OUR PRISON. Speaking of prisons and of prison-life in general, and in particular too, we had always rather imagined or inclined to think that we should not like it, even if we had to, on account of the coldness or to put it, mildly, in this warm climate, the extreme coolness of the externals and internals surrounding confinement, or exclusiveness, of that sort. We have "been to prison" recently (never there before-first departure in that direction) and we like it very much and we don't like it at all: and would not go again excepting to help some one who is there to look out and never get put there-to give a little or much kind help, to some poor wretched soul-God help them! Now I was going to remark that when I was well on the road that leads up to the prison door, while it was actually hot and dusty too, I began to feel already chilly, and that dust so white and powdery, bothered my throat a good bit and I began to choke and cough as if I had taken cold-a slight prison hysteric likely. Then, the walls and the little loop-hole windows and the too small door with the lion knocker and the guard just peeping out at me and going to ask before he could let me in, to the dungeon; it, altogether, gave me a coolish shudder. It was a nice, specklessly clean, cold place that prison-bare, empty, totally and entirely empty of what makes this life worth living—a skeleton abode, no flesh upon those bones. No music (is there ever even a hum or a whistle there?) no pictures, not even of the Christ who died for sinners, no flowers of any sort, artificial or real, no pets, of bird or dog or cat; no steed to ride a way, not even a mule. Yes, prison life must be very icy kind of a living. There are 160 prisoners there, one Japanese shortly to suffer the 178 death penalty for his deed of murder; one woman there for life and the only woman there at the present time. Many of the convicts were on the road working. We looked in at the dark cells and thought that where the door should be shut on any humans there they might crave a "searchlight." In the midst of all this emptiness and coolness and shadow, with one prevailing color and tint of gray everywhere our eyes rested, we yet felt that real kindness obtained there, good-will to man in precept and in practice within those gray, dreary walls. It is with me and I cannot exactly define how I came to that conclusion. However, I believe it is a fact and trust I do not mistake. "How far that little candle throws its beams."-Dark Corner. MASILLON. "You demand of us every day, my brothers, if it is true that the way of the sky is so difficult, and if the number of those which be saved is so small as we say. "To this question so often propounded and still more often answered, Jesus Christ to you responds to-day that there were many widows in Israel afflicted by the famine, but only the widow of Sarepta merited to be succored by the Prophet Elias, that the number of lepers was great in Israel of the time of Eliseus and that none saying Naaman the Syrian was cleansed by the man of God." "The Christians are they made for not seeing and for interdicting all society the ones with the others? The Christians! the members of the same body, the children of one same father, the inheritors of same kingdom, the stones of the same edifice, the portions of one same masse; the Christians! the participation in a same spirit, in a same redemption and of a same justice; the Christians, out of the same blood, regenerated in the same waters incorporated into the same church, bought at the same price! All the religions that we (lie) live, the sacraments of which we partake, the public prayers that we chant, the bread of benediction that we offer." "Raise the eyes, O man! Consider those great bodies of light which are suspended above your head, and that swim, so to speak, in the space where your reason is confounded. "Comprehend, if you may, their nature, their usage, their properties, their situations, their distances, their vision, the equality or inequality of their movements." "And, reader, I will take you a step farther in his reasoning: "Descend upon the earth and say you, if you know, what holds the wind in the places where they are imprisoned. Explain you the effects held upon plants, metals, upon the elements." "Unravel, if you may, the infinite particle which enters in the formation of the insects qui rampent a nos yeux." A quoi bon pour suivre?" I will close my paper to-day with one more quotation brief: "This faith to which the senses add nothing, and that is happy not because she believes without seeing, but because that she sees when believing." THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. “UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO.” In righteousness lies the strength of the land, runs the legend of Hawaii, That land, a little chain of islands in mid-ocean, under God's sky; A few square miles, with a hundred thousand souls, Sugar, coffee and rice,—the country's gain is told! In this tiny domain of the sea shall we be taught by the nations, of manners and morals true? Or, shall we give to them a lesson in Christianity, all through and through? The little handful of men and women molded in Hawaii, Can show the whole world a page, for it to profit by. We envy not the great world's brawl, its wars and bitter wailings, That all, who cross the ocean to us, shall see, "Makapala-by-the-Sea," Aug. 28, 1898. |