elicit the prayers, help and guidance that mature Christians can provide, and stick close to God’s people, not missing meetings.

If wicked spirit forces assault, realize that the key to victory is to resist; yes, RESIST! Never tire of resisting. Keep on fighting, never for a moment relinquishing your Christian privileges under demon pressure. “Oppose the Devil, and he will flee from you.” (Jas. 4:7) Keep on opposing the Devil by seeking Jehovah, and he will deliver all those whose hearts are pure and clean and complete toward him with unselfish devotion and an undivided fear toward him. Keep your heart and mind upon the Word, will and work of Jehovah God. Keep on your spiritual armor, “that you may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil,” resisting successfully till God’s kingdom stands triumphant over all wicked spirit forces.—Eph. 6:11.

Catholics Recommend Witnesses’ Zeal

THE apostle Paul said that Christians should “be aglow with the spirit,” and ‘do the work of evangelizers, fully accomplishing their ministry.’ (Rom. 12:11; 2 Tim. 4:5) Catholic priests and laymen have observed that the zealous ministerial activity of Jehovah’s witnesses is in keeping with Scriptural example. Albert Muller wrote in the Catholic magazine America recently (June 24, 1961) that “the Witnesses can truly boast of their intense activity.” “Their enormous zeal,” he said, “is their great strength.”

“It is the rare American who is unaware of a group of people commonly called Jehovah’s Witnesses,” observed Catholic priest J. S. Kennedy in the June 3, 1962, issue of Our Sunday Visitor. “In cities and towns up and down the land, some of them are regularly seen selling the publications of their peculiar religious sect. Their door-to-door canvass in pursuit of converts is intensive and never stops. . . . their zeal and self-sacrifice should give us pause.”

In answer to the question, “Why would a Catholic turn to this sect?” Kennedy pointed to the “bulletin of a Catholic church in Paris [which] gave the following answer, ‘Three factors contribute—the discovery of warm and brotherly communities; the discovery of the Bible; the discovery of lively preaching, easily understood. If they had found these things here, they would not have looked elsewhere.’”

Catholic priest John A. O’Brien recommended to some 200 priests at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York in 1961 the apostolic house-to-house preaching method employed by Jehovah’s witnesses. “In recruiting converts and reclaiming lapsed members, nothing beats personal contact,” he said. “This is achieved by the tactful, courteous, well trained doorbell apostle. The secret of the phenomenal success of St. Paul was his tireless use of the house-to-house method of recruiting converts. It is ironic that this apostolic method is now used by non-Catholic sects, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose numerous converts put us Catholics to shame.”

In the May 6, 1962, Canadian issue of Our Sunday Visitor Catholic priest Richard Griffin pointed to Jehovah’s witnesses as one of the world’s fastest-growing religions, while noting that “too many Catholic laymen seem to be half-ashamed of the fact that they are Catholics.” Griffin asked whether the Witnesses make “this fantastic progress by adopting the ‘let George do it’ attitude of so many Catholics.” “I think not,” he answered. “On an average each Witness will log 10 to 12 hours a month going from door to door distributing literature to interest prospective converts. Last year the sect reported one convert for each nine members; in the U.S.A. it took 279 Catholics to win one convert to the Church.”

“This alarming disparity is due in no small measure to the apathy of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Average Catholic’ right back at the parish level,” Griffin asserted. “You cannot win the world for Christ or even save your own soul by sitting back in front of your TV and leaving 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