Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in ReformationGriffiths, Arthur
Philosophy
Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in Reformation
Griffiths, Arthur
Millbank Prison (London, England); Penal colonies; Prisons -- Great Britain -- History
All the chaplain’s professional feelings were also roused by another
incident that transpired not long after his arrival. It was discovered
that a prisoner, George Anderson, a man of colour, who had been
educated at a missionary college, had through the connivance of a
warder been endeavouring to sow the seeds of disbelief in the minds
of many of the prisoners. He had turned the chaplain and his sacred
office into ridicule, asserting that the services of the Church of
England were nonsense from beginning to end, that the prayers contained
false doctrine, that the Athanasian Creed was all rubbish, and that
the church “went with a lie in her right hand.” This man Anderson must
have been a thorn in the chaplain’s side, for they had more than once
a serious scuffle in the polemics of the church. Mr. Russell got warm
in the discussion of a certain passage in Scripture, and jumping up
suddenly to reach his Bible, struck his leg against the table. After
this Anderson had drawn a caricature of the scene, writing underneath,
“Oh, my leg!” and from henceforth the chaplain went by the name of “Oh,
my leg.” At another time there was a long dispute as to the date of the
translation of the Septuagint, and upon the service for “the Visitation
of the Sick.” Anderson, on returning to his cell from Mr. Russell’s
office, had been in the habit of taking off his coat, and shaking it,
saying always: “Peugh—— I smell of fire and brimstone.” One cannot
refrain from observing here how much better oakum picking would have
suited Anderson than theological controversy.
Fortunately among the prisoners were two—Johnson and Manister Worts—who
were more than a match for the unorthodox black man. Anderson asserted
that the Athanasian Creed was objected to by many able divines; he took
exception to the title, “religious” given to the king in the prayer
for the High Court of Parliament, whether he was religious or not;
he maintained that his animadversions upon the church were the very
words used by his former pastor, the Reverend Silas Fletcher, from the
pulpit. The knowledge and acquirements of Johnson and Worts however
enabled them “triumphantly to refute Anderson.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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