been quenched in the boisterous waters of madness, and the star of whose reason had set in darkness; those who could not appreciate the influences and tendencies of kindness; those who had been confined and chained for a number of years-who had been rendered fierce by ill-treatment, and whose insanity had been aggravated by violence. And what was the result of the operations of this law? It made the stormy maniac gentle as a child; it hushed piercing screeches into softness; it changed violent opposition into obedience; it gave comparative happiness to those whose previous days of insanity were not relieved by a single smile of pleasure. And how did it effect this? It reared no chilly dungeon, gloomy with filth and damp. straw; it threw no chains upon the limbs of those who came under its charge; it uttered no threats; it wielded no lash. It cast the oil of gentleness upon the raging waves of violence; it wove its web of silk around the bitter and blighted soul; it threw its light into mental darkness; and it knocked gently for admittance into the fleshly house which was deprived of its lamp of reason. And, lo! not only did insanity bow to its holy influence, but in almost every instance, it succeeded in re-arranging the disturbed brain, and in replacing the light of reason in its socket, to fit and prepare its subject once

more for the varied duties of human life. Oh, if aught is wanting to convince the skeptical of the power of kindness, it is found here! For if that law will subdue the maniac, calm down the raging storm of insanity, and render the poor victim of dethroned reason as mild and obedient as a child, it certainly will have a powerful influence over those who are sane, whatever may be their situation. If Deity has so constituted his creatures, that violent madness will bow before the law of kindness, we may well believe, that in reference to sane men, it is far the best to obey the direction of his inspired servant, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for, in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," illustrated, as it is, by the conduct of the Savior, who for his enemies prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

CHAPTER VI.

KINDNESS AND CRIME.

"The secret of the success of the Prison Discipline Society, is its use of the great principle of the Gospellove to the guilty."-PRISON DISCIPLINE REPORT.

THERE is yet another department of human life, in which the law of kindness is acquiring extensive and powerful influence. I have reference to criminals-those victims of vice who break the laws of society, and consequently endure the penalties attached to those laws. In times past, criminals have been visited with constant severity, and, in multitudes of instances, with positive cruelty. And at the present day, it is not only the fact in many prisons, that prisoners, in order to subdue them, are subjected to vindictive and frequent corporeal punishments, but multitudes of people still cherish the erroneous notion, that prisoners cannot be controlled in any other manner than by unrelenting severity. The annals of criminal legislation too truly prove that this severity has been faithfully administered. To examine the neglect, the

filth, the stripes, the revenge, and the vitiating influences, to which criminals have been 'compelled to submit, even in countries which boast of their civilization, makes the soul thrill with horror. Legislators and public opinion have been entirely, and in many instances now are strangely wrong in this respect. If an individual so acts that the law cannot grasp him with its iron hand, and he dresses well as a votary of fashion, he too often is so much countenanced, that he is admitted to gay society and the smiles of many of the influential, though he may plunder the widow and the orphan, and riot in seduction and debauchery. But let a man commit the smallest crime in the eye of criminal law-let him pass the ordeal of public trial and conviction-let him wear the striped dress of a convict and straitway the mark of Cain is on his brow; and in the wretched prison to which he is consigned, and the stripes and suffering to which he is a slave, people forget that he is still a man, with feelings that might become active in virtue, if excited by the voice of kindness. Who cares for him? The past answers, none, with the exception of here and there a philanthropist, whose voice has warned legislators of the revenge and cruelty they were inflicting on those who should be raised up from their degra

dation, instead of being crushed deeper into an infamy which destroys all hope of reform.

From the multitude of facts, but a few will be selected to show the unsurpassed wretchedness which has hitherto been the lot of criminals. In the Memoirs of Howard is the following statement :-The prison for the county of Cornwall, was, in fact, but a room, or passage, twenty-three feet and a half, by seven and a half, with only one small window in it: opposite to. that window there were, however, three dungeons, or cages, about six and a half feet deep; one nine feet long; another about eight; the third not five; the last for women. They were all, as we may naturally suppose, very offensive. No chimney; no drains; no water; damp earth floors; and no infirmary."* Can it be wondered at, that in such a hole as this, unfit even for wild beasts, every prisoner but one was sick with the jail-fever? And yet this loathsome place was a fair sample of the prisons and jails in England and the continent of Europe.

Nor was the condition of convicts, formerly, in our own country, any better than in Europe and England. The prisons, not excepting that which existed in the philanthropic city of Philadelphia, were of the most wretched and comfortless character-and into them crowds of

* Memoirs of Howard, p. 77.