The gospel of God the All-Forgiving is the only doctrine here thoroughly insisted upon. It is, in a way, a doctrine of inspiration. That it is really never too late to change, to come back and begin all over, is the basic idea. God, once appealed to, can do anything to restore the contrite heart to power and efficiency. Believe in God, believe that He really loves you, believe that He desires to make you all you should be, and you will be. Your fortunes will change. You will come into peace and decency and be respected once more. God will help you. It is interesting to watch the effect of this inspirational doctrine, driven home as it is by imaginative address, oratorical fire, and sometimes physical vehemence. The speakers, the ordinary religionists of an inspirational and moral turn, not infrequently possess real magnetism, the power to attract and sway their hearers. These dismal wanderers, living largely in doubt and despair, can actually be seen to take on a pseudo-courage as they listen. You can see them stir and shift, the idea that possibly something can be done for them if only they can get this belief into their minds, actually influencing their bodies. And now and then some one who has got a soft job, a place, through the ministrations of the mission workers, or who has been pulled out of a state of absolute despair--or at least claims to have been--will arise and testify that such has been the case. His long wanderings in the dark will actually fascinate him by contrast and he will expatiate with shabby eloquence upon his present decency and comfort as contrasted with what he was. I remember one night hearing an old man tell what a curse he had been to a kind-hearted sister, and how he wanted but one thing, now that he was coming out of his dream of evil, and that was to let her see some day that he had really reformed. It was a pathetic wish, so little to hope for, but the wish was seemingly sincere and the speaker fairly recovered. And they claim to recover a percentage, small though it is, to actual service and usefulness. The service may not be great, the usefulness not very important, but such as it is, there it is. And if one could but believe them, so dubious is all so-called reformation of this sort, there is something pleasing in the thought that out of the muck and waste of the slough of despond some of these might actually be brought to health and decency, a worthwhile living, say. Yet are they? Dirty, grimy, like flies immersed in glue, can they be--have they ever been--dragged to safety and set on their feet again, clean, hopeful, or even weakly so?