Recollections of Windsor Prison;: Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious ReflectionReynolds, John, of Vermont
History
Recollections of Windsor Prison;: Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection
Reynolds, John, of Vermont
Vermont State Prison
Having thus briefly noticed some objections which I had reason to
anticipate, I shall proceed with the subject before me; and I propose,
in the first place, to state how repentant criminals _are_ treated by
those who call themselves christians, and even by christian ministers,
after they are released from prison.
In the second place, I shall shew how they _ought_ to be treated,
according to the divine principle of the text.
And lastly, I shall glance at the good that would flow from such
treatment not only to _them_, but to the _community_, and to the cause
of _religion_.
I. I am to state how repentant criminals _are_ treated by those who
call themselves _christians_, and even by christian _ministers_, after
they are released from prison. In doing this, I shall confine myself
to positive _facts_; and of these, I shall select only such as have
come under my _own_ knowledge, or which were related to me by those
who either _observed_ or _experienced_ them.
The first individual whom I shall cause to pass before you in
connexion with the treatment which he has received from professing
christians and christian ministers, is the Rev. J. Robbins, a man of
uncommon powers of mind, and of unquestionable piety, and who has more
divine seals to his commission, than many of his opposers.
While he was suffering for his sins within the dreary walls of a State
prison, he was led to think on his ways and reform his life. At the
expiration of his sentence, he was let out into the world, without
money, and very thinly and uncomfortably clothed. In this situation,
destitute of all things, and far from his friends, he went into the
adjoining city of Boston, and went to work with a _hand-cart_. The
weather was cold, and he was not able to obtain clothes enough to keep
him warm.
In this forlorn and suffering condition, he applied to the Rev. Mr.
****, who had been Chaplain of the prison in which he had been
confined, for some relief, or assistance to obtain employment. This
Rev. gentleman was personally acquainted with him; knew that he had
resolved on leading a christian life; and knew that he was at that
time in need of a friend. What did he do for him? Why, he
said--"Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding he
gave him not those things which were needful to the body."
If these things are right, let it be known. If this is the
christianity of the Bible, let it be avowed--let the preachers from
their desks declare it, and bring the high standard of christian
benevolence down to the muddy surface of their _practical_
illustrations of it. Let there be harmony between doctrine and
conduct. Either give us a _revision_ of the Scriptures, to accord with
the morality of the church, or let its maxims as they now stand in
capitals on all its pages, be copied in the every day and every where
conduct of those who profess to be the _salt_ of the earth, and the
_light_ of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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