"Tribulation Ten Days"

Much like the Christians in Smyrna, the John class and their companions today have been and continue to be "fully put to the test." Their faithfulness under trial marks them as God's own people. (Mark 13:9, 10) Shortly after the Lord's day got under way, Jesus' words to the Christians in Smyrna brought real comfort to the small international group of Jehovah's people. (Revelation 1:10) Ever since 1879, these had been digging out from God's Word spiritual riches that they freely shared with others. But during World War I, they met up with intense hatred and opposition, partly because they did not get caught up in the war fever and partly because they were fearlessly exposing the errors of Christendom. The persecution that they received at the instigation of some of Christendom's leaders came to a head in 1918 and was comparable to what the Christians in Smyrna received from the Jewish community there.

A wave of persecution in the United States o f America was climaxed when the new president of the Watch Tower Society, Joseph F. Rutherford, and seven associates were sent to prison on June 22, 1918, most of them with 20-year sentences. They were released on bail nine months later. On May 14, 1919, the appeal court reversed their erroneous convictions; there were shown to be 125 errors in the trial. Roman Catholic Judge Manton, a knight of the order of St. Gregory the Great, who in 1918 had refused bail to these Christians, was sentenced later, in 1939, to two years' imprisonment and a fine of $10,000 on six charges of soliciting and accepting bribes.

During Nazi rule in Germany, Hitler completely banned the preaching work of Jehovah's Witnesses. For years, thousands of Witnesses were cruelly confined in concentration camps, where many died, while hundreds of young men who refused to fight in Hitler's army were executed. The clergy's support of all of this is evidenced by the words of a Catholic priest, published in the newspaper, The German of May 29+, 1938. In part, he said: "There is now one country on earth where the so-called...Bible students [Jehovah's Witnesses] are forbidden. that is Germany!. . . When Adolph Hitler cam to power, and the German Catholic Episcopate repeated their request, Hitler said: 'These so-called Earnest Bible Students [Jehovah's Witnesses] are troublemakers;. . . I consider them quacks; I do not tolerate that the German Catholics shall be besmirched in such a manner by this American Judge Rutherford; I dissolve [Jehovah's Witnesses] In Germany.' " To this, the priest added: "Bravo!"

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