But be not deceived.  There are thousands of people in the great town who will not sleep a moment to-night.  Go up that dark court.  Be careful, or you will fall over the prostrate form of a drunkard lying on his own worn step.  Look about you, or you will feel the garroter’s hug.  Try to look in through that broken pane!  What do you see?  Nothing.  But listen.  What is it?  “God help us!” No footlights, but tragedy—­mightier, ghastlier than Ristori or Edwin Booth ever acted.  No bread.  No light.  No fire.  No cover.  They lie strewn upon the floor—­two whole families in one room.  They shiver in the darkness.  They have had no food to-day.  You say:  “Why don’t they beg?” They did beg, but got nothing.  You say:  “Hand them over to the almshouse.”

Ah! they had rather die than go to the almshouse.  Have you never heard the bitter cry of the man or of the child when told that he must go to the almshouse?

You say that these are vicious poor, and have brought their own misfortune on themselves.

So much the more to be pitied.  The Christian poor—­God helps them!  Through their night there twinkles the round, merry star of hope, and through the cracked window-pane of their hovel they see the crystals of heaven.  But the vicious are the more to be pitied.  They have no hope.  They are in hell now.  They have put out their last light.  People excuse themselves from charity by saying they do not deserve to be helped.  If I have ten prayers for the innocent, I shall have twenty for the guilty.  If a ship be dashed upon the rocks, the fisherman, in his hut on the beach, will wrap the warmest flannels around those who are the most chilled and battered.  The vicious poor have suffered two awful wrecks, the wreck of the body, and the wreck of the soul; a wreck for time and a wreck for eternity.

Go up that alley!  Open the door.  It is not locked.  They have nothing to lose.  No burglar would want anything that is there.  There is only a broken chair set against the door.  Strike a match and look around you.  Beastliness and rags!  A shock of hair hanging over the scarred visage.  Eyes glaring upon you.  Offer no insult.  Be careful what you say.  Your life is not worth much in such a place.  See that red mark on the wall.  That is the mark of a murderer’s hand.  From the corner a wild face starts out of the straw and moves toward you, just as your light goes out.

Strike another match.  Here is a little babe.  It does not laugh.  It never will laugh.  A sea-flower flung on an awfully barren beach:  O that the Shepherd would fold that lamb!  Wrap your shawl about you, for the January wind sweeps in.  Strike another match.  The face of that young woman is bruised and gashed now, but a mother once gazed upon it in ecstasy of fondness.  Awful stare of two eyes that seem looking up from the bottom of woe.  Stand back.  No hope has dawned on that soul for years.  Hope never will dawn upon it.  Utter no scorn.  The match has gone out.  Light it not again, for it would seem to be a mockery.