Publishing the Word in a Big Way

100 YEARS

“JEHOVAH’S Witnesses Print the ‘Word’ in a Big Way.” That is how the American trade magazine In-Plant Reproductions described the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society’s printing and publishing operations. It continued: “Utilizing volunteers, this in-plant prints millions of pieces in 190 languages.”

“They come to this in-plant from all over the United States and the world,” explained the writer. “They are trained from scratch on the latest printing equipment by experienced professionals, and if they stay for any length of time, they get . . . an education. . . . They’re not in it for the money.”​—Italics ours.

“They’re not in it for the money”? That may surprise some people who believe that no one would work as hard as Jehovah’s Witnesses without being paid to do so.

From its legal incorporation 100 years ago, on December 13, 1884, under the laws of Pennsylvania, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has been totally devoted to “the dissemination of Bible truths in various languages by means of the publication of tracts, pamphlets, papers and other religious documents,” as expressed in its original charter. Furthermore, the Society is incorporated in accordance with the Nonprofit Corporation Law of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Thus, by law, it cannot be a profit-making enterprise.

No individual can personally profit through this Society since Article V of the Society’s charter states: “It [the Society] does not contemplate pecuniary gain or profit, incidentally or otherwise, to its members, directors or officers.” All who work at the New York headquarters of the Society receive the same basic provisions of board, lodging and a small monthly allowance​—whether they be the 14 members of the Governing Body or volunteers working in the printery, in cleaning operations or at the Society’s farms. There are no salaried clergy.

All of the more than 3,000 volunteers pursue the purpose for which the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania exists​—“to preach the gospel of God’s kingdom under Christ Jesus unto all nations as a witness to the name, word and supremacy of Almighty God JEHOVAH; to print and distribute Bibles and to disseminate Bible truths in various languages . . . to improve men, women and children mentally and morally by Christian missionary work and by charitable and benevolent instruction of the people on the Bible.”​—Quoted from the Society’s charter.

Have They Done It?

In the 100 years that have elapsed since December 13, 1884, has this Bible Society effectively fulfilled its chartered purpose to preach the gospel of God’s Kingdom to all the nations? The very fact that you have this magazine in your hands, regardless of where you live in the world or what your language is, gives a simple “Yes” to that question. Back in 1879 some 6,000 copies of The Watch Tower were published monthly in English only. Now every issue over 10 million copies of The Watchtower are published in 102 languages, and about 9 million copies of Awake! in 54 languages.

But has this Society really been a “Bible Society”? Since 1896 it has published seven different versions of the Bible, including the King James and American Standard versions. However, the outstanding achievement in the field of Bible publication has been the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, first released in part in 1950 and as a complete volume in 1961. This has now been translated, in whole or in part, into ten other languages. A total of 40 million copies have been printed in the last 23 years.

The Most Significant Movement of the 20th Century

Jehovah’s Witnesses are now preaching in 205 lands and in some 190 languages. There are more than 670,000 Witnesses in the United States and over 100,000 each in the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria and Brazil. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has branch offices and printeries spread around the world. Without a doubt this 100-year-old Bible Society is stronger and more active than ever! For this, the credit must go to Jehovah God.​—Zechariah 4:6.

But why should you be interested in Jehovah’s Witnesses and their growth? Precisely because they are the only Christian group that is in fact ‘preaching the good news of God’s Kingdom in all the earth before the end comes.’ (Matthew 24:14) Since, according to Bible prophecy, God is going to intervene again in man’s affairs and bring an end to the present corrupt system of things, it means that Jehovah’s Witnesses are in fact the most significant world movement of the 20th century for man’s salvation. That is why we believe you should examine their teachings and practices with an open mind.​—Luke 21:34-36; 2 Peter 3:8-13; Ezekiel 33:6-9; Isaiah 43:9, 10.

Modern Inventions Used to Publish the Good News

100 YEARS

WOULD you have enjoyed living 100 years ago? Certainly life was very different then. There was no electricity in the homes, no radio, no TV. There were no automobiles on the streets. Travel was by horse-drawn coach, steam train or ship​—no planes. Instead of three to seven hours to cross the Atlantic, it took two to three weeks. But it also marked a period of great inventions that would soon change the old way of life.

‘In Six Months It Will Be a Lot of Junk’

The year 1884 was special for several reasons. Interestingly, the history book The People’s Chronology carries two significant references for that year. The first states: “The Linotype typesetting machine patented by German-American mechanic Ottmar Mergenthaler, 30, will revolutionize newspaper composing rooms.” The second is: “The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is founded by Charles Taze Russell to publish his books, pamphlets, and periodicals. Russell . . . preaches that the world is on the brink of annihilation in a monstrous battle of Armageddon.”

What relationship could there be between these two historical items? During 36 years, from 1884 onward, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society had millions of Bible publications printed by outside printers. But in 1920 the Society decided to do its own magazine printing. This advance also meant that eventually Linotype typesetters had to be acquired. Mergenthaler’s 1884 invention for quicker type composition had been a boon to the printing trade and now it was an enormous aid in speeding up the publishing of the good news.

In 1922 the Society decided to do its own printing of books and Bibles. Local printers and bookbinders were not impressed. A report states: “A complete outfit of typesetting, electroplating, printing and binding machinery, most of it new, was obtained. The president of one important printing concern that had been doing much of the Society’s work saw the equipment and said: ‘Here you are with a first-class printing establishment on your hands, and nobody around the place that knows a thing about what to do with it. In six months the whole thing will be a lot of junk; and you will find out that the people to do your printing are those that have always done it.’”

Was that businessman’s pessimism vindicated? To the contrary, the volunteer workers at the Society’s headquarters learned fast. At first they could only bind 2,000 books a day. By 1927 that figure had risen to 12,000 a day​—but with one further advantage! When the books were printed by outside firms they were costing the public 50 to 75 cents. Off the Society’s presses, and printed by volunteer laborers, the books were produced and distributed for 25 cents each! Was the purpose that of making profits? The above figures speak for themselves.

The Advent of Phonographs and Movies

In 1887 Thomas Edison invented the first motor-driven phonograph playing cylindrical wax records. In that same year Emile Berliner went one better by using a flat disc and a horizontally moving needle. Thus was born the phonograph, or record player. Parallel to this there were great strides in the making of motion pictures. In 1896 the United States witnessed its first public screening of a silent movie.

Just 16 years later the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society made use of these two inventions to give more impetus to the preaching of the Kingdom message. In 1912 work was started on an ambitious pioneering project. The publication Where Else but Pittsburgh! said of it: “The first epic motion picture. It was called ‘The Photo-Drama of Creation,’ and although it appeared 15 years before other sound pictures were produced, it offered a combination of motion and still pictures synchronized with a recorded lecture. It was in four parts, running a total of eight hours, and was viewed by some 8,000,000 people.” It served to give a tremendous witness from 1914 onward.

Marconi’s Invention Transmits Good News

Guglielmo Marconi received the first wireless signal from across the Atlantic in 1901. But it was not until 1920 that KDKA, the world’s first radio station to operate on a daily schedule, began to broadcast from East Pittsburgh. So what a surprise for many in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware when in April 1922 they heard the voice of J. F. Rutherford, then president of the Watch Tower Society, presenting a lecture with the theme “Millions Now Living Will Never Die.” The novelty of it all can be seen from the headline in the Philadelphia Record: “Judge Rutherford’s Lecture Broadcasted from Metropolitan Opera House. Talks into Transmitter. Message is Carried Over Miles of Bell Telephone Wires to Howlett’s [Radio] Station.”

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was quick to see the possibilities for rapid transmission of the Kingdom message by radio, which was growing in popularity. Thus in 1922 the Society purchased land on Staten Island, New York City, to build its own radio station. A government license was obtained and the Society’s station was assigned the call letters WBBR. The first broadcast was made on Sunday, February 24, 1924.

This was just the beginning of the Watch Tower Society’s use of radio. By 1925 another radio station, call sign WORD, was broadcasting Bible truth from Batavia, Illinois. Eventually worldwide networks of radio stations were set up to broadcast recorded Bible programs and discourses. By 1933, the peak year, 408 stations were being used to carry the message to six continents!

In 1957, after 33 years of broadcasting, the Society sold WBBR. Why the change of policy? Because there were now many congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area covered by the station, and they were able to give a more effective person-to-person witness by calling at the homes of the people. (Acts 20:20) Furthermore, the station and programs tied up manpower and money that could be better used in other ways, especially in the missionary field. For similar reasons television has been used sparingly.

Preaching With Phonographs

The use of records on the radio led to another innovation​—preaching from house to house with the phonograph! In 1934 the Watch Tower Society promoted this use of portable phonographs and 78-rpm discs for house-to-house preaching, using a brief Bible message. Special lightweight portable phonographs were designed at the Society’s Brooklyn headquarters and 20,000 were manufactured at the Brooklyn plant! So when the Society withdrew from the use of commercial radio stations in 1937, the phonograph work helped to bridge the gap.

However, by 1944 Jehovah’s Witnesses had become more qualified in personal presentations of oral sermons, so the phonograph work was phased out. Like radio, that invention had served its purpose.

A Unique System

Just as the Linotype typesetter had been a revolutionary boon to the printing world in 1884, so was the combination of offset printing and phototypesetting that gathered momentum in the 1960’s. Practically overnight, photocomposition made the hot-lead typesetting process obsolete. To illustrate the advantage of phototypesetting, a 600-page book that would normally have taken a year to typeset by the old method was phototypeset in 12 hours!

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was watching developments in this field and entered phototypesetting when most of the problems had been worked out of the system. Since 1978 the Society has been printing on rotary offset presses and has developed its own multilanguage computerized, prepress system called MEPS, or Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System.a It is one of the most advanced, fully automated prepress systems in the world.

Why has the Society become deeply involved in computerization, to the point of having its own research laboratory? The prestigious Seybold Report on Publishing Systems gives a clue, saying: “The extraordinary multi-lingual requirements of Watchtower would have meant a great deal of customization, perhaps even redesign, for any vendor. . . . The Watchtower’s printing and publishing operations produce hundreds of millions of copies of books and pamphlets each year. The fact that these publications are produced in scores of different languages for worldwide distribution is the cause of some unusual typesetting problems.”

These problems are being resolved by Jehovah’s Witnesses to the point that by January 1, 1985, the Watchtower magazine’s contents will be published simultaneously in most major languages. With this tremendous advance, over 90 percent of the world readership will be getting vital Bible information at the same time.

Another Helpful Aid

For many years a serious barrier in many countries has been illiteracy or semiliteracy. This has prevented many sincere people from getting to know the Bible personally. Although the Watch Tower Society has sponsored literacy classes for decades all over the world, it saw the need of making use of yet other technological advances to spread Bible knowledge​—tape recorders and tape cassettes. Therefore the Society set up a tape-duplication department in Brooklyn, starting in 1978. Since then, over 18 million cassette recordings have been produced!

Recording studios were prepared for the special needs of recording Bible readings, Bible dramas and Christian music. As a consequence all the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world can sing their Christian songs to the same recorded piano music. There are also symphonic versions of this same music, called Kingdom Melodies, that are popular worldwide. Many people, including the blind, are getting a deeper appreciation of the Bible from listening to the cassette recordings of Bible books in their own languages, in addition to having available publications in Braille.

Recently, a Florida businessman who sells tape-manufacturing machinery wrote the following after visiting the Watch Tower Society’s tape-duplicating complex: “Needless to say, I was quite impressed by your complete operation. I have never seen a factory as clean and as efficient as yours. I suppose people work better and take more pride in what they are doing when they have a different means of motivation other than money.”

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society’s 100-year record proves that it has made good use of new inventions to accomplish its chartered purpose to preach the good news of God’s Kingdom government worldwide. But this has not been without violent opposition from religious and political enemies. It is a unique story of religious persecution on a world scale, as you will see from the following articles.

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 6]

These inventions were used to spread the Kingdom message

[Picture on page 7]

Advances in technology have had a worldwide effect

Bitter Opposition in North America

100 YEARS

“IF THEY have persecuted me, they will persecute you also.” “People will lay their hands upon you and persecute you . . . You [will be] haled before kings and governors for the sake of my name . . . , and they will put some of you to death; and you will be objects of hatred by all people because of my name.”​—John 15:20; Luke 21:12-17.

Jesus’ words, quoted above, clearly indicate that his true followers would be persecuted. But why? He answers: “If you were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because you are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, on this account the world hates you.”​—John 15:19.

Has this been the case with those ministers representing the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Jehovah’s Witnesses? If so, what are the reasons why they have been persecuted? Has it been for meddling in politics or for taking sides in religious wars and revolutions? What does the record of the last 100 years indicate?

Early Opposition in the United States

For 32 years (1884-1916) the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was Charles Taze Russell. He was a fearless preacher and a prolific writer. He boldly denounced and refuted the Trinity doctrine, the immortal soul and eternal hellfire teachings. At one time Russell’s sermons were being featured every week in some 3,000 newspapers in the United States, Canada and Europe. Consequently he was under constant attack, mainly by the clergy. Many of his enemies stooped to personal attacks in an attempt to discredit him. How did he view these slanderers? He once said: “If you stop to kick at every dog that barks at you, you’ll never get very far.”

He decided not to waste a lot of time and money in the courts, which would only give more publicity to his clergy opposers. He believed in the rule that Jesus laid down: “For there is not a fine tree producing rotten fruit; again there is not a rotten tree producing fine fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. . . . A good man brings forth good out of the good treasure of his heart.” Russell preferred to let the good fruitage of his ministry vindicate him.​—Luke 6:43-45.

“Some Will Grow Angry”

Yet the greatest opposition arose shortly after Russell died. During his lifetime he had published a series of Bible study volumes called Studies in the Scriptures. It had been his intention to write a seventh and final volume, or, as he said, “If the Lord gives the key to someone else, he can write it.” Russell died in 1916, and the seventh volume, called The Finished Mystery, was then completed by the Brooklyn headquarters staff and released in July 1917. Within a few months it had reached a circulation of 850,000 copies.

The book was a stinging exposure of Christendom’s clergy class and of the political manipulation of patriotism to justify mass murder by both sides in the world war. The preface to the book stated: “Some will murmur and find fault with this book; some will grow angry, and some will join the persecutors.” The blow that fell on the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was very severe. How did it come about?

In April 1917 the United States declared war against Germany and thus became an active participant in World War I. The British Empire, including Canada, was already embroiled in that war. This combination of events along with a few paragraphs in The Finished Mystery gave the clergy their opportunity to try to smash this Bible Society.

On February 12, 1918, the Canadian government banned the Watch Tower Society! What could be the reason? A press dispatch explained: “The Secretary of State, under the press censorship regulations, has issued warrants forbidding the possession in Canada of a number of publications, amongst which is the book published by the International Bible Students Association [the Watch Tower Society’s branch name in Canada], entitled ‘STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES​—The Finished Mystery.’ . . . The possession of any prohibited books lays the possessor open to a fine not exceeding $5,000 and five years in prison.”​—Italics ours.

Who Was Behind the Attack?

Later the Winnipeg, Canada, Tribune stated: “Excerpts from one of the recent issues of ‘The Bible Students Monthly’ were denounced from the pulpit a few weeks ago by Rev. Charles G. Paterson, Pastor of St. Stephen’s Church. Afterward Attorney General Johnson sent to Rev. Paterson for a copy of the publication. The censor’s order is believed to be the direct result.” (Italics ours.) Evidently some patriotic clergymen had promoted this attack.

In the United States, a district court in New York issued a warrant for the arrest of the Watch Tower Society’s new president, J. F. Rutherford, and seven of his close associates. They were accused of “the offense of unlawfully, feloniously and wilfully causing insubordination, disloyalty and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States of America . . . [by] distributing and publicly circulating throughout the United States of America a certain book called ‘Volume VII. Bible Studies. The Finished Mystery.’”

In the midst of war fever and inflamed patriotism, the eight accused were submitted to a travesty of court proceedings that ended with seven of them, including lawyer Rutherford, each being sentenced to four concurrent terms of 20 years’ imprisonment. The eighth individual accused was sentenced to 10 years. Since appeals had been lodged, bail was requested. Catholic Judge Manton refused their request.

After nine months in the Atlanta penitentiary, the Watch Tower officials were finally released on bail pending their appeal. It was later shown that the original trial contained at least 125 errors, of which only a few were needed to have the erroneous convictions reversed. Thus J. F. Rutherford and his associates were exonerated. In fact, he went on to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, which would have been impossible if he had been convicted of any crime.

The Clergy and Mob Violence

However, these events unleashed a wave of persecution to which the clergy eagerly added fuel. Here was their chance, with the excuse of patriotism, to crush the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society once and for all, they thought.

A report informs us: “In a town in the State of Oregon the Mayor and two clergymen organized a mob, chased one of the lecturers of the [International Bible Students] Association out of the city and followed him to a neighboring town. The lecturer escaped, but the mob caught the friend who accompanied him and covered him with a coat of grease and tar. . . .

“At Los Angeles clergymen made their boasts that the Bible Students would be arrested and held without bond. Some of these clergymen went about to owners of apartment houses and tried to induce the owners to dispossess tenants who are members of the International Bible Students Association. . . .

“April 22, 1918, at Wynnewood, Oklahoma, Claud Watson was first jailed and then deliberately released to a mob composed of preachers, business men and a few others that knocked him down, caused a negro to whip him and, when he had partially recovered, to whip him again. They then poured tar and feathers all over him.”

Yet did this combined opposition by religious and political elements finish off the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society? To the contrary. In September 1919, six months after J. F. Rutherford and his companions were released from prison, a general convention of the Bible Students was convened in Cedar Point, Ohio. There J. F. Rutherford announced the publication of a new magazine to be called The Golden Age. Over the years, that publication fearlessly exposed “the god of this system of things,” Satan, and his threefold instrument for enslaving mankind​—false religion, beastly politics and big business. The Golden Age (later named Consolation) pointed to God’s Kingdom by Christ as the only legitimate government for all mankind.​—2 Corinthians 4:4.

Today that same magazine is called Awake!, the very publication you are reading. It now circulates in 54 languages to the tune of nearly 9 million copies each issue. Its companion, The Watchtower, banned in many countries during the difficult years of World War II, now has an average printing of 10,200,000 copies in a total of 102 languages! That is the widest language distribution of any magazine in the world. These facts are proof that after 100 years of publishing and persecution, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society is stronger than ever!

[Picture on page 10]

The clergy used the book The Finished Mystery to incite persecution

Nazi-Fascist Attacks on Witnesses

100 YEARS

THE violence against the Witnesses in the United States was in fact mild compared to what, a few years later, began to take place in Nazi Germany and Fascist Spain and Italy. In 1933 Adolf Hitler began his 12-year dictatorship of Germany. With little or no delay, repressive measures were taken against groups that did not submit to Nazism.

In April 1933 the Nazi police occupied the Watch Tower Society’s factory in Magdeburg with a view to finding evidence that would implicate the Society with communism. That attempt failed. Yet the storm troopers returned in June, closed down the factory and raised the swastika flag over the building. On June 29 this action was reported to the German nation by radio. The German Lutheran Church cooperated with the Nazis and rejoiced in the ban against the Earnest Bible Students, as the Witnesses were also known in Germany.a Lutheran minister Otto stated: “The first results of this cooperation can already be reported in the ban today placed upon the International Association of Earnest Bible Students and its subdivisions in Saxony.” The battle against Jehovah’s Witnesses was on!

To the Concentration Camps!

Sticking to Jesus’ rule of being separate from the world, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany refused to vote in the elections. The Nazis submitted them to public humiliation. Max Schubert from Oschatz, Saxony, was put on procession in a horse-drawn wagon with a sign held by storm troopers, saying, “I am a scoundrel and a traitor to the Fatherland, because I did not vote.” He was paraded through the streets to the public chanting of, “Where does he belong?” The mob’s answer? “In a concentration camp!” Very soon thousands of Witnesses were consigned to those infamous camps. What were conditions like there?

An official British government publication on the state of things in Germany shows that already in 1933 “flogging and torture were the order of the day, and it was common knowledge in Germany that the National Socialist [Nazi] movement was taking terrible vengeance on those who had the temerity to oppose it.” One ex-prisoner, who suffered at the Buchenwald concentration camp, stated: “The working hours were sixteen per day, Sundays and week-days alike. During these hours it was forbidden to drink, even in the hottest weather. . . . The work, of course, consists in moving heavy stones, often far beyond the strength of even a normal well-fed man.”

At that time, according to the British report, there were about 8,000 men in the camp, including “1,500 Jews and 800 Ernste Bibelforscher (International Bible Students). . . . Jewish prisoners wrote and received letters twice a month. The Bible Students were allowed no communication with the outside world . . . Herr X spoke with the highest respect of these men. Their courage and religious faith were remarkable, and they professed themselves ready to suffer to the uttermost. . . . Deaths took place daily in the camp.”

Another ex-prisoner from Buchenwald explained the reception that prisoners got at the “new City of Sorrow.” They were greeted outside the camp by superintendent Rödl with the words: “Among you are some who have already been in gaol. What you tasted there is nothing to what you’re going to get here. You’re coming inside a concentration camp, and that means you’re coming into hell. . . . We’ve only got two kinds of punishment in this camp, the lash and the death penalty.”

The concentration camps reaped a ghastly crop of millions of lives, victims of a perverted political philosophy. These people were systematically degraded, stripped of their dignity and then destroyed. Is it possible to imagine the personal agony and suffering of each one of those millions of victims?

“This Brood Will Be Exterminated!”

Some were not only victims but also martyrs, for they could have obtained their release. That was the case, according to one source, with the 10,000 Witnesses, men and women, who were victims of the sadism and brutality that Hitler and his S.S. henchmen had organized. Those Witnesses were given the opportunity to sign a paper renouncing their religion and thus go free. Very few accepted.​—See The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in Non-Conformity, by Dr. Christine E. King.

Of the 10,000, about 2,500 never did go free, according to the above source​—they died in Dachau, Belsen, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Mauthausen and other camps—​faithful to their God, Jehovah, and their exemplar, Christ. Aside from those who were gassed, many died as a result of beatings, starvation and medical experimentation. Others, including women, were executed by being hanged, beheaded or shot. Why? Because they would not violate their Christian neutrality by serving in Hitler’s armed forces or by attributing salvation to Hitler. They kept themselves separate from the world and were faithful to the end.​—Matthew 24:13.

In 1934 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany and in other countries sent telegrams to Hitler protesting his brutal treatment of the Witnesses. An eyewitness reports that when Hitler heard of this he “jumped to his feet and with clenched fists hysterically screamed: ‘This brood will be exterminated in Germany!’” Now, 50 years later, has the “brood” been exterminated?

To the contrary, they are stronger than ever. But Hitler and his Nazism have been defunct some 39 years. In contrast, there are now over 107,000 active Witnesses in the Federal Republic of Germany, plus thousands more under ban in the German Democratic Republic. The “brood” has not been exterminated. It has multiplied! They are stronger than ever!

Fascism Tries to Stop the Witness

Remember that Jesus said: “Because you are no part of the world, . . . on this account the world hates you.” This has applied to Jehovah’s Witnesses not just in Nazi Germany but all around the world​—because they have stood by Christ’s principles and example.

Prior to World War II they were also banned in Italy. When the Catholic Church signed a concordat with Mussolini’s Fascist government in 1929, it initiated a period of religious repression that stifled contact between the Watch Tower Society in Brooklyn and the Witnesses in Italy. One group of 25 faithful Italian Witnesses was given sentences ranging from 2 to 11 years in prison. Some did not complete their sentences. Why not? Because fascism fell first and the Witnesses were released.b

After the war, in 1946, there were 120 Witnesses in Italy, associated with 35 small congregations. What is the situation today? Jehovah’s Witnesses are now the second largest religion in Italy, with over 115,000 active Christians associated with about 1,600 congregations​—yes, stronger than ever!

A similar story could be told about many countries. For example, in 1959 the Ministry of the Interior in Spain gave the following instructions to the General Director of Security regarding the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses: “Consequently, and for the purpose of radically stopping the further development of the evil described, Your Excellency should send a circular [to all Police Headquarters] . . . in which you should order, not just the simple vigilance of these activities, but the adoption of measures that would result in their being stamped out.”​—Italics ours.

A renewed wave of persecution swept through Spain and continued until 1970. Hundreds of Witnesses were fined or imprisoned simply for studying the Bible, preaching to others or remaining neutral on political issues. Were the Witnesses and their activity stamped out? To the contrary​—in 1970 they were reluctantly given legal recognition. Whereas in 1959 there had only been about 1,400 Witnesses, in 1970 there were 11,000! Now, just 14 years later, there are over 56,000 Witnesses organized into more than 840 congregations! The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has a fine branch headquarters near Madrid where the Watchtower and Awake! magazines are being printed for the Iberian Peninsula. So did the wave of Nazi-Fascist attacks up to and during World War II stamp out Jehovah’s Witnesses? No, they are stronger than ever!

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 13]

Many Witnesses died in the infamous concentration camps

100 Years Old and Stronger Than Ever!

100 YEARS

THE Watch Tower Society is still under ban or restriction in some countries where true religious freedom does not exist. Does that mean that the good news of God’s Kingdom government is not being preached in those nations? When the Christian apostles were banned by the Jewish clergy, how did they react? They said: “We must obey God as ruler rather than men. And we are witnesses of these matters, and so is the holy spirit, which God has given to those obeying him as ruler.”​—Acts 5:29, 32.

Therein lies a vital point. Jehovah’s Witnesses have prospered and are now stronger than ever, even where restricted, thanks to the guidance and protection of God’s holy spirit. Certainly, as a neutral and peace-loving people, they appear also to be the most vulnerable. They have no political influence or allies to defend them. Then how have they been able to survive and prosper?

The God of the Bible answers. “‘Any weapon whatever that will be formed against you will have no success, and any tongue at all that will rise up against you in the judgment you will condemn. This is the hereditary possession of the servants of Jehovah, and their righteousness is from me,’ is the utterance of Jehovah.” “‘Not by a military force, nor by power, but by my spirit,’ Jehovah of armies has said.”​—Isaiah 54:17; Zechariah 4:6.

100 Years Old and Stronger Than Ever

By the end of 1918 there were just a few thousand active Witnesses around the world, and their Bible literature was being published in some 17 languages. As we have seen, from 1933 to 1945 the Watch Tower Society went through another difficult period of persecution in many countries. Even in the United States, where freedom of worship is protected by law, Jehovah’s Witnesses have legally defended their right to preach the good news of God’s Kingdom. (Philippians 1:7) In the Supreme Court of the United States they won 21 decisions favorable to their worship and principles. After World War II ended, there were 141,606 Witnesses active in 68 lands compared with 71,509 at the outbreak of the war. In 1945 a total of 186,137 people attended the annual Memorial celebration of Christ’s death.

How do the Witnesses fare 39 years later? There are now more than 2,670,000 Witnesses preaching in 205 countries and some 190 languages. The Memorial attendance for 1984 was about 7,000,000. That is greater than the population of the majority of the nations of the world!

Do Jehovah’s Witnesses take credit for this? No. While they accept the responsibility of preaching the good news of the Kingdom, they recognize that ‘God keeps making it grow.’​—1 Corinthians 3:6, 7.