The Nation Behind Prison Bars Part 16

"By coming before you men and preaching we rectors hope to arouse, encourage and bring out all the good in you. We aim to plant high ideals in your hearts and make you better men. It is one of the greatest pleasures I have--preaching these noon-day Lenten sermons. It is my earnest and sincere wish to do good and to carry a message to you.

"Christ will lighten your eyes: He will enable you to see things worth being and worth doing. The worth while in life is what makes life worth living. He will give you a view of yourself. He will make you see yourselves as others see you. He will not only do this, but he will set a guard before your lips.

-------- The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my G.o.d, my strength, in whom I trust.--Ps. 18:2.

"No man ever regretted keeping from impure speech. Habitual obscene story telling grows like other vicious habits. It is a manly thing to possess clean lips. Does not the Bible say, 'Blessed are the pure in heart?' Well, no man can be pure in heart and impure in speech. Would you tell some of the stories you tell your fellow men to your wives and daughters? No, I do not think you would. Then say to yourself, 'Thou G.o.d hearest me.'

"Keep your lips from profanity. The profane man in G.o.d's eyes is on the same plane as is the murderer and thief. He, like both, violates the ten commandments. Swearing, aside from being sinful, is low, vicious and vulgar and most reprehensible. The man who will curse and swear is in most cases the man who will steal, slander, lie and violate every commandment of G.o.d.

"I have been in hotels and in public places where I have heard men swear as though they thought it a virtue. These men I find are seldom well thought of in a community. The man who is well thought of will not swear.

"The man who will swear will say mean things about his friend; he will gossip and slander. If you keep your lips clean you will never besmirch a man's or woman's character. You will never speak until you know it is time; you will be restrained from telling vicious things, because you will reason whether or not it is right, and whether or not it ought to be told."

-------- Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.--2 Chron. 15:7.

At Cincinnati Workhouse

[Louisville Times]

Never did Mr. Herr have a more interested audience than greeted him in the Cincinnati work house yesterday when he preached for an hour in the prison chapel. The men and women wept as his words brought conviction to their hearts. Were it not for this wonderful gospel, said the speaker, he himself might be as the worst prisoner among them. At the close of the sermon he asked all those who desired to lead better lives to bow their heads in prayer, and almost every man and woman in the chapel fell on their knees, while the eloquent evangelist lifted his voice in their behalf. The closest attention was accorded him during the whole time and when the prisoners were dismissed and pa.s.sed out of the chapel amid a stillness that was very impressive, Mr. Herr spoke to a great number personally shaking them by the hand and urging them to repent and believe the gospel.

Extermination of Habitual Criminals

The extermination of the habitual criminal--his removal like a weed from a garden--was advocated today in a startling address made in Minneapolis to the Interstate Sheriffs' a.s.sociation by Charles W. Peters, chief deputy sheriff of Cook County.

The unexpected suggestion that the man who will not reform ought to be slain by legal means aroused much discussion in Chicago among ministers, lawyers and laymen.

Leniency for first offenders, parole for the worthy, an adult probation law, were advocated by Mr. Peters, who then insisted that in cases where life has proved a failure, where efforts of reformation have been ineffectual and the criminal is a body sore on the social system, that extermination should be resorted to.

Only One True Reform.

Furthermore, he created intense surprise by his a.s.sertion that in twenty years' experience in handling criminals he could recall only one case of true reformation on the part of an "habitual."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HON. AND MRS. JOHN L. WHITMAN, CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. Whitman is Superintendent of the Bridewell. They have been friends to thousands in need of friends.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gospel Service at the County Jail, Chicago, Ill.]

In his address to the a.s.sociation, Mr. Peters recommended various ways of dealing with crime and its perpetrators, and then for the irredeemably incorrigible made this recommendation:

"And then if they fail to embrace the many opportunities offered them, and after everything has been done that is possible for mankind to do, they repeatedly persist in returning to their old ways, I think in such a case life has proven a failure, and they become a menace and a burden to our social welfare and should be exterminated.

Like Weeds in a Garden.

"They are like weeds in a garden and unless removed will supersede the useful plants.

"Many students of criminology have suggested life imprisonment, but in my opinion that has proven a failure. By that method the menace is removed, but the burden remains.

"I am sorry to acknowledge that in the twenty odd years of my experience in the handling of criminals I can recall only one case of true reformation on the part of habitual criminals, and that man is employed in a bridge works, where it would be impossible for him to carry anything off."

"Judge Not," Says Pastor.

Among the ministers who commented on the startling theory of extermination were:

Rev. P. J. O'Callaghan, pastor of St. Mary's Church and the priest who saved Herman Billik from the gallows--What is man that he should put himself in judgment on a fellow and say that the culprit is beyond reformation and redemption and slay him? Man is too fallible to condemn another as an habitual criminal and exterminate him. No one knows when a man has pa.s.sed beyond the pale of reform. As a matter of fact, many and many a criminal branded as 'habitual' has been saved to a useful life. I most heartily disagree with any suggestion to execute any man on the theory that he is irredeemable.

Hope While There Is Life.

Rabbi Tobias Scharfarber--In the first place I am opposed to capital punishment, but, in any event, I should not agree with this suggestion of Mr. Peters. It is much like Osler's plan to kill off men of sixty or more years of age, or Ingersoll's suggestion that when a man believed himself to be a failure and useless to the world he should go and shoot his brains out. While a man lives there is hope for him, and no one has either power or right to say that he will always be a menace to society.

"Christ in His charity taught those who came to Him, Ill deeds should pardoned be seventy times seven; Succor the least here and you do the same to Him; These are his precepts on earth and in heaven.

Oh, then, when laboring hard for humanity, Never believe that your labor is vain.

Kindness will conquer the criminal insanity; Speak to him gently and try him again."

Criminal Becomes Minister

[Courier-Journal]

"Do you know who I am?" once said a person in the jail here to the Rev.

George L. Herr, prison evangelist. "I will tell you. I am the worst and most treacherous man in this prison." Then the Rev. Mr. Herr says he told him the story of his fearful crimes. "I have been in prison North, South, East and West, I have been in the dismal, solitary cell for one year, have been put in large tanks of ice water, have been punished over and over again, but it has always made me more of a demon. Would you like to know what the officer who last locked me up said about me?"

"'Take him and lock him up like a brute beast, for that is what he is.'"

Then he turned and said: "Do you think there is any hope for me?" "I was at once on ground where I could speak without hesitation," said Mr.

Herr, "and I told him simply that if he was through with an evil life, if he was tired of wrong-doing and was determined to do right, there was a love that could forgive him, and a power that could help and keep him in the future. When at last we knelt together there I prayed that G.o.d, who could bring light into our darkness, might dispel the thick clouds that had shut in this soul from hope, and bring to him the revelation that would change his life. There were tears in our eyes as we parted, and, taking my hand in his he said: "I will try, Brother Herr."

"He did try, and, more than that he conquered. At first it was a stern battle of an awakened will and conscience fighting against desperate odds. The feeling that friends were watching and waiting anxiously for good reports proved an undoubted incentive. It was not long before he sought and found Christ as his Saviour, and he became an earnest Christian, and to-day is an ordained Methodist minister, at the head of a great rescue work in an Eastern city, and also chaplain of a model penal inst.i.tution."