The inmates of our institutions may be divided into two broad classes, the criminal and the unfortunate. From the very fact of their being inmates of the institutions both alike suffer certain deprivation of “the rights and privileges” secured to them as citizens. In the case of criminals those rights and privileges are forfeited. They are deprived of personal liberty, because they are a danger instead of a support to the State and to the commonwealth. The question that meets us here is, does the restriction of personal involve also that of religious liberty and worship? Happily, there is no need to argue the matter at any length, as it has already been pronounced upon by the State; and as regards the religious discipline in prisons, our objection is as much against a non-application as a misapplication of the law. “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship” is never debarred any man by the State. On the contrary, it is not only enjoined, but, where possible, provided. Even the criminal who has fallen under the supreme sentence of the law, and whose very life is forfeit to the State, is in all cases allowed the full and free ministry of the pastor of his church, whatever that church may be. Nothing is allowed to interfere with their communion. Even the ordinary discipline of the prison is broken into in favor of that power to which, from the very first, the State set a region apart. And it is only at the last moment of life that the minister, be he Catholic, Methodist, or Jew, yields to the hangman.