She has given
her those two children we picked up at the door of the public-house to
take care of. Poor little darlings! they are bringing back the life in
her heart already. There is actually a little colour in her cheek--the
dawn, I trust, of the eternal life. That is Miss St. John's way.
As often as she gets hold of a poor hopeless woman, she gives her
a motherless child. It is wonderful what the childless woman and
motherless child do for each other.'

'I was much amused the other day with the lecture one of the police
magistrates gave a poor creature who was brought before him for
attempting to drown herself. He did give her a sovereign out of the poor
box, though.'

'Well, that might just tide her over the shoal of self-destruction,'
said Falconer. 'But I cannot help doubting whether any one has a right
to prevent a suicide from carrying out his purpose, who is not prepared
to do a good deal more for him than that. What would you think of the
man who snatched the loaf from a hungry thief, threw it back into the
baker's cart, and walked away to his club-dinner? Harsh words of rebuke,
and the threat of severe punishment upon a second attempt--what are
they to the wretch weary of life? To some of them the kindest punishment
would be to hang them for it. It is something else than punishment
that they need. If the comfortable alderman had but "a feeling of their
afflictions," felt in himself for a moment how miserable he must be,
what a waste of despair must be in his heart, before he would do it
himself, before the awful river would appear to him a refuge from the
upper air, he would change his tone. I fear he regards suicide chiefly
as a burglarious entrance into the premises of the respectable firm of
Vension, Port, & Co.'

'But you mustn't be too hard upon him, Falconer; for if his God is
his belly, how can he regard suicide as other than the most awful
sacrilege?'

'Of course not. His well-fed divinity gives him one great commandment:
"Thou shalt love thyself with all thy heart. The great breach is to hurt
thyself--worst of all to send thyself away from the land of luncheons
and dinners, to the country of thought and vision." But, alas! he
does not reflect on the fact that the god Belial does not feed all his
votaries; that he has his elect; that the altar of his inner-temple
too often smokes with no sacrifice of which his poor meagre priests may
partake. They must uphold the Divinity which has been good to t