Prisons and Prayer Part 70

I put my trust in G.o.d for my work and I trust the railroad men for transportation, and between the two I believe I have been fairly successful."

ONCE TAKEN FOR CARRIE NATION.

"I have spent nights in the toughest slums of New York, Chicago and St. Louis, places where men by force of habit always carry their hand near their hip pocket, and I have not always been welcomed. Sometimes I have been roughly handled, yes, indeed. Why, one time I was mistaken for Carrie Nation. Of course I don't look like Carrie Nation, and I would never think of adopting smas.h.i.+ng methods. I was holding services in San Pedro, California, one night, and went into a saloon. There were two bright looking young men standing at the bar and I asked them to come with me. The owner of the saloon was sitting at a faro table in the back end of the saloon, and as soon as he caught sight of me he rushed at me and literally threw me out into the street.

"When he learned afterwards who I was he was very sorry and avowed that he would never have treated me in that manner had he not thought that I was Carrie Nation and that I had a hatchet to chop up his expensive bar fixtures."

OPPOSES CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

"As sad an experience as I ever had in my life was my effort to save the life of a young man who was condemned to hang in Colorado. I heard of the case through the young man's mother, who was heart-broken. I interceded with Governor Peabody and secured a reprieve for a year, and when Governor McDonald took office he fixed the date for the death of the young man. I tried to save him the second time, but public sentiment demanded his death. I don't believe in capital punishment. I have seen how a man can be punished in prison and I don't believe in taking a life to avenge a life, for stripped of all the specious arguments which surround capital punishment, it simmers down to nothing more than revenge."

ESTABLISHES NEW RECORD.

"I think I established a prison visiting record upon one trip. I visited five penitentiaries in as many states in a week. I started at Deer Lodge, Montana; from there I went to Boise, Idaho; then to Rawlins, Wyo.; then to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Lincoln, Nebraska, all of which I call pretty fast traveling. I hold meetings on the train, in depots, at water tanks, any place I can gather a little knot of people together, and I could tell of some queer conversions in out of the way places, the last places in the world where you would expect the seed to sprout and bear fruit.

"I was over to the federal prison on McNeil's Island Sat.u.r.day, and this morning I went to the county hospital. This afternoon I called at the county jail. I will be here a day or so longer and then must start East, as I have work to do in New York City. You see I will have to stop at the prisons on the way back and I have to make allowances for delays."

Mother Wheaton has become interested in Grace Russell, the young woman in the county jail, who is addicted to the use of morphine. Mother Wheaton will try to secure a place for her in some home.--Tacoma, Was.h.i.+ngton, paper of July 31, 1905.

I give the following extract from a Baltimore paper published while I was there attending the Convocation of Prayer in that city, January, 1903:

SPIRITUAL ADVISER OF FAMOUS CRIMINALS.

WORK OF "MOTHER" WHEATON IN PRISONS ALL OVER THE LAND.

For twenty years Mrs. Wheaton has been traveling throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Mexico, working among prisoners in hundreds of prisons and penitentiaries. On a number of occasions she has converted criminals under death sentence. She has preached in the Maryland Penitentiary.

Mrs. Wheaton came to Baltimore direct from Ohio, where she had been holding prayer in the cells of the state prison with eight men condemned to die. She was in San Francisco a number of years ago when Alexander Goldenson killed his sweetheart, Mamie Kelly, and after Goldenson had been tried, convicted and sentenced to death "Mother"

Wheaton prayed with him for forty days. The day of the execution, September 14, 1888, he was converted through her instrumentality, and just before walking to the gallows she tied her silk handkerchief about the condemned man's neck.

IS NOT A STRANGER.

OLD-TIMERS AT COUNTY JAIL GREET MRS. WHEATON AS LONG-TIME FRIEND.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton, of Tabor, Ia., famous in this and other countries as a worker among the inmates of jails and penitentiaries, yesterday morning went to the county jail and prayed and sang hymns with the prisoners in the tanks.

Although her time was very much circ.u.mscribed, Mrs. Wheaton shook hands with most of the prisoners, many of whom had heard of her, and some of whom had met her in other prisons. John King, awaiting his transportation to Walla Walla, and one of the most admittedly professional criminals in the jail, stated that he had met "Mother Wheaton" several times before, both at Salem and at Walla Walla.

Both he and J. H. Le Roy, another old-timer, had many anecdotes to tell of her kindnesses in past years.--Paper of August 9, 1905.

The above sketch was accompanied by a cut from protograph taken by the reporter and a nicely finished photograph presented me.

From this photograph the cut was made that is inserted at the beginning of this chapter.--E. R. W.

PRISONERS ON BENDED KNEE.

INMATES OF COUNTY JAIL BOW IN PRAYER WITH MOTHER WHEATON.

On bended knees and with low bowed heads nine prisoners at the county jail reverently followed a prayer addressed to the throne of grace in their behalf yesterday by Mother Wheaton, the noted prison evangelist.

Under the remarkable influence of the woman who came among them as a messenger of soul-saving, every rough instinct of the men was quelled and every scoffing word hushed on their lips. No more devout prayer meeting was ever held in a sanctuary than that which took place in the jail corridor.

Mother Wheaton and a younger woman called upon the prisoners and sang a song such as the men might have heard their mothers or sisters sing in the long ago, when their feet had not strayed from youthful paths of innocence. If there was any inclination to ridicule or make light of the service at the start, it was entirely subdued inside of five minutes. Mother Wheaton talked to the men and told of the work she has been doing for twenty years among the inmates of jails and penitentiaries. She declared that she and her a.s.sistant wanted to help save them.

There was no hesitation whatever when Mother Wheaton asked the prisoners to get down on their knees. One and all, the nine a.s.sumed the att.i.tude of humble submission to the deity and remained in that position until their patroness had finished her pet.i.tion for the pardoning of their sins. Some of the men were seen to blink significantly and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs. When the prayer was done and another hymn rendered, the men joining in, hands were shaken all around before the visitors departed.

Mother Wheaton has been coming to the Council Bluffs jail for several years. She was in the city on her way from Nevada to Wisconsin.--_Council Bluffs Paper._

CHAPTER XXV.

Furnished unto Every Good Work.

Who will man the life-boat, who the storm will brave?

Many souls are drifting helpless on the wave; See their hands uplifted; hear their bitter cry: "Save us ere we perish, save us ere we die!"

See! amid the breakers yonder vessel toss'd, Onward to the rescue, haste, or all is lost; Waves that dash around us cannot overwhelm, While our faithful Pilot standeth at the helm.

Darker yet, and darker grows the fearful night, Sound the trump of mercy, flash the signal light; Bear the joyful message o'er the raging wave, Christ, the heavenly Pilot, comes the lost to save.

Who will man the life-boat, who will launch away?

Who will help to rescue dying souls to-day?

Who will man the life-boat, who will breast the wave?

All its dangers braving, precious souls to save?

--_Sel._

The dear Lord wants workers, both men and women, whom He can trust in every line of Christian work, and what do Christians most need in order to be successful soul-winners for G.o.d?

First of all, it is to be born of the Spirit; then to be filled with the Holy Spirit, whereby we are sealed unto G.o.d. Then the fruits of the Spirit will be manifest in our lives. Of course, we should not presume to go out as mission workers without a divine call from G.o.d.

The first thing, then, is to know G.o.d and then to know ourselves as utterly helpless without the cleansing power of the blood of Christ on our own souls. Then the especial anointing for service in the vineyard of the Lord. If to these be added a thorough knowledge of human nature and a sincere desire for the salvation of souls, then the glory of G.o.d will be revealed in us and we will be forgetful of self and alive to the needs of others. We must see men and women lost, going down to eternal death and must reach them at any cost and be willing to gladly suffer the loss of all things that we might gain Christ and win souls for Him.

We should acquire from the Lord the gift of adaptation to any and all kinds of work, people and places. We must see the people from their own standpoint and then from G.o.d's standpoint and then have implicit confidence in G.o.d and in the power of the blood of Jesus to cleanse from all sin. We must be humble and meek and yet strong, through faith in G.o.d and His promises. Is anything too hard for the Lord? And has He not told us, "Greater works than these shall ye do because I go unto my Father?" Is He not at the Father's right hand, interceding for us and for the souls to whom He sends us?

We must be all things to all men that we might win some. We must watch for opportunities for service and be quick to use them when they are given us. We must be ready to launch out into the deep at the Master's command. We must have grace, not only to serve, but if need be, to die, in order that souls might be saved--souls that are going to destruction for the want of a kind word or a helping hand at just the right time. I have often found them upon the verge of suicide. Men and women in despair, both in prison and outside, were goaded into desperation and the enemy of their souls was urging them to end it all--that n.o.body cared, and G.o.d had forgotten them.

How glad I have been to clasp their hand and tell them there was One who cared; that He loved them still and I have seen the long pent-up tears start from their eyes and hope has sprung up once more in their desolate hearts. I hope to hear G.o.d say in the Day of Judgment of some, "Here are the discouraged, the tempted and tried ones, who were almost lost, but who were won through your faithfulness." To G.o.d be all the glory.

We must not seek our own ease. Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, would have died in agony, only that an angel came and ministered unto Him, yet he prayed, "Not My will, but Thine be done." Such must be our heartfelt cry and we must abandon ourselves to G.o.d's will in all things and forgetting ourselves and the opinions of the World, seek to please Him only. Then He will make even our enemies be at peace with us.

Mult.i.tudes all about us are going down to despair for want of true love such as Jesus had when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more."