Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/390

338 evening as a spectator to a heathen feast. As he was passing a small house, he saw an old man reading in one corner, by the light of a lamp. He paused to listen, and found, to his joy, that the language was that of his beloved book. He immediately left his companions, and, seating himself beside the old man, listened with great attention. After awhile he humbly begged permission to look at the book, and having read some portions of it, asked for an explanation of its meaning. This the old man could not give, for he was himself a heathen. Shunkuru invited him to meet him at breakfast the next morning, and to bring his book with him.

We cannot but turn aside here for a moment from our narrative, to notice the wonderful ways of God. A portion of the Bible is left under a tree in Ceylon; but it is not lost. It is found by a poor idolater; his eyes are opened; he believes it to be the word of God. This man, having lost his book, far away from Ceylon, in the centre of Southern India, on his way to look on at a heathen festival, hears the sound of reading from a little hovel. He recognises the familiar sound. He enters, and there, by the dim light of a Hindu lamp, he