CHAPTER IV.

"I WONDER whether that poor half-starved fellow will come over again this evening on the chance of meeting his father," said Karim to himself, as on the following evening he again took his station on the platform to watch for the train. "Here come some to meet the train, but I take it that they are very different sort of folk from my zamindar."

A prisoner, in clanking irons, led by two policemen, stood now on the platform. He was going to be tried on a charge of murder, and if a man's character could be read in his face, this one might have been deemed guilty of any crime. Fierce wolf-like eyes glared under a mass of shaggy hair, and as he squatted on the ground, just under the yellow gleam of the lamp, he looked somewhat like a wild beast crouching in the act to spring.

As Karim gazed at this wretched man with mingled pity and disgust, he was saluted by Matrá, the zamindar. Karim courteously returned the salám, and then walked to the other end of the platform, that conversation might not be overheard by policemen or prisoner, if, as he thought probable, the zamindar should talk to him again.

As he expected, Matrá followed his steps.

"Have you been thinking over what I said to you last night?" asked Karim, when both men had reached the end of the platform.

"I've thought of little else," said the peasant. "As I watered my buffaloes, and drove my plough, I was always turning over in my mind what you told me of the one God, who lives up yonder, the God of Love."

"And you believe that I spake truth?" asked the railway official.

"How can I believe it?" cried the zamindar bitterly. "If God be a God of love, why is the world so full of misery? Why are the poor oppressed and trodden down like the dust under foot? Why is there crime and wickedness?" Matrá pointed as he spake towards the prisoner. "The sun, the dew, the rain, and the green crops seem to tell us that there is a great God who made them, and who wishes man to be happy; but thorns and briars, locusts and blight, plague and pestilence, poverty and famine, they tell quite a different tale. If God be good, and powerful too, how came misery into the world?"

"It is a sad story, and a somewhat long one," said Karim, "but if you wish, you shall hear the account given in our Scriptures."

"I wish to hear it," said Matrá.

"The good God when He had made this world, created one man and one woman, from whom all the people that ever lived are descended."

"What!" exclaimed Matrá in surprise. "English, Hindus, Brahmins, Mehtars,—all descended from one pair! This is not what our Vedas tell us."

"No indeed," replied Karim; "your Gorus tell you that Brahmins came from Brahma's mouth, and low caste folk from his feet; being Brahmins themselves, they have their own reasons for telling you this," he added, with a smile. "But listen to the true account given in the Holy Scriptures. This first pair, named Adam and Eve, God placed in a beautiful garden, where they lived in love, innocence, and joy. They had abundance of fruits to eat; only as regarded one tree, the Maker of all gave command, 'Thou shalt not eat of its fruit; if thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"Such a command was easily obeyed," observed Matrá.

"There was an evil spirit, called Satan, who envied the peace and happiness in which dwelt Adam and Eve. He had, however, no power to harm them, unless he could tempt them into sin. Alas! He succeeded too well! It was as if the husband and wife had had a choice placed before them, 'Will you believe God or Satan? Will you choose God or Satan to be your master?' A fatal choice was made. The woman ate of the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband, and from that hour both fell under the power of cruel Satan. Misery, pain, sin, and death came into the world!"

"An evil hour for the first pair," said Matrá, "as it was for my grandfather when he first got into the clutches of the money-lenders, and mortgaged our land. But was it not rather hard that all the race born of this man and woman should suffer as well as themselves?"

"Let us take your simile," said Karim. "Your grandfather, by his act, laid a heavy debt upon you, his grandson, but you yourself, by your own account, have added to the debt. So not only were Adam and Eve sinners, but Satan once getting power in the world, has tempted and drawn into sin every man and woman in it, and one terrible sentence, that of death for the body, and death for the soul (which is eternal separation from God) hangs over all."

"Could not God forgive us all the debt, as He is, as you tell me, Love?" inquired the zamindar.

"If your creditor took you before the judge, and that judge were the kindest man in the world, he might pity you, indeed, but justice would compel him to give a sentence against you. The judge might be powerful, wise and good, but still you would be ruined."

Poor Matrá looked very sad; he knew that this was indeed too true. A just and kind judge could not save him from the consequences of incurring a debt which he could not pay.

"I don't think that there is any comfort at all in your religion," said the zamindar with a sigh. "If it only tells us that we are in the power of a wicked spirit, and that we are separated for ever from God, and have a great debt like a heavy stone hung round our necks to drown us, it makes us out to be in a miser able state indeed."

"But from that state God has found a way to save us," cried Karim cheerfully. "If you were to be told how all your debt could be cleared off at once, and that you should be restored to your father, and live all the rest of your life in plenty and peace, would not your heart be glad?"

"I should feel as if I were in heaven!" cried Matrá. But he sighed after he had uttered the words, for he felt that he could no more hope for such joy than he could build a house on a rainbow.

"God 'has' found a way of saving us, of freeing us from Satan, of paying our debt, of—" here Karim was suddenly interrupted by the shrill railway whistle.

Matrá had been so much interested in the conversation that he had almost forgotten for the moment why he had come to the station. But now the sound of the whistle gave him joy, for it might be the signal that his father was near.

The same sound made a groan burst from the wretched prisoner, for it told him that he was soon to be hurried off to the place of his trial, probably the place of his execution. It is with such different feelings that God's children and His enemies hear that death draws nigh. To the first it brings hopes of a blissful meeting, to the latter the terror of coming judgment