EDITORIAL KEEPING THE FAITH UNEXPECTED RELEASE OF HEALTHY AMERICAN POWS IS CAUSE FOR HOPE.

FOR Joanne and Fernando Amantine of Lancaster, the news that first came across the TV screen early Sunday morning was an answer to prayer.

It was for all America.

The news couldn't have been better. The Amantines' niece, Shoshana Johnson, was alive, well and coming home. So were the six other American prisoners of war known to be in Iraqi captivity.

Deserted by their commanding officers, Iraqi troops approached U.S. Marines near the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, and alerted them to the POWs' location. When the liberators arrived, they were surprised but thrilled to find the seven POWs all reasonably cared for and in good shape.

Few ever could have imagined a happy ending like this.

When the POWs were first captured, they were paraded on Iraqi television. Reports of beating, torture, even summary executions surfaced.

Given what was known about Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, those reports were all too believable.

After all, in the 22 days the seven Americans spent as POWs, their fellow U.S. servicemen and -women unearthed one Hussein atrocity after another: a warehouse full of corpses, crude torture facilities, a kiddie gulag for children being held as political prisoners.

What reason was there to believe that our POWs would fare any better than thousands of Iraqis tormented and killed by their own government?

Little reason at all, but that didn't keep the Amantines or millions of other Americans from keeping the faith. They kept on believing that somehow things would turn out all right.

For weeks, Joanne Amantine and her six sisters - including Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson's mother, Eunice - recited a daily rosary at the same time from their respective homes across the country. On Palm Sunday, their perseverance paid off with the joyful word of the POWs' release and good condition.

Apparently, the Americans' Iraqi captors had shown the POWs mercy, providing them with food, health care, even joint cells toward the end of their captivity.

Why the captors were so compassionate remains a mystery.

Maybe their superiors had been killed, and so no one was able to issue torture or execution orders.

Maybe they sensed the war coming to an end, and they didn't want to risk war-crimes trials.

Or maybe they were motivated by the goodness of their own hearts. ``The doctors told me they would take good care of me to show that the Iraqi people had humanity,'' said Johnson, who had three surgeries for injuries she sustained to her ankles.

Whatever the explanation, the Amantines and the millions of others who kept the POWs in their thoughts and prayers showed us all that it pays to keep the faith. They reminded us that hope is never lost.

In gratitude and relief, we can all celebrate the POWs' release - and keep faith that all our troops will return home soon.