"The Jews collected in vast multitudes, the uproar became great, the police could not keep peace. Our house had been beset with Jews all day looking over the paling, beating any of the lads whom they found in the streets, throwing stones into the court, &c. At length, at night I was awakened by loud noises at the gate; they were trying to break in. Nahum and his children were sleeping in a little room near the gate; their object certainly was to beat or to murder him, and carry off the children . . . A boy on horseback was sent to the Consul for assistance . . . Meantime several Germans had encountered the Jews, and driven them back." "This poor Nahum seems to have led the life of a hunted hare," observed Martin; "but the worst of all must have been the division between him and his wife. Ah! There seems to be something more about her on the very next page." He read on— "His poor wife held out ten days, begging for a divorce, which he would not grant. At length, both she and her eldest son came at night to our house with the young child, and there they all are now. They are very anxious to be baptised." "Anxious to be baptised!" exclaimed Martin, joyfully, half-closing the book. "Then the tie between man and wife held fast after all the hard strain upon it, and when she could not drag him back from the Lord, her husband drew her towards the Saviour! Here are Christian and Christiana in that far-away place, Moldavia!" Martin went on with his reading again. "Ah! I see that the missionary wisely refused to baptise the wife till she should shew that she really desired to be Christ's, and not merely to please her husband. But Nahum had won the victory; his home was to be a Christian home." Here is something more about him in a letter from the lady farther on in the book:— "In the old man we have exceeding great joy; he reads each morning the Scriptures with his family, expounds and prays." "That story of Nahum, the converted Jew, seems as if it were just written for me," cried Martin, laying down the volume on the table. "Here am I, an Englishman, in a Christian land, half-afraid to say to my neighbours, 'I will close my shop on Sundays, because I will honour the law of God,' lest they should, perchance, laugh at me for being 'a Saint.' There was Nahum, openly confessing his faith at the risk of losing both property and life! Here am I, grieved and discouraged by a few hasty words from poor Ann; there was Nahum standing firm against the persuasions, the anger, the despair, of his wife, though he dearly loved her! A poor kind of Christian must I be! I fear but a coward at heart, and ill-fitted to bear the burden and heat of the day. God help me, and give me more grace and more courage, and then, perhaps, He will one day give to me, as to faithful Nahum, more cause to rejoice over a converted and loving wife!" CHAPTER V. Darkness and Night.