God, study his will, meditate upon it, do it, tell it to others, help them do it? Will we shun this world under Satan, its works, its blasphemies, its ruining of the earth? Will we use the earth in harmony with God’s will, cultivate it, beautify it, care for the wildlife on it, and help it reflect Jehovah’s praise? Or will we wickedly dirty this mirror of God so that it will not brightly reflect his wisdom and power and praise? The way we answer these questions and live up to the answers will determine the answer as to whether we shall get to live on earth forever or not: “The upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.”—Prov. 2:21, 22, RS.

Part 3—Rounding the World with the Vice-President

FRIDAY, January 11, dawned over the South China Sea, and as our PAA plane, now four hours aloft, neared its destination, we passengers were advised that it was cloudy over Hong Kong and it was drizzling. Losing altitude, our plane flew through clouds for a long time. Finally it dropped down into the clear and we could see rugged islands in the green waters. Here and there were vessels, looking so tiny. One was reminded of the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We are approaching Hong Kong by the southwest passage. From our window we could see a city below to the right of our aircraft. We come lower and seem to scrape the mountaintops. But we make it safely and at 7:53 a.m. we touch the runway of the Kai Tak airport. Meantime, as dawn broke, there were eight interested witnesses of Jehovah crossing by ferry from the City of Victoria on the island of Hong Kong to Kowloon on the Chinese mainland, there to meet twelve others, Watch Tower Society missionaries and local Chinese witnesses, to ride out to Kai Tak airport to meet the eagerly awaited plane. That bleak and cloudy morning the mountains around seemed to hem them in to the dismal atmosphere, and the question bothered them, Would the weather hold up the plane’s landing? It was a relief to them to see how, like a bird that carefully glides and drops into its small nest, the plane approached and came down on Kai Tak airstrip surrounded by mountains and sea, although two hours late. No drizzle then, but overcast!

Not too long in getting through customs and other entrance formalities, the Society’s vice-president, F.W. Franz, was soon heartily shaking hands with the Watch Tower Society’s new Hong Kong branch servant and the other missionary graduates of the Bible School of Gilead and beaming Chinese witnesses. It was a short drive from the airport to the new missionary home on Prince Edward Road in Kowloon. There breakfast was waiting, and twenty-three of us gathered together in the dining room. This dining room is also used as a Kingdom Hall, where the meetings of the Kowloon congregation are held.

The three-day assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Hong Kong was not scheduled to begin until 6:45 that night. Thus the afternoon provided the opportunity for two carloads of us to drive around to see some of the Kowloon peninsula, this British Crown colony at the mouth of the Canton River. In the course of this drive the vice-president was taken to the scene of the terrible Hong Kong rioting that broke out in and around the Shumshuipo area last October during the celebration of the independence of Nationalist China. The former missionary home was situated in this same area. From there Brother Franz saw the spot where missionary Joan Espley passed through her terrifying “ordeal during the Hong Kong riots” on October 10, her own report thereon being published in the December 22 issue of Awake! magazine. No howling, fanatical, murder-bent mob there now!

In the evening we took a ferry that glided across the strait of waters to Hong Kong Island to dock at the wharf where the City of Victoria nestles at the foot of the world-famous Victoria Peak, 1,809 feet high. Then we go up the Caroline Hill Road to the New Method College auditorium. Here all the arrangements have been made for the celebrating of the three-day assembly of the two congregations in the British Crown colony, together with all persons of good will. There are eighty-four of us here for the opening day’s assembly session. On time the assembly opens with songs and enjoyable experiences, conducted by a Chinese brother. During the next hour there were two instructive talks on good overseers for the blessing of Jehovah’s earthly organization and on the relations of servants of a congregation with all the other brothers of the congregation. It came as a surprise, but a pleasant one, when the Society’s branch servant now released the new field-service instruction booklet entitled “Preaching Together in Unity,” published in Chinese.

All this served as a good introduction to the next feature, the vice-president’s talk through a capable, energetically speaking, native Chinese translator. The conventioners were delighted when the speaker displayed to them the new 1957 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses, although only in English, and also the new 1957 calendar with its unique illustration under the year’s Bible text. Displaying this, he spoke of the grand progress being made in the expansion of Jehovah’s visible organization and in the magazine-distribution work world-wide, which really had its source in the group of the Watch Tower Society’s factories in Brooklyn, as depicted on the 1957 calendar. Brother Franz appealed to the Hong Kong conventioners for full and wholehearted co-operation in distributing The Watchtower and Awake! The Chinese edition of The Watchtower, the first number of which was dated January 1, 1956, and which was published in Hong Kong, is now printed at the Brooklyn factory group portrayed on the 1957 calendar. This appeal was loyally taken up by the Hong Kong contingent of Jehovah’s witnesses, for they have since reached a new peak in the local circulating of copies of these New World magazines. However, after the evening’s sessions there was a pleasant bit of informal association of conventioners together at the cafeteria located in the rear of the assembly auditorium. It all smacked of the flavor of Old China, exotic.

Saturday, January 12, saw a considerable crowd of us assemble in the other missionary home of the Watch Tower Society, two flights of steps up from the sidewalk of Castle Road, on Hong Kong island itself. Here too a Kingdom Hall is maintained, for the Hong Kong congregation. For many of the brothers from Kowloon on the peninsula it was the first time that they viewed and met in the Kingdom Hall and missionary home. The Hong Kong congregation were made very happy to have their Kowloon brothers there with them. Saturday is Magazine Day with Jehovah’s witnesses world-wide, and the morning session here was like a direct answer to Brother Franz’ appeal last night for greater distribution, because at this service meeting magazines were emphasized fair and squarely and the distribution this morning was to be made in the business section of the Central District. Brother Franz, the former branch servant, the present branch servant and a Cantonese-speaking Chinese sister formed one of the parties setting off into the field service. As one passes the busy and narrow streets, life in the Chinese way can be seen at a close up. It was not long till the vice-president found himself on the third floor, inside a Chinese home, listening to the branch servant witnessing in Chinese to a Cantonese-speaking mother of eight children. She had been a subscriber for the Chinese Watchtower and a local Kingdom publisher had been making return visits upon her. Literature was placed with her by the branch servant. Downstairs on the pavement we encountered Cantonese-speaking Sister Ng So Ching. So Brother Franz seized the opportunity at once to take her with him back up the steps to the home of the lady speaking the same Chinese dialect. She welcomed us in. We sat down, and after Sister Ng gave her an extended witness the lady, although a Roman Catholic religiously, readily subscribed again for The Watchtower in Chinese. Fast action! Rewarding!

The Chinese are an amazing people when it comes to utilizing space. Thousands of refugees