businessman’s magazine, businessmen can learn from the churches. Commenting on the uncertain selling outlook for 1954 it gave a number of examples of how churches were raising money and observed that “businessmen might refurbish their ideas in this field by finding out what their local churches are doing.”

Of course, in other lands, other customs: such as in the town of Pocri, Panama, where in 1953 the archbishop of Panama put the town under interdict, denying the Catholics all religious services, funerals, marriages, etc., because of a dispute of what proportion of money the church should get from the proceeds of a certain festival. Because of a like dispute in the town of Goaso, Ashanti, Gold Coast, Africa, the Catholic priest refused to say mass.

With reference back to the United States, currently its people are contributing some $2,000,000,000 to their churches annually. A rather high price at that when we consider the religious illiteracy of the country. Perhaps the two check forgers who confessed to putting a worthless $7 check in a collection plate thought it a fair and equal exchange.

Questions From Readers

● In accord with the Mosaic law about jealousy, if a husband suspected his wife of unfaithfulness she was to drink bitter water and if she was guilty of adultery her thigh was to fall away and her belly was to swell. Was this result miraculous or can it be explained in a natural way? Also, could this be called a trial by ordeal?—G. B., Lebanon.

This law about jealousy is recorded at Numbers 5:12-31. If a man suspected his wife of unfaithfulness he was to bring her to the priest. The priest made her stand before Jehovah, took some holy water or pure, fresh water, sprinkled into it some dust from the tabernacle floor, and washed or wiped into it the cursings he had written down. What these cursings were is shown in Nu 5 verses 19-22 (NW): “Then the priest must make her swear and he must say to the woman, ‘If no man has cohabited with you and if while under your husband you have not turned aside in any uncleanness, be free of the effect of this bitter water that brings a curse. But you, in case you have turned aside while under your husband and in case you have defiled yourself and some man has put in you his seminal emission, besides your husband,—’ The priest must now make the woman swear with an oath involving cursing, and the priest must say to the woman: ‘May Jehovah set you for a cursing and an oath in the midst of your people by Jehovah’s letting your thigh fall away, and your belly swell. And this water that brings a curse must enter into your bowels to cause your belly to swell and the thigh to fall away.’ To this the woman must say, ‘So be it! So be it!’” The woman drank the water and if guilty her thigh fell away and her belly swelled, but if she was innocent she was unharmed by the water: “She must be free from such punishment and she must be made pregnant with semen.”—Nu 5 Vs. 28, NW.

Just what is meant by the swelling of the belly and the falling away of the thigh is not certain. It is quite evident, however, that thigh as here used is a euphemism or a delicate way of referring to the sexual organs, as is the case at Genesis 46:26, NW. It is logical that if any bodily parts be afflicted it should be the ones committing the wrong, as is the case when Jesus figuratively spoke of ridding yourself of a body member that hindered your entry into the Kingdom. (Mark 9:43-47) The expression “fall away” is understood to mean “waste away” (CB), “shrink” (Da) or “shrivel” (Mo), and hence would suggest that the sex organs atrophied and that there was a loss of fertility and ability to conceive. This view harmonizes with the statement that if the woman was innocent she was to be made pregnant, implying that if she was guilty any future pregnancy would be denied her. Her belly would swell because of the curse, but not due to the blessing of pregnancy.