“I do not try to disguise from you, or from myself the fact that for this life your outlook is not bright.  But I come to you this day with a message of hope from God our Father.  He hath not appointed you to wrath.  He loves all his children.  He sent his Son to die for them.  Jesus trod the paths of pain, and drained the cup of sorrow.  He died as a malefactor, for malefactors.  He died for me.  He died for each one of you.  If I knew the most broken, the most desolate-hearted, despairing man before me, who feels that he is scorned of men and forsaken of God, I would go to where he sits and put my hand on his head, and tell him that God hath not appointed him to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us.  I would tell him that his Father in heaven loves him still, loves him more than the mother that bore him.  I would tell him that all the wrongs and follies of his past life may from this hour be turned into so much capital of a warning experience, and that a million of years from today he may be a child of the Heavenly Father, and an heir of glory, having the freedom of the heavens and the blessedness of everlasting life.  O brothers, God does love you!  Nothing can ruin you but your own despair.  No man has any right to despair who has eternity before him.  Eternity?  Long, long eternity!  Blessed, blessed eternity!  That is yours—­all of it.  It may be a happy eternity for each one of you.  From this moment you may begin a better life.  There is hope for you, and mercy, and love, and heaven.  This is the message I bring you warm from a brother’s heart, and warm from the heart of Jesus, whose life-blood was poured out for you and me.  His loving hand opened the gate of mercy and hope to every man.  The proof is that he died for us.  O Son of God, take us to thy pitying arms, and lift us up into the light that never, never grows dim—­into the love that fills heaven and eternity!”

As the speaker sunk into his seat, there was a silence that was almost painful for a few moments.  Then the pent-up emotion of the men broke forth in sobs that shook their strong frames.  Dr. Lucky, the prisoner’s friend, made a brief, tearful prayer, and then the benediction was said, and the service was at an end.  The men sat still in their seats.  As we filed out, of the chapel, many hands were extended to grasp mine, holding it with a clinging pressure.  I passed out bearing with me the impression of an hour I can never forget; and the images of those thousand faces are still painted in memory.

“Corralled.”

“So you were corralled last night?”

This was the remark of a friend whom I met in the streets of Stockton the morning after my adventure.  I knew what the expression meant as applied to cattle, but I had never heard it before in reference to a human being.  Yes, I had been corralled; and this is how it happened: