ers. I feel my backbone tingling
from end to end. At the same time I have an almost irresistible desire to
get away somewhere and hide myself from all those eyes.

The Chaplain continues:

"His number is 33,333x."

For some reason or other this excites the sense of humor which lies so
near the surface here, and loud laughter interrupts the speaker.

"I will ask Thomas Brown to come to the platform."

With my hands on the back of the bench in front, I pull myself up onto my
feet; and when the men see me rise their frantic hand-clapping begins
again. As I leave my seat and gain the central aisle, the whole room seems
to rock back and forth. I walk to the front and mount the platform. As I
do so, the Chaplain, the singers and others sitting there rise and join in
the applause. I am absurdly, but momentarily, conscious of my prison
clothes--the rough cotton shirt, gray trousers and heavy shoes, as I bow
to the people on the stage and then face the audience.

The applause subsides and every face turns towards me expectantly. Oh, for
the gift of the tongues of men and of angels! What an opportunity lies
here before me! And I feel helpless to take advantage of it.

As I stand for a moment looking over the large audience, feeling unable to
make a start, my attention is arrested by the face of one of my gray
brothers. He is an old man, I do not know him, I am not conscious of ever
having seen him before, but the tears are rolling down his cheeks as he
sits looking up at me.

Then as if a cloud were lifted from my spirit, I suddenly understand what
it all means. These men are not seeing me, they are looking at Tom
Brown--the embodied spirit of the world's sympathy. They have felt the
sternness of society--the rigor of its law, the iron hand of its
discipline. But now at this moment many of these men are realizing for the
first time that outside the walls are those who care.

I said to these men last Sunday that I should try to "break down the
barriers between my soul and the souls of my brothers." It was necessary
so to endeavor in order to understand the conditions I came to study. But
what has happened is that these men have broken down their own barriers;
they have opened their hearts; they have dignified and ennobled my errand;
they have transformed my personal quest for knowledge into a vital message
from the great heart of humanity in the outside world--a heart that, in
spite of all that is said and done to the con