'But first I must have your guarantee that I shall suffer no inconvenience in consequence.' 'Why what danger do you run?' was asked me. 'This. Am I not in the power of governor and surgeon? Can they not retaliate in your absence? No prisoner is safe in any gaol, as you ought to know, if the authorities come to regard him as reporting them. If you decline to give me this guarantee I shall not make any communication to you, and when I am at liberty again, I shall have a right to publish that your commission did not learn the whole truth at this gaol--that it did not even put itself in a condition to learn it.' 'Well,' the chairman said, 'We guarantee that you shall suffer no inconvenience in consequence of any evidence you may give to us.' Then, and not till then, did I proceed to explain what in the last letter and notes is recounted. The commissioners kept their word. The severity of the discipline, instituted by the governor when a visitor came, was somewhat relaxed; and once or twice, when I was suffering from cold (before unnoticed), a can of mutton broth was ordered me by the surgeon, in which I found a very sensible looking piece of mutton. Nothing more of importance remains to be narrated. Concluding, let me solicit consideration to the moral aspects of Christianity, as set forth in this narrative, and to what I consider the political moral of these pages. Many persons whose candour and general intelligence I do not distrust, tell me that the persecution here recounted, is not to be ascribed to Christianity. To this I make the answer made on this subject (the imprisonment of myself, Adams, and others) by my late friend, Maltus Questell Ryall. 'Christians set a watch upon them--Christians informed against them--Christians prejudiced the public against them. By Christian pay were hireling lawyers retained--by Christian witnesses confronted--by the Christian Press misrepresented--by Christian juries found guilty, by Christian judges condemned.' It is necessary to put the argument in this cumulative form to satisfy some understandings; but a well-informed and candid Christian can hardly be supposed to need formal proof on this head. A careful study of the Evangelists some time after this imprisonment, satisfied me that the religion of Jesus involves persecution. A man who believes that men need saving, that there is only one way whereby they can be saved, that _his_ way is that way, and that it is better for a man to lose the whole world than to lose his own soul by missing that way, such a believer will inevitably coerce all he can into it. If he is not a persecutor he ought, in moral consistency, to be one. Having the fear of the philanthropists and of the humanitarians before his eyes, he may modify his practice, but it will be at the expense of his penetration or of his religious duty. I have no difficulty whatever in understanding that the conscientious among the