CHAPTER I.

THE DOCTOR'S CHARMS.

SHIV DÁS was a Hindu doctor, widely famed for his skill. He knew the qualities of all manner of herbs, and the secret of cures for every sort of disease. Men afflicted with divers maladies came to him from great distances, and often returned to their villages rejoicing. Lame men from the effect of Shiv Dás's ointments sometimes threw away their crutches; women carried their sick children to his house as to the shrine of a goddess. Shiv Dás gave not only medicines, but he hung charms round the necks of his patients; he not only rubbed on ointments, but he muttered a number of spells. If he failed in making a cure, he said that the gods were not propitious; if a patient died under his care, he declared that the day had been unlucky. Shiv Dais was a clever doctor, but he was also a great liar; he had real skill, but under it lay a great deal of deceit, as under the sweet mango pulp is hidden the large hard stone.

Shiv Dás never felt any remorse or shame for his lying till he met with, and had much talk with a follower of the God of Truth. He saw a man whose character, compared to his own, was as the pure stream to the stagnant pool, a man who would not have told a lie to save his own life. Shiv Dás at first thought this man a fool, but after nearer acquaintance reverenced him as a saint. The Hindu listened as the teacher told of Christ the Great Physician, whose touch was healing, whose words were wisdom, and whose gift is life eternal. Gradually on the Hindu doctor broke the light of Truth. His intelligent mind received it long before he could resolve openly to confess that he believed the Christian's Holy Book, which he only studied in secret.

The great difficulty to Shiv Dás was simply this. "If I become a Christian, how much I shall have to give up. I am like a poor potter, or unclean maker of shoes; I have a great deal to lose. Who will come to me for cure when I shall have broken caste, and in the eyes of man incurred defilement. Will any one believe in my skill if I cease to prepare charms, and give only drugs and ointment? Shall I own to patients that my spells were but muttered lies? Does the seller of fruit ever call her own plums sour?"

Such thoughts as these for a time distressed Shiv Dás, and kept him back from confessing his faith. He continued cheating others, after he had left off cheating himself. But this struggle with conscience could not go on very long. Shiv Dás saw that the road of falsehood is the path to hell, that light and darkness, fire and water can as well agree together as the religion of the Lord Jesus with the deceit which had brought in the chief part of the doctor's gains. Shiv Dás must choose between earthly loss and disgrace, and the terrible punishment which, after death, awaits the unrepenting deceiver. He must choose between sin and a Saviour. The convert bravely made his choice.

One night, when the crescent moon faintly shone through the leaves of the peepul trees, Shiv Dás threw his charms into a well, after having, prostrate on the ground, asked forgiveness for having ever used them. He then returned to his home, and throwing himself on his charpai (bed), enjoyed sweeter rest than he had known for months. In the morning the doctor rose, went to his teacher the missionary, and asked to be admitted into the Christian Church. A few weeks later the water of baptism was poured on the convert's brow, and he who had begun a new life received a new name, Shiv Dás became Isa Dás. *

* Signifying "Servant of Jesus," instead of "Servant of Shiva."

At first the doctor appeared to be ruined. He was reviled in the streets, insulted in the bazaars, more than once he was beaten. It was not easy for him to gain pice enough to satisfy hunger; he had to make his own chapattis, and of the coarsest grain. Women declared that they would as soon let their children die as be cured by drugs polluted by the touch of the Christian.

But gradually even their prejudices softened a little towards him. A time of great sickness came, and the people felt the need of a doctor. They remembered the many cures wrought by Isa Dás; they began to think that even without spells his drugs might give them relief from their pain.

A case which occurred at this time had no small influence in turning the tide of opinion.

A child, the favourite child of its Hindu mother, was smitten with sore sickness. An ignorant fakir was applied to, but notwithstanding all his charms and spells, his patient evidently grew worse and worse.

"Have done with your mutterings; my darling is dying," cried the mother in desperation at last. "Shiv Dás, or whatever he chooses now to be called, saved my boy's life once, and I will ask him to save it again, were every Brahmin in Hindustan to curse me!"

The mother took up in her arms the poor moaning child, whose every gasp seemed likely to be his last. She folded her chaddar closely around him, and with hurried steps sought the mud hut which was now the Christian doctor's abode.

"Can you save him?" she cried, laying her almost expiring child at the feet of Isa Dás.

"God can," was the Christian's reply.

"Have you no charm?" sobbed the trembling mother.

"My only charm is asking God's blessing on my medicines," replied Isa Dás.

Very earnestly did the Christian ask that blessing. Not only from pity for the mother and her suffering child, but because he saw that on his success or failure in this difficult case not only the little one's life, but (humanly speaking) his own future livelihood might depend.

Isa Dás mixed his drugs; he gave them with humble prayer, and with faith committed the result to God. After a while the child's moanings gave place to perfect stillness.

"He is dead!" exclaimed the trembling mother.

Isa Dás smiling said, "Thank God! He has dropped asleep at last!"

The child made a good recovery, and from that time Isa Dás had almost as many patients as before his baptism. The most prejudiced Hindu, when seriously ill, preferred to be cured by one who had broken caste, to dying in an orthodox way.

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