CHRIST IN THE CHAIN-GANG IN AMERICA!
By Geo. E. Hollister
Can any Christian deny it? Does not Christ identify himself with his followers?—Then just as surely as “the form of the Fourth” (Dan. 3:25) was seen in the fiery furnace, with the three Hebrews who would not bow down to the image set up by Nebuchadnezzar, in the plain of Dura, so surely is there “like the Son of God” with the eight Christian men now in the chain-gang in Tennessee. They refuse to bow to what is to them “the image of the beast” (Rev. 14:9–12), set up by the civil government of America. For “American law recognizes only that day [Sunday] as the Sabbath day,” so states a resolution of the Denver Fire and Police Board. This is but the echo of thousands of other notices. Though it may be that the head of the civil government of Tennessee may not have the discernment of the one who sat at the head of the civil government of Babylon, it is none the less true that the Son of God is there, for did he not tell his disciples, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt. 28:20. And he has said to every ruler, as well as to every one else, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matt. 25:40. A word to the wise is sufficient, and that word is recorded in Acts 5:35, 38, 39: “Ye men . . . take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men.” “And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to naught. But if it be of God, ye can not overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”