Prisoners on Bended Knee.
INMATES OF COUNTY JAIL BOW IN PRAYER WITH MOTHER WHEATON.
On bended knees and with low bowed heads nine prisoners at the county jail reverently followed a prayer addressed to the throne of grace in their behalf yesterday by Mother Wheaton, the noted prison evangelist. Under the remarkable influence of the woman who came among them as a messenger of soul-saving, every rough instinct of the men was quelled and every scoffing word hushed on their lips. No more devout prayer meeting was ever held in a sanctuary than that which took place in the jail corridor.
Mother Wheaton and a younger woman called upon the prisoners and sang a song such as the men might have heard their mothers or sisters sing in the long ago, when their feet had not strayed from youthful paths of innocence. If there was any inclination to ridicule or make light of the service at the start, it was entirely subdued inside of five minutes. Mother Wheaton talked to the men and told of the work she has been doing for twenty years among the inmates of jails and penitentiaries. She declared that she and her assistant wanted to help save them.
There was no hesitation whatever when Mother Wheaton asked the prisoners to get down on their knees. One and all, the nine assumed the attitude of humble submission to the deity and remained in that position until their patroness had finished her petition for the pardoning of their sins. Some of the men were seen to blink significantly and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs. When the prayer was done and another hymn rendered, the men joining in, hands were shaken all around before the visitors departed.
Mother Wheaton has been coming to the Council Bluffs jail for several years. She was in the city on her way from Nevada to Wisconsin.—Council Bluffs Paper.
CHAPTER XXV.
Furnished unto Every Good Work.
Who will man the life-boat, who the storm will brave? Many souls are drifting helpless on the wave; See their hands uplifted; hear their bitter cry: "Save us ere we perish, save us ere we die!"