"Well, stranger, we don't want you to get a bad idea of us. False
witnesses swore a lie, and that is how we are here." "Oh," I said,
"Christ cannot save anybody here; there is nobody lost." I went to the
next cell. "Well, friend, how is it with you?" "Oh," said the prisoner,
"the man that did the deed looked very much like me, so they caught me
and I am here." He was innocent, too! I passed along to the next cell.
"How is it with you?'" "Well, we got into bad company, and the man that
did it got clear, and we got taken up, but we never did anything." I
went along to the next cell "How is it with you?" "Our trial comes on
next week, but they have nothing against us, and we'll get free." I went
round to nearly every cell but the answer was always the same--they had
never done anything. Why, I never saw so many innocent men together in
my life. There was nobody to blame but the magistrates, according to
their way of it. These men were wrapping their filthy rags of
self-righteousness about them. And that has been the story for six
thousand years. I got discouraged as I went through the prison, on, and
on, and on, cell after cell, and every man had an excuse. If he hadn't
one, the devil helped him to make one.
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