By such treatment they would be cheered and helped on in their process
of reformation. A contrary course has driven many a man away from his
pious resolutions, and caused him to return to the commission of
crime. The heart of the penitent man is tender, and this sensibility
is in proportion to the greatness of his sins. _Then_ it can bear but
little, whatever it may do afterwards. _Before_ David's repentance,
Nathan said to him--"Thou art the man!" but not _afterwards_. This was
right; and the sinful monarch reformed. When the soul is torn by the
lashes of conscience, it needs no other reprover. Then the heart is
bleeding and needs not any other application than oil and wine. Its
language is--"Have pity upon me! have pity upon me! O! ye my friends!
for the hand of God hath touched me!"
No one knows these feelings better than myself; and I know, too,
what it is to have the feelings of a broken and contrite heart,
harrowed up by the unsympathizing hand of _sneering_, _reproaching_,
and _scornful professors_. Well do I remember those hours of
darkness and pain; and a thousand scars on my soul will never suffer
the remembrance to die. And that my readers may have some idea of
my feelings at that time, I will ask their indulgence to insert for
their perusal the following extract of a hymn, composed in one of
those seasons of self-condemnation and derided misery.
"Yes, I feel that I'm forgiven,
Mercy cheers my soul at last;
Yet my heart is always riven
When I think upon the past!
O the killing recollection!
How it withers up my soul!
What can blunt the keen reflection,
Or this aching breast console!
If my tears, I'd weep an ocean!
If my blood, I'd rend this heart!
Could I stop this dread emotion,
How with being would I part!
But the _past_--'tis past _for ever_!--
Yet, if suffer'd still to live,
Will the friends of Jesus _never_,
My repented deeds _forgive_?"
Such are the feelings of a contrite soul, when the painful remembrance
of its sins is aggravated by the constant and unfeeling indications of
a world's scorn.
Now, the treatment which such an individual ought to receive is
expressed in the text, and such treatment would soften the flinty path
of his return to virtue, and facilitate his progress. Many are now in
the highway of a sinful career, whom such treatment would have saved
from ruin. I know them well, and could call their names. They
commenced a reform; they looked for encouragement; they leaned on the
specious but deceptive professions of christian sympathy; but were
disappointed in all. From the altar to the grog shop, and from the
throne to the dunghill, they found that, though a sinner might find
pardon, and his sins be forgotten in heaven, they will be kept in
cruel remembrance on earth, and thrown in his face as long as he
lives. This is more than feeble humanity can often endure. It is
implied, and by an inspired writer too, that no one can bear a
"_wounded spirit_." Who then can bear on an already "wounded spirit,"
the mountain of universal insult and scorn? Who can endure forever an
hourly crucifixion on the contempt and derision of the whole world?
Until christians become converted to the christianity of Jesus, the
friend of sinners; and until all men act on the broad rule of doing as
they would be done by, there can be but little hope of the reformation
of any who have been considered sinners above all men, "because they
have suffered such things."
The conduct of the mass of mankind towards those who have become
notorious by their sins, is fitly represented by those animals which
always fall on such of their species as are in distress and kill them.
Even the warmest votaries of the penitentiary system--the members of
the "PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY," as a body, treat the sons of guilt
and crime as the inhabitants of the country towns in New-England treat
their neighbour's unruly cattle,--thump them, dog them, shut them up
in pound, and forever after give them a bad name.
Nothing can be more absurd than such conduct; and no course of
treatment could be more pernicious in its effects. It must necessarily
frustrate the most benevolent objects. Do all that can be done to
reform the guilty while they are in confinement, by _bread and water_,
_chains_ and _cells_, and all the wonderful discipline of the _lash_
and the _lock-step_, with the much better means of _tracts_, _bibles_,
_priests_ and _sermons_; but if they are left, on their release from
prison, unprotected from the insults of mankind, and not helped to get
into decent employment, nor surrounded by the kind attention of
christians, nothing has been done effectually. The man should not be
neglected in prison. That is the place to begin, but not to complete
his reformation. Let mercy's angels meet him at the door of his cell
as it opens to let him out, and let them be his guardian spirits
through life; and then they may take him to heaven. The time of his
release is the turning point in his moral history. Like the unclean
spirit that went out of the man, if he has to go through dry places
seeking rest and finding none, he will, from necessity, return to his
house whence he came out; but if he is received as was the returning
prodigal by his father, no more will be heard of his wanderings.
Christians! think of this. You who exhaust all science to compute the
worth of one soul, and send the emanations of your love for sinners to
the furthest verge of the other hemisphere, take a few thoughts for
those of your own country. Look at home. And if all souls are of equal
value, and he who converts one sinner from the error of his ways,
saves a soul from death and hides a multitude of sins, try at least
not to _prevent_ the conversion of a sinner, by mentioning to him the
sins of which he has repented.