The evolution of the prison has been a long, dark, cruel process, as it did not excite the interest and sympathy of the church till within recent times. It is admitted now that prison reform began with Jesus Christ, who, when He had conquered death and hell on the Cross, went up to glory with the blood-washed soul of a repentant prisoner in His arms, leading captivity captive. From this time on, the era of seeking to save and help the prisoner began. But it did not make the advances it should have made till the days of John Howard, who is called the morning star of prison reform. It is greatly to be regretted that no efforts are put forth to raise the moral tone of our prison management. In Great Britain and the Continent of Europe, there are schools for the proper training of prison officials. In these schools are taught the military spirit, alertness, courteous behavior, and quick movements in case of emergency. But it is doubtful if in any of the schools they teach the officers to appeal to the better nature of the prisoners for any permanent reform. The work of a modern prison is largely one of punishment and repression. There are no lectures on hygiene and sanitation, nor on manliness or how to resist temptations, nor is anything done to incite them to live a new life, except what comes through the Chaplain, and that only once a week. In studying the early stages of lawlessness from the rudest times to the present day, I am satisfied that crime grows on the mind by insensible degrees, and shows itself only at the propitious time when the overt act brings the individual into prominence. I also believe that a certain class of delinquents are made more vicious by prison life, simply, because their moral instincts are already perverted, and by the lives they have led in the past. Such hopeless people should be sent to lunatic asylums, rather than to prisons, as we believe they are more in need of medical treatment than punishment. One of the most needed reforms of the present century is the necessity of putting forth more efforts to save beginners in crime. In many of our prisons, criminals are huddled together like sheep, and as a result the young offender learns more evil in one week from old crooks than ever he knew before. There is nobody to blame for this but the old methods that are still in vogue. Often criminals are driven to crime by motives generated in a vicious nature, and as they are too weak to resist the high pressure of modern temptations, they soon become law-breakers. It is foolish to talk of the criminal classes, but criminal individuals. Criminality is simply the darkened side of a human life, showing itself in deeds of wickedness and rebellion. Anybody under the dominion and power of the Evil One will dare to commit the most atrocious crime on record, and will not think of the consequences at the time.