"Have you never cheated or spoken evil of one whom you hated, or flattered another whose favour you wished to gain?" pursued the Christian.
"Such things are trifles, they matter not!" said the bunniah,—and again the hubble-bubble of the hookah, interrupted for a moment, was heard.
"Ah! Friend, what you call trifles are as the cracks in the balloon!" cried Isa Dás. "Your righteousness is flimsy as the cloth of which the great ball was made. If it was rash in the colonel to trust his body to a balloon which raised him a little from earth, only to dash him down into destruction, are you not worse than rash if you trust your soul to what never can save it?"
The question made as little impression on the bunniah as it did on his hookah; but the zemindar, who was a man of a simple, teachable spirit, asked, "What is it that can save souls?"
"We need something much stronger, better, more perfect than any goodness of our own to carry us up to heaven," said Isa Dás; "and such righteousness is offered to us in the Gospel, even that of the Lord Jesus Christ!"
"Who was He?" inquired the zemindar.
"He is the only Man who over lived on earth and never knew sin," was the reply, "the only perfectly holy. Even his enemies could prove nothing against Him; even His judge declared, 'I find no fault in this man.'"
"But of what use is His righteousness to us?" asked the zemindar.
Then Isa Dás, with fervour and clearness, gave to the poor man, who listened with interest, an outline of the "old, old story." He told of the Lord's Incarnation, His holy life, and His terrible death endured for sinners. And thus the Christian closed his earnest address:—
"You asked me of what use the righteousness of Christ could be to us, and this is my reply. He offers it as a royal gift to all who truly believe in Him who is at once divine and human, the Son of God and the Son of Man. Christ is 'the Lord our Righteousness' (Jer. xxxiii. 16). This is the secret of the peace which I have found in the Christian religion," continued the convert. "I do not trust in my own righteousness, I count it but as filthy rags; but I have accepted the perfect righteousness of Christ, which is strong enough to bear me upwards, even to the gates of heaven, even into the presence of God."