Who do you think, by the light of your
psychology, are all these simple people?" I guessed in vain. "Well, I
see I must tell you," he said. "Would it surprise you to learn that most
of these people whom you see here passed upon earth for wicked and
unsatisfactory characters? Yet it is true. Don't you know the kind of
boys there were at school, who drifted into bad company and idle ways,
mostly out of mere good-nature, went out into the world with a black
mark against them, having been bullied in vain by virtuous masters, the
despair of their parents, always losing their employments, and often
coming what we used to call social croppers--untrustworthy, sensual,
feckless, no one's enemy but their own, and yet preserving through it
all a kind of simple good-nature, always ready to share things with
others, never knowing how to take advantage of any one, trusting the
most untrustworthy people; or if they were girls, getting into trouble,
losing their good name, perhaps living lives of shame in big
cities--yet, for all that, guileless, affectionate, never excusing
themselves, believing they had deserved anything that befell them? These
were the sort of people to whom Christ was so closely drawn.
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