Again we went to the South to visit prisons and stockades where we had been in former years. Great changes had been made. There was much improvement in their condition. I hope the time may soon come when only the law of love and kindness shall prevail.
We held street meetings in many places. One night after holding one of these open-air services we boarded a train. A man and wife came on the train. She told us that her husband had attended the street meeting and was under such conviction for sin that he could not rest. There on the train, while we knelt in the aisle of the car, he was converted to God and went on his way rejoicing, while we went to visit a penitentiary where hundreds of men and women needed the same work of grace wrought in their hearts.
Often we saw answers to prayer in the healing of prisoners who were sick. God's Word is true. He says He is no respecter of persons, and He is able to do more than we can ask or think. May God bless every soul for whom we have prayed.
Sister Wheaton and myself have spent many long hours at a time together pleading for the men and women behind the bars. It means much to be divinely called to this work.
Oh! how many with broken hearts lie in the lonely cells every night! May God help everyone who reads these pages to remember that there is one MOTHER of all the prisoners who weeps and prays in sympathy with them. I wish every mother and wife, or sister, who has a precious one "in the shadow of the walls," would pray for "Mother Wheaton," that she may be helped of God in preaching the Word, and that God's blessing may rest upon her for her kind loving words and the hand-clasp that reaches so many hearts. Pray that health and strength may be given her as she comes in and goes out among these erring ones.
I know she has been through deep waters and great sorrows. Her life has been one of self-sacrifice in behalf of the unfortunate. May God bless and help her and give her the crown of righteousness that is laid up for the faithful.
One night after worship at the home of the warden with whom we were stopping, Sister Wheaton was singing a hymn, when suddenly the warden asked, "Sister Wheaton, will you come over into the prison-yard and finish that hymn?" She replied she would gladly do so if he thought it would do good. So we hastened to the prison-yard, some little distance away, and quietly entered the enclosure, and she began singing. Her clear, strong voice awakened the sleeping prisoners. The incident was so unusual that some of them (as we were told afterward), negroes especially, awaking suddenly, thought that the Judgment Day had come, and tumbling out of bed, fell upon their knees and began praying for God to have mercy upon them and save their souls; so God evidently used the song to bring conviction to hearts. After the singing we returned as quietly as we had come, trusting the results with God.
NEW MEXICO PRISON, SANTA FE, N. M.