in crowded street or tenement who is proud to say, "I keep myself
to myself," or Seneca writing in pitiful complacency, "Whenever I
have gone among men, I have returned home less of a man." Whatever
the next world holds in store, we are bidden in this to seek and
serve God in our fellow-men, and in the creatures of His making
whom He calls by name.

It was once my privilege to know an old organ-grinder named
Gawdine. He was a hard swearer, a hard drinker, a hard liver, and
he fortified himself body and soul against the world: he even
drank alone, which is an evil sign.

One day to Gawdine sober came a little dirty child, who clung to
his empty trouser leg--he had lost a limb years before--with a
persistent unintelligible request. He shook the little chap off
with a blow and a curse; and the child was trotting dismally away,
when it suddenly turned, ran back, and held up a dirty face for a
kiss.

Two days later Gawdine fell under a passing dray which inflicted
terrible internal injuries on him. They patched him up in
hospital, and he went back to his organ-grinding, taking with him
two friends--a pain which fell suddenly upon him to rack and rend
with an anguish of crucifixion, and the memory of a child's
upturned face. Outwardly he was the same save that he changed the
tunes of his organ, out of long-hoarded savings, for the jigs and
reels which children hold dear, and stood patiently playing them in
child-crowded alleys, where pennies are not as plentiful as
elsewhere.