Those whom I have known have been educated in the doctrines of the endless punishment school, and but few have departed from these doctrines. I have found only _two_ atheists, not one deist, and but _one_ universalist. The doctrine of endless punishment is strongly and broadly speaking, the orthodoxy of state prisoners. I am confident of the truth of this statement, and I make it, not by way of _slur_, or _insinuation_, against any sect of christians, but as a fact which _all denominations_ may use as they may have occasion. Very many of the convicts have been members of churches, and a few of them have been preachers. This is a subject of painful reflection; it shows how extremely liable the _best_ of men are to be overcome by temptation, and says to those who glory in their own strength, "let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." It is no argument against religion, that some of its votaries disgrace it. There are faithful soldiers in an army, from which many desert; and christianity is from _heaven_, though many of her avowed friends appear to have come from _beneath_. In respect to the religious _feelings_ of the prisoners, it is true to say, that each one manifests a very strong attachment to the faith in which he was brought up; and hence there are warm and zealous advocates for almost every creed. It is also proper to remark, that many of them evince a very uncommon acquaintance with the Sacred Scriptures, and a shrewdness and skill in defending their particular systems, which is truly astonishing; and it is not often that a convert can be made from his long cherished opinions. There is one point in which these disputants are unanimously agreed, and this is, that all the means of grace are confined to this life, and consequently, if a man die in sin, his doom is fixed in misery for ever. I know of only _three_ who entered the prison with a contrary opinion, and only _one_ who was converted from it afterwards. I had an opportunity of witnessing a very general time of religious awakening among the prisoners, and of perceiving how firmly every mind clings to long fostered notions, even when it is under the process of genuine and reforming sorrow for sin. Among the _many_ converts, those who had been _Baptists_ by education, were Baptists _still_; _Methodist_ were Methodists _still_; and so of all the rest; but it was truly delightful to see how, notwithstanding these little complexional differences of opinion on some points, they all united in _one_ spirit in their religious exercises. Though I was not of the general belief in regard to endless suffering, still they knew no difference of feeling, and the happiest hours of my whole life were those which I spent with them, in the cementing feelings of universal brotherhood, and in mingling my voice with theirs in prayer and praise to the one God and Father of us all.