Dear and sacred word! Let us get away from the garish light that distorts it. Let you and I, this Christmas, retire for a while, and think of it and muse upon it. Let us resolve to cherish it always, and let us unite in the hope that its influence for inconceivable good may not be lost in the turmoil of the Great March, to the thunderous steps of which the world's heart is wildly beating. Home! It is earth's heaven! The flowers that grow within garret walls prove it; the wondering ecstasy that fills the mother's breast as she looks upon the face of her first-born, the quiet ministering to those we love, the unselfishness, the devotion, the tender word, the act of charity, the self-sacrifice that finds creation there, prove it; the prayers that are said as we kneel by the bedside before committing our bodies to sleep, the little hands folded in worship, the lisping words of praise and of thanks to God that come from children's lips, the teaching of those words by the happy mother so that her child may grow up good, prove it. No lot in life is too lowly for this earth's heaven. No lot in life is too lowly for the pure enjoyment of Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses. I wish you, dear readers and friends, no better lot than this. May Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses often be your fare, and may it leave as sweet a taste in your mouth as it has left in mine! PART I. COME AND SHOW YOUR FACE, LIKE A MAN! [Illustration] If I were asked to point to a space of ground which, of all other spaces in the world, most truly represents the good and bad, the high and low, of humanity, I should unhesitatingly describe a circle of a mile around Westminster Abbey. Within that space is contained all that ennobles life, and all that debases it; and within that space, at the same moment, the lofty aspiration of the statesman pulses in the great Senate House in unison with the degraded desires of the inhabitant of Old Pye-street. There St. Giles and St. James elbow each other. There may be seen, in one swift comprehensive glance, all the beauty and ugliness of life, all its hope and hopelessness, all its vanity and modesty, all its knowledge and ignorance, all its piety and profanity, all its fragrance and foulness. The wisdom of ages, the nobility that sprung from fortunate circumstance or from brave endeavour, the sublime lessons that lie in faith and heroism, sanctify the solemn aisles of the grand old Abbey. Within its sacred cloisters rest the ashes of the great: outside its walls, brushing them with his ragged garments, skulks the thief--and worse.