Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/281

Rh veyed, motionless and passionless, objects to which his dim eye and seared heart had been long inured. I bent a scrutinizing glance upon the mass of heads and faces in this prison-home, to discover if possible some indication of talent or nobleness, for we know that the whirlwind of passion hath but too often driven into crime those whom nature and education had fitted for a higher destiny. But there was an absence of those lineaments which reveal the higher developments of intellect, or the promptings of a heavenward soul. Sin had been there with its levelling process, effacing mental elevation and spiritual beauty.

Every brow was raised to the Chaplain, as he simplified a portion of that Book, which is a "light to those who sit in darkness," and lifted up his prayer to Him who "blotteth out transgression." In that prolonged gaze, was there not some shadow of hope, that "where sin had abounded, grace might much more abound"? How impressive was the supplicating voice of that man of God, standing, as it were, like the prophet, with his censer, "between the living and the dead," that the plague might be stayed.

At the close of the devotional exercises, the prisoners passed out in order, to their several ranges of dormitories, each taking in his hand, at the proper depository, a wooden vessel, containing his coarse, but nutritious evening repast. These movements were made with such regularity and celerity, that one moment they might be seen each standing at the door of