Sheosahai, the Brahmin, stood in his straw-thatched cottage, gazing on
the image of Krishna, the dark god, which for centuries he and his
fathers had worshipped.
His young son, Sheo Deo, who from his birth had been paralyzed in his
limbs, lay on his mat near, and thus addressed his father:—
“O father, the time for pujah (worship) has come! Why do you not
prostrate yourself before Krishna?”
Sheosahai made reply: “My son, I was at the _mela_ (fair) yesterday, and
there was a man preaching;[48] and I stood to listen, and his words have
troubled my soul. He said that thousands of years ago the mighty God came
down upon a mountain in fire and smoke, and that from the midst of the
fire and smoke a terrible voice gave this command,—_Thou shalt not make
unto thyself any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them._ I would fain
have cast dust at the speaker; and yet his words clung to my soul, for he
spake as one who knows that he speaks the truth.”
“Was the great God of whom he told the God of the Christians?” asked Sheo
Deo, who had heard something of their religion before.
“The same,” replied his father. “And the preacher went on to say that in
England, thousands of years ago, men bowed down to idols, and worshipped
the work of their own hands; and then the people were feeble and few. But
the nation has long since cast away idols, and now men read their holy
Book, and pray to the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore England is mighty,
and a blessing rests on the land.”
“O father! do you not fear the wrath of Krishna when he hears you repeat
such words?” cried Sheo Deo, looking up in alarm at the painted image.
Sheosahai made no reply; he turned and slowly left the hut. Perhaps the
thought arose in his heart: “Has Krishna power to hear them?”
After his father’s departure Sheo Deo lay still on his mat, from which he
could not move, and often he gazed up at the idol, and turned over in his
mind the strange words which his father had heard.
Presently there came on a terrible storm. The thunder roared above like
the noise of a thousand cannon, and fierce lightnings flashed from the
darkened sky; the whole earth seemed to tremble with the fury of the
great tempest.
“Was it in a storm like this,” thought Sheo Deo, “that the awful voice
was heard from the mountain, _Thou shalt make no graven image_?”
Then came a more terrible crash than Sheo Deo had ever before heard;
and the moment after there was the smell of burning, and then the glare
of fire above. Lo! the lightning had struck the hut, and the thatch was
blazing over the head of the wretched boy, who, paralyzed as he was,
could not even crawl out of the burning dwelling.
The red light glared on the image of Krishna; to the terrified Sheo Deo
it seemed almost as if the idol had life!
“Help me—save me! Oh! save thy worshipper, great Krishna!” he cried;
while the heat around him grew more and more fearful, even as that of a
furnace.
But the image stirred not, heard not. The sparks were kindling upon it.
Then, in the agony of his terror, the poor Hindu bethought him of the
Christian’s powerful God. Even in the presence of his idol he clasped his
hands and uttered the cry, “O Lord Jesus Christ, if Thou canst save me,
oh! save me!”
At that moment Sheosahai burst into the blazing hut.
The Brahmin looked at his helpless boy lying on the mat, and then on the
idol which he had so long worshipped. He had no time to save _both_;
which should he leave to the devouring flames? Only one day previously
the Hindu might have hesitated in making his choice, but he did not
hesitate now. He caught up his son in his arms; he bore him forth from
the fiery furnace. “If Krishna be a god he will save himself,” muttered
the Brahmin.
The hut was soon burned to ashes, and the idol lay a heap of cinders
within it.
Sheo Deo lived; and in the following year, after much instruction
from the missionary, he and his father received the water of baptism,
believing that which is written in the holy Scriptures: _This is life
eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom Thou hast sent._