hey caught me
and I am here." He was innocent, too! I passed along to the next cell.
"How is it with you?'" "Well, we got into bad company, and the man that
did it got clear, and we got taken up, but we never did anything." I
went along to the next cell "How is it with you?" "Our trial comes on
next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get free." I went
round to nearly every cell but the answer was always the same--they had
never done anything. Why, I never saw so many innocent men together in
my life. There was nobody to blame but the magistrates, according to
their way of it. These men were wrapping their filthy rags of
self-righteousness about them. And that has been the story for six
thousand years. I got discouraged as I went through the prison, on, and
on, and on, cell after cell, and every man had an excuse. If he hadn't
one, the devil helped him to make one. I had got almost through the
prison, when I came to a cell and found a man with his elbows on his
knees, and his head in his hands. Two little streams of tears were
running down his cheeks; they did not come by drops that time.

"What's the trouble?" I said. He looked up, the picture of remorse and
despair. "Oh, my sins are more than I can bear." "Thank God for that," I
replied. "What," said he, "you are the man that has been preaching to
us, ain't you?" "Yes." "I think you said you were a friend?" "I am."
"And yet you are glad that my sins are more than I can bear!" "I will
explain," I said "If your sins are more than you can bear, won't you
cast them on One who will bear them for you?" "Who's that?" "The Lord
Jesus." "He won't bear my sins." "Why not?" "I have sinned against Him
all my life." "I don't care if you have; the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses from all sin." Then I told him how Christ had come
to seek and save that which was lost; to open the prison doors and set
the captives free. It was like a cup of refreshment to find a man who
believed he was lost, so I stood there, and held up a crucified Saviour
to him. "Christ was delivered for our offenses, died for our sins, rose
again for our justification." For a long time the man could not believe
that such a miserable wretch could be saved. He went on to enumerate his
sins, and I told him that the blood of Christ could cover them all.
After I had talked with him I said, "Now let us pray." He got down on
his knees inside the cell, and I got down outside, and I said, "You
pra