nce
has taken more out of me, and given me so much heartbreaking
disappointment as my continued efforts on behalf of really
well-intentioned individuals, who could not stand alone owing to their
lack of grit and moral backbone. For redemptive purposes I would rather,
a hundred times rather, have to deal with a big sinner than with a human
jellyfish, a flabby man who does no great wrong, but on the other hand
does not the slightest good.

But, as I have already said, though all my friends and acquaintances
were dwellers in a dark land, not all of them were "known to the
police"; indeed, many of them ought to be classified as "known to
the angels," for their real goodness has again and again rebuked and
inspired me.

Oh the patience, fortitude and real heroism I have met with in my
acquaintances among the poor. Strength in time of trial, virtue amidst
obscenity, suffering long drawn out and perpetual self-denial are
characteristics that abound in many of my poorest friends, and in some
of the chapters that are to follow I shall tell more fully of them, but
just now I am amongst neither sinners nor saints, but with my friends
"in motley." I mean the men and women who have occupied so much of my
time and endeavours, but whose position I knew was hopeless.

How they interested me, those demented friends of mine! they were a
perpetual wonder to me, and I am glad to remember that I never passed
hard judgment upon them, or gave them hard words. And I owe much to
them, a hundred times more than the whole of them are indebted to me;
for I found that I could not take an interest in any one of them, nor
make any fruitless, any perhaps foolish effort to truly help them,
without doing myself more good than I could possibly have done to them.
Fifteen years I stood by, and stood up for demented Jane Cakebread, and
we became inseparably connected. She abused me right royally, and her
power of invective was superb. When she was not in prison she haunted my
house and annoyed my neighbours. She patronised me most graciously when
she accepted a change of clothing from me; she lived in comparative
luxury when I provided lodgings for her; she slept out of doors when I
did not.

She bestowed her affections on me and made me heir to her non-existent
fortune; she proposed marriage to me, although she frequently met and
admired my good wife. All this and more, year after year!

Poor old Jane! I owe much to her, and I am quite willing, nay,