Mrs. Florence Roberts, who is known in San Francisco as the Rescue Missionary and Singing Evangelist, will address the public in the Baptist church next Sunday on the subject of the establishment of a non-sectarian home for women near San Francisco.

She comes highly endorsed by prominent citizens and Christian societies. There are, she states, thirty-five thousand women on this coast to be reached, and she is endeavoring to procure funds for a home to which they can come for reformation. A free-will offering will be taken at the conclusion of the address.

Prior to this meeting I learned of a little rescue home in San Jose, the adjacent city, and one afternoon Lucy and I visited it. We went without previous announcement, for I wanted to satisfy myself as to its merits. It was a pretty old-fashioned cottage of about eight rooms, located at 637 East St. John Street. There were but two girls--one a mother, the other a prospective one--and, sad to relate, a most inefficient matron. I quickly took in the situation, and, for the sake of the inmates, privately decided to accept erelong her invitation to sojourn temporarily under that roof.

After I had thoroughly canva.s.sed Santa Clara, I, acting upon divine directions, took Lucy and went to the San Jose rescue home.

Before long it became my sorrowful duty to report conditions as they existed. The president of the board of managers, Rev. J. N. Crawford, was absent on his summer vacation. Upon learning that the vice-president, Mrs. Remington (now deceased), was sojourning in San Francisco, I boarded the train and a few hours later was in earnest discussion with Mrs. Remington and her friend, Miss Sisson. This consultation terminated in their sincere plea for me to take upon myself certain responsibilities, concerning which I promised to pray.

The result was that I felt led to go further south for a while, but not before some better conditions existed for those two poor girls and others who might follow.

CHAPTER XVII.

CALLIE"S WONDERFUL STORY.

One day while I was visiting Mr. and Mrs. Helms, Sr., in Santa Clara, good friends of the cause, the latter said:

"Sister Roberts, have you ever met Callie----?"

"No, Sister Helms," I answered, "but I have heard of her. She was often, before my missionary work there, an inmate of the county jail, Branch 3, and gave much trouble when a prisoner."

"I want to let you know she is wonderfully converted and one of our most remarkable missionaries. Try and take time to call on her. She works in the R---- boarding-house and will be glad to see you, for she knows of you quite well. Ask her to tell you her story. You never heard anything equal to it; furthermore, you never have, I doubt ever will, meet any other like her. She is _a living marvel of G.o.d"s power to save to the uttermost_."

The following afternoon, leaving kind-hearted Lucy (without offense to the matron of the home) to administer to the comforts of the inmates, I went to the place designated. Soon there came into my presence a smiling, healthy-looking woman about forty years of age, who told me that she was the person for whom I had inquired. No sooner did I mention my name than she threw her arms about me exclaiming, "G.o.d love you, Mother Roberts! G.o.d love you! It"s good for sore eyes to see you"--and she rattled on. When I told her the nature of my errand, she replied that she would come to the home that evening and would then relate the story of her life and wonderful conversion. She was on hand at the appointed time, and soon Lucy and I were listening to what I will now relate.

"I first saw the light of day in the slums of St. Louis, Mo. I never knew, nor did any one ever tell me, who my father and mother were. All I know about those days and up to my fourteenth year is that one or another of the women of that neighborhood fed, clothed, and sheltered me. I had no schooling; didn"t know how to read or write till a few years ago. I never heard much besides bad language, seldom saw anything but drinking, gambling, and so forth; never saw the inside of a church and seldom saw the outside, "cause I wasn"t out of my own neighborhood very much. It was too much like a fish being out of water. Never heard the name of G.o.d or Jesus Christ except when they were taken in vain, and never troubled my head to find out who was G.o.d or who was Jesus Christ.

"Before I was fifteen years old, I married a gambler. He was a fine-looking fellow, considerably older than me, and sometimes had a pile of money.

"Yes, he gave me what I asked for. Sometimes I spent quite a bit on dress and treating my friends, "cause there ain"t a stingy bone in my body. I"ve no use for stingy folk, have you?

"Tom wasn"t a heavy drinker, but he used to "hit the pipe.""

"What is "hit the pipe", Callie?" I inquired.

"Don"t you know? Why, smoke opium. Also, he had the morphine habit, and if anything, that"s the worst one of the two, but, between you and me, there"s little or no choice. It wasn"t long before I, too, commenced taking morphine, and kept it up until two years ago. Look here!"

With that she stripped up the sleeves of her dress, and we were gazing at arms which from the shoulder to wrist were one ma.s.s of tiny bluish spots. I doubt if there was room to place a pin between them.

"Oh! Callie, what are they?"

"Shots--shots from the hypodermic needle that we used to inject the morphine.

"Hurt? No, not much; besides, we get to be such slaves to it that we"d gladly hurt our bodies for the sake of it. It"s the most demoralizing, hard-to-break habit on earth. But glory to G.o.d! I"m saved and sanctified now, and I"ll tell you how it came about.

"I suppose I"d been serving my fifteenth sentence, to say the least, in Branch No. 3, and they"d put me down in the dungeon, as usual, as they most always had to do for the first few drays, "cause I wanted the drug so bad (they give you some there, but it never was enough) that I used to disturb everybody, and besides, was very troublesome. I"ll never forget the day when I tried to knock my brains out on the dark cement floor, but couldn"t; so I cried, "O G.o.d! if there is a G.o.d, and some of these missionary folk that come here say there is a G.o.d, and a Christ what can save, _save me, save me, please save me_! I don"t want to go to h.e.l.l! I"ve had h.e.l.l enough! I don"t want to go to h.e.l.l!"

"There was a little quiet-looking old lady visiting the jail that day, and she asked Matron Kincaid if she couldn"t go down and try to help that poor afflicted soul in the dungeon, and Mrs. Kincaid gave permission.

"Mother Roberts, her very presence was soothing, and pretty soon she put her arm around me and prayed. Oh, how she prayed to her G.o.d and Savior to come, and come quickly, to help and save me through and through! By and by she told me of Jesus who died for sinners. I couldn"t bear to part with her, but I had to let her go soon, she promising to come back again. I was still suffering, but after hearing her, and her being so kind to dirty, loathsome me, I made up my mind I"d try to "grin and bear" the misery if it took my very life.

"Next time she came, I was out of the dungeon, up on the next floor in my cell. Say, Mother Roberts, you wouldn"t have known me if you had seen me then and as I look now. I didn"t weigh ninety pounds. Now I weigh close onto one hundred and seventy. Praise the Lord!

"I was always a ma.s.s of filth and rags whenever the cops [police] would run me in.

"What did they arrest me for? Why for stealing of course. We"ll swipe anything to supply ourselves and our chums with "dope" [morphine, cocaine, opium, etc.]. That last time I"d been sentenced for three months. When my time was up, my missionary friend called for me, and we came down on the train to San Jose. She hired a hack at the depot; wasn"t she considerate? G.o.d bless her!

"When we reached this home, the matron [Sister Griffith] met me at the door, and, said she, "Welcome, dear child, welcome in the name of the Lord." Then she put her arm around me, and led me into this very room we are sitting in now. I fell in love with her right on the spot. She had a lovely face and the beautifullest white hair I ever saw.

"I asked her to please let me go to bed, and would she gave me a room where I couldn"t escape; also to please take away all my clothes, all but the bedding and a nightdress. I told her I"d come there to fight it out, that I"d been in h.e.l.l on earth for years, _that for twenty-seven years I"d been a "dope" fiend_, and that I wanted all of them who knew how to pray to pray for me, "cause I knew there was a Christ and a G.o.d, but I hadn"t found him yet. She did as I asked, and after a while tried to get me to eat, but I couldn"t. Did you know the "dope" fiends lose their appet.i.tes for everything but the drug? Yes, they do. I often wondered what kept us alive. It surely wasn"t the food we ate.

"My, what a struggle I had! what a fight for the next three weeks! for I was determined from the time my sentence expired, never, if it killed me, to touch the poison again, and I was bound to keep my word. G.o.d alone knows what I suffered. One morning a little before daylight (I"d heard the clock strike one, two, three, somewhere) all of a sudden the room was lit up with a strange soft light, and somebody was whispering (or it seemed like whispering), "Daughter, be of good cheer. Thou art healed." Oh but I felt beautiful, beautiful! and soon slept the sweetest. Not an ache or pain. Just like a new-born baby. When I woke up I could tell the girls were at breakfast. I took my stick and knocked on the floor. Pretty soon Sister Griffith came up, and I told her. She cried with me for very joy, and knelt by my bedside to thank G.o.d for answer to prayer, then went down to tell the family. Glory, glory be to G.o.d the Father, Son and Holy Spirit! I was saved and I knew it--saved through and through.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE IN A MORPHINE DEN]

"From that on I gained rapidly, enjoyed my meals, and pretty soon was able to go down-stairs. No fear any more. I"ve never wanted the drug from that day to this, and I"m trying by the grace of G.o.d to help other poor souls like afflicted. Say, Mother Roberts, when you go to San Francisco again, will you let me go with you? I want to surprise the folk at the jail and in the morphine dens; besides, I"ll show you a place you never have seen or heard tell of, where these poor souls live--a place condemned by the authorities, but not torn down yet."

I told her that, G.o.d willing, I should be very glad to have her accompany me. Then she took out of her pocket a letter, saying, as she did so, "I wrote this to some one you know." (Here she described one of the poor prisoners.) "You can take it up to your room and read it if you like, and mail it for me tomorrow, please."

Soon we joined the rest of the family in their evening devotions, and Callie went back to her place.

I read and reread that wonderful letter before retiring, and as soon as convenient the next morning I telephoned to Callie to ask whether I might copy it before mailing it. She gladly gave me permission, and now I give you the letter almost word for word:

San Jose, Cal. Aug. 18, 1903.

Dear Nan:

No doubt you will be somewhat surprised to receive this from me, but it is surprising--and wonderful the way G.o.d has of lifting us up out of sin. Now what has been done for me will be done for you if you will only let him have his way with you. Surely "the way of the transgressor is hard," and the devil is a poor pay-master. I know you are so tired of that life that you will be willing to say, "O Lord, anything but this; "better a dry crust of bread with quietness than a house full of sacrifice, with strife."" The truth is a bitter pill, and many have choked to death on it, but while "the mourners go about the streets,"

the truth goes on just the same. Now my greatest sacrifice was -- --.

With him the house was full of strife, for I had to produce for it all, and no peace in the end; so to get away from the whole thing and keep out of San Quentin [one of the State prisons] I had to not only die to him, but myself. So now, glory to G.o.d! I am sanctified and my sins and dead yesterdays are under the blood, and Just as the branch is to the vine, I am joined to Christ and I know he is mine.

Nan, as I look back to Mrs. J----"s time [a former jail matron] and the h.e.l.l we had, trying to live through, and of poor Minnie B---- and Minnie E----, who have gone out in the darkness--[Minnie B---- was dead, Minnie E---- dying, when the trusty rushed into the room where the matron, Mrs. J----, was engaged in a game of cards, and begged her to come quickly, to which she replied, "Let her die; "tis a pity a few more of you don"t go the same way" and then coolly continued the game she was playing.] If we had continued along on that plane, such would have been our fate also; but he, our Lord, is so patient and long-suffering that the moment we are willing to give up and let him have his way with us, then the work begins for our good. Now, Nan, I am only too glad to be able to help you in any way I can.

I owe the H---- of T---- $10. I stole $40 for "dope" from them while in the "hypo" state. I have now paid back $30, and when your time is up, I will be able to pay your fare down here, and your board until you can see and know for yourself what real liberty there is in Christ.

Everything did not go just as I liked at first; but, as you know, a good thing is not easily gotten, and if you will only try half as hard for liberty in Christ as you do for those you love, it will not be long ere you are out and out for Christ, and your dead yesterdays will be as though they never had been, and if you will let me be a mother to you, I would divide my last drop of blood to save your soul.

O G.o.d! bless my erring sisters, "who love not wisely, but too well, bearing their sorrows alone in silence with an anguish none can tell."

Now, dear, weigh this well, and "choose this day which you will serve,"" G.o.d or mammon. T am not the only "hypo" fiend that the Lord sees fit to take out of h.e.l.l; so be of good cheer, for he has said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

Start in with a fervent prayer, saying, "Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d, and renew a right spirit within me." Just as soon as you are willing to take your Savior for your satisfying portion every door of hope will be open to you with outstretched arms. My strength is in G.o.d and I want you to feel some of it. I do not know the extent of it.

Poor M--! I feel sorry for her. Mrs. Roberts called on me. She is O K, and her heart is in her work. Dear child of G.o.d, she is sowing seeds of kindness all along her line. May G.o.d bless her! The little lady who is with her [Lucy] speaks highly of you. Nan, and we all see the Lord in you if you will only give up all to him. Tell Mrs. ---- I still have faith for her [the dignified-looking white-haired prisoner already spoken of], for G.o.d is still looking around for the impossible things, to move mountains. Love to K--, G--, Mrs. S--, Mollie R--, and all the rest of the girls.