“I doubt if you could see a sight just like that anywhere else in all Christendom.” Then added, as he extended his hand,
“I am glad to see you here, Mr. Dinneford.”
“Oh, Mr. Paulding!” and Mr. Dinneford put out his hand and grasped that of the missionary with a nervous grip. “This is awful! I am sixty years old, but anything so shocking my eyes have not before looked upon.”
“We see things worse than this every day,” said the missionary. “It is only one of the angry boils on the surface, and tells of the corrupt and vicious blood within. But I am right glad to find you here, Mr. Dinneford. Unless you see these things with your own eyes, it is impossible for you to comprehend the condition of affairs in this by-way to hell.”
“Hell, itself, better say,” returned Mr. Dinneford. “It is hell pushing itself into visible manifestation—hell establishing itself on the earth, and organizing its forces for the destruction of human souls, while the churches are too busy enlarging their phylacteries and making broader and more attractive the hems of their garments to take note of this fatal vantage-ground acquired by the enemy.”
Mr. Dinneford stood and looked around him in a dazed sort of way.
“Is Grubb's court near this?” he asked, recollecting the errand upon which he had come.
“Yes.”
“A young lady called to see you yesterday afternoon to ask about a child in that court?”
“Oh yes! You know the lady?”