of Vermont John Reynolds

“ The means of cruelty can effect no good in any heart. The gospel, the gospel; this is the power of God unto salvation, and this alone can effect a salutary change in the soul.
I hold to punishment, but it is the punishment of mercy. Let the sinner endure the consequences of his crime, but let goodness inflict the rod. Let his punishment be severe, if necessary, but never capricious; let its object be the good of the sufferer, not vengeance; and when he is penitent, let the punishment cease.
But the reformation of prisoners is only a small fraction in the reformations which are called for. ”

“ They were warmed with the pure glow of benevolent and christian feeling; and if all the keepers had manifested the same temper and sympathy for the suffering, many a mountain of grief would have been rolled from their bleeding breasts—many a refractory spirit would have been charmed into obedience—many a hard heart would have been softened into tenderness—many a guilty soul would have been washed into purity—many a mother's heart would have been gladdened with the return of a prodigal child—and many a wife would have been blessed with a husband reclaimed. ”

“ Should an angel from some happy world, in his flight near our earth, pause and contemplate the old prison at Windsor, he would hasten back and inform his companions that he had seen a hell. That place was designed or ignorantly constructed, as a fit house in which Revenge might feed in luxury on the tears of distress, and dance to the groans of despair. Every prisoner could read the spirit of the place in the massy walls—the iron grates and doors—and the noonday twilight of the cells ”

“ 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? ”

“ But this is not the religion of the Bible, though it is that of too many who are proud to be called christians. Though the prophets of Baal be four hundred, there is, however, an Elijah and a seven thousand who have not knelt at the shrine of an idol; but they are known only to God and his suffering children. The religion which they practice is compassion for the distressed; alms to the needy; charity for the wandering; and love to all men. Its walk is in stillness—its spirit is gentleness—and its home is the wayside, the hut of the poor, and the cell of the sufferer. ”

“ The Commissioners of the Connecticut Legislature, say, that the great and leading objection to Newgate, is the manner in which the prisoners are confined at night—turned in large numbers into their cells, and allowed an intercourse of the most dangerous and debasing character. It is here, that every right principle is eradicated, and every base one instilled. It is a nursery of crime, where the convict is furnished with the expedients and shifts of guilt, and, with his invention sharpened, he is let loose upon society, in a tenfold degree, a more daring, desperate, and effective villain. ”

“ Submitting to Jesus and shouting his praise;
Like doves to their windows, or clouds through the sky,
From sin's darkest borders for safety they fly.
"This strong bolted dungeon is vocal with prayer,
And joy rolls her orb through the sky of despair;
This strong hold of Satan is trembling to fall,
The power of Jehovah is seen by us all.
"The angel of mercy can visit a cell,
And on the dark bosom of misery dwell.
The sunbeams of heaven can shine from above,
And glow on our midnight a rainbow of love.
"All glorious Eternal! we tremble and fear ”

“ Many no doubt will consider my accounts of human nature too dark; but no one who has had experience in the school of poverty or dependence, will charge me with being an Acetic. I have no enmity against my species to draw me from a fair statement of facts, nor can I be induced to keep back, out of a false respect for mankind, a fair representation of those traits of character which lie hidden from ordinary view, like vipers under a rose bush. ”

“ And ought there not to be a place for such monsters in human form, where they must drink of the cup which they have filled for others, and experience the pains they have inflicted? There is just such a place.—There the rich man lifted up his eyes being in torments. And if those will be doomed to this place, of whom the Judge will say—"I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me not," what must be the fate of this man, who locked up his living prisoners in the cell of despair, and threw the dying into a bed of embers? ”

“ No; before you can do any thing towards reforming a sinner, you must convince him of your real friendship for him, which can be done only by being friendly; and it is not being friendly to inflict pain without a benevolent motive. The construction of ordinary prisons is full cruel enough to fill the soul with terror; no friend would build even such a place as Windsor prison was, for one he loved, and no human being could suppose that love and friendship for the human race, had any thing to do in forming its plan. ”

“ But it is not the sinner alone who suffers by this conduct of men in power, it is the innocent too; and who but a fiend would punish the innocent with the guilty? It would denote a moral and perfect fitness for any place but heaven, to take pleasure in afflicting, unnecessarily, even the vilest sinner; what then must be the moral complexion of that man's soul, who can sport with the unmerited sufferings of the crimeless, and take an unearthly satisfaction in multiplying the tears and agony of the innocent wife and the stainless orphan? ”

“ Sustained then by my own personal experience and observation, I say fearlessly, that the solitary confinement plan, is an unwise, unfeeling, and ruinous innovation upon the Penitentiary discipline. Every body knows that it adds to the terror of such places; evinces a cruel recklessness of the feelings and personal comfort of the prisoner; and has the effect to convince him that the government is not his friend. This destroys his confidence in its mercy, and creates in him a disposition for revenge, which will eternally baffle all efforts for his reformation. ”

“ May God bless all their labours to give this part of their discipline a permanent residence in every prison on earth! I expect the time when prisons will be purified from sin—I expect a time when they will be no longer needed—and I expect this through the universal and perfect diffusion of the principles of the gospel. "When in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." The means of grace, then, are the only means of reformation. ”

“ Nothing is more out of place, than the mutual charges of immorality which professors throw on each other's creed. The infidel smiles when he hears these mutual criminations; and who can blame him for not espousing a cause which, judging only from its effects on some of its professed votaries, is calculated to set friend against friend, and break up the harmony of social life? If he has never tasted for himself that the Lord is gracious, can we suppose he will be won over to the love of a principle, which appears from the exhibition before him, to be perfectly hateful? ”

“ Prisons are as numerous as ever, and almost every season sees a new one erected. The annual volume of crimes is as huge and black as ever. The gloom of these earthly hells is undissipated by the charm of operative benevolence. And though it is two thousand years since the foundations of christianity were laid in the earth—that heavenly principle which was to say to the prisoners, "go forth,"—the notes of its rejoicing ascend in faint association with the deep-toned sigh of despair and misery, which is hourly bursting from the grated cell. ”

“ If men desire to make sinners better, let them help them to reform, and not place them under a necessity to do wrong. Let there be an adherence to principle, and if punishment is to be under the government of mercy, let it be merciful throughout; but if it is not designed to reform, then say (p. 139) so—write your laws in blood—catch every criminal you can, and either hang him or shut him up for life. Let there be consistency between principle and conduct, and if it is the purpose of the law to make its ministers furies, let them not be clothed as angels of light. ”

“ The astonished Syrian inquired the cause of his weeping. "I weep," said the man of God, "because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword; and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child." Indignant at the imputation of such monstrous cruelty to him, Hazael replied, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing!" "But," said the prophet, "the Lord hath shewed me that thou shall be king over Syria." ”

“ THE CONNEXION BETWEEN INTEMPERANCE AND CRIME, AS VISIBLE IN PRISON.
Intemperance is not the cause of every crime that is committed, though it is of very many of them. It is itself one of the greatest of crimes. It is a violation of not one law only, but of many. The drunkard outrages the law of his nature, tramples on the laws of morality, and flings contempt on the law of the Almighty; and it is not at all wonderful that so manifold a sin should meet with a various and adequate retribution. ”

“ 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? ”

“ BURNHAM.
The crime for which this man was sentenced to imprisonment was so base, and so revolting to all the feelings of humanity, that I almost dread to describe his sufferings, lest the sympathies of the reader should lead him to forget the greatness of the crime, in contemplating the miseries of the criminal. But it is possible for the worst man on earth to be abused, and murder would be murder still, though the victim were deserving of death. ”

“ Man is a fallen creature, and the fragments of ruined greatness are visible in every developement of his moral history. In that little circle of worshipping prisoners, I saw the same principles at work which have divided christians in every age and country—the same principles of perverted christianity which exalted an ambitious mortal to the throne of spiritual empire, and created the inquisition for the torture of heretics—the spirit of misguided zeal which has drawn the sword of conquest and drenched the earth with blood. ”

“ While a man is in health, he can endure hardship, and support himself under the pressure of almost any calamity; but when his health fails, he sinks down a nerveless victim, and lies exposed to the mercy of those evils he can no longer resist. It is the sick that, of all the sufferers in this world, most need the pity and compassion of their fellow mortals, and whose neglect and sufferings cry the loudest to heaven. ”

“ Perhaps no prison on earth ever had better keepers than the one in Windsor. Though many of these have been as bad as humanity under such circumstances could possibly become, and though much of their conduct cannot be contemplated without the deepest horror of soul, the number of such monsters has been comparatively small. The frequent changes which take place in the officers, and the shortness of their residence there, are very fortunate circumstances, not at all favorable to the production of perfect tyrants. The longer a keeper stays there, the more cruel and heartless he becomes. ”

“ It is made the duty of the officers to have an especial eye, in all their conduct, to the moral reformation of the prisoners. How inconsistent, then, must such conduct be? Can such cruelty on any person do him any good? Rather would not such treatment have the effect, even on a saint, to make him a sinner? But look at the punishment of this little boy. What he endured would have crushed a giant. No account made of his age and inexperience—no thought of the kind and degree of correction suited to him—no feelings of compassion ”

“ The life and soul of it is unmingled mercy, and men, qualified by gentleness of temper and benevolence of heart, to administer its laws, are not to be found on earth. Man, in his ruined and fallen nature, is a savage, and the milk of human tenderness was never drawn from the breast of a tiger. To give a full practical demonstration of the tendency and effects of the Penitentiary discipline, as it exists in the speculations of the philanthropist, God must become the director, and angels the ministering spirits of its administration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Holy nature prompts her to the place where her child is suffering. The iron doors, the massy walls, the dungeon's gloom, are no terrors to her imagination, if her son is there. Danger cannot intimidate; the world's scorn cannot deter; the crime and ingratitude of the child are forgotten. ”

“ The case of Samuel E. Godfrey is one of deep and thrilling interest to every feeling heart. It is one of those numerous cases which stain the records of humanity, in which the guilt of a criminal is extenuated by the circumstances of its existence, and lost in the intensity of his sufferings. The fertile regions of Fancy cannot produce a theme more fruitful in incidents, and more painful in its melancholy details. ”

“ I can weep over the evils which I am unable to cure. I do not expect any great improvement in our prisons, till I see great reformations out of them. From the society of the free all our prisoners are taken, and till that society is purified it will continue to furnish its annual victims to the penitentiary; but when that is done, the fetters and dungeons of the captive will crumble to dust, and the improvement of prisoners will be simultaneous with the reformation of the free. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ Societies have been formed, books have been published, funds have been collected, and a "PRISON DISCIPLINE" has been put into practice, on the infatuated supposition, that a bad man can be made good by writing him a "VILLIAN" on every page that presents him to the public eye, and crushing him under a painful and torturing humiliation which would fire an angel with resentment, and make a John a Judas. Every sermon that is preached, every prayer that is made, every hymn that is sung in prisons, tells the convicts that they are sinners above all men, because they suffer such things ”