At the Prison Gate by Advocate and Guardian

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 1, 1883

At the Prison Gate.

By Advocate and Guardian

"Passing the State's Prison in Wethersfield on foot, one spring morning, thirty years ago," said an old gentleman recently (one of the prison commissioners of the State of Connecticut), "I saw the gate open, a man come out, and the gate close again. The man looked pale and worn and sad. He stood by the gate, in the broad May sunshine, in a perplexed, undecided way, and I noticed that the tears were streaming down his cheeks. He looked up and down the road, up at the sky, then stood with bowed head."

"Where now, my friend?" I asked cheerfully.

"I don't know, good sir,' replied the man sadly. 'I was just thinking that I would throw my hat straight up into the air, and go the way the wind blew it. I would rather go back into the prison, but they won't have me now that I have worked out my sentence. They won't have me there, and I don't suppose they will have me anywhere,' he went on, in a broken voice, 'but I have got to be somewhere. I don't know what will become of me; foresight isn't as good as hindsight, sir.'"

"I am walking to Hartford; take passage with me?" I said.

"You won't care to be in such company,' he replied, looking at me incredulously. 'Perhaps you don't understand that I have just worked out a sentence in the State's Prison here.'"

"I understand,' I said. 'We are all wayfarers; come along, and we will talk the matter over, and decide as we go what can be done for you.'"

It was a lovely warm day. We walked slowly and talked a good deal, or rather my companion talked, and I encouraged him to do so. He answered my questions frankly, clutching hungrily at my ready sympathy. He was very free to talk of himself, and said at last as I smiled at some unimportant disclosure :—

"Reserve was never one of my failings, sir. If I tell anything I tell all. That is the way I came to get into prison. Had I kept silent, I should have gone free. But by this time my heart, full of pent-up sin, would have been a mass of corruption."

"I found that he had made shoes in the prison. 'I never had a trade before,' he said. 'I think if I had, I would not have fallen into errors. Had I had a legitimate way of getting a living, I would not have been tempted as I was. I have a good trade to begin on now, however. I have brought that away with me, as well as a bitter memory and a lasting disgrace.'"

"It is not the fact of your being in prison, but the crime that carried you there, wherein lies the sin,' I said.

"But those who are not found out escape the disgrace,' he replied bitterly, with a deep sigh, and I hastened to say :—

"I think I know a man here in the city who will hire you. He is a large shoe manufacturer, and I am sure he will make a place for you as a favor to me, even if he does not really need a man."

The more I thought about it, the more confident I felt that my friend would take him into his manufactory.

"If I were in your place,' as we entered the city, 'I would not lisp a word about having been in prison.'"

The poor fellow stopped short and looked at me. The hopeful look dropped out of his face, his eyes filled with tears, and he said in a broken voice :—

"You have been very kind, but I had better bid you good-by, sir. I can not live and lie. I promised my God last night in my cell that was so dark at first, but so light at last when Jesus came to me there, that I would be true whatever befell me, and I will keep my word."

"Forgive me for tempting you at the outset,' I said. 'Come on.'"

I saw my friend, and told him the whole story. He had a little talk with my man, and made a bargain with him. That night, just at the hour for the shop to close, we three went into the work room.

"Here is a poor fellow who was discharged this morning from the Connecticut State's Prison,' said the proprietor. 'I am going to give him a start in life by taking him into the shop; he will begin work to-morrow.'"

There were indignant glances among the men, and one spoke up, hastily :—

"I shall leave if he stays. I will not work with a jail-bird."

"Very well,' said the employer, 'any one who wishes to leave, can bring in a bill of his time in the morning.'"

Only one man, the man who had constituted himself spokesman, left.

Ten years later that discharged convict was the owner of that manufactory, and the man who would not work with a 'jail-bird,' was one of the journeymen. As I said to begin with, that was thirty years ago. The man whom I met at the prison door is now a Senator in the Legislature of our New England States. He said to me the other day :—

"I tremble when I think what the result might have been had an evil instead of a good friend met me outside of the prison door.'"—Advocate and Guardian.