M

AN, it is obvious, however degraded by sin,

lost to shame, and abandoned to every

crime, never so utterly loses every trace of the Divine image in which he was framed, as to be incapable of feeling the overmastering influence of the law of love. Love overcomes all obstacles; love never fails. In the dungeons of Newgate; in the penal settlements; in the hovels where vice and crime are training up the young to the willing service of the devil; still love has been proved to be omnipotent, and has triumphed over every obstacle. Where chains, and stripes, and every restraint were found utterly unavailing, and the abandoned wretches seemed to delight in words and deeds fit only for the place of eternal woe,

a few words of sympathy and kindness have seemed, as by an electric touch, to restore them to the human family, and unite them to the charities and the hopes of God's children. In some respects, a sadder scene of human woe even than the dungeon of the abandoned criminal, is the cell of the poor lunatic. No crime degraded him to that terrible lot. The inscrutable dispensations of an all-wise Providence have deprived him of the light of reason, and the control of his own powers and faculties. Yet he also was long abandoned to chains and scourges; was forsaken by his friends; shut out from the sympathy of human kind, and dealt with only as the fiercest and most untameable of brutes. But on this sad scene of human life, also, the eye of the philanthropist has been turned with compassionate sympathy, and the star of hope has once more gleamed on its dark and miserable waste. Here, too, love has superseded cruelty and harsh restraint, and the law of kindness has produced the most happy results-results which are contrary to all former experience. Those unfortunate beings in whom the light of reason has been quenched in madness, have at length been embraced within the compass of Christian benevolence, and we are learning not only to feel for, but to alleviate the sufferings of those on whom so sad a dispensation has been permitted to fall. It was long universally believed that insane persons must be governed by violence, and that such is the

only manner in which they can be treated.

Hence, in

the past history of insanity, we find it one sad account of chains, filth, harshness, and misery-while the violent and refractory have been subjected to severe corporeal punishment in order to subdue them. Thus these poor, afflicted sufferers, whose minds were disordered, not only endured the misery of the utter blasting of reason, but they were visited with cruelty, and abandoned to despair. Happily, such views no longer exist. It is seen and admitted, not only that harshness and violence aggravate the complaint of the insane, but that it is both necessary and efficacious to counteract the violence and assuage the sufferings of insanity by kindness, sympathy, and pleasing occupations; and that soothing manners and interesting objects gain their attention, and render the chance of recovery more certain and complete. Hence, at the present day, in most of the hospitals for the insane, the kindest mode of government is pursued, and the whole discipline adopted is entirely in the spirit of the law, overcome evil with good." Over the gate of the institution where the most success in curing insane persons is manifested, there ought always to be written, "Kindness reigns here." But though kindness is, or soon will be, the universal rule of action in reference to all maniacs, yet there is an instance on record, which is worthy of preservation, as a generous and a daring exhibition of its power.

66

Hanwell Asylum was formerly conducted on the old principle of violence, confinement, chains, strait-jackets, threats, and whips, until Dr. Ellis and his wife took charge of the establishment. They went into it, resolved to guide their whole conduct on the broadest principles of benevolence-their only governing power was "good sense and kindness." They determined, from the very first, to visit every lunatic with leniency and liberty. Though such an experiment endangered their lives, yet they opened every door of the building, and gave its inmates free access to every part of the asylum, treating them as much as possible as though they were sane. The result is ennobling; after pursuing such a course for twenty years, no accident happened from it. Miss Martineau, who visited the asylum, after speaking of the mode of government there, and the mingling of the inmates together, says

"I saw the worst patients in the establishment, and conversed with them, and was far more delighted than surprised to see the effect of companionship on those who might be supposed the most likely to irritate each other. Some are always in a better state when their companions are in a worse; and the sight of woe has evidently a softening effect upon them. One poor creature, in a paroxysm of misery, could not be passed by; and while I was speaking to her as she sat, two of the most violent patients in the ward joined me, and the one wiped away the scalding tears of the bound