This neglect of the prisoner when he is released, is the great cause of so many re-commitments, either to the _same_, or other prisons. The man is unable to get into employment. He reads scorn in every eye. He has no clothes fit to wear. He has no home, nor pillow to lay his head on. He spends his days on the highway, and his nights in the field or in some barn. He has not a crust of bread to satisfy the imperious demands of hunger. He drinks the running brook. His spirits sink down. He is a stranger in his own country, and a hermit in the midst of society. He is starving in the midst of plenty. Uncared for by others, he forgets all care about himself. Worse off he cannot be, he may be better. He has nothing to lose, and any change must be in his favour. He puts forth exertion and cares not how the experiment results. Look at this man. Is not his situation almost an excuse for any thing he may do? Place yourself there, and conjecture how _you_ would act. What _can_ he do? What could an _angel_ do in his circumstances? Here, you who would trace second offences to their cause, here is the reason why so many return to their former abodes. Where, I ask, is the mercy of a penitentiary, which treats its subjects thus? Don't say that they could get into employment. They could not. Would you employ a man so meanly clothed, that he was not fit to tend your hogs, and whose every appearance told you he had either been released from state prison, or broken out of gaol? You would not. Neither would your neighbours. What then could he do? Let the benevolent think of this, and act accordingly. That is not benevolence which sits by the sufferer only to rivet his chains, and leaves him when it can torment him no more. This penitentiary is like the thieves who fell upon the traveller to Jericho, it strips its victims of their raiment, and leaves them half dead. GOD'S VIOLATED RULE OF TREATING PENITENT CRIMINALS. AN ESSAY. If the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of the sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him; he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.--EZEKIEL xxxiii. 15, 16.