The Prison Chaplaincy, and Its Experiences Book

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: causing thoughts and words to flow almost unbidden, and those of a peculiar unction, thus rendering preaching in the place easy. The numerous moistened eyes and earnest countenances seemed plainly to say, " Here are minds responsive to the truth, a field which can be cultivated for God and humanity." Those anticipated feelings of repulsion did not arise, but rather the assurance that success and pleasure would attend a faithful dispensing of the word for reforming and elevating the prisoner in his bonds, as well as in efforts to save sinners under more favorable surroundings. 3. The Sabbath School. This met Sabbath afternoon in two places, the females, eight in number, in their work room,with the matron and other ladies who might attend from the city as teachers; the males in the chapel, a number of Christian ladies and gentlemen from outside attending and hearing classes, some having long been laborers here in the work, one having, years previous, helped set the school in operation. The toils of these earnest workers were evidently being blessed, under God, to the good of their pupils, producing impressions upon some, which greatly aided them in their efforts at reform. My attendance was with the latter, and the interest was fully equal to that I had witnessed in the forenoon worship. The prisoners were required to attend the latter, while the Sabbath school attendance was left to the inmates as a voluntary matter, and yet some ninety males attended this, about three-fourths of the whole company from which the audience was usually drawn,?a much larger percentage probably than any outside congregation can boast of. chapter{Section 44. General appearance of the convicts. Judging from appearance as they sat in the assembly, a few were evidently hard cases, narrow-minded,...Read More