From the archive
The first in a series of excerpts from the Friend archive compiled by 1980 Swarthmore lecturer Janet Scott.
In the months leading up to war Friends were reminded that in Australia and New Zealand there was already conscription and conscientious objectors were suffering imprisonment. This is an extract from the report for Meeting for Sufferings held on 3 July 1914.
Coming to his special work in regard to the Defence Acts, A. H. Brown made his hearers realise that resistance in Australasia was no mere academic question. When he stood beside a mother whose boy was in prison, or watched the prosecution of lads in the courts, and saw them carried off in military ambulances to undergo their sentences, sympathy was almost too great for speech. There was sorrow, not only for the sufferers but for Australia and New Zealand, as he saw boys at Christchurch, members of Sunday Schools, lost to organised religion, because their ministers were the chaplains of the Defence forces. The Acts brought about a tangle of perplexity in many directions. Can we blame ministers who become chaplains as the only way to keep hold of the lads, and perhaps protect them in camp? Can we blame parents who are leaving the country rather than expose their boys to the ordeal of imprisonment? In attacking the Defence Acts the only sure ground is to uphold the teaching and the spirit of Christ.
The Friend, 10 July 1914
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