Three days passed, but God withheld the Moulvie from fulfilling his threat of murdering his heroic prisoner. A fourth—a fifth day found the Christian family still enduring their ordeal of fiery trial. On the sixth day the Moulvie came to the prison, and mockingly, asked his poor captive if he were comfortable. "How can I be comfortable when my feet are fastened to the stocks?" was the reply; yet Gopinath added an expression of submission to the will of his Heavenly Father. But the parent could not forbear asking the tyrant how he could be so cruel as not to allow a drop of milk to a poor innocent baby. The sufferings of his helpless family must have been to Gopinath even more grievous than his own. But these sufferings were near their close. Brave Europeans and Sikh soldiers were now at hand; a fierce fight ensued, and the Moulvie's followers were utterly routed. Gopinath and his family were free! Who can describe their delight when they found themselves rescued by God's almighty power, with the yet higher joy of feeling through all that awful trial of faith they had been kept from denying their Saviour! How devout must have been their thanksgivings to Him who had brought them through that Valley of the Shadow of Death into light, and joy, and freedom! Gopinath and his wife lived to re-organise the church in Futteypore though they were not very long afterwards called into the presence of the Heavenly King whom they had so faithfully served.—What cause had Dr. Duff, (he had then received the title of Doctor,) to rejoice over the convert who so many years before had come to him in tears with the cry, "Can I be saved!" ———————— CHAPTER IX. DRIVEN HOME. Let us return to the earlier days spent by our Missionary in Calcutta. Alexander Duff had started for India a remarkably fine and powerful man. But hard work, fiery heat, and long fatiguing journeys taken in the course of his labours, ere many years had passed, brought him to the brink of the grave. First he had violent jungle fever, but recovering from this, he was soon again at his work. Remittent fever came on; Duff struggled on, loth to give way. But when severe dysentery followed, the once strong man was reduced to a state of utter prostration. An experienced doctor pronounced the sufferer's state to be almost desperate, but very little hope was entertained of saving the life of Mr. Duff. However, after awaking from a long deep trance, the sufferer so far revived that he could be taken on board a ship. The sick Missionary could hardly endure the idea of leaving his work in India. He implored the doctor to send him on a short voyage and not all the way to England. "I devoted myself to the Lord," he pleaded, "to spend and to be spent in His service in this land." The doctor almost sternly replied, "In the last nine months you have suffered more from tropical diseases than many who have passed their lives in India: let not a day be lost!"