Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love — John Shaqi
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
In her chosen work, in the past twenty years, no person has done
more good or has had so much influence in causing people to lead
better lives, to quit sinning, to get out of hell and enjoy the
happiness that follows from leading conscientious, truer lives.
Her good intentions, her words of warning and sympathy, her sweet
soul songs of love, her prayers in angelic power, have moved the
people outside of the churches in the different avocations and
walks of life as they had never been moved before, the masses
perceiving by subtle agency that here was a person deserving
love, respect and honor.
She had great influence with the employees of the different
railway companies, the good-will of the superintendents of many
of the great railway lines of the country, frequently getting
passes from New York City to San Francisco and return, a
distance of seven thousand miles, for herself and companion.
She has spoken in more reformatories, jails and penitentiaries,
and, I believe, done more good, unconnected with any
organization, than any other in the twenty years.
HER LIFE HISTORY.
It is too long a story to attempt to go into details--to tell of
her trials, hardships and sickness; to tell of her individual
successes, as well as her successes when she has swayed great
bodies of people, moving the half of them to tears, causing them
to have higher thoughts, better motives, and to bless the hour
she was among them; or of how she entered the southern stockades
alone, even when warned by the Warden that her life might be
taken, and in ten minutes had the inmates as tractable as little
children, where the officials would not enter, except in a body
and thoroughly armed; how she stood her ground when menaced by
drunken western desperadoes; or of the times she divided her
raiment and her scant purse with the destitute, and the many
times she escaped great danger by being forewarned, etc.
Bereft of both parents at the age of five years, and cared for by
cold and indifferent strangers, she misses the mother's love,
guidance, sympathy and protection.
When she started out on her mission she left a good home with all
the substantials and many of the luxuries of life, with but
little education, without money or friends, alone to travel
unbeaten paths, to do a work that no one had ever tried before;
untrained in the great work she was to follow, but impelled by a
higher Spirit force she could not resist. "Do this work. I will
be with you to the end. When great troubles come, I will be your
shield and your helper. I will warn you of great danger. I will
protect your life. You will gather many sheaves, and, when you
are through with earth, have a high place in the heavenly abode."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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