required some firmness on the part of the publishers. The police did not want to give permission to use handbills and placards in advertising, arguing that such activity was prohibited by city regulations. However, the regulations involved only commercial matters. Finally the police allowed use of handbills but prohibited the information marching with placards. But because the mere difference in size between handbill and placard was immaterial, and since the handbill was admittedly not commercial, then surely the larger placard was not; the witnesses used both in advertising. Some publishers were accosted by police, but no arrests occurred and advertising was thoroughly and successfully completed.

One district assembly was held at Rotterdam to serve the witnesses in the Netherlands, on July 1-3. A large stadium was used, and its spaciousness was used to good advantage in housing the many departments necessary for the smooth running of an assembly. In this seacoast city the weather is very unpredictable, but for the assembly days it was beautiful and the fresh air in the stadium was far better than the hot stuffiness of an enclosed hall. Between 8,000 and 9,000 attended the public lecture, and 239 were immersed.

In Belgium district assemblies in Antwerp and Brussels showed a combined attendance of 2,380 and immersion of 151. Two in Austria, at Vienna and Salzburg, had more than 2,450 for Sunday and 119 immersed. At Odense in Denmark 178 were immersed and on Sunday 4,102 listened to “It Is Later than You Think!” Finland provided three assemblies to serve that country, in Helsinki and Oulu and Vaasa, at which a total of 6,485 heard the public talk. The number baptized was 201. Norway held four assemblies, and reports for the two at Haugesund and Fredrikstad show more than a thousand at the public lectures. Three in Sweden totaled 3,169 witnesses attending and 5,075 out for the public discourse. Baptized were 198.

The second assembly in Sweden, at Vasteras on August 5-7, was held under interesting circumstances. The clergy there advertised five weeks in advance of the convention that they were going to hold a meeting right after the witnesses’ assembly closed, in the same building, and for the purpose of exposing Jehovah’s witnesses. Newspaper publicity was often belittling the witnesses, and on the streets the orthodox religionists were rather aggressive. The townspeople became quite stirred up over the controversy, and as a result more than 800 strangers appeared at the public lecture, to make the total attendance 1,914. Several clergymen were present and a State Church priest, along with many of their congregations. For the most part they were favorably impressed, and surprised at the sound Scriptural presentation that they heard. The next evening the meeting sponsored by the local association of pastors, made up of both State Church and other religious bodies, gathered only about 1,000 persons to hear the usual derogatory statements. After that meeting many who attended both sessions said they saw the difference between Jehovah’s witnesses and the orthodox religionists, and that they were no longer going to attend the orthodox churches.

And now with the closing out of the reports on the district assemblies of 1949, Jehovah’s witnesses look forward expectantly to the grand international convention scheduled for New York city next July 30 through August 6.

Zerubbabel Rebuilds the Temple

THE captive city of Jerusalem must rise again! So predicted the prophet Isaiah two hundred years in advance. When he declared this prophecy of reconstruction and restoration, Jerusalem had not as yet even been desolated, was not to be desolated, in fact, for still some 130 years. Prior to the fall of Jerusalem the prophet Jeremiah foretold the time of desolation as stretching over seventy reproachful years, years during which the land would be desolated and its former inhabitants held captive in Babylon. Yet at the end of that time the temple was to be rebuilt and the city restored to its teeming life by the liberated Babylonish captives. The great Keeper of times and seasons, Jehovah God, had so declared and gone on record in His Word. Would release come on time?

That Babylon should have compassion on the Jewish captives was not to be expected, for it was said prophetically of Babylon’s king that he “opened not the house of his prisoners”. (Isa. 14:4, 17) Only by overthrow of mighty Babylon was release to come, and that overthrow was foretold to come at the hands of Cyrus. (Isa. 45:1, 13) Sixty-eight years of captivity crawl by, with no sign of release from Babylon. On a night in 539 B.C. blasphemy against the God of the Hebrews mounts even higher. King Belshazzar caps the wickedness of his party of wild and drunken revelry by profanely using the golden and silver vessels stolen from Jehovah’s temple to drink wine and toasts to his demon gods and idols. Who could ever smash mighty Babylon and spring from captivity the puny Hebrews? Why, the foretold King Cyrus! On that very night Babylon fell to the joint forces of Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian and Belshazzar was slain. Aged Darius’ brief reign over Babylon is succeeded by that of Cyrus, in 537 B.C. Now the last few grains of the sands of time measuring the appointed seventy years of Jerusalem’s desolation trickle out. The time is up! But with the same precision timing that marks the movements of the heavenly bodies in the vast solar systems of the universe, the great Jehovah keeps the set schedule for liberation and restoration. In that very year of 537 B.C. Cyrus issues the decree:

“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Jehovah stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all his people, his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of Jehovah, the God of Israel (he is God), which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever is left, in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and