Chapter XXIII: Kind Words from Friends

We give here a few letters from dear friends who have been especially interested in the Master's work, some of whom have given me many words of encouragement, or otherwise been helpful to me in advancing the work of the gospel.

FROM H. L. HASTINGS AND WIFE.

47 Cornhill Place, Boston, Mass., January 27, 1886.

Blessed Sister:

Your card came duly. Glad to hear. Sorry you could not call. Mrs.
Hastings wanted to see you. Come to our house when you will. If
you go to New York, call on Miss Annie Delaney, Fruit and Bible
Mission, 416 E. 26th St., New York, opposite the Bellevue
Hospital--right in the middle of prisons and prisoners. Tell them
I sent you. Miss D. is superintendent and has lived with us and
can open doors there.

I was at State Prison one night. Heard many good testimonies from
your friends there. Surely, your labors have been blessed. May
the Lord direct your way in all these things, and guide your
endeavors. How much you need the Heavenly Father's guidance. He
will guide you with His eye. Pray that you may know and do His
will, and pray for us that we may please Him in all things. Do
you need some tracts or papers? Let us know.

Yours in the work,

H. L. HASTINGS.

* * * * *

Goshen, Mass., March 9, 1900.

My Dear Sister:

I am very glad indeed to hear from you, and to know that you are
still alive and still at work.

It was a great shock to me when Mr. Hastings left us. But the
Lord has been very good to me, and I feel that He means what He
says: "E'en down to old age I will never leave thee." "I'll
never, no, never, no, never forsake." This is a beautiful and a
comforting thought to me at this time.

May God bless you, my sister, and keep you in health to do His
work, is the prayer of

Your friend,
MRS. H. L. HASTINGS.

(Per E. B.)

* * * * *

E. E. BYRUM, AUTHOR AND EDITOR.

September 11, 1903.

During the past few years I have been acquainted with Mrs.
Elizabeth R. Wheaton, and known of her earnestness and zeal in
behalf of the unfortunate prisoners of our land. For many years
her time has been almost wholly given to the work of relieving
the distressed and discouraged in their cells, and in prison
chapels.

Her songs and words of encouragement, mingled with tears, have
caused the feelings of depression and sadness to flee away, and
those bowed down with sorrow to grasp a ray of hope and look
forward with renewed energy to a higher life, trusting in Him who
is able to keep. Many years of continued evangelistic work in the
penitentiaries and prisons of America have given her a wide range
of experiences of prison life, a description of which cannot fail
to be of intense interest to every reader. It was partially due
to her untiring zeal that I was moved to write the book entitled
"Behind the Prison Bars." Her written words will continue to warn
and comfort after her departure from this world to her home
beyond the cares of life.

E. E. BYRUM.

Moundsville, W. Va.

FROM MOTHER OF PRISONER.

Chicago, March 4, 1900.

Dear Friend:

I was greatly surprised and glad to hear from you, for my son has
often spoken of you and has regretted that the quarantine has
kept you away. I feel very grateful to you for taking an interest
in my dear boy, for he is still very dear to me.

You cannot imagine my feelings all these years, knowing he was
behind gloomy walls. My health has given way two or three times
on account of it. Like so many others, he thought he knew best,
and left a good home to go roving. The cause of his downfall is
due to bad company, but then, his time is up in October. I hope
to see him once more and keep him with me, for I am growing
old--am nearly sixty-two.

I shall be very glad to welcome you to our home.

If you should see my dear boy before you come to Chicago, tell
him I am waiting patiently until I see him.

This letter hardly expresses my feelings, but, sleeping or
waking, my thoughts are nearly always with my absent boy. Once
more accept thanks from a broken-hearted mother.

Mrs. M. E. F.

FROM A PRISONER'S DAUGHTER.

Denver, Colo., Jan. 7, 1903.

My Dear Mother Wheaton:

Praise God for salvation this afternoon! I am glad I found your
address, for I have wanted to write to you for a long time and
tell you the result of your visit to R. State Prison, where you
talked with my precious father.

He wrote me soon after you left and said you left him under awful
conviction. He confessed and forsook his sins and is now a man
saved by the blood that was shed on the cross for him. He said
that he was restless from the time you left until he found Jesus.
He told how you and a young lady talked and prayed with him, and
how, after he retired, he rolled and tossed in awful agony until
about eleven o'clock, when he cried to God for mercy. God heard
his cries and came to his release. O hallelujah! It just makes me
shout to read his letters now. I can tell by them that he is
really resting in Jesus. He before seldom wrote more than two
pages, and now he writes from fifteen to twenty-four. And oh,
such letters! I just can't help but cry for joy when I read them
and realize that my precious papa is serving the only true and
living God. I give God the glory and all of the honor for what
has been done; and I praise God for using you as an instrument
through whom He worked. Eternity alone can reveal the result.

My heart is full of praises to Jesus my King this evening. He has
done so much for me lately. He blesses me in soul and body and
supplies all my needs.

I may go to C. soon and try to do something for my father. Pray
that God may lead me and that the devil may not hinder in any
way, if God sees fit to release papa from prison. I am perfectly
resigned to God's will.

Your sister for Jesus,
M. H.

(This daughter was a successful Christian worker.)

FROM AN EDITOR.

Ashburn, Ga., May 12, 1897.

Dear Sister:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you. I received your letter and
communication for "Holiness Advocate," which will appear in the
next issue. Always let me know where to find you. I would have
written sooner, but have been away to Macon, where I saw Sister
Perry. She has been here and visited the convict camps since you
were here. I have been visiting those camps pretty regularly
since you left here. You put it on me and I am trying to be
faithful. You asked me in your letter if you knew me. Yes, I met
you here. It was in front of my store. You held the street
service here at Ashburn, while waiting for the train, and I was
with you until the train left. Well, sister, I will never get
done praising God for ever meeting you. It marked a new epoch in
my experience. I want you to take my paper on your heart. Ask the
Holy Spirit to run it for me and the Father to supply financial
help. I am trusting Him for it. How glad the prisoners in the
camp will be to hear from you in this way. I will send up to both
the camps a bundle of the issue containing your letter. I want
you all to pray for the South, that a deeper work may be done in
the hearts of the Holiness people; that the missionary spirit may
get hold of us so that we will send out our sons and daughters to
tell of Jesus' love to a perishing, dying world.

May the Lord bless you and use you in the future even more
powerfully than in the past. Come and see us when you can.

Yours, bound for Heaven,
J. LAWRENCE,
Ed. Holiness Advocate.

* * * * *

Ashburn, Ga., August 25, 1898.

Dear Sister Wheaton:

Your letter came to us all right, and you have no idea what
gladness it brings to us all to hear from you, and yet
conviction. For it certainly convicts us for the little we are
doing when we see how the Lord is enabling you to put in full
time. Pray for me that I may be more zealous. Things are taking a
deeper move in the South. A great number of the Holiness people
are getting down for a real experience. We have been satisfied
long enough with a profession. So you may expect something from
the South in the near future. Men and women giving themselves for
the foreign field and for the home field, working in the slums
and in the prisons and wherever God may lead them. Love to all
the saints at Tabor. I have never met any of them, but I do love
them and the work they are doing. "Blessed be the tie that
binds."

God bless you, and may you be preserved blameless unto His
coming.

Yours in Jesus' love,
J. LAWRENCE.

FROM AN EX-PRISONER.

Sioux City, Ia., Jan. 31, 1901.

Mrs. Wheaton: I don't suppose you will remember me, but possibly
you may, as I think I was one of the most wretched in or out of
prison at that time. It was at Sioux Falls, So. Dak., between
three and four years ago, if I remember correctly. You visited
the prison and spoke to us in chapel, and later in the day you
and a lady with you, came around to the cells. I was in cell No.
13. You shook hands with me and asked, "Are you a Christian?" I
replied, "No." Again you asked, "Have you ever been one?" "No."
"Will you meet me in Heaven?" you asked again, and I answered, "I
will try to." You spoke only a few words, saying, "Do not be
discouraged." These few words and that warm hand-shake helped me
very much. I was indeed much discouraged. Life seemed dark
indeed. I was serving an eleven years' sentence. I was under deep
conviction of sin. Not long after that the blessed Christ came
into my heart. I believed on His name and He saved my soul. Two
years ago last August I was pardoned from the prison. The 17th of
last March I became Superintendent of a Rescue Mission in Dakota,
and for ten months or nearly that I was there and the Lord
blessed our efforts by saving souls. I am now married. My wife
was converted in the mission last June. She is an accomplished
musician and singer and, the Lord being willing, we expect to go
out and preach the gospel among railroad men in the near future.

I have often thought of you and your labor of love among
prisoners. May God bless and encourage you in the work, is my
earnest prayer. I heard that you were in Sioux Falls at the
prison a short time ago. I did not know it in time to see you. If
the prisoners only knew what joy and peace there is in the
service of Jesus, it seems to me they would yield their hearts to
Him. Again I wish you godspeed in your work. May you have many
precious jewels for the Master's crown. To Him belong the praise
and glory.

Good-bye, and God bless you and the sister that was with you.
Never be discouraged. Jesus loves and uses you.

Yours, in His service,
T. F. M.

* * * * *

Sioux Falls, S. Dak., Feb. 9, 1904.

Mrs. E. R. Wheaton.

Dear Sister: Your card of November was received. Hope you will
pardon me for not writing before. I am glad that you are still
trusting Jesus, and working in His vineyard. May God bless,
comfort, strengthen and keep you.

Jesus is coming again, perhaps soon. It may be that we shall be
alive when He comes. If so we shall be caught up together with
the dead in Christ to meet Him in the air, so shall we ever be
with Him. Blessed be His name. (I Thess. 4-17.) I want to exalt
Him. I want my daily life to be a testimony of His power to save
and to keep. Many years of my life were spent in sin. Finally I
was tried, convicted and sentenced to state's prison for a long
term of years. God says: "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he
also reap, for He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh
reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the
Spirit reap life everlasting." (Galatians 6:7, 8.) God's word is
true.

I found my mind giving away and my body a physical wreck. I read
the Bible and God showed me that I was a lost man. I tried to
destroy my life, but God in his love and mercy would not permit
it. I was in great darkness. I said to a friend, there is no hope
for me in this life or the life to come, but I did not know Jesus
Christ nor His saving power. God sent His ministers each Sunday
morning to preach the blessed gospel, and one Sunday morning He
sent "Mother Wheaton" to us. In the afternoon, I believe it was,
she visited us in our cells. I had quarreled with my cell-mate,
and he had left me. Mrs. Wheaton came and shook hands with me,
and asked if I was a Christian. I said, "No." Again she asked,
"Have you ever been a Christian?" I replied, "No." She said,
"Will you meet me in Heaven?" I said, "I will try." With a warm
hand-shake and a few words of encouragement, she left me. God
helped me to believe in Jesus Christ, and there came into my life
joy and peace such as I had never known before, even in my best
days on the outside.

After my conversion I asked God if it was His will that I might
be pardoned out. He also heard and answered that prayer. God is
love. He loves the vilest sinner. To-day I have a loving
Christian wife and two lovely children. I have no desire for the
old life of drinking, gambling, etc., but my desire is to love
and serve God and help my fellowmen to find Jesus, who is mighty
to save and to keep. To Jesus belongs all praise and glory. If it
is his will, may He use this testimony to bring souls to Himself.

T. F. M.

* * * * *

4064 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, Mo.,
October 25, 1899.

My Dear Mrs. Wheaton:

I thank you so much for your letter. I was greatly pleased in
reading it. I will be so glad to see you when you come. I
realize, as you say, that I have never fully let go of myself in
the Master's work, but I have given my life to Him, and if I know
my own heart, I am willing to be and do anything He shall choose
for me. I love to help lost ones, and if the Lord should use me
as He does you, I believe I should be the happiest person in the
world. Do pray for me, won't you, that the Lord may lead me into
all His will? Time is flying, and soon all of our opportunities
will be over and our Lord will take us to Himself. Pray that the
Lord will keep me busy serving Him. I love you and pray for you.
May you be kept rejoicing in hope even though you see nothing but
sin and sorrow around you. (Psalm 125:5, 6.)

Lovingly yours,
TULA D. ELY.

* * * * *

Sapphire, N. C., August 15, 1901.

My Dear Sister:

I received your letter to-day. I have been thinking about you and
praying for you often, and see by your letter that God has made
all of your trials a blessing to you and know that God can make
up for any loss He lets us have. What a hard time you did have,
dear sister. I praise God for bringing you through it with such
joy. Sometimes it seems true He does with us like He did with
Job--just tells Satan he may do everything but take our lives,
and when our self-justification and friends are gone, He joins us
in with Himself and makes us powerful in His own power. He knows
whether we want Him, and if we do we will be taken through death
to self and put to hard tests. It seems sometimes as if He hides
His face to let us suffer and say, "Though He slay me yet will I
trust Him." I am glad you are with the people who hold you up in
prayer. We need one another's prayers in these times when Satan
has so many snares. Tula is well. She and Mildred send love.

Affectionately and in Jesus, love,
CLARA D. ELY.

* * * * *

S----, Colo., June 24, 1903.

Dear Mother in Christ:

May this find you well and happy in the Lord Jesus. We have not
forgotten you and we never shall. Our gospel tent meeting at P.
was a blessed time. Souls were saved and sanctified. We give all
the glory to Jesus. We are holding meetings here in our tent. The
Lord is blessing the preaching of His Word. The Lord willing, we
will begin a meeting at Raton, New Mexico, the 2nd of August. We
would like to have you with us if it were the Lord's will. The
Lord is helping us while we are here to open a home for poor
girls. We have rented a five-room house and He is giving us
everything we need for the home. Glory to God for all things!

My brother H. is with us in the gospel work. God is blessing him
in singing the gospel. Remember us all in prayer. May the Lord
give you many souls in your work. We both send love to you.

Your children,
J. E. AND WIFE.

The above is of especial interest to me though the reader may have to read between the lines, as it were, to understand why it is so. The writers are faithful and efficient workers in the Master's cause.

A TESTIMONIAL.

Columbia, South Carolina.

To Christian Women:

Dear Sisters: We have long known the bearer, Mrs. E. R. Wheaton,
and can testify as to her arduous labors for the most needy
classes. It was our privilege to have her in our Home for one
week and we certainly received the Lord's blessing during that
time. We are working for Christ, but her labors are more
abundant, her trials far greater. As she goes forth without
commission or salary she must depend entirely upon God. He
usually supplies her through His people. Few of us could work
where and as she does, but we may lovingly minister to her
necessity and the dear Lord will surely bless in so doing. Yours
in Christ,

MARIA JONES,
ELLA F. BRAINARD.

The writer of the following sketch was an orphan girl making her home, when I first met her, with some of my relatives in Iowa. She was raised by her aunt and was kept in school and in society till she was grown. Having been converted at the age of twelve years and engaging some in Christian work, soon after my first acquaintance with her she received a call from God to devote her life wholly to His service. Being an orphan the Lord gave me a mother's love and care for her. She went with me to the Missionary Training Home at Tabor, from whence she went as a missionary to India. While at the Home she was faithful in caring for orphan children, etc., and traveled with me some, staying at one time several months as a worker in a rescue home in Chicago, and later spending some time in evangelistic work. I have elsewhere mentioned her trip with me to the Pacific coast on her way to India.

It was my privilege in the fall of 1903 to travel with Mother
Wheaton in Gospel work in prisons, jails, missions, churches,
etc. God made her a blessing to many souls who needed a mother's
love and sympathy. She always lifts up Jesus, that souls might be
drawn unto Him and be saved. We first visited the Reformatory for
Girls at Mitchelville, Iowa. We were kindly received by the
Superintendent who had been a friend of Mother Wheaton's for
several years. He gave her the privilege of holding services in
the chapel with the several hundred girls. She also visited the
girls in their cottages, singing, praying and talking with them.

We then visited the prisons at the following places: Moundsville,
W. Va.; Baltimore, Md.; Allegheny, Pa.; Columbus, Ohio; Waupun,
Wis.; Stillwater, Minn.; Frankfort, Ky.; Nashville and Brushy
Mountain, Tenn.

In the hospital of the prison at Waupun we visited Mr. Colgrove,
a prisoner who was converted fifteen years previously when Mother
Wheaton was holding a service in the prison. He was a life
prisoner but he yielded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and
was saved. During these years he proved by his daily walk that he
was a Christian. He often conducted the devotional exercises, and
he had taught three Bible classes, two in German and one in
English, until his health failed. As I bade him goodbye he said,
"I will meet you in the better world if I never meet you here
again." He was in poor health and a few months later died a
triumphant death.

The prison physicians gave permission to visit the sick, for they
know the words of comfort and songs of cheer by Mother Wheaton
will give them encouragement and a desire to live for the better
world.

In a Gospel Mission I heard an ex-convict testify to how God had
saved him from a life of sin. He said that he knew "Mother
Wheaton" but perhaps she did not know him dressed as he was; for
when she had met him before he was behind prison bars. He praised
God for such a person who was willing to work among that class of
people. I am sure there is much good accomplished in the prisons
for individuals as Mother Wheaton stands at the door after
services and shakes hands with the hundreds of prisoners as they
pass out. Her "God bless you" is not soon forgotten. When her
work is ended and the rewards of the righteous are given, many
will arise and call her blessed.

GRACE YARRETT.