have become reformed, of prisoners who after being liberated have become virtuous members of society, might do more towards the improvement of the prisoner's state of mind and heart, than sermons and religious books, except always the books of the New Testament, and I have therefore wished much to do something of this kind myself. And I now found my belief strengthened by what “Friend S.” told me of the effect of good stories upon the minds of the prisoners. He had lately visited one of the male prisoners, a man noted for his hard and impenetrable disposition during the whole time that he had been in prison, upwards of twelve months. This morning however he appeared much changed, very mild, and almost tender.
“How is this?” asked the quaker; “you are not like yourself? What is the meaning of it?”
“Hem!—I hardly know myself,” said the prisoner, “but that there book,”—and he pointed to a little book with the title of “Little Jane,”—“has made me feel quite queer! It is many a year since I shed a tear; but—that there story!”—and he turned away annoyed because the stupid tears would again come into his eyes at the recollection of “that there story.”
Thus had the history of the beautiful soul of a little child softened the stony heart of the sinner,—the man had committed murder.
A young prisoner, who had now been in prison for two years, and who when he came in could neither read nor write, and had not the slightest religious knowledge; now wrote an excellent hand, and reading was his great delight. He was now shortly to leave the prison, and would go thence a much more intelligent and better human being than he entered it. His countenance, in the first instance, had indicated a coarse nature, but it now had a good expression, and his voice and language showed considerable cultivation.
