Brenham weekly banner. [volume] (Brenham, Tex.) 1877-1907, 1891-11-05
LEE HUGHES BAPTIZED.
Arrangements For tine Hanging To-day.
A New Suit of Clothes Purchased
and Prayers for the Prisoner
Offered up.

A BANNER reporter called at the
cell of Lee Hughes Thursday after
noon to see if he could not wiring
from him a confession of the crime
for which he is to be hanged to day
(Friday, Oct. 80, 1917 but the
sting of remorse had not chastened
the prisoner sufficient to make him
cast off the mantle of mystery and
show the CHASTITY crime, of which he
IS convicted, in It's true light.
Elder r. Dickinson and Lees two
sisters were at his cell, begging him
to confess if he was guilty, but he
protested his innocence, calling on
the Saints above to witness his al
most dying testimony. He said
that the God in Heaven to whom
he had bowed in anguish and asked
forgivness for other transgressions
knew that he was as innocent of the
crime of which he was charged as
the babe yet unborn, but that he
was not the first innocent man who
had been ierked up and hung, and
that he did not mind death and had
the courage to face it unfinchingIy,
and tha6 he had no doubts about
the future. His confidence that the
gates of Heaven are standing ajar
awaiting his arrival, and that a
retinue of angels will attend him
from the gallows to the great White
Throne was as strong as words
could express it. He begged his
sisters to not grieve after him, but
to meet him in Heaven. The Elder
asked Lee if he wanted him to pray
with him, to which he replied in the
affirmative, and a fervent prayer was
offered up for the soul of the pris-
oner, the sisters indulging in expires
sions of sorrow, an occasional Amen!
and continuing chant peculiar with
of the South when worship
ing. At the conclusion of the min
listers prayer the elder sister, in a
burst of tears, said this may be the
last tune I can ever pray with my
baby brother, let US again pray, and
throwing herself on her knees upon
the floor she commenced a chant,
half prayer and half song, first low
then louder, until with lungs
thoroughly inflated, the occasion
perhaps with her poignant
grief, furnishing the ms pira-
ton, she prayed as few women can
pray, and such prayer as the re-
porter has never heard from an
illiterate person, man. or woman.
She prayed for courage, strength
and resignation to bear the loss and
for the redemption through Christ
of her brothers soul. The prayer
was full of pathos, and the closing
sentences really sublime, and only
concluded when she was exhausted. |
After the sisters had left the re-
porter asked Lee for his confession |
and urged upon him the folly of |
dying with lie on his mouth, with
death less than twenty-four hours |
away and riding hard to reach him. |
His denial was justas strong as to the |
minister and his sisters, and a ret
Grafton of his faith in the mercy of |
God to save his soul and to calm the |
waters of the Jordan while he cross
ed to the shining shore and landed |
in the golden streets of the New |
Jerusalem.
His measure was taken for suit |
Of clothes. HIS sisters went off to get |
a bath tub in which he was to be |
baptised, and between two and three |
o'clock Elder Dickinson performed |
the ordinance for him, and he DOM
ed his funeral robes, black broad
cloth suit in which he will be hung
to-day.
After the baptising he asked for
a conference with the minister alone
which was granted and many were
Of the opinion that he wanted this
private conference to make a con-
fession, but the BANNER doesn't be-
IieYe it, neither do we believe that |
he will make it on the gallows to-
iay.