“Not at all,” replied Fleming. “I have reason to curse the Penitentiary and everybody belonging to it.”
“Be silent,” said the chaplain, “I shall not stand by and listen to such reprehensible language.”
“I’ll not be gagged, I shall speak the truth,” persisted Fleming.
And for this without loss of time he was transferred to the dark.
All the chaplain’s professional feelings were also roused by another incident that transpired not long after his arrival. It was discovered that a prisoner, George Anderson, a man of colour, who had been educated at a missionary college, had through the connivance of a warder been endeavouring to sow the seeds of disbelief in the minds of many of the prisoners. He had turned the chaplain and his sacred office into ridicule, asserting that the services of the Church of England were nonsense from beginning to end, that the prayers contained false doctrine, that the Athanasian Creed was all rubbish, and that the church “went with a lie in her right hand.” This man Anderson must have been a thorn in the chaplain’s side, for they had more than once a serious scuffle in the polemics of the church. Mr. Russell got warm in the discussion of a certain passage in Scripture, and jumping up suddenly to reach his Bible, struck his leg against the table. After this Anderson had drawn a caricature of the scene, writing underneath, “Oh, my leg!” and from henceforth the chaplain went by the name of “Oh, my leg.” At another time there was a long dispute as to the date of the translation of the Septuagint, and upon the service for “the Visitation of the Sick.” Anderson, on returning to his cell from Mr. Russell’s office, had been in the habit of taking off his coat, and shaking it, saying always: “Peugh—— I smell of fire and brimstone.” One cannot refrain from observing here how much better oakum picking would have suited Anderson than theological controversy.
Fortunately among the prisoners were two—Johnson and Manister Worts—who were more than a match for the unorthodox black man. Anderson asserted that the Athanasian Creed was objected to by many able divines; he took exception to the title, “religious” given to the king in the prayer for the High Court of Parliament, whether he was religious or not; he maintained that his animadversions upon the church were the very words used by his former pastor, the Reverend Silas Fletcher, from the pulpit. The knowledge and acquirements of Johnson and Worts however enabled them “triumphantly to refute Anderson.”
Nor were the women behindhand in giving the chaplain annoyance. In the middle of the service on one occasion a woman jumped up on to her seat, crying out, “Mr. Russell, Mr. Russell, as this may be the last time I shall be at church, I return you thanks for all favours.” The chaplain replied gravely that the House of God was no place for her to address him, but the attention of the male prisoners in the body of the chapel below was attracted, and it was with some difficulty that a general disturbance was prevented. At another time there was actually a row in the church. Just as the sermon began, a loud scream or huzza was heard among the females. At first it was supposed that some woman was in a fit, but the next moment half a dozen prayer-books were flung at the chaplain’s head in the pulpit. With some difficulty the culprits were removed before the uproar became general; but as soon as the chaplain had finished his sermon, and said “Let us pray,” a voice was heard audibly through the building replying, “No, we have had praying enough.” A year or two later a more serious affair was only prevented with difficulty, when the women in the galleries above plotted to join the men in the body of the church below in some desperate act.
Mr. Whitworth Russell, however, through it all continued to exhibit the same unwearied activity and zeal. He never spared himself; and as the years passed by, he became known as one experienced in all that concerned prisons and their inmates. Therefore, when the cry for prison reform echoed loudly through the land, he was at once named one of Her Majesty’s inspectors of prisons. His colleague was Mr. Crawford, who had made a lengthened visitation of the prisons in the United States, and the two divided the whole of Great Britain between them and vigorously applied themselves to their task.
Mr. Russell was succeeded as chaplain at Millbank by the Rev. Daniel Nihil, a gentleman who soon gave satisfactory evidence that he was worthy to wear his predecessor’s mantle. All that Mr. Russell did, Mr. Nihil did also, and more. Ere long he found himself so firmly established in the good graces of the committee, that he was soon raised by them to wider, if not higher, functions, and in 1837 it was decided that he should hold the appointment of both governor and chaplain combined.