After Prison--What?

by Maud Ballington Booth

The next woman sent home had served eight years. She was a respectable body who during an unhappy wifehood had suffered much with a drunken husband, and on whom prison life had told severely. "Oh," she said when we first talked together, "do get me a place with people who will trust me. I will work hard and be faithful, only I do want a chance to prove I am in earnest." I sent her to work for friends of mine whom I knew to be earnest Christians, where I felt sure she would receive the kind words and sympathy she needed more than the dollars that would be paid her for her services. They have sent me the best kind of news concerning her. She has proved herself most trustworthy, willing and helpful. In her turn she cannot speak too warmly of her employers and their kindness, and is perfectly contented and happy in her new life.

The next woman was a colored girl. She had served her sentence and it was not her first either, for she had seen the inside of one of our big western prisons before coming east. Born of respectable Christian parents in a southern state, she had been led astray in the city of Chicago, had gone very far down the wrong road and lived for some ten years an evil life. They did not think at the prison that she would come to me, but she did. By a delay of trains she reached the city at 4 A. M. and walked up and down the streets until our office opened. "I tell you, Mrs. Booth," she said, "I'd not have come to you if I did not really want to be good. I know where I could get money and where I could find friends, but I am through with the old life. I do not want to live like that any more. Get me a place. I am not afraid of work and I will prove to you I am in earnest." She is in her place now, happy and hard working and those who employ her, though they know the past, never remind her of it nor have they been given any cause to think of it themselves.

Our last girl to come home was a mere child when first imprisoned. The crime was a terrible one, it is true, but is a woman quite responsible in the first hours of shame-shadowed motherhood? When I heard of the long imprisonment, I asked the question, "And what of the man?" Oh! the hand of the law that caught the weak, unhappy woman, was powerless to touch him, and she alone bore the weight of shame and punishment. It was just a week before her discharge that she held my hand tight in hers in the prison office and pleaded, "Little Mother, may I come to you? I am worrying so about a place, and don't know what is best to do in the future. I can work and I shall be so grateful for the chance if you will trust me that you shall have no cause to be sorry you did so!"

Such an innocent face was hers, such a willing little worker the matron said she had proved herself to be, and there were at home earnest, respectable loved ones, longing to hear good news of her, so there was indeed every cause to give her the chance she asked. We talk of "by chance" when we might better say "by God's guidance." It was thus unexpectedly that two days before our "girl's" discharge, I met a friend who spoke of going away that week to a beautiful mountain home. "Have you all the servants you need?" I asked. "All but one," she answered. "I have that one for you," I said, and in a few brief words I told her the pitiful story that was to be a secret, known only to the employer. So our "girl" went straight to the very best place she could have found, with a lady who is herself an earnest Christian worker. Cheering words, busy occupation and beautiful surroundings will chase away the memory of cruel wrong and dreary imprisonment. Here is a letter from the one who employed her.

"My dear Mrs. Booth:—I should have written you before in regard to your girl, but have been so busy since coming here that I have not found time. I want to tell you I am delighted with her and she will prove a most valuable girl. She is capable, willing and so cheerful with it all. She works in such an intelligent manner that it is truly remarkable. She plods right along and does not have to be followed up after she is started at something. She certainly has had good training in the 'big hotel' she talks about having worked in."

Here is the girl's side of the story.

"My dear Friend:—I received your kind letter last night and I hasten to reply. I like my place very much. It is a delightful place! I wrote to Mrs. —— last week. She was so kind to me while I was in her care that I feel it is a small thing for me to write her once in a while. Mrs. Booth, I do wish you could come to this beautiful spot and rest here, for I know what your labors are for us. I brought my Day Book with me and read it and pray often for God's guidance and blessing. Hoping you are well but not tired, I remain obediently yours," etc.

So as we again turn back to prison to seek yet others still within those gloomy walls, our hearts whisper, "Yes, it does pay, it is all worth while." And why should this work be any other than a great and lasting success? Have we not the right to talk confidently about it, and to glory in it, when we know and acknowledge the source of power, and the cause of the far-reaching influence? The wire used to carry the current from the dynamo has nothing to boast of, the pipes that bring the water from the hills to the city, need not feel diffident in the praise of the water supply or its life-giving results! So we who are privileged to be God's messengers, who can sometimes prove the connecting link between the human and divine, can glory in the blessed results without a thought of self-intruding, for the work is not human but Divine.