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CHAPTER XXIII.
Kind Words from Friends
We give here a few letters from dear friends who have been especially interested in the Master's work, some of whom have given me many words of encouragement, or otherwise been helpful to me in advancing the work of the gospel.
FROM H. L. HASTINGS AND WIFE
47 Cornhill Place, Boston, Mass., January 27, 1886.
Blessed Sister:
Your card came duly. Glad to hear. Sorry you could not call. Mrs. Hastings wanted to see you. Come to our house when you will. If you go to New York, call on Miss Annie Delaney, Fruit and Bible Mission, 416 E. 26th St., New York, opposite the Bellevue Hospital—right in the middle of prisons and prisoners. Tell them I sent you. Miss D. is superintendent and has lived with us and can open doors there.
I was at State Prison one night. Heard many good testimonies from your friends there. Surely, your labors have been blessed. May the Lord direct your way in all these things, and guide your endeavors. How much you need the Heavenly Father's guidance. He will guide you with His eye. Pray that you may know and do His will, and pray for us that we may please Him in all things. Do you need some tracts or papers? Let us know.
Yours in the work,H. L. Hastings.
Goshen, Mass., March 9, 1900.
My Dear Sister:
I am very glad indeed to hear from you, and to know that you are still alive and still at work.
It was a great shock to me when Mr. Hastings left us. But the Lord has been very good to me, and I feel that He means what He says: "E'en down to old age I will never leave thee." "I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake." This is a beautiful and a comforting thought to me at this time.
May God bless you, my sister, and keep you in health to do His work, is the prayer of
Your friend,Mrs. H. L. Hastings.(Per E. B.)
E. E. BYRUM, AUTHOR AND EDITOR
September 11, 1903.
During the past few years I have been acquainted with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton, and known of her earnestness and zeal in behalf of the unfortunate prisoners of our land. For many years her time has been almost wholly given to the work of relieving the distressed and discouraged in their cells, and in prison chapels.
Her songs and words of encouragement, mingled with tears, have caused the feelings of depression and sadness to flee away, and those bowed down with sorrow to grasp a ray of hope and look forward with renewed energy to a higher life, trusting in Him who is able to keep. Many years of continued evangelistic work in the penitentiaries and prisons of America have given her a wide range of experiences of prison life, a description of which cannot fail to be of intense interest to every reader. It was partially due to her untiring zeal that I was moved to write the book entitled "Behind the Prison Bars." Her written words will continue to warn and comfort after her departure from this world to her home beyond the cares of life.
E. E. Byrum.
Moundsville, W. Va.
FROM MOTHER OF PRISONER
Chicago, March 4, 1900.
Dear Friend:
I was greatly surprised and glad to hear from you, for my son has often spoken of you and has regretted that the quarantine has kept you away. I feel very grateful to you for taking an interest in my dear boy, for he is still very dear to me.
You cannot imagine my feelings all these years, knowing he was behind gloomy walls. My health has given way two or three times on account of it. Like so many others, he thought he knew best, and left a good home to go roving. The cause of his downfall is due to bad company, but then, his time is up in October. I hope to see him once more and keep him with me, for I am growing old—am nearly sixty-two.
I shall be very glad to welcome you to our home.
If you should see my dear boy before you come to Chicago, tell him I am waiting patiently until I see him.
This letter hardly expresses my feelings, but, sleeping or waking, my thoughts are nearly always with my absent boy. Once more accept thanks from a broken-hearted mother.
Mrs. M. E. F.
FROM A PRISONER'S DAUGHTER
Denver, Colo., Jan. 7, 1903.
My Dear Mother Wheaton:
Praise God for salvation this afternoon! I am glad I found your address, for I have wanted to write to you for a long time and tell you the result of your visit to R. State Prison, where you talked with my precious father.
He wrote me soon after you left and said you left him under awful conviction. He confessed and forsook his sins and is now a man saved by the blood that was shed on the cross for him. He said that he was restless from the time you left until he found Jesus. He told how you and a young lady talked and prayed with him, and how, after he retired, he rolled and tossed in awful agony until about eleven o'clock, when he cried to God for mercy. God heard his cries and came to his release. O hallelujah! It just makes me shout to read his letters now. I can tell by them that he is really resting in Jesus. He before seldom wrote more than two pages, and now he writes from fifteen to twenty-four. And oh, such letters! I just can't help but cry for joy when I read them and realize that my precious papa is serving the only true and living God. I give God the glory and all of the honor for what has been done; and I praise God for using you as an instrument through whom He worked. Eternity alone can reveal the result.
My heart is full of praises to Jesus my King this evening. He has done so much for me lately. He blesses me in soul and body and supplies all my needs.
I may go to C. soon and try to do something for my father. Pray that God may lead me and that the devil may not hinder in any way, if God sees fit to release papa from prison. I am perfectly resigned to God's will.
Your sister for Jesus,M. H.
(This daughter was a successful Christian worker.)
FROM AN EDITOR
Ashburn, Ga., May 12, 1897.
Dear Sister:
Grace and peace be multiplied to you. I received your letter and communication for "Holiness Advocate," which will appear in the next issue. Always let me know where to find you. I would have written sooner, but have been away to Macon, where I saw Sister Perry. She has been here and visited the convict camps since you were here. I have been visiting those camps pretty regularly since you left here. You put it on me and I am trying to be faithful. You asked me in your letter if you knew me. Yes, I met you here. It was in front of my store. You held the street service here at Ashburn, while waiting for the train, and I was with you until the train left. Well, sister, I will never get done praising God for ever meeting you. It marked a new epoch in my experience. I want you to take my paper on your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to run it for me and the Father to supply financial help. I am trusting Him for it. How glad the prisoners in the camp will be to hear from you in this way. I will send up to both the camps a bundle of the issue containing your letter. I want you all to pray for the South, that a deeper work may be done in the hearts of the Holiness people; that the missionary spirit may get hold of us so that we will send out our sons and daughters to tell of Jesus' love to a perishing, dying world.
May the Lord bless you and use you in the future even more powerfully than in the past. Come and see us when you can.
Yours, bound for Heaven,J. Lawrence,Ed. Holiness Advocate.
Ashburn, Ga., August 25, 1898.
Dear Sister Wheaton:
Your letter came to us all right, and you have no idea what gladness it brings to us all to hear from you, and yet conviction. For it certainly convicts us for the little we are doing when we see how the Lord is enabling you to put in full time. Pray for me that I may be more zealous. Things are taking a deeper move in the South. A great number of the Holiness people are getting down for a real experience. We have been satisfied long enough with a profession. So you may expect something from the South in the near future. Men and women giving themselves for the foreign field and for the home field, working in the slums and in the prisons and wherever God may lead them. Love to all the saints at Tabor. I have never met any of them, but I do love them and the work they are doing. "Blessed be the tie that binds."
God bless you, and may you be preserved blameless unto His coming.
Yours in Jesus' love,J. Lawrence.
FROM AN EX-PRISONER
Sioux City, Ia., Jan. 31, 1901.
Mrs. Wheaton: I don't suppose you will remember me, but possibly you may, as I think I was one of the most wretched in or out of prison at that time. It was at Sioux Falls, So. Dak., between three and four years ago, if I remember correctly. You visited the prison and spoke to us in chapel, and later in the day you and a lady with you, came around to the cells. I was in cell No. 13. You shook hands with me and asked, "Are you a Christian?" I replied, "No." Again you asked, "Have you ever been one?" "No." "Will you meet me in Heaven?" you asked again, and I answered, "I will try to." You spoke only a few words, saying, "Do not be discouraged." These few words and that warm hand-shake helped me very much. I was indeed much discouraged. Life seemed dark indeed. I was serving an eleven years' sentence. I was under deep conviction of sin. Not long after that the blessed Christ came into my heart. I believed on His name and He saved my soul. Two years ago last August I was pardoned from the prison. The 17th of last March I became Superintendent of a Rescue Mission in Dakota, and for ten months or nearly that I was there and the Lord blessed our efforts by saving souls. I am now married. My wife was converted in the mission last June. She is an accomplished musician and singer and, the Lord being willing, we expect to go out and preach the gospel among railroad men in the near future.
I have often thought of you and your labor of love among prisoners. May God bless and encourage you in the work, is my earnest prayer. I heard that you were in Sioux Falls at the prison a short time ago. I did not know it in time to see you. If the prisoners only knew what joy and peace there is in the service of Jesus, it seems to me they would yield their hearts to Him. Again I wish you godspeed in your work. May you have many precious jewels for the Master's crown. To Him belong the praise and glory.
Good-bye, and God bless you and the sister that was with you. Never be discouraged. Jesus loves and uses you.
Yours, in His service,T. F. M.
Sioux Falls, S. Dak., Feb. 9, 1904.
Mrs. E. R. Wheaton.
Dear Sister: Your card of November was received. Hope you will pardon me for not writing before. I am glad that you are still trusting Jesus, and working in His vineyard. May God bless, comfort, strengthen and keep you.
Jesus is coming again, perhaps soon. It may be that we shall be alive when He comes. If so we shall be caught up together with the dead in Christ to meet Him in the air, so shall we ever be with Him. Blessed be His name. (I Thess. 4-17.) I want to exalt Him. I want my daily life to be a testimony of His power to save and to keep. Many years of my life were spent in sin. Finally I was tried, convicted and sentenced to state's prison for a long term of years. God says: "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap, for He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (Galatians 6:7, 8.) God's word is true.
I found my mind giving away and my body a physical wreck. I read the Bible and God showed me that I was a lost man. I tried to destroy my life, but God in his love and mercy would not permit it. I was in great darkness. I said to a friend, there is no hope for me in this life or the life to come, but I did not know Jesus Christ nor His saving power. God sent His ministers each Sunday morning to preach the blessed gospel, and one Sunday morning He sent "Mother Wheaton" to us. In the afternoon, I believe it was, she visited us in our cells. I had quarreled with my cell-mate, and he had left me. Mrs. Wheaton came and shook hands with me, and asked if I was a Christian. I said, "No." Again she asked, "Have you ever been a Christian?" I replied, "No." She said, "Will you meet me in Heaven?" I said, "I will try." With a warm hand-shake and a few words of encouragement, she left me. God helped me to believe in Jesus Christ, and there came into my life joy and peace such as I had never known before, even in my best days on the outside.
After my conversion I asked God if it was His will that I might be pardoned out. He also heard and answered that prayer. God is love. He loves the vilest sinner. To-day I have a loving Christian wife and two lovely children. I have no desire for the old life of drinking, gambling, etc., but my desire is to love and serve God and help my fellowmen to find Jesus, who is mighty to save and to keep. To Jesus belongs all praise and glory. If it is his will, may He use this testimony to bring souls to Himself.
T. F. M.
4064 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, Mo.,October 25, 1899.
My Dear Mrs. Wheaton:
I thank you so much for your letter. I was greatly pleased in reading it. I will be so glad to see you when you come. I realize, as you say, that I have never fully let go of myself in the Master's work, but I have given my life to Him, and if I know my own heart, I am willing to be and do anything He shall choose for me. I love to help lost ones, and if the Lord should use me as He does you, I believe I should be the happiest person in the world. Do pray for me, won't you, that the Lord may lead me into all His will? Time is flying, and soon all of our opportunities will be over and our Lord will take us to Himself. Pray that the Lord will keep me busy serving Him. I love you and pray for you. May you be kept rejoicing in hope even though you see nothing but sin and sorrow around you. (Psalm 125:5, 6.)
Lovingly yours,Tula D. Ely.
Sapphire, N. C., August 15, 1901.
My Dear Sister:
I received your letter to-day. I have been thinking about you and praying for you often, and see by your letter that God has made all of your trials a blessing to you and know that God can make up for any loss He lets us have. What a hard time you did have, dear sister. I praise God for bringing you through it with such joy. Sometimes it seems true He does with us like He did with Job—just tells Satan he may do everything but take our lives, and when our self-justification and friends are gone, He joins us in with Himself and makes us powerful in His own power. He knows whether we want Him, and if we do we will be taken through death to self and put to hard tests. It seems sometimes as if He hides His face to let us suffer and say, "Though He slay me yet will I trust Him." I am glad you are with the people who hold you up in prayer. We need one another's prayers in these times when Satan has so many snares. Tula is well. She and Mildred send love.
Affectionately and in Jesus, love,Clara D. Ely.
S–, Colo., June 24, 1903.
Dear Mother in Christ:
May this find you well and happy in the Lord Jesus. We have not forgotten you and we never shall. Our gospel tent meeting at P. was a blessed time. Souls were saved and sanctified. We give all the glory to Jesus. We are holding meetings here in our tent. The Lord is blessing the preaching of His Word. The Lord willing, we will begin a meeting at Raton, New Mexico, the 2nd of August. We would like to have you with us if it were the Lord's will. The Lord is helping us while we are here to open a home for poor girls. We have rented a five-room house and He is giving us everything we need for the home. Glory to God for all things!
My brother H. is with us in the gospel work. God is blessing him in singing the gospel. Remember us all in prayer. May the Lord give you many souls in your work. We both send love to you.
Your children,J. E. And Wife.
The above is of especial interest to me though the reader may have to read between the lines, as it were, to understand why it is so. The writers are faithful and efficient workers in the Master's cause.
A TESTIMONIAL
Columbia, South Carolina.
To Christian Women:
Dear Sisters: We have long known the bearer, Mrs. E. R. Wheaton, and can testify as to her arduous labors for the most needy classes. It was our privilege to have her in our Home for one week and we certainly received the Lord's blessing during that time. We are working for Christ, but her labors are more abundant, her trials far greater. As she goes forth without commission or salary she must depend entirely upon God. He usually supplies her through His people. Few of us could work where and as she does, but we may lovingly minister to her necessity and the dear Lord will surely bless in so doing. Yours in Christ,
Maria Jones,Ella F. Brainard
The writer of the following sketch was an orphan girl making her home, when I first met her, with some of my relatives in Iowa. She was raised by her aunt and was kept in school and in society till she was grown. Having been converted at the age of twelve years and engaging some in Christian work, soon after my first acquaintance with her she received a call from God to devote her life wholly to His service. Being an orphan the Lord gave me a mother's love and care for her. She went with me to the Missionary Training Home at Tabor, from whence she went as a missionary to India. While at the Home she was faithful in caring for orphan children, etc., and traveled with me some, staying at one time several months as a worker in a rescue home in Chicago, and later spending some time in evangelistic work. I have elsewhere mentioned her trip with me to the Pacific coast on her way to India.
It was my privilege in the fall of 1903 to travel with Mother Wheaton in Gospel work in prisons, jails, missions, churches, etc. God made her a blessing to many souls who needed a mother's love and sympathy. She always lifts up Jesus, that souls might be drawn unto Him and be saved. We first visited the Reformatory for Girls at Mitchelville, Iowa. We were kindly received by the Superintendent who had been a friend of Mother Wheaton's for several years. He gave her the privilege of holding services in the chapel with the several hundred girls. She also visited the girls in their cottages, singing, praying and talking with them.
We then visited the prisons at the following places: Moundsville, W. Va.; Baltimore, Md.; Allegheny, Pa.; Columbus, Ohio; Waupun, Wis.; Stillwater, Minn.; Frankfort, Ky.; Nashville and Brushy Mountain, Tenn.
In the hospital of the prison at Waupun we visited Mr. Colgrove, a prisoner who was converted fifteen years previously when Mother Wheaton was holding a service in the prison. He was a life prisoner but he yielded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit and was saved. During these years he proved by his daily walk that he was a Christian. He often conducted the devotional exercises, and he had taught three Bible classes, two in German and one in English, until his health failed. As I bade him goodbye he said, "I will meet you in the better world if I never meet you here again." He was in poor health and a few months later died a triumphant death.
The prison physicians gave permission to visit the sick, for they know the words of comfort and songs of cheer by Mother Wheaton will give them encouragement and a desire to live for the better world.
In a Gospel Mission I heard an ex-convict testify to how God had saved him from a life of sin. He said that he knew "Mother Wheaton" but perhaps she did not know him dressed as he was; for when she had met him before he was behind prison bars. He praised God for such a person who was willing to work among that class of people. I am sure there is much good accomplished in the prisons for individuals as Mother Wheaton stands at the door after services and shakes hands with the hundreds of prisoners as they pass out. Her "God bless you" is not soon forgotten. When her work is ended and the rewards of the righteous are given, many will arise and call her blessed.
Grace Yarrett.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Sketches from Press Reports
My call being not only to the prison bound but to every creature, the newspaper men have received their part of the Gospel message and were often instrumental in heralding some truth to their readers whom I have been unable to reach in person. I have often been interviewed by reporters regarding my work for the Master and they frequently give accounts of meetings held in the prisons, on the streets, etc., very correctly, though sometimes in a humorous style and from that standpoint of the onlookers or the prisoners. In this chapter I give a few sketches from reports of my work clipped from the papers.
A Labor of Love
A WOMAN WHO LEFT A LUXURIOUS HOME TO SERVE THE UNFORTUNATE
MRS. WHEATON AMONG THE CRIMINALS AT THE PENITENTIARY
SHE VISITS THE HOSPITALS, JAIL AND WORK-HOUSE—AFFECTING SCENES WHILE SHE PREACHED
A white-haird lady, clad in deep mourning, carrying a volume bound in morocco, visited the penitentiary yesterday. This was Mrs. E. R. Wheaton. In a few minutes she was delivering a sermon to the convicts. She is a remarkable woman. Four years ago she left a luxurious home in Ohio to preach the gospel to convicts, and since then has exhorted in the penitentiaries of thirty-seven States. She visits hospitals and the abodes of fallen women, also, and has ministered to the wants of thousands of unfortunates. An American reporter asked her how she happened to be engaged in the work.
"No member of my family was ever in a prison or afflicted as are those to whom I speak," she exclaimed; "my evangelical work did not originate in any morbid sympathy because of personal bereavement. I simply felt called of God to preach his word to the people, and have entered upon it for the remainder of my life. My heart and soul are in it, and though I am far from my dear ones I am happy."
She had been speaking to the convicts but a few minutes when the effect of her words of exhortation was visible. At first the majority were listless, but as she warmed to her cause they responded with closer attention and in fifteen minutes every eye was fixed intently upon the gentle, earnest woman, who sought to save their souls and bring a divine light to their benighted lives. When she closed her discourse and asked if any desired her prayers twenty hardened men of crime, with tears in their eyes, raised their hands and three advanced to the mourners' seat. With these she prayed and every word was fraught with all the potent power with which the voice of woman in prayer is capable. The three unfortunates were moved as men seldom are and at the close of the meeting professed conversion.
Mrs. Wheaton then visited the hospital department of the penitentiary, after which she went to the jail, work-house and city hospital and at each place delivered a discourse. To-day she will see fallen women.—Nashville American, Nashville, Tenn., 1887.
A Prison Evangelist
ELIZABETH R. WHEATON TALKS AT THE COUNTY JAIL
Elizabeth R. Wheaton, the celebrated prison evangelist, visited the Buchanan county jail yesterday, and conducted a religious service of forty minutes' length. The evangelist pointed out the errors of her hearers and advised them to make early amends. The evangelist assured the audience that all they needed to be saved was faith. Wife murderer Bulling was one of the evangelist's most attentive hearers, and the horse thieves, burglars and other criminals were among her closest listeners. Sheriff Spratt thinks much good will result from Evangelist Wheaton's visit to the bastile.—St. Joe, Mo., paper, Aug. 8, 1889.
Prison Evangelist
Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, prison evangelist, held services in the county jail this afternoon, lecturing and singing to the eleven prisoners there. She told in few words and four songs the whole plan of salvation, and it didn't take her but twenty minutes to do it. She talked a little while and sang "I Will Tell the Wondrous Story," following with a few words of comment her rich contralto voice burst into "You Must Be Born Again," followed in the same way. Then "It Pays to Serve the Lord," and "Parting to Meet no More," closing with a short prayer. These songs coming in the order they do, tell the whole story and make a very pretty one.—Unidentified.
Evangelistic Service at Prison
Elizabeth Wheaton, a noble Christian woman who has consecrated her life to work in prisons, jails, reformatories, houses of correction, houses of refuge and hospitals, visited our city Saturday, and after presenting her credentials was given hearty permission to hold services at the prison on Sunday, Father Murphy, the Catholic chaplain, whose day it was to officiate, kindly consenting to this arrangement. Her manner would probably not be agreeable to an æsthetic Christian audience in a fashionable, upholstered church, but she knows how to reach the hearts of the men and boys who wear the stripes, one of the prisoners, a Catholic, who has been behind the bars for almost seventeen years, remarking that this was the best service they had had there during his long term of imprisonment. No one, be he Christian or pagan, could have listened to the service at the prison chapel last Sunday without being convinced that there was an opening for unselfish work among prisoners and that this lady was pre-eminently fitted for such work. There is no mawkish sentimentality about her, but an all absorbing zeal in the work of leading the criminals, the erring, the lowly, the sick and the afflicted to Christ and a better life. It is doubtful if there is an ordained minister in the land who can do as much good in this field as this plain, unpretentious, but thoroughly consecrated woman. She has now been nearly five years in this work, and has visited nearly every prison in the United States and Canada, a few in Mexico, and also the jails, reformatories, houses of refuge and hospitals in all the prominent cities through which she has passed. She has traveled almost 100,000 miles and has never met with an accident. Wherever she goes she is kindly received, non-Christians in fact treat her better than those whose sympathy and co-operation she has a right to expect. Thus does the world ever recognize and honor earnest, conscientious and capable laborers in the cause of God and humanity. She never allows a collection to be taken up in her behalf, though frequently invited to speak in churches, but accepts such offerings as may come without solicitation. Last Sunday, while she and the citizens in the audience were retiring from the chapel, a Swedish servant girl, whose name is unknown to the writer, took from her scanty purse a silver dollar and gave it to Mrs. Wheaton. If the lesson of the story of the widow's mite be true this humble girl's gift was greater than that of the millionaire who gives thousands of dollars toward the erection of a magnificent church edifice.—Stillwater, Minn., Messenger, Oct. 27, 1888.
Mrs. Wheaton's Eloquence
CAUSES A SUFFERING WIFE TO FORGET HER BRUISES AND FORGIVE HER CRUEL HUSBAND
The case of Henry Cooper was brought up before 'Squire F. yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock.
Catharine Cooper stated that her husband had beat her brutally on last Saturday afternoon and that this was not the first ill treatment she had received at his hands.
The court room was converted into a prayer meeting and Mrs. Wheaton's prayers presented an affecting scene; before the trial was ended Mrs. Cooper asked to withdraw her prosecution and was willing to forgive her cruel husband. 'Squire F. ordered the prisoner to be taken to the workhouse to work out the cost of the suit.—Chattanooga, Tenn., paper.
