Acres of Montana wheat stretched out like a soft green carpet on either side of the road that led to the Independence School. Large, well-kept farms with clean fence rows and acres of growing grain gave the Yellowstone Valley an air of prosperity. The centre of activities for this Bloomfield settlement was the Church, where the people met week after week for worship.
But the days of World War I brought sadness to many homes in the settlement: the sadness that comes from being misunderstood by neighbours; the sadness that comes when families are separated. This group of Christian’s refusal to take part in war was considered foolish and unpatriotic by those who did not understand what God teaches about killing and war.
No doubt Pastor John Franz was thinking of his troubled friends as he and his family drove toward the schoolhouse just a mile from their home. Untiringly he had visited those who needed encouragement and represented his men before draft boards when misunderstandings developed. He little suspected that soon he would need their help.
“It is nearly time for the meeting to begin,” he said to his wife as they approached the schoolhouse. “I’ll get the mail before we go in.” Their mailbox stood across the road from the schoolhouse.
Glancing through the papers, he found that his copy of the Mountain Lake Observer had come. He enjoyed reading this paper with its pages of German news and the daily happenings at Mountain Lake, for Mountain Lake, Minnesota, had been his home town when he was a boy. In this community, John’s German grandparents settled after leaving their home in Russia. Here, too, John was born.
But he had no time for reading now. He must hurry to the meeting, for matters of school business were to be discussed with the parents of the Independence School children.
As they entered the school grounds John noticed two strange cars parked near the road. He wondered a little why strangers had come to the meeting, but there was no time to talk as they hurried toward the little white frame building. Scarcely had they taken their seats in the crowded room when the meeting was called to order.
Meanwhile, unnoticed by John, one of the strangers slipped into the room. Glancing quickly through the group he located the man he wanted. He approached John, and asked him to step outside the building for a few minutes. John gathered up his mail as he followed, wondering what the man could want.
No sooner was he outside the building than a group of rough men appeared, demanding that he follow them to the car. When John stopped to question their sudden action, several of the men grabbed him and dragged him to one of the cars that was parked near the road, ready to leave.
The men would give no reason for their sudden action other than the short reply, “You have a German paper with you. You are the man who is making all this trouble.”
Feelings against Germany ran high during the war months. Many of the Christians in the area spoke the German language and were born of German-speaking parents. This, added to the fact that they were conscientious objectors, caused people to treat them unkindly.
By this time Mrs. Franz and others in the meeting noticed that something unusual was happening outside. She hurried out to the car.
“What are you going to do with my husband?” she cried.
“It’s none of your business! We’re only taking him for a ride,” the men shouted as they knocked her to the ground. She lay there unconscious. The men drove away quickly.
John barely noticed the familiar surroundings as they sped down the country roads. He was thinking, “Where can they be taking me? What could they plan to do?” The answer to these questions lay on the floor of the car. Guns, shovels, and a rope spoke grimly of what awaited him at the end of his ride.
Before long the familiar scenes of Bloomfield were exchanged for the less familiar Bad Lands. Usually John enjoyed the quaint peaks and oddly shaped pinnacles that the winds and rains of centuries had carved into the sandstone. When he looked at them against the clear Montana sky, their colours of red and brown and purple were satisfying and restful. Now concern for his wife’s welfare and fear of what lay before him made them appear weird and grotesque.
When the car stopped beside a large tree John fully realized what the men planned to do. He watched them quietly as they fastened the rope to an overhanging branch. If his spirit sank within him as the men argued noisily among themselves, he gave no sign. They were nearly finished now. This minute might be his last!
“Lord, I belong to You,” he prayed. “Your will be done—Your will be done.”
He let them take him roughly to the tree where the noose hung ready. Then he noticed the county sheriff and district attorney in the group. Seeing an opportunity he spoke.
“I am an American citizen. My father was an American citizen and my grandfather was a naturalized citizen. If you kill me you will be murderers. Think of that!”
They stopped, while the sheriff, afraid of what might happen if they hanged John, persuaded the drunken men to turn him over to the Glendive Jail. But the men plotted among themselves to return late that evening and hang him from a bridge over the Yellowstone River.
Meanwhile the news of what had happened at the schoolhouse spread throughout the community. The members of the church gathered together. While they were praying for their pastor, some of the leaders met with Mrs. Franz. They decided to take her and the boys to the sheriff’s office at the Glendive County Jail. Surely he could help them. After a two-hour trip over rugged roads they arrived at the jail. They knocked persistently and a man opened the door.
“Well, what do you want, lady?” he asked abruptly.
“I’d like to see the sheriff,” replied Mrs. Franz.
“Sorry, he’s not here. Maybe he’s out of town. I don’t know,” he said gruffly.
As Mrs. Franz turned to leave, a side door suddenly opened. There stood the sheriff!
Fear seized Mrs. Franz. She had seen this man before. He—why he was one of the men who kidnapped her husband!
“What have you done with John?” she cried.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the sheriff answered.
“That can’t be true. You were at the Independence School this afternoon,” Mrs. Franz said.
“Oh, yes, I remember,” the sheriff spoke awkwardly.
“Where is he? What have you done to him?”
“Come back in half an hour. You may see him then,” the sheriff agreed reluctantly.
Mrs. Franz and the boys waited anxiously while the thirty minutes dragged by. Then once more they knocked at the sheriff’s door. After persistent knocking they were allowed to enter. There, behind locked doors she found her husband. What a change had taken place in him! Lines of care were written deep in his face. He looked years older. Kneeling together in the sheriff’s office, the family prayed earnestly to God for help and protection.
When the sheriff returned to dismiss the visitors, John insisted that they stay. Women had never been allowed to stay with their prisoner husbands before, but since his wife was not well, John begged the sheriff for this one consideration. Reluctantly the sheriff gave him a private room in the jail where the family could sleep that night. In the daytime they were forced to leave.
The next day was Sunday, and nothing happened, but on Monday evening a crowd began to gather at the city hall. Mrs. Franz wondered what it could mean. They heard footsteps in the corridor, then John was taken from the room.
Late that evening John told his wife what had happened in the courtroom.
“During the trial they hurled questions at me from all sides,” he began. “‘Are you a citizen? Do you speak German? Is it true you have a German paper?’
“Finally they asked, ‘Why do you and your people refuse to buy war bonds?’ I tried to explain simply that Christians really own nothing. We are here to take care of all God’s things. Since our money is God’s money, we can use it only for things that please Him. We cannot buy war bonds, because that makes war possible. Using our money to make it possible for others to be killed would be just as wrong as going into the army and killing a man ourselves.”
“And did you explain what we gladly do instead?” asked Mrs. Franz.
“Yes, I told them our community gave twice as much food and clothing for refugees as any other community of its size in the state. They seemed surprised.”
“And what are they planning to do now?” asked Mrs. Franz anxiously.
“I don’t know. We can only wait and see.”
Three days later, the county officials released John under $3,000 bond. They felt sure the money could not be raised. As soon as John’s church heard this story, its leaders met again. In three hours they had the papers arranged and the $3,000 ready.
The county authorities were amazed. Why would these people trust their leader so completely? John said the truth when he told them, “Our church is a family. When someone is in need we help him in a spirit of Christian love.”
The family returned home but John was told to report to Glendive every month to answer questions that might come up. Before the end of the first month the money was returned and John received a letter that said:
“You do not need to come to Glendive to answer questions.”
The war ended and the trouble seemed to be forgotten.
Later, friends on the edge of the community learned that the county officials had heard false stories about their community. Important lawyers talked with John many times and urged him to sue the officers and wealthy businessmen in court. They knew these men had done wrong. But John always said:
‘It is not my business to get even. The Bible says, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ I’ll leave it to Him.”
One day several years later as John and his son Rufus were cutting grain, a car stopped beside the field and the driver came toward them.
“Do you know me, Mr. Franz?” the man asked as he approached.
“Why, yes, I do. How could I forget you? You were one of the twelve men who tried to hang me!”
“Yes,” he answered, soberly. “I have come to ask a hard thing of you. Will you forgive me for the great wrong I did to you and to your family?”
Suddenly the fields seemed very quiet. John remembered: the two strange cars, a rope, a lonely tree, bleak walls of a prison cell, a court room. Could he forgive? John reached out his hand with a smile.
“I forgive you from my heart,” he said.
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:14–15
It is not always easy to forgive after being mistreated so badly, but, “Nothing can justify an unforgiving spirit. . . We are not forgiven because we forgive, but as we forgive. The ground of all forgiveness is found in the unmerited love of God, but by our attitude toward others we show whether we have made that love our own.” –Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 251
In forgiving others, we ourselves find true freedom in Christ.