They know the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.
As to these persons, and especially in the female department, nothing could startle them more than an imputation upon their belief, nothing offend them more than an attack upon their creed; and suspecting that their delinquencies in practice will be imputed to the deficiency of the doctrine in which they have been reared, they stand often on the defensive; occasionally, indeed, they seem ready to take the offensive against those whom they believe to be of another form of worship. This all may be wrong; it may be ridiculous, but nevertheless it is; and with those who seek to do them a good, and reclaim them from vice to virtue, it must be respected, so far as not to offend it by any evidence of hostility to aught but sin and vice. The confidence of the prisoner must first be secured, and this not always by the same means, that his improvement is to be effected; and few circumstances so soon open up the heart as a similarity of creed, and an evidence of belief that that creed is not answerable for the vices or crimes of those who rather hold it in abeyance than in practice. And in that view of the case, and of the wants of the prisoner, some of the Committee having been specially assigned to the female department of the County Prison, have solicited or accepted the offered services of educated and pious females of diverse religious denominations, and opened to them, by authority from the proper officers, the doors of all the cells, so that each may have access to every inmate, and deal with her mind and conscience in the way which shall seem best adapted to the peculiar case.
It is not expected, as certainly it is not desired, that these devoted women should attempt to proselyte the prisoners, looking rather to a change of creed than a change of conduct; or rather, to speak more charitably, seeking a reformation of conduct only through a change of creed; but it is, of course, supposed, that each will deal with the object of her care in the way in which her conscience shall sanction, and that advantage will be taken of a similarity of creed to enforce a renewed recognition of doctrine in which the offender was reared, and a resort to the means which, having been enforced and adopted in childhood, are easily comprehended and readily practised, and bring with them the reminiscence of the better days of home and early piety, while they give a stronger hope of future prosperity and happiness.
The stranger visiting the County Prison, has been gratified with the free ingress of these female missionaries, and has been forcibly struck with the harmonious, though not associated, action of women whose peculiarity of dress shows them to be of religious connection variant in creed and ceremony, but whose concurrent general instruction shows them to be trying to serve one Master in the way which their consciences suggested and approved, and which is warranted by the example of that Master, who “went about doing good,” and who showed the duty of that conduct when he said, “I was in prison and ye came unto me.”
However beneficial may be the regular service of the clergy on the Sabbath, it will, it is believed, be admitted by all, that those who have the ear of the separated prisoner, who know the peculiarities of his case, and the proclivity of his inclinations, have a great opportunity of touching his affections, of making an impression on his mind, and rousing him to good resolves, when the dealing is separate and special, and the poor wanderer feels that every word that is uttered is directed to his own conscience, and every hope that is offered is founded on amendments that are peculiar to his own condition. This separate dealing is, in almost all cases of sin, of vice and crime, that which a friend would desire to exercise; it is that which the sinner, the vicious, or the criminal, would acknowledge the most efficacious, because less offensive to his self-love, and because it can be so specially adapted, as to meet every point of his own case, so as to leave no avenue for mental escape, and satisfy him that nothing less than entire reformation of resolves and conduct will save him from the augmentation of that punishment which he is now suffering, and which will cut him off from the sympathies as well as the intercourse of his fellow-beings.
It is scarcely possible to say too much of this mode of separate instruction and exhortation,—this mode of softening the heart and moulding it to good,—the simple means of acquiring the confidence of the prisoner, and then leading him out of his miserable condition, to the commencement of that course which in a long run is to lead to the establishment of virtuous principles; but it is desirable that more could be justly said of the number of those who give themselves to this holy service. The number is small,—quite too small for the number of those who need those aids to virtue of which we have spoken; and especially is there a deficiency in the variety of religious views of the visitors. Not that it is desirable that distinctive doctrines should be enforced; but it is desirable, as has been stated above, that the attachment to creed,—almost as strong in the vicious as in the good,—should be respected as a means of confidence at least. Few virtuous, few pious persons of enlarged christian philanthropy consider the attachment or hostility of certain persons to certain creeds in which they have been reared, or which they have been taught to hold. Zealous attachment to creed survives all practices of virtue, all ground of self-respect, and is apparently, and perhaps naturally, more rampant in those who have no sense of the virtue which the creed enforces, than in those who understand the character of the creed, and the rights of others who do not profess it. And it is worthy of remark, that some of the most violent personal contests of which the Vagrant cells of the County Prison have been the arena, have been caused by the opposite religious creeds in which the miserable occupants had been born, and in which they had been reared; and thus the broken forms of christian doctrine would be avenged in the receptacle of vice, and by the vicious, with all kinds of blasphemy and personal violence, and the religion of peace and purity be enforced with broken heads and broken commandments.
This strong case (entirely real) is presented to illustrate the idea that almost all hope of doing good to the class of persons to whom reference is made, must rest upon efforts that are put forth in some regard to the prejudices which are manifested by those whose benefit is sought.
To produce the ends proposed by the means which we recommend,—namely, an arousing of the conscience by gentle appeals to the hidden affections, by those whose circumstances qualify them to gain access to the confidence of the moral patients,—we must have many devoted visitors, willing to labor beyond the sight and without the applause of the world; and they, when properly vouched for in all requisite qualifications, must have free access to those whom they would aid. It is known that this Society has, by the laws of the Commonwealth, a sort of special privilege to visit in prison, by its members, the miserable, the wretched, the vicious and the criminal, to breathe through the gratings of the cell words of admonition, comfort and hope, or to open the door and participate in the confinement of the prisoner, and address him in accents that may, in the silence of all around him, awaken him to holy resolves. But even this privilege, greatly used, and, as we believe, never abused, is imperfect without a concurrent action on the part of those who directly administer the affairs of the prison. If they oppose obstacles to free access to the incarcerated, no assertion or proof of right will make the path easy, or often trod by those who represent us, especially the females; it will be found to add the disgust of contention with keepers, to the inconvenience of visits to the guarded. And still less effective will be any efforts by christian philanthropists to alleviate the misery of the cells, and improve the minds of the occupants, if their visits of mercy are followed by the coarse jeers of the unrefined and unsympathizing, ridiculing the efforts of the self-sacrificing visitor, and shaming the half-resolved prisoner; nor would it be better, if the regular official should, from bigotry or bad design, denounce the teaching of the voluntary visitor, because it might tend to other creeds than his own, or because it proceeded from other sources and in other channels than that by which his creed was formed, or those in which his conscience directed. It will be readily understood how potent such disturbing causes would be in producing injurious effects,—in marring, indeed, the good work of the moral teachers in our prisons. It seems therefore meet to say here, that while it is supposed that those who are entrusted with the care of the prisoner, in both Penitentiary and County Prison, have some well-established views of doctrine, and are connected with some religious denomination, it is not known that any of them have attempted to interrupt the work of the committee and agents of the Society, by hindering the access to prisoners, or by disturbing with contrary teaching the effect produced. On the contrary, it seems a duty at this time and in this place to bear testimony to the unfailing urbanity with which our visitors are received and treated at the prisons, and the aid always rendered to give them ready access to the cells and to the minds of the incarcerated. In the County Prison, where such a variety is presented, and so much care is required, and so much time demanded by the frequent changes, no occupation of the employees, male or female, ever poses an obstacle to the visit of those who come to help the helpless and improve the bad. No variety of creed induces a diminution of that courtesy which is the true exponent of benevolence; and in this respect the superintendent, keeper, clerk and matrons may be regarded as official assistants in the work of alleviating the miseries of the prisons which they are bound to regulate.