* The sum will seem very small to the English reader, but when one remembers that less than that is considered a month's pay for some of our lower servants, probably a family man, it will appear less insignificant. "O Lord! I thank Thee! Thou hast seen my trouble; Thou hast heard my prayer!" came from the heart of the poor Christian. No man heard that burst of thanksgiving, for the lips of Isa Dás were silent. But it was with a sense of deep pure joy that he passed forth from the Amir's dwelling to return to his own humble hut. It was not merely that his present wants were relieved, and that his reputation was made, that caused that deep pure joy; the love of God was the fountain from which it flowed. Isa Dás had realised, as he perhaps had never so fully done before, the truth of that gracious promise, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." [Illustration] CHAPTER VII. DOING HIS DUTY. FOR the first time for months, Isa Dás had the clear sum of five rupees in his hands. He entered his hut, and seating himself on the mud floor, began to consider what he should do with his money. "Shall I lay in a stock of grain while it is cheap, or buy one or two brass cooking-vessels to replace those I have been obliged to part with? Nay, surely my first purchase should be a blanket, for mine is almost threadbare. Perhaps I might spare something out of these five rupees for the work of the Lord. It would be a thank offering if I sent eight annas (half a rupee) to the starving folk at Madras." There were so many things on which Isa Dás wished to spend his money, that he could not make up his mind as to which he should choose. "I will not go to the bazaar till to-morrow," he said to himself, "there is no hurry for me to decide. I will now just read a little from God's Word, and then peacefully and thankfully go to my rest." Isa Dás opened the Bible, as he was wont, with a short prayer for God's Spirit to guide him. The Christian usually found great refreshment from reading the Bible, but this time any one who could have watched his face would have seen that he was troubled. Isa Dás was reading the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, and he paused with his finger on the eighth verse, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." To Isa Dás had come that trouble which often meets those who have in mature years adopted a religion more pure than that of their childhood. Sunlight shows us blots and stains that we never noticed by lamplight. Until Isa Dás had become a Christian, he had never regarded remaining in debt as a sin, though he knew it to be an evil. Like many of his countrymen, he looked on a creditor as a kind of tyrant, whom it is lawful to cheat if you can. Isa Dás had often said that debt is like a chain, but he had not thought that it was one of Satan's forging; he believed it to be against man's comfort, but had not been aware that it is against the command of the Most High. *