Then his fellow-workers would quite unconsciously be used of the enemy to tempt him.
For these friends sometimes surprised him. Although called by their King to do this work some of them seemed to look upon it rather lightly. They did not apparently feel bound to do it with all their might, neither did they seem to understand Amer's zeal and earnestness.
"We cannot all work like you," they would say to him, "it would be foolish on our part if we did. We should soon break up and not be able to work at all. We really think you tire yourself out with your efforts, and they are often in vain."
"But the people are dying around us," said Amer, "and we are only here to work."
"But there is no cause for such extraordinary self-denial as you seem to think," they said. "You make us feel ashamed of ourselves. Besides you are injuring your health. You are working far too hard." And Amer, listening, recognized the voices of more enemies than one; but he still worked on, and had the joy of leading many a one out of the City of Despair into the sunshine of the road to the Radiant City.
And so he worked on, fighting, praying, and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom: and as he worked a wonderful radiance began to light up his face. It was the light of the Radiant City that lay upon it. The people among whom he laboured became aware of it.
"I think," they said, "he must be growing like the King he is always telling us about, Who is so loving and merciful."
And his fellow-workers noticed it and talked about it to one another.
"What a beautiful character he has," they said, "he puts us all to shame, but never speaks as if he were the least more faithful or earnest than we are. He is one of the humblest men we have ever come across."
"If I had met that man some twenty years ago," said the one whom Amer had seen with such a very miserable face, on entering the City, "he might have been the saving of me. It is what the man does that makes me half inclined to believe in what he says."