repentance and amendment; while to be in companionship with the admitted bad, is to be almost certainly sealed to future infamy. This strong but correct view of the cases of new offenders, is that upon which the Agent has based his action; and it is not only due to him, but to the plans and labors of the Society, to say, that while it is probable that some of those whom he, with much labor, has released from prison, have shown that they did not improve by his beneficent efforts, it is most true that by far the largest portion have shown by their subsequent conduct that they appreciate the benevolence that interposed in their behalf, and were ready to make the only compensation which is acceptable to their benefactor, viz., an amended life. It is dangerous—it is at least wrong—to make a low estimate of the labors that take a human being from the cells of a prison, when his character is such as to lead to a belief that he will do no wrong, by example, to society, nor sink in the scale of morals. It is wrong to say that the verdict of a jury fully acquits a man, restores him at once and entirely to society, and wipes away the stain which a prison cell has imparted. Thousands hear of the charge who never know of the acquittal,—thousands recollect the man as the inmate of a prison, who have no remembrance of the full cause of his release. The adverse statement of the press, as it regards the act, or the adverse testimony on the trial, lives in the minds of many who do not know, or scarcely would care, about all that was said in behalf of the accused to induce a complete acquittal. We know the power of conscious innocence; but we know also the effect of conscious disgrace. A man who has been imprisoned long, on a criminal charge, may, in his chamber, or in his family, feel the peace of a “conscience void of offence;” but, abroad in the world, he will feel himself continually on the defensive,—always anxious to show that he is still worthy of the confidence he seeks,—always fearful that some act or word of his, unnoticeable in others, may be construed as consistent with charges which he has publicly disproved; and he feels that the months or weeks of imprisonment which he has suffered, are not to be redeemed by a whole life of liberty and honorable conduct.