The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-03-17
JAIL BIRDS PRAY.
Prisoners of Sheriff Norton Are
Being Converted.
Cells Are Converted Into a
Chapel.
DELK AT THE HELM.
Show Boy Evangelist Brings Fell
low Prisoners to Christ.
Assisted in His Work by Hoard,
Nn@ws0 D~aonI
ELK AT THE HELM.
Assisted in His Work by Hoard,
Negro Preacher.

Tonight the subcommittee of the
committee of fifty will conduct COM
mission political meeting in the city
court room in the court house. Can
didates for office will be asked to get
up on the platform, tell what they
know about city affairs and give the
people of the city chance to look at
them. W. S. Rergundthal will preside.
Tomorrow night a meeting will be
held at Jordan's hall in Tennessee
town with John M. Wright presiding.
Candidates will also resort here for
public inspection.
Next week the committee will wind
up their campaign by holding meet
ings Monday, Tuesday. Wednesday
and Friday nights. The places have
ception of Friday night when a big
auditorium meeting will be held as
the final roundup convention. Here
every candidate is expected to be pres
emit and every citizen also. The COM
mittee wishes to complete their task
of perfecting the commission form of
government by this auditorium meet
ing.
After Friday night of next week
the committee will disband-sadder
but wiser men. They have succeed
ed in doing considerable work-and
the effect is to be seen.
Although he has been confined but
a few days in the county Jail James
Delk, the original minister of the
Nazarene church has made five con-
verts to his religion and worship SER
vices are held three times daily in
the lower dollhouse. The five converts
spend the time they formerly spent
in playing games, singing light and
popular songs and holding kangaroo
courts in prayer, singing hymns, and
listening to the discourses of Delk and
James Hoard, another preacher. a
negro. who, col.dned in the jail on
the charge of non-support of his wife
and children, became a convert to
Delk's faith after the latter's impris-
onment.
her husband at the Jail they were sub
ject to more or less interruption by
the other prisoners. Now, such is not
the case. Instead they retire to
corner OF the cell house and wait I'M
til the wife of the fallen leader has
left before they return to the front of
the corridor.
Spends Eight Hours in Prayer.
Then instead of all, sorts of what the
Jailers term "ornrinous'' thew usually
OF their own accord, take up the sing
ing of hymns. Wednesday one or the
converts spent eight hours On his knees
asking divine forgiveness for his mis-
deeds. And so the work of making
converts to the Nazarene church con
tinues.
The first convert to the Delk faith,
after Hoard, the preacher, had changed
his belief, was Fred Burns. Burns is
in prison for stealing clothes from the
car of some Mexican laborers. The
theft was committed near Valencia, a
small station on the Rock Island, II
miles west of Topeka. Burns has writ
ten to his father at Great Bend, tell
ing him of having found religion and
h. IL
small one will do, he says, but he wants
to have it so that he can study and
Get right with God"
Francis Shouse, the "par' of the
Burns lad, is another convert and is
anxious for the straight and narrow
path Shouse is having trouble learn
ing to pray but improves under the
traing of Delk. Shouse told the other
knew nothing about it, having never
prayed in his life.
Willie Wagner, the counterfeiter, was
the Wednesday convert and was on his
knees eight hours, asking forgiveness
for his SINS He seemed to feel that he
had secured an answer to his prayers
and today is as happy as are the rest
of the Nazarenites. Wagner insists on
divine services to the exclusion tlf
everything else.
Harvey Slusher. under sentence for
burglarizing an East side store, is a
convert to the Delk faith. Harry Hart,
captured near Silver Lake on the
charge of burglary is another convert
Services Three Times Daily.
Worship services are held three times
daily. At 8 o'clock the morning service
opens. At o'clock there is an after
noon session and at o'clock the even
ing service opens. The services always
conclude at O'Clock, however. as Jailer
Bayless made this request. Each ser
vice lasts an hour. There is preaching
by Delk and Hoard, prayers by every
one and singing of sacred music by the
entire assembly. Even those still I'M
converted take part in the singing
portion of the service.
There is a great change in the lower
cell house. Delk rules the roost with
out trouble and not a single Jail rule is
broken. Officers in charge of the pris-
oners marvel at the change that has
been brought about since Delk's inn
prisonment.