King's Business - 1916-02

THE KING’S BUSINESS THE EXTENSION DEPARTMENT

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Geo. W . Hunter, Representative

Quentin. He left the prison with $8 and some small change to face the world again, handicapped because of his criminal career. Three months before he left the prison, he spoke to the teacher o f the class about doing colportage work among the neglected people in “tie camps” (meaning camps of men out of work who travel from town to town on the rights-of-way o f the several railroads), among farmers, br wherever he could, find men who did not have the chance or the inclination to go to church. He was : told that no more needy field could be found, that he would have no competition, and that, such a work carried on in the name o f the Lord Jesus Christ, would be sure to bear abundant fruit. His testimony concerning his five months’ work (given to the writer in a three hours’ conversation recently), if it could be produced verbatim, would read more like a detective story or novel, than actual experience. His dealings have been with the men who frequent Los Angeles street, in the city o f Los Angeles, and around Third, Mission and Howard streets in San Francisco, these being the sections o f the city frequented by the men who are out o f work and with little or no funds. He has visited them in their camps as a “ hobo,” made friends with them by furnishing money for food, cooked their meals, ate at the same mess,, slept with them, rode in freight cars with them, and in every way possible ministered to them where he found them. In all this, he has had but one object—to point the way to Jesus Christ, mighty to save aijd strong to deliver. In hiS travels these past five months he has visited Sacramento, San Francisco, San Diego, Tucson, El Paso, Los Angeles, Pasadena,, and many of the smaller towns and camps along the way. He worked at. the Union Rescue Mission for nearly forty- eight hours on Thanksgiving Day, getting a dinner ready for the “bums” as he calls

x N some respects the work at the Bible 1 Institute booth during November (the closing month of the Exposition) was more satisfactory than that of any o f the four months preceding, the visitors Seem­ ing to be more deliberate in their “ view­ ing,” thus affording the workers^ an oppor­ tunity to accomplish much in the name of the Lord. Class work was resumed the first of November, classes having been opened at Sacramento and Stockton, and a new class at Folsom prison. The work at Sacra­ mento will eventually be well attended, as well as that at Stockton. At Folsom, the class is meeting with a hearty response from the men, having an average attendance o f from seventy-five to a hundred. The following is only one of many, many instances the worker could tell of the mighty power o f the Gospel of the Son o f God to transform lives when man gets to the end o f self and lets God have a chance: | Dr.—— was one of the hardened ones when the work began at 'San Quentin some years ago. He tells of spending over eleven years behind prison bars in three different “jolts.” He is a member of one of the best Southern fam­ ilies (one o f his brothers being a physi­ cian with a large and influential practice in a Southern town), but the black sheep o f the flock. He enlisted in the Southern army-, and after the close o f the war joined himself with the Jesse James and Younger Brothers’ gangs, and for years lived as an outlaw. - From every viewpoint he was in the habitual, criminal class, and had it not been ^for the grace o f God reaching his heart w ou ld. doubtless, have spent the remainder o f his life, in crime, when he was not serving time for some escapade. In his own language, he was a hold-up • man who could take a gun away from a man in a jiffy, “ stick him up,” take what he had and get away with it easily. Five months ago he was discharged from San

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