There are great souls all along the highway of life, and there are great qualities even in the people who seem common and weak to us ordinarily.
One of the grandest souls I know is a man who served his term in prison for sins committed while in drink.
He was not "born bad", he simply drifted into bad company and formed bad habits.
He paid the awful penalty of five years behind prison bars, but the divine man within him asserted itself, and today I have no friend I feel prouder to call that name.
Mr. John L. Tait, secretary of the Central Howard Association, of Chicago, writes me regarding his knowledge of ex-convicts:
According to my experience with a number of men of this class during the last two years, more than 90 per cent of them are worthy of the most cordial support and assistance.
If this can be said of men who have been criminals, surely humanity is not so vile as my "orthodox" correspondent would have me believe.
A "Christian" of that order ought to be put under restraint, and not allowed to associate with mankind.
He carries a moral malaria with him, which poisons the air.
He suggests evil to minds which have not thought it.