Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

SAVERY.

The subject of this sketch was a liberally educated, and highly esteemed clergyman of the Baptist denomination. Unhappily for his own peace and that of his family, and for the honor of Christianity, he fell a victim to the pressure of circumstances, and the force of temptation, and committed three distinct forgeries to a large amount, on one of which he was sentenced to the prison for seven years.

When he entered the prison he was an emblem of perfect health, and seemed to have a constitution that might smile at decay, and survive the ruins of an eternity. For some time no alteration in his appearance was visible, but the change of condition, from the pulpit to a dungeon, from respect to scorn, and from comfort to the want of all things, was more than he could endure, and disease began to admonish him that he was mortal.

He began now to learn a science that had not been taught him in college, and on which his divinity instructor had never lectured. He now for the first time in his life, had a practical demonstration of the solemn and humbling truth, that there is as much difference between the profession and the practice of piety, as there is between pedantry and real science; and that the priest and the Levite are the same now, as they were in the days of the good Samaritan. Christians left him to suffer without sympathy. Even the ministers of that holy religion which sends its votaries to the sinner wherever he may be found—which espouses the cause of the prisoner—and which says to the backsliding, "Return;" treated him with as much severity as language can convey. One of these, who only a few months before had taken counsel with him, and walked to the house of God, addressed to him from the pulpit the very words I am going to record. "Thou hypocrite!" said he, "dressed in the specious semblance of piety, while thy heart was filled with all abominations, a just and righteous retribution has fallen on thy guilty head!" Awful words these for one poor sinful mortal to use to another. They are the flame of an angry soul, and ill become the servants of him who, even when he was reviled, reviled not again. But if this was the spirit of the priest, what might not have been expected of the people? Alas! "like priest like people," for they too passed him in sullen silence, or with protruded lips.

Is this religion? If it is, away with it from the earth; it is the infamy and curse of the human race. Away with it and its votaries. It is worse than the religion of Dagon. If this is religion, I pray God that infidelity may banish it from the universe, of which it is the fellest scourge.

But this is not the religion of the Bible, though it is that of too many who are proud to be called christians. Though the prophets of Baal be four hundred, there is, however, an Elijah and a seven thousand who have not knelt at the shrine of an idol; but they are known only to God and his suffering children. The religion which they practice is compassion for the distressed; alms to the needy; charity for the wandering; and love to all men. Its walk is in stillness—its spirit is gentleness—and its home is the wayside, the hut of the poor, and the cell of the sufferer. This is religion, and none can tell better than the prisoner how much of this is on earth.

Reduced to this condition, Savery found in the conduct of professors so little of the spirit of their profession, that he frequently expressed to me his astonishment, and asked me if, with such specimens of christianity before them, the prisoners had not all become infidels. I know it will be said, that the prisoners are sinners, and they ought not to expect much kindness. True, they are sinners, and experience has taught them that they need not expect much tenderness; but, Christians, what is your duty to them? Look at this, think of your conduct, and be dumb!

Savery's sickness was of a few months duration, and he felt that, in a prison, the sick can find neither proper treatment, nor the least degree of sympathy. Perfectly convinced that the evils incident to a sick bed in that place, would be more than he could endure, he prepared for the worst; and in a short time he gave back his spirit to God, and left this world of woe. By kind treatment from his keepers, and christian conduct on the part of his christian acquaintances, his days might have been lengthened out for usefulness, both to the church and his family; but he is gone, and his unhappy fate says to every self-confident professor—"Let him that thinkest he standeth, take heed lest he fall."