In Jail – Dwight Lyman Moody

I remember a mother who heard that her boy was impressed at one of our meetings. She said her son was a good enough boy, and he didn’t need to be converted. I pleaded with that mother, but all my pleading was of no account. I tried my influence with the boy; but when I was pulling one way she was pulling the other, and of course her influence prevailed. Naturally it would. Well, to make a long story short, some time after, I happened to be in the county jail, and I saw him there. “How did you come here?” I asked. “Does your mother know where you are?” “No, don’t tell her; I came in under an assumed name, and I am going to Joliet for four years. Do not let my mother know this,” he pleaded; “she thinks I am in the army.” I used to call on that mother, but I had promised her boy I would not tell her, and for four years she mourned over that boy. She thought he had died on the battle-field or in a southern hospital. What a blessing he might have been to that mother, if she had only helped us to bring him to Christ!