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Trust in Jehovah—He Will Really Help YouThe Watchtower—2010 | September 1
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World War II had begun in September 1939 in Europe, and war hysteria swept through the United States. Young Witnesses suffered harassment and beatings by misguided youths and adults alike. It was reported that from 1940 to 1944, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States suffered more than 2,500 violent mob assaults. The persecution increased when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
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Trust in Jehovah—He Will Really Help YouThe Watchtower—2010 | September 1
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Persecution in the South
We received permission from local residents to park our trailer in a pecan orchard near the city of Jeanerette. One Saturday we decided to do public preaching on the street, but the chief of police summoned his men and took us as prisoners to city hall. A mob of about 200 formed outside, and the police sent us out to them without any offer of protection. To our relief, the mob parted and allowed us to pass. The next day, we went to Baton Rouge, a large city nearby, to tell fellow Witnesses about what had happened.
When we returned to Jeanerette, we found a message attached to our trailer door: “Please see me at the oil camp.” It was signed “E. M. Vaughn.” We found Mr. Vaughn, and he invited us to a meal with him and his wife. He said that he and his men were among the crowd on Saturday, and had it been necessary, he would have defended us from the mob. We appreciated his encouragement and support.
The following day, gun-toting deputy sheriffs arrested us and confiscated our literature. They took the keys to my house trailer and jailed me for 17 days in solitary confinement with next to nothing to eat. Mr. Vaughn made efforts to help us, but without much success. During our confinement, the mob robbed us and burned everything we owned, including my trailer. At the time, I did not realize that Jehovah was preparing me for what I was soon to face.
Imprisonment in the North
A month after returning to the north, I was appointed as a special pioneer to serve in Olean, New York, along with other Witnesses. While there, the government required me to register for the draft, and I was given conscientious objector status. After I passed the physical and a mental test, my paper was stamped “Candidate for Officers Training Academy.”
I was able to continue in the pioneer work for another year or so. Then, in 1943, because I refused to discontinue my ministry and report for military training, the FBI arrested me and instructed me to report to the federal court in Syracuse, New York, the following week for trial. I was indicted, and my trial was scheduled for two days later.
I represented myself. At our Christian meetings, we young Witnesses received instruction on how to defend our constitutional rights in court and how to conduct ourselves properly there. I remembered well the advice mentioned at the outset of this article. Some prosecutors even complained that the Witnesses knew more about the law than they did! The jury, nevertheless, found me guilty. When the judge asked if I had anything further to say, I simply replied, “Today the nation is on trial before God as to how it treats those who serve him.”
I received a sentence of four years in the federal prison in Chillicothe, Ohio. There I was assigned to work as secretary to an officer of the prison’s selective service department. After a few weeks, a special investigator from Washington, D.C., came to our office and said that they were investigating Hayden Covington. He was a defense lawyer for Jehovah’s Witnesses and was widely recognized as one of the best constitutional lawyers in America.
The investigator said that he wanted the complete files on two inmates—Danny Hurtado and Edmund Schmidt. “What a coincidence,” my supervisor responded, “this is Mr. Schmidt.” The investigator had come on a secret mission, but he suddenly realized that we had become aware of it all. Soon I was given a job change to the kitchen.
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Trust in Jehovah—He Will Really Help YouThe Watchtower—2010 | September 1
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A Full, Satisfying Life
Some have asked if I ever regretted the mobbings and imprisonments that I suffered for serving God. On the contrary, I thank Jehovah that I have had the privilege to serve him along with so many of his faithful ones. And I hope that my experiences encourage others to draw closer to God and never leave him.
Many servants of God have suffered terribly for serving him. But is that not what we were told to expect? “All those desiring to live with godly devotion in association with Christ Jesus will also be persecuted,” the Bible says. (2 Timothy 3:12) Yet, how true the words of Psalm 34:19 have proved to be: “Many are the calamities of the righteous one, but out of them all Jehovah delivers him”!
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