labors of the chaplains in state prison. I want it most emphatically
understood that in all things our wish is to work harmoniously with
prison officers, not only with the spiritual advisers, but also the
wardens, and so far we have had the greatest help and sympathy from
them. Our work could not be construed into a reflection on that of
the chaplain. It is to help and to back up his efforts, to bring in
an outside influence which I have found the chaplain most ready to
welcome, a link to the outside world. The chaplain is of necessity of
the prison world and though he has a splendid sphere for helping and
blessing the men while under his charge, he cannot go with them into
the new life. We may come in and form a friendship and tie to which
they can turn after the chaplain has bidden them farewell, and they
are once more facing life's battle on the outside. In almost all the
prisons where the V.P.L. has been established, the chaplains have most
cordially welcomed us and are working heart and hand with us, some of
them even wearing the little League button and becoming officially
associated with the movement.
Chaplain Barnes of Massachusetts has an experience of twenty-three
years of devoted toil for the "boys" and he has often told me he feels
that a new era has come to the spiritual life of our prisons through
the establishing of the V.P.L. It has been wonderfully interesting
to us to watch the spiritual growth in grace, and the mental and
moral development of the men after they have started in the new life.
Often the most unlikely have seemed suddenly to wake up and develop
possibilities never dreamed of by those who had known them before. As
letter after letter has come to me from such I have felt as if I could
read here the unfolding of a better nature long dormant, between the
lines so simply and naturally telling of struggles and victories in the
passing days. I have seen over and over the birth and growth of a soul.
Just recently a little Day Book came into my hands by chance, and
knowing what I do of the owner, its record is a very pathetic glimpse
into a heart story. He was by no means a first offender but an inmate
of the prison of the old timers, Dannemora. Burglary had been his
special line and he had started in it quite young, as did his brother
whose story I shall tell elsewhere. My first acquaintance with him
was an urgent letter entreating me to care for his wife and little
one, who, he feared from news just received, were facing dire need.
My interest in them evidently touched a tender chord in his heart for
he became one of my warm friends and champions, though at that time
neither a Christian nor a League member. Many of the men who make no
profession of being good are still most heartily with us in sentiment,
and I have been looked upon as the "Little Mother" and stood up for
as loyally by these as by our own V.P.L. "boys." As time went on
and this man came more and more under the influence of the work, he
began to weigh well his future and at last took his stand with good
determination for the new life. When he joined the League I gave him
this little book which all our boys are supposed to read together
each morning and night. Five years afterwards it came into my hands
by accident and I read what he had written on the fly leaf the day
he had received it. "In accepting this little book I do so with a
firm determination and a promise to try and live faithfully a better
and purer life with God's help." Underneath his name and number are
signed, and then the words "seven years and six months" chronicled
the length of his sentence. Turning the leaves I found one verse
marked that had evidently proved his greatest comfort, "The Lord is
not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness, but is
long-suffering to usward not willing that any should perish but that
all should come to repentance." Then came the record of the passing
days and years, marked off at the head of different daily portions
blending the interests near and dear to his heart and future, with
his daily devotion. "I am twenty-nine years old to-day," headed July
21st. On July 27th, "My wife is twenty-three years old to-day," and
yet later on the same page three years after he chronicled, "My wife
is twenty-six." In the shadow of that cell the baby face with golden
curls came often to smile upon him in fancy and on one page we find "My
little girl is two years old, 1897." In prison the days pass all too
slowly. We find on another page May 2d, "Eight hundred and fourteen
days more." Further on "Five hundred and seventy-two days more," then
"three hundred and sixty-five days more" and yet again "two hundred and
seventy" is marked and then the last entry "I go home to-day, July 27,
1901." So the Day Book, his little companion and guide, held on its
pages the record of the passing days in which he was preparing for the
future. I knew something of the fierce struggle he had with old habits,
evil temper, past memories and disappointments that had to be faced,
for during those prison days I sometimes talked with him personally,
but I also know how he conquered and how truly he came out "a new man
in Christ Jesus." He thought he was coming to a glad, bright, joyous
experience on his discharge and was met by a blow and sorrow that would
have staggered many a stronger man. I cannot chronicle the awful test
through which this soul passed, for there are confidences that cannot
be betrayed even to show the keeping grace of the new life, but I can
say this, he manfully stood the trial and is to-day a happy, earnest,
honest, Christian man. He has proved himself a good husband and a most
tenderly devoted father. He works hard all day, receiving excellent
wages and in the evening walks or reads with his little girl. He has
a bright, well furnished home and over a thousand dollars in the bank
laid by for a rainy day. He has never returned to the saloon or in
any way mixed with the old life which he considers buried with the
dead self, for truly he is living in a new world after a veritable
resurrection.
The little Day Book has proved a great comfort to many. At first we
used to send a copy to every League member, though now regretfully
we have had to desist, because we could not afford it with the great
increase in membership. Many of our "boys" had never taken any interest
in the Bible before and some are as indifferent and ignorant as the
heathen abroad, but this "Daily Light" collection of passages has been
to them a veritable revelation. Many feel towards it as one "boy" wrote
to me, "As I kneel down to pray and read before going to the workshop
in the morning it seems as if my Saviour sent me a direct message to
guide and warn me through the trials of the day, and at night when I
come in tired and read again, I find a message of comfort and a promise
from Him that cheers and encourages my heart." The writer of these
words died in prison a triumphantly happy death, leaving behind him
a record, the truth of which every officer could attest, of earnest
Christian living after having at one time been the terror of the
prison, for from childhood he had been absolutely ignorant of the first
rudiments of goodness and Christianity.
The following verses were sent by one of our League members and were
penned in a prison cell. They give an insight into the thought and
feeling of many another man who cannot perhaps as readily express
himself in verse.
"Alone in my cell, where no eye can behold,
Nor ear drink in what I say,
I kneel by my cot, on the stones hard and cold,
And earnestly, tearfully pray.
"O, Jesus, dear Saviour, blot out from Thy scroll,
Each record there penned against me,
In mercy forgive me and ransom my soul,
O, fit and prepare it for Thee!
"I've wandered from Thee and forgotten Thy care,
Thy love trampled under my feet;
The songs of my boyhood, the altar of prayer,
Are only a memory sweet.
"Strange spirits oft come in the night to my cell
And moisten my cheek with their tears;
A message they bring and a story they tell,
That I had forgotten for years.
"They tell of a mother bowed down with despair,
Bereft of her pride and her joy,
Who morning and evening is breathing this prayer,
'Dear Jesus, restore me my boy!'
"O, Father, dear Father! in heaven forgive,
My weakness, my sin and my shame,
O, wash me and cleanse me and teach me to live,
To honor Thy cause and Thy name!"
If the record of successful work in prison were written only in
numerical report one might still have many misgivings as to its
success. There is only one thing that really tells in Christian work
either in prison or on the outside and that is _the life_. Theory can
be questioned, argument can be refuted, profession doubted, creed
quibbled over, but a life that can be seen and read of all men is
testimony beyond criticism.
I remember after we had been working in Sing Sing six months an officer
called me on one side and speaking very earnestly of the work, he
said, "I want to confess to you that I was one who took no stock in
this movement at first. I used to laugh at the men making a profession
of living any better. I looked upon it as so much religious nonsense,
but I confess I have been forced to change my views. You do not know
the change it has made in this prison and the miracles that have been
wrought in many of these men. You can see them in the meetings and can
judge of them by their letters, but we live with them day after day and
know far more than you can. I never believed anything could take hold
of the whole prison population, the educated, the middle class and the
tougher element affecting them equally as this work has done." Then he
added, "There was one 'boy' in my company who was the foulest-mouthed
man I have ever met. He used an oath with almost every word and was so
criminal and evil that we never dreamed he could be anything else. The
absolute reformation in that man is what opened my eyes. That was not
talk but reality."
Perhaps the strongest testimony we could offer as to the effect of
the work on prison discipline, comes from the pens of our well-known
wardens. Speaking before the quarterly meeting of the Iowa State Board
of Control, Major McClaughry, late of Joliet, Ill., now Warden of the
Federal Prison at Fort Leavenworth, said:
"I wish to add a word in relation to influences in the prison that I
have found most helpful. Some years ago, Mrs. Booth came to the prison
to speak to the prisoners. She first had interviews with some of the
men which I permitted rather reluctantly, but I soon noticed her
wonderful personal influence over the men she talked with. When later
she spoke to the prisoners in chapel, and they were greatly interested
in her presentation without cant or denominational prejudice, of the
best way to live. I asked her to come again and she came. That time she
organized with us what is known as the 'Volunteer Prison League' an
association of men, who, realizing what is before them band themselves
together and wear the button of the League--which requires a great deal
of bravery in a prison like Joliet. The promise to them was, that so
long as they followed the motto of the League and looked upward and
not down, forward and not back, and helped one another, they should be
recognized as a force in the prison itself making for good order and
constituted authority.
"I entered upon the experiment, as I say, with a good deal of
apprehension, but I am glad to say that it proved to be one of the
most potent forces inside of the prison to secure not only cheerful
obedience and compliance with the rules and regulations of the prison,
but a force that co-operated with the authorities of the prison in the
direction of law and order. Wherever that League has been established,
while it has gone up and down and had its vicissitudes, like the early
church, it has proved most helpful in every respect, and its influence
upon the individual men, no person not familiar with its workings
can for a moment imagine. Therefore I feel that the Volunteer Prison
League, properly managed, is one of the most beneficent institutions
that can be introduced into prison life."
This testimony is all the more forceful when we remember that the one
speaking has been a prison warden for some twenty-eight years and has
also served as Chief of Police in Chicago. He certainly should know of
what he speaks.
I opened the work in Dannemora, New York State, where Warden Thayer
welcomed me most courteously, did all in his power both in his own
home and in the prison, to make me feel at home, but being frank and
outspoken he thought it well to impress me with the hopelessness of my
task. He said briefly that no obstacle should stand in my way as far
as he was concerned, but he did not want to see me heart-broken over
a work that he foresaw could never succeed. He told me clearly his
opinion and advised me not to try the impossible. After watching the
work, however, he became one of my stanch supporters and has repeatedly
championed our cause where the usefulness of such work has been
questioned.
At a public meeting in New York, he told a story on himself of which
I was up to that time ignorant. Speaking of our first enrollment of
men in prison, he said, "When I saw those men, one hundred and seven
of them, stand up, I began to feel sorry for Mrs. Booth. Here were
the very hardest men I had to deal with in the prison; men constantly
reported for punishment. I took a list of their names for future
reference. I kept that list in my desk, and when the year had passed I
brought it out with a view of paralyzing that little woman. Would you
credit it? I learned to my own surprise and satisfaction on comparing
it with the punishment book that out of those who stood up in the
chapel that Sunday morning, only three had required punishment during
that entire year. I saw now what I had not realized before, namely,
that as an aid to the observance of discipline of the prison no plans
had ever equalled the influence of this work."
Warden Darby of Columbus, Ohio, writes:
"The organization of Post No. 10, Volunteer Prison League in the Ohio
Penitentiary, has been very gratifying to the prisoners, who are
looking forward to a brighter and better future, who are striving to
build a moral foundation that will withstand the tides of adversity and
trial. The League has been of incalculable benefit, for it has been
directly instrumental in bringing many to right thinking, an absolutely
necessary prelude to right doing.
"The good derived has not been limited to the League members alone,
others have been induced to strive for better, higher and nobler lives.
The influence of good will manifest its usefulness in any community and
the rule is equally applicable on either side of the prison wall.
"The Volunteer Prison League is a factor in bettering the discipline
of its members, since they who live up to the obligations must strive
to improve their conduct, this being one of the primary objects of the
organization."
Space does not allow the reproduction of the much that has been said
and could be said of this work which, as I have tried to show, is not
my work but the work of the "boys" themselves, the result of earnest
conquering lives. Undoubtedly the lesson which men in prison need to
learn almost above any other is that of _self-mastery_. Many are there
through lack of self-control: others have utterly weakened will and
deadened conscience by yielding themselves slaves to strong drink and
yet others have let go their hold on the reins because, having once
failed, they have allowed the feeling that it is no use to try again
to rob them of courage. Just on this point their League membership
has proved invaluable. If the new leaf is ever to be turned over, it
should certainly be in prison. In the early days of our work many men
would say to me as also to my dear friend and fellow-worker, Mrs.
McAlpin, "No, I cannot take my stand now. It is too hard here, but I
am determined to do right the day of my discharge." More and more the
"boys" are coming to see how disastrous is such a fallacy. The man who
does not have the courage in prison lacks it as much in freedom, when
faced with the decision between right and wrong. There are, moreover,
so many pitfalls and temptations awaiting him, to say nothing of the
hard, up-hill road abounding in disappointments which almost all
have to tread, that if he be not well prepared, failure is almost
inevitable. Before he knows it, even with the best of intentions in
his heart, such a man will be swept aside and carried away back to the
whirlpool of vice and crime, from which he will all too quickly, be
cast again on to the rocks of wreck and ruin.
In many ways I have heard of the influence of the League from
unexpected sources. Travelling in a parlor car in the West on one
occasion, I was introduced by some friends to a judge of the Supreme
Court. In the conversation that followed, he told me he had heard of
our work and was deeply interested in it. "There is one of your men,"
he said, "who has come under my personal notice and to whose great
change of life I can myself testify. Some years ago I had to sentence
him to State Prison. The man protested his innocence but there was no
doubt in my mind as to his guilt. After he had become a member of your
League in prison he wrote me a letter telling of his intention to lead
an upright life in the future. He confessed his guilt and thanked me
for the sentence which he now looked upon as the best thing that had
befallen him. In due time he came out of prison, found work, has done
well and won the confidence of those who knew him. Quite recently he
wrote me saying that he had earned money enough to pay off his debts
little by little, until all were discharged and so far as money could
make restitution he had made it. Now he wanted to know the cost to the
State for his prosecution that he might pay that also." This desire to
make restitution and to undo past wrongs I have seen constantly, after
the men's consciences had been awakened, but in no other case have I
heard of it going to the extent of wishing to repay the State and had I
not heard this from the lips of the judge himself, I should have been
inclined to think it an exaggeration.
Speaking in one of our Volunteer meetings a short time since a young
man testified to the help the League had been to him in years gone by.
He told our officers that he had been in prison for a forgery amounting
to two thousand dollars; that on his discharge he had consulted me and
I had advised him to promise the gentleman whom he had wronged that he
would pay back the amount by degrees. He said further that he had just
succeeded in doing this and was now a trusted employee of the very man
who had had to prosecute him for crime.
This is not a place to lay bare confessions but I could give a
wonderful story of the many confidences that have been given to me by
hearts deeply enough touched and truly enough changed to become quick
and sensitive regarding hidden wrongs that should be righted.
As I have looked over what has already been accomplished in state
prison in its power on the future of these men and their relation to
the world, I can but realize the safeguarding and benefit to others
of that which tames and controls, changes and inspires men who might
otherwise go out into life hardened, imbittered and more depraved than
on the day of their incarceration, to prey on society and wreak their
vengeance for wrongs real or imaginary.
IV
THE POWER BEHIND THE WORK
In the bright fragrance of a spring morning our long, heavy train of
cars wound its way slowly up the Divide. The track curved and doubled
back and forth amid the forest like some great brown silver-streaked
serpent; here gliding into the earth to be lost in the blackness of
a tunnel, there, flinging itself over a dizzy chasm spanned only at
fabulous cost by a feat of engineering. Higher, ever higher we rose
until a glorious view of valley swept below us from the forest fringe
to Ashland. At the summit came a pause for breath and then the long,
dark, suffocating tunnel, and after it the sight that one would
gladly cross a continent to see, as we beheld it in all the glory of
brilliant sunshine and bluest ether. Below us stretched a great plain,
a veritable green ocean of prairie. To one side the ridge of rugged
forest-clad mountains that form the great Divide. Away ahead like high
rocky islands in the emerald sea rose the dark steep Buttes backed by
the spires and turreted peaks of the Castle Rocks.
But all this was only a setting for the jewel, the less beautiful,
above which towered in queenly majesty the glory of the Sierras,
Shasta. As we first saw her, it seemed impossible to believe that the
gleaming majestic mass of whiteness belonged to earth. She seemed to be
a great white cloud on the horizon, shimmering against the pale-blue
ether, resting but for a moment on the rock-bounded forest that swept
from the plain to form her base. As we slowly wound our way down to
the valley, as we glided in and out and round about over the plain,
we gazed for hours at this most wonderful of mountains, our eyes
fascinated, our lips silent, our hearts stirred by the wonder of her
quiet, queenly grandeur. At first she dazzled us in the full glory
of the sunlight as her snows shone against a vivid blue sky, then as
the sun sank to the ridge opposite, the background changed to palest
green and her whiteness was stained with crimson and touched with gold,
growing richer and deeper every moment. Darkness began to gather in the
valley; the woods grew mysterious with gloom; purple shadows crept up
to the timber-line and even dared to steal over her snowy base, but the
head of Shasta still glowed and blushed with the glory of the setting
sun. At last he was lost to us over the ridge and the swift twilight
claimed the whole land, but watching still the mountain heights above
us, we saw yet another change. Shasta was transfigured! The pale
primrose of the after-glow shone over all her pure whiteness and from
a queen of glory she seemed changed to the sweet loyalty of a loving
heart that held the sacred memory of the beloved long after he was lost
to other eyes.
Night found us creeping downwards in the solemn darkness of the
chasm on the further side. Great fir trees, giant sentinels of
the forest closed in about us and that strange, silent mystery of
mountain solitudes reigned supreme. Looking backwards, we could
still catch glimpses of the centre peak behind us, shining serenely
white now beneath the silvery moonbeams, which had not strength to
penetrate the dense forest that clothed the gorge. Leaning over the
edge of the observation car, I had become so absorbed in communion
with nature that it was startling to be aroused by a voice at my
side. A fellow-passenger was calling my attention to something away
down beneath us in the abyss which seemed to me to hold nothing but
impenetrable blackness. As my eyes became used to the obscurity,
however, I could distinguish a little silver line amid the rocks and
though at first I could hear only the creaking of the trestle bridge
beneath us and the labored breathing of our great locomotive, I
distinguished at last the far-away silvery music of a tiny mountain
stream. It struck me as strange that I should have my attention called
to this little brook when I had seen so many glorious streams and
rivers in my overland journeys. The explanation however gave reason
enough as my friend announced, "That is the Sacramento at its source.
During the night we shall cross it twenty-seven or twenty-eight times
and to-morrow you will see it very differently when we cross it for the
last time."
All through that night I watched the growth of the little stream. At
first it was narrow and shallow and its voice but a silvery song as it
threaded its way amid the rocks or sent a spray of mist and foam over
the moss when some obstruction barred its way. But by and by it grew to
be a rushing torrent, the double note of power and purpose dominated
its song, and as the train thundered over bridge after bridge, I saw
it dashing and crashing over its rugged bed, here leaping a precipice,
there rushing with wave-white fury against some mighty rock, tossing
great logs from side to side as if they were straws. Ever onward,
forward, downward, drawing with it every lesser stream, engulfing every
waterfall and spring, it kept us company through the long, moonlit
night and then in the broad daylight, we crossed it for the last time
and saw it in the might of its accomplished strength. As the great
ferry-boat bore our heavy train over the river, I looked out upon a
deep broad placid expanse of blue water. Sunbeams played with the
myriad ripples powdering the turquoise with gold. Fertile foothills
rolled away on either side and looking far off to the horizon the
mighty river joined the bay, and yet further lost itself through the
Golden Gate in the mighty Western ocean. Broad enough, deep enough,
strong enough to carry a nation's fleet upon its breast, that is what
the streamlet of the wilderness had become. What mighty lessons Nature
teaches us!