Prisons and Prayer Part 84

Give them a chance to improve themselves by an education. Make the prison a place of reformation, one of improvement as well as punishment, and instead of increasing crime you will reduce it, which should be the aim of all having the good of their fellowman at heart, and society will be the gainer. I would give a prisoner who would show by his conduct a spirit of reform a parole after half of his time, with conditions attached, as is done in the Minnesota state prison, so that, should he fall back into his old way of living, he would be returned to prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. By this means you to all intents and purposes hold a power over him, and he will be very careful as to what he is about. This habit in time will grow upon him and be the cause of making him a good citizen and trustworthy member of society. To men serving life sentences I would, on the recommendation of the prison warden, give a parole after manslaughter sentence has been served. This is a cla.s.s of men that deserve some looking after by the kindly interest of humane persons.

Give them hope and encouragement. Do not leave them to their own morbid thoughts; you cannot tell what drove them to an act they will regret, whether in or out of prison. If hasty once, it is no reason to suppose they will be so again. Why not, then, look after them? Let some of you Christian people talk with them, and if you find they ought to be a.s.sisted, help them. You know not what good you may do, and without such aid a poor and friendless man in prison is without hope. Will you, as Christians, let him die believing the word Christianity a mockery? G.o.d forbid. I know there are many good Christians that feel and mean what they say. But I am afraid that many of the less courageous are deterred from doing all they would like to do by the sneers of the hard, cruel world. But this should only spur you on. If you feel you are right, push on; do not stop half way.

In connection with the parole law we should have our prisoners graded as first, second and third cla.s.s, giving to the second grade or cla.s.s advantages above the third, and to the first above the second, giving them a motive to reform their ways while yet in prison, and their partial liberty from the first cla.s.s by parole. By this means you instill into the prisoner a habit for good which in time will take root and prove a blessing, not only to the prisoner, but also a source of pleasure to those bringing it about. It must be expected that some will fall again; but why should the many suffer for the few? I have heard and read such sayings as this: The worst men are the best behaved while in prison if there is anything to be gained by it. I dispute this. No man can control or hide his real nature for any great length of time. Nature is bound to come to the surface sooner or later. The officers and guards of a prison should be men strict in the enforcement of the prison rules, humane and just in all their actions, men who by their own actions and deportment will gain and hold the respect of those under their charge. They should reward the good as well as punish the evil in men. It would, in my humble opinion, be nothing but true justice to the prisoner to put the whole power of pardoning, commuting and paroling prisoners in the hands of the governor. I do not say a judge will not give justice where clemency is asked. But it may be the case that a judge on the board of pardons has sentenced the prisoner, and probably in some way became prejudiced against the applicant, and it might be the cause of influencing his vote; consequently, it would look like a piece of injustice to the prisoner to allow that judge to sit on his case. I think it would be well for a governor to make himself perfectly acquainted with all pertaining to the mode of life of the prisoners, as much as possible.

It ought to be remembered that when the prison doors close on a man your duty is only half done to yourself, the prisoner and society at large. He needs looking after mentally, morally and physically. Do not leave him to his own morbid thoughts, but help him to forget his surroundings as much as possible. Give him hope, for without hope we are lost to ourselves and the world. It is possible some will say they ought to be; but it must be a very heartless person who makes this remark. Remember, while you are walking about to-day, feeling self-conscious of your own strength to resist any and everything in the line of temptation, the time may come when you will lose control of yourself; or, it may be, some one dear to you will fall. In such cases, how many excuses you can find for yourself or him. Can you find none for those now suffering for the same? I feel impelled by some power to speak of those very people in a few lines. Perhaps it may catch their eye. Why will you follow one to prison with hate, malice and persecution, one who would not harm a single hair of your head, one who never had or has a single bitter thought against you, one that nightly asks G.o.d's protection to you and yours? And yet you persecute him, or it may be them, with all the might you can. Is it not enough that he has lost home, friends, wife, children and happiness at one false move? Is it not enough that he is condemned to a living death, hearing every hour of the day the clang of the iron bars that shut him out from the world, that separate him from all he loves? I say to you, is this not enough to satisfy the most bitter feelings of any avowed enemy? It ought to be. Yes, this ought to satisfy you without trying to obliterate the memory of the father from the child's heart and without denying him the privilege of communicating with them; without denying him the pleasure of doing something for them and of one day seeing them, which is all he has left to live for. To all to whom these lines refer, who read them, I will say, change all this. Ask G.o.d's help to give you strength to do right. In time you will feel a restful peace come to you, and it will make you content, if not happy.

Try this, and may G.o.d in his mercy show you the way. And to all prisoners who may be suffering from the persecution of injustice by others, I will say the same. Say with all your heart: G.o.d forgive them, they know not what they do. And you will always find a comfort in helping one another. For as we hope to be forgiven, so must we forgive. What use in saying the Lord's prayer--Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us? We must consider well the meaning of those lines, and if we cannot or do not comply with all they mean it is better for us not to use them. I thank G.o.d from my heart, I can say I forgive all my enemies. I have nothing but a kindly feeling for all mankind. I do not mean to say that I am not ruffled at times, for I am; I would not be human if I were not.

There is one cla.s.s of men who come to prison that should command the attention of our lawmakers--namely, married men. Not on their own account, for they should pay the penalty of the law as well as another, but on account of their families. It must be remembered that when you take away the father and supporter of a family you leave them without the means of support; and if the mother happens to be a sick and weakly person, what is to become of them?

To be sure, we have the orphans' home and the alms-house, but this is only taxing more heavily the already over-burdened taxpayers of the country. Then it would be a commendable act of the legislative bodies to enact laws to provide for the improvement of such married men and give the earnings of their labor to their families. This, to me, looks reasonable and just, and easy of accomplishment, and should be acted upon by all means. Let me draw you a picture from my imagination: We will visit a family who are in easy circ.u.mstances these cold nights.

What do we see? Well-clad and well-fed children, a happy, contented look rests upon the wife's and husband's faces. Why should it not be so? They have plenty to eat and wear; a full bin of coal. Again, visit one where the husband may be languishing behind the prison bars, but of the same cla.s.s. It is not so cheerful, but still no want is felt, and the father and husband, although chafing at confinement, feels that his family is not in want. This, of course, will be a consolation to him. Now let us visit another house, where they have always lived from hand to mouth. The father is gone. The mother and children, poor souls, ill-clad, ill-fed, and, my G.o.d, it may be, no fire. What a picture to contemplate. It makes me shudder to think of it. Now come with me behind the prison bars and see the head of this family.

Knowing the want and needs of his family, and knowing how impossible it is for him to alleviate their suffering, it is enough to drive a man insane. But, on the other hand, if this man could earn something for his family's support, it would relieve his mind of a heavy burden.

Think well of this, and in the name of G.o.d change the law that certainly works contrary to what it was intended for. As it now stands, you simply provide punishment for the criminals. In so doing you cause untold suffering and shame to innocent ones. In G.o.d's name, let it cease to be so. Now, then, for fear I may tire the reader, I will close. Very respectfully,

E.

CHRIST IN GETHSEMANE.

---- State Prison.

January 18, 1886.

Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton, Prison Evangelist.

My Dearest Sister:--

"What might a single mind may wield, With Truth for sword and Faith for shield, And Hope to lead the way: Thus all high triumphs are obtained, From evil good--as G.o.d ordained The night before the day!"

"And being in an agony, He prayed."--St. Luke 22:44.

When the last supper was over, and the last hymn had been sung, our Lord and His Apostles--with the one traitor fatally absent from their number--went out of the city gate, and down the steep valley of the Kidron to the green slope of Olivet beyond it. Solemn and sad was that last walk together; and a weight of mysterious awe sank like lead upon the hearts of those few poor Galileans as in almost unbroken silence,--through the deep hush of the Oriental night,--through the dark shadows of the ancient olive-trees,--through the broken gleams of the Paschal moonlight,--they followed Him, their Lord and Master, who, with bowed head and sorrowing heart, walked before them to His willing doom.

That night they did not return as usual to Bethany, but stopped at the little familiar garden of Gethsemane, or "the oilpress." Jesus knew that the hour of His uttermost humiliation was near,--that from this moment till the utterance of that great cry which broke His heart, nothing remained for Him on earth, save all that the human frame can tolerate of torturing pain, and all that the human soul can bear of poignant anguish--till in that torment of body and desolation of soul, even the high and radiant serenity of His divine spirit should suffer a short but terrible eclipse. One thing alone remained before that short hour began; a short s.p.a.ce was left Him, and in that s.p.a.ce He had to brace His body, to nerve His soul, to calm His spirit by prayer and solitude, until all that is evil in the power of evil should wreak its worst upon His innocent and holy head. And He had to face that hour,--to win that victory,--as all the darkest hours must be faced, as all the hardest victories must be won--alone. It was not that He was above the need of sympathy,--no n.o.ble soul is;--and perhaps the n.o.blest need it most. Though His friends did but sleep, while the traitor toiled, yet it helped Him in His hour of darkness to feel at least that they were near and that those were nearest who loved Him most. "Stay here," He said to the little group, "while I go yonder and pray." Leaving them to sleep, each wrapped in his outer garment on the gra.s.s, He took Peter and James and John, the chosen of the chosen, and went about a stone's-throw off. But soon even _their_ presence was more than He could endure. A grief beyond utterance, a struggle beyond endurance, a horror of great darkness, overmastered Him, as with the sinking swoon of an antic.i.p.ated death. He must be yet more alone, and alone with G.o.d. Reluctantly He tore Himself away from their sustaining tenderness, and amid the dark-brown trunks of those gnarled trees withdrew from the moonlight into the deeper shade, where solitude might be for Him the audience-chamber of His Heavenly Father. And there, till slumber overpowered them, His three beloved Apostles were conscious how dreadful was the paroxysm through which He pa.s.sed. They saw Him sometimes with head bowed upon His knees, sometimes lying on His face in prostrate suffering upon the ground. And though amazement and sore distress fell on them,--though the whole place seemed to be haunted by Presences of good and evil struggling in mighty but silent contest for the eternal victory,--yet, before they sank under the oppression of troubled slumber, they knew that they had been the dim witnesses of an unutterable agony, in which the drops of anguish which dropped from His brow in that deathful struggle looked to them like gouts of blood, and yet the burden of those broken murmurs in which He pleaded with His Heavenly Father had been ever this, "If it be possible,--yet not what I will, but what Thou wilt."

What is the meaning, my beloved sister, of this scene for us? What was the cause of this midnight hour? Do you think that it was the fear of death, and that that was sufficient to shake to its utmost center the pure and innocent soul of the Son of Man? Could not even a child see how inconsistent such a fear would be with all that followed;--with that heroic fort.i.tude which fifteen consecutive hours of sleepless agony could not disturb;--with that majestic silence which overawed even the hard Roman into respect and fear;--with that sovereign ascendency of soul which flung open the golden gate of Paradise to the repentant malefactor, and breathed its compa.s.sionate forgiveness on the apostate priest? Could He have been afraid of death, in whose name, and in whose strength, and for whose sake alone, trembling old men, and feeble maidens, and timid boys have faced it in its worst form without a shudder or a sigh? My friend, the dread of the mere act of dying is a cowardice so abject that the meanest pa.s.sions of the mind can master it, and many a coa.r.s.e criminal has advanced to meet his end with unflinching confidence and steady step. And Jesus knew, if any have ever known, that it is as natural to die as to be born,--that it is the great birthright of all who love G.o.d;--that it is G.o.d who giveth His beloved sleep. The sting of death--and its only sting--is sin; the victory of the grave--and its only victory--is corruption. And Jesus knew no sin, saw no corruption. No, that which stained His forehead with crimson drops was something far deadlier than death. Though sinless He was suffering for sin. The burden and the mystery of man's strange and revolting wickedness lay heavy on His soul; and with holy lips He was draining the bitter cup into which sin had infused its deadliest poison. Could perfect innocence endure without a shudder all that is detestable in human ingrat.i.tude and human rage? Should there be no recoil of horror in the bosom of perfect love to see His own,--for whom he came,--absorbed in one insane repulsion against infinite purity and tenderness and peace? It was a willing agony, but it was agony; it was endured for our sakes; the Son of G.o.d suffered that He might through suffering become perfect in infinite sympathy as a Savior strong to save.

And on all the full mysterious meaning of that agony and b.l.o.o.d.y sweat it would be impossible now to dwell, but may we not for a short time dwell with profit--may not every one whose heart--being free from the fever of pa.s.sion, and unfretted by the pettiness of pride--is calm and meek and reverent enough to listen to the messages of G.o.d, even be they spoken by the feeblest of human lips,--may we not all, I say, learn something from this fragment of that thrilling story that--"being in an agony, He prayed"?

"The chosen three, on mountain height, While Jesus bowed in prayer, Beheld His vesture glow with light, His face shine wondrous fair."

To every one of us, I suppose, sooner or later the Gethsemane of life must come. It may be the Gethsemane of struggle, and poverty and care;--it may be the Gethsemane of long and weary sickness;--it may be the Gethsemane of farewells that wring the heart by the deathbeds of those we love;--it may be the Gethsemane of remorse, and of well-nigh despair, for sins that we will not--but which we say we cannot--overcome. Well, my dearest sister, in that Gethsemane--aye, even in that Gethsemane of sin--no angel merely,--but Christ Himself who bore the burden of our sins,--will, if we seek Him, come to comfort us. He will, if being in agony, we pray. He can be touched, He is touched, with the feeling of our infirmities. He, too, has trodden the winepress of agony alone; He, too, has lain face downwards in the night upon the ground; and the comfort which then came to Him He has bequeathed to us--even the comfort, the help, the peace, the recovery, the light, the hope, the faith, the sustaining arm, the healing anodyne of prayer. It is indeed a natural comfort--and one to which the Christian at least flies instinctively. When the water-floods drown us,--when all G.o.d's waves and storms seem to be beating over our souls,--when "Calamity comes like a deluge, and o'erfloods our crimes till sin is hidden in sorrow"--oh, then, if we have not wholly quenched all spiritual life within us, what can we do but fling ourselves at the foot of those great altar stairs that slope through darkness to G.o.d? Yes, being in an agony, we pray; and the talisman against every agony is there.

And herein lies the great mercy and love of G.o.d, that we may go to Him in our agony even if we have never gone before. Oh, if prayer were possible only for the always good and always true, possible only for those who have never forsaken or forgotten G.o.d,--if it were not possible for sinners and penitents and those who have gone astray,--then of how infinitely less significance would it be for sinful and fallen man! But our G.o.d is a G.o.d of Love, a G.o.d of Mercy.

He is very good to us. The soul may come bitter and disappointed, with nothing left to offer Him but the dregs of a misspent life;--the soul may come, like that sad Prodigal, weary and broken, and shivering, and in rags; but if it only come--the merciful door is open still, and while yet we are a great way off our Father will meet and forgive and comfort us. And then what a change is there in our lives! They are weak no longer; they are discontented no longer; they are the slaves of sin no longer. You have seen the heavens gray with dull and leaden-colored clouds, you have seen the earth chilly and comfortless under its drifts of unmelting snow: but let the sun shine, and then how rapidly does the sky resume its radiant blue, and the fields laugh with green gra.s.s and vernal flower! So will it be with even a withered and a wasted life when we return to G.o.d and suffer Him to send His bright beams of light upon our heart. I do not mean that the pain or misery under which we are suffering will necessarily be removed,--even for Christ it was not so; but peace will come and strength will come and resignation will come and hope will come,--and we shall feel able to bear anything which G.o.d shall send, and though He slays us we still shall seek Him, and even if the blackest cloud of anguish seem to shroud His face from us, even on that cloud shall the rainbow shine.

You do not think, my sister, that because G.o.d never rejects the prayer of sinner or sufferer, that therefore we may go on sinning, trusting to repent when we suffer. That would be a shameful abuse of G.o.d's mercy and tenderness; it would be a frame of mind which would need this solemn warning, that agony by no means always leads to prayer; that it may come when prayer is possible no longer to the long-hardened and long-prayerless soul. I know no hope so senseless, so utterly frustrated by all experience, as the hope of what is called deathbed repentance. Those who are familiar with many deathbeds will tell you why. But prayer--G.o.d's blessed permission to us, to see Him and to know Him, and to trust in Him--_that_ is granted us not for the hours of death or agony alone, but for all life, almost from the very cradle quite to the very grave. And it is a gift no less priceless for its alleviation of sorrow than for its intensification of all innocent joy. For him who would live a true life it is as necessary in prosperity as in adversity,--in peace as in trouble,--in youth as in old age. Here, too, Christ is our example. He lived, as we may live, in the light of His Father's face. It was not only as the Man of Sorrows, it was not only in the moonlit garden of His agony, or on the darkening hills of His incessant toil, that prayer had refreshed His soul; but often during those long unknown years in the little Galilean village,--daily, and from childhood upwards, in sweet hours of peace, kneeling amid the mountain lilies or on the cottage floor. Those prayers are to the soul what the dew of G.o.d is to the flowers of the field; the burning wind of the day may pa.s.s over them, and the stems droop and the colors fade, but when the dew steals down at evening, they will revive. Why should not that gracious dew fall even now and always for all of us upon the fields of life? A life which has been from the first a life of prayer,--a life which has thus from its earliest days looked up consciously to its Father and its G.o.d,--will always be a happy life. Time may fleet, and youth may fade,--as they will, and there may be storm as well as sunshine in the earthly career; yet it will inevitably be a happy career, and with a happiness that cannot die. Yes, this is the lesson which I would that we all might learn from the thought of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane;--the lesson that Prayer may recall the sunshine even to the dark and the frozen heart; but that there is no long winter, there is no unbroken night, to that soul on which the Sun of Righteousness has risen with healing in His wings.

And that because true prayer is always heard. We read in the glorious old Greek poet of prayers which, before they reached the portals of heaven were scattered by the winds; and indeed there are some prayers so deeply opposed to the will of G.o.d, so utterly alien to the true interests of men, that nothing could happen better for us than that G.o.d should refuse, nothing more terrible than that He should grant them in anger. So that if we pray for any earthly blessing we may pray for it solely "if it be G.o.d's will"; "if it be for our highest good,"

but, for all the best things we may pray without misgiving, without reservation, certain that if we ask G.o.d will grant them. Nay, even in asking for them we may know that we have them,--for what we desire to ask, and what we ask, we aim at, and what we aim at we shall attain.

No man ever yet asked to be, as the days pa.s.s by, more n.o.ble, and sweet, and pure, and heavenly-minded,--no man ever yet prayed that the evil spirits of hatred, and pride, and pa.s.sion, and worldliness, might be cast out of his soul,--without his pet.i.tion being granted, and granted to the letter. And with all other gifts G.o.d then gives us His own self besides,--He makes us know Him, and love Him, and live in Him. "Thou hast written well of me," said the Vision to the great teacher of Aquinum, "what reward dost thou desire?" "Non aliam, nisi te Domine"--"no other than Thyself, O Lord," was the meek and rapt reply. And when all our restless, fretful, discontented longings are reduced to this alone, the desire to see G.o.d's face;--when we have none in Heaven but Him, and none upon earth whom we desire in comparison of Him;--then we are indeed happy beyond the reach of any evil thing, for then we have but one absorbing wish, and that wish cannot be refused. Least of all can it be refused when it has pleased G.o.d to afflict us.

"Ye now have sorrow," said Christ, "but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." Yes, when G.o.d's children pa.s.s under the shadows of the Cross of Calvary they know that through that shadow lies their pa.s.sage to the Great White Throne. For them Gethsemane is as Paradise. G.o.d fills it with sacred presences; its solemn silence is broken by the music of tender promises; its awful darkness softened and brightened by the sunlight of heavenly faces, and the music of angel wings.

"I am baptized into thy name, O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

Among thy seed a place I claim, Among thy consecrated host; Buried with Christ and dead to sin, Thy Spirit now shall live within."

"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world."

Your Brother in Christ,

L. J.