I am well aware that to the eye of unsanctified calculation, these giants of crime, these startling monuments of pre-eminent depravity and divine forbearance, present obstacles to the universal conquest of truth, and sometimes even faith itself becomes infidel. But remember that the work is God's, and is any thing too hard for an almighty arm to accomplish? With equal ease He guides the zephyr, and the lightning's furious bolt; sustains a sparrow and upholds the sun. If He wills, who or what can hinder? He sends forth His Spirit, and the boldest and most determined opposition prostrates like the reed before the tempest, or a bramble before an avalanche, and the tiger becomes a lamb in the converted apostle of the gentiles. If my chief dependence for the reformation of these far-gone offenders was turning on the pivot of mere human agency, my brightest hopes would darken midnight, and the combined force of every possible motive to action, would relax before the hopelessness of the enterprise; but when an omnipotent hand is at work, would not fear or doubt be equally blasphemous and absurd? There must, indeed, be Pauls to plant, and Apolloses to water, but God alone can give the increase; and as under his gracious providence, the rock becomes a pool, and barrenness is turned into fertility, I most confidently anticipate the perfect and glorious accomplishment of His revealed purpose, to give to the Son 'the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession;' to 'deliver the lawful captives and take the prey from the mighty.' The assertion, therefore, which has been so frequently made, that 'the minds of prisoners are hardened beyond the power of religious susceptibilities,' I am fully prepared to deny; and not merely from the force of this reasoning, but from my own personal knowledge and experience. This wide world presents no where more solemn and attentive listeners to the preaching of the gospel, than are always found in our State Prisons. For the truth of this assertion, I appeal to every servant of God who has had the pleasure of addressing that libelled and neglected part of erring mankind. Indeed it would be very strange were it otherwise, for the very circumstances under which they are addressed, irresistibly dispose their minds to attend, with serious and affecting interest, to the enunciations of religious truth. Their souls are bleeding with the painfulness of a separation from their nearest and dearest friends—their parents, their brothers and sisters, their wives and children—and from the sunshine and all the concomitant blessings of liberty. Their own sad experience teaches them, better than a thousand arguments, the truth of that Book which declares, that the wicked shall not go unpunished, and that the way of transgressors is hard. Having witnessed one judgment day, and feeling the awful and death-like consequences of being condemned there, they think, with trembling, of the great Judgment day of all mankind, and of the more awful consequences of condemnation then. And where in the universe can they behold a more true and dreadful representation of the 'house of wo and pain,' than is constantly before their eyes? To one class of religious motives, then, they must be peculiarly sensitive—the terrors of the Lord must make them afraid. They cannot resist them. Feeling as they must, and surrounded as they are, the truths of God come home to their consciences, emphasized by their own experience, and they might as well change their dungeon into a palace, and exchange their misery for the bliss of cherubs, as to resist these sacred thunders of the Eternal, thus awfully sounded in their ears. With me this is neither idle declamation nor uncertain theory, for I speak from observation and experience, declaring only what I have seen and felt; and could you associate my observation and experience with your own, you would believe my testimony. But you need not depend either on my declarations or reasonings on this subject; I am willing to throw the question into the scale of acknowledged facts. Facts cannot lie, and we will view our subject in the light of those connected with the ministry of Christ and his apostles. As he went about doing good, who followed most cheerfully in his train? Publicans and sinners. Who were the most remarkable subjects of his saving power? Mary Magdalene, whom he had dispossessed of seven devils, and a hardened criminal expiring on a gibbet. Why was he styled the friend of sinners? why did he declare the object of his mission to be to call sinners to repentance? and why did he rebuke the grumblers at his associating with those who were reputed the lowest and vilest of the human race, by saying, 'The whole need not a physician but they that are sick?' Because sinners, as they most need, so they most feel their need of, and most cordially embrace the salvation of the gospel. And who were the first to espouse the cause of Christ, after his resurrection? They whose hearts had festered with malice, whose hands were red with innocent blood—those very men who had been the betrayers and murderers of the Just and Holy One. One fact more and I shall have done with this topic. Who is that furious and determined individual, commissioned by the chief priests, and, Jehu like, speeding his way to Damascus? The same dark and wicked spirit who had assisted in the murder of Stephen, who had thirsted for the blood of the saints, and had dragged many of them to prison. The same spirit, too, who became a chosen vessel of the Lord to bear his name to the gentiles, and build up the faith which he had labored to demolish, and who, in the most affecting and solemn terms declared himself to have been the chief of sinners.
But after all my reasoning and all my appeals on this subject, there is one cold and sullen fact, which rises like a winter-cloud over my mind, and blasts all my hopes of success while it remains. It is this. The hapless and wretched community for which i am pleading, is completely exiled from the sympathies of mankind.—They are thought of indeed, but it is only to be despised, and they are spoken of only to be cursed. How truly may they say; 'No one cares for our souls.' This is a fact which cannot be successfully contradicted; but whether it is right or not, judge ye. How much of christianity it evinces let every one's conscience determine. One thing is certain, it is not the spirit of God, for He commended His love towards sinners by giving His Son to be our Saviour. Neither is it the spirit of Christ, for when we were without strength, in due time he died for the ungodly. Equally distinct is it from the spirit of angels, for they rejoice in the presence of God when one sinner repents. Nor has it any fellowship with the spirit of christians, for they are glad when they see the grace of God magnified in the reformation of even the most abandoned. It is also spurned away by the spirit of philanthropy, for the prince of philanthropists identified his glorious fame with the prisons of Europe. Hearken then ye whose sympathies pass by the cells of merited suffering, like the priest and the Levite, on the other side, the misery which you disdain to heed and the sufferers whom you associate only with infamy, draw around them the liveliest sympathies, and the deepest interest of the whole universe of sanctified spirits, from the mere lover of his species, up through christians and angels, to the merciful Redeemer and compassionate Father of all. O! then be entreated to bring your cold and limited sympathies to the fountain of Jesus' blood, and learn to pity the sinner while you hate his sins. Let the sighing of the prisoners come into the secret abode of your hearts, and compassionate those whose hope is despair. If you continue to resist that voice which might pierce the tomb, and rouse the dead into benevolent actions for the recovery of the lost, you will evince that you have wandered as far from the sympathies of unperverted humanity, as have the objects of your contempt from righteousness; and my only hope of their reformation will depend on your previous return to that holy sanctuary of purified feeling, from which you have so wofully departed. Then, warmed with the pure and sacred glow of heaven's own altar, you will be moved by the groaning of the captives, and either carry or send them the balm which is in Gilead, and direct them to the Physician who is there."
CONCLUSION.
My work is done, and I am happy. The task which I have now finished is of that unpleasant kind which few human beings have ever voluntarily undertaken. It has led me through wide fields of blight, in which scarcely a green thing has been left to smile. My path has been amidst fragments of moral ruin, where serpents of corruption have lurked and hissed. My canopy has been the beclouded past in which the sun, moon, or stars are seldom seen. I have heard the voice of man, but it has been in expressions of angry authority, or of uncompassionated distress. I have seen "the human face divine," but it was either transformed into cruelty, and sullen with a spirit of revenge, or distorted with agony and fixed in despair. I have shivered under the frost of death, and contemplated a thousand awful epitaphs on the grave stones of the soul.
Of the volume which I am now bringing to a close, I can say in the presence of my Creator, that I designed it as a sacrifice to benevolence; and I have labored to render it an acceptable one. I have plead the cause of the suffering sinner. I have opened to view his dungeon; pointed to his fetters—his bleeding back—his neglected sickness—his unheeded death. I have recorded facts; have argued from the principles of humanity and religion; have plead, entreated, exhorted, and prayed with christians to think of the captive, and cheer his gloomy cell with the light of the gospel. What more can I do? Nothing; and whatever may be the future sufferings of my brethren in prison, I am innocent.
In the course of the volume I have advanced the following opinions.—In the present state of society, Penitentiaries cannot be very useful as means of reformation.—Cruel discipline will harden the sufferer, and nothing but goodness can ever win back a sinner to the love and practice of virtue.—Prisoners are criminally neglected by christians.—The loss of character is a calamity, from which the universal sentiment of mankind admits of no redemption.—The conduct of christians towards prisoners and repentant sinners, is directly opposed to the law of God and the principles of their profession. These and other truths, equally plain and important, are to be found scattered through the book, and I submit them to the religious consideration of all concerned.
In speaking of the "Prison Discipline Society," I have used pointed language. Convinced that it is an un-benevolent society, laboring, conscientiously, no doubt, to effect the good of community, but in a way that will certainly multiply the evils it is aiming to cure, I could not use any other than emphatic terms to express my disapprobation of its measures. Already has it plunged the subjects of its discipline into the gulf of a most horrid despotism, and should it go successfully onward, its measures will spread over and carry through all our penitentiaries, the unbroken gloom and unregarded misery of the worst prisons in Europe.
In relation to christians and ministers, I have used language that is capable of being perverted. I revere the christian who acts on the pure principles of his profession, and such is an exception from the remarks, which I wish to have applied to mere professors. I have found many real christians during my intercourse with society, who have cheered me in the house of my pilgrimage, and to them my gratitude is bound by the strongest ties. And in the ministry there are many whom I respect and love, and had all been such, the remarks which I have applied to some of that profession would have been quite superfluous and unmerited.
A remark which I have made in relation to Rev. E. K. A. may, if not explained, be misunderstood. I meant not to vote with public opinion against that suffering individual, but simply to state the fact, that community had decided against him, with a view to illustrate an inconsistency in the conduct of the persons under consideration. Mr. A. has had a fair trial, and the jury of the country has cleared him. With that verdict I am satisfied; and I consider that he is injured, and the dignity of the laws insulted, by the attitude of the public, and the conduct of many journals of the day. If the decision of a high court is not final, where is the security of any man who happens to be accused? Christianity is wounded by the conduct of Mr. A's opposers, and they would feel the full force of their actions were they in his place. Whether Mr. A. is guilty or not, I am silent. God knows.