The great work of establishing auxiliaries to the Society must be carried forward with prudent zeal, so that, by co-operation, the labors of all who unite with us in objects and views, may be more effective; and, indeed, that we may by argument and illustration, increase the number of those who unite with us in object and views.
We must augment our correspondence also, that we may fully understand the plans and labours of philanthropists in other States and other nations, and make them comprehend our own views, and the means by which we seek to accomplish our object.
All these considerations, and others that seem to regard the physical condition of prisoners, must continue to occupy the attention of our members, and chiefly because, through those physical aids, we are to reach his moral life. But with all these efforts towards the instruments of good, we must continue, with unwavering, with augmented exertion, our endeavors to reach _directly_ the hearts and consciences of those whom we would benefit. To do this effectively, we must have patience, as well as good will,—we must _endure_, as well as _do_: we must _learn_ the great lesson of _teachers_, before we undertake the business of instruction; we must feel it the great duty to ourselves, and our mission, to “bear and forbear.” We must learn to labor and to wait,—to bestow our toil this day and every day, but to look at a distance for the reward of our efforts, in the fixed reformation of its objects, and to be “instant in season and out of season,” to admonish, advise, induce and encourage. The experience of those who have spent years at the doors of the prison cells, is not that of multiplied fruits. The value of a single soul must be fully appreciated, that the one redeemed from vice may be regarded as a consolation for the hundreds that make no improvement from efforts in their behalf. In short, we must find our pleasure in the discharge of a duty, and leave to Him, whose commands we obey, to give the increase for which we labor.
We may spend days and weeks, as indeed many have spent months, in seeking to awaken the conscience of the hardened offender to the evils of his course, and arousing him to the danger of their tendencies; and when the object of this solicitude shall have passed from our care, and ceased to hear our lessons, we may hear of him in the midst of debauchery and villainies, apparently ten-fold more a child of the devil than when we sought to soften his heart, and succeeded in raising his tears in the criminal cell. This is the experience of all who undertake to reclaim those who are hardened in crime or steeped in vice. But are we, on that account, to relinquish our labors or to forego hope? Are we to say that this backsliding is the last of the seventy times seven, and therefore we may stand excused from further effort? That very backsliding ought to be expected. The return of the offender to his offence is in the course of the timid, half-repentant wrong-doer, we know. We see it in regard to amendments of life that have relation to private interests and individual character. We must look for it in those who have for a long time cast off respect for social proprieties and wholesome regard to statute laws. The probability that few to whom we address ourselves in the cells of the incarcerated will give much heed to our exhortations, and their liability to return to their ways of sin and shame, notwithstanding their apparent desire to accept our ministration and profit by the means of improvement which we present, are known to us all before we enter upon the service. We accept the appointment with a knowledge of the difficulties it presents. We receive the mission to those whom the schoolmaster and the preacher have failed to influence to good; and we are to thank God for even the small returns from our laborious gleanings, rather than to arraign his providence or dishonor our pursuit by complaining of small returns.