been invited to become a member of the headquarters staff of the Society at Brooklyn Bethel. There he made rapid progress in his ministerial training and later traveled week ends giving Bible lectures to congregations within two hundred miles of Brooklyn. In course of time he was assigned as co-ordinator of all printing activities in the Society’s plant, in 1932 becoming general manager of the publishing office and plant. He was elected in 1934 as one of the directors of the Society’s New York corporation (now Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Inc.) and in 1940 he was made a director and chosen as vice-president of the Pennsylvania corporation, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. His election to the presidency of both American societies and of the British corporation, International Bible Students Association, came in January, 1942. In February, 1943, he became president of the newly founded Watchtower Bible School of Gilead at South Lansing, New York. He also directs the activities of the Society’s radio station WBBR, Brooklyn, supervises administration of the Society’s affairs in all parts of the earth, and is a global traveler. He is the Society’s chief speaker at all international assemblies. Likewise he supervises the Society’s extensive editorial work and directs the foreign missionary activities of the witnesses. He resides along with his wife at the Brooklyn Bethel, 124 Columbia Heights.f

Seeing the urgent need for greater ministerial training of all the Society’s ministers, the Society’s new president together with his new staff of administrative associates set about to design a long-range program of theocratic education. (Eph. 4:12, NW) The first stage of the program was revealed on Monday, February 16, 1942, at which time an evening school was opened at Bethel, offering an “Advanced Course in Theocratic Ministry.”g Enrollment was open to only male members of the Society’s headquarters staff. The school met once a week, Monday evenings. For the first period they met in the auditorium where a lecture was delivered to the entire school enrollment. The Bethel sisters were also invited to attend. Next there followed a brief recess allowing the audience to divide as several classroom groups. During this second period classroom student talks were given on Biblical subjects under the tutorship of trained classroom counselors. Courses in speaking and general Bible studies were offered uniformly in the progressive program carried out at this Bethel school. Remarkable improvement in lecture presentations became apparent immediately when employing all the latest technique of extemporaneous speaking in public. There was also perceptible improvement in the house-to-house preaching by both male and female members of the Bethel family. Here was manifested Jehovah’s blessing upon this new program. The Bethel school has been in operation for over thirteen years, aiding hundreds of young ministers to improve their Bible knowledge and their speaking ability.h

The Bethel school’s having become such a success prompted the Society to embark on the next step of its new educational program, that of establishing a ministerial school of higher learning to train foreign missionaries and foreign ministerial representatives. The Society’s premises at the Brooklyn Bethel were inadequate for operation of such a proposed educational institution. Fortunately, however, since 1935 the Watch Tower Society had been owning and operating a large 800-acre tract known as Kingdom Farm, where foodstuffs were being raised principally for the Brooklyn Bethel family. (By 1955 a permanent farm-family staff of about 50 had volunteered their services to operate this large project.) Kingdom Farm is beautifully located, 255 miles northwest of New York city, in the Finger Lakes section of New York state near the city of Ithaca, site of famous Cornell University. In the course of years several buildings had been constructed on this land, including the large brick administration building completed in 1941, which was named “Gilead,” meaning “heap of witness.” Here was the ideal location for the establishment of a Bible school, which the board of directors approved in September, 1942. Immediately a faculty of four ordained ministers of the Bethel staff was appointed to proceed to design a course of study, to work up lectures, to search out suitable textbooks, to gather together a small library of 800 books of vital Biblical reference works and to proceed to formulate a college schedule of classes. Structural adjustments were made in the existing buildings to provide for classrooms, an auditorium, a dining hall and sleeping quarters. Provisions were made for a school term of five months with a hundred students registered, housed and fed for a given term.i

(To be continued)

Jesuit Implies Hierarchy Blame

WITHOUT a question of doubt the Roman Catholic Church has been and is the most outspoken in denouncing communism as a threat to religion. Roman Catholic prelates from the pope down and Roman Catholic politicians from Senator McCarthy up are continually being quoted in this regard.

However, time and again the Watch Tower publications have put the blame for communism in such predominantly Roman Catholic lands as Poland, Italy and France squarely on the shoulders of the Roman Catholic Church. And time and again Roman Catholic apologists, such as Our Sunday Visitor, have argued that this was unjust. To prove their point they have cited Ireland, Portugal and Spain as examples of Roman Catholic countries where communism does not prevail, overlooking the fact, however, that in such lands communism has been kept down only by resorting to communistic methods of circumscribing liberty.

It is interesting, therefore, to note what the seniors of the Roman Catholic University of Fordham were told on June 5, 1955, by the associate editor of the Jesuit weekly, America, Vincent J. Kearney, as to how communism can be defeated: “The success or failure of the enemies of God and country, of the world which we know, will be determined by the way Christians not only live their Christianity but apply it to modern society.” He further stated that communism “will not disappear, only by denouncing it,” its final defeat can come about only when “we begin practicing Christian social principles that counteract the evils on which communism thrives.”

Since according to V. J. Kearney communism thrives where Christian principles are not applied to social problems, and it is in preponderantly Roman Catholic Poland, Italy and France where communism has thrived, what conclusion can one draw?

The Swing to Religion

Beer-making concerns do not in every case sponsor baseball games over the radio. At Yuma, Arizona, radio station KOLD has sold sponsorship of a baseball game, played by the local team of the Arizona-Mexico League, to an Episcopal church. Between innings the baseball game swings to religion: the minister does a commercial and the baseball fans are invited to attend his church.