The field of missionary labour is the world, and every part of it must be cultivated. In many places, harvests, broad and rich, are seen by those myriads of seraphs, who, in ministering to the heirs of salvation, are constantly passing and repassing from heaven to earth. But by far the greater part of this field is still barren and untouched by any culturing hand, and its famishing and dying inhabitants are constantly sending out to christian communities the Macedonian cry of—"Come and help us;" and this cry, like an angel's voice, has sunken deep into many hearts, and inspired them with a sympathetic interest which cannot die till its object is accomplished. I congratulate the world that such an interest has been excited. It promises much; it awakens the most delightful hopes; and it is not to divide, but to enlarge it, that I appear before this respected assembly, as a messenger from the most dark and hopeless part of this field of blight and desolation, to say to you, in behalf of my brethren; "Come and help us also." The place from which I have come is a prison, and prisoners are my brethren, whose cause I am going to plead.
In calling your attention to these all-gloomy places, and to these neglected sinners, may I not be permitted to say, that prisons and prisoners are inseparably interwoven with the history and doctrines of the gospel. The Captain of our salvation, though Lord of all, was once a prisoner at Pilate's bar; and though all-innocent, was condemned by Herod as a criminal, and expired on a cross. Of this same Being it is declared that he despiseth none of his prisoners, but looseth them, and by the blood of the covenant, sendeth them out of the pit wherein is no water. By his spirit he preached through Zechariah to those captives, who hung their harps on the willows and wept at the recollection of Zion, this affecting but cheering sermon—"Turn ye, turn ye to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope." In the same spirit he also went and "preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient." In fine, benevolence to the lost is the spirit of Jesus, and good-will to mankind irrespectively, is the genius of his gospel. Moved then by the inspiration of Christ and his doctrines, I cheerfully and confidently anticipate the interested attention of all christians, while I paint the moral and spiritual dearth of our State Prisons, and plead with you to send thither the fertilizing streams of eternal life; nor will I fear, for a moment, that there is in this congregation, either a Sanballat or a Tobiah, to be exceedingly grieved that a man is come, to seek the welfare of captives.
I bring this subject, my Christian Friends, before you, and I urge it upon your attention, because it is by a community of which you form a valuable part, that the work must be done, if done at all. I bring it before christians, exclusively, before the church of Christ which he purchased with his own blood; it is before you that I roll the claims of your perishing fellow mortals; and, identifying myself with them, I say to you on their behalf, "Come and help us." Where else under heaven can we look but to you? Who will pity us, if you will not? Who will bring us the messages of salvation, if you refuse? We ask not for liberty nor earthly comforts; we are contented with our homely meals and our beds of straw; with these glooms, these dungeons, and these fetters; but we want that freedom with which Christ makes free; we want to feel the warming beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and eat the bread and drink the water of eternal life. Such is the voice which is this moment falling on your ears from the deep and gloomy recesses of the prison-house, and permit me to urge your immediate attention to it from the following considerations:
1. Should your pious labors be blessed to the reformation of any part of these offenders, not only will they become happy in the enjoyment of virtue and religion, but a very great service will also be rendered to society.
Let it never be forgotten a moment, that though community is in no immediate danger from them now, however vicious, the time is coming when it may be. They are not always to remain within those walls which prevent their annoying mankind by their crimes; their sentences are to expire, and then, virtuous or vicious, society must admit them again within its circle. Does not, then, the future peace and safety of society require their reformation?—Should they be sent abroad with hearts unsubdued and rankling with iniquity, what society, family, or individual would be secure? Like fiery serpents, they would scatter dismay where they fly and death where they repose. And from the very nature of vice, whose grasp is to accumulation, if they are not brought to reform by the means and principles of the gospel, they will be more hardened and desperate than ever. I say "unless brought to reform by the means and principles of the gospel." A mere moral reform in such subjects is not to be hoped for. They have already demonstrated the insufficiency of mere moral restraints to keep them from the commission of crime.—Nothing but the solemn motives which enforce the duties of religion, can restrain them now. Their consciences have "swung from their moorings;" and they must be brought back and chained to the throne of God, before they who have been so long accustomed to do evil, will learn to do well. Religion, the holy religion of Jesus Christ, then, with the tremendous sanctions which it draws from the world to come, is the only means left by which these prodigals may be reclaimed. And should you be the means of planting this religion in their hearts, you will not only save their souls from death, but you will cause a wave of joy to roll more extensively wide than you have conceived. O! how many weeping parents and brothers, and wives and children, would feel the happy effect of your pious labors, and rise up and call you blessed. And these sons of crime themselves, renovated in their moral natures, by those redeeming principles which you will have instrumentally brought home to their breasts, will, when released from their dungeons, go out among christians and unbelievers, rejoicing the former by declaring what God has done for their souls, and inspiring with solemn and heavenly contemplations the latter, by testifying to the faithfulness of the saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the chief of sinners. Instead of scattering dread and poisoning the healthful streams of society, they will move along in the pleasing round of christian duties, living witnesses of the power of divine grace, and examples of the excellency and loveliness of the Christian Religion. Their houses will be houses of prayer; their evenings will be spent in reading and meditation, and their days in honest industry; and their places in the Temple of God will never be vacant. O! what a combination of powerful motives are here presented before you, to draw out the pious efforts of christians in behalf of prisoners; the motives of humanity, patriotism, and religion—a threefold cord; and may God forbid that it should ever be broken, or unfastened from your minds, until you follow the example of Howard, and bless with all the ordinances of the gospel, the neglected and perishing inhabitants of our State Prisons.
2. I would also urge you to listen to the cry of the captives from the consideration, that they are human beings, and equally susceptible with others of all the improvements and pleasures of virtue and piety, on the one hand, and of all the degradation and misery of vice, on the other.
No matter how far they may have wandered in the mazes of crime; no matter how deep they may have sunken into the horrible pit and miry clay of moral pollution; no matter how closely round them they may have drawn the sable pall of spiritual death; they are still within the compass of that holy and saving influence, which can reclaim, elevate, and quicken, the most hopeless of the human race. It is a blasphemous libel upon the grace of God to exclude, either speculatively or practically, from its redeeming power, any part of mankind on account of their superior sinfulness; for the faithful saying, which is worthy of all acceptation, is, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the very chief of sinners. Did he not confer the boon of pardon and salvation on a dying thief? Was not one of his most faithful friends, while he abode on earth, she out of whom he had cast seven devils? And among the bright stars of heaven which rose from earthly climes, does not the eye of faith dwell with inexpressible delight on Menasseh, Bunyan, Gardener, and Rochester? Who then dares to point to any individuals, or to any class of fallen man and say—There is no hope in their case? Remember that he who came to seek and to save that which was lost, was also commissioned to say to the prisoners, "Go forth," and to them that sit in darkness, "Show yourselves"; to preach "deliverance to the captives," and the "opening of the prison to them that are bound;" to lead "captivity captive," and receive gifts even for "the rebellious."
In the broad commission which every minister of Jesus Christ receives, there is no limitation, no part of mankind are excluded; within the whole world and the whole creation, there is not a rational being to whom the Lord Jesus has not, with sovereign authority, and in the most plain and energetic terms commanded his gospel to be preached. And are not State Prisons within the whole world? and are not their neglected and despised inmates included in the whole creation? From the burning equator to the frozen poles, and from the rising to the going down of the sun, the heralds of salvation are moving in every direction. Burning Africa and icy Greenland, the east and the west, "the void waste and the city full," have all heard the proclamation of mercy, and the isles of the sea have received the law. The blinded Jew and the bigoted Mahommedan, have alike, through the instrumentality of missionaries, seen the light of truth, and upon them the glory of the Lord has risen. And this same light which has shone through and dispelled the gloom of heathenism, which has played around the islands of the ocean, and thrown a ray of promise across the Mahommedan and Papal apostasies, has also found its way through prisons, and left a cheering brightness on the grates of a cell. Unchecked in its progress, and unbounded in its ample range, selecting no particular field as more hopeful, nor avoiding any as more forbidding than another, the grace of God, like a mighty angel, flies across the chaos of this world in the means appointed by heaven, and finds mankind every where, and under every variety of circumstance and condition, equally and perfectly under its control. Differing indeed in their mental and moral habits and associations, some possessing more lovely traits of character than others, and some distancing the rest in the race of crime; some deep read in all the mysteries of human science, and some so near the level of the brute as to render their humanity a question; mankind are, notwithstanding these complexional varieties, alike susceptible of the degrading and painful influences of vice, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the ennobling and heaven-imparting power of virtue and truth. I care not whether the individual treads the scorching sands of Arabia, or shivers amid the drifting snow and icebound streams of Lapland; whether he sends up the Indian cry to the Great Spirit from the solitude of our western wilds, or kneels an enthusiastic worshipper at the car of Juggernaut; whether his mind is as rude as the uncultivated desert, or so enlarged by education that all the luminaries of literature and philosophy are revolving there, like the sun, moon and stars, in the firmament of heaven; whether his garments are rags, or purple and fine linen; whether his companions are dogs, or princes; whether his home is a dungeon, or a palace; he is still a man, possessing the same sensibilities, the same instinctive dread of misery and desires for happiness, the same longings after immortality and delight in truth, which belong alike to the degenerate family of fallen Adam.
This proposition is abundantly proved by the results of that sublime and stupendous enterprise, which the spirit of missions has so gloriously struck out, and is so successfully carrying forward, and which looks with such a firmly founded and well built confidence to the conversion of the whole world. I rejoice in all that has been done under the influence of this benevolent spirit, and I sympathize with the friends of missions in those brighter hopes and more inspiring anticipations, which contemplate a redeemed universe around the throne of heaven. My soul dwells, with expanding joy, on the lovely Edens, which the servants of the Most High have caused to bloom and smile amidst the blight and barrenness of heathen lands. I hear the songs of salvation sounding in the desert, and I bless the equal Lord of all his creatures for the means by which such praises have been called forth. I am glad that I see so much accomplished, and it is this pleasure that inspires me with such impatient anxiety to see the glorious work advancing. It is because I have seen the effect of the word of God on heathen minds, that I want to have it preached in our prisons. It is because I have seen streams gush out in the desert, that I desire to see the waters of life carried into the cells of captives. It is because these wonders of mercy have been accomplished by appointed means, that I wish to see these means operating in our prisons. It is because these means have never been used in vain, that I confidently associate with them the salvation of these servants of sin. And may I not add, that as God works only by means, and in this department of His operation, only by such means as are specified in his word, I despair of seeing any great or lasting good effected in our prisons, till I see these means in employment.
3. Another consideration by which I would urge you to attend to the call of the captives, is, that they are as perfectly alive to the influence of religious motives as any other part of unregenerate mankind, and to one class of these motives, much more so.