These efforts tended materially to lift the cloud from the prisoners' minds, and give them more hope. It really gladdened the hearts of many to learn that the privileges, which they had come to love so well and esteem so highly, were still to be theirs.
6. S. school commences. The next Sabbath the S. S. was resumed. Nearly the usual number were present. A few Christian gentlemen from the city were teachers, a sufficient number to guard each prisoner and see that nothing contraband passed. These were good men, some having long been laborers in the school. On the whole, things appeared more encouraging than on the Sabbath previous. That frosty appearance had in a measure departed, though it was by no means wholly gone.
7. The warden's views considered. The idea that "prisoners can not be reformed" is contrary to Scripture, history, and experience. The former gives the assurance that the vilest, the chief of sinners, those whose sins are as scarlet or crimson, may be saved. Then history deals in facts where such have been radically reformed, and have become good men. Some who were once in prison are now upright, industrious citizens. Hence, the assertion shows lack of confidence in Scripture assurances and historical knowledge.
But one asks, "Do you think it possible to reform all, or a large proportion of prisoners?" We can assume it of those here as of the world in general. Whether out of or in prison, we are to sow the seed, and some will germinate. We must work, use all right appliances, and leave the event with God, not knowing "which shall prosper, this or that."
Again, the objection comes: "Prisoners will be often hypocritical, profess goodness from sinister motives, pretending to have reformed for a time, and then become as bad as ever."
Admit all this. But are not just such traits found in the world all about us? Where are there more wicked wretches than some outside the prison, who have "put on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in?" What meaner men inhabit God's earth than some who have succeeded in working themselves into the church, and can boast of coming to the communion regularly? How many profess and fall away on every hand, yes, sink deeper in corruption than before! The fact is, this pretended argument to the disadvantage of the prisoner is all a sham.
The prison, if rightly conducted, possesses certain means of reform, which can not be had outside. To illustrate: Here is a young man, who has never entered a school-house, or a place of worship, but has spent his time with vicious companions and in vicious habits. He falls into prison, where his home is a cell and silence his constant companion. Here he is removed from his former surroundings and opportunities for sinful indulgence. The loneliness and tedium of his condition soon become unendurable. He must, in some way, have relief. But no means lie within his reach except those connected with reform appliances. To these he is forced, by the pressure of his nature, to resort, simply for self-gratification, which he can find in hearing the human voice and in the connected exercises. He hears truth which he had never heard before, but which is permitted to fall on his mind with its full weight. He is thus led to reflect, repents of his sins, and becomes really a reformed man, a brand plucked from the burning.
The tendency of things, then, in a properly conducted prison, is reformatory. Therefore, let ours be managed on that principle, and all in our State, worthy of such a place, be there assigned for the requisite time, and, no doubt, one good, devoted, wide-awake man could do them more good than they now receive from all the religious means and labors outside put together.