A meeting which at times waxed warm. One of the subjects for discussion was Dr. McKim’s recent book, “Heredity and Human Progress.” The consensus of opinion among the chaplains was that the cause of crime is not psychological, as Dr. McKim tries to prove, but sociological, and it behooves the churches especially to try not only to improve the environments of the prisoners and ex-convicts, but to study more closely the cause of crime. ADDRESS. REV. WM. J. BATT, CHAPLAIN, CONCORD, MASS. He reviewed the past work of the Chaplains’ Association, and said: “That as they looked back he certainly felt very much had been gained from the existence of this organization,” and that much more could be done to aid the wardens and superintendents in the management of prisons and reformatories. That criminality was not on the increase, being lessened by public education, beginning in our public schools, where there has been no backward step in the matter of discipline and study of civil government. To-day the cry is: “Use the preventative in the case of the discharged prisoner.” Yes, but what is needed is to use the preventative “education” at all times before he has cause to enter a prison gate. The value of the parole, and possibly of the indeterminate sentence when enthroned, requires that in person you lend a helping hand to such a man to uplift him to better ways. The highest realization of our hopes in this world we shall never see, when all the gloomy enclosures of prison walls stand empty. Let there be earnest courage to walk and work by the light now shining about us, for the Light of the world is Jesus Christ. CHAPLAIN WM. A. LOCKE, MANSFIELD, OHIO, READ A PAPER ON “_Prison Methods; Formative and Reformative_.” Crime is very largely due to poverty, or rather to what he called misdirected energy, both of mind and soul, and is a problem in sociology to direct activities from abnormal into normal channels. He dwelt much on prison discipline as of the greatest importance, and could not be too exacting, but that whatever methods might be employed, no violence should be done to the man within the man; that punishment should always be reformative. He spoke of the prisoner as a social iconoclast, who had lost his ambition, his help, and who sought to destroy what other men cherish. “It is the object of the prison to teach such a personal respect for social obligations, that nothing belongs to anyone except what he has gained by his brawn or his brains.” He touched on the evils of saloons, and said: “Through the doors of saloons to the prison doors pass one-half of the prisoners in this State.” PRACTICAL PRISON REFORM. CHAPLAIN D. R. IMBRIE, HOBOKEN, PA.