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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 God 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 space was left Him, and in that space 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 noble soul is;—and perhaps the noblest 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 grass, 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 anticipated death. He must be yet more alone, and alone with God. 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 passed. 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 fortitude 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 compassionate 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 passions of the mind can master it, and many a coarse 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 God;—that it is God 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 ingratitude 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 God 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 bloody 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 passion, and unfretted by the pettiness of pride—is calm and meek and reverent enough to listen to the messages of God, 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 God'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 God? Yes, being in an agony, we pray; and the talisman against every agony is there.

And herein lies the great mercy and love of God, 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 God,—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 God is a God of Love, a God 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 grass and vernal flower! So will it be with even a withered and a wasted life when we return to God 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 God 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 God 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 God'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—God'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 God is to the flowers of the field; the burning wind of the day may pass 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 God,—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 God, so utterly alien to the true interests of men, that nothing could happen better for us than that God 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 God'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 God 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 pass by, more noble, and sweet, and pure, and heavenly-minded,—no man ever yet prayed that the evil spirits of hatred, and pride, and passion, and worldliness, might be cast out of his soul,—without his petition being granted, and granted to the letter. And with all other gifts God 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 God'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 God 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 God's children pass under the shadows of the Cross of Calvary they know that through that shadow lies their passage to the Great White Throne. For them Gethsemane is as Paradise. God 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.

DIRECTORY OF PENITENTIARIES, STATE REFORM SCHOOLS, STATE INDUSTRIAL REFORMATORIES, ETC., OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

UNITED STATES PRISONS

United States Penitentiary, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia.

United States Penitentiary, McNeil Island, Washington.

United States jails in the Indian Territory: Vinita, Muskogee, South McAlester and Ardmore.

United States Jail, Fort Smith, Arkansas.

United States Jail, Guthrie, Oklahoma.

District of Columbia.—District Jail, Reform School, and Reform School for Girls, Washington.

There are several small United States jails in Alaska and within the States occupying rented quarters.

STATE INSTITUTIONS

Alabama.—Penitentiary, Wetumpka; two prisons at Pratt Mines. Boys' Industrial School, East Lake.

Arizona.—Territorial Prison, Yuma.

Arkansas.—Penitentiary, Little Rock.

California.—Prisons, Folsom and San Quentin. State Schools, Whittier and Ione.

Colorado.—Penitentiary, Canon City. Reformatory, Buena Vista. Reform School for Girls, Denver. Industrial School for Girls, Morrison. Industrial School for Boys, Golden.

Connecticut.—Prison, Weathersfield. Reform School, Meridan. Industrial School for Girls, Middletown.

Delaware.—Ferris Industrial School and Industrial School for Girls, Wilmington.

Florida.—Stockade Camps (13 in 1900). Prisoners farmed out, mining phosphate. Reform School, Marianna.

Georgia.—Woman's Prison, Milledgville. Stockades at mines and farms; prisoners leased.

Idaho.—Penitentiary, Boise City.

Illinois.—Penitentiaries, Joliet, Chester. Reformatory, Pontiac. Industrial School for Girls, South Evanston. Home for Female Offenders, Geneva. Erring Woman's Refuge, Chicago.

Indiana.—Prisons, Jeffersonville, Michigan City. Woman's Prison, and Reform School for Girls, Indianapolis. Reform School for Boys, Plainfield.

Iowa.—Penitentiaries, Fort Madison, Animosa. Industrial Schools: Boys, Eldora; Girls, Mitchelville.

Kansas.—Penitentiary, Lansing. Reform School, Topeka. Industrial Reformatory, Hutchinson. Industrial School for Girls, Beloit.

Kentucky.—Penitentiaries, Frankfort, Eddyville. Reform School, Lexington. Industrial School of Reform, Louisville.

Louisiana.—Penitentiary, Baton Rouge. Boys' House of Refuge, New Orleans.

Maine.—Prison, Thomaston. Reform School, South Portland. Industrial School for Girls, Hallowell.

Maryland.—Penitentiary, Baltimore. House of Refuge for Boys, Female House of Refuge, and St. Mary's Industrial School, Baltimore. Industrial Home for Colored Girls, Melvale. House of Reformation for Colored Boys, Cheltenham.

Massachusetts.—Prison, Charlestown. Reformatory, Concord. Reformatory Prison for Women, Sherborn. Industrial School for Girls, Lancaster. Lyman School for Boys, Westboro. State Primary School, Monson.

Michigan.—Prison, Jackson. Branch prison and House of Correction, Marquette. House of Correction and Reformatory, Ionia. Industrial School for Boys, Lansing. Industrial Home for Girls, Adrian.

Minnesota.—Prison, Stillwater. Reformatory (for 16 to 30 years old), St. Cloud. State Training School, Redwing.

Mississippi.—Penitentiary, Jackson. Farms.

Missouri.—Penitentiary, Jefferson City. Reform School for Boys, Boonville. Industrial Home for Girls, Chillicothe. House of Refuge, St. Louis.

Montana.—Prisons, Deer Lodge, Billings. Reform School, Miles City.

Nebraska.—Penitentiary, Lincoln. Industrial School for Boys, Kearney. Industrial School for Girls, Geneva.

Nevada.—Prison, Carson City.

New Hampshire.—Prison, Concord. Industrial School, Manchester.

New Jersey.—Prison and Industrial School for Girls, Trenton. Reform School, Jamesburg.

New Mexico.—Penitentiary, Santa Fe.

New York.—Prisons, Sing Sing, Auburn (also one for women). Reformatories, Elmira; Ellensville; Bedford. Institutions also at New York, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Hudson and Albion.

North Carolina.—Penitentiary, Raleigh. Prisoners mostly on State Farms.

North Dakota.—Penitentiary, Bismark.

Ohio.—Penitentiary, Columbus. Reformatory, Mansfield. Industrial School, Boys, Lancaster; Girls, Delaware. House of Refuge, Cincinnati.

Oregon.—Penitentiary, Reform School, Salem.

Pennsylvania.—Penitentiaries, Philadelphia, Allegheny. Industrial Reformatory, Huntingdon. Reform School, Morganza. House of Correction, Philadelphia. House of Refuge, Glen Mills.

Rhode Island.—Prison, Work House and House of Correction, Sockanosset. School for Boys, and Oaklawn School for Girls, Howard.

South Carolina.—Penitentiary, Columbia. State Farms.

South Dakota.—Penitentiary, Sioux Falls. Reform School, Plankinton.

Tennessee.—Penitentiaries, Nashville, Petros. Industrial School, Nashville.

Texas.—Penitentiaries, Huntsville, Rusk. House of Correction and Reformatory, Gatesville.

Utah.—Penitentiary, Salt Lake City. Reform School, Ogden.

Vermont.—Prison, Windsor. House of Correction, Rutland. Industrial School, Vergenes.

Virginia.—Penitentiary, Richmond. Laurel Industrial School, Glen Allen.

Washington.—Penitentiary, Walla Walla. Reform School, Chehalis.

West Virginia.—Penitentiary, Moundsville. Reform School for Boys, Pruntytown. Girls' Industrial School, Salem.

Wisconsin.—Prison, Waupun. Reformatory, near Green Bay. Industrial School for Boys, Waukesha. For Girls and Boys, Milwaukee.

Wyoming.—Penitentiary, Rawlins.