By Geo. Wm. Wood
[From the Courier-Journal Nov. 17, 1912]
To the right-thinking man there can be but one answer to the question, does the work of an evangelist pay? As well might we ask does the beautiful life of a true Christian pay? As well might we ask the farmer, as he carefully tills the soil and sows the seed and labors to cultivate the grain, does it pay? What answer would you expect from the shrewd business man of today should you ask him the question does it pay, when he labors and advises to keep down expenses. He would promptly answer in the affirmative. Let us bring the question closer home. Ask the prisoner behind the bars, does it pay to respect the law? He will answer yes. So for the question does the work of an evangelist pay behind prison bars there can be but one answer—yes.
Be of good courage, and let us behave ourselves valiantly.—1 Ch. 19:13.
Sitting tonight in our lonesome cell, bounded on three sides by blank and barren walls of steel, through our two-by-six door, constructed of massive bars of iron, there comes to us the conversation of our fellow prisoners, as with head pressed close against the bars to catch the other fellow's words, we listen to the talk of the men "committed for crime"—men strong and healthy, who should be engaged in some honest labor, but, instead, are "doing time" for a broken law. We had no idea of the meaning of the words "doing time" until being placed behind these bars, we took up the daily life of a prisoner, and with nothing but "time" to look to, began the task of trying to be contented. We believe from our own past ideas of prison life that very few of the outside world have any conception of what the prisoner's life really is, or what it means to be sentenced to a term in prison.
No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.—Psalm 84:11.
JEFFERSON COUNTY JAIL, LOUISVILLE, KY.
Members of the International Prison Congress pronounced this prison the model jail of the world.
Judge Does Not Understand.
The judge who pronounces sentence upon the evil and unfortunate knows as little of the meaning of the terms he uses in meting out punishment as the mail clerk knows of the contents of the letters he handles at his daily task. "Danger" conveys but little meaning to the mind of the engineer who has never had a wreck. By the standard of freedom, a day in prison is a year, and it is only those who mingle daily in our midst can talk to the "man behind the bars," who can have a fair idea of what the prisoner suffers daily in "doing time." The world that lies beneath the bars is a strange world to the average citizen, the citizen blessed with average good fortune. Prison life is a queer and twisted one, and a law to itself.