Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love. Elizabeth Ryder Wheaton
With much love, I remain
Your son and brother in the Lord,
————.
Oct. 23, 1894.
My Dear Mother:
I have been waiting to hear from you so I could write and let you know of the good news that has come to me. I am no longer in prison. I have been let out on parole. This means that I am still a prisoner, but am given larger liberty. I shall not be allowed to leave this city nor engage in mission work, that is to give my whole time to it. I have to report to the secretary of the Board of Prison Commissioners every month. When I get a room I am going to devote the most of my spare time to study. I go to a mission at the North End, but have no regular church connections. I have been living with Mr. ——since coming out, but will leave him within a week. He has been a good friend to me. He has been so ill all this year that he has been to the prison only a few times.
I am happy in my new life. The Lord is blessing me wonderfully. There is no other life worth living here below but following in the way of the Lord.
With much love, I remain
Your son in the Lord,
————.
A TALENTED YOUNG MAN.
Soon after entering upon prison work, I found in one of our eastern prisons the writer of the following letters and articles. He was at that time young, gifted, scholarly and very prepossessing in appearance. His penmanship was beautiful, perhaps the most so I have ever seen, but he had fallen under evil influences and the very gift that should have been used for a better purpose proved a curse and at the time I first saw him he was under sentence for forgery. He seemed to be clearly converted in a meeting I held in the prison and proved faithful during the remainder of his term. But after he went out into the world I lost trace of him. He was only one among thousands who need sympathy and help and encouragement. I trust that, if living, he is still true to himself and to God. Some of his letters follow, also the discourse on the Agony in the Garden in the form of a letter found in the appendix is of his writing.
Oct. 29, 1885.
To Mrs. ——Wheaton.
Madame: Not being able to shake hands, and having thus been deprived of the pleasure of verbally telling you what we had to say, we now have recourse to our pen. Our hearts have heard, understood and treasured your words of last Sunday.
Dear Lady, yours is a special task. In your field of labor are gathered crowds unnumbered, inert, inanimate, forming, as it were, a great desert, a Dead Sea uninhabited by any living thing. There lies a small world to be reconquered; such are the men who are to be reclaimed. How act upon them? How move their hearts? How gain mastery over them? In these questions lies the secret of the future.
Holiness in your heart and the omnipotent hand of Jesus in yours cannot fail to bring about the reformation of a host of criminals. He will save them. Oh! climb the heights, display the brilliancy of those universal truths in whose presence every being gifted with reason and accessible to reflection feels compelled to bend the knee. Deeds, examples, striking evidence and incontestable proofs of abnegation, devotedness, charity and sacrifices are required. These are the sermons that awaken souls from their torpor; these the weapons that triumph over the world, however criminal, careless, frivolous and hardened it may be.
Signed.
December 1, 1885.
Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton,
Somewhere in America.
Let me begin this letter by saying something very true concerning
RUM.
Let thy devotees extol thee, And thy wondrous virtues sum; But the worst of names I'll call thee, O, thou hydra monster, Rum!
Pimple-maker, visage-bloater, Health-corrupter, idler's mate; Mischief breeder, vice promoter, Credit spoiler, devil's bait.
Almshouse builder, pauper maker, Trust betrayer, sorrow's source; Pocket emptier, Sabbath breaker, Conscience stifler, guilt's resource.
Nerve enfeebler, system shatterer, Thirst increaser, vagrant thief; Cough producer, treacherous flatterer, Mud bedauber, mock relief.
Business hinderer, spleen instiller, Woe begetter, friendship's bane; Anger heater, Bridewell filler, Debt involver, toper's chain.
Memory drowner, honor wrecker, Judgment warper, blue-faced quack; Feud beginner, rags bedecker, Strife enkindler, fortune's wreck.
Summer's cooler, winter's warmer, Blood polluter, specious snare; Mob collector, man transformer, Bond undoer, gambler's fare.
Speech bewrangler, headlong bringer, Vitals burner, deadly fire; Riot mover, firebrand flinger, Discord kindler, misery's sire.
Sinews robber, worth depriver, Strength subduer, hideous foe; Reason thwarter, fraud contriver, Money waster, nations' woe.
Vile seducer, joy dispeller, Peace disturber, blackguard guest; Sloth implanter, liver sweller, Brain distracter, hateful pest.
Wit destroyer, joy impairer, Scandal dealer, foul-mouthed scourge; Senses blunter, youth ensnarer, Crime inventor, ruin's verge.
Virtue blaster, base deceiver, Spite displayer, sot's delight; Noise exciter, stomach heaver, Falsehood spreader, scorpion's bite.
Quarrel plotter, rage discharger, Giant conqueror, wasteful sway; Chin carbuncler, tongue enlarger, Malice venter, death's broadway.
Household scatterer, high-hope dasher, Death's forerunner, hell's dire brink; Ravenous murderer, windpipe slasher, Drunkard's lodging, meat and drink!
The rum vender's power is something enormous. We do not delude ourselves into thinking that the fight for national prohibition will be easily won. In many respects the liquor dealers will prove an enemy harder to vanquish than the slave dealers were. For slavery was an institution with a local habitation. It was restricted to certain well-defined limits. The whole world knew where it was and what it was doing. But rum is everywhere. Its upholders are woven into the warp and woof of society in every city and hamlet. It has a thousand heads, and it can hide them in times of danger with wonderful facility. Slavery was bold, brazen and defiant. It could be nothing else. But the liquor dealers, with equal bravado and strength, are enabled to resort to the cunning and subtlety of the serpent, when bravado is imprudent.
Then the liquor dealer's influence over his victims does not end with control of the bodies. His slaves are his allies. He owns them, many of them, body and soul for such a cause. They will fight for rum and vote for rum as persistently as the saloonist himself. These facts may as well be appreciated. When it comes to defiant antagonism, when temperance men boldly array themselves in professed opposition to the traffic in alcohol, the struggle will be severe. But it is certain there will come no time in the future when it will be less severe. The liquor power is a rapidly growing power. God knows it is strong enough now, but it becomes stronger with each passing day.
Are we willing that such a class of men not only hold such an enormous power, but add to it indefinitely? In the census for 1880 the capital employed in the manufacture of liquor was over one hundred and eighteen million of dollars, and the number of persons employed in the manufactories and in saloons aggregated over one hundred thousand. No nation can afford to leave such power in the hands of such men. It is suicidal.
Having said my say about "Old Devil" and his "Clerks" I guess I'll write a little letter to
My Dear Sister:
Your good, kind letter was duly received. We sincerely thank you. When meeting with savages who don't treat you respectfully please ever remember that in M—— everybody who knows you or about you loves you. Mrs. D. told me to write to Mrs. Wheaton because "she is a lovely Christian."
"O taste and see that the Lord is good." Psa. 34:8.
That