Year Book of Jehovah's Witnesses - Watchtower Archive

222 Yearbook
the population). Many of these would take part in the
witness work if permitted, but would be doing so without
understanding, and hence not meeting the Scriptural qualification
of being 'apt to teach'. In many parts of the territory
the publishers (who now number 1 to 120 of the population)
al'e finding territory for the house-to-house ministry scarce.
As a circuit servant reported of one company, "the publishers
have covered all their territory ... only a few
villages left where there are one or two people left who
do not attend the congregational meetings." A company in
one of the mining camps with an attendance of more than
1,500 at their meetings have only about 6 homes per publisher
for territory.
But many of those who attend meetings have never had
a personal Bible study in their homes and perhaps cannot
even read. The publishers have been encouraged to give more
attention to these and to arrange home Bible studies with
them, thus training them to reason about the truth and become
equipped to preach it with understanding. Appl'oximately
50 per cent of the publishers can now read, though
in the "bush" the percentage is much smaller_ Some companies
report an almost 100 per cent increase of literates
over the past year. At the coming district assemblies a
practical method of training illiterates is scheduled for
presentation.
Increase has been most marked at the circuit assemblies
held during the past year. For instance, one assembly held
almost at the same place as one the previous year had 4,600
in attendance at the public meeting, to compare with a
former 1,096. Another had 4,349 attending, to compare with
814. These were both assemblies in the "bush", and almost all
those attending had to walk to the meeting place. At one
of the above assemblies one of the Gilead missionaries acted
as district servant. The circuit was one in an outlying district
where no European representative of the Society had
visited for over ten years. The local natives would not
believe that there were any "white men" associated with
Jehovah's witnesses; when the Gilead graduate got there
many of the local population turned out to see the "phenomenon",
and this was probably one reason for the increased
attendance. But recent reports show that a number of the
curious profited by their curiosity and are now regularly
attending the local company's meetings. It was at this
same assembly that the Gilead missionary had the experience
of having his interpreter faint when at the climax
of the public talk.
Such crowds flocking to these circuit assemblies have
made those of the world wonder. In one district, seeing the