He told me his story--substantially the story which has just been told to you by Mr.Simpson--and, gentlemen, I believe it.

But if I did not believe it, if I believed him to have been in the past all that his opponent has said; even if I believed that, only last evening, spurned, driven from his child, penniless and hopeless, he had yielded to the weakness which has been his curse all his life--even if I believed that, still I should demand that Henry Thomas, repentant and earnest as you see him now, should be given his rightful opportunity to become a man again.

He is poor, but he is not--shall not be--friendless.

No! a thousand times, no! You may say, some of you, that the affair is not my business.

I affirm that it IS my business.