Article January 30, 1915 Issue

Although Sing Sing prison has been for several years the...

Engolfar in

The Ossining (N. Y.) Sentinel

Although Sing Sing prison has been for several years the furnisher of many columns of stories for the public press, stories which in some cases have been of great interest, though perhaps a trifle exaggerated either for political or other purposes, the writer did not remember ever to have seen in any of these stories the barest mention of religion, or of anything pertaining to religion. For this reason he had concluded that religion could scarcely find a foothold among the inmates of the prison. It was therefore with some surprise that the writer heard, while in conversation with one of the keepers at Sing Sing, that among a certain number of the inmates of this institution there had crept in a strong religious influence; that meetings were being held every Sunday in the chapel on the southern side of the prison, and that the prison officials were astonished by the numbers in attendance and the fervor and enthusiasm of the "boys." The writer's astonishment grew by bounds when he was finally given to understand that these services were being conducted by Christian Scientists,—two from the city of New York and one from the village of Ossining.

This information was amazing. Here was a religion—about which the average reader knows scarcely anything—established in an institution where one would hardly expect religion to show its head, an institution in which all classes of criminals are confined; and in such a place quiet and devout meetings were being held, conducted by Christian Scientists, and regularly attended by over a hundred and fifty of the gray-clad inmates, none of whom, it is said, were Christian Scientists when they entered the prison.

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January 30, 1915
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