A. L. O. E.

“ I am weary of your unasked-for counsels!" exclaimed the weak-witted Bandhu. "If I choose to believe in a prince with an elephant's head or a hundred arms, what is it to you? If I choose to do puja to a monkey or snake, why should it trouble your peace? I believe but what millions believe; I do but what multitudes do."
"And if multitudes, on a dark night, not seeing a precipice before them, fall over into the depths and miserably perish, shall I, who have light, calmly look on and not utter a word of warning?" cried Prem Chand. ”

“ Count you such beings worthy of reverence? Did such exist, they would be only worthy of detestation! O Bandhu! You must have eaten of the drug Superstition, and it is gradually destroying your mind, for it is as mould on the garment, or rust on the steel. Once more I earnestly entreat you to open the bag in which your treasures are doubtless concealed. Find from your bracelet whether to indulge such wild fancies be not sin, and from your mirror into what endless misery and ruin such sin must lead! Have mercy on yourself, O Bandhu! And let not the warning of a true friend be heard in vain! ”

“ If it be possible, I will keep him with me always, and when he grows up to be a man, I will make him my slave. I dare not altogether deprive him of his mirror and bracelet, but he shall never have any use of them, for if he be warned against falsehood and sin, he will soon escape from my power. I will fasten up the king's gifts in the black bag of Ignorance, and hang them as a charm round the neck of Bandhu. I will persuade the boy that ruin will overtake him if he ever open that bag. ”

“ The wise Brahmin knew nothing of this, and merely said, for the sake of a few rupees, what Farebwala told him to say. For the bribe of a hundred rupees, he would have declared the herdsman's child to be the son of a rajah.
"Who are you, O ass, and son of an ass, who would pour contempt on holy devotees!" cried the angry Brahmin.
The youths around, easily moved to mirth or to mockery—as the chaff is whirled round by a light puff of wind—joined in the insulting Cry, "O ass, and son of an ass!" ”

“ The poor superstition-enslaved Hindu groaned again at the thought.
"Oh, brother!" exclaimed Isa Dás. "If you were a Christian, you would be troubled by no such idle fears!"
"In your religion, do you not believe in new births?" asked the Hindu.
"Only one new birth, a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness. We believe in one great change, the change of heart which comes when he who knows himself to be a sinner believes from his heart in the Saviour of sinners." ”

“ The great difficulty to Shiv Dás was simply this. "If I become a Christian, how much I shall have to give up. I am like a poor potter, or unclean maker of shoes; I have a great deal to lose. Who will come to me for cure when I shall have broken caste, and in the eyes of man incurred defilement. Will any one believe in my skill if I cease to prepare charms, and give only drugs and ointment? Shall I own to patients that my spells were but muttered lies? Does the seller of fruit ever call her own plums sour?" ”

“ If theft, lying, and murder be crimes in a human being, can they be worthy of gods?'"
"The deities whom you speak of never existed; they are but the creation of men's minds, and those very wicked polluted minds," said the missionary. "He must have been deeply sunk in vice indeed who could even imagine such wickedness as your so-called religious books attribute to the false gods whom you worship."
"I only worship the one true God," replied Gopal faintly. "I cast myself, sinner as I am, at the feet of the Holy One who died for sinners." ”

“ Shiv Dás never felt any remorse or shame for his lying till he met with, and had much talk with a follower of the God of Truth. He saw a man whose character, compared to his own, was as the pure stream to the stagnant pool, a man who would not have told a lie to save his own life. Shiv Dás at first thought this man a fool, but after nearer acquaintance reverenced him as a saint. The Hindu listened as the teacher told of Christ the Great Physician, whose touch was healing, whose words were wisdom, and whose gift is life eternal. Gradually on the Hindu doctor broke the light of Truth. ”

“ If you see not that the space between the two religions is wider than that which divides heaven from earth, it is because the enemy of your soul has drugged you with Superstition, so that you are unable to say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?"
It is the Bible, the Mirror of Truth, that shows us that Idolatry is the parent of Vice, and that both are murderers of the soul. It may be, O Hindu! that you are at this moment travelling in the company of these dread Thugs, that this morning you did puja to some idol of brass or stone. ”

“ He came between man and eternal destruction. The love of the king who encountered a fierce tiger to save a poor child is as nothing compared to the love of the Heavenly King, who won salvation for man by the awful struggle in which He overcame death by dying.
And who is the Farebwala (father of deceit) who seeks to keep us from the knowledge of this love, in order to rob us and make us his slaves?
Behold the spirit of evil, Satan, who would hold all mankind in bondage, and tries to hide from us the knowledge of a Saviour King who is willing to adopt us as His children. ”

“ Persons, for a wedding or funeral expenses, will burden themselves with debt, which fetters them for the rest of their lives. Interest in India is enormously high; thus debts grow fast, like plants in a damp, hot jungle. Native Christians need earnest warnings as well as heathen. It will take time to teach even them that there in a difference between a gift and a loan.
"I owe four rupees to the missionary sahib," said Isa Dás to himself, "but the thought of this has never disturbed me, for I knew that I could not pay, and that he would not press for payment. He is no grasping money-lender. ”

“ And what are the mirror and the bracelet hidden by Farebwala under the black cover of Ignorance?
The name of the bracelet is Conscience. It is the precious gift of God; it warns us when danger to the soul, when temptation is near. But is it not too true that the conscience of those who know not the true God has been darkened? When falsehood is spoken, when covetousness is felt, when other sins are indulged in, does the unenlightened conscience give its warning pressure? Reader! Have you not learned to do evil frequently without even knowing that it is evil? ”

“ Bandhu rushed off in terror, as the fawn flies from the cheetah, trampling Ignorance under his flying feet. But the two Thugs were determined not to lose their victim. They knew that if he escaped, he would give information against them. As the cheetah by successive springs gains on the fawn, so the Thugs gained upon Bandhu. The poor boy stumbled over the roots of a tree in his haste, and they were upon him at once.
Happily for Bandhu help was near. Prem Chand had lingered still near the lad who had insulted and struck him, and seeing the chase, now rushed with a shout to the rescue. ”

“ Assuredly Bandhu was one of the blind when he made friends with Idolatry and Vice. Yet the blind who see not danger may be saved by the friendly grasp of one who has eyes.
When a seed has been dropped into earth, he from whose hand it fell may little know that it is swelling and growing under the earth. Prem Chand thought that his advice and warnings were utterly lost upon Bandhu, that he himself had been insulted, threatened, and struck, and all to no purpose. But in this the king's messenger was mistaken. ”

“ Mankind are as the poor helpless child left in the jungle, sick of the foul disease of sin. Even the pure-lived Nanak * was compelled by conscience to cry,—
"Keep me, O my Father, my Lord!
I am without virtues; all virtues are Thine!"
* For accounts of Goru (teacher) Nanak, and the poet Kabir, see further on.
And one more enlightened than the great Goru hath written, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."
Thus lying, exposed and helpless, death—even the destruction of the soul, everlasting ruin—steals upon us, as the fearful beast drew nigh to the child. ”

“ The Christian usually found great refreshment from reading the Bible, but this time any one who could have watched his face would have seen that he was troubled. Isa Dás was reading the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, and he paused with his finger on the eighth verse, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another."
To Isa Dás had come that trouble which often meets those who have in mature years adopted a religion more pure than that of their childhood. Sunlight shows us blots and stains that we never noticed by lamplight. ”

“ Isa Dás said no more that day, for he saw that Gopal was too feeble to listen long. The Christian, however, left the hut of the poor kahar with a feeling of hope, which he turned into fervent prayer. It was something that Gopal should think of his own soul and its state after death. It was something that he had listened with something like attention to the story of redeeming Love. When we see the first green blade rise from the ground which we have ploughed and sown, is it not as an earnest to us of the harvest which may one day be reaped? ”

“ Until Isa Dás had become a Christian, he had never regarded remaining in debt as a sin, though he knew it to be an evil. Like many of his countrymen, he looked on a creditor as a kind of tyrant, whom it is lawful to cheat if you can. Isa Dás had often said that debt is like a chain, but he had not thought that it was one of Satan's forging; he believed it to be against man's comfort, but had not been aware that it is against the command of the Most High. *
* The prevalence of debt is one of the most terrible evils in India, a fertile cause of misery. ”

“ The king's horse at last falling lame, his rider had dismounted, and after tying his bridle to a tree, had determined to rejoin his attendants on foot. It was then that the king came on the place where Bandhu lay stretched on the earth, within reach of the tiger's spring.
Perhaps out of a million men there would have been but one who would not have left the wretched, diseased child to his fate. Of all princes there would have been but one who would not have thought, "To save so worthless a life I never will risk my own. ”

“ Besides, the inscription showed plainly what choice should be made; what do many desire but riches,—houses, riches, rich clothes, jewels, and bags of rupees!"
"In short, the goods of this world," said the Christian.
"But perhaps a Jogi would have chosen the silver box," observed the oilman, "for what with his pilgrimages and his fastings, his long contemplations and austerities, he gathers together such a stock of merits, that he thinks nothing too good for his deserts."
"A Jogi, and many a Brahmin would certainly be likely to choose the silver casket," said Isa Dás. ”

“ As Isa Dás went about his daily occupations, he still thought and thought, "What shall I do with my money? When I was a Hindu how much I spent on pilgrimages and melás, and feasting fat Brahmins! Going to the Hurdwan melá * cost me hundreds of rupees, and almost my life! If the Hindus make sacrifices for their religion, shall the follower of Christ do less for his? The Lord, when He left heaven to save us, 'though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor.' For us He gave up glory, happiness, yes, life itself, and shall we give up nothing for Him? ”

“ Isa Dás entered through the low doorway, and as he stood in the half-darkened room, he heard the sick man thus answer some question put by the missionary.
"O sir! It was goodness—mercy—love that drew me towards the Saviour. I remember the proverb, 'As the Goru is, so is the disciple;' as is the Deity, so is the worshipper. I thought, 'if all men should follow the examples of Khrishna and Mahadeo, the world would not be fit to live in; if all women were like the goddesses Kali and Doorga, the land would be running with blood. ”

“ One evening, after a day of trial, when a single chapatti had formed the whole of his meal, and not a cowrie was left to buy another, Isa Dás, prostrating himself on the earth, uttered this prayer, "O Lord Jesus! Thou hast known what it is to be poor and a-hungered; Thou hast promised that Thou wilt never leave or forsake them who put their trust in Thee! ”

“ More misery was to follow. Lachmi, who felt the loss of her child far less than did her husband, pursued her design of bathing in the holy river. But the rush of thousands and thousands of pilgrims, all bent on the same object, was so terrific, that in spite of the efforts of the police, hundreds were pushed by their companions over a ravine, and miserably perished. Amongst this number was Lachmi; she had had her heart's desire, and it had cost her her life.
Shiv Dás, desolate and almost beggared, attempted to return to his home. ”

“ In most quaint language Kabir thus expresses a very deep truth:—
"By the saints the butter is eaten, the world drinks the buttermilk."
A Christian might have written the following verse:—
"The saints have died; why should weeping be made
that they go to their home
The stars at dawn pass away, so the world passes away."
Like Goru Nanak, in his writings the gifted weaver expresses deep humility:—
"Every one says (I am) good, good: no one considers
(himself) bad.
Kabir says, I am the worst of all; every one is good
except me. ”