“Jehovah’s Witnesses have a religion they take far more seriously than the great majority of people. Their principles remind us of the early Christians who were so unpopular and who were persecuted so brutally by the Romans.”—“Akron Beacon Journal,” Akron, Ohio, September 4, 1951. “They [the early Christians] lived quiet, moral, indeed model lives. . . . In every respect except that single matter of incense-burning they were exemplary citizens.” “While sacrifice to the Genius of the emperor remained the test of patriotism, could the state authorities afford to wink at the contumacy of these unpatriotic Christians? The trouble in which the Christians consequently found themselves was not wholly unlike the trouble in which, during the war years, that aggressive sect known as Jehovah’s Witnesses found itself in the United States over the matter of saluting the national flag.”—“20 Centuries of Christianity,” by Paul Hutchinson and Winfred Garrison, 1959, p. 31. “Perhaps the most notable thing about the Witnesses is their insistence upon their primary allegiance to God, before any other power in the world.”—“These Also Believe,” by Dr. C. S. Braden, 1949, p. 380
