I was amazed to see that the youth are in the majority in that building.  I said to the turnkey:  “What a pity it is that that bright fellow is in here!” “Oh,” he says, “these bright fellows keep us busy.”  I talked some with the boys, and they laughed; but there was a catch in the guffaw, as though the laughter on its way had stumbled over a groan.  It was not a deep laugh and a laugh all over, as boys generally do when they are merry.  These boys have had no chance.  They have been in the school of crime all their days, and are now only taking their degree of “M.V.”—­master of villainy.

God hasten the time when our Sabbath-schools, instead of being flower-pots for a few choice children, shall gather up the perishing rabble outside, like Ralph Wells’ school in New York, and Father Hawley’s school in Hartford, and John Wanamaker’s school in Philadelphia!  There is not much chance in our fashionable Sunday-schools for a boy out at the elbows.  Many of our schools pride themselves on being gilt-edged; and when-we go out to fulfill the Saviour’s command, “Feed my lambs,” we look out chiefly for white fleeces.  I like that school the best, which, in addition to the glorious gospel, carries soap and fine-tooth combs.  God save the dying children of the street!  I saw a child in the Tombs four years of age, and said, “What in the world can this little child be doing here?” They told me the father had been arrested and the child had to go with him.  Allegory, parable, prophecy:  “Where the father goes the child goes.”  Father inside the grates, and son outside waiting to get in.

All through the corridors of that prison I saw Scripture passages:  “I am the way of life;” “Believe in the Lord, and thou shalt be saved;” and like passages.  Who placed them there?  The turnkey?  No.  The sheriff?  No.  They are marks left by the city missionary and Christian philanthropist in recognition of that gospel by which the world is to be regenerated or never saved at all.

I wish they would get some other name for that—­the Tombs—­for it is the cleanest prison I ever saw.  But the great want of that prison and of all others is sunshine.  God’s light is a purifier.  You cannot expect reformation where you brood over a man with perpetual midnight.  Oh that some Howard or Elizabeth Fry would cry through all the dungeons of the earth, “Let there be light!” I never heard of anybody being brought to God or reformed through darkness.  God Himself is light, and that which is most like God is most healthful and pure.

Saddened by this awful wreck of men and morals, we came along the corridors where the wives stood weeping at the wicket-door of their husbands, and parents over their lost children.  It was a very sad place.  There were some men I was surprised to find there—­men whom I had seen in other places, in holy places, in consecrated places.