Author describes being put into cell in Reading Gaol for the first time: 'That completed the furniture in the cell. But wait! I forgot the Bible! A humane Prison Commission had provided the cell with a Bible. I remember how, to stave off the hysteria I felt rising within me, I took it down and scanned it casually, noting passages in fine English which set forth the fate of those who rebel against the Lord of Hosts. Turning the leaves reapidly, I came to the New Testament, the Gospel of Love. Finally I laid it down and looked around my cell, stray passages of what I had read running through my mind - "All ye are God's children...bear ye one another's burdens...Verily I say unto you, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself...Father forgive them, for they know not what they do..." The Bible! And mind and heart cried out, "What utter rot!"'