change which strips the soul of these mortal vestments and clothes it with a spiritual body, that removes it from the dominion of its earthly appetites and infirmities, and translates it to a sphere of new forces and new revelations and realities, can have no insignificant influence upon its moral status. Such a change not only implies a transformation of worlds, but also, in many important relations, a radical change in ideas, desires, motives and activities.

This failure to give due weight to the natural possibilities and indications of a life that is immortal, and from the nature of the case insensuous, is a prolific source of many errors existing in the Christian church on this general subject. The church has been slow in throwing off a long list of doctrinal corruptions that it has inherited from an uncivilized age and half savage races. Among these is this material conception of the future state-that a change of worlds causes no particular change in modes of thinking and living. This is the barbaric notion. The untutored Indian believed on his exit from this life that he should go to pleasant hunting grounds, and retain the faithful company of his dog. The ancient inhabitants of Hispaniola located their elysium in a fertile valley abounding with grass, delicious fruits, cool shades, and murmuring rivulets. The Patagonians held that the stars are their translated countrymen, and the milky way is a field where they hunt ostriches. Scandinavians believed that those who died in battle were the chosen of Odin,

"In whose halls of gold

The steel clad ghosts their wonted orgies hold.

Some taunting jest begets the war of words;

In clamorous fray they grasp their gleaming swords,
And as upon the earth, with fierce delight,

By turns renew the banquet and the fight.

But without further quotations we can aver in fact that these material and sensuous conceptions of a future state were common among all barbaric races of men. And this idea that the future world is simply a duplicate of the present, built upon the same plan, run in the same grooves, a repetition of crime and wrong, only on a more extended and hope

less plane, that pervades much of Christian theology, bears a striking resemblance to these savage ideas. And it is hardly necessary to add that not until more consistent views are entertained concerning the mode of existence beyond the grave -views more in keeping with its immaterial structure and spiritual atmosphere, can there be in these visions of hope that entereth within the vail any increased beauty or brightness, or in the theology of the church any great improve

ment.

Rev. Varnum Lincoln.

ARTICLE XXVII.

Lawbreakers' Rights and Wrongs.

HE upon whom the law had its grip was, in the old day, in the worst possible straits. The officers of the law had no further thought than to secure him, and he must depend upon his friends for the comforts, even the necessaries, of life. He had no rights which any were bound to respect. As soon, however, as Christianity became a power, efforts were made to ameliorate the condition of those in prison, through legal enactment. In 320, A. D., Constantine directed that "those accused of crimes should be examined with promptness, and not be detained in con finement, while those arrested should be confined in a humane manner. The cells should be furnished with means for light and air. Persons under accusation should not be put into jails, nor scourged, but placed under military arrest, and in a prison open to the light." Twenty years later a law for bade the commingling of the sexes in a common jail. Later still, local magistrates and church officials were directed to visit the prisons regularly and inquire into their management.

Thus early was a good work begun, but for centuries it languished. Compare the condition of the prisons of Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century with those of Rome in

the first. Little there is to choose between them. The early English novelists give us glimpses of the state at this time of affairs in the English jails and prison houses. It must be confessed, however, that their purpose is to "adorn a tale" and not to "point a moral." It is to the eternal honor of Oliver Goldsmith that he did more than this. This impecunious author lived too near the yawning prison door to see nothing but the humorous or dramatic side to prison life. When, therefore, in the Vicar of Wakefield, he sends the good doctor to prison, it is with a distinct moral purpose, and the sentiments of the good vicar are undoubtedly his own. It will not be amiss to recall some of his thoughts in this connection.

"It were highly to be wished that legislative power would thus direct the law rather to reformation than to severity; that it would seem convinced that the work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishments familiar but formidable. Then instead of our present prisons, which find or make men guilty; which enclose wretches for the commission of one crime, and return them, if returned alive, fitted for the perpetration of thousands; we should see, as in other parts of Europe, places of penitence and solitude, where the accused might be attended by such as could give them repentance, if guilty, or new motives to virtue if innocent."

These words were penned as early as 1764, and a pathetic interest is added when it is recalled that the sale of this work saved its author from incarceration for debt to his landlady.

In 1773 John Howard began his visitations. It may be noted that Howard, great as is the honor due him for his immortal labors, was not the originator of this work. To it, however, to a far larger degree than any other man, he gave himself. It is due to his unselfish devotion, his unwearied persistency and his unfaltering courage that the public were made aware of the condition of the inmates of the prisons of England and Continental Europe. When he entered upon his philanthropic work, in the words of another, "Idleness, drunkenness, vicious intercourse, sickness, starva

tion, squalor, cruelty, chains, awful oppression, and everywhere culpable neglect-in these words may be summed up the state of the jails."

Under the influence of his disclosures an Act was passed in 1779, which had in view the following objects: "It was hoped, by sobriety, cleanliness, and medical assistance, by a regular series of labor, by solitary confinement during the intervals of work, and by due religious instruction, to preserve. and amend the health of the unhappy offenders, to guard them from pernicious company, to accustom them to serious reflection, and to teach them both the principles and practice of every Christian and moral duty." Worthy objects were these! To them the intervening years with their experiences and opportunity for observation, have added little of importance. Improved methods, however, have been developed through the years.

In spite of Howard's noble life-work and his martyr death, the reform went not forward. Reforms seldom go steadily onward. Practice lags behind theory. We know what is right and best long before we make up our minds to do it. We need constant spurs and emphatic reminders, if we are to be kept steadily in the path of duty.

The prisons of England were again a disgrace to Christian civilization, when another saintly and devoted life gave its thought and toil to the inmates of the prison house. In 1817 Elizabeth Fry organized the "Association for the Improvement of Female Prisoners in Newgate." By her the attempt was put upon a more practical, and it may be hoped, enduring basis. Her glory as a prison reformer lies in this fact that her methods are an improvement upon any before her day. She clearly saw and emphatically said that certain definite changes must be made to carry out the objects sought by the Act of 1779. She demanded " entire separation of the sexes, classification of the criminals, female supervision for the women, adequate provisions for their religious and secular instruction, and also for their useful employment. A generation passed before measures were found sufficient in sweep and

power to carry out all these wise ideas of this devoted woman. Another generation has passed since these measures have been doing their work. The results are to be seen in England to-day. The following figures are at least very suggestive and significant. I take them from an article, "Prisons and Prison Reform," in the Cincinnati Enquirer, written by General R. Brinkerhoff, who has collected them from an account of the manner in which "sentences to penal servitude are carried out in England," prepared by Sir Edmund F. De Cane, the chairman of directors of convict prisons. I quote General Brinkerhoff's language:

"In 1843 the population of England and Wales was 16,322,228. The number of felons convicted in that year was uncommonly large, and, to avoid any danger of exaggeration, we may take the average number of convictions for five years. Upon the average of these five years, then, 3,933 persons were sentenced in England and Wales to penal servitude and transportation; that is, were committed and punished for offences of the grade of felony, and 15,783 were sentenced to imprisonment for shorter terms in local jails; that is, were committed and punished for offenses of the grade of misdemeanors, calling for imprisonment. In 1881 the population of England and Wales was 25,968,286, and if the criminal classes formed at that time as large a percentage as in 1841, and were governed and punished by the same laws similarly administered, we might expect convictions in the same proportion that is to say, we should expect to find in 1881 6,251 persons sentenced to penal servitude (transportations having been long abolished), and 25,000 persons sentenced to simple imprisonment.

The actual number were as follows: In 1881 1,525 persons were sentenced to penal servitude, and 9,226 to simple imprisonment; in other words, the numbers were less by 4,726 felcus and 15,824 minor crimnals than there must have been had not a change been wrought in the state of society as respects the criminal classes. The year 1881 was not an exceptional year; the decline in numbers was continuous and almost uniform from the beginning to the end of the period, and the year 1881 happens to be the latest of which the figures are at hand."

The measures to which such much to be desired results