As to these persons, and especially in the female department, nothing could startle them more than an imputation upon their _belief_, nothing offend them more than an attack upon their creed; and suspecting that their delinquencies in practice will be imputed to the deficiency of the doctrine in which they have been reared, they stand often on the defensive; occasionally, indeed, they seem ready to take the offensive against those whom they believe to be of another form of worship. This all may be wrong; it may be ridiculous, but nevertheless it _is_; and with those who seek to do them a good, and reclaim them from vice to virtue, it must be respected, so far as not to offend it by any evidence of hostility to aught but sin and vice. The confidence of the prisoner must first be secured, and this not always by the same means, that his improvement is to be effected; and few circumstances so soon open up the heart as a similarity of creed, and an evidence of belief that that creed is not answerable for the vices or crimes of those who rather hold it in abeyance than in practice. And in that view of the case, and of the wants of the prisoner, some of the Committee having been specially assigned to the female department of the County Prison, have solicited or accepted the offered services of educated and pious females of diverse religious denominations, and opened to them, by authority from the proper officers, the doors of all the cells, so that each may have access to every inmate, and deal with her mind and conscience in the way which shall seem best adapted to the peculiar case. It is not expected, as certainly it is not desired, that these devoted women should attempt to proselyte the prisoners, looking rather to a change of creed than a change of conduct; or rather, to speak more charitably, seeking a reformation of conduct only through a change of creed; but it is, of course, supposed, that each will deal with the object of her care in the way in which her conscience shall sanction, and that advantage will be taken of a similarity of creed to enforce a renewed recognition of doctrine in which the offender was reared, and a resort to the means which, having been enforced and adopted in childhood, are easily comprehended and readily practised, and bring with them the reminiscence of the better days of home and early piety, while they give a stronger hope of future prosperity and happiness.