Page:Hubert W. Peet - 112 Days' Hard Labour, Being Some Reflections On the First of My Sentences as a Conscientious Objector - 1917.pdf/9

 to listen either to their short address or the voice offering of one of the prisoners “speaking to our condition” made red-letter records in our life.

200 at the Prison Quaker Meeting

As a rule only twenty or thirty prisoners in a thousand fail to describe themselves as being “Church of England” or “Roman Catholic.” The advent of C.O.’s has, however, changed all this, and nearly every denomination seemed to be represented. Those who asked to see the Quaker chaplain formed the biggest category, though the application did not necessarily mean that they were actual members of the Society, but was the outcome of the sympathetic contact between Friends and themselves since the fight began, which caused them to wish to attend a service where sympathetic ministration was certain. In consequence, out of 800 C.O.’s at the Scrubs 200 attended the Quaker meeting, while when some 300 men were transferred to Wandsworth to make room for new arrivals at the Scrubs, I found 99 were classed as “Friends.” Though Quakers form so large a proportion of the prisoners, nearly every denomination is represented. I recognised this one day when, in company of six men and our religion was asked, I found myself the only Quaker, while there was one Wesleyan, two Baptists, a Congregationalist, a Unitarian, and a Churchman. The warder asked one of the men if he was not an “anti-theologian”! One man on another occasion rather startled the officer by describing himself as a Pagan.

The Library

Prison has stamped upon my mind the meaning of the word “.” A prison chaplain with the best will in the world cannot avoid being just one of the officials on the staff, each and all of whom form part of the State machinery of punishment. Nevertheless, he may be looked upon as “Officer of the Humanities,” for he is responsible for the library, the source of what is practically the sole alleviator of prison life—books. On entry one is given a Bible, Prayer Book, and Hymn Book. In the ordinary way these would be supplemented by a curious little manual of devotion entitled “The Narrow Way,” but at the Scrubs Quakers were mercifully allowed in its place the Fellowship Hymn Book and the Friends’ Book of Discipline. The beauty and helpfulness of the latter was a revelation, some of its finest passages from Yearly Meeting Epistles in the past reminding me of a vigorous “Thomas à Kempis.” I found intense help in memorising all the Whittier and similar hymns in the Fellowship Book, and also getting word perfect in well-known hymns which I imagined I knew until I tried to repeat them. During the solitary hours of work and rest the learning and repetition of such verse are both a mental and spiritual stimulant of the greatest value.

In addition to these books two educational volumes may be