Take in right knowledge that you may learn to trust in the great Jehovah. Build up your mind with his Word of truth. Rely confidently on it. “Hence brace up your minds for activity, keep completely balanced and set your hope upon the undeserved kindness that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ,” and the God who gives peace will be with you.—1 Pet. 1:13-16, NW.

Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Part 30—International Assembly 1953

THE “New World Society Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses” at New York’s Yankee Stadium, announced well in advance, became a historic reality July 19-26, 1953.

America’s greatest religious assembly of all time it turned out to be. Peak attendance for the culminating Sunday, 165,829, filled the stadium and nearby overflow places to utmost capacity. From ninety-six different countries of earth the witnesses had come. Sessions were held in twenty languages.

Accommodating such vast numbers for eight days was a gigantic undertaking. Every available sleeping place in New York city was engaged by the rooming committee. But accommodated they were. Trailer City was located at the same place in New Jersey, near Plainfield, as for the 1950 world assembly, but covered far more ground. Its population rose to the unbelievable total of 45,453. In a feat that was the world’s largest mass immersion, 4,640 were baptized. This massive assembly made world news for eight days and for weeks thereafter by every news medium of the time—press, radio, newsreel film, television.a

The old world became sadly aware that now there was on the global scene a challenging New World society, clean, upright, growing, full of divine blessing and favor. False religion began to be eclipsed by the shoutings of praises to Jehovah by His true worshipers in all the earth. Earthwide, multitudes of people and their rulers have come to hold an awesome respect for Jehovah’s witnesses and their activities.

“The witnesses of Jehovah are not a laughing matter,” echoed a Vatican-guided American periodical late in 1955 with a picture of the 1953 Yankee Stadium assembly; and then added: “Catholics, of course, should have nothing to do with them nor their literature, particularly when an intensified campaign in a given district attracts swarms of Witnesses. . . . Two lessons can be learned from these misguided people; the lesson of intense devotion to the Faith, and the lesson of enthusiastic, eager Catholic Action that counts no cost.”b