Afterward he spoke of the new life before him as naturally and easily as he spoke of the hospital. He seemed already to have crossed the border of the new life. His heart had found its home in God; there he could give himself without reserve. Life and eternity were gladly offered to the One in whom he had perfect trust.
"Tell me," I said, "what is your thought of heaven, now that it is so near? What do you expect?"
How full of courage and trust and honesty was his answer! "I do not expect happiness; at least not at once. God is too just for that, after the life I have lived." Imprisonment, sickness, poverty, all the evils that we most dread, had been endured for years, but counted for nothing to him when weighed against his ruined life. But the thought of suffering brought no fear. The justice of God was dearer to him than personal happiness. I left that feeling undisturbed. He was nearer than I to the light of the perfect day, and I could see that, unconsciously, he had ceased to look to any one "on this side" for light.
Wilson was sleeping when I saw him again, but the rapid change which had taken place was apparent at a glance. When he opened his eyes and saw me standing beside him he looked at me silently for a moment. With an effort he gathered strength for what he evidently wished to say; and all the gratitude and affection that he had never before attempted to express to me directly were revealed in a few simple words. He would have no good-by; the loss of the supreme friendship of his life formed no part of his idea of death. Then he spoke of the larger life of humanity for which he had learned to feel so deeply, and his final words to me were: "Be to others what you have been to me. We are all brothers and sisters." The last thought between us was not to be of an exclusive, individual friendship, but of that universal tie which binds each to all.
Before midnight the earthly life had ended, peacefully and without fear. The stem of Easter lilies that I carried to the hospital next day was placed in the hands folded in the last sleep, and Wilson clasped in death the symbol of new life and heavenly purity.
Wilson was one of the men behind the bars; but it is as man among men that I think of him; and his last words to me, "We are all brothers and sisters," sum up the truth that inspires every effort the round world over to answer the call of those who are desolate or oppressed—whether the cry comes from little children in the mine, the workshop, or the tenement, or from those who are in slavery, in hospital, or in prison.
CHAPTER XIII
It was during the eighties and the nineties of the last century that I was most closely in touch with prison life; and it was at that time that the men whose stories I have told and from whose letters I have quoted were behind the bars. For forty years or more there was no radical change in methods of discipline in this prison, but material conditions were somewhat improved, the stripes and the lock-step were abandoned, and sanitation was bettered.