The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1892-05-26
A LETTER FROM MRS. HENRY, PRISON SEC.
RETARY OF THE C. L. S. C.

RETARY OF THE C. L. S. C.
Taylor Valley. N. Y. May IA. 1S92.-DEAR
FRIENDS OF THE C. L. S. c.. You will by
this that have made good my escape and am out
in the world again.
/ am up among the hills in Cortland Co., N. Y,
in a very narrow valley between two ranges of
hills running north and south. The hill just in
front of the house which fronts east is so high
that it takes the sun about IL hours to climb high
enough to look over into the valley 1t has been
many years since have been so far into the coun-
try to make any stay. We are miles from church
and have but mails a week. But it is very lovely
with the quiet of nature all about us. that when
the work is done in the house and sit reading
or writing sewing hear the birds, the
sheep and frogs-and that is about all do hear.
golden robin-one of the most exquisite Great.
ures that God ever made-has been accommodating
in a great maple just before my window all the
morning examining last years nest-a regular
hanging basket-to see if it could be repaired and
made habitable. We have not yet been informed
of the result, but it surely looks rather .dilap-
dated. and fear the only way to mend it will be
10 build new one The children of the household
have brought in violets and slips. squirrel
root, crnkle root white trillium and spring beau
ties from the fields and woods, and these things
have taken me back to the days of my childhood,
when, on the occasions. l able to
visit the country and revel in the glory of the
woods and fields.
just now glanced up from my writing and out
of the window and saw the cows on the rim Of the
east hill in solemn procession with the sky for
back ground shining under their bodies-it is
funny spectacle. The hill top seems to be just
sharp edge against the sky. and the cows seem to
be carefully walking on that edge. wish could
make you see it clearly. know you would laugh
at its grotesqueness as do.
have thought of my friends who are in durance
many many times since 1 came out into this
spring loneliness and have wished that l could
transfer part of it to them. A bunch of them
delicate wild flowers. the music of the wonderful
voices that are SO tremendously blended the flash
of yellow or scarlet wing, the babble and shine
of the brook tumbling down the hill side out of
spring hidden under rock. the mill with lazy
wheel and the sweet odors of the hemlock lumber
and sawdust, the soft changing colors on hillside
meadow and forest How wish you could see it
ALL dear friends and could feel its sweet and holy
influence do. and could begin life all over
again as the old earth does in the spring time.
If we could lay off the old dead past with all its
corruptions as the year does-as nature does in
the autumn-and have the cool white frost and
cover it all until it could be absorbed
forgotten-and then have a new change come on
to our lives it comes to the old tree to the
pasture, to the fallow ield-Oh how much better
we should do than we ever did before in all our
lives-f it could only be!
Friends. have good news to tell you-it may
be. He that made the seasons to come and go.
that ordained the frost to come and seal up and
out of sight all the unoIeanness of decaying
nature, until it could be taken care of, who ere.
ated and CONTROLS the forces by which every thing
is made new and sweet and fresh again, He has
provided that all the sinful past of our lives may
be covered and taken away, and that by the won
derful operation of His own life lived within US
all shall be made new and sweet and pure in u.s.
Much as 1 wish that you might all see the beauty
which is abroad in the world to-day that does not
begin to compare with the desire that have tina,
you may see and know this greater loneliness and
glory of the new life sprnging up within your own
nature by the life of Christ in you. This beauty
Of the world shall perish shortly. and shall some
time so utterly pass away that no spring powers