3

Evidence is not wanting to prove that these services,
performed, as they have been, under every disadvantage, to make good
impressions, are highly valued by the convicts themselves. And this
was particularly true, during the prevalence of the Asiatic Cholera
when some ministers of the gospel adventured their lives, voluntarily, to
administer to the wants and consolation of the sick & dying.

It must be obvious, however, to reflection, that such
services to be beneficial, as an instrument of moral reform, should be
performed regularly and statedly. Your memorialist has too much re-
spect for the wisdom of the Legislature, to enter upon the task of
constructing a formal argument, to show how efficient an agent
religious instruction may be made, in the work of reclaiming offenders
against good morals and the laws of the lands.

It is a subject which requires only thought, to commend
itself, at once, to the grave and serious consideration of every
patriot & statesman wherever the employment of such an agency has been
resorted to, in the State prisons of other commonwealths - and in some
instances provision has been made by legislative enactment to that end -
it has been attended by the most marked and decided evidences of benefit
to the unfortunate victims of the law, and to the order, efficiency and
safety of the institutions themselves. And surely we may reasonably
hope that if men may be deterred from the perpetration of crime, by
the sanction of human laws, much more may they be reclaimed, from a course
of iniquity, and be brought to form good resolutions of amendment when
under the endurance of legal penalties, they are reminded of the solemn
reckonings that await all offenders, at a tribunal which is unerring in
its decisions, and from which there is no appeal.

Your memorialist, in earnestly praying the Legislature
to give attention to this interesting subject, ventures, most respectfully
to suggest that provision be made by law, for the employment of some
minister of the gospel, as Chaplain for the penitentiary, whose duty it
shall be to perform religious services & offices for the convicts
therein, at such times, and under such regulations as the wisdom of