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Stories of Faith From a Historic PrisonAwake!—2001 | November 22
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FIRST, you may be interested to learn when and how Jehovah’s Witnesses originally entered this prison. It was July 4, 1918. A group of eight distinguished Christian ministers were escorted up the 15 granite steps of this federal penitentiary. If the common practice of the time was followed, they were handcuffed to “belly-chains,” with their legs shackled. The newcomers were spiritually qualified men who took the lead among the International Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known. Those men could not have guessed that it would take less than a year to establish that their imprisonment was a gross miscarriage of justice. In March 1919, the eight Witness ministers walked down those same prison steps, unshackled and free. They were later exonerated when the authorities decided to withdraw the prosecution.a
During their imprisonment in Atlanta, those Christian men conducted Bible study classes. One of the eight inmates, A. H. Macmillan, later reported that the deputy warden was hostile at first but was finally moved to exclaim: “Those lessons you are having there [with the prisoners] are wonderful!”
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Stories of Faith From a Historic PrisonAwake!—2001 | November 22
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[Box/Pictures on page 20, 21]
“You Have Entertained Some of My Very Best Friends”
IN April 1983, Frederick W. Franz, who then served on the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses, visited the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta. He had been quite anxious to visit this particular prison. As he entered the building, he loudly exclaimed to the guard seated at the desk in the foyer: “I want you to know that you have entertained some of my very best friends here!” The guard looked puzzled, to say the least. What was Franz talking about?
It was 64 years earlier that Joseph F. Rutherford and his seven associates were falsely convicted of conspiracy. Rutherford and Franz later became close friends and workmates. Now, over 40 years after Rutherford’s death—and when he himself was about 90 years of age—Franz was delighted to visit the scene of his friend’s imprisonment so long ago. No doubt he thought about the work that Rutherford and his associates had done within those walls. What was that?
Shortly after Rutherford and his associates arrived, the deputy warden told them: “We are going to give you some work to do. Now, what can you do?”
“Deputy,” answered A. H. Macmillan, one of the eight, “I’ve never done anything in my life but preach. Have you got anything like that here?”
“No, sir! That’s what you are in here for, and I tell you now you are not doing any preaching here.”
Several weeks passed. All the prisoners were required to attend chapel service on Sunday, and as many as desired could remain for Sunday school afterward. The eight men decided to form their own Bible study class, which they took turns conducting. “Some curiosity seekers began to come, and still more came,” Rutherford later explained. Soon the little group of 8 grew to 90!
How did the prisoners respond to the Bible study class? One prisoner said: “I am seventy-two years of age, and I had to get behind prison bars in order to hear the truth. I am glad for this reason that I was sent to the penitentiary.” Another remarked: “My time is about to expire; I am sorry I have to leave . . . Can you tell me where I can find some people like you when I go away?”
The night before the eight men were released, they received a touching letter from a young man who had attended their class. He wrote: “I want you to know that you have left with me a desire to be a better, bigger man, if such can emerge from a carcass so soiled and world-worn as mine. . . . I’m weak, very weak, no one knows this better than I, but I’ll try and I’ll fight with myself if necessary, to achieve the full fruits from this seed you have planted, so I may help not only myself but those about me. This may all sound odd, coming from such as I, but deep, way deep in my heart I mean it, every word.”
Today, well over 80 years later, seeds of Bible truth are still being sown by Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Atlanta penitentiary—as well as in many other prisons.—1 Corinthians 3:6, 7.
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