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
I am not biased in my judgment. I know sentimentalism is not
salvation. That can come only through true repentance and faith in God
and must be evidenced by restitution and good works; but if you could
see, as I have seen, the meetings in the prison guard-room between
husband and wife, mother and son, or between father and his wayward
boy, if you could see the tears and sobs as they meet and part, and
above all at the last parting before execution, I believe you would
never feel like criticising or being harsh in your judgment again.
Could you have gone with me during these twenty years, could you have
had the confidence of these prisoners as I have had it, you would
realize that they are, in very many cases, as truly open to conviction
and as easily reached as those outside of prison walls, and are they
not my children? Do I not know their faults? Do they not confess to me
their guilt? But back of all I see Jesus hanging on the cross of
Calvary, between two thieves, dying, and in His death agony, while the
blood is oozing from the print of the thorns upon His brow, while the
eyes are growing glassy in death, with the cold death sweat standing
out upon His face, I hear Him say to the penitent thief, "This day
shalt thou be with me in Paradise." And again, as He remembers all
those who have so cruelly wronged Him, he cries, "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do." If the Son of God gave Himself
for us, if with His dying breath He prayed for His persecutors, if He
who knew no sin and understood all hearts could say, "They know not
what they do," God help us to be willing to forgive those who have
transgressed the law either of God or man.
These prisoners need a helping hand, need a friend with wisdom, tact
and judgment, one in whose heart there is the one thought above all
others of the need of their immortal souls, their eternal destiny.
You and I, reader, must do our part in reforming a lost world, in
saving lost sinners. Then let us remember how good God has been to us
by keeping us out of prison, by keeping us out of the evil
surroundings and influences that might have brought us there. Let us
give the poor prisoners a fair show and fair play. Many of them long
for better things, for one more chance to prove themselves worthy of
the confidence and sympathy of their fellow men. After twenty years of
toil among those who are bound, I do bless God that He ever called me
to carry to those in prison the glad message of His love and seek by
love and faith and prayer to lift them up to better things.
PREPARED TO DIE.
Once while holding services in a prison, there came to me a prisoner
saying, "Mother, I want to tell you I was saved since I saw you."
(Only a few days previous.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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