself gave him the name Jesus, which name means “Jehovah is salvation.” (Matt. 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-35) “Christ” means “Anointed One,” and Jesus became Christ at thirty years of age after he was baptized in water, for then Jehovah God anointed Jesus with his holy spirit from heaven to be the High Priest and King of a righteous new world.—Matt. 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-23; Acts 10:37, 38.

26. Why did the Son of God not come to earth to remain a perfect man forever, and hence what is God’s gift to us through his Son?

²⁶ The Son of God did not come to earth to remain a perfect man forever. To become a perfect man he had to give up his heavenly body and power and position. Likewise, to return to heaven he had to give up his perfect human flesh, bones and blood, that he might become a spirit person again. “A spirit does not have flesh and bones.” “Flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom.” (Luke 24:39 and; 1 Cor. 15:50, NW) God’s loving purpose toward mankind was for Jesus to give up his human life as a perfect sacrifice to God, thus to buy willing mankind back from sin and its punishment death. Hence as through the sin of one perfect man (our first human father) death came upon us all, so through the sacrificial death of one perfect man, Jesus Christ, everlasting life can come to all of us who accept his sacrifice. We can appreciate, therefore, how true the words are: “The wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.”—Rom. 6:23, NW.

27. (a) So what hope has God set before us and what means does he have to make it come true? (b) Why will there be just one government, and so under whom will all lovers of life line up?

²⁷ So in justice and in love Jehovah God has set before us the heart-warming hope that all mankind will be made one under their Creator and his Christ. Not only has he purposed it and foretold it in the Holy Bible, but, as we have seen, he has the righteous means to make it come true. Just how his Son Jesus Christ will be the one by whom this oneness under God the Creator and Father will be realized we read: “When [Jesus] found himself in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient as far as death, yes, death on a torture stake. For this very reason also God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground, and every tongue should openly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:8-11, NW) Besides that, in verse 1, chapter 13, of Romans Ro 13:1 we read: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God.” Yes, “power belongs to God.” (Ps. 62:11, RS) So one future day all the universe must be unified under the all-powerful Ruler of all creation, Jehovah God the Creator. He creates the one government that all creatures in heaven and in earth must bow to, acknowledge and obey. He has already appointed the ruler for that government. It is his once sacrificed Son Jesus Christ, who has now been glorified in heaven, with full power and authority to rule. All persons alive in heaven and earth must line up under him, whether they are angels or men, and all sensible persons who love everlasting life will wisely do so.

28. How will God swiftly do away with all the causes of disunity among mankind?

²⁸ God Almighty has the power to establish this heavenly government for making all creation one. He also has the power to rid this earth of all opposition to the rule of such a government. He will do away with all the causes of disunity among mankind. How? By pleading with all the disunited forces? No! God’s written Word says he will do it by one swift stroke at the coming universal war of Armageddon, sweeping away this present old world of disunity. Satan the Devil is the cause of all this lack of unity. So God will destroy Satan’s organization in heaven and on earth. Satan’s invisible organization in heaven is behind all the wickedness and disunity on earth today. Therefore God will destroy it. As for Satan’s visible organization, which is dominated by politics, selfish commercialism and false religion and which makes gain of mankind, God will pull up this organization from its deep-rooted position and thus clear the earth. Then he will create a complete new world with a new invisible rule and a new earthly society.

29. (a) By supplying what quality does God have the system for making mankind one? (b) So what two great commandments must we keep?

²⁹ Jehovah God has the one system for making all mankind one. He supplies the necessary bond of unity, and that bond is love. All mankind are really hungering for love, first of all, love from God, and then love from one another. God has recommended his love to mankind. How? His Son Jesus Christ told how when he said: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, NW) In turn, all mankind must love God and one another. Doing so, they will obey the two great commandments of the universe; as stated by Jesus: “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. The second, like it, is this: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’” And Jesus showed that your neighbor is your fellow man, even if he is just now of a nation different from yours, such as a Jew or a Samaritan. (Matt. 22:37-39, NW; Luke 10:29-37) Those who seek mankind’s oneness must come together to a common love of their great Creator and Life-Giver, Jehovah God, and to a love of his Son whom he provided as the sacrifice and ransomer for mankind and whom he has appointed as King of the new world. Then, too, they must love their fellow man, because, if they do not love their fellow man whom they see and with whom they must live here on earth, then they really do not love God whom they do not and cannot see. God loves our neighbor; we must love our neighbor too.

30. (a) Why do all mankind need a new father? (b) Whom did God provide to be such, and how did this one take away the division between the Jews and other nations?

³⁰ Further, to make all mankind one Jehovah God provides for us a new father in the righteous new world. Adam the first man was the father he provided back there in the garden of Eden. But that father brought death upon all of us his children by not staying perfect and entitled to life. He broke his Creator’s command and law. So Adam proved to be a death-giver, not a life-giver for us. He died because of his sin. All the generations of his offspring have died one after the other, and we are dying. So Adam did not become our everlasting father. The one whom our Creator provides is his own living Son, Jesus Christ, who died as a perfect man for us but who now lives as an immortal spirit in his original heavenly home. “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45, NW) On earth Jesus Christ was a Jew by nationality, and the Jews were separated from the other nations by their God-given law. But Jesus fulfilled the purpose of that law. By dying as a sacrifice, not for Jews only but for all mankind, he took away the division between Jew and every other nation. He made it possible for people of all nations to become Christians and become one flock in the united worship of the one God, Jehovah.—Eph. 2:11-19.

31. How will saved mankind become one through one fatherhood?

³¹ In the coming new world Jesus will become the immortal father of all mankind to give them perfect human life on a paradise earth. Jehovah’s own prophecy says: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end.” (Isa. 9:6, 7, AS) By being born as a perfect human and sacrificing his human life as a High Priest he heals the breach between us and our Creator. Just as all mankind are now one flesh and family because of coming from the first man Adam, so all rescued mankind will become one in the new world because of becoming children of the Governor and Prince of Peace, the “Everlasting Father.” His own Father is God the Creator. Through Jesus, therefore, all saved mankind will have one Grand Father or Great Father, Jehovah.

32. Why will there be no family quarrels and hatreds, and why will they be one race with one language?

³² All mankind will have to keep in connection with that one first Source of life, the Creator of all. If all hold to Him in love they will all hold together in love, as one family. There will be no human family quarrels and hatreds. Their everlasting life they will gain through no human father, but each and every one will gain it direct from the one “life-giving spirit,” the Everlasting Father. This will make them all one nationality, one race, and their Everlasting Father will teach them one language.

33. When was the New World government put upon the shoulder of the Everlasting Father, and when will no more disunity be allowed here on earth?

³³ The Creator of the New World government has now put it upon the shoulder of the Everlasting Father, Jesus Christ in heaven. This is in line with the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray to God: “Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth as well as in heaven!” (Matt. 6:9, 10, AT) In the year 1914 Jehovah God put the government upon his Son’s shoulder. The Bible’s timetable backed up by world events fulfilling Bible prophecy proves that. Hence the making of all mankind one under their Creator will soon be, no more a hope, but a delightful reality. That Government, established in the heavens, has permitted no more disunity up there. It has dislodged from there Satan the Devil and his invisible organization of demons. It has hurled them down to the neighborhood of our earth. These wicked spirit forces of Satan and his demons are responsible for the woeful conditions in this world today. The only thing in which this present world is unified is in opposing God and his government upon Christ’s shoulder. For that reason it befits the God of the new world to destroy this old world, this system of things that has Satan the Devil as its god and ruler. (Rev. 12:7-13, 17; 2 Cor. 4:4) Since the ousting of Satan and his demons from heaven no more disunity has been allowed up in God’s holy heavens; no more disunity will be allowed down here on earth after the universal war of Armageddon now so near.—Rev. 20:11 to 22:3.

THOSE ENJOYING ONENESS TODAY

34. Among whom today does oneness under the Creator exist on earth?

³⁴ In this world of disunity, is there today no oneness of men under the Creator of mankind? There is! Such oneness exists within the theocratic flock of Jehovah God. His flock are the people whom he addresses in his Word, saying: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God.” (Isa. 43:12, AS) These witnesses are primarily a remnant of the anointed followers of Jesus Christ, who have a heavenly calling to reign with him on his heavenly throne for the blessing of all the families of the earth. In addition to these, the Great Shepherd’s flock now includes hundreds of thousands of people from all the families of the earth. Jesus Christ spoke of these as his “other sheep.” He said the time had to come, and it has come in our day, when he would gather these “other sheep” and bring them together with the remnant of his Kingdom joint heirs, and they would all be “one flock” under “one shepherd.” Still godly harmony continues among them.

35. What public evidence of this was given in 1953 in New York city?

³⁵ As a public evidence of this oneness of Jehovah’s people, look at their eight-day international assembly during July, 1953, held at Yankee Stadium, New York city, and known as “New World Society Assembly.” Attending that assembly were more than 125,000 delegates of all colors and languages from ninety-six lands. Monday of the assembly was called North America Day, Tuesday Islands of the Atlantic Day, Wednesday South America Day, Thursday Asia Day, Friday Africa Day, Saturday Europe Day and the final Sunday Islands of the Pacific Day; and appropriate reports and experiences were given to harmonize with those days. On Sunday, July 26, 1953, the attendance shot up to 165,829, who came to hear the public talk, “After Armageddon—God’s New World.”

36. What evidence of this was given on a much wider scale in 1955?

³⁶ For more recent evidence of this oneness of the Creator’s flock on earth on a much wider scale, look at the record of the “Triumphant Kingdom” assemblies held by Jehovah’s witnesses from June 22 through August 28, 1955. These assemblies were held during ten successive weeks in thirteen major cities of North America, Britain and Europe, in nine languages. There Jehovah’s people of his New World society flocked together from more than sixty lands to total more than 300,000 delegates. In imitation of Jesus Christ 13,016 were baptized in water, and a grand total of 403,628 heard the public talk “World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom.”

37. In spite of what has their oneness proved unbreakable till now?

³⁷ Jehovah’s witnesses, as members of his New World society, are determined to maintain this earth-wide oneness. Up till now their oneness has proved to be unbreakable, in spite of all the persecutions that have been heaped upon them, in spite of all the political differences that have divided Catholics, Protestants and Jews, in spite of world wars and lesser wars that have caused Catholic to fight against Catholic and Protestant against Protestant. The spirit of Satan’s world has divided Christendom against itself. But the one loving spirit of Jehovah God has kept Jehovah’s witnesses one throughout the earth. (Eph. 4:3-6) They are now active in 158 lands But no matter in which land they live, no matter of what color they are, of what nationality, of what language, they stick together. Their oneness is a tried and tested fact of today.

38. How do we know that the new world is at hand, and when will complete destruction from God suddenly come upon the old world?

³⁸ That oneness will carry over into God’s new world. By all the proofs from the Bible and by all the world events and conditions that support those proofs, we know that the new world is at hand. Man’s efforts to make this old world one and keep it running will fail. God’s Word says that man’s very efforts to bring about a unifying of the human race would be part of the evidences that we have reached the end of this old world, that we are at the verge of the battle of Armageddon which will destroy Satan’s world organization, and that we are at the threshold of God’s new world. His Word says that the time must come when they will say, “Peace and security!” as though they had gained their objective of world unity. Then, says the Christian apostle Paul, whenever it is that they are saying this, sudden destruction will be instant upon them as birth pains upon a woman with child, and they will by no means escape complete destruction at God’s hand.—1 Thess. 5:1-3, NW.

39. Which world will win at Armageddon, and what will it bring in for all those on God’s side?

³⁹ At Armageddon the battle will be universal, for all of God’s organization will be arrayed against Satan’s organization. It will be a battle of two worlds in collision, the old world and the new. The new world, God’s creation, will come out the winner and it will bring in earth-wide oneness of mankind. No, more than that, universal oneness! Unity will pervade heaven, where all the angels are lined up under God’s King, Jesus Christ, and with him they will fight the battle of Armageddon. Jehovah’s witnesses on earth will not need to take part in that battle at all. To them it is said: “The battle is not yours but God’s.” (2 Chron. 20:15, NW) They look to Jehovah God to fight the battle by Jesus Christ and to vindicate his sovereignty over all the universe.

40. What will those under God’s approval experience at Armageddon, and with whom will the “new earth” begin?

⁴⁰ All those, therefore, who now make their peace with God and become one with him and his government upon Christ’s shoulder will come under his approval, hence under divine protection at Armageddon. They will be hidden under divine power when that great cataclysm will deluge the old world with destruction. Those who are now seeking God and striving to know his will and to do it will have a divine preservation. As one flock they will pass into the new world, just as Noah and his family passed through the flood that wiped out the wicked world of that day. With this united flock of witnesses and servants of Jehovah God the “new earth” will begin. It will remain forever. After describing the destruction of this present world the apostle Peter says: “There are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.”—2 Pet. 3:13, NW.

41. What will happen to the oneness of the Armageddon survivors, and how will still others be made one with them on earth?

⁴¹ The government of the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, will rule as the “new heavens” over the “new earth.” The survivors of Armageddon will already be his “one flock” of Jehovah’s witnesses, a New World society already organized. That oneness of all human survivors under their Creator and his King will never be broken up. The Prince of Peace will not only preserve the peaceful oneness of the survivors but also make others one with them. What others? At present the power of death separates all those who are sleeping in the memorial tombs or graves from the living. By the power of the Almighty God the Everlasting Father will unite the dead with the living by resurrecting all in the tombs who are in God’s memory for a reawakening to life on earth. When God resurrected Jesus Christ to life nineteen hundred years ago it was a guarantee not only that he would resurrect Christ’s anointed followers to immortal life in heaven but also that he would resurrect all the earthly entombed ones to life in the “new earth.” (John 5:28, 29; 1 Cor. 15:12-20) Jesus Christ will reign a thousand years after Armageddon and these resurrected ones will have abundant opportunity during his reign to come to oneness with all those living under their Re-creator and his King. Everlasting destruction faces those who refuse to become one with God through Jesus Christ.

42. What word picture does Jehovah give us through Isaiah the prophet of the oneness and harmless peace of mankind under their King?

⁴² Painting a word picture of the oneness and harmless peace of mankind under their Creator’s King, his prophecy says: “Righteousness shall be the girdle of [the King’s] waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”—Isa. 11:5-9, AS.

43. To gain the new world of such oneness why is knowledge necessary, and where is it at hand for us?

⁴³ To gain that new world of everlasting oneness of mankind under our Creator it is absolutely necessary for us to gain that “knowledge of Jehovah” now, before the battle of Armageddon. In proof of this it is written that God will bring tribulation upon those who disturb his people “at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels in a flaming fire, as he brings due punishment upon those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. These very ones will pay the penalty of everlasting destruction from before the Lord and from the glory of his strength.” (2 Thess. 1:6-9, NW) It is also written: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hos. 4:6) Why be destroyed at Armageddon for lack of knowledge? The lifesaving knowledge is at hand for you. Where? Among Jehovah’s witnesses, for if the Creator had not given them the knowledge he could not say to them: “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah.”

44. Why associate henceforth with Jehovah’s witnesses for more knowledge?

⁴⁴ For the sake of gaining more knowledge associate henceforth with the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses. It is the only organization on earth today that is really practicing godly harmony and oneness under the one Shepherd Jesus Christ. It is the only visible organization that today offers the hope and the assurance to mankind of living through the unavoidable world catastrophe at Armageddon and surviving into God’s new world.

45. What are we exhorted to do now when Jehovah is beginning to ‘make all obedient mankind one under their Creator’?

⁴⁵ Accept this good news gladly. Prove that it is the truth, God’s truth, found in his infallible Word, the Holy Bible. Keep meeting with Jehovah’s witnesses. Study the Bible with them. Accept the Bible literature they present to you. Act on their offer to come even to your private homes and take up a personal home Bible study with you, and learn more of these glorious, hope-inspiring truths of the Bible. Make them your own. Let them transform your mind. Let them alter your living for everlasting life in the new world. Set your hope on God’s promise and stick by it. Dedicate yourself to be one with him the Creator. Serve and obey him as ruler rather than worldly men. Continue, then, in the way that you now find yourself in by reading this message. Keep at one with the unbreakably united New World society of the Creator’s witnesses. With them love and serve Him now when he by Jesus Christ is beginning to ‘make all obedient mankind one under their Creator.’

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United Nations

West

East

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United Nations

“Democracy”

Communism

Religion

Languages

Religious Disunity

National Divisions

Racial Divisions

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LOVE

A Space-Fiction Style Bible?

● An Associated Press dispatch from Bristol, England, says an Anglican bishop suggested rewriting the Bible to get children interested in it. Said Dr. F. A. Cockin: “Many parents care very little about what happens to their children when they go to Sunday School—and the children themselves are no longer interested in old things like the Bible. If we were to rewrite the Testaments in terms of space fiction the church might achieve much.” The church of England must be in very sorry straits as regards its efforts to teach religion to children.

Communist Leaders Fear Bible Truth

WILL WORLD’S MOST WIDELY READ BOOK CONTINUE UNDER SOVIET BAN?

TRUTH originates with JEHOVAH. He speaks the word and it never returns to him void. Lies he does not originate, for “it is impossible for God to lie.” Falsehoods are plentiful and cheap; they do not last. As time passes, man-made imaginations, reasonings and lies fade, wither and vanish, but “the truth of Jehovah endureth for ever.” “Your word is truth,” said Jehovah’s faithful Son, Christ Jesus. To the Jews that believed him Jesus also said: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This truth now written in the Bible the Russian leaders fear.—Isa. 55:11; Heb. 6:17-20, NW; Psalm 117, AS; John 17:1-17; 8:31, 32, NW.

“There is no God,” insisted leaders of Soviet communism when they, after 1917, first set themselves to rule millions, yes, and in years to come billions of earth’s inhabitants. (Ps. 14:1; 2:1-12) To prove they could get along without God one of their first acts under their newly made state was to ban the Bible, the world’s most widely read book.

“Ever since the Bolshevik revolution, the only new Bibles seen in Russia have been a few smuggled into the country from abroad—mostly in foreign languages,” reported the United Press foreign news editor last December. He added: “Since the revolution, a Bible—worn and tattered though it may be—has been a cherished possession to many a Russian family.”

Since 1917 the Soviet leaders have had nearly forty years to show what they could do with their theory of government; and as the years have flown by, those dictators have piled up a mountain of proof against themselves as haters of God, haters of people who choose to worship Almighty God with spirit and truth; yes, those Soviet leaders have proved themselves shallow, unreasonable, more and more covetous, senselessly oppressive, domineering, and even ruthless murderers in the name of their “state.” True, they have tried to do many things on a grand scale in a vast section of this little earth. And today, smiling, chuckling and gloating, they proudly boast of their achievements, their deeds in advancing themselves, in serving their god, their own belly.’—Phil. 3:19.

At whose expense have they been doing all their “achieving,” all their “advancement”? Glimpses behind their “iron curtain” have been few and far between. But now, little by little, the glimpses are piling up. A few weeks ago a Dutch correspondent wrote:

“Among the big cities of the Soviet Union one will find various very extensive communities that have never been named. The travelers visit Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, Tashkent. But who knows the name Vorkuta, in the far north of European Russia, on the map southeast of Nova Zembla; or Norilsk in northwest Siberia; or the names Karaganda and Iwdjel? Still in these places we have to deal with extensive barrack-cities. The population of Vorkuta is estimated at 120,000 men and women; that of Norilsk at 400,000; that of Karaganda at 150,000.”

These are a few of Russia’s many labor camps, penal institutions, where the undesirable are put to work. Here godless communism has its slave labor. These humans are not all prisoners of war, by any means. Hundreds of thousands of them are the people of Russia, born there, who thought it not too wrong to do a little thinking of their own and express it. Here they are by the millions, punished by being put to work in mines, clearing woodlands, building little villages for the Communist government to settle them with more desirable citizens, who will support and advance the communistic regime. Even Russia cannot keep all its captives imprisoned forever. Now, from time to time, some taken captive during the war are returning from these Russian camps to freer lands. Through their words the picture of the life millions are living in such barrack cities becomes much clearer.

But our story has to do with the most widely read book—with those who are seriously interested in the Bible. Even today’s Russian leaders may feel they have practically killed belief in God, or have so fully advanced their state that thought is no longer given to the worship of the living God. Now the Russian section of their Orthodox Church bows to the wishes of the Soviet leaders, so they have the required co-operation of Russian Orthodox clergy in Russia. How about those not of the Russian Orthodox system; for example, what about Jehovah’s witnesses?

In the summer of 1955 while an officer of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was in Europe he talked with the Dutch correspondent above mentioned. By persons who had returned from Russia that writer had been told that as far as Jehovah’s witnesses were concerned they showed unusual solidarity in Soviet prison camps. They even gained the sympathy of some of the guards and officials. He added that these witnesses of Jehovah were known as very serious Bible students; that in these camps they were proclaiming the invisible presence of Christ and the doom of this present system of things; that while not all of them were in prison camps, they had to live underground in Russia and they had a very strong following. This gentleman further stated that during a certain time a whole isolated village was closed off and everyone within that village was captured and sent to camp, because they had all become known as Jehovah’s witnesses.

Additionally, the Dutch writer emphasized that millions of persons in Russia who do believe in the Orthodox patriarch and the metropolitan consider that those clergymen are only servants of today’s atheistic Soviet regime; hence, the official Russian Orthodox Church has fallen into disfavor with many people. On the other hand, the teachings of Jehovah’s witnesses are being caught up by more and more people in Russia.

Meek persons will always seek the truth, and their oppressors are in fear of what will happen if the meek ones get together. Jesus said: “Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5, NW) However, these mild-tempered ones know it is dangerous to preach in Russia, but Jehovah’s witnesses are doing it, and they are flourishing. Among many there is a noticeable awakening as to spiritual need. Many have had enough of communism, and not all minds have been smothered with the foolish teaching. (Ps. 53:1) In fact, there seem to be millions who believe in a Supreme Being when they consider the land, the sky, the trees, the grass, the flowers and the vegetation. Such natural evidence even the Soviet dictators have not wiped away.

TO SLAVE CAMPS WITH THEM!

Although the Soviet leaders with their secret police still try to search out Jehovah’s witnesses in order to put them in their slave camps, even inside such camps the witnesses continue to preach Jehovah’s established kingdom. (Dan. 2:44; Matt. 6:9-13) When believers in God’s Word are taken away from their own homes to lands where labor camps are situated, as soon as they arrive in these institutions they are immediately received by other lovers of the Bible, God’s Word, and they are comforted and come under their protection, because these know the method of the camp, and it is not long until they are strengthened to the point of witnessing to still other prisoners. Their zeal is not destroyed because they are in prison. They use the situation to do greater works of ministry.

On another occasion in 1955 the Watch Tower Society’s president talked with one of Jehovah’s witnesses recently released from these Russian prison camps. There he had lived a lifetime in six years. His story was that of one of a pure heart filled with zeal, and it was touching. He being a devout student of the Bible, it made no difference to him whom he talked to, slave or free, or even to one wearing a communistic uniform. For preaching God’s Word to Russian soldiers who requested information in Communist-occupied territory outside Russia, he was arrested, taken to Russian commanders and questioned time after time. The only thing they could find against him was that he talked the Bible to those Russian soldiers who had come to him and asked him about the Word of God. Because he helped those soldiers read the most widely read book, he was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor in Russia. His trip to Russia was indescribable. He and other prisoners were transported in cattle cars, and for days were treated worse than cattle, without any relief. During his six years in Russia he had been transferred from one camp to another, and had worked in more than fifty different camps, including some in Siberia. In every one of these prison camps he had found from ten to fifteen and more Jehovah’s witnesses.

One time there were brought into a camp forty-eight Russian prisoners, men and women. They had been hunted out and arrested in Russia and now were assigned to the camp he was in. By telling them the many good things he had learned about Jehovah’s Word before he was taken to Russia, it was his pleasure to help these, new in the truth, to continue in their faithful course. From them he was happy to learn that the truth that had reached the western part of Russia in the early years of Soviet rule was now penetrating deep inside Russia; in fact, it had reached across the whole land. This brought great joy and encouragement to keep on faithfully in Jehovah’s service no matter where he was.

Meeting other Russians who were Jehovah’s witnesses, he learned how Jehovah’s witnesses were hunted by the police, just like rabbits. He learned firsthand how Communist leaders feared the Bible truth and tried to crush it. For preaching God’s kingdom, for which Jesus taught his disciples to pray, many have been sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. He told that three small villages had been circled by the secret police at 3 a.m., and that every one of Jehovah’s witnesses had been ferreted out and taken away in the darkness of night, to disappear forever, as far as those villages were concerned.

In one of the camps to which he had been transferred he met a Bible-owning Ukrainian, who somehow had smuggled a Bible into the camp. The book was well worn. He had been used to reading it secretly at night, not letting even this witness of Jehovah see what he was reading, until one night the witness caught a glimpse of the pages. He turned to the Ukrainian and asked: “Do you know what you are reading?” The Ukrainian said: “How do you know what I am reading?” And the answer was: “I know you are reading the Bible, but do you understand what you read?” (This recalls Philip’s inquiry to the Ethiopian who was reading the book of Isaiah and confessed he needed help to understand it, and Philip kindly helped him.—Acts 8:26-39.) So this prisoner from a far country, taken into the depths of Russia, had the opportunity of helping this Ukrainian to come to a knowledge of the truth about Jehovah’s established kingdom.

A number of weeks after they had studied quietly together (in their beds, which were the upper bunks) and had read from the Bible under cover, the commander of the camp caught them reading the Bible. In fact, for a number of evenings this camp commander had listened behind the bed to what these two men were saying one to the other about God’s purposes and the wonderful hope held out in the Scriptures for humans seeking to do Jehovah’s will. Then the commander revealed himself and told the men they should be far more careful to keep the Bible better hid, for it was unlawful to read and discuss the Scriptures. He did not take the Bible away from them, but warned them to take more cautious measures, because he himself might not always be there, and neither would they; for it would not be long before they would be transferred to some other camp. It was Jesus who said: “Happy are those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, since they will be filled.”—Matt. 5:6, NW.

This stalwart servant of Jehovah God, who has now been released from the Russian camp and returned home to his native land, pointed out that when the prisoners of war or condemned ones from Russia or its satellite countries were first taken into these camps they were put on a starvation diet and made to work until they would practically die on their feet. It had been the Soviet policy thus to kill off these prisoners. In recent years, however, things have changed. Those at the head of government have found out that they have some good slave labor here; and now they are offering premiums to the workers in the camps to do more work and serve better. Better food and care are being given the prisoners, because slave labor is cheap, even cheaper than communistic labor.

The Soviet government is really fearful of its slave labor. These Russian prison camps are surrounded by barbed wire and watched by guards who always have angry dogs on a leash. Death road is a strip of land three meters wide, all around the camp. Anyone who steps on that ground is soon dead, either by being shot immediately, without being asked any questions, or by having mad dogs run him down. Russians and those seized in other countries and taken to Russia are slave laborers, serving the state. In many instances they have done Russia no harm and have never said a word about the Soviet government, nor have they entered into espionage against it. They had minded their own business in the lands where they had lived before being taken to Russia. But the Communists needed men and women, slaves to build up a degraded nation; and at the same time they are afraid of their slaves. They have no love for their slaves, nor have the slaves love for their masters.

Russia is a country living in fear, even fear of its own concentration camps. As in the case of this one witness of Jehovah, so with all Russian prisoners: they are kept no longer than three or four months in a camp, then are moved on to another. In a camp of some 4,000 people, 200 of them will be taken away every few days to other prisons and new persons will be brought in to take their places. The Russian leaders fear the forming of some internal organization among these great masses of untrusted people, who, someday, might be able even to overpower the guards and take possession of some of their territory. What a way for rulers to live—in fear of man, not Jehovah God! How true the Word of God, the book they hate: “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker.”—Prov. 14:31, AS.

When this witness of Jehovah had finally served his sentence and was released a few years early because of an amnesty, he returned home to find that his wife had died of grief a few months after he had been seized. His children had been taken away and put in other homes. But he rejoiced to come back to brothers still devoted to the service of Jehovah’s kingdom. All that he wants to do now is to preach this good news of Jehovah’s kingdom; for he knows there is no hope for this old world or for any part of it. The Communists are afraid of Bible truth, but the truth made this brother free even all the years he was in a Russian slave camp. Jesus said: “Happy are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.”—Matt. 5:10, NW.

MUCH GOING ON INSIDE RUSSIA

Inside Russia Jehovah’s witnesses must carry on their work as early Christians worked among Jews and Romans. “Happy are you when people reproach you and persecute you and lyingly say every kind of wicked thing against you for my sake. Rejoice and leap for joy, since your reward is great in the heavens; for in that way they persecuted the prophets prior to you.” (Matt. 5:11, 12, NW) The persecuted ones’ faith in Jehovah God and in his kingdom keeps them going, and they would rather die than compromise with any part of this old world.

Back in 1948 several of Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia were mimeographing The Watchtower and printing material based on Bible teaching, then distributing this throughout the land to the best of their ability. But the Communist leaders fear Bible truths, and their secret police traced these ministers down. All their printing apparatus, paper, ink and other materials were seized and the men were arrested and taken off to slave camps.

The big question that the secret police were asking was, “How can we get rid of Jehovah’s witnesses?” Everywhere they found them—not bad people, just people who wanted to read and talk about the most widely read book in the world, The Holy Bible. The Soviet officials were able to disband and disorganize Jehovah’s witnesses for a while, but it was not long before Jehovah’s witnesses were again organized within Russia and had set up new publishing centers, there to mimeograph and send out the truth as they received it. Communist leaders were set on getting all the circuit servants and congregation servants, and when some of those were found they were given twenty-five-year sentences and imprisoned.

During the years following the second world war it was practically impossible for the brothers to hide The Watchtower or any of the Society’s publications, or even the Bible. The secret police were on the search for everything Christian, and when they found out that a person was one of Jehovah’s witnesses or accused of being one, they would search his home, dismount stoves, tear off the roof, even destroy the whole house, to discover the hiding place for the Bible or Bible literature in order to have evidence of Christian propaganda, and then they would send him away to a slave camp. In those years it was impossible for the brothers to meet in daylight. They carried on their family Bible studies mostly in cellars, in the woods, and other inaccessible places. Brothers seldom had opportunity to study with others in their own home. Group study of The Watchtower was impossible, but a regular study was held in homes where the family could get together, all windows and doors being closed and locked. But what a happy family! They could talk about truth, God’s Word, and worship Jehovah, the Sovereign Ruler of the universe, even in a dictatorial country like Russia. The truth made these people free, even though they lived under an oppressive state. “Happy are those who are conscious of their spiritual need, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.”—Matt. 5:3, NW.

Because of the love of truth on the part of many, from 1948 to 1951 Jehovah’s witnesses continued to grow throughout all Russia, and this to the great disturbance of the Communist leaders. Recently reports have come out of Russia stating that in 1951, on April 1, 7 and 8, the Communists carried out a great purge. These are dates unforgettable by Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia. On these three days all of Jehovah’s witnesses that could be found in Western Ukraine, White Russia, Bessarabia, Moldavia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—more than seven thousand men and women—were arrested and carried off. They were not allowed to take with them clothing or food. Whole families were loaded in carts, carried to railroad stations and there put in cattle cars and sent far away. All these arrests were made at night, and if the gathering of Jehovah’s witnesses had not been completed by 7 a.m., they waited until dark on that day. Then came the exodus! Thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses were moved across country and hundreds of thousands of supposedly free Russians heard Jehovah’s witnesses singing songs of praise to Jehovah and talking the truth as their trains passed. This great group of Jehovah’s witnesses was taken away to forests for the clearing of the land, and for the first winter they had to live on roots and nuts. Being distributed over a wide guarded forest area, they were told: “Clear the forest; build houses; remain here forever; work if you want to live.” Their spirit was not diminished. They worked; they are living; their faith is strong and they continue to preach the good news of Jehovah’s established kingdom.

Today, in the vast country of Russia, truly every man’s hand is against his neighbor. There everyone has been taught to watch the person next to him, and especially to fight against Jehovah’s witnesses. No matter who you are, you are under surveillance; and when mail for you comes to a post office it is read by the postal clerks. The only way Jehovah’s messages of comfort and truth can go from one to another is by personal carrier. When Jehovah’s witnesses are found they are given a trial. They go to a courtroom and before a judge, but it does no good to hire a lawyer to defend one. In many instances the government appoints a lawyer to defend a person, but even one so appointed for a witness of Jehovah takes the role of accuser rather than defense lawyer; for if he does otherwise and puts up a good case, he himself might be sent to the slave camp. So the Soviet system metes out justice.

If there is a witness of Jehovah in some territory, he is known far and wide, because there is a great deal of undertow. People talk. Not everyone squeals to the authorities, because many hope that someday they themselves will be free from this ruthless reign. With their own Russian Orthodox Church failing them, since it is a state church, they seek out lovers of truth. “Happy are those who mourn, since they will be comforted.”—Matt. 5:4, NW.

FROM COMMUNIST TO CHRISTIAN

In Russia now there is a woman, a witness of Jehovah, who, after much suffering, is still preaching the good news of Jehovah’s kingdom. Her story since 1942 is typical of hundreds of others. In 1942, when an active Communist, she was deported by the Nazis to Germany, together with other Russian civilians. There she worked with a market gardener and in a manufacturing plant, spreading her communistic ideas. Soon Hitler’s Gestapo found her. She was sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Here, out of contact with her fellow Communists and alone, she began to lose faith in the Communist organization because it had failed her. She began to think about God, talked to some people, and finally met Jehovah’s witnesses. While in the Nazi camp she was baptized and became a very diligent student of the Scriptures. After learning the truth she began to talk to other Russian women. One day the camp commander came to see these Russian women and to this woman he said: “Who are you?” She answered, “I am one of Jehovah’s witnesses.” The commander insisted that that was not true: “You are a Russian.” Then to this Nazi the sister, with emphasis, said: “God is not only God of the German people but of all people.” She was let go unpunished, and this strengthened her to preach even more diligently among the Russian women. Finally a group of these women learned the truth in their own language.

After the war had ended in 1945 and Hitler’s concentration camps had been broken up, this woman, with many other Russian women, returned to Russia. Now a prayer of a German sister, told to them while they were in the Nazi camp, became the prayer of each one of these witnesses of Jehovah, liberated Russian women: “I thank you, Jehovah, Father, that you have given me what I desired, to speak to the Russian people.”

It brought them joy to be released and go back to Russia; but it was not long before the Communist secret police were on their trail. They were found, and because they preached the kingdom of God, pointing out to others the comforting words from the Bible, these women were sentenced to twenty-five years in slave camps. But even there today these Russian sisters, who had learned the truth in German concentration camps, are still preaching in the prison camps of Russia, where they now live, all to the honor and glory of Jehovah’s name. This particular former Communist woman, now a witness of Jehovah, is still a regular Kingdom publisher; now, of course, in the slave camp of the Soviet government she had once served. Why? Because she believes God’s Word as written in His book, the Bible. She dared to preach its good news in Russia. For that she is doing building work in the forest, as a slave, helping to transform the forest into settlements that later will be turned over to Communist people. When finished with that task she will be removed to another place of hard labor.

In one of these many camps throughout all Russia where Jehovah’s witnesses are located the truth has been preached so much that even some of the guards have taken it up. People who have worked in offices that control these camps have also gained a knowledge of the truth. Their having received the truth impels them now to preach the good news. In time even some of such guards and office workers have been put into prison, being sentenced fifteen years and ten years. For what? Because they studied the Bible; they talked the truth; they declared themselves to be Jehovah’s witnesses. All of these convicted persons have been separated into different camps and sent to different parts of Russia, so that they could not form a strong group of their own.

DEPORTATION SCATTERS PREACHERS

Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia say that because they are scattered throughout all of these camps (and we know for a certainty that they are in more than fifty different camps, according to the report previously set out in this article) the Kingdom good news is being constantly preached in all parts of this vast country of Russia. They, by no form of imagination, could know where to find money to travel 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) to preach the Kingdom message. But now the Communist government itself has sent them from one end of the country to the other to work in these slave camps; and, as they see it, the government has paid their fare to new territories to preach the Kingdom message. In all parts of Russia Jehovah’s witnesses are working; some, the greater number indeed, in work camps, others in isolated sections that they are not allowed to leave. Still others continue working in cities and villages, uncaught up to this moment. Remember how ‘Saul [of Tarsus] dealt outrageously with the congregations of Jehovah’s people, invading one house after another, and, dragging out both men and women, he would turn them over to prison.’ “However, those who had been scattered went through the land declaring the good news of the word.”—Acts 8:3, 4, NW.

Our brothers in Russia have not been at all backward in trying to get greater freedom for the preaching of the Kingdom message, and they have given the Communist government opportunity to recognize Jehovah’s witnesses as a religious organization. In 1948 they sent a petition through the minister of the interior to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Council of the U.S.S.R. This petition described the work of Jehovah’s witnesses in Russia. They received no answer; so a small delegation of three brothers went to the Ministry of the Interior at Moscow and presented the petition in person. Questioned as to where they came from, they said: “From the Ukraine.” Therefore they were advised to go to the Ministry of the Interior of the Ukraine, Soviet Socialist Republic, at Kiev. The brothers went from Moscow directly to Kiev and presented the petition to the minister of the interior. There it appeared that the officials of the Ministry had been prepared for their coming, for after presenting the petition these three witnesses of Jehovah were offered certain proposals by the government: Will Jehovah’s witnesses serve in the army? Will you participate in the elections of the Soviet government? Will you submit to every decree of the state and collaborate with other religious organizations? To all three questions the brothers answered in the words of Jesus’ apostle Peter: “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5:29, AS) The representatives were allowed to walk out of the office of the Ministry of the Interior, but within a few days their homes were raided; they themselves were searched and later sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

In one place in Russia it was possible for 120 persons to be present at a Memorial celebration. This is the exception. A few years ago there were seven publishers in Moscow, but they were all deported. Moscow is one of the few capitals in the world where there is not one single witness of Jehovah. But the truth is known there. The Communist government has been informed of Jehovah’s witnesses; they have made too many of them their slave laborers not to know them. In every country behind the iron curtain the Communist organization is trying to fight, beat down and wipe out Jehovah’s witnesses—in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, East Germany and in Russia itself. But they cannot destroy them or their message. The truth has made these people free, and they will continue to be free and preach this good news of Jehovah’s established kingdom for a witness to all who hear.

In Russia it is impossible for an individual to live his own life and just serve God and love his neighbor as himself. No, he must become a slave to the state; he must hail the state; he must worship the state. But not Jehovah’s witnesses! They have turned to God’s Word and prefer to follow in the footsteps of Christ Jesus. (1 Pet. 2:21) When Jesus was upon earth he told the rulers that he was in the world but no part of it. (John 18:36, 37) And that is the way Jehovah’s witnesses look at life today. (John 17:13, 14, 16) We are in the world, but we are no part of it. The world carries on its own business in the way it pleases. Jehovah’s witnesses do not interfere and they will not. As long as Jehovah God allows man-made nations to remain and operate, there is no reason for Jehovah’s witnesses to interfere with their ways of life, and they will abide by all man-made laws unless those laws conflict with God’s law.

Regardless of what country Jehovah’s witnesses are in they have the assignment to be ministers of Jehovah’s kingdom, representatives of Christ Jesus. (Isa. 43:10-12; 52:7, 8; 61:1-3; Matt. 24:14; 2 Cor. 5:20) So, even in Russia, with their Bibles they press on preaching the good news inside and outside prison camps. (Matt. 24:9; 28:19, 20; Mark 13:9-11; Luke 21:12, 13; Rev. 2:10) They celebrate the Memorial, privately or together, in cellars, in woods, in camps, isolated. They are ready to meet any obstacle and try to overcome it, but they will not compromise with this old world.—Joel 2:4-9; Phil. 1:28.

The Bible is in Russia to stay. Jehovah’s witnesses use it; and while the United Press last year reported that the most widely read book in the world will be “available again in Russia next month [meaning January, 1956],” it has been under ban by the Communists for thirty-eight years. Even now, as United Press pointed out, only a few Bibles will be printed: “The type had been set, and priests in the Moscow patriarchate were reading the final proofs. The first printing, set for January, will be small, since the church has to buy the paper and pay the government for the printing; but in time the church hopes to distribute the new Bible all over the Soviet Union.”

Will the Bible be released in great quantity throughout Russia?

When it is, Jehovah’s witnesses will explain it to the people. As long as the Communist leaders and their supporters are afraid of the truth, this new Bible of theirs, in the Russian language, may get only a limited distribution while the communistic regime continues. Certainly it will not be released to Jehovah’s witnesses, for in their hands it is like dynamite. So it continues under ban to them.

Will the world’s most widely read book be widely read in Russia before Jehovah’s war at Armageddon?—Rev. 16:13-16; Jer. 25:32, 33; Isa. 34:1-4; Zeph. 2:1-3; Acts 2:19-21.

Now only those who seek Jehovah, hungering for truth and righteousness, yes, only those who want to fight “the right contest of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12, NW), only those who are willing to lay down their very lives for truth (Rev. 12:11), are the ones that will ever see and understand the Bible, not only in Russia but in all the rest of the world.

(Be sure to read in our next issue the firsthand story of a man who was one of the seven thousand turned into the woods in Russia, mentioned on page 214 of this issue. His personal story is titled, “I Lived in Exile in Siberia.” Don’t miss it!)

Shining as the “Light of the World”

“TRULY sweet is the light, and pleasant to the eyes.” Apt as are those words regarding the light of the sun, they are even more fitting regarding the spiritual light which shines from the great Sun, Jehovah God, the “Father of the celestial lights.” Spiritual light brings freedom from bondage, hope of everlasting life and comfort, love and joy.—Eccl. 11:7, Ro; Jas. 1:17, NW.

Today, however, more than ever before “darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples,” because Satan “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, that the illumination of the glorious good news about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” And blinded also by their pride, stubbornness and greed, men prefer darkness to light and so they vainly seek guidance from the creeds of Christendom, from its philosophers, from its materialistic science and from the politicians. But there are a few who truly love righteousness and who humbly “seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him.”—Isa. 60:2, RS; 2 Cor. 4:4; Acts 17:27, NW.

For the benefit of such kind of persons God sent his Son Jesus Christ, who is “the true light which gives light to every kind of man.” While on earth Jesus himself directly served as this light, telling the people of his Father’s name, purposes and will for them, but with his ascension to heaven he appointed his followers to serve in his stead as light bearers: “You are the light of the world. A city cannot be hid when situated upon a mountain. People light a lamp and set it, not under the measuring basket, but upon the lampstand, and it shines upon all those in the house. Likewise let your light shine before mankind, that they may see your right works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens.”—John 1:9; Matt. 5:14-16, NW.

To serve properly as lights of the world our lamps must be filled with oil and their wicks must be trimmed; that is, we must have a good knowledge of God’s Word and present its message effectively. That requires study; it requires attending congregational meetings; it requires taking advantage of ministerial training.

As Christ’s followers we can confidently let our light shine, for it is equal to any tests of reason and honest investigation. Our motives are pure, because “we are not peddlers of the word of God as many men are,” exploiting God’s Word for selfish gain. And in shining forth we do not call attention to ourselves, for we know that this treasure of service as light bearers is in an earthen vessel, all the glory going to Jehovah. It is being done, “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts.”—2 Cor. 2:17, NW; Zech. 4:6, AS.

Do you appreciate your privileges as a light bearer? If you do, you will “keep strict watch that how you walk is not as unwise but as wise persons, buying out the opportune time for yourselves.”—Eph. 5:15, 16, NW.

Questions From Readers

● An answer in the November 15, 1955, Watchtower said Jehovah could, if he wished, destroy even an immortal creature. The booklet What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? says that if the demons had originally been created immortal they could not be destroyed from the universe. Which is correct?—J. L., United States.

The statement in the booklet about survival after death refers to immortality according to its basic meaning of deathlessness, indestructibleness. The other statement about God’s ability to destroy even an immortal creature rested upon the view that he is absolutely almighty without any limitation upon his own power by even himself. So this latter statement presented what seems in accord with this view. However, it enters into the realm of speculation, because it is in fact based on a speculative question.

Hence we are letting the statement in the booklet stand, in accord with the meaning of absolute immortality as conveyed in the Holy Scriptures. A fuller discussion on this may be expected in time in the columns of The Watchtower.

Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Part 31—Ending the Fourth, Beginning the Fifth Decade of Kingdom Operation

THE “kingdom of the heavens” with Jesus Christ in power as King at his Father’s right hand ended its fortieth year of rule amid its enemies in 1954, about October 1. It began ruling amid World War I in 1914; it ended its fortieth year amid the “cold war” between the East and West blocs of Kingdom enemies that followed World War II. Jehovah’s witnesses, knowing well the times and seasons of God’s purposes, approached and entered the Kingdom’s fortieth year without joining in the dire predictions that some religionists were making about 1954 on the basis of their ideas of parallel time periods in historical events. They entered 1954 planning and arranging to do still greater works in Kingdom service.

Their long fight in Quebec Province, Canada, to establish the right to preach the Kingdom news to the Catholic population there had been rewarded with a five-judge majority decision in the Supreme Court of Canada, at Ottawa, October 6, 1953, which ruled that Jehovah’s witnesses have the right to put out their religious literature in Quebec.a Future efforts by the adversaries of free speech and free worship in Quebec to block the application of this Supreme Court decision showed that they took it in bad grace, as enemies among whom Christ had to rule with an iron rod.

The exploding of two new models of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific Ocean by America in March, 1954, did not fill Jehovah’s witnesses with dread forebodings of the future. Undisturbed, they went on to give a still greater witness to God’s established kingdom by putting more preaching ministers in the field. In that March a new high number of 154,367 ministers reported time spent in preaching,b followed by a still higher peak of 169,015 in April,c in America. In other nations, too, the increase was going on. So by the close of the 1954 service year a new world-wide peak of 580,498 preachers was attained, a jump of 60,516 over the preceding year.d Door-to-door sermons from the Bible of three to eight minutes’ length were now specially recommended, and also ten- to fifteen-minute sermons in making return visits upon interested persons. All the congregations were brought into accord with a training program to have qualified, experienced ministers to give personal training to irregular ones or less successful ones or to newly interested persons in the most effective ways of preaching in the field. More attention also began to be placed on putting out individual copies of The Watchtower and Awake! at every opportunity, besides obtaining subscriptions for these magazines.

April 3, 1954, saw the entry of a new feature, the film entitled “The New World Society in Action,” of one hour and twenty minutes’ length. On that night this film was shown for the first time outside Brooklyn headquarters to an audience of 1,110 at a New York City circuit assembly. To date it has proved a mighty instrument in visually acquainting all viewers with the magnitude of the Society’s organization, its institutions, its field activities, its large-scale conventions, its smooth, efficient functioning and the spirit by which it is moved. In the territories of the Watch Tower Society’s branch offices, even in Taiwan during the eighteen-year-long ban upon Jehovah’s witnesses, the film was exhibited to large appreciative audiences. By the close of the 1955 service year this motion picture, with accompanying commentary, had been shown to 2,379,549 persons.e

The year 1954 proved to be a notable one for assemblies. During the summer, beginning with the Boston (Massachusetts) assembly on June 24, 1954, four-day district and national assemblies were held around the globe, including assemblies even in such places as Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, besides other places on six continents and the islands of the seas. Eighty of these assemblies brought out a total public audience of 427,000 and more, and a total of 14,509 were baptized. The Berlin assembly took the lead, with 22,500 present to hear “God’s Love to the Rescue in Man’s Crisis” and with a baptism of 1,022. At the Toronto (Ontario) district assembly a fifth day was added to accommodate the graduation of the 116 students of the twenty-third class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. The effect of all these assemblies became quite evident in the New World society.f

Quite appropriately in 1954, the seventieth year from when the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society of Pennsylvania was incorporated December 13, 1884, the Society completed construction of an outstanding building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to house its registered offices. On September 4, 1954, the building was dedicated by officers of the Society, and on Friday, October 1, 1954, the first annual business meeting of the Society was held there with its president as chairman. An attendance of 820 overflowed from the main auditorium, which seats 500, to the auxiliary auditorium in the basement of the building.g

The year 1955 opened the fifth decade for God’s established kingdom to rule amid its enemies. The early part of the year was marked by outstanding legal decisions. On January 7, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the Lord Judge of the Court of Sessions handed down the decision that Jehovah’s witnesses are a religious denomination but their pioneer publishers and congregation servants are not “regular ministers” of religion within the meaning of the 1948 National Service Act of Britain. The adverse part of this decision was appealed to a three-judge High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, only to have an unfavorable decision rendered by all three judges July 21, 1955.h On this an appeal is now being made to the House of Lords, London, England, the final court of appeal for the British Empire. However, in America, on March 14, 1955, the Supreme Court at Washington, D.C., ruled favorably on three cases of Jehovah’s witnesses, that the witnesses must be considered sincere conscientious objectors to carnal warfare of this world even though they are willing to fight a war at God’s command, a “theocratic war,” not an earthly kind. On these grounds the Court reversed the convictions of three witnesses who had refused induction into military service.i But in Poland, according to reports by news dispatches and radio, five witnesses of Jehovah were arrested on the false charge of being spies for political America and were sentenced in March, 1955, to years of imprisonment. Mark 13:9 and Luke 21:12 were still being fulfilled upon Jehovah’s witnesses in this “time of the end.”

For the general guidance of all Kingdom publishers in their field activities the new service booklet of 64 pages on “Preaching Together in Unity” was released on January 1, 1955. To increase the publication of literature, especially the magazines, in the spring of the year the Watchtower Society began building its new thirteen-story factory across the street from its present nine-story factory in Brooklyn. As a judgment against the entire system of worldly religion came the challenging message under the title “Christendom or Christianity—Which One Is ‘the Light of the World’?” This message exploded upon the world Sunday, April 3, 1955, by the simultaneous delivery of a uniform public address on that subject by speakers in thirty languages the world over. At the close of the address all speakers announced the release of the new 32-page booklet upon the same subject, copies of which were given free to all in attendance. Throughout the earth well over a half million attended this powerful lecture. According to the president’s letter of February 10, 1955, it had been expected to publish ten million copies of the booklet in ten languages. But the Society’s branches were so eager for the message that it was published in thirty languages and more than 21,000,000 copies were printed.j

Distribution of the booklet to the outside public followed at once upon the heels of the public lecture. Thousands of newly interested persons took a hand in the distribution for the first time. This produced a new peak of Kingdom publishers of 625,256, during the month of April. Thoroughly aroused, the friendlily disposed people turned out in unprecedented numbers the following Thursday night, April 7, to celebrate the Lord’s evening meal, to run up a total attendance of 878,303, of whom, however, only 16,815 partook as the remnant of the heavenly Kingdom class.k During April and the following month of May the new booklet moved out into eighty-eight lands, to reach a phenomenal circulation in just two months’ time, even in lands where Jehovah’s witnesses were banned, such as the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Germany. The clergy of Christendom came in for direct attention later.l Along with this “blitz” distribution Jehovah’s witnesses wound up their special January-to-April campaign for new Watchtower subscriptions by obtaining 562,228 new magazine subscriptions by the close of April, and that in forty languages.

Thirteen “Triumphant Kingdom” assemblies next dominated the scene, occasioning the movement of hundreds of thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses from over sixty lands to the thirteen assembly sites, all at their own expense. Five-day assemblies these were, with a uniform program, the climax of which was the public address by the Society’s president or its vice-president on the theme “World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom.” In weekly succession the series moved forward from June 22 at Chicago, Illinois, to Vancouver, B.C., Canada, to Los Angeles, California, to Dallas, Texas (in Spanish and English), to Yankee Stadium, New York city (for the third time), across the Atlantic to Twickenham (London), England, to Paris, France, to Rome, Italy (simultaneous with the last three days of Paris), to Nuremberg, Germany, to Berlin, Germany (simultaneous with the last three days of Nuremberg), to simultaneous assemblies at Stockholm, Sweden, and The Hague, Netherlands, and finally to Helsinki, Finland, August 25-28. The leap of the assembly series across the Atlantic from North American to European shores witnessed the greatest mass movement of conventioners from the Americas in history, over 4,500 of them.a

During the series the public address was delivered thus in nine countries and in nine languages to a total of 403,682 hearers. The number of those baptized totaled 13,016. From the assemblies a flood of new literature poured out over the world: Volume II of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Qualified to Be Ministers, What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? You May Survive Armageddon into God’s New World and the public-address booklet World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom. After the close of the assembly in each country 257,124 copies of the unprecedently distributed booklet Christendom or Christianity—Which One Is “the Light of the World”? were mailed world-wide by individual witnesses to each of the religious clergymen and editors of religious publications in their territory. What acknowledgments of receipt of the booklet were received varied from vicious or deploring to qualifiedly agreeing or kindly.b

At the end of August the 1955 service year ended. How? With a marked expansion in the New World society and its activities. The monthly average of preaching witnesses rose to 570,694 for the 158 lands reporting, whereas once a peak of 642,929 publishers was reached. A total of 63,636 were baptized. The total hours of field preaching went up to 85,823,250, accompanied by increases in the distribution of Bibles, books, booklets, magazines and tracts.c Yankee Stadium also witnessed its third graduation exercises of a class of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, the 102 graduates making up the twenty-fifth class of the school since its founding February 1 of 1943.d To these have now been added the 106 graduates of the twenty-sixth class, whose graduation exercises took place at Gilead Sunday, February 12, 1956.e Missionary graduates are now sprinkled all over the earth in a hundred lands and islands. To these missionaries the Watch Tower Society has recently added more special pioneers in many lands, to augment the ingathering of “other sheep.”

The year 1956 has already experienced steps toward better management and regulation of the organization. The zoning of the earth into ten zones has taken place, each zone embracing a number of the Society’s seventy-seven branches. Over each of the ten areas is a zone servant. January 1, 1956, the first of the zone servants inaugurated this zone work of inspecting branches. February 29 the Society’s president himself departed by air from Brooklyn on a ten-week tour of the South Pacific and Far East to visit the Society’s branches there, to address assemblies and congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses and to address the public in major cities on the subject “Making All Mankind One Under Their Creator.”

Thus till now Jehovah’s witnesses have made an inerasable, everlasting record in modern history. This record will yet be added to before they finish their pre-Armageddon witness, all with praise and credit to the only living and true God, whose witnesses they have been privileged to be.

[Footnotes]

Announcements

SHINING AS THE “LIGHT OF THE WORLD”—Matt. 5:14, 16, NW.

To shine one must heed Jesus’ instructions: “Let your light shine before mankind, that they may see your right works and give glory to your Father who is in the heavens.” It means to share in passing on to other persons information that will light the way they are to walk. The Watchtower is an aid to that end. Recommend it to others by going from house to house and obtaining a year’s subscription for only $1. During April three booklets dealing with important Bible subjects are to be given to each new subscriber.

‘GO, MAKE DISCIPLES!’

Jesus told all Christians to teach. Would you like to obey that command? Would you like to share your faith with others? Do you feel qualified? The book Qualified to Be Ministers will fill your need. It is for those not satisfied to ‘sit and listen’ only. It contains material on how to prepare and deliver sermons, simple rules on logic and argumentation, how to conduct instructive congregational meetings and direct unified activity in field missionary work, and reviews six thousand years of religious history, with special attention being given to the modern history of Jehovah’s witnesses. The book is for the novice as well as the most thoroughly trained Christian minister. With it you can fulfill the most important Christian activity—“Preach the Word!” Obtain your copy for only 50c.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

May 13: Making All Mankind One Under Their Creator, ¶1-23. Page 195.

May 20: Making All Mankind One Under Their Creator, ¶24-45. Page 202.

Will You Become One?

Jesus told those who would be with him in heaven: “I and my Father are one.” Of them he prayed to his Father: “That they may be one, even as we are one.” And of the earthly class he said: “There shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”

Both in heaven and on earth, all who gain life must become one. One in person? No. One in effort and purpose. There must be universal oneness under Jehovah. The Watchtower magazine will help you come to this oneness, for it reflects clearly and understandably the light from God’s Word, the Bible.

Subscribe now. The cost is only $1, and you will also receive three printed Bible sermons.

Please send me for one year The Watchtower, and three Bible sermons. Enclosed is $1.