ry year to their sorrow.
There are those who would call this spread of disease, originating here,
all over our city, a judgment from God, to punish the people for that
neglect and indifference which has left such a hell as this in their
midst. I do not so read it. God has no pleasure in punishments and
retributions. The evil comes not from him. It enters through the door
we have left open, just as a thief enters our dwellings, invited through
our neglect to make the fastenings sure. It comes under the operations
of a law as unvarying as any law in physics. And so long as we have this
epidemic-breeding district in the very heart of our city, we must expect
to reap our periodical harvests of disease and death. What it is to be
next year, or the next, none can tell."

"Does not your perpetual contact with all this give your mind an
unhealthy tone--a disposition to magnify its disastrous consequences?"
said Mr. Dinneford.

The missionary dropped his eyes. The flush and animation went out of his
face.

"I leave you to judge for yourself," he answered, after a brief silence,
and in a voice that betrayed a feeling of disappointment. "You have the
fact before you in the board of health, prison, almshouse, police, house
of refuge, mission and other reports that are made every year to the
people. If they hear not these, neither will they believe, though one
rose from the dead."

"All is too dreadfully palpable for unbelief," returned Mr. Dinneford.
"I only expressed a passing thought."

"My mind may take an unhealthy tone--does often, without doubt," said
Mr. Paulding. "I wonder, sometimes, that I can keep my head clear and my
purposes steady amid all this moral and physical disorder and suffering.
But exaggeration of either this evil or its consequences is impossible.
The half can never be told."

Mr. Dinneford rose to go. As he did so, two little Italian children, a
boy and a girl, not over eight years of age, tired, hungry, pinched and
starved-looking little creatures, the boy with a harp slung over his
shoulder, and the girl carrying a violin, went past on the other side.

"Where in the world do all of these little wretches come from?" asked
Mr. Dinneford. "They are swarming our streets of late. Yesterday I saw
a child who could not be over two years of age tinkling her triangle,
while an older boy and girl were playing on a harp and violin. She
seemed so cold and tired that it made me sad to look at her. There is
so