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.

We came out into the sunlight after that, and found ourselves very soon in
the art-gallery at Twenty-third street. That was my second visit. Mr.
Kensett, the great artist, recently died, and six