People called this old Knowles an infidel, said his brain was as unnatural and distorted as his body.

God, looking down into his heart that night, saw the savage wrestling there, and judged him with other eyes than theirs.
The story stood alive in his throbbing brain demanding hearing.

All things were real to this man, this uncouth mass of flesh that his companions sneered at; most real of all, the unhelped pain of life, the great seething mire of dumb wretchedness in streets and alleys, the cry for aid from the starved souls of the world.

You and I have other work to do than to listen,--pleasanter.

But he, coming out of the mire, his veins thick with the blood of a despised race, had carried up their pain and hunger with him: it was the most real thing on earth to him,--more real than his own share in the unseen heaven or hell.