tigues to help the convicts in
their efforts for knowledge, but will not spare even one to guard in the
chapel, where I could teach with comparative freedom from all these
drawbacks."

Usually, in this cell instruction, we spoke very low, just to hear each
other and thus not disturb those in near cells, or interfere with the
rule about stillness in the apartment; but, after this discovery, when
seeing the guards hanging about, I would purposely speak loud enough for
them to hear, and also when the warden himself would be listening to my
Sabbath school instruction. And they had the privilege of hearing as
good, wholesome truths as I was capable of bringing out.

25. _The chaplain's pacific efforts severely taxed._ We are beings of
want, and if locked in a cell unable to provide for ourselves, it is
wonderful to think how many things we should need to have furnished by
others, or suffer. True, we can curtail our wants to a number very much
fewer than artificial life would claim, but, when coming to the
indispensables, they are not a few. Hence, prisoners, under the kindest
treatment and well-furnished with food, clothing, warmth, and all that
nature would seem to crave, will need to call more or less frequently
for attentions, or find themselves lacking not a little. But under the
saving system of this year, calls from the cells must multiply, and, if
unheeded, give occasion for uneasiness, angry feelings and disorder.
Hence, under such circumstances, the chaplain would naturally be called
into the most active service. For, if we can not offer a man food enough
to satisfy the cravings of his appetite, the next thing is to reconcile
his mind to going without, or so engross his thoughts, that he shall not
so keenly feel the gnawings of hunger. Or, if one is cold, and we can
not bring the means of warmth, by presenting a satisfactory excuse or
interesting the intellect, we may do him essential service in helping
him calmly endure what he otherwise could not.

Precisely on these principles I acted, and engrossed the prisoner's
attention as earnestly and interestingly as possible, always, when
practicable, taking special pains to immediately furnish the thing
called for; or to excuse, when I could; or turn one's sufferings to as
profitable a lesson as could be, to him. Hence, when the cold was
reigning almost unmitigated in the cells, for a few days, I would repeat
to one and another what I heard the warden say, that "