A young widow, evicted with her baby, wanders exhausted to the doorstep of the village miser, a backslider from the church. The baby's cry touches the old man's heart, and he gives the pair shelter. While he is out buying milk, two jailbirds who have dropped off an incoming train, break into the house and not finding the old man's hoard, torture the baby's mother to make her tell where she has hidden the money. The old man returns and is pleading with the robbers when the sheriff and a posse of villagers arrive, summoned by an old maid who has been trying to induce the backslider to return to the church. By his adoption of the baby the old man shows that, even though he stays away from church, he is a true Christian.