“There was not one desk, not one chair, in the whole schoolroom that was not splattered with either blood or glass. There were bullet holes everywhere -- everywhere.”

That description is from Janice Ballenger, a deputy coroner in Lancaster County, Pa. She was among the first to enter the West Nickel Mines Amish School after Charles Roberts murdered five girls and severely wounded five others there last week. One of the bodies she examined was that of Naomi Rose Ebersol , a 7-year-old who had been shot more than 20 times. "Kneeling next to the body and counting all the bullet holes," a shaken Ballinger said, "was the worst part."

How do civilized human beings react to such an atrocity? With horror? Anger? Hatred?

Not the Amish.

Asked by a reporter if the community was angry about the killings, one Amish grandmother, Lizzie Fisher, was adamant. “Oh, no, no, definitely not,” she said. “People don't feel that around here. We just don't.”

Roberts planned his attack meticulously, making a list of supplies he would need, then gradually buying them over a six-day period. It makes the skin crawl just to read the inventory: nails, bolts, wrenches, bullets, guns, earplugs, wooden planks, rope. Roberts brought plastic ties to bind his victims' feet, chains and clamps for restraint, and tubes of K-Y Jelly, a sexual lubricant. He had a change of clothes, toilet paper, and a bucket. Apparently he “planned to dig in for the long siege,” a Pennsylvania State Police colonel surmised, and “intended to victimize these children in many ways prior to executing them.” Instead, rattled perhaps by the arrival of the police, Roberts opened fire on his young hostages.

Confronted with such premeditated malevolence, what decent person wouldn't seethe with fury and revulsion? What parent or grandparent wouldn't regard such a massacre as not only unspeakable, but well nigh unforgivable?

The Amish wouldn't.

“I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive,” one Lancaster County resident was quoted as saying. “We don't need to think about judgment; we need to think about forgiveness and going on.” Many townspeople announced their forgiveness of Roberts directly to his wife and children . Continued...