Читать книгу Prisons and Prayer; Or, a Labor of Love - Elizabeth Ryder Wheaton - Страница 40

Soon after entering upon prison work, I found in one of our eastern prisons the writer of the following letters and articles. He was at that time young, gifted, scholarly and very prepossessing in appearance. His penmanship was beautiful, perhaps the most so I have ever seen, but he had fallen under evil influences and the very gift that should have been used for a better purpose proved a curse and at the time I first saw him he was under sentence for forgery. He seemed to be clearly converted in a meeting I held in the prison and proved faithful during the remainder of his term. But after he went out into the world I lost trace of him. He was only one among thousands who need sympathy and help and encouragement. I trust that, if living, he is still true to himself and to God. Some of his letters follow, also the discourse on the Agony in the Garden in the form of a letter found in the appendix is of his writing.

Oct. 29, 1885.

To Mrs. ——Wheaton.

Madame: Not being able to shake hands, and having thus been deprived of the pleasure of verbally telling you what we had to say, we now have recourse to our pen. Our hearts have heard, understood and treasured your words of last Sunday.

Dear Lady, yours is a special task. In your field of labor are gathered crowds unnumbered, inert, inanimate, forming, as it were, a great desert, a Dead Sea uninhabited by any living thing. There lies a small world to be reconquered; such are the men who are to be reclaimed. How act upon them? How move their hearts? How gain mastery over them? In these questions lies the secret of the future.

Holiness in your heart and the omnipotent hand of Jesus in yours cannot fail to bring about the reformation of a host of criminals. He will save them. Oh! climb the heights, display the brilliancy of those universal truths in whose presence every being gifted with reason and accessible to reflection feels compelled to bend the knee. Deeds, examples, striking evidence and incontestable proofs of abnegation, devotedness, charity and sacrifices are required. These are the sermons that awaken souls from their torpor; these the weapons that triumph over the world, however criminal, careless, frivolous and hardened it may be.

Signed.

December 1, 1885.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton,

Somewhere in America.

Let me begin this letter by saying something very true concerning

RUM.

Let thy devotees extol thee, And thy wondrous virtues sum; But the worst of names I'll call thee, O, thou hydra monster, Rum!

Pimple-maker, visage-bloater, Health-corrupter, idler's mate; Mischief breeder, vice promoter, Credit spoiler, devil's bait.

Almshouse builder, pauper maker, Trust betrayer, sorrow's source; Pocket emptier, Sabbath breaker, Conscience stifler, guilt's resource.

Nerve enfeebler, system shatterer, Thirst increaser, vagrant thief; Cough producer, treacherous flatterer, Mud bedauber, mock relief.

Business hinderer, spleen instiller, Woe begetter, friendship's bane; Anger heater, Bridewell filler, Debt involver, toper's chain.

Memory drowner, honor wrecker, Judgment warper, blue-faced quack; Feud beginner, rags bedecker, Strife enkindler, fortune's wreck.

Summer's cooler, winter's warmer, Blood polluter, specious snare; Mob collector, man transformer, Bond undoer, gambler's fare.

Speech bewrangler, headlong bringer, Vitals burner, deadly fire; Riot mover, firebrand flinger, Discord kindler, misery's sire.

Sinews robber, worth depriver, Strength subduer, hideous foe; Reason thwarter, fraud contriver, Money waster, nations' woe.

Vile seducer, joy dispeller, Peace disturber, blackguard guest; Sloth implanter, liver sweller, Brain distracter, hateful pest.

Wit destroyer, joy impairer, Scandal dealer, foul-mouthed scourge; Senses blunter, youth ensnarer, Crime inventor, ruin's verge.

Virtue blaster, base deceiver, Spite displayer, sot's delight; Noise exciter, stomach heaver, Falsehood spreader, scorpion's bite.

Quarrel plotter, rage discharger, Giant conqueror, wasteful sway; Chin carbuncler, tongue enlarger, Malice venter, death's broadway.

Household scatterer, high-hope dasher, Death's forerunner, hell's dire brink; Ravenous murderer, windpipe slasher, Drunkard's lodging, meat and drink!

The rum vender's power is something enormous. We do not delude ourselves into thinking that the fight for national prohibition will be easily won. In many respects the liquor dealers will prove an enemy harder to vanquish than the slave dealers were. For slavery was an institution with a local habitation. It was restricted to certain well-defined limits. The whole world knew where it was and what it was doing. But rum is everywhere. Its upholders are woven into the warp and woof of society in every city and hamlet. It has a thousand heads, and it can hide them in times of danger with wonderful facility. Slavery was bold, brazen and defiant. It could be nothing else. But the liquor dealers, with equal bravado and strength, are enabled to resort to the cunning and subtlety of the serpent, when bravado is imprudent.

Then the liquor dealer's influence over his victims does not end with control of the bodies. His slaves are his allies. He owns them, many of them, body and soul for such a cause. They will fight for rum and vote for rum as persistently as the saloonist himself. These facts may as well be appreciated. When it comes to defiant antagonism, when temperance men boldly array themselves in professed opposition to the traffic in alcohol, the struggle will be severe. But it is certain there will come no time in the future when it will be less severe. The liquor power is a rapidly growing power. God knows it is strong enough now, but it becomes stronger with each passing day.

Are we willing that such a class of men not only hold such an enormous power, but add to it indefinitely? In the census for 1880 the capital employed in the manufacture of liquor was over one hundred and eighteen million of dollars, and the number of persons employed in the manufactories and in saloons aggregated over one hundred thousand. No nation can afford to leave such power in the hands of such men. It is suicidal.

Having said my say about "Old Devil" and his "Clerks" I guess I'll write a little letter to

My Dear Sister:

Your good, kind letter was duly received. We sincerely thank you. When meeting with savages who don't treat you respectfully please ever remember that in M—— everybody who knows you or about you loves you. Mrs. D. told me to write to Mrs. Wheaton because "she is a lovely Christian."

"O taste and see that the Lord is good." Psa. 34:8.

That is the right way to find out that He is good. We may think He is good, we may have some idea that He is so—but to know it, and to know how very good the Lord is, we must taste his goodness. He alone is good. He is goodness itself; and because He is this, He wants us to taste, to enjoy Him.

Good men and women, and good children, will one day be like the angels in heaven; and they begin to be such already in this world. If it were not for them, if they were not here to be the bearers of peace and happiness, the ministers of mercy and of love, to wretchedness and woe, to the weary and the bowed down, how wretched would this world be! A thousand blessings upon you, beloved sisters, who, from the goodness of your great big heart, endeavor to do good to others. It is through such holy and devoted daughters of our thrice holy King and Father as Sister Elizabeth that we taste and see how good the Lord is.

"You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand." Galatians 6:11. "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers." Philemon, 4.

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." Romans 15:13.

"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." Hebrews 13:3.

We salute thee, sister.

Your real brother in Jesus,

L. J.

Charlestown, Mass., Oct. 18, 1886.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton.

Dear Sister—John 17:20, 21: "Everyone members one of another." "If one suffer all suffer." I do not know that the relation and consequent influence of member upon member can be better illustrated than by the connection of the body, mind and spirit, and the power that any one of the three has over the other two.

The mind depends upon the body to carry out its desires, and the mind is in constant subjection to the body in health and in sickness. The body is controlled by the mind as the ship is directed in her course by the man at the helm. The spirit looks out through the eyes of the body and is entranced with the scene of beauty, or is crushed with the sorrow with which it is seized, according as we look upon a thing of beauty or the eye rests upon things withered and dead.

The life and experience of every man attest the fact that thought and emotion, and the body in which the organs of thought and feeling are placed, are inter-related in such a way and to such an extent that the mind and body control, to a very great extent, the activity of each other. The wise man, looking at the inner life and the outer manifestation of it, from a little different point of view, expresses it thus: "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded or broken spirit who can bear?" Says a writer in the Laws of Health: "If a man thinks he is an invalid he is one; if he thinks himself incompetent he is incompetent, and so through the whole list." By faith in Christ, as true and confiding as the trust of a child; by boldness at the throne of grace; by firmness in resisting temptation, and by resolution in the performance of every duty we are able to maintain the connection we have formed with Christ, the head of the body; to bear the fruit of the vine; to suffer with each other; to be honored with the members of the body, and to rejoice with those who rejoice.

As the connection of the body, mind, moral nature and spirit is such as to give one part influence over the other parts and the power to modify their health and action, so the relation which is formed with the household of faith, when we come into Christ, is to be honored by striving for the faith of the gospel and by an effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

If one in Christ now, this oneness can be maintained among the brotherhood in but one way, and that is by being one with Christ and God in purpose, plan and effort for the salvation of men and by striving together for the faith of the gospel. The unity of God's people cannot be maintained by erecting standards of our own—by making our own opinions bonds of fellowship and tests of soundness—by prescribing this and forbidding that. The unity is to be maintained by striving together for the faith of the gospel. The same thing is true with reference to the multitudes who are following Christ as they have learned him. The unity of all these distracted bodies is not to be brought about by any effort to form a union, but by an effort on the part of each one to grow up into Christ, the living Head; by all agreeing to disagree in their opinions; and by all striving together for the faith of the gospel. This lesson is to be taught the world by the disciples of Christ, and if we do not teach the lesson aright, we may expect, and we ought to receive the question: What do ye more than others?

When we are growing in favor with God and man; when we are increasing in the knowledge of divine things; when our lives are hid with Christ in God; when we are appropriating the spiritual food which God has furnished; when we are proving to the world that we have passed from death unto life; when we are loving each other with pure hearts fervently; when we are continuing steadfast in the apostles' doctrines and in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers, we are giving to the world and to professed Christians everywhere a living demonstration that we are striving together for the faith of the gospel.

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!"

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. III John 2.

Yours in His love,

L. J.