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<noinclude><pagequality level="1" user="" /></noinclude>SEPTEMBER

15, 1947

21ieWATCHTOWER

airbase. Our plane finds itself in company with eight other
planes grounded here because of bad weather conditions at
landing points to which they are destined. But our plane
lies over here for nearly ten hours in order to give its
crew a chance to sleep in preparation for the next hop, a
long one of over twelve hours' duration.
The Bermuda islands are delightful. A couple of the
graduates of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead are
now located there, but, because of the unexpectedness of
their visit, Brothers Franz and Covington had not provided
themselves with the address of these. They missed the great
pleasure of spending the day in company with the two
missionaries stationed here. Besides, another day had been
lost for their visit in Portugal. In the light of a full moon
the plane got on its way again at 8: 40 p.m., eastward
bound, and at 8: 57 o'clock next morning it is touching
ground again at the airfield of Santa Maria in the Azores
islands. Because we have now come into Portuguese territory, we must here hand over our American passports for
an initial inspection by Portuguese officials. In little more
than an hour we are aloft again. Time was turning toward
3 p.m. when we came over land and scanned the city of
Lisbon, Portugal, from the air. Ve descended safely to
earth at Sacavem airport, Monday, !Iay' 5" the very day
that our original schedule set for us to leilVe' Portugal for
Spain. "'rVe must see our Christian brethr.en in Portugal for
the time-length we at first allotted, and to do so we clipped
two days off from our visit to Spain.
Eight of the brethren were at the airport to meet us. One
of them who speaks English fairly well broke through the
lines and rushed up to us at the Customs inspection-counter,
fairly dancing with joy to meet and shake hands with us.
But all tho'lc of this voluntary reception committee were
most glad to see us, and well we could appreciate this. The
last report on Portugal to be published in the Society's
Yeal'book was concerning the year 1938 and reported only
two persons there during the year able to do anything,
doing some good work in the rurals, and with only 6,804
books and booklets all together being placed in the hands
of the people. So, at least for nine years, or since before
World War II, our Portuguese friends in the truth have
been cut off from visits by representatives of the Watch
Tower headquarters in Brooldyn, N. Y., as well as visits
by the literature that the Society publishes. They longed to
meet with some representative brethren from the Society's
headquarters and to renew their personal touch with it.
Along with the rest of the people of Portugal they find
themselves under irksome restrictions. Ever since 1932
Portugal has had as its prime minister an ardent Roman
Catholic with Jesuit connections, who zealously guards the
interests of the Vatican in that land. This has, despite the
freedom of worship supposed to exist, cut down on the
actual exercise of free worship such as exists in Britain
and America. In May of 1925 the Society's former president, Jo~. F. Rutherford, visited Portugal and delivered a
public lecture on "How to Live on Earth Forever", in the
Gymnasium of the Camoes Lyceum, Lisbon, at which time
an attempt to break up the meeting by causing a disturbance was foiled· by the speaker's quick presence of mind.
During the years that followed, the Lord's work there
underwent some growth and gave promise of good development, but during the years of global war the interests of
God's kingdom declined and lagged and got behind the
advances made in other lands. Now Jehovah's consecrated
few who remained faithful In Portugal stood in urgent
need of reorganization. But there are obstacles in the way.
For example, what is greatly needed is to get at least

285

a few graduates of the 'Watchtower Bible School of Gilead
into Portugal to supervise and promote the work. To this
end, the first thing after we get located in Lisbon, we go
to visit a well-known and competent native lawyer; but at
present he is unable to act in behalf of our matters. He is
not interested in the religion of Christendom, and especially
not in the Roman Catholic, and for this reason he is unjustly branded as a Communist. He fears that by acting
for us the stigma of "Communism" might attach itsel1 to
our Society; whereas the Watch Tower Society has.no interest in worldly communism and it has and wants to have no
link with such communism whatsoever. Consequently, next
day it is necessary for the Society's legal counsel to visit the
United States ambassador regarding what can be done.
However, the state police, and not the Portuguese department of state, have to do with immigration. Under the circumstances, being actuated by prejudice, suspicion and
wrong understanding, the religionists in the key governmental positions controlling the entry and residence of
Britishers and Americans in this land can thus debar nonPortuguese representatives of our Society, and this to the
pleasing of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, which is the
real power here.
As our time here is short, according to prearrangement
we meet with our brethren this same day of our arrival.
Eight-thirty this evening finds us met with 18 of our Portuguese brethren and persons of friendly interest in the home
of a consecrated brother, in the second floor of an apartment house. We gather information about them all, about
the qualifications of the several men, and the meetings held
and such gospel-preaching as may have been done. We find
that seven went out in such witnessing from house to house
until 1942. Quite a number had striven to be faithful to
Jehovah God and his Christ through the years, and all were
filled with a quickened zeal and a consuming desire to be
reorganized in accord with the latest organization instructions from the Society's Brooklyn office. There were only
three Watchtower subscribers then; but all wanted translations of its Biblical publications in the standard Portuguese language, which is the official tongue for all Portuguese possessions throughout the earth. They wanted to
study these together, and to get them out to all persons
interested in God's Word. At 10: 45 p.m. we closed our
gathering with prayer to God offered by one of our Portuguese brethren. Then two young men, both of them Jews
and brothers according to the flesh, motored us to our hotel.
Next morning we reported to the International Police
Headquarters to obtain an exit-permit stamp on our passports. One of our passports was found to be lacking the
date-of-entry recording of the police officials at the Sacavem
airport, although they had had both of our passports in
their hands. Now they refused to surrender this faulty
passport. Finally it became necessary to appeal to the
American embassy to hasten the release of this passport,
which happened late in the day, at 4: 45 p.m. Meantime,
because of this delay, we were held down in our movements
about, even in getting tickets for air passage out of Portugal the next day; and a gathering of 25 persons whom an
active witness had assembled that afternoon on the other
side of the Tagus river waited in vain for our arrival. They
could not get out to our night meetings because their husbands would not allow them out at night. This brother has
been conducting a Watchtower study in their midst weekly.
We had to send word across to them by messenger that we
could not get away to speak to them on God's Word. They
were very much disappointed.

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