part of it. They have kept separate in full dedication to Jehovah God through his Christ. Courageously they have exposed the demon-inspired expressions that have issued from the mouths of the symbolic Dragon and his political wild beast and false prophet; they have warned others against the machinations of the Dragon the Devil; and they have preached the powerful message of true liberation from the power of the wicked spirit forces, “this good news of the kingdom.” Steadily this proclamation of the good news has pushed back the unseen control of the wicked spirit forces, and hundreds of thousands have come into the New World society where the spirit of Jehovah prevails. Here we stand firm, fighting with the spiritual weapons of our theocratic warfare and praying, triumphing constantly in the power of the Lord and in the mightiness of his strength.

⁴⁶ Final triumph is in sight! Suddenly as in the days of Noah it will be ours, when Jehovah’s day comes as a thief in the night and this world is abandoned to its destruction at Armageddon, all spiritism and the wicked spirit forces are put out of action, and we of the New World society are taken along with the triumphant King Jesus Christ into the demon-free new world of righteousness under God’s universal sovereignty.—2 Pet. 3:10-14, NW.

The “Triumphant Kingdom” Assemblies of 1955

Paris, France, August 3-7, 1955

To crown a successful year of Kingdom service in the field of witnessing in France, along came the second international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Paris during the closing month of the 1955 service year. In the world-wide campaign month of April when the Memorial of Christ’s death was celebrated and the new booklet (Christendom or Christianity—Which One Is “the Light of the World”?) was released, the 183 congregations of Jehovah’s witnesses in France attained a new peak in number of Kingdom publishers, namely, 9,883, which bespeaks an increase of 23 percent over the previous service year. And at the Memorial celebration, although only 225 partook of the emblematic bread and wine, there was a total attendance of 11,894. All of these were now to play host to the assembly of their brothers from the most lands ever to be represented at such a gathering in Paris. In Paris and its suburbs there are about 2,500 witnesses. A record attendance was expected, and the organization at Paris of the New World society made ready for it. French missionaries graduated from Gilead, French pioneers and congregation publishers engaged for many weeks in securing rooms in hotels and private homes to fill the many rooming-accommodations requests.

Paris’ great indoor arena, the Velodrome d’Hiver or Sports Palace, was engaged for the assembly. Four years ago the first international postwar convention of Jehovah’s witnesses in France was held in this same Palais des Sports, and at that time 10,456 attended the public meeting and 351 were baptized, in the meantime the organizational magazine, The Watchtower, in all languages came under ban in France. However, the eternal God, Jehovah, who has made his people a watchman class, continued to feed his people spiritually, and they have grown in spiritual maturity and in numbers in that land of Roman Catholicism and communism. From the Paris branch office it is just a fifteen-minute walk down the Rue de la Tour (Tower Street) and across Passy Bridge over the Seine River and one square beyond Grenelle Quay to the Sports Palace. Just three blocks to the north the 1,000-foot-high world-famed Eiffel Tower rears itself.

Besides the thousands of foreign delegates who converged here, a special train with 1,200 Polish brothers from the northeast of France pulled into the city. Because of the dominant languages to be spoken at this assembly the printed program carried its “Information for Conventioners” in French, English and Polish, and signs of welcome and guidance around the Sports Palace were also in the same three languages. Announcements from the platform were likewise made in those three languages. The literature on the book counters was in many more languages. Though many Polish brothers now understand French, special meetings in Polish were held Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. till noon, and the attendance ran up to 577 Saturday morning.

Besides providing for the spiritual needs, the convention committee provided an ample cafeteria toward the rear of the flower-adorned platform, where substantial meal vivified conventioners at regular intervals, being conveniently served from many assembly-line food counters. Here, too, as at all the preceding “Triumphant Kingdom” assemblies, a fine large orchestra guided and gave stimulus to hearty singing of Kingdom songs. While the majority were singing in French, many visiting delegates sang in English.

For the official opening of the assembly the 9,701 who attended thronged the building, filling the ground-floor arena in front of the platform and sitting on the tiers of seats on the sides of the bowl, some even being in the top gallery away up above. In this velodrome they were watching not a bicycle race but the runners in the race for the prize of life eternal in Jehovah’s new world. Among those runners were fourteen from dictator-ruled Portugal, many from Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and also about thirty-five from Spain under Franco’s regime. These brothers are acquainted with dictatorships under which full religious privileges are granted to only the Roman Catholic Church and so here, at this magnificent free assembly in Paris, they were deeply stirred. Tears welled up in Spanish eyes at seeing for the first time such a crowd of their brothers, Jehovah’s witnesses, thousands upon thousands of them, in open assembly and without fear of police. What if they could not understand the languages of the platform speeches! Just the same, they felt great joy at being among their brothers, the one big family of God, Jehovah. They marveled and thrilled at the freedom that they witnessed as their brothers moved about on the streets of Paris openly identifying themselves with lapel badges as Jehovah’s witnesses, advertising the assembly and its public talk, and passing out literature and preaching the message from door to door without hindrance. Filled they were with many vivid impressions to tell upon their return to their brothers at home under dictatorship!

Most of the speakers from North America spoke in English and their talks from the platform were translated into French by competent interpreters. French speakers on the program presented their talks with the same fervor and vigor as those who spoke in English. The Paris branch servant gave the address of welcome in French. Brother Knorr, the president, gave his opening talk tonight on “The Triumphant Message of ‘The Kingdom,’” and at its close he released the book What Has Religion Done for Mankind? in French. The reaction of the audience was very joyful.

From 1:20 p.m. to 8:50 p.m. five special trains took many visiting delegates to Rome, which, of course, affected the attendance at Paris. The great mass movement of delegates through the Continent from convention to convention by all the complicated prearrangements skillfully made by the New York headquarters of the Watch Tower Society was now under way. It was an invasion of theocratic warriors from abroad, unparalleled in any age of earth. Concerning this the August 5 European edition of the paper The Stars and Stripes, published at Darmstadt, Germany, for the U.S. armed forces, said on its page 3:

“PARIS, Aug. 4 (AP)—More than 4,000 perspiring Jehovah’s Witnesses from every state in the union flocked to a garish Paris sports arena for an afternoon of sermons yesterday [Wednesday], then grabbed their bags for the next stop on their tour of Western Europe. Members of the pacifist sect, each wearing a red and yellow tag proclaiming ‘The Coming Conquest of the World by the Kingdom of God,’ make up what is probably the biggest mass movement of Americans through Europe since the Allied invasion during World War II.”

From Rome five special trains later took thousands of conventioners to cities in Switzerland. The edition of Wednesday, August 10, of the Berne Daily (Berner Tagblatt) published a picture of delegates arriving there and headed the accompanying article “Invasion in Berne: 2000 Witnesses of Jehovah.” The article went on to say: “Swiss Berne experienced during two days the invasion of more than 2000 witnesses of Jehovah, predominantly from the United States. The people of all shades of color with the pinned-on little placard ‘Jehovah’s witnesses’ dominated for a time the street scene and especially the numerous ‘colored’ ladies of every age and build attracted prolonged looks at themselves. Far more than 4000 witnesses—of whom some hundreds stopped in Zurich and Geneva—traveled in two special ships and 42 special airplanes from the States to Europe, to go here from convention to convention, beginning in London, then in Paris.”

The second day of the Paris convention featured the president twice on the program, and after his evening talk against spiritism he surprised and delighted his audience with the presentation of the booklet Basis for Belief in a New World in French. The following morning he had to fly to Italy to climax the opening day of the three-day international assembly at Rome.

At Paris Friday morning, in the Sports Palace, 774 candidates answered with a firm “Oui!” to the questions put to them by the French speaker on baptism. They were then transported fifteen kilometers out from the Palace to Ville de Chatenay-Malabry, where they were immersed in the Piscine Municipale, an indoor pool, before many witnesses. An eight-year-old boy and an eighty-three-year-old lady were among those baptized. Even a blind woman braved the waters in Jehovah’s strength. Two former spiritists were baptized; this man and his wife greatly appreciated Brother Knorr’s talk last night against demonism, alias spiritualism.

Saturday night Brother Knorr returned by air from Rome to Paris and was on hand to give three speeches on Sunday. There was a grand turnout of Parisians to hear his widely advertised public talk, for the attendance at the Sports Palace soared up to 16,500 persons, who fairly overflowed the assembly place. Highly pleased, too, was Brother Knorr on seeing the lively responsiveness of this audience and he felt great joy at releasing to them the booklet World Conquest Soon—by God’s Kingdom in French. The record attendance had been realized and the foreign brothers rejoiced along with their French brothers. Enemies were frightened; and, as has been its custom after large gatherings of the New World society, a local French Roman Catholic newspaper published a lengthy article against Jehovah’s witnesses, misrepresenting them as predicting that the world was to end August 21. One of France’s most widely heard radio stations made a broadcast about our assembly. It fixed for us the date of the world’s end at August 21, 1955. Also on the station’s own initiative it added in that broadcast that Jehovah’s witnesses had already announced the world’s end 427 times without success. Thus this sensational “date” made the rounds of numerous dailies of Europe, including one in Lisbon, Portugal, and not leaving out one in Lausanne, Switzerland. The August 11 edition of the French Feuille D’Avis of Lausanne published a lengthy refutation of this misrepresentation on its page 19.

Jehovah’s witnesses in France came away from their successful assembly determined to push ahead with their work until Armageddon breaks out at an hour and a day known not to any man but only to God and his Christ. In consequence of the assembly at Paris the number of active Kingdom publishers should soon be reaching a new peak of over 10,000 for all France.

ROME, ITALY, AUGUST 5-7, 1955

All Italy took note of the first international assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses in Rome, August 5-7. The enemies first attacked, with some injuries, but later they turned to ridiculing. One section of the Italian press, while graciously announcing the assembly in Rome, claimed that the date of this assembly had suddenly been advanced in view of the extreme nearness of the end of the world. The effect of this ridicule, however, was only to advertise Jehovah’s witnesses and to focus more public attention on their Rome assembly.

The location of the assembly was enough to excite public attention; it was the Palazzo dei Congressi dell’ Esposizione Universale di Roma (Palace of Conventions of the Universal Exposition of Rome). The Protestant sects in Italy were stupefied at what Jehovah’s witnesses were doing. They asked: “How did Jehovah’s witnesses get the Palazzo?” This building owned by the Italian government was one of numerous Exposition buildings constructed by