Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/391

Rh sits down beside an aged man, also a heathen, to study the word of God! How strange the sight! but it is unseen of all, save God. The missionary who gave that book, at some idolatrous gathering, it may be, is mourning that he has laboured in vain, and spent his strength for nought. But God is faithful; his blessing has not been withheld; and, at the last day, the faithful labourer will receive a joyful and surprising award of praise from him whom he had served often in sorrow below. And who can tell how many such instances, known only to God, will at the last day appear as the blessed fruit of the seed now sown by the servants of the Lord in India and other lands? Be not thou weary in well-doing, O Christian, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not!

The old man came, according to his promise, but told Shunkuru, to his grief, that he was going to a distant part of the country. Distressed at the thought of again being deprived of the word of God, he offered the old man eight rupees for it; his offer (as great proportionally as if an American labourer should offer twenty dollars for a six-cent Testament) was accepted; but, fearful lest the man should return for his book, Shunkuru for some time kept