Prisons and Prayer Part 67

She has traveled over the United States and Mexico, and parts of Europe, and it remained for a Leadville mayor to break the record and treat her with indignity. She was very much shocked and grieved and said she felt deeply sorry for Leadville, which she had often heard spoken of as a wicked city.

_The Dispatch_ is free to say that Mayor J. acted without adequate provocation and displayed an unnecessary exercise of authority. If the services had been prolonged to any great extent he might have sent a request to have them discontinued, but there was no occasion for any such arbitrary exhibition of power as was made.

Far greater blockades with less meritorious objects have existed without protest in Leadville. A medicine faker who pays a few dollars license can yell and sing and make night hideous for hours and it is all right, but a humble evangelical missionary, whose sincerity and good intentions are not doubted, however persons may differ concerning the methods, is unceremoniously made to move on. If the authorities displayed as much zeal in suppressing vice as they do in shutting off missionaries, Leadville would be a model city.

The prison evangelists, after having been ordered off Harrison avenue, visited both city and county jails, where they were kindly received and permitted by the officers to hold services among the prisoners. It is said that this is the first religious service held in the Leadville jails.--Leadville, Colo., Dispatch, March, 1891.

DISGRACEFUL.

Last night, when the ladies who have been conducting religious services in the park, were preparing to close, some miscreant in human form threw a small torpedo at them and struck Mrs. Wheaton above the right eye. It did not produce any serious injury, but was very painful at the time, and may terminate worse than at first supposed. This act evidently issued from some low, depraved fiend whom the darkness of the hour s.h.i.+elded from justice. The ladies departed from the city this morning, and the exact result of the disgraceful episode cannot be learned. As soon as it was done some man in the crowd offered $100 reward for the identification of the party who did the dastardly trick, but of course no one knew who the miscreant was except he himself.--Jacksonville, Ill., paper, June 26, 1887.

THE PRISON EVANGELIST.

"Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, prison evangelist, Chicago, Ill. Meet me in heaven. No home but heaven." This is what is printed on the card of a remarkable woman who visited the penitentiary and talked to the convicts at 11 o'clock on Sunday. This woman has been engaged in this work for about nine years, and she has visited nearly every prison and jail in the United States, Canada and Mexico. She is the Moody of the convict world. She asks for no money. She gives her services free, and trusts to Providence for her support. "The Lord provides," she says.

She has held services in a different state or territorial prison the past five Sundays, from Stillwater, Minn. (where Cole Younger is confined and a.s.sists in and sometimes leads religious services), to Salem, Oregon. Mrs. Wheaton also visits reform schools. She is one of the chief advocates of the reformatory system being adopted in some of the Eastern prisons whereby convicts of different cla.s.ses are graded and kept separate, wear different uniforms, etc., and are also let out on furloughs on trial or probation. Mrs. Wheaton devotes her whole time to prison work. She certainly accomplishes some good from all this effort. She was a Methodist before taking up this life work, but now holds to no sect.--Salem, Oregon, paper, Nov. 16, 1891.

A n.o.bLE WORK.

Among the evangelistic workers who go out among the people seeking the low and degraded and trying to lift them up to be better men and women, Elizabeth R. Wheaton is one of the chosen few who is well adapted to this work. She asks no pay and receives none, but with n.o.ble purpose and with heart and mind fully in the work which has been given her, she travels from Maine to California and from British Columbia to the Gulf of Mexico.

Her work is chiefly among the state prisons, county jails and reform schools. Here she meets a cla.s.s of people schooled in vice and who have been kept face to face with the different evils all their lives; these are the people whom she seeks to save.

Mrs. Wheaton has just returned from a successful trip through Mexico and the South and is now on her way to Walla Walla, Portland and British Columbia. She stopped off here to visit our penitentiary and jail. Through the kindness of the warden she held a song service last Sunday at the State penitentiary, and the amount of good which she did was shown by the eager attention of the convicts, and the tear-stained faces of some who, when the good old-fas.h.i.+oned hymns were sung, thought of their far-away homes and mothers. Sunday evening she held services at the jail and on the street, both of which were much appreciated.--Unidentified.

GOSPEL FOR THE PRISONERS.

THE INMATES OF ATLANTA'S PRISONS HEARD PREACHING YESTERDAY.

The prisoners at police headquarters, at the jail and at the city stockade listened to the gospel of Christ yesterday.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, the famous prison evangelist, of Was.h.i.+ngton, held services at all these places. Her talks were of the most interesting character and evidently made deep impressions upon her hearers.

The service at the jail was held in the morning, the one at the stockade in the afternoon, and the one at the police station at night.

Mrs. Wheaton is perhaps the most famous evangelist of her kind in the country. She makes a specialty of this work and follows it closely week after week. She has preached to convicts and prisoners in every state in the Union, frequently traveling as far as 700 miles between Sundays in order to make an appointment. She has letters of introduction from the governors of many states, and free pa.s.ses on railroads. She is here with the Christian Workers, but is not a delegate.--Atlanta, Ga., paper, Nov. 14, 1893.

PRISON EVANGELISTS.

THE INMATES OF THE COUNTY JAIL TREATED TO A SERMON.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, the prison evangelist, who has been traveling over the United States for ten years past, and two sisters from Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and Kansas City, arrived in the city this morning and held religious service in the county jail. The twenty-four inmates of the bastile were much pleased with the service.

Mrs. Wheaton and her companions held services yesterday at the prison at Lansing, Kan., where 900 convicts are confined. Lately they have come from the convict camp of South Carolina and Mrs.

Wheaton can tell many tales of the sufferings endured by the prisoners there.--Unidentified.

THE NEWS AT LEAVENWORTH.

MOTHER WHEATON, PRISON EVANGELIST, VISITS THE UNITED STATES PRISON.

Religious services at the federal penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth yesterday were somewhat out of the usual order. Mother Wheaton, the prison evangelist, late of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., now of Iowa, preached to the convicts at the morning hour. Her address was a most effective one and men all through the audience were moved to tears. At the close of the service she stood at the chapel door and shook the hand of each prisoner as he went out.

Her head is white with age, yet she has visited the prisons of the United States and many in Europe, bearing messages of hope and cheer to the condemned. She is not alone a woman of ready speech, but is a sweet singer as well. Her life is dedicated to her work, and many is the unfortunate who has cause to bless the visit of Mother Wheaton.

Mrs. T., of this city, accompanied her to the prison.--Leavenworth, Kan., paper.

JAIL SERVICE.

The inmates of the county jail were honored yesterday by a visit from that well known prison evangelist, Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, who was accompanied by a Mrs. S., of Kansas. Mrs. Wheaton conducted religious services and her talk had a deep effect upon murderer Williamson, the old man being visibly moved.

Mrs. Wheaton has made the visiting of prisons, condemned men and fallen women her life work, and in the course of her travels during the past seven years has visited Europe, the British provinces, Mexico and the United States. As an example of her earnest efforts it may be mentioned that during the past thirteen Sundays she has visited and held services in fourteen different state penitentiaries. Mrs. Wheaton is a lady of striking appearance. She has a motherly countenance and a magnetism which attracts the closest attention to what she says. Her discourse yesterday was eloquent, yet at times plain and pointed to severity. Mrs. Wheaton left yesterday on the afternoon train for the Pacific coast.--Sedalia, Mo., paper, November, 1891.

PREACHED TO CONVICTS.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, the noted evangelist, and Mrs. Perry, who are engaged in preaching and working among the prisons, visited the Virginia penitentiary yesterday and held services in each chapel.

Their exhortations and singing were of a high order and produced a powerful effect among the prisoners. Many of them made a profession of faith. Mrs. Wheaton has preached in most of the penitentiaries of the United States. She has also traveled and preached in Canada and Mexico as well as in the Old World. The ladies are being entertained by Superintendent Lynn and will remain in the city several days.

POLICE STATION SERVICES.

MRS. ELIZABETH RIDER WHEATON TALKS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE FORCE.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, the evangelist, was at the police station last night at roll call and held a short service for the benefit of the members of the police force. She delivered an interesting address to the officers and offered a prayer, after which she led them in a song. The officers expressed themselves as having been greatly benefited by the service, and the evangelist was invited to call again.--Unidentified.

SERVICES AT THE WORKHOUSE.

"Mother" Wheaton, the prison evangelist, who was mentioned last Monday as holding meetings in Island Park the day before, called at the police station this morning to ask permission to talk and sing to the prisoners confined in the workhouse. The permission was granted. The lady has traveled extensively in her evangelistic work, making flying trips all over the United States especially. Within the last thirty days she has talked to prisoners at Walla Walla, Tacoma and in other northwestern cities. While in this city she is the guest of her sister, Mrs. Huffman, of Kenwood.--Elkhart (Ind.) Paper.

A STRANGE LIFE OF DEVOTION IN NEGLECTED FIELDS.

The prisoners in the Dade coal mines made the acquaintance yesterday of two women--two religious tramps, if you please, using the word literally--whose adventures in evangelizing are probably without parallel.

They are Mrs. Elizabeth Rider Wheaton, the famous prison evangelist, and her temporary a.s.sistant, Mrs. P.

Mrs. Wheaton has for ten years been preaching in prisons, convict camps, houses of ill-fame and the like, not only in the United States, but in Canada, Mexico and Europe. One, upon meeting her, would naturally be very uncertain as to where one might or might not meet next this spirit-led traveler--recognizing which uncertainty, perhaps, she has printed upon her cards, in lieu of an earthly address:

"Meet me in heaven."

The two women visited the jail Thursday, becoming very much interested in the case of P. S., it seems, on account of his relations.h.i.+p to Rev.

S. J. Mrs. Wheaton spoke of P. as a "beautiful black-eyed young married man."