rgest part signified their success.
The next day as I passed about, some told me that, the past week, they
had failed once or twice, but felt determined to struggle on and
conquer. Subsequently one and another would assure me of their full
triumph, that they had not been overtaken since that first week. How far
the reform went, I shall never know, but it was in the right direction,
such a reform as should be carried out everywhere, for no gentleman will
take God's name in vain. It is a vulgar, mean practice.

19. _Efforts for a son, from a mother's plea._ During the spring of '71
and, while our religious interest was progressing, a mother visited her
son in prison, having a temporary home with a lady friend in the city.
We will call the mother, Mrs. A., the son, B., and the friend, Mrs. C.

Mrs. A., witnessing the subduing influences pervading our meetings, and
feeling a strong desire that her son might be benefited thereby,
determined to do what she could in that direction. This son was a youth
who might have stood high, had he followed the right, but he had gone
deeply into crime, causing his parents and friends untold sorrows.
Still, this mother clung to him as only a mother can, hoping and praying
for his rescue from his downward course.

The two families, here represented, had previously lived in near
proximity and in happy union, when B. was an innocent youth, just
emerging from childhood, a mother's pride and a father's hope.
Considering this circumstance, and knowing that Mrs. C. had a class in
the prison Sabbath school, and was an intelligent Christian worker, of
good standing in the community, Mrs. A. conceived the idea that she
perhaps might now essentially help her son, and solicited her to make
the attempt. She replied, "I have no objection to attempting what I can
to reclaim your son, with the warden's assent." This assent obtained,
the two met in his presence. For a time B. appeared averse to talking
directly of his convictions concerning the soul's interest. But she at
length secured his confidence, thus leading him to speak of his feelings
and desires to reform more freely, perhaps, than he had to the chaplain
or warden. She referred to the past, what he once was, what his parents
had done for him, what he might have been; to his fall, what he had
lost, his present condition, his mother's agonized feelings in his
behalf. The recital cut him keenly. Like Peter of old, he wept bitterly.
She then p