which was a great support to me in those early days of my full-time ministry. She faithfully encouraged me as much as she could until her death in 1921.

By then our congregation had grown large enough to rent a hall on Flagler Street in downtown Miami. I never felt that I had the qualities of leadership, nor did I feel equal to giving public talks. However, because I had a great desire for the truth of God’s Word and read and studied very extensively, I was frequently consulted and so was very happy to be able to help those in my congregation to obtain clearer understanding of the truth, which kept on growing ever lighter and lighter.—Prov. 4:18.

SERVING WITH THE WATCH TOWER HEADQUARTERS

Among those who were an inspiration to me were the traveling representatives of the Watch Tower Society, known as pilgrims. While in Miami they were always entertained at our home, and I treasured very much the conversations and the association I had with them. It was one of these pilgrims that stimulated my interest in the privileges of service available at the Watch Tower headquarters in Brooklyn, New York. So I made application and shortly was called, becoming a member of the Brooklyn Bethel family on May 15, 1922. I will always be grateful for the encouragement that was given to me to apply for Bethel service, as it has now been my “home, sweet home” for forty-six years.

The Society had just started to publish some of its own books, and my first ten years at Bethel were spent working on a machine sewing the parts of the books together. In those days we had only four of these sewing machines. Today we have thirty-seven, not to say anything of more sewing machines in other printing plants throughout the world. After those ten years it was my privilege to transport produce from the Society’s farms to the Brooklyn Bethel home, also for ten years. Although this work was hard, I enjoyed it very much. There was also food to be trucked from a shipping line that was used to transport citrus fruits from a farm that the Society operated in Florida. I also enjoyed supplying the Bethel family with various kinds of melons. To procure these I would go to the areas where they were grown and make profitable ‘deals’ with farmers who had surplus crops. But the aspect of this assignment that I enjoyed the most was the opportunities it afforded me for conversations with Brother Rutherford, the president of the Society in those years. He frequently spent time at one or the other of these farms, as it provided him with an ideal atmosphere in which to meditate and write.

Then in 1942 I had the privilege of again working at the making of books, helping for five years on a machine that trimmed the three sides of the books. In 1947 I was transferred to the shipping department, where I spent the next eight years of joyful service in having part in sending out the printed literature. It was always a source of real satisfaction to me to realize that this literature I was having a share in producing and shipping out is really the way in which Jehovah God today is answering the prayer of his servants to “send out your light and your truth.”

To see how Jehovah God has led his people and prospered his organization all these years has been very strengthening to my faith. When I first arrived at the Brooklyn headquarters, our publishing plant consisted of just a small area of rented space. Then in 1926 the Society built its own eight-story publishing plant consisting of 70,000 square feet of floor space. In 1949 a nine-story addition was constructed as an integral part of the original factory, adding 72,000 more square feet. It was only six years later that an undertaking thrilled us all again, namely, when the Society started construction of a thirteen-story building just across the street from our factory and which consists of 192,000 square feet of floor space.

This building was to be used primarily for printing and mailing out the Watchtower and Awake! magazines. As soon as this building was ready for use, I was assigned to the mailing department in this building where, at the time of this writing, it is still my privilege to be working. And how the distribution of these magazines, which play such a prominent role in Jehovah’s sending out ‘his light and truth,’ has grown! In the year 1922, when I first came to the Brooklyn headquarters, the Society produced 3,250,000 magazines. And what is the production figure now? Well, last year the Brooklyn plant alone produced more than fifty times that many, or as many magazines each week as we did in 1922 in a whole year!

Now in my years of physical decline my heart swells in gratitude and joy for the many blessings I have experienced in these fifty-eight years that I have followed the ‘light and truth’ of Jehovah’s Word, and in particular for the forty-six years I have been privileged to serve full time at His earthly headquarters.

Since writing his life story Calvin Prosser finished his earthly course—he being of the remnant of the heirs of the heavenly kingdom—dying December 13, 1968. Funeral services were held on Staten Island on December 16, the service being conducted by Max Larson, factory servant and a longtime personal friend as well as one of the directors of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. Among those present were friends and relatives from Florida and Delaware, as well as a score or more from the Brooklyn Bethel home, most of whom had known Calvin Prosser for upward of forty years. While his friends mourn his passing, they rejoice that now to him too the words apply: “Happy are the dead who die in union with the Lord from this time onward. Yes, says the spirit, let them rest from their labors, for the things they did go right with them.”—Rev. 14:13.

Bethel’s Christian Atmosphere

RECENTLY a married couple living at the Brooklyn Bethel headquarters of the Watch Tower Society had guests for dinner. Shortly afterward, their guests sent them a “thank you” letter. What they wrote shows how deeply the Christian atmosphere of the Bethel home had impressed them:

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. G———,

“It is difficult to put into words our thanks and appreciation for the time you spent with us last Wednesday. We all flatter ourselves by believing we are thinking people, with the ability to solve, not only our problems, but if given the opportunity, the problems of the world.

“This Wednesday, however, we were shocked out of our complacency. Any ideas we may have had about religion, love of fellow man, politics, work, the U.N. and the future of mankind were completely shattered. At the Jehovah’s witnesses’ headquarters, we were privileged to see religion at work and what very well can be the solution to the future of mankind.

“During an ordinary work day, we sat down with about six hundred people at lunch [in one of Bethel’s largest dining rooms], each of whom was well behaved, courteous to his neighbor, soft spoken, at peace with himself and thankful to God for his daily bread. The gathering of about six hundred people of all ages, colors and varied upbringing at any other place under different circumstances would be a mass of confusion, boisterousness, group segregation, group disagreements, and