Prisons and Prayer Part 58

Germantown, Jan. 27, 1890.

Dear Sister: I received yours of the 28th. I am so glad that you have not forgotten me, and the words which I heard you say, although it is a long time since you said them at Coal Hill.

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Acts xvi., 31. Jails are dark, dull, damp, loathsome places even now; but they were worse in the apostolic times. I imagine tonight we are standing in the Philippian Dungeon. Do you not feel the chill? Do you not hear the groan of those incarcerated ones who for ten years have not seen the sunlight, and the deep sigh of women who remember their father's house, and mourn over their wasted estates? Listen again. It is enough. Oh, it is the cough of the consumptive, or the struggle of one in a nightmare of a great horror. You listen again, and hear a culprit, his chains rattling as he rolls over in his dreams, and you say: "G.o.d pity the prisoner." But there is another sound in that prison. It is a song of joy and gladness. What a place to sing in. The music comes winding through the corridors of the prison and in all dark wards the whisper is heard: "What's that? What's that?" It was the song of Silas and Paul in prison, and they cannot sleep.

Jesus went to prison then, and as you say He will and does come nowadays also to visit the prisoners as they are shut up. G.o.d will be and is our helper. I will not fear, He leadeth me in pastures green.

Your brother in Christ, C. S.

Germantown, May 16, 1890.

Dear Sister: Your letter of February 17th duly received, and glad to hear from you. But, sister, I am so glad to have some Christian friend to write to me in a place of temptation and trouble. I know that Jesus is my rock and my salvation and a shelter in a storm. Jesus is with me right now. He is waiting for us every day and hour. O, how many will there be that will call on Christ on that day, when the book of the Lord will be opened, with the seven seals, and who will be able to open the seals? No one is able to open it but the Lamb. Sister, this is my idea and opinion about that Day: There will be a great big scale, with a cross beam and Satan will be on one side of it and the people of all trades will be weighed, and if Christ the Son of G.o.d and our Redeemer is not there to balance them, what will become of them?

Won't they be thrown down in h.e.l.l?

Hoping and trusting faithfully that there be many of the poor prisoners among the hundred and forty and four thousand with the Lamb on Mount Zion, with the Father's name written in their foreheads and the harpers will be harping with their harps and singing the new song which no man could learn, but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth.

O, what a day that will be! O that song is so true. O sinner give your heart to G.o.d and you shall have a new hiding place that day.

O the rocks in the mountain shall all fade away and you shall have a new hiding place that day. "O sinner turn, why will ye die? G.o.d in mercy asks you why."

O, I am so happy tonight!

Your brother, C. S.

Germantown, Ark., Dec. 18, 1890.

Dear Sister: Your kind words gladly received, and may G.o.d bless you and give you strength in your undertakings.

Sister, forgive those wicked men who put you in prison for preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He, the Lord, said: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do," and Silas and Paul in prison sang praises to the Lord our G.o.d and He delivered them from the prison in which they lay, and the jailor got saved.

Oh! my dear sister, I trust and pray to the Lord that we could safely say with Robert McChane, the ascended minister of Scotland, who, seated on the banks of Galilee's Lake, wrote, in his last sick days, and just before he crossed the Jordan (not the Jordan that empties into the Lake of Gallilee, but the Jordan that empties into the "sea of gla.s.s mingled with fire"), these sweet words, fit to be played by human fingers on strings of earthly lute, or by angelic fingers on seraphic harps:

"It is not that the mild gazelle Comes down to drink thy tide, But He that was pierced to save from h.e.l.l, Oft wandered by thy side.

Graceful around thee the mountains meet Thou calm, reposing sea; But, ah! far more, the beautiful feet Of Jesus walked o'er thee.

O Saviour! gone to G.o.d's right hand, Yet the same Saviour still, Graved on thy heart is this lovely strand And every fragrant hill."

O! is it not good to be with one's Lord and to think how sweet He says in his Book of Books: "I am the way," and in danger He speaks again: "Fear not, it is I."

The Lord is with me for I do not have to work in the ranks any more, and by His help I am a.s.sistant postmaster of this place.

Until we leave, and that time will be Christmas, address your next letter to Little Rock.

That you may save many souls from everlasting torture is my prayer every hour. My love to the poor sinful prisoners and to you, my dear sister in Christ.

A happy Christmas, and may G.o.d bless you to live and see many more.

I will sing now:

"I was once far away from the Saviour" and

"When Jesus shall gather the nations before Him at last to appear."

Oh! I am so happy! Goodnight,

Ever, S.

Wichita, Kansas.

Dear Sister:

This is to acknowledge yours of the 15th inst., and was glad to hear that you have received my letter. Well, sister, we have our regular meeting every Sunday, and I will never cease praying to the Lord that He may help me to live my life, and that I can say, like our great Brother said, that no man can measure the glories which G.o.d has revealed to us. Glory to Thee, O G.o.d, glory to Thee! * * *

It is said that religionists make too much of the humanity of Christ. I respond that they make too little. If some doctor or surgeon of His day, standing under the cross, had caught one drop of the blood on his hands and a.n.a.lyzed it, it would have been found to have the same plasma, the same disk, the same fiber, the same alb.u.men. It was unmistakably human blood. It is a man that hangs there. His bones are of the same material as ours. His nerves are as sensitive as ours. If it were an angel being despoiled, I would not feel it so much, for it belongs to a different being. But my Saviour is a man and my whole sympathy is aroused. Jesus our King is dying. Let couriers carry the swift dispatch. His pains are worse; He is breathing a last groan; through his body quivers the last anguish. The King is dying; the King is dead! His royal blood is shed.

I can imagine something of how the spikes felt; of how the temples burned; what deathly sickness seized His heart; of how mountain and city and mob swam away from His dying vision; something of that cry for help that makes the blood of all ages curdle with horror: "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

O! Jerusalem, my happy home, When shall I come to thee; When shall my sorrows have an end?

Thy joys, when shall I see?

Jerusalem, my happy home, Would G.o.d that I were there!

Would G.o.d my tears were at an end, Thy joys, that I might share.

I am so glad that I can write to you. I never will cease praying for you.

I remain, your brother.

C. H. Z.

Washington County Jail.

Greenville, Miss., Jan. 29, 1889.

My Dear Sisters:

I cannot express my feelings when I read your kind letters. They make me feel as though you were still at my prison door. I know I am not the same boy that came to prison. I feel much better in every way. I read my Bible instead of novels, and find more pleasure in it.

I expect to get out of prison soon, and when I do I want to write you a long letter. Mr. McL. was to see me to-day, and read your letters. He said he would also write you to-day. There is a great change in him since you were here.

All the boys send love. Direct me as before, care Geo. S. If I get out I will work for him here. I am, as ever,

Your true friend and brother, J. F. D.