Now let us go down the rotten stairway to the next floor. Though what we have seen is bad, we may yet say:
"The worst is not So long as we can say, 'this is the worst.'"
Something worse. Yes, for coupled with poverty and crime, is fanatical hatred of everything that is not worse than itself. Let us rap at this door. A gruff woman's voice bids us enter. We are met by an insolent defiant scowl and an angry "what do you want here?"
"Yes. What of that. Nobody wants the like of you, with your pious faces and 'good woman,' prowling about at this time of night. You're after nothing good, any one might swear that."
"Perhaps we can give you some good advice for your sick child."
"Give your advice when we ask it. Haven't we got Father Mullany to give us advice, and he a good doctor too. I tell you we don't want any miserable heretics in the house and me child a dying. And who have I to thank for it?"
"Surely, madam, we cannot tell. Perhaps you can, or your husband, where is he?"
If a dog were thrown among the whelps in a wolf's lair, it would not arouse the dam quicker than these words did this human she-wolf. She sprang towards us, foaming with rage. A stout cane in my strong right hand caught her eye, and she stood at bay.
"What was she so mad at you and your companion for? Did she know either of you?"
"She knew us by sight, or rather she knew him as one of the active helpers of the Missionary, Mr. Pease, the House of Industry, and the Five Points Mission. What more should she know to hate us? She knew we were not of her faith; that we believed not in the efficacy of holy water and confession, to work out sin; that we did not kneel and receive a consecrated wafer with 'extreme unction', and so she hated us with all the fervent rancor of religious hate. She hated us for our mission of good; for she knew we hated what she dearly loved--drunkenness and all its concomitant evils. She hated us with that envious hate of depravity, which would sink everything to its own level. She knew that we would take her dying child to a clean bed and airy room, and give it food and medicine, and nurse it into life, and she hated us for that."
"How could she? How could a mother be so wicked to her poor sick child? I am sure if I could not take care of mine, I would trust it with anybody who would save its life." Thus will say more than one Christian mother.