They had now silenced every mouth, and were enjoying their triumph with much satisfaction. But the efforts to obtain for the prisoners what the law allowed them, though unobserved, were not dead nor sleeping. There was a higher authority than that of the prison, and arrangements were making to address a petition to the majesty of the public. To do this was perilous for the individual who should attempt it, and be found out; but magnanimity in a good cause is no crime. This noble spirit nerved the soul of one of the prisoners, and forgetting himself to serve his fellows, he wrote a piece for publication in one of the papers, and found a friend to convey it to the printer. This piece contained a brief history of the means of grace in the prison, of the ruin of the chapel, and of the fruitless efforts which had been made with the keepers; and concluded with a firm appeal to the people and the authorities in behalf of the prisoners. This was printed in due time, and the effect was immediately visible in the prison. A Chaplain was found, and meetings were held every Sabbath, and no more occasion for complaint occurred. This sketch presents the moral discipline of the prison in its true light. Jehovah is not the God of that Institution, but Mammon. The souls of the prisoners are not of so much value in the estimation of the keepers, as one hour of their labor. To the chink of their Idol's box they give most rapacious ears, and love no music half so well. Time and eternity, heaven and hell, peace and affliction, smiles and tears, life and death, are all lost sight of in the arithmetical liturgy of Mammon's worship. In their estimation the most pious prisoner is he who weaves the most cloth, and no organ has half so religious tones as the clack of a loom. The prisoner's _Draft-book_ is his only _Bible_, and _he_ is the most thorough and pious christian, who can weave the handsomest piece of diaper in the shortest time. I do not mean to treat the subject with lightness; it is too solemn; and I mean to be understood as being in solemn and emphatic earnest. These things are so, and I have witnesses of their truth among the living and the dead. From such a place then, who could hope to see a man go forth reformed, except from bad to worse? RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE PRISONERS. It has been very often said, that the convicts in state-prisons are either atheists, deists, or universalists, than which, however, nothing can be farther from the truth. I have known as many as five hundred while they were in confinement, and I have always made it a practice to learn the religious opinions of all with whom I have conversed; and what I am going to write may be depended on as the actual result of my personal inquiries.