The Hartley Brothers by Charlotte Maria Tucker

"How beautiful the hour of early dawn, / When the first rays glance up the Eastern sky, / When the bright fingers of the fresh'ning morn / Draw back the veil of dark obscurity, / And give all Nature's beauties to the eye, / Her fairest scenes unfolding to the view; / The lark with buoyant pinion mounts on high, / And on the emerald lawn the pure soft dew / Sparkles with every beam which breaks the bright clouds / through.

"Thus on the night of ignorance and sin / The radiant morning of Conversion breaks, / A beam from heaven seems to shine within; / And, as the lark his earthly nest forsakes / And upward soars towards the source of light,- / From bonds of sin the soul enraptured breaks, / And-winged by Faith-springs on her upward flight / Till that clear day when Faith itself is lost in sight!"

A CHANGE, something like that described above, had come over the spirit of Ali, the Persian. The Amir had never been an enthusiastic follower of the False Prophet, and what Ali had heard and seen during his travels in various lands had extinguished any respect that he had felt for the Mahomedan faith. He had long suspected the Koran to be a tissue of lies palmed upon Arabian credulity by an impostor, a book unworthy of comparison with the Bible, which Ali had sometimes read in a cursory manner. But to leave hold of a false religion is a very different thing from grasping a true one. To extinguish smoky lamps is not a means of calling in the radiant day.

Ali, till he met a simple, true-hearted Christian, was an unbeliever as regarded the power of any faith to change the life. The Amir had been unfortunate in meeting with several nominal Christians, had shrewdly compared their conduct with their creed, and rejected the latter because inconsistent with the former. Ali had, as many do, found a refuge against the shafts of conscience in carping criticism of others; he was not worse, so he thought, than many who believe themselves certain of heaven through the merits of One whose example they do not follow, whose commands they do not obey.

But Ali's eyes were now opened; he looked on himself as stained with sin, and saw in Christianity, such as the Hartleys had embraced, the only means of being saved from eternal condemnation. No longer the Persian listened to Robin's recitals from Scripture in the spirit of a critic; for Ali was thirsting for the water of life, and could not pause to comment on the form of the cup which held it. Robin was delighted, but not surprised, to find that his prayers had been heard, for had he not pleaded with One whom Scripture describes as the Hearer of prayer?

It was at night, during the last halt made before Djauf would be reached, that Ali confessed to Robin his own desire to become a Christian.

Robin's eyes sparkled with joy.

"I will accompany you and your brother to India as soon as it is possible to do so," said the Amir, "study your Scriptures thoroughly, and then receive baptism without delay."

The expressive face of Robin was suddenly shaded, as if by a doubt.

"How, do you not desire me to become a Christian? " asked the Persian quickly.

"I wish it intensely! " cried Robin.

"And have I not already given myself to the Saviour, has Christ not entered my heart?"

"Have you given yourself to Him out and out? " asked the youth. "If Christ have entered your heart are you ready to do His will in all things?"

"My future conduct will show it."

"But what of the past? " said the younger Hartley, looking on the ground as he spoke, for he felt pain in giving pain.

"The past cannot be recalled-you have said that all is forgiven."

"Yes-as far as regards God; but we must make what amends we can to man also. When Christ came to Zacchaeus, the publican received free salvation, but still he said, 'Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have done wrong to any man I restore him fourfold."

"I do not understand you, boy! " said Ali, and very deep grew the furrow on his brow. "I have taken one life, and I cannot restore it; God does not require an impossibility."

Robin was silent, he knew not how to express what was on his mind: but Ali was resolved to have an explanation.

"If you were in my place what would you do? " asked the Amir.