Isa Dás opened the Bible, as he was wont, with a short prayer for God's Spirit to guide him. 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. 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. 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. But I can pay him now, though not without giving up what I greatly desired; only one rupee would be left, and no one who can help it ever thinks of paying debts. Why should I do what none of my countrymen think it needful to do?"
"Because I am a Christian," was the faithful reply given by conscience; "because I have no right to spend on myself, or even to give away to the poor what really belongs to another."
Yet Isa Dás was not fully persuaded that to repay his friend's loan was a religious duty until, prostrating himself in prayer, he had humbly said, in the words of the great apostle, "'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?'"
Then it appeared evident to his soul that honesty required repayment of a loan, and that he who would "provide things honest in the sight of all men" must not remain in debt for a single day longer than he possibly can. Resolving, though with a sigh, to carry over the four rupees in the morning, Isa Dás fell asleep.
But when the morning came, the convert's resolution wavered a little. Even after he had started for the missionary's house, which lay at the other end of the town, Isa Dás had many doubts and misgivings. As he passed through the bazaars, Satan tempted him first by the sight of a beautiful blanket with a red border, then ranges of shining brazen vessels, then heaps of grain, and baskets of ripe, delicious fruit. At every turning Isa Dás found a new snare.
Thrice, he almost resolved to delay, at least, paying his debt. Then came the thought, "This is the first opportunity which God has given me of getting out of debt; if I delay, such an opportunity may never occur again. If I neglect my Lord's command, can I expect His blessing? Debt, like a cancer, is eating out the very life of this land; every Christian should, by his conduct, make his firm protest against it."
So, trying to avoid even looking into the tempting shops, and delaying his purchase of needful things till his return, lest he should be drawn into spending more than his single rupee, Isa Dás pursued his way. He soon left the town behind him, and came in sight of the white bungalow, with its neat compound, in which the missionary resided.