Chapter III: Part 3

I have carried my readers far away to California and surely might be accused of wandering from my point, but I wanted to tell them of a voice that has been a blessed cheer and inspiration to my heart, reminding me in hours of difficulty and discouragement of the great Source of all strength and power. Had a critic paused in faithless speculation by the side of the little Sacramento in its rocky cradle days up there in the wilderness, he might have interrupted its silvery song with a jarring note of discouragement. "Foolish little stream," the critic might have said, "what are you singing about so joyously? Do you tell of the thirsty you are going to cool, of the wilderness that shall blossom at your touch, of the great valleys you are going to fertilize? Are you dreaming of ships you would carry, of the long miles you would travel, of the great ocean upon whose breast you would cast yourself? How absurd and unlikely are these day dreams! Look at yourself! See how tiny and insignificant you are, so narrow that a child could leap over you, so shallow that I can see the very pebbles in your bed. It is a foolish fancy, impossible of realization. You had better stop singing, you will only dry up and be absorbed by the ferns and moss of the forest; that will be the easiest, happiest end for you." If the stream had thought it worth while to respond, I know the answer that would have rung out clear and sweet, for this is the message it sang to my heart, "Yes, of myself I may be small and insignificant. The distance and obstacles may be far and formidable. I may of myself be too weak to face them, but look behind me, at the snows of Shasta; think of the springs and water courses that gush from her eternal rocks and remember that my help comes from the hills and when thus helped, I too can become mighty."

In the early days of the work, it seemed an overwhelming undertaking to meet the great sad problem that faced us within the walls of State Prison. There was indeed a great desert representing thirst and need, wreck and ruin. Many tried to discourage us by painting in vivid colors, the difficulties of the undertaking, and I grant they cannot be very easily exaggerated, for where vice and sin, human weakness and life's misfortunes have swept over mankind, the problem is one of the most overwhelming that can be faced. The work was spoken of as an experiment and a very doubtful one at that, and if it had been some new plan for the reforming of criminals, some mere exertion of human influence or the hobby and scheme of an organization that was to be tried, one might well have been faint-hearted. We, however, have felt from the first and now feel more intensely than ever that this undertaking has not been our work, but God's work. We can truly say we are not attempting it in our own strength but we "lift up our eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh our help," and to every doubter and critic we answer, "God does not experiment." His work succeeds; His building stands; His touch transforms. Were it not for this, what heart should we have in dealing with those who have made trial of other help and strength and found it to fail them?

Many of the men to whom we go are defiled with the leprosy of sin. They have tried self-purification, and effort after effort has failed them. What could we say to them unless we believed that the Voice that said of old, "Be thou clean," could say it as truly to-day? We deal with some who are truly blind as to things spiritual, and no human hands could open these sightless eyes, no human voice could unstop the ears of the spiritually deaf. There we must deal with souls and consciences dead to right, unconscious of the responsibilities and possibilities of life, and we know that only the Divine Hand that raised the dead can quicken them again. We have realized and acknowledged this from the first, so our work is not to be a moral education or a recommendation tending to the turning over of a new leaf, but we have sought ever to point the souls in darkness to the true light and those wrestling with their own sin and weakness to the wondrous power of God.

Too often are we met when pleading with men to rise up and make a brave effort to do right, with the discouraging answer, "I have tried and failed," and each effort that proved fruitless has robbed them of the courage to try again. While we do not for a moment discount the vital importance of personal effort, of good resolves, of will exerted in the right direction, we try most clearly to show the need of seeking God's help, showing that when the man would start out on the road, it is of the utmost importance to _start right_. Feeling as we do, we have naturally been filled with hope and courage for our work. We do not have to look for difficulties, we need not be overwhelmed by our own weakness or inefficiency; nothing is too hard for God. No obstacle can stand before Him. So from the first we have been full of faith and joy in battle and have not been disappointed for victory after victory has come to add inspiration to our efforts.

We believe that the great Father-heart feels intense pity and divine compassion for the one who has strayed and fallen. Surely no child of God can doubt this. It has seemed to us that the time has come when that passage of Scripture is being fulfilled, "For He hath looked down from the height of His sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth, to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to loose those that are appointed to death." One can but be a believer in the miracles of old when faced with the miracles of to-day, where the fetters that have bound some souls have been snapped, and men have been delivered from the power of opium, of strong drink and other vices after they had been given up as utterly beyond redemption. During these years of work in prison, onlookers have acknowledged to me over and over again, that they have been forced to recognize some superhuman power when they have seen lives transformed. From watching at first with indifference or skeptical criticism, they have come at last to look upon the work with absolute faith, even though personally they have had no knowledge of the wonderful power at work.

Let me give you in his own words the abbreviated sketch of the life of one of God's miracles:

"Everything looked fair for me as life lay all in front; money, education, social standing were mine. Loving parents and sweet surroundings beautified life, but alas they counted for nothing in one sense. Before I was twenty-one I flung all that was good to the winds, took my life into my own hands and decided to do as I pleased; I did so. Why, if there was any reason, it is immaterial now. Surely there should not have been. I left all who could help me and when twenty-two years of age found myself in a strange country, with all the tastes and ideas of one who had been gently raised, but without means to gratify them. To work I was not able, to beg I could not, so from being a lamb I gradually became a wolf. I realized that in order to succeed I must learn to keep cool, I must face life desperately. As I lived in the far West mostly, I had to acquire skill in the use of weapons and I was also an expert horseman. There was no other career open to me but the army. To my nature and character, there was no other safe place except prison. I did well while in the service, but the dissatisfaction in my heart drove me often to excesses that gained a hold over me that constantly threw me down. Yielding to evil and despising myself for it, had the effect of hardening and embittering me; though I committed many lawless deeds, I generally managed to protect myself from consequences, never being caught for the worst things, and though I have known the inside of several prisons in the long years of my wanderings I have only served nine years, which, compared to what I might have had, seems small punishment. Once I escaped while in double irons and had it not been for that escape I might have died in the miserable suffering I was then enduring. I had to make a hundred miles on foot through desert country without food or water, and the third day I faced death having only just strength enough to reach the desired goal. I went through a term in one of the hardest prisons of this country years ago, when men suffered there indescribably and it was there that I took to opium, because I found it makes men forget and by its use you can still the anguish of remorse. A few years after that I served as Chief of Police in one of the districts of Alaska, then under martial law and the hard school through which I had passed gave me the stern recklessness of life necessary for such a post. The opium which I still used I took scientifically and was able to keep my own counsel in all things. The first five years of the drug were comfortable, the second five it lost its happy effect. I had commenced to use the hypodermic needle and morphine, because of the quicker action of this method. During this period I was a soldier of fortune in South America, Mexico and Central America. I was a hospital steward in the Army, Sergeant Major in a regiment, First Sergeant of a Company and I was able to hold my own and fulfill my duties and yet I was becoming scarred from head to foot with the use of the hypodermic needle. After this I was reckless and careless as to my own life and I never knew, when the sun rose, whether I would live to see it set. I became wholly indifferent as to the consequences of my life, careless and reckless as to my actions. Then came an imprisonment, out of which I came back into the world a wreck. I made a desperate effort and managed to rehabilitate myself and once more held a good position in life, but unable to break from the bondage of the evil habit that behind everything held me in thralldom, I was once more dragged down and was led to commit deed after deed that I otherwise should have scorned. I have used as many as sixty grains of morphine and thirty grains of cocaine, during these miserable days of slavery.

Then came my last two years of imprisonment. I was looked upon as a hard and desperate man in the prison, one who could not be reached or influenced in any way. One day I was sent for to the front office of the prison. The messenger said, 'A lady wants to see you.' 'Not me,' I replied, 'no one wants to see me; it is a mistake.' But it was not. To my surprise I found Mrs. McAlpin had sent for me. 'Twas almost a shock for I had no visitors and it was long since I had talked to a lady. Then came a never-to-be-forgotten meeting in the chapel, when the words spoken thrilled in my heart; I felt for once that I was compelled to stop and think. I had made many plans of what my future was to be, but they were plans of evil design. I had decided that my apprenticeship was served, that I ought to be able to do a master's work so I had determined never to stand for an arrest again. But I deliberately planned a coup that if successful would place me beyond the necessity for such things and if a failure, I had determined never to be taken alive. Then the Little Mother came and spoilt all my plans; as I heard her talk, I felt she was putting me out of business; she was putting me in the wrong. Shortly after this I was removed to a new cell and on a shelf in the corner I came upon a piece of paper; it was a partly torn piece of the _Volunteers' Gazette_ smeared with whitewash. It had evidently been pasted on a cell wall once, but had become detached and had been thrown up upon the shelf and there had been overlooked. It was difficult to decipher, but with care I made out these words that I have never forgotten. They were in an old message from the pen of our Leader to her 'boys.' 'If I can afford to face difficulties and yet go on with a faith that wavers not, you can also. So let us look up and hope, taking a firm hold of the strong arm of God and looking for courage to the stars of eternal promise that shine on above the clouds and mists of earth.'

"Do not think all the good things came at once. They did not. It took a long time to build up the edifice on the site of the old ruins. Alone I certainly should have failed and the last end would have been overwhelmingly worse than the first, but God's help is almighty and the 'I trust you' of His messenger meant everything."

Facing a stern struggle on his discharge this man proved strong enough to withstand. The old vices were abandoned. He took the sharp turn to the right that goes up the steep mountain side to the purer, clearer altitudes where we can walk in the light and enjoy the sunshine of God's approving smile. With wonder was the news received in prison, month after month, year after year that he was standing firm. To-day he is a worker at my side, a strength and comfort to many another soul and a messenger of blessing in the many poor and sad homes that he visits. A little while since he returned to the prison where he had paced so often back and forth, back and forth through the weary hours of struggle in the narrow little cell. As he talked to the men who had known him, as he gave his thrilling message before the officers who had doubted the possibility of his reformation, he appeared to them as one who had gone into a new country and returned with tidings, not so much of the giants that dwelt there as of the milk and honey and fruits of peace and happiness which awaited those who in their turn would venture over the dividing line.

On one of my visits to Trenton, the warden told me of a man whose change of life was so remarkable that it had become the talk of the prison. He had been the most treacherous and dangerous of the prison population. Every officer agreed that he could never be trusted and for insubordination and violence they had never known his equal. After his conversion he was so quiet, amenable to discipline, cheerful and helpful in his attitude to others and at all times consistent in living up to his profession that his life made the most profound impression. In speaking of him to me the warden said that it was nothing short of a miracle, and that the work was well worth while if only for that one case.

As I shall give many other life stories in their place, I will touch only on one more phase of the blessed influence that the new life brings to those in prison. It enables them to face the weary, dreary monotony of their life with happy cheerful contentedness, despite the difficulties and gloom that surround them.

There are many life-men in prison and many more with very long terms whom one might expect to find gloomy and morose, embittered in heart and utterly miserable. Among them I know innumerable cases of those who have become cheerful, patient and humbly grateful for every good gift of God, where we might see only cause for complaint. Many a Christian on the outside would have his faith strengthened by coming into contact with these men, and their bright experiences would make the world realize that the essence of Christianity is its triumph over circumstances. It can literally make the darkness light and put the song of freedom in the heart of the caged bird.

Here is a letter I received from a man whose causes for complaint might have been considered very justifiable. In the past he had been several times in prison and was known to the police as an "ex-convict." On his last discharge he came to us and we were witness of his manly struggles to do right. It was before the days of our Hope Hall, and we could not help him so much as we longed to. He passed through a period of testing difficulties; he not only suffered from hunger but at times went to the point of starvation before he was able to find work, and endured it willingly rather than return to an evil but easy way of making a living. He would not accept charity, and never once asked for help except that help which we could give him by advice and sympathy, and hid from us the need and suffering through which he was passing. At last he found work and was doing well when he was arrested and "railroaded" to prison for an offense he did not commit.

I speak advisedly, for I was well acquainted with the case and have since heard from the man who did the deed. After his reimprisonment with a sentence of ten years, he found Christ as his Saviour. He wrote me constantly and the letter quoted below reached me after he had passed through a period of great suffering and weakness in the prison hospital.

"My dear Little Mother:--I am most happy to be able to write you a cheering letter. I am afraid my letters the past two or three months have been rather 'blue' reading to you, but now, thank God, I am feeling very well and want to chase that sorrowful expression from your face which I suspect has been there of late on receiving my letters. I want to write you a cheering letter, first because I am cheerful, hopeful and happy myself and then because I know it will cheer and comfort you to hear that I am fighting the battle bravely, and that the victory we all look forward to so intensely is mine. I have indeed experienced the new life, and God has been my guide and refuge for two years now and I tell you, Little Mother, I would not exchange it for my old sinful life for the world. My past bad name and misdeeds sent me to this place for ten years, but I have gained by it something I never realized or had before, the love of our dear Saviour. I cannot help but think of the bright happy future in store for me. Although the state holds my body, my spirit is free, thank God, and though clouds do gather at times in this dreary place I have One to go to who is all sunshine and always understands and comforts me. Now Little Mother, I am feeling very well. Good Dr. Ransom, God bless him, has been like a father to me, you will never know how much he has done for me. He asked me the other day when I had heard from you. I told him and he said I must never forget you. Little Mother, I guess you know whether I could or not. God bless you. I wish you every success on your western trip. Pray for me," etc.

I give the letter just in the natural outspoken way in which it was written. Shortly afterwards the Doctor wrote me that his patient was undoubtedly suffering from the first inroads of tuberculosis. I immediately set to work on the case, though, as a rule, I do not help men to regain their liberty. They know that is not my mission. Here however was one whom I believed innocent, who had served two years and who in all likelihood could not live out the other eight, a man whom I believed thoroughly safe to trust at large.

President Roosevelt, then governor, gave me his pardon the following New Year, and when the "boy" received my wire with the news the joy was too much for him, and he fainted away in the prison hospital. We welcomed him home, put him under excellent medical treatment and afterwards kept him for a spring and summer on the farm at Hope Hall. The disease was checked, he was perfectly restored to health, and went out into the world to work. He is still leading an upright life not far from New York and keeps in touch with us.

Could I give space to the hundreds of happy letters that tell of the change from gloom to brightness, from soul-bondage to freedom and new strength, it would be clearly seen that, though the men deeply appreciate their Home and friends and are intensely grateful for all that may be done to help them, they fully realize the power behind the work. It is this power that has given them new hope and from it they have drawn their deepest consolation and surest certainty for the unknown future. Often in life the human friendship is the stepping-stone to the Divine. The moonlight makes us realize that the sun still shines.

Sometime since the Chaplain of Auburn, a devoted shepherd to that big flock wrote me as follows: "When you were so very sick three years ago the men here were very much alarmed and anxious for your recovery. Among them was an old-timer who had spent over twenty years solid in prison out of forty-nine years of life, the longest time of liberty between his incarcerations being seven months. When he heard that fears were entertained that you might not recover, he felt impelled to pray for you. In relating the story he said, 'I dropped on my knees to pray for her and as I did so I was overwhelmed with the thought that God would not hear such a sinner as I was. I began to pray for God to have mercy upon me and in my pleading forgot where I was and everything but the fact that I was a sinner and Jesus Christ my Saviour.' His sympathy for you was the means of leading him to Christ." The sequel of this story made another record of successful right-doing on the outside as well as in prison.

Divine truth is not only whispered to our hearts from the leaves of the forest, sung to us by the mountain brook and flashed into our mind by the glint of the sunbeam, but sometimes it looks out at us from the wonders of science. A nerve has been severed by accident or during an operation and has remained for months or years perhaps useless and atrophied. Yet operative skill can resurrect the buried nerve ends and unite them again restoring perfectly the lost function. To this end especially when there has been much loss of substance it is necessary to interpose an aseptic absorbable body such as catgut or decalcified bone tube to serve as a temporary scaffolding for the products of tissue proliferation. Sutured to this connecting substance the nerve reunites using it as a bridge over or through which the union can be affected. When this end is accomplished the bridge or scaffolding is no longer needed and disappears through absorption. This it seems to me is the relative position of the soul-seeker to the unsaved. The poor soul has wandered far from God, is lost, buried beneath numberless hindering obstacles. To a great extent the functions of soul and conscience are destroyed, the power to serve God, to feel aright, to be pure and good, and honest are gone; even feelings and aspirations for things Divine in many cases seem wanting, but we believe that all this can be reawakened if only the soul is brought near to God. A helpless human atom reunited to the Divine compassionate power above. The human friend and messenger or the organization that has the privilege of stretching out the helping hand to those thus needy can serve as the bridge or connection, the link useful in the right place but worse than useless if unaided by the loving miracle-working power from above.

As I turn the pages of our little Day Book a verse smiles out at me, the truth of which I know, and the sweet realization of which hundreds of happy hearts in prison to-day attest with earnest acclamation, "Their voice was heard and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place even into Heaven."

V

LETTERS FROM THE "BOYS"

In such a work as that within prison walls the results can only be fully understood by those who have the opportunity closely to watch the lives of the men and who can keep in touch with them through their after experience. Results cannot be statistically summed up and proclaimed to the world. They are too intangible and far-reaching to be fairly represented by figures. It is difficult to exhibit to the public the direct issues of this toil behind the scenes. Reporters have often asked to accompany me to prison and have earnestly requested permission to visit our Hope Halls for the purpose of describing the work. They have assured me that by allowing this, we could arouse much public interest. We have declined. Our movement does not live by sensational advertisement, and even wisely written reports would harm us with those whom we seek to save. The men in prison are intensely sensitive and through their bitter past experience very apt to be suspicious of the motives of those who go to them. Among the men who do not know us personally there might be the idea that the work was done with a desire for advertising or lauding the Volunteers and to all the men it would give the unpleasant impression that they were still to be regarded in a different light from the denizens of the free world. These men naturally do not want to be exploited or ticketed by publicity. The very spirit of our work would be spoiled and its object defeated by such an error, and the self-respecting men would shun a place where their home life was not held sacred.

For similar reasons we do not have our graduates lined along the platforms of public halls to relate the stories of their past lives, their many crimes and subsequent conversions. This may be thought by some to be helpful in mission work and among church people, but in a work like ours it would be more than unwise. Talking of an evil past is often the first step that leads to repeating the evil deeds. Anything like boasting of the crimes and achievements of an evil past cannot be too strongly deprecated. In their own little home gatherings among themselves our "boys" freely give their testimonies as to what God has done for them, but even there with no outsiders present, they feel too deeply ashamed of the forgotten and buried past to wish to resurrect it. One of the mottoes of Hope Hall is, "Never talk of the past and so far as possible do not think of it." There is in this however one disadvantage in that the world cannot have the object lesson which would surely be helpful to many when brought face to face with the results already gained. The missionary can bring back his Indian or Chinese convert and the dark face and simple earnest broken words appeal to a Christian audience; the doctor can exhibit his cures at the clinic; the teacher can glory over her scholars at their examinations, but in work like ours the victory can never be fully shown to the world without violating sacred confidences, and making a show of that which it would be cruelly unjust and unwise to parade.

That something of the grateful hearts and bright hopeful lives of our graduates may be known to others, I gather here and there, from hundreds of like letters, just a few that will speak for themselves.

To the "boys" still in prison one man writes: "Dear Comrades:--I will try and write a few lines to assure you, that you have in me a converted comrade who has left the 'college' but has not forgotten those still confined there" (as not a few have since found out).

"I am very grateful for this, another opportunity to send a few words of cheer to those who, I know, are deprived of many blessings of this nature that cost so little--a smile, a cheering word or a pleasant nod that you dare not receive or return.

"Dear comrades, you probably would not know me now, as such a marvellous change has come over me. The dear Lord has been very good to me. I am very often surprised at the wonderful alterations in my life of late, the complete abnegation of my former desires, and, thank God! I now possess a fervent desire to henceforth be a man.

"At the time of my conversion I little thought my future life would be the success it has since proven to be.

"It is just a little over two years ago since I left 'college' and what has that two years wrought in my life? I have made many new friends, won their confidence and esteem, hold a fine position on the official paper of this town, live right with the editor in his own home, have been elected president of one of our local Sunday-schools, have a fine large class of little girls, am studying preparatory to entering the University of Illinois, have been restored to citizenship by Governor Yates, and am now purchasing a two thousand dollar piece of property.

"Dear comrades, let me give you two keys to my success. One--God loves to bestow where gratitude is extended; two--I have a private book on the page of which it reads: 'May 3d, 1902. One-tenth of my earnings, $---- paid and used in God's cause, May....'

"I fear I have gone beyond the space allotted me so must close, dear comrades, with this, my last remark, and if you forget all the rest, remember this: 'Value and grasp the opportunities to form character as they are extended, and God will take care of the rest.' Fraternally yours, ONE OF THE GRADUATES.

Another writes me after two years the following cheering news, though as I write I can add on another year for the record since that date.

"Dear Little Mother:--It is now close to two years since I gained my liberty from Joliet Prison, and I know that it will make you happy to know that I am leading a good life. The thought that you were instrumental in procuring my release upon parole, and that you still take an interest in me for the future gives me great joy and pride, and I thank God for the many benefits I have received at His hands through you.

"I have a splendid position at $21 per week, and save half of it. I have the respect of my employers and neighbors and live with my father and mother and have the knowledge that I am loved of God. I am happy, and have good reason to be. I shall always appreciate your loving kindness to me, also the help I have received from Adjutant and Mrs. McCormick and Sergeant Sam of Hope Hall No. 2.--Yours truly, Frank ----"

The next letter is from a man who was a very successful and notorious forger. Of him the warden said to me one day while he was still in prison, "If you can keep that man right after his discharge, you will save the country thousands of dollars. All your work would be worth while only for one such." He was, when we first met him a pronounced infidel and terribly embittered against the world in general. He became a sincere simple-hearted Christian, coming straight to us from fifteen years in prison. He was nervous and unstrung and felt utterly helpless to cope with life. In this condition Hope Hall meant everything to him. He soon regained strength, nerve and courage. He is now a prosperous man and has been out of prison nearly five years.

"Dear Little Mother:--It was my intention to write you ere this, but my time has been so much taken up with the cares and labor of my position, and things are so unsettled yet, that I put it off from one day to another, but I will not neglect to obey the call of duty; the more so, as it entails only a labor of love. I want you to believe me, that my heart is in no manner changed towards you and your work. It is just as full of love as when first I had the happiness to meet you in those dark and bitter days, when nothing but darkness and friendlessness seemed to be before me, and you proved yourself such a faithful friend. Though I still live in the shadow of the past, there is such a lot of sunshine about me now. If any word of mine can be a comfort to you and a help to any one of my comrades still behind the bars, I gladly give the word.

"I am well in body and mind. It seems to me that I am making friends and well wishers everywhere. It lies with me to stay or not, but there are so many things in this particular business which I cannot entirely approve, that of late I thought much if it were not better for me to turn to something else. I have not decided yet, but as soon as I shall have done so, I will let you know. Be sure of one thing, though, whatever I shall do, or wherever I may be, there is none anywhere, that I know of, who can replace the friend who found me in wretchedness and stretched forth her hand to help and comfort me. To the Christ-love planted then in my heart, I shall remain true in storm or sunshine."

Since then this man has gone into business for himself. He is now married and has a happy little home.

Another writes:

"Dear Little Mother:--Yours of the 4th received, and I need not tell you how happy it made me feel when I realized that though you are constantly behind the walls or touring across the country for your 'boys' you have not forgotten me and the other graduates. I am sure that there are none of the 'boys' who have forgotten you.

"What a blessing Hope Hall has been to the thousands that have passed through its doors, almost all of whom have been faithful to all that the V.P.L. means.

"I have a good position and am living the life of a God-fearing man. You would be surprised at the number of 'boys' that I meet in the city constantly, all looking bright and happy and doing well in every sense of the word.

"Asking your prayers and praying God to bless and prosper you in the work, Yours for Christ."

The remark has sometimes been made that it is innate laziness that leads to crime. I do not agree with this statement, but I can say that if any of our "boys" were lazy in the old days, they certainly have not shown it in their new life, for we find them most anxious to work and they often undertake and keep bravely at work far beyond their strength.

"My dear Little Mother:--I was both surprised and happy to receive your letter. I have not only friends of the right sort, but a position and a prospect which increases in brightness each time I look forward after doing nine years in prison. When I received my pay yesterday it was the first legitimately earned money I have had in fifteen years. I have never regretted giving up the past. I am satisfied with my position, although the first few days I was not. I wrote to Lieutenant B----, and he advised me to stick, in my own behalf, and his advice I have taken. My work is hard and the hours long, but it can never be so hard as to make me throw up the sponge. I have a little of your writing, which I received on last Christmas in a Christmas present while at Hope Hall. God bless you and your work for the 'boys' behind the bars. Your comrade.

"P.S.--Enclosed find my first subscription to the Maintenance League."

The next letter is from a young man who had been the sorrow of his home people because of his wild life. He was bright, well educated and had good ability but he sold his soul to evil, demoralizing pleasures. He became a thief and at last reached the point where the patience of his people was exhausted and they believed it impossible for him to be reclaimed. He came to us from a prison where our work was not yet established. A copy of the _Gazette_ had reached him and through its influence he learned to look upon us as his friends. He made no profession of conversion but merely declared that he was anxious to try and make a success of an honest life. His stay at Hope Hall was quite a long one and we who watched him closely, could see the growth and development of his better self as he fought desperately the old vices.

Speaking to a comrade about this time he said, "When I have written in the past to Mrs. Booth I have never called her Little Mother because I was not sure I was going to stay right. I dared not call her that until I was _sure_ but now when I write it will be always, 'Little Mother.'" Here is a letter from him after he had been twelve months in one position, and at the same time there came to me a letter full of commendation, from his employer.

"Dear Little Mother:--I am sorry that I must begin by asking your pardon for not having written for so long a time, but I am deeply thankful that my next words can be, that I have done well in every sense of the word. After the dull emptiness of the past, my life here comes like the opening of summer after a long winter of weariness and discontent. Day by day the influences that had grown up in the old life have been losing their place, and new interests coming into my heart that make me happier and stronger and better. I have written but few letters since the beginning of the year, and I cannot write much now, but I think you can understand much, perhaps all, of what I feel and would wish to say. But I can say, after the year that has passed since I left Hope Hall, that there are few months of my life that I can remember with more pleasure than those I spent there, and I have felt since leaving, that I there gained the strength I needed to help me start life anew. I shall always feel the influence of those months of close companionship with the men--each with a different story, and a different struggle, and, no matter where my life may be passed, or how dear the interests that may come into it, I shall always feel, when I think of Hope Hall, the tenderness one feels when thinking of an absent, well-loved friend."

The following note was an acknowledgment of a special copy of the little Day Book sent to one of our "boys" shortly after his graduation. "Dear Little Mother:--I am more pleased than I can say for your remembrance of me and the delightful manner of this remembrance emphasizes itself in the gift. Every day as I read this precious little book I will think of the giver, and pray that God may grant unto you every good and perfect gift. I am now in the world and must fight my fight, but I know that that power which alone can subdue the enemy will be my strength and shield if I but walk circumspectly. I know too that the testimony of words will avail nothing, but that it is my life that must speak. In the selection of the evening portion for to-day I read, 'Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light.' I want my life to say this for me. Accept, dear Little Mother, the remembrance of a grateful heart and in the charity of your prayers remember me."

To those who do not know the writers much behind the written words cannot be realized and I find myself saying, "After all what will these pages mean to the public?" To me they are unspeakably precious; they represent so many nights of prayer and anxious days, after the darkness of which they come as the touch of a rosy dawn; they remind me of tears to which they have brought the rainbow gleam of promise. I almost grudge them to other eyes and yet if by their words other hearts may be strengthened, their value will be doubled.

VI

UNWELCOMED HOME-COMING

Liberty! How much that word means to all of us! It is the keynote of our Constitution. It is the proud right of every citizen. The very breeze that flutters our starry flag sings of it; the wild forests, the rocky crags, the mountain torrents, the waving grasses of the wide-stretching prairies echo and reecho it. Yet much as we may think we know of the fullness, sweetness and power of that word, we cannot form an estimate of its meaning to one who is in prison. He has lost the gift and those who have it not, can often prize the treasure more than those who possess it.

People have talked to me about the prisoner becoming quite reconciled to his lot, and in time growing indifferent to the regaining of liberty. I think this is one of the fallacies that the outside world has woven. I do not know from what prison such an idea emanated. So far as my observation goes, I have yet to find the first prisoner who did not long with an unspeakable desire for freedom. Even the older life-men who have been in long enough to outlive all their friends, who have no kith or kin to return to, and for whom there is no home-spot on earth, plead earnestly for the chance to die in liberty. They hope and plan, they appeal and pray for pardon, though it would send them from the familiar sheltering walls into a strange, cold world, but the world of free men. In every cell are men who count all dates by one date, the day coming to them in the future when they will be free again. Sometimes it is very far away and yet that does not make it any less vividly present in their thought. The chief use in the calendar is to mark off the passing days and some have even figured off minutely the hours that stand between them and liberty.

There is a weird cry that breaks out sometimes amid the midnight stillness of the prison cell-house, the venting of a heart's repressed longing, "Roll around, 1912," and from other cells other voices echo, each putting in the year of his liberty. I heard the cry break out in chapel one Christmas day as the gathering at their concert broke up, every year being called by the "boys" who looked forward to it as their special year of liberty. "Roll around, 1912." How far away it seems to us even in liberty, but how much further to the man who must view it through a vista of weary toilsome prison days.

Having talked with many just before their dis when the days and hours leave but a few grains to trickle through the glass of time they have watched so closely, I know just what a strain and tension these last days represent. Often the man cannot sleep for nights together under the excitement and the nervous strain proves intense. Through the dark nights of wakefulness he puts the finishing touches to the castles in the air that he has been building through the weary term when with his body in prison, his mind wandered out into the days to come, and hope, battling with fear, painted for him a rainbow in the storm clouds of the future.

Can you imagine how hard and bitter is the awakening for such a man when he returns to life to find himself a marked and branded being, one to be distrusted and watched, pointed out and whispered about, with all too often the door of honest toil shut in his face? The man discharged from prison is not unreasonable. He does not expect an easy path. We do not ask for him a way strewn with roses or a cheer of welcome. He has sinned, he has strayed from the right road, plunged over the precipice of wrong-doing, and it must at best be a hard climb back again. The men do not ask nor do we ask for them an easy position, the immediate restoration of the trust, confidence and sympathy of the world on the day of their return. They know they cannot expect, having thrown away their chances in an evil past, to find them awaiting their return to moral sanity. I have not found them unreasonable and certainly very few have been lazy or unwilling to prove their sincerity. What we do ask for the released prisoner and what we feel he has a right to ask of the world is a chance to live honestly, an opportunity to prove whether or not he has learned his lesson so that he may climb back into the world of freedom and into a useful respectable position where he may be trusted.

When God forgives us He says that our sins and transgressions shall be blotted out like a cloud or cast into the sea of His forgetfulness. He believes in a buried past. The world alas! too often goes back to that wretched old grave to dig up what lies there, and flaunts the miserable skeleton before the eyes of the poor soul, who had fondly hoped that when the law was satisfied to the last day and hour, he had paid for his crime, and might begin afresh with a clean sheet to write a new record.

How often we hear the term "ex-convict." Do the people who use it ever stop to think that the wound is as deep and the term as odious as that of "convict" to the man who has been in prison? When he is liberated, when the law has said, "Go in peace and sin no more," he is a free man, and no one has the right to regard him as other than this. Any name which marks him out is a cruel injustice. If the State provided for the future of these men; if they were not dependent on their own labors for their daily bread, it would not be quite so ghastly, but when one thinks that this prejudice and marking of discharged prisoners, robs them of the chance of gaining a living, and in many instances forces them back against their will into a dishonest career, one can realize how truly tragic the situation is.

Many a time one can pick up a daily paper and see the headlines, "So and So to be Liberated To-morrow," or, "Convict ... will return to the world," or some such announcement. If a man who is at all notorious has finished a term in prison, the article tells of the crime he committed five, six or even ten years before; what he did; how he did it; why he did it. Some account of his imprisonment--with an imaginary picture of himself in his cell--may be added, with the stripes in evidence, and even a chain and ball to make it more realistic. This heralds the day of his discharge. What a welcome back after his weary paying of the penalty through shame and loneliness, toil and disgrace, mingled often with bitter tears of repentance during those best years lost from his life forever! This raking up of the past reminds his friends and acquaintances of the wretched story which had been nearly forgotten, and tells it to many more who had not heard of it. Is this fair? Perhaps it may be said that this is part of the penalty of doing wrong. I answer that it should not be! In a civilized land our wrong-doers must be punished by proper lawful means. The law does not require this publicity after release. Why should the world ask it? Besides that, could we not quote the recommendation given of old that only those who are without sin have the right to cast stones, and, if that precept were lived up to, very few would ever be cast at all, for the saint in heart and life would be charitable.

It does not take many days of tramping in a fruitless search for work, or many rebuffs and slights, to shake for the most sanguine man the foundation of those castles he saw in the air before his term expired. When money is gone, and there is no roof to cover the weary head, no food to stop the gnawing of hunger, and no friend at hand to sympathize, the whole airy structure topples to the ground amid the dust and ashes of his fond hopes, and the poor man learns in bitterness of heart an anger against society that makes him more dangerous and desperate than he ever was before.

Much is said of the habitual criminal. Some contend that he is born, that, as a poor helpless infant, he is doomed to a career of crime and vice. Others believe that such lives are the outcome of malformation of brain and skull, and yet others have their own pet theories to account for the large number of "repeaters," as they are called in some states, "old-timers," or "habituals," as they are known elsewhere. I have personally known many of these men and have traced their lives, talked with them heart to heart, and I can tell the world, as my profound conviction, that the habitual criminal is made, not born; manufactured by man, not doomed by a monster-god; that such criminals are the result of the lack of charity, of knowledge or thought or whatever else you may like to call it, that makes the world shrink from and doom the sinner to a return to sin, that treads further down in the mire the man who has fallen.

What is a man to do on leaving prison with his friends dead or false to him, with no home, little money, the brand of imprisonment upon him, nervous, unstrung, handicapped with the loss of confidence in himself, and with neither references nor character? The cry of the world is, "Let the man go to work; if he is honest, and proves himself so, then we will trust him and stretch out a hand to help him." Ah, then if that day ever comes to him, he will not need your outstretched hand. Your chance to help and strengthen him will have passed forever; the credit of his success will be all his own, but few can reach that happy day. It is easy to say, let the man work, but where shall he find occupation; who wants the man who can give no clear account of himself? If in honesty of heart he tells the truth and states, "I am straight from prison," he is told to go on his way, and often the voice that gives the command is harsh with indignant contempt and loathing, and yet this man has one inalienable right in common with all his fellow-men, the right to live, and to live, the man must have bread. Some have said to me that it is cruel that the right to end their lives is denied them, for should they commit suicide they would only be condemned, and if they attempted it and were not successful, they would be imprisoned for trying to do away with that which no man helped them to make endurable.