The Prisoner Loosed.

On the third floor of a tenement house, a missionary, Mr. B., found a

comely, intelligent young English woman in great distress. Her heart

seemed wrung by grief. A few kind words of sympathy drew from her the

story of her woe. She came to this country with her husband and three

young children. He was employed as book-keeper in a large mercantile

house; but soon became addicted to drink, and the story is ever the

same; oss of position, poverty, disgrace, suffering and recklessness.

On the day of the missionary's visit, he was in a prison cell, committed

as a vagrant and common drunkard. The wife was bitterly weeping in her

cheerless home, and the children around her fretting with hunger. Mr. B.

was so touched he could scarcely find words with which to console her,

but turned to Isaiah and read, "For thy maker is thy husband; the Lord

of Hosts is his name." "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but

with great mercies will I gather thee." After his prayer, she felt



calmer, and entreated him to come the next week, on the day her husband

would be released. He complied; found a prepossessing and cultivated

man; and upon telling him how earnestly his wife and himself had prayed

for him, was rejoiced to learn that in that lonesome cell the Spirit of

God had visited him, filled him with a sincere wish to reform the future

and redeem the past. The missionary called again and again, and

witnessed the strong determination of the young man to fight against his

pernicious habit. He was soon employed again in a large house, became a

regular attendant at the Lord's house, and began to pray both publicly

and privately for help from on high. Only a few months, and both husband

and wife united with a church and became teachers in the Sabbath school.

Their own home, once laid waste, again blossomed like the rose.