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