The readers of this Journal need not be told that we are not very sanguine in our expectations of the permanent reformation of the mass of convicts. There are doubtless instances enough of success in such efforts to warrant and encourage them, and we are not to suppose that they are ever wholly useless. The true position for us to take is this. The earlier we address ourselves to the cultivation of right principles and habits in a human being, the more hopeful is the prospect of success; but there is a power in truth and love, which has not seldom overcome the most sturdy depravity; and while we have the precept and example of Him who "came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance," to prompt and stimulate our efforts in that direction, we have His promise too, that whatever is done in His name, and out of love to Him, shall in no wise lose its reward. It is under the influence of these views that we have looked with interest and anxiety to the religious and moral influences which enter into the discipline of our penitentiaries. To no section of their annual reports, do we turn with more eagerness than to that from the chaplain or moral instructor; and though now and then a well-digested and satisfactory account is furnished, we are often compelled to be content with very vague generalities. A specimen of the religious discourses addressed to these unhappy congregations; a true sketch of a dialogue on some religious or moral topic held with one of them in his cell; a synopsis of a month's labors, showing the various methods employed, direct and incidental, to reach the sympathies, and awaken better motives and desires of the heart, or a brief analysis of those obstacles to moral and religious influences, which may be properly regarded as peculiar to prison life,--all these, or any of them would greatly relieve the monotony of the reports of chaplains and moral instructors, and would add materially to our means of judging of the fitness of their labors to the character and circumstances of those on whom they are bestowed. We are often favored with such specimens of the various methods in which instruction in secular knowledge is conveyed to the ignorant, and enabled to choose between them according to their apparent appropriateness. Why should not the like opportunity be afforded in respect to the more difficult and perplexing task of enlightening adult ignorance, counteracting deeply-depraved tendencies, and up-rooting established habits of evil? It was with the hope of bringing this important department of our penitentiary discipline more distinctly to view, and of making its principles more practical and definite, that the Prison Society recently took the subject up, and referred it to a committee for consideration and report. At the meeting in January last a full report was submitted, from which we make the following extracts: