This day of the Congress had been set apart by the New York State Prison Department for an excursion to beautiful Lake George. At 8.30 o’clock over three hundred delegates left Albany by special train. On arrival at Lake George the steamer Horicon was boarded, and after a sail of several hours on the lake, the excursionists were landed at “The Sagamore,” where a basket luncheon was served, after which the meeting of the Chaplains’ Association was held, the Rev. William J. Batt, D. D., of the Massachusetts State Reformatory, in the chair.
After a brief paper by the Rev. W. E. Edgin, Chaplain of the Indiana State Reformatory, Jeffersonville, on “Soul-Winning in a Reformatory,” and an address by Prof. Edward Everett Hale, the president introduced Mr. Joseph F. Scott, of the Elmira Reformatory, whose admirable paper on “The Chaplain from the Warden’s Point of View,” we here reproduce in full:
“Because prisoners are men, they have the same impulses, motives, hopes, and aspirations, and are susceptible to the same influences and amenable to the same forces as other men, though possibly in a less degree. Because some men are prisoners they need the same inspiration, faith, strength, and courage that other men find themselves in need of.
“In the prison of which I am superintendent, there are burglars, pickpockets, and thieves of every description. There is no law on the statute books that has not its offenders there, and they are thought of and spoken of by people in general as such. But when the parents of one of these write me, they say, ‘My son’; or if the brother or sister write, they say, ‘My brother’; and I believe if it were possible for me to hear the words of the Father in Heaven, concerning one of these, they would be, ‘My son,’ or the words of Jesus, ‘My brother.’ Should not our words be the same?
“If I had a son of my own I should insist upon such rules of diet, sleep, and exercise as would insure to him a healthful body and a good constitution, such education, necessary to a well-disciplined mind, such works or pursuits to assure success in life; such disciplinary and moral training as would build up a stable character; all to the end that his place in life would be that of a useful citizen. The need of the prisoner and the prison discipline brought to bear upon him need be nothing more, and should be nothing less than this. He needs physical development, mental quickening, industrial training, discipline and moral instruction, if he is to be returned to society a self-sustaining and useful citizen; and no prison is doing its proper work that does not in some way afford means for these essential elements of discipline.
“The moral instruction is the especial work of the prison chaplain, and he should be given that freedom of action and breadth of scope to make his work efficient. I believe that Christianity is the greatest moral force in the lives of men to-day, because it has humanity as the basis of its ethics. It has come down through the years as a forming, transforming and reforming force in the lives of men, and I believe it is to go on through the ages until selfishness shall have been uprooted, and men brought closer and closer together; when we shall love our neighbor and be willing to work for him as for ourselves, and will do unto others as we would be done by; when we shall live in one great fraternal organization; when wars, and robberies, and strife shall cease and poverty shall be no more; when the strong shall carry the burden of the weak, and succor the unfortunate, and men will live together in brotherly love, under a Christian socialism or in the New Jerusalem, or such designation as you may please to give it. This force, which has accomplished and is to accomplish so much for the world, we cannot deny a place in transforming the lives and characters of prisoners, to that of upright living.
“The prison chaplain, in his work among prisoners, should thoroughly believe that these great Christian forces which have done so much for the world are applicable to the men under his charge and are as efficient in their lives as in the lives of other men; and any Christian clergyman, desirous of helping his fellow men and entering into the service of the Lord and humanity, and of placing himself where he can do the most good, should not hesitate to accept a prison chaplaincy; and a call to such a place should be in his mind equal to the call to one of the best churches in the land.
“It is not my purpose to give a detailed outline for the work of a prison chaplain. No two men can perhaps be successful and do their work in the same way; but every person connected with the prison, be he superintendent, warden, or chaplain, or other officer, should seek every inspiration and good example and ideal within his possibilities, and then simply be his natural self in dealing with the prisoners’ needs.
“When I was superintendent of the Massachusetts Reformatory at Concord, it was the custom there to avail ourselves of the services of the students from Andover Theological Seminary. One student, fresh from his work in the seminary, came into my office one day and asked me what he should do in the prison. I told him that if I were to get some one to do what I wanted done, I would probably get some one else, but that I expected him to go into prison, mingle freely with the prisoners, and find something, some place where he thought he could be of use to them, and give those qualities in himself that he thought would be of the most help. And that is what I would say to a prison chaplain entering the work. Where one is strong another may be weak, and each should work along those lines where he himself feels that he can do the greatest good. The compensation of a prison chaplain should be sufficient to command the services of clergymen of high attainments, and to support themselves and families in a comfortable way. And never should a chaplaincy be looked upon as a place for a broken-down clergyman, or one who has failed in other fields of activity. The chaplain should be given, as I have previously said, sufficient latitude and freedom of action in the prison to carry on the work in such lines as he himself feels that he can be of the greatest service. Therefore, the superintendent, or warden, should not place upon the chaplain such routine duties as will interfere with his doing this. It is recognized by all that the Sabbath is the special day for the chaplain’s work. I believe that we should go further than this, and set aside to him some portion of each day for such religious work as he deems best. He should not be burdened with such work as supervising inmates’ correspondence, the library, teaching school, or the many routine duties which are foisted upon him in many instances, unless he feels that they may be avenues through which he may do his best work.
“If there was one injunction of the Saviour which has given more impetus to Christianity in the world than another, it was His last, ‘Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations,’ or, as found in the other gospel, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’ I believe this injunction is especially applicable to prisoners, and that the chaplain, first of all, should be a teacher, and his intercourse with the prisoners should be in the form of teaching. Most prisoners are without the truth, and they need to be instructed in the truth, and my experience is that most of them are desirous of learning the truth. And I believe that no chaplain ever failed to interest or impress prisoners when he preached to them a sermon teaching them the simple gospel. I have never failed to see, in a prison chapel, the attention of the men arrested by the simple reading of the gospel, or anything pertaining to the life or teachings of Jesus Christ, or the explanation, by the chaplain, of what those simple truths and teachings consist in. I believe that any chaplain makes a mistake when he goes before his congregation of prisoners with other subjects than the simple gospel, if he thinks thereby to awaken greater interest in other ways.