"That is exactly what God's Son, the King of Heaven, has already done!" cried Isa Dás. "The Lord Jesus Christ saw all men lying in sin, about to die and perish for ever. The doors of heaven were closed against guilty souls. All are unholy; yes, Brahmins, the Jogi, the devotee are all under one terrible sentence, 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die' (Ezek. xviii. 20). God's Son took pity on a perishing world; He came and assumed a mortal body, * that in that body He might die. He bore our punishment as He hung on the Cross. And now, through Christ's great sacrifice, the fear of death is taken from true believers. 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus' (Rom. viii. 1)."
* The doctrine of the Incarnation offers no such difficulty to the Hindu's mind as it does to that of the Mahomedan.
"Are they emancipated from the eighty-four lakhs (100,000) of births?" asked the Hindu earnestly. "Are they in no danger of entering a vile body when they die?"
"These supposed transmigrations are but the wild dreams of men," replied Isa Dás. "The Word of God tells of an abode of perfect delight into which all will be admitted after death who in their lifetime believe in the Saviour."
"To believe—is that enough?" cried the dying Hindu.
"Yes, if the faith be that living faith, whose fruit is love and obedience," replied the Christian. "He who believes from the heart that the Son of God died for me, even me, cannot but love his Redeemer. 'We love Him, because He first loved us' (1 John iv. 19). And obedience follows on love; what faithful disciple obeys not the voice of his Goru? Our heavenly Goru hath said, 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments' (John xiv. 15)."
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?
[CHAPTER VI.]
HELP IN NEED.
ISA DÁS much needed such encouragements to cheer him, for at this time he was in great straits as regarded temporal things. The patients who came to him for healing seldom gave him even cowries * to pay for his drugs. Few even thought of giving the Christian his due; was it not enough if they did not abuse and revile him? Isa Dás could no longer earn money by selling charms, his conscience forbade him to do so. He had to part one by one with almost everything that he possessed, even to his shawl and embroidered slippers, and the hookah which had once been his father's. The blanket which he wore was threadbare; the kurta beneath only fit for a wandering fakir.