I bring this subject, my Christian Friends, before _you_, and I urge it upon your attention, because it is by a community of which you form a valuable part, that the work must be done, if done at all. I bring it before christians, _exclusively_, before the _church of Christ_ which he purchased with his own blood; it is before _you_ that I roll the claims of your perishing fellow mortals; and, identifying myself with them, I say to you on their behalf, "Come and help us." Where else under heaven can we look but to _you_? Who will pity us, if _you_ will not? Who will bring us the messages of salvation, if _you_ refuse? We ask not for _liberty_ nor _earthly comforts_; we are contented with our _homely meals_ and our _beds of straw_; with these _glooms_, these _dungeons_, and these _fetters_; but we want that freedom with which _Christ_ makes free; we want to feel the warming beams of the Sun of Righteousness, and eat the bread and drink the water of eternal life. Such is the voice which is this moment falling on your ears from the deep and gloomy recesses of the prison-house, and permit me to urge your immediate attention to it from the following considerations: 1. Should your pious labors be blessed to the reformation of any part of these offenders, _not only will they become happy in the enjoyment of virtue and religion, but a very great service will also be rendered to society_. 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? Like fiery serpents, they would scatter dismay where they fly and death where they repose. And from the very nature of vice, whose grasp is to accumulation, if they are not brought to reform by the means and principles of the gospel, they will be more hardened and desperate than ever. I say "unless brought to reform by the _means_ and _principles_ of the _gospel_." A mere _moral_ reform in such subjects is not to be hoped for. They have already demonstrated the insufficiency of mere _moral restraints_ to keep them from the commission of crime.--Nothing but the solemn motives which enforce the duties of _religion_, can restrain them now. Their consciences have "swung from their moorings;" and they must be brought back and chained to the throne of God, before they who have been so long accustomed to do evil, will learn to do well. _Religion_, the holy religion of _Jesus Christ_, then, with the _tremendous sanctions_ which it draws from the _world to come_, is the only means