"I've wandered from Thee and forgotten Thy care, Thy love trampled under my feet; The songs of my boyhood, the altar of prayer, Are only a memory sweet. "Strange spirits oft come in the night to my cell And moisten my cheek with their tears; A message they bring and a story they tell, That I had forgotten for years. "They tell of a mother bowed down with despair, Bereft of her pride and her joy, Who morning and evening is breathing this prayer, 'Dear Jesus, restore me my boy!' "O, Father, dear Father! in heaven forgive, My weakness, my sin and my shame, O, wash me and cleanse me and teach me to live, To honor Thy cause and Thy name!" If the record of successful work in prison were written only in numerical report one might still have many misgivings as to its success. There is only one thing that really tells in Christian work either in prison or on the outside and that is _the life_. Theory can be questioned, argument can be refuted, profession doubted, creed quibbled over, but a life that can be seen and read of all men is testimony beyond criticism. I remember after we had been working in Sing Sing six months an officer called me on one side and speaking very earnestly of the work, he said, "I want to confess to you that I was one who took no stock in this movement at first. I used to laugh at the men making a profession of living any better. I looked upon it as so much religious nonsense, but I confess I have been forced to change my views. You do not know the change it has made in this prison and the miracles that have been wrought in many of these men. You can see them in the meetings and can judge of them by their letters, but we live with them day after day and know far more than you can. I never believed anything could take hold of the whole prison population, the educated, the middle class and the tougher element affecting them equally as this work has done." Then he added, "There was one 'boy' in my company who was the foulest-mouthed man I have ever met. He used an oath with almost every word and was so criminal and evil that we never dreamed he could be anything else. The absolute reformation in that man is what opened my eyes. That was not talk but reality." Perhaps the strongest testimony we could offer as to the effect of the work on prison discipline, comes from the pens of our well-known wardens. Speaking before the quarterly meeting of the Iowa State Board of Control, Major McClaughry, late of Joliet, Ill., now Warden of the Federal Prison at Fort Leavenworth, said: