their dance.” Of course, then, when I write of a Sunday in Holloway jail, I write of a Sunday where the services—there are two, morning and afternoon—are Protestant, and Protestant according to the Church of England. As the worthy chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Owen, is now about to preach, let us accompany him. We follow him up a flight of stairs, and are at church and in jail. To most of us it is to be hoped the sensation is a novel one.
In a small gallery, under which is the clerk and in the middle of which is the pulpit, we take our seat. The chaplain, of course, is seen by all. A red curtain, which we are requested not to remove, hides us from the congregation. However, we can see them nevertheless. On the right of the preacher, partitioned off so as to be seen by none but himself, are the women prisoners; on his left, in another recess, are the boys, little lads for whose offences against society others and older ones are certainly more responsible than themselves. Before us, in rows gradually ascending, are ranged the male adults—pale, melancholy-looking men, who form the principal portion of this sad community. While they are seating themselves let us note the cheerful, neat appearance of the place. Not a speck of dirt is anywhere visible.
You might, to use a common but expressive form of speech, eat your dinner off the floor. The wooden ceiling is very light and airy; the windows are plain and plentiful; the walls are bare, but of snowy whiteness. Underneath is the communion-table, and once a quarter such as the chaplain considers truly penitent are permitted to partake of it. Some dozen officials, in uniform, on raised seats, are ranged in different parts of the chapel, and when all have taken their places the service is commenced by singing, in which generally the wife of the chaplain—a lady not unknown in the literary world—assists by instrumental performance. This part of the service is especially remarkable. The prisoners are fond of singing. There is weekly a class for this purpose, and they enter into it with all their heart and soul. Of course the tunes are very simple and old-fashioned, such as we used to hear, but they are sung with a fervour of which few outsiders can have an idea. One could not help thinking of Longfellow’s lines:
“Loud he sang the Psalms of David,
He a negro and enslaved.”
The book used is the collection of Psalms and Hymns issued by the Religious Tract Society, and
those selected are chiefly of a penitential and consolatory character. The soothing influence of this part of the service is, according to the experience of the chaplain, very great indeed. It was also very evident that the men took great pleasure in the responses, and one could not but hope that it was not all assumed; that when they confessed themselves “miserable sinners,” that when they exclaimed, “We have followed too much the desires and devices of our own hearts,” or that when after the chaplain read each one of the Commandments they prayed, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law”—that to some, at any rate, these words were full of meaning, and did represent actual workings of the mind. In chanting also they join, and the way in which they find out the proper places in the Prayer-book, or in which they turn up the portions of Scripture read, or find out the text, or repeat the Creed, is a model to others, and gives an illustration of the existence of a very desirable influence which the men appear to be under. It must be remembered that they are there by themselves, that no external eyes are on them, that to many of them the service is an unaccustomed novelty, and that to those to whom it is not it affords a welcome relief
after the monotony of the week. Be this as it may, nowhere in London or the country, at home or abroad, have I seen a quieter or better-behaved congregation. If you did not see the prison garb, and the number on the arm, and the little brass plate on the breast, you might fancy you were in the midst of an earnest Christian people, who for purposes of their own excluded women, and babies, and old men. The chaplain’s sermon generally occupies from fifteen to twenty minutes, and is of a character adapted to his audience; yet I must confess the attention paid to it was not equal to that which was shown in the more active parts of the service. The pulpit has yet to learn to be plain and practical; and chaplains, it is to be feared, with very remarkable exceptions, are inclined to be conventional. Still, the preacher did his best, was kind and simple, and when he speaks of such topics as godly sorrow for sin, and of turning away from it to God, or of the many ways in which men fall from rectitude, many evidently, especially of the younger ones, seem desirous to understand and realize it, and to lay hold of something spiritually soothing and appropriate. In many faces was to be seen an expression of great earnestness, forming a contrast to the unconcerned look of the indifferent. As the
chaplain visits them all the week, and reads prayers to them every day, his influence must of course, whether in the pulpit or out, be great. Be this as it may, to many it is manifest that to them has arisen unmixed advantage from spending a Sunday in jail.
HIGH CHURCH REVIVALISTS.
What is a mission? In a book of the mission edited by the Society of St. John the Evangelist, at Cowley, Oxford, I read—1. It is a special call from God. “Jonah preached a mission to Nineveh, and the whole city repented and was saved. Lot preached one night to Sodom, but they would not hearken, and were destroyed by fire.” 2. It is a time of special grace. The men who have devoted twelve days to a mission in London have taken a bold and brave step in connexion with the Church of England. As much as Sodom or Nineveh, London, with its pauperism, and vice, and crime; with its nobles stooping to the foul companionship of the jockey and the courtesan; with its high-born daughters rushing to see Formosa at Drury Lane; with its merchant princes deeming it no disgrace to be honest as the world goes, or as the times will allow—needs if it would be saved from the fearful