Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct line of my subject,and make a little excursion. I wish to reveal a secret which I havecarried with me nine years, and which has become burdensome.
Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said, with strong feeling,'If ever I see St. Louis again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the greatgrain merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him by the hand.'
The occasion and the circumstances were as follows.
A friend of mine, a clergyman, came one evening and said--'I have a most remarkable letter here, which I want to read to you,if I can do it without breaking down. I must preface it withsome explanations, however. The letter is written by an ex-thiefand ex-vagabond of the lowest origin and basest rearing, a manall stained with crime and steeped in ignorance; but, thank God,with a mine of pure gold hidden away in him, as you shall see.
His letter is written to a burglar named Williams, who is servinga nine-year term in a certain State prison, for burglary.
Williams was a particularly daring burglar, and pliedthat trade during a number of years; but he was caughtat last and jailed, to await trial in a town where he hadbroken into a house at night, pistol in hand, and forcedthe owner to hand over to him $8,000 in government bonds.
Williams was not a common sort of person, by any means; he wasa graduate of Harvard College, and came of good New England stock.
His father was a clergyman. While lying in jail, his healthbegan to fail, and he was threatened with consumption.
This fact, together with the opportunity for reflection affordedby solitary confinement, had its effect--its natural effect.
He fell into serious thought; his early training asserted itself withpower, and wrought with strong influence upon his mind and heart.
He put his old life behind him, and became an earnest Christian.
Some ladies in the town heard of this, visited him,and by their encouraging words supported him in his goodresolutions and strengthened him to continue in his new life.
The trial ended in his conviction and sentence to the Stateprison for the term of nine years, as I have before said.
In the prison he became acquainted with the poor wretchreferred to in the beginning of my talk, Jack Hunt,the writer of the letter which I am going to read.
You will see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt.
When Hunt's time was out, he wandered to St. Louis;and from that place he wrote his letter to Williams.
The letter got no further than the office of the prison warden,of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive lettersfrom outside. The prison authorities read this letter,but did not destroy it. They had not the heart to do it.
They read it to several persons, and eventually it fellinto the hands of those ladies of whom I spoke a while ago.
The other day I came across an old friend of mine--a clergyman--who had seen this letter, and was full of it.
The mere remembrance of it so moved him that he couldnot talk of it without his voice breaking. He promisedto get a copy of it for me; and here it is--an exact copy,with all the imperfections of the original preserved.
It has many slang expressions in it--thieves' argot--but theirmeaning has been interlined, in parentheses, by the prisonauthorities'--St. Louis, June 9th 1872.
Mr. W---- friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprisedto get a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to you.
i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i wasin prison--it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thoughti did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but inoed you was a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker,nor want gasing & all the boys knod it.
I used to think at nite what you said, & for it i nocked off swearing monthsbefore my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow--the day my timewas up you told me if i would shake the cross (QUIT STEALING) & live onthe square for months, it would be the best job i ever done in my life.
The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car i thought more ofwhat you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. When we got to Chicagoon the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old woman's leather;(ROBBED HER OF HER POCKETBOOK) i hadn't no more than got it off when iwished i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i made up my mindto be a square bloke, for months on your word, but forgot it when i sawthe leather was a grip (EASY TO GET)--but i kept clos to her & when shegot out of the cars at a way place i said, marm have you lost anything.
& she tumbled (DISCOVERED) her leather was off (GONE)--is this it says i,giving it to her--well if you aint honest, says she, but i hadn't gotcheak enough to stand that sort of talk, so i left her in a hurry.
When i got here i had $1 and 25 cents left & i didn't get no work for 3days as i aint strong enough for roust about on a steam bote (FOR ADECK HAND)--The afternoon of the 3rd day I spent my last 10 cts for moons(LARGE, ROUND SEA-BISCUIT) & cheese & i felt pretty rough & was thinkingi would have to go on the dipe (PICKING POCKETS) again, when i thoughtof what you once said about a fellows calling on the Lord when he wasin hard luck, & i thought i would try it once anyhow, but when i tryedit i got stuck on the start, & all i could get off wos, Lord give a poorfellow a chance to square it for 3 months for Christ's sake, amen; & ikept a thinking, of it over and over as i went along--about an hour afterthat i was in 4th St. & this is what happened & is the cause of my beingwhere i am now & about which i will tell you before i get done writing.
As i was walking along herd a big noise & saw a horse running away with acarriage with 2 children in it, & I grabed up a peace of box cover fromthe side walk & run in the middle of the street, & when the horse came up ismashed him over the head as hard as i could drive--the bord split to peces& the horse checked up a little & I grabbed the reigns & pulled his headdown until he stopped--the gentleman what owned him came running up & soonas he saw the children were all rite, he shook hands with me and gaveme a $50 green back, & my asking the Lord to help me come into my head,& i was so thunderstruck i couldn't drop the reigns nor say nothing--he saw something was up, & coming back to me said, my boy are you hurt?
& the thought come into my head just then to ask him for work; & i askedhim to take back the bill and give me a job--says he, jump in here &lets talk about it, but keep the money--he asked me if i could take careof horses & i said yes, for i used to hang round livery stables & oftenwould help clean & drive horses, he told me he wanted a man for that work,& would give me $16 a month & bord me. You bet i took that chance at once.
that nite in my little room over the stable i sat a long time thinkingover my past life & of what had just happened & i just got down onmy nees & thanked the Lord for the job & to help me to square it,& to bless you for putting me up to it, & the next morning i done itagain & got me some new togs (CLOTHES) & a bible for i made up my mindafter what the Lord had done for me i would read the bible every niteand morning, & ask him to keep an eye on me. When I had been thereabout a week Mr. Brown (that's his name) came in my room one nite and sawme reading the bible--he asked me if i was a Christian & i told him no--he asked me how it was i read the bible instead of papers & books--Well Charlie i thought i had better give him a square deal in the start,so i told him all about my being in prison & about you, & how i had almostdone give up looking for work & how the Lord got me the job when I asked him;& the only way i had to pay him back was to read the bible & square it,& i asked him to give me a chance for 3 months--he talked to me like a fatherfor a long time, & told me i could stay & then i felt better than everi had done in my life, for i had given Mr. Brown a fair start with me &now i didn't fear no one giving me a back cap (EXPOSING HIS PAST LIFE)& running me off the job--the next morning he called me into the library& gave me another square talk, & advised me to study some every day,& he would help me one or 2 hours every nite, & he gave me a Arithmetic,a spelling book, a Geography & a writing book, & he hers me every nite--he lets me come into the house to prayers every morning, & got me put in abible class in the Sunday School which i likes very much for it helps meto understand my bible better.
Now, Charlie the 3 months on the square are up 2 months ago,& as you said, it is the best job i ever did in my life,& i commenced another of the same sort right away, only itis to God helping me to last a lifetime Charlie--i wrotethis letter to tell you I do think God has forgiven my sins& herd your prayers, for you told me you should pray for me--i no i love to read his word & tell him all my troubles &he helps me i know for i have plenty of chances to stealbut i don't feel to as i once did & now i take more pleasurein going to church than to the theater & that wasnt so once--our minister and others often talk with me & a month agothey wanted me to join the church, but I said no, not now,i may be mistaken in my feelings, i will wait awhile,but now i feel that God has called me & on the first Sundayin July i will join the church--dear friend i wish i couldwrite to you as i feel, but i cant do it yet--you no i learnedto read and write while prisons & i aint got well enough alongto write as i would talk; i no i aint spelled all the words ritein this & lots of other mistakes but you will excuse it i no,for you no i was brought up in a poor house until i run away,& that i never new who my father and mother was & i dontno my right name, & i hope you wont be mad at me, but i haveas much rite to one name as another & i have taken your name,for you wont use it when you get out i no, & you are the mani think most of in the world; so i hope you wont be mad--I am doing well, i put $10 a month in bank with $25 of the $50--if you ever want any or all of it let me know, & it is yours.
i wish you would let me send you some now. I send you with thisa receipt for a year of Littles Living Age, i didn't knowwhat you would like & i told Mr. Brown & he said he thought youwould like it--i wish i was nere you so i could send you chuck(REFRESHMENTS) on holidays; it would spoil this weatherfrom here, but i will send you a box next thanksgiving any way--next week Mr. Brown takes me into his store as liteporter & will advance me as soon as i know a little more--he keeps a big granary store, wholesale--i forgot to tellyou of my mission school, sunday school class--the schoolis in the sunday afternoon, i went out two sunday afternoons,and picked up seven kids (LITTLE BOYS) & got them to come in.
two of them new as much as i did & i had them put in a classwhere they could learn something. i dont no much myself,but as these kids cant read i get on nicely with them.
i make sure of them by going after them every Sundayhour before school time, I also got 4 girls to come.
tell Mack and Harry about me, if they will come out herewhen their time is up i will get them jobs at once.
i hope you will excuse this long letter & all mistakes,i wish i could see you for i cant write as i would talk--i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--i was afraid when you was bleeding you would die--give my respects to all the boys and tell them how i am doing--i am doing well and every one here treats me as kind as they can--Mr. Brown is going to write to you sometime--i hope some dayyou will write to me, this letter is from your very truefriendC----W----who you know as Jack Hunt.
I send you Mr. Brown's card. Send my letter to him.
Here was true eloquence; irresistible eloquence;and without a single grace or ornament to help it out.
I have seldom been so deeply stirred by any piece of writing.
The reader of it halted, all the way through, on a lame and broken voice;yet he had tried to fortify his feelings by several privatereadings of the letter before venturing into company with it.
He was practising upon me to see if there was any hope of hisbeing able to read the document to his prayer-meeting withanything like a decent command over his feelings. The resultwas not promising. However, he determined to risk it; and did.
He got through tolerably well; but his audience broke down early,and stayed in that condition to the end.
The fame of the letter spread through the town. A brotherminister came and borrowed the manuscript, put it bodily intoa sermon, preached the sermon to twelve hundred people on aSunday morning, and the letter drowned them in their own tears.
Then my friend put it into a sermon and went before his Sundaymorning congregation with it. It scored another triumph.
The house wept as one individual.
My friend went on summer vacation up into the fishing regionsof our northern British neighbors, and carried this sermonwith him, since he might possibly chance to need a sermon.
He was asked to preach, one day. The little church was full.
Among the people present were the late Dr. J. G. Holland,the late Mr. Seymour of the 'New York Times,' Mr. Page,the philanthropist and temperance advocate, and, I think,Senator Frye, of Maine. The marvelous letter did its wonted work;all the people were moved, all the people wept; the tearsflowed in a steady stream down Dr. Holland's cheeks, and nearlythe same can be said with regard to all who were there.
Mr. Page was so full of enthusiasm over the letter that he saidhe would not rest until he made pilgrimage to that prison,and had speech with the man who had been able to inspire afellow-unfortunate to write so priceless a tract.
Ah, that unlucky Page!--and another man. If they had only been in Jericho,that letter would have rung through the world and stirred all the hearts ofall the nations for a thousand years to come, and nobody might ever have foundout that it was the confoundedest, brazenest, ingeniousest piece of fraudand humbuggery that was ever concocted to fool poor confiding mortals with!
The letter was a pure swindle, and that is the truth.
And take it by and large, it was without a compeer among swindles.
It was perfect, it was rounded, symmetrical, complete, colossal!
The reader learns it at this point; but we didn't learn ittill some miles and weeks beyond this stage of the affair.
My friend came back from the woods, and he and other clergymenand lay missionaries began once more to inundate audienceswith their tears and the tears of said audiences; I begged hardfor permission to print the letter in a magazine and tell the waterystory of its triumphs; numbers of people got copies of the letter,with permission to circulate them in writing, but not in print;copies were sent to the Sandwich Islands and other far regions.
Charles Dudley Warner was at church, one day, when the worn letter was readand wept over. At the church door, afterward, he dropped a peculiarly coldiceberg down the clergyman's back with the question--'Do you know that letter to be genuine?'
It was the first suspicion that had ever been voiced;but it had that sickening effect which first-uttered suspicionsagainst one's idol always have. Some talk followed--'Why--what should make you suspect that it isn't genuine?'
'Nothing that I know of, except that it is too neat, and compact, and fluent,and nicely put together for an ignorant person, an unpractised hand.
I think it was done by an educated man.'
The literary artist had detected the literary machinery.
If you will look at the letter now, you will detect it yourself--it is observable in every line.
Straightway the clergyman went off, with this seed of suspicionsprouting in him, and wrote to a minister residing in that townwhere Williams had been jailed and converted; asked for light;and also asked if a person in the literary line (meaning me)might be allowed to print the letter and tell its history.
He presently received this answer--Rev. -----MY DEAR FRIEND,--In regard to that 'convict's letter' there can beno doubt as to its genuineness. 'Williams,' to whom it was written,lay in our jail and professed to have been converted, and Rev. Mr.----,the chaplain, had great faith in the genuineness of the change--as much as one can have in any such case.
The letter was sent to one of our ladies, who is a Sunday-school teacher,--sent either by Williams himself, or the chaplain of the State'sprison, probably. She has been greatly annoyed in having so much publicity,lest it might seem a breach of confidence, or be an injury to Williams.
In regard to its publication, I can give no permission; though if the namesand places were omitted, and especially if sent out of the country,I think you might take the responsibility and do it.
It is a wonderful letter, which no Christian genius, much lessone unsanctified, could ever have written. As showing the workof grace in a human heart, and in a very degraded and wicked one,it proves its own origin and reproves our weak faith in its powerto cope with any form of wickedness.
'Mr. Brown' of St. Louis, some one said, was a Hartford man.
Do all whom you send from Hartford serve their Master as well?
P.S.--Williams is still in the State's prison, serving out along sentence--of nine years, I think. He has been sick and threatenedwith consumption, but I have not inquired after him lately.
This lady that I speak of corresponds with him, I presume,and will be quite sure to look after him.
This letter arrived a few days after it was written--and up wentMr. Williams's stock again. Mr. Warner's low-down suspicionwas laid in the cold, cold grave, where it apparently belonged.
It was a suspicion based upon mere internal evidence, anyway;and when you come to internal evidence, it's a big field and a gamethat two can play at: as witness this other internal evidence,discovered by the writer of the note above quoted, that 'itis a wonderful letter--which no Christian genius, much lessone unsanctified, could ever have written.'
I had permission now to print--provided I suppressed namesand places and sent my narrative out of the country.
So I chose an Australian magazine for vehicle, as being farenough out of the country, and set myself to work on my article.
And the ministers set the pumps going again, with the letter towork the handles.
But meantime Brother Page had been agitating.
He had not visited the penitentiary, but he had sent a copyof the illustrious letter to the chaplain of that institution,and accompanied it with--apparently inquiries. He got an answer,dated four days later than that other Brother's reassuring epistle;and before my article was complete, it wandered into my hands.
The original is before me, now, and I here append it.
It is pretty well loaded with internal evidence of the mostsolid description--STATE'S PRISON, CHAPLAIN'S OFFICE, July 11, 1873.
DEAR BRO. PAGE,--Herewith please find the letter kindly loaned me.
I am afraid its genuineness cannot be established.
It purports to be addressed to some prisoner here. No such letterever came to a prisoner here. All letters received are carefullyread by officers of the prison before they go into the handsof the convicts, and any such letter could not be forgotten.
Again, Charles Williams is not a Christian man, but a dissolute,cunning prodigal, whose father is a minister of the gospel.
His name is an assumed one. I am glad to have made your acquaintance.
I am preparing a lecture upon life seen through prison bars,and should like to deliver the same in your vicinity.
And so ended that little drama. My poor article went into the fire;for whereas the materials for it were now more abundant andinfinitely richer than they had previously been, there were partiesall around me, who, although longing for the publication before,were a unit for suppression at this stage and complexion of the game.
They said: 'Wait--the wound is too fresh, yet.' All the copiesof the famous letter except mine disappeared suddenly; and from thattime onward, the aforetime same old drought set in in the churches.
As a rule, the town was on a spacious grin for a while, but therewere places in it where the grin did not appear, and where it wasdangerous to refer to the ex-convict's letter.
A word of explanation. 'Jack Hunt,' the professed writer of the letter,was an imaginary person. The burglar Williams--Harvard graduate,son of a minister--wrote the letter himself, to himself: got it smuggledout of the prison; got it conveyed to persons who had supported andencouraged him in his conversion--where he knew two things would happen:
the genuineness of the letter would not be doubted or inquired into;and the nub of it would be noticed, and would have valuable effect--the effect, indeed, of starting a movement to get Mr. Williams pardonedout of prison.
That 'nub' is so ingeniously, so casually, flung in, and immediatelyleft there in the tail of the letter, undwelt upon, that an indifferentreader would never suspect that it was the heart and core of the epistle,if he even took note of it at all, This is the 'nub'--'i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good--I WAS AFRAIDWHEN YOU WAS BLEEDING YOU WOULD DIE--give my respects,' etc.
That is all there is of it--simply touch and go--no dwelling upon it.
Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to see it;and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the liberation of apoor reformed and purified fellow lying in the fell grip of consumption.
When I for the first time heard that letter read, nine years ago,I felt that it was the most remarkable one I had ever encountered.
And it so warmed me toward Mr. Brown of St. Louis that I said that if everI visited that city again, I would seek out that excellent man and kissthe hem of his garment if it was a new one. Well, I visited St. Louis,but I did not hunt for Mr. Brown; for, alas! the investigationsof long ago had proved that the benevolent Brown, like 'Jack Hunt,'
was not a real person, but a sheer invention of that gifted rascal,Williams--burglar, Harvard graduate, son of a clergyman.
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