Sarah A. Sewell Prayed with Prisoners
Highland (OH) Weekly News, December 24, 1874, p. 1. NOTE: The item below
was abbreviated from a lengthy article as noted by the ellipsis.
LETTER FROM JEFFERSONVILLE, IND
Jeffersonville, October 20, 1874
Editors Monitor, Marion, Ind.
Some time ago you noticed in your columns an incident relating to a young
Quakeress who is laboring in the missionary cause, and her prayer of
thankfulness in a railroad president's office on the reception of a pass,
passing her over the road. She has just been on a visit to our institution,
and never will that visit be forgotten.
Immediately upon her arrival, although at night, accompanied by our kind
warden, she visited the hospital whispering words of cheer to the
convalescent and breathing prayers of hope for the very ill.On the morrow,
Sunday, at chapel services, the pulpit was tendered and all the assistance
possible shown her by our kind chaplain who is ever striving to call out
instructions for his charge. This was not her first visit here.She spoke as
she always does, earnestly and elegantly.
About dark there ran through the prison by that mysterious telegraph only
known to such places, a rumor that she would hold prayers in the cell house.
All was expectation. Seats were prepared in the old cell house near
life-time range and through the kindness of the warden, who is ever-striving
to promote the moral culture of his men, about a hundred were unlocked to
meet with her.
About seven o'clock the "clang" of the guard room door was heard and
"She's
coming!" flashed from cell to cell. In two minutes not a murmur could be
heard...There, surrounded by all this dismal gloom, upon the cold, damp
bricks, in the midst of us poor condemned outcasts, this angel woman knelt
and poured out her soul to God. Clear as a silver clarion her sweet voice
rang out upon the awful stillness echoing and re-echoing from arch to arch
until within every cell there lingered the sound of that prayer for mercy,
mercy for us poor wretches.
Within the heart of every inmate here the name of Sarah A. Sewell is
immortal. Neither will many forget as they stood by the iron grates of
their cell doors and listened to that prayer, they made to strike glad hands
with her in that land where prison bars are not forged.
P. S.-We understand that Miss Sewell is a resident in your county, and we
send you this as a token of our respect-being that you will give it a place
in your columns, that her friends at home may know the good she is doing
abroad.
The Convicts of the Southern Indiana State Prison