At another time, when this same man had been meeting the pleas of the prisoners for preaching by the old excuse--"I can't get any body"--one of them said to him, if he would permit _him_ to make _one_ trial, successful or unsuccessful, he would trouble him no more about preaching. Permit me, said he, to write an account of the destitution of the prison in respect to preaching, and the reasons of it, as you have assigned them, and send it to a Missionary Society in Boston, and I will never open my mouth again on this subject to you. "If that were _necessary_," said the officer, "I could do it _myself_." "Then," replied the prisoner, "I take it for granted, that you do not consider it _necessary_ for us to have preaching." Frustrated in all their efforts to obtain a Chaplain, the prisoners tried another experiment; they applied to the "powers that were" for permission to have some christian man, from without, come in on the Lord's day and _read_ a sermon. In this they anticipated success, but met disappointment. It was every way reasonable and pious, and good might have grown out of it; but, alas for the piety of somebody, no good man could be found to go up to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Is it to be supposed that there was not ONE man in the pious village of Windsor, who would have delighted to perform that office of kindness and love to his fellow men? The question must be settled between the men of that village and the officer who brought the charge against them. Undespairing yet, another course was suggested, and the prisoners petitioned to be allowed to meet in the chapel on the Sabbath, and conduct meeting themselves, by praying and singing, and reading a sermon. To this, as they promised to find all their own books, it was thought there could no objection be made. But the human heart is prodigiously fertile in excuses for what it does not like to perform, and one was easily found to bar this petition. It was this. Christianity, blush for thy votaries.--"IT WILL NOT LOOK WELL TO SEE A PRISONER PRAY IN PUBLIC!!" I hope the Gentleman will remember this when he thinks of death and heaven. Praying was then struck out of the petition, but it was equally improper for a prisoner to _read_ or _sing_ in public. Invention was now exhausted, and the case was given up. But to cap the climax, one of the keepers said that _he_ would read a sermon on the Sabbath, if _another_ one would pray. The keeper who offered to read a sermon, was by no means a pattern of piety. Lucifer and he would be alike _in_ or _out_ of their places any where. But he took on him the office of priest for once, and assembled the prisoners in the chapel on the Sabbath, and went into the desk, and read _part_ of a sermon. There was no _praying_, for the one who had engaged to do that duty had fallen _back_, and _this_ one did not know how. The next Sabbath he finished the sermon, and resigned the priesthood.