Let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ—Ph. 1:27.
But to return to the prisoners' conversation, of which we spoke. Vile—yes, dear reader, this word does not convey to you the full measure within the writer's mind. At times it seems that some have sunk so low that all conception of honor and truth have passed entirely away. No reverence whatever for such words as "mother, home or heaven" left within their minds, for they are rendered entirely void of good thoughts or honest ideas, having been so long filled with the one thought—crime.
Prison Record for Life.
Men who started on their "career of crime" as mere boys, with years of youth spent in reform schools only to be developed into men of crime, have prison records to follow them through life. Many of these men feel that they have lost all hope of any but the criminal's life. Many of them have been forsaken by family and friends. So to the man or woman who is at all interested in the uplift of his fellow man, can you think of any field where the labor of an evangelist is more needed than it is among the men we have attempted to describe to you?
Stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong—1 Corinthians 16:13.
Then there is the paramount reason why the evangelist is needed. Men who would not on the outside of prison give one minute of their time to listen to the evangelist as he tried to persuade them to take a new lease on life let him engage their attention by the hour as he shows them the error of their way and points them to a better life. There are those that listen to his talk and turn away in scorn to ridicule his teaching. But as the days follow on, and the newness of the prison life begins to wear away, they listen with more respect to the "man of God."
The Late Hon. J. C. BOHART
of Chicago, one of the Author's main supporters while living in Chicago, Ill.
We have seen men behind the bars who never before bent their knee in prayer. After listening to the evangelist's story of God and his love, they go to their cells, and upon bended knees, beg for mercy and help.
Brother George L. Herr has taken the word of the Master into many of the prisons of the United States, but the jails and penitentiaries of his native State of Kentucky have claimed much of his time and attention. We must confess when first coming in contact with him, our feeling against him was bitter, we did not want his friendship nor his help, only because we were angered by his denouncing our pet sins. But as days lengthened into weeks, and weeks into months, the truth of his kindly spoken words came home to us. Life was stripped of all its so-called pleasure, with nothing but its disgrace and shame left to mock us, having sold out to the "demon of crime."