Any quality to which the heart of man aspires it may attain. Would you have virtue in the world, establish it yourself. Would you have tenderness, be tender. It is only by acting in the name of that which you deem to be an ideal that its realization is brought to pass. In the crowded section of the lower East Side of New York, where poverty reigns most distressingly, there stands a church which is a true representative of the religion of the poor. It is an humble building, crowded in among the flats and tenements that make the homely neighborhood homelier, and sends a crude and distorted spire soaring significantly toward the sky. There is but little light inside, for that which the crowded flat-buildings about does not shut out is weakened by the dusty stained-glass windows through which it has to pass. An arched and dark-angled ceiling lends a sense of dignity to it and over it all broods the solemn atmosphere of simplicity and faith.
It is in this church (and no doubt others of a similar character elsewhere) that is constantly recurring the miracle of earthly faith. Here it is, hour after hour, that one sees entering out of the welter and the din of the streets those humble examples of the poor and ignorant,109 who come here out of the cares of many other states to rest a while and pray.
 
The Realization of an Ideal
Near the door, between two large, gloomy pillars, there is a huge wooden cross, whereon is hung a life-size figure of the Christ. The hands and feet are pierced with the customary large forty-penny weight nails. The side is opened with an appalling gash, the forehead is crowned with the undying crown of thorns, which is driven down until the flesh is made to bleed.
Before this figure you may see kneeling, any day, not one but many specimens of those by whom the world has dealt very poorly. Their hands are rough, their faces worn and dull; on the gnarled and weary bodies are hung clothes of which you and I would be ashamed. Some carry bags, others huge bundles. With hands extended upward, their faces bearing the imprint of unquestioning faith, they look into the soft, pain-exhausted face of the Christ, imploring that aid and protection which the ordinary organization of society does not and cannot afford. It is in this church, as it seems to me, that the hour’s great lesson of tenderness is given.
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