From the archive: Prisoners

Janet Scott continues her series on the Friend and the first world war and tells of the life endured by prisoners of conscience

In its 8 June edition the Friend reported that Yearly Meeting 1917 had sent a message ‘To Our Friends Imprisoned for Conscience Sake’. It read:

We thank God for the faithful witness you are bearing to the truth, and to Christ’s Gospel of love. We rejoice that strength has been given to you to bear all hardship cheerfully and bravely. We stand by you, and long that you may know how closely we associate ourselves with you. We know that the sacrifice you are making will not be in vain, but will be richly rewarded both in your own souls and in the service and help of mankind. Such was the price paid by our forefathers, in their more bitter day, in their great struggle for religious liberty. We rejoice to know that many of you have been able, like William Tewksbury, to enter ‘prisons as palaces, and to esteem their bolts and locks as jewels,’ and that you have been upheld by the presence of One whom no bars can keep out.

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