The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1888-01-04
ssDoes the End Justify The Means?o

AS i was making my usual IOuIfuS OIL Iile
galleries on Christmas day, sauntered up
to 166 and found him in solemn mood.
greeted him Merry Christmas, and asked
the cause of his remorseful appearance,
and he told me the following actual occur
ance. l give it to your readers, thinking
perhaps they may find a moral in it and be
benefited thereby:
To-day as 1 write my old mother, heading
my letter with Prison Christmas, 1887"
my mind solemnly-in my solitude-re-
volved back over thirty Christmas days l
have spent Oh this earth. asked myself,
what have 1 ever done to alleviate the SUI
ferings of unfortunate mankind on the
twenty seven Christmas days l have spent
outside of prison walls?
recall sad occurrence that happened
seven years ago to-day. l was then living
in beautiful little city in Wisconsin. sur
rounded by a loving wife, baby. and COM
Portable and happy home. My nearest
neighbOr. a Mr.. B., a professional man.
with kind, loving wife and an only child
boy aged five years. The father was a
drunkard. a common sOt, and was going
down lower and lower, day by day. Tin the
face of all the attempts that were made to
reform him. and many was the midnight
aye. nearer daylight-was l called by the
loud screams of that, loving wife for pro-
lection from her drunken brute of huS-
band.
On this Xmas day of which speak, the
boy was carried into his home MORALLY
wounded, and apparently dead. having been
run over by a team of Infatuated runaway
horses.
The agony and grief of that kind. loving
mother on her knees at the bedside of her
only and lfeless boy can be better imagined
than described. The father, you ask? He
was having drunken, hilarious time at one
of the grog shops L went for him and
found him, as l expected. 'drunk again."
l took him by the arm, as l had many times
before, led him away. and told him of the
accident to his boy. 1t then first dawned
OH me that if reformation was ever to be
effected in him now was the time. l pre-
sented the situation to him in it's most APP
palling sense. and endeavOred to impress
on his beclouded mind that his drunken
ness was responsible for all. | then led
him into the house, where he was met by
the heart-brOken wife and mother, who en-
twined her slender arms around his neck,
saying, Darling Willie is dead" staggered
and sank in a dead faint. The drunken
husband was soon fast asleep on a lounge.
The wife soon revived. and was told that if
reformation was ever to be effected in her
husband it must be done over the lifeless
form of the dear boy, and now was the
time.
Rising quietly from the bed the wife took
the lifeless form and tenderly laid it in the
sleeping fathers arms. and herself on bend
ed knees to God in prayer. Soon the hus-
band awoke, and the realistic part of the
real drama" slowly dawned over his cloud
ed and bedimmed brain, for never in the
flush of health and infantile beauty had
their boy looked more lovely than now, as
he lay in his fathers arms. the fatal wound
deity concealed, and the locks of his hair
fell over his white forehead in soft curling
rings; the long lashes of the blue .veined
lids lay lightly on the fair round cheeks;
the sweet curved lips just parted with a
smile, and the pretty dimpled hands lay
carelessly on his breast. 1t was the most
appalling picture | had ever seen. He
seemed too fair, and beautiful for the
cof1in and the cold, dark grave.
The husband, his now white and
blanched lips quivered. and large tears forced
their way from beneath the trembling eye
lids as he laid his hand on the head of his
lifeless boy; then his hand gently fell upon
the hand OF his wife, with loving clasp,
saying, Our darling is safe in Heaven"
in voice broken by emotions. land 1 shall
never. never drink another drop of liquor"
And he didn't; his reformation was COM
pletc. He now sits upon the ''bench'' of
circuit court, All honored man.
True, it is said God has strange. and
sometimes apparently cruel, ways of re-
forming man: but does the end always JUS
tify the means? ThOughtfulIy yours,
Dec. 81. 1887. OLE DIVERSION.
The Race We Are Running.
Editor Mirror.