The Little Gleaner, Vol. X.: A Monthly Magazine for the YoungVarious
Religion
The Little Gleaner, Vol. X.: A Monthly Magazine for the Young
Various
Christian literature for children -- Periodicals
A FUGITIVE IN THE HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS.
In the summer of 1852 Colonel B----, on an excursion to the snowy range
of the Himalayas, had proceeded into the mountains some twenty miles
beyond any known habitation of civilized man, when the natives told him
that, in a village near by, a white man was living in concealment.
Incredible as it appeared, Colonel B---- followed his guides to a little
native hut with mud walls and roof of grass. Taking a peep in at the low
entrance, sure enough, there he spied an elderly person with a white
face, but in the most shabby dress of the natives, who, on catching a
glance of the intruder, rushed into a dark corner of his miserable
hovel, out of which the most earnest entreaties and assurances of good
intentions scarcely brought him.
He was the son of an English gentleman who, like thousands of the
high-bred youths of England, had come to India to procure a title to a
Government pension, and, after remaining here ten or twenty years,
return home and live in ease. Like not a few who come to this land,
supposing he could scarcely avoid becoming rich, he had run recklessly
into debt, until he was threatened with a term of years in close
confinement unless he should immediately cancel his liabilities, to do
which he was totally incapable. He fled beyond the limits of the British
territory to the place where Colonel B---- found him, where he had
subsisted for some fifteen years, in the manner of the wild natives
around him, not excepting their revolting vices.
Colonel B---- told him of a debt he owed, which, if not discharged,
might consign him to chains and darkness, not for a term of years, but
for eternity; begged him earnestly to seek to escape that everlasting
imprisonment in the dungeons of the unutterably miserable; prayed with
him, and gave him a few tracts, which, like many good men, Colonel B----
is in the habit of taking with him wherever he goes.
Two years after, he again visited him, and found that the seed he had
been permitted to sow was springing up. On reading the tract, "_It is
the Last Time_," he could have no peace of mind until he found assurance
of his greatest debt being cancelled by the blood of Christ.
His brother, who was receiving a large salary in India, was delighted to
be permitted to meet his earthly liabilities, and requested him to
return to England and live the remainder of his days in comfortable
ease. But no; he said he had opposed and reviled the Christian religion
in India, and here he wished to do what he could to counteract his past
evil influence.
He is now at S----, daily assisting a missionary in proclaiming to the
heathen the only way of eternal life. May He whose grace has raised him
thus far out of the loathsome den, lead him still onward, and make him
an eminent aid and ornament to the faith which he so long despised and
reproached.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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