It was in the spring of 1829 that the Rev. John Robbins visited the
State Prison in Windsor, Vermont, in which a number of years before he
had been a prisoner. He was recognized by a few of the oldest
inhabitants of that gloomy mansion, who had been his fellow-prisoners,
and particularly by the writer of this article who had been his
cell-mate. He obtained permission of the Superintendent, and preached
in the prison chapel the first Sabbath after his arrival in town. As
he entered the pulpit a thrill of indescribable but pleasing emotion
darted through the bosoms of his old acquaintances, at witnessing the
great and happy change of which he had obviously been the subject. A
few short years before, he had occupied a seat among the hearers in
that doleful place, and no one questioned his right to that
distinction; but now he appeared as an accredited minister of the
gospel, "to preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound." Every eye was fastened upon him, and
a solemn death-like stillness pervaded the room. After a few minutes
he gave out the following appropriate and affecting psalm, which was
sung with sympathetic expression by the choir:
"Father, I bless thy gentle hand;
How kind was thy chastising rod,
Which forced my conscience to a stand
And brought my wandering soul to God.
"Foolish and vain, I went astray;
Ere I had felt thy scourges, Lord,
I left my guide, and lost my way;
But now I love and keep thy word.
"'Tis good for me to wear the yoke,
For pride is apt to rise and swell;
'Tis good to bear my Father's stroke,
That I might learn his statutes well."
After this psalm was sung he prayed--but such a prayer had not often
been heard in that place. Solemn and awful language, on flame with
heaven's own spirit, and big with holy desires, marked this effort of
his impassioned soul. That prayer was heard in heaven; for such a
prayer can never be made in vain. It produced an unutterable effect on
every heart; and the impression it made on mine is, at this moment,
among my liveliest and dearest recollections.
His text was,--"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the
promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." I will
not attempt to give even a skeleton of the overpowering sermon which
followed. I was too much affected for memory to perform its office.
Unlike many of the pulpit efforts which I had been accustomed to hear,
it was not characterized by polished periods and classical elegance,
but by the thunder and lightning of Mount Sinai. It was a storm which
shook the soul, and roused up all its powers. The preacher was
evidently in awful earnest;--his lifted arm, his swelling voice, his
beaming eyes, denoted the man who felt the importance, and believed
the truth of what he said. Until now, he sustained himself in firm and
perfect self-possession; but when he came to advert to his former
situation, and point out the very seat he had occupied among his
hearers, his firmness deserted him. His eyes swam in tears--his voice
fell down into interrupted and trembling accents--and his mind became
perfectly unnerved. Sympathy, inspired his feelings in his
congregation--every eye was moistened--sighs echoed to sighs--some
wept aloud--and the whole scene was one of mingled, ungovernable
emotions.
With this sermon commenced a glorious revival of religion in the
Prison. That long and much neglected moral waste began to exhibit the
buds of promise; that spiritual desert began to smile with freshness
and bloom; and after twenty years of famine, more dreadful than that
which devoured the plenty of Egypt, the Lord began to pour down the
streams of his grace, and spread a feast of fat things before the
dying souls of His creatures. Angels, whose far-reaching vision
embraces a thousand worlds, never saw a spot more spiritually and
morally barren, than had been the State Prison at Windsor from the
very commencement of its history up to the happy time under
consideration. But now the scene began to change; the wilderness and
the solitary place began to rejoice, and the desert to blossom as the
rose. Mr. Robbins, at the request of the Superintendent, continued
there about five mouths, during which time, I have as much evidence as
any such case admits of, that one half of the prisoners became the
subjects of serious convictions, and one fourth part were thoroughly
converted to God. It is due to the Hon. J. H. Cotton, Superintendent
of the Prison, to say, that he cordially co-operated with Mr. R. and
granted the prisoners every indulgence which reason could ask. Sabbath
Schools were established; Bible Classes were formed; and the Prison
became a temple with a worshipper in every cell. The other means used
by Mr. R. were private conversation, tracts, and plain, pungent
preaching.
While this delightful work was in progress, the following hymn was
composed by one of the prisoners and sung by them in their meetings;
and as it gives a very impressive and accurate view of the power and
character of this display of saving mercy to the doubly lost, I will
insert it here for the gratification of the reader:
"Rejoice, O my soul, see the trophies of grace
Submitting to Jesus and shouting his praise;
Like doves to their windows, or clouds through the sky,
From sin's darkest borders for safety they fly.
"This strong bolted dungeon is vocal with prayer,
And joy rolls her orb through the sky of despair;
This strong hold of Satan is trembling to fall,
The power of Jehovah is seen by us all.
"The angel of mercy can visit a cell,
And on the dark bosom of misery dwell.
The sunbeams of heaven can shine from above,
And glow on our midnight a rainbow of love.
"All glorious Eternal! we tremble and fear;
How awful this place is, we know Thou art here!
In thy dreadful presence adoring we fall.
Well pleas'd to be nothing, and Thou all in all!"
I must ask the indulgence of the reader for introducing another hymn,
by the same author, which also exhibits the true extent and glory of
the work, in contrast with the darkness and misery which preceded it.
It is inscribed to Mr. Robbins:
"_I was in prison and ye came unto me._"
JESUS CHRIST.
"Around our horizon no twilight was streaming,
Nor faint twinkling star shot a ray thro' the gloom;
No taper of life in our dungeons was gleaming,
But darkness and death roll'd dismay thro' our tomb.
"When, clear as the sun, rob'd in beams of the morning,
You rose on our darkness with soul-cheering ray;
To temples of worship our dungeons transforming,
And pouring around us the noon-blaze of day.
"In every hall now an altar is burning,
And incense of praise rolls from many a heart;
The ransom'd of Christ are to Zion returning,
With firm resolution no more to depart.
"How sweet is the sound! holy anthems are ringing,
And cell back to cell echoes triumph and praise!
And while to the theme of salvation I'm singing,
The glory of God bursts around in a blaze!
"My soul, bless the Lord! be his mercy forever
The theme of my song and the flame of my heart!
And from his commands may I wander no never!
Nor from his dear service one moment depart!
"Go on, sent of God! See! all ripe for the sickle
The harvest is waving, and bright in your view,
Confide not in man, all inconstant and fickle,
But trust in the Lord ever faithful and true."
In the course of about five months, this shower of divine mercy passed
completely by and went off, after watering richly that sterile region,
and causing it to brighten with the fairest promises of a glorious
harvest. Never was there a work of grace more pleasing in its
developement, more thorough in its searchings into the heart, or that
will in my firm opinion, be more lasting in its joyful effects. There
were no enthusiastic ravings--none of the mysticism of fanatics; but
every part of the work was characteristic of the deep and reforming
energies of the Spirit of God on the soul. That there were some who
banished their serious convictions from their minds, there can be no
doubt; and that some who entered the race, run well only for a season,
and then turned back, is equally probable. These are dark spots from
which no bright display of saving mercy is ever perfectly free. But I
am, on the other hand, just as firmly persuaded, that as many as
thirty of those who were then outcasts from society, became free
citizens of the Redeemer's kingdom, and will "walk with him in white"
in the world of glory.
From the preceding rapid sketch of a work of grace in a State Prison,
the following affecting truths force themselves inferentially upon the
mind.
1. The most abandoned among the sons of men, are fully within the
saving influences of Gospel truth, when it is judiciously applied to
the conscience and heart.
2. State Prisons are too much neglected in the benevolent and pious
enterprises of this missionary and philanthropic age. Ministers of
Jesus have gone out, and others are going out, to the extremities of
the globe, to evangelize the heathen, while they too obviously
disregard the injunction of the blessed Jesus so plainly and
energetically implied in these words,--"I was in prison and ye visited
me not."
3. Any humble self-denying servant of Him who came to say to
prisoners, Go forth--to pardon a dying thief--and point out to
repentant crime the path of righteousness, who will, in the spirit of
his Master, devote himself to the great work of preaching the
everlasting Gospel in State Prisons, will joyfully witness the gloom
departing from those fields of spiritual desolation, and find his
sacred, untiring labors amply repaid, by the success with which,
sooner or later, they will be graciously crowned.
In conclusion, permit me to call the attention of all benevolent and
pious minds, to the deplorable condition of those whose crimes have
justly cut them off from the sweets of liberty and the endearments of
social life, and consigned them to a living death within the gloomy
walls of a State Prison. With an emphasis that might pierce the soul,
they say to you,--"Have pity upon us! have pity upon us, O ye our
friends! for the hand of God hath touched us!" But this plaintive cry
is heard only to be forgotten. If any class of darkened, perverted,
and ruined humanity, has any claim on the sympathies of Christians,
this is that class. This Howard felt, and, by his efforts to meliorate
their condition, he became the acknowledged prince of philanthropists,
and earned an immortal and sacred fame. Our State Prisons, it is true,
are not the dark subterranean hells of Europe; but they are, in the
fullest American sense of that term,--State Prisons. And why will not
some American Howard, some baptized and heavenly spirit, take a
thorough and christian survey of these places, and become a christian
Howard by causing all the means of grace, like so many rivers from the
throne of God, to roll their pure, and comforting, and saving waters,
through all their gloomy abodes.