the extension of Christ’s Kingdom to the ‘faithful few.’”

William J. Whalen also recommended the zealous ministerial activity of Jehovah’s witnesses as something for Catholics to learn from. Writing in the February 24, 1962, issue of the Catholic magazine Ave Maria, he said: “Last year the Witnesses put in an amazing total of 131 million hours in such door-to-door preaching. They are bound to impress some of the people on whom they call. They show an interest in serving their God, become articulate and confident in their presentations, display an amazing knowledge of the Bible, and are willing to spend any amount of time studying with an interested householder.”

Drawing from these facts, Whalen concluded: “Lesson One for Catholics. We must seriously re-examine the mission techniques of the past and present. The Witnesses have discovered what many of us know as well: Few unchurched people nowadays leave their homes to attend missions, novenas, revivals and the like. If they are to be reached at all they must be reached personally and in their own living rooms or front porches.”

Will Catholics respond to this admonition to learn a lesson from Jehovah’s witnesses and carry their religion to the homes of the people? People usually follow the example of their leaders, and since the pope, cardinals, bishops and priests in general do not follow the example of preaching from house to house set by Jesus and his apostles, can one expect the Catholic people to do so?

Questions From Readers

● What is the evidence for holding that Luke wrote his Gospel before Mark did his, as noted in the Appendix of the New World Translation, Revised Edition?—N. W., United States.

Many theologians of Christendom theorize that Mark’s Gospel and another source of information designated “Q,” standing for the German word Quelle, and meaning “source,” were the basis for Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels and that therefore Mark and “Q” must have come first. The reason for many holding this is that they endeavor to account for the similarity of the Gospels, since they do not accept them as inspired. But all such faithless theories must fall when brought head on with the facts, such as the incontrovertible testimony of the early church overseers that Matthew was the first to put his Gospel into writing. Said Origen (A.D. 185-254): “The first Gospel was written by Matthew.”

Then who came next, Mark or Luke? Christian Bible students for long held that Mark came before Luke, but further consideration makes it appear that Luke most likely wrote his Gospel before Mark wrote his. Throwing light on this question is the record at Acts 24:27 to 27:1, which shows that Paul’s imprisonment of two years at Caesarea ended shortly after Porcius Festus succeeded Antonius Felix when Festus sent Paul to Rome because of his appeal to Caesar. And when was this?

While there is some question as to the exact years, the weight of opinion is that Festus succeeded the renegade Felix in A.D. 58. Thus A New Standard Bible Dictionary states: “On the whole, 58 A.D. seems the most probable date on which his [Festus’] procuratorship began.” This is also the date given by Young’s exhaustive Bible concordance and is supported by The Encyclopædia Britannica, 1959 edition, Vol. 3, page 528, which in its article on Bible chronology states, among other things: “The balance of the two lines of argument suggest the year 58 for the recall of Felix and arrival of Festus. If St. Paul was arrested in 56, and appealed to Caesar on the arrival of Festus in 58, then, as he reached Rome in the early part of the year following, and remained there in prison for two full years, we are brought down to the early spring of 61 for the close of the period recorded in the Acts.”—Acts 27:1–28:1, 11-16, 30.

It follows that Acts must have been written then, for had it been written later it is reasonable to conclude that Luke would have given us further information regarding Paul. Now at the beginning of Acts Luke tells his friend Theophilus that he had previously written his Gospel. So his Gospel must have been written before 61. But just when? While Luke was in Rome with Paul? Hardly, for there he would