left by which these prodigals may be reclaimed. And should you be the means of planting this religion in their hearts, you will not only save _their_ souls from death, but you will cause a wave of joy to roll more extensively wide than you have conceived. O! how many weeping parents and brothers, and wives and children, would feel the happy effect of your pious labors, and rise up and call you blessed. And these sons of crime themselves, renovated in their moral natures, by those redeeming principles which you will have instrumentally brought home to their breasts, will, when released from their dungeons, go out among christians and unbelievers, rejoicing the former by declaring what God has done for their souls, and inspiring with solemn and heavenly contemplations the latter, by testifying to the faithfulness of the saying, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save the chief of sinners. Instead of scattering dread and poisoning the healthful streams of society, they will move along in the pleasing round of christian duties, living witnesses of the power of divine grace, and examples of the excellency and loveliness of the Christian Religion. Their houses will be houses of prayer; their evenings will be spent in reading and meditation, and their days in honest industry; and their places in the Temple of God will never be vacant. O! what a combination of powerful motives are here presented before you, to draw out the pious efforts of christians in behalf of prisoners; the motives of humanity, patriotism, and religion--a threefold cord; and may God forbid that it should ever be broken, or unfastened from your minds, until you follow the example of Howard, and bless with all the ordinances of the gospel, the neglected and perishing inhabitants of our State Prisons. 2. I would also urge you to listen to the cry of the captives from the consideration, that _they are human beings, and equally susceptible with others of all the improvements and pleasures of virtue and piety, on the one hand, and of all the degradation and misery of vice, on the other_.