"Saved by a Rose." Some time ago, a Christian gentleman was in the
habit of visiting one of our prisons. It occurred to him, one day,
that it would be a good thing to have a flowering plant in the little
yard connected with each cell. He got permission from the officers of
the prison to do so. He had a bracket fastened to the wall, in each
yard, and a flower pot, with a plant in it, placed on each bracket.
One of these prisoners was worse than all the rest. He was the most
hardened man that had ever been in that prison. His temper was so
violent and obstinate that no one could manage him. The keeper of the
prison was afraid of him, and never liked to go near him. He was such
a disagreeable-looking man that the name given to him in the prison
was "Ugly Greg." A little rose bush was put on the bracket in Ugly
Greg's yard, and the effect produced by it is told in these simple
lines, which some one has written about it:

"Ugly Greg was the prisoner's name,
Ugly in face, and in nature the same;
Stubborn, sullen, and beetle-browed,
The hardest case in a hardened crowd.
The sin-set lines in his face were bent
Neither by kindness nor punishment;
He hadn't a friend in the prison there,
And he grew more ugly and didn't care.

"But some one--blessings on his name!
Had caused to be placed in that house of shame,
To relieve the blank of the white-washed wall,
Flower-pot brackets, with plants on them all.
Though it seemed but a useless thing to do,