en, the result of punishment be
vengeance, and not reformation, the last state of society is worse than
its first. The prison must stand a sad monument of the want of true
paternal government in the family and the state; but, when it becomes
the receptacle merely of the criminal, and all ideas of reformation are
banished from the hearts of convicts and the minds of keepers, its
influence is evil, and only evil continually.

Vice, driven from the presence of virtue, with no hope of reformation or
of restoration to society, begets vice, and becomes daily more and more
loathsome. Misery is so universal that some share falls to the lot of
all; but that misery whose depths cannot be sounded, whose heights
cannot be scaled, is the fortune of the prison convict only, who has no
hope of reformation to virtue or of restoration to the world. His is the
only misery that is unrelieved; his is the only burden that is too great
to be borne. To him the foliage of the tree, the murmur of the brook,
the mirror of the quiet lake, or the thunder of the heaving ocean, would
be equally acceptable. His separation from nature is no less burdensome
than his separation from man. The heart sinks, the spirit turns with a
consuming fire upon itself, the soul is in despair; the mind is first
nerved and desperate, then wandering and savage, then idiotic, and
finally goes out in death. Governments cannot often afford to protect
themselves, or to avenge themselves, at such a cost. There may be great
crimes on which such awful penalties should be visited; but, for the
honor of the race, let them be few.

We may err in our ideas of the true relations of the prison to the
prisoner. We call a prison good or bad when we see its walls, cells,
workshops, its means of security, and points of observation. These are
very well. They are something; but they are not all. We might so judge a
hospital for the sick; and we did once so judge an asylum for the
insane.

But what to the sick man are walls of wood, brick, granite, or marble?
What are towers and turrets, what are wards, halls, and verandas, if
withal he is not cheered and sustained by the sympathizing heart and
helping hand? And similar preparations furnish for the insane personal
security and physical comfort; but can they

"Minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?"

And it may be that the old alm