Some of that transcription equipment was installed in automobiles and on boats, with loudspeakers on the roof to make the sound carry farther. Bert and Vi Horton, in Australia, operated a van with a large sound horn mounted on top that was inscribed with the words “Kingdom Message.” One year they made almost every street in Melbourne resound with stirring exposures of false religion and heartwarming descriptions of the blessings of God’s Kingdom. During those years Claude Goodman was pioneering in India. Use of the sound car, with records in the local languages, enabled him to reach large crowds in bazaars, in parks, along the road—wherever people could be found.

When the brothers in Lebanon parked their sound car on a hill and broadcast lectures, the sound carried down into the valleys. People in the villages, not seeing the source of the voice, were sometimes frightened, thinking that God was speaking to them out of the heavens!

There were a few tense moments for the brothers, however. On one occasion, in Syria, a village priest left his dinner on the table, grabbed his big walking stick, and ran out into the crowd that was gathering to hear a Bible discourse broadcast from a sound car. Waving his stick angrily and shouting, he demanded: “Stop! I command you to stop!” But the brothers realized that not everyone agreed with him; there were those who wanted to hear. Soon, some of the crowd bodily picked up the priest and carried him back to his house, where they deposited him again at the dinner table! Despite clergy opposition, the Witnesses courageously saw to it that people had the opportunity to hear.

[Picture on page 567]

Sound cars, sometimes many of them (as here in Australia), were used to broadcast Bible truth in public places