No outlet mid lightning and thunder,
Lay broad, and her shackles all shivered,
The captive, at last, was delivered?
Aye, that was the open sky o’erhead!
And you saw by the flash in her forehead,
By the hope in those eyes, broad and steady,
She was leagues o’er the free earth already.—Robert Browning.
“I was sick, and in prison and ye visited me not!”
Ah! in all our great cities, how many human beings there are “sick and in prison,” whose lot is much more miserable than that of the poorest beggar who enjoys the free air! These are not always criminals, but they are almost always friendless; for who dreams of visiting them?
“I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not!” These pathetic words of Our Saviour recurred to my mind, with my recollection of one heroic young woman, who, for no other crime than that of serving her country according to her own conscience, was, for a great length of time, confined in the solitary cell of a Confederate prison.