Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of LoveWheaton, Elizabeth Ryder
Religion
Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love
Wheaton, Elizabeth Ryder
Evangelistic work; Prisons
What was the cause of the sad plight of this family? Sin. The saloon!
There had been a saloon fight, and some one was killed. Some one did
the deed. Oh, God! What a reckoning there will be in the end for those
who vote to license the saloon, as well as they who dispense the rum,
God will open the books and all shall be judged out of the things that
are written therein. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord
of hosts." This faithful wife and mother had spent all her living in
an attempt to secure the liberty of her husband. But failing in this,
she had come with her children to live in that dreary place, hoping to
be able to lead him to a better life, finally dying in want, and of a
broken heart. After the funeral I pleaded with the little girl to go
with me. But she true to her trust, true to her dead mother's loyalty,
said, "Never will I leave my poor father with no one to care for him.
Mother never would, I never will. I will go to see him and tell him of
Jesus."
Wearied with toil and the journeying from place to place to visit the
sick to whom the little girl from the camp had guided me, I returned
in the evening with her to her home and then to the camp. Thinking to
lie down and take some rest, and kneeling to pray, I was impressed
that I must visit the other stockade some two or three miles away. I
knew it was the voice of God and said, "Yes." The lady strongly
pleading that I must not go, that it was dangerous, said I could not
go alone, that I would lose my way, etc. The husband also said one's
life was in danger, that several men were found dead in those
mountains and no one knew who killed them, etc., and pleaded with me
not to go. But I said, "If God sends me, He will see that I am not
harmed. He will not forsake me." Soon I started on my way, and
presently met the two little boys whose mother had just been buried. I
asked if one of them would not show me the way to the other camp, and
the older one kindly did so. With my little guide we hurried down that
rough mountain side, we being compelled to carry stones to build a
bridge across a stream of water, and finally came within sight of the
camp. Upon insisting that God had sent me, and that I had held
services in the other camp, the captain (overseer) invited me into his
home. I had not expected such kindness, but thanking the Lord I
accepted it as from Him. They kindly brought us food, but I would not
eat, and gave it all to the little boy who was so hungry, and praying
for him he started homeward. Here also we had a wonderful meeting. Men
with broken hearts wept with longing for a mother's sympathy and a
Savior's love. Some came to Christ and were saved, and I believe that
I shall meet some of them in the great home gathering bye and bye in
heaven.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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