JOHN J. LYTLE. “Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.” Such was the passing of our beloved friend, John J. Lytle, whose death occurred on the 14th of Eighth Month, 1911, at his residence in Moorestown, N. J. He was born at Alexandria, Va., in 1823, and had almost completed his eighty-eighth year. In his infancy his widowed mother brought her family to Philadelphia, and for the remainder of his life his residence was in or near that city. After he attained his majority he was a merchant for twenty-five years at the corner of Seventh and Spring Garden Streets. Early in his business career he became deeply interested in personal visitations to the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary. With the exception of Joshua L. Baily, President of the Society, his membership in the Pennsylvania Prison Society covered a period longer than that of any living member, both having been elected members in 1851. For nearly sixty years he was a member of the Acting Committee, and his official positions date from the beginning of his membership on the Acting Committee to the time of his death. Early in 1852 he was appointed Secretary of the Acting Committee, and in 1860 he was elected Secretary of the Society. This office he held till 1909, when, on account of the infirmities of age, he was released from the active duties of this position and appointed Honorary Secretary. From 1886 to 1908 he gave up almost his entire time and energies to work on behalf of prisoners. The Eastern Penitentiary was the scene of his greatest efforts. Almost daily did he visit this large institution, becoming personally acquainted with the thirteen hundred or more inmates and ministering untiringly to their physical and spiritual needs. He speaks of his great privilege and “pleasure to stand by the prisoner’s side, to grasp his hand, to put new life into his heart, to endeavor to restore confidence in himself.” While he believed in all changes in penal methods which are directed to the reformation of the prisoners, and in industrial and scholastic training, he was firmly convinced that the only sure basis of reformation was the life-giving, renewing power of the gospel of Christ. To this end he labored in season and out of season. He never forgot the spiritual interests of those whom he befriended. In his report for 1906 he says: “We must talk to the man in the cell as a man, a friend and brother.... That lives redeemed await the work of those who enter the prison cell with the message of Christ is well proven. Many a one has said to me--I believe in sincerity, ‘The best thing that ever happened to me in my life was my sentence to the penitentiary. Here I have found my Saviour, whom I knew not before.’” This theme is dwelt on in all the eighteen reports which he made after assuming the duties of General Secretary in 1886. To illustrate his faithfulness in the performance of duty, in a report made in his