Sometimes he is lucky to fill
in on a beef stew, but very seldom.
Now, if that isn't living on husks, I don't know what you call it! His
clothes are getting filthy and he is in despair. How he wishes he had
never left home! He hasn't a friend in the big city, and he doesn't know
which way to turn. He says, "I'll write home." But no, he is too proud.
He wants to go home the same as he left it. And the longer he waits the
worse he will be. No one grows any better, either bodily or morally, by
being on the Bowery. So the quicker they go to some other place the
better.
But the Bowery draws men by its own strange attraction. They get into
the swing of its life, and find the company that misery loves. God
knows there's plenty of it there! I've seen men that you could not drive
from the Bowery. But when a man takes Jesus as his guide he wants to
search for better grounds.
Well, Tom had hit the pace that kills. And one night--about five years
ago--there wandered into the Mission where I was leading a meeting a
young man with pale cheeks and a look of utter despair on his face,
looking as though he hadn't had a square meal in many a day.
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