Nand Kishore was driven from his home because he had become a Christian.
His dearest friends would not eat with him, or suffer him to cross their
thresholds; his younger brother seized on his small property; and, worst
of all, his widowed mother, Harmuzi, beating her breast, cursed her
first-born, who had been to her as the apple of her eye. Then the soul
of Nand Kishore was sorely smitten; in great grief he turned from the
door of what had been his home from his childhood. But he remembered the
words of the Saviour for whose sake he had given up all: _If any man love
father or mother more than Me, he is not worthy of Me. Blessed are they
that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven._
Harmuzi had in her anger cursed her first-born, but her heart clung to
him still. Great was her grief when, a year afterwards, she heard a
report of the death of Nand Kishore. And Harmuzi had other sore trials:
blindness gradually came upon her, till at last all the light of heaven
to her was darkened. And her son Mohendro showed her no love or respect.
He had married a proud woman, who despised her poor blind mother-in-law,
and made her life bitter with cruel words. Mohendro more than once even
struck[52] his afflicted mother; and Harmuzi was treated as a slave in
the house which had once been her own.
“Ah! my poor Nand Kishore would not have behaved to me thus!” sighed the
unhappy mother, when she remembered him whom she had cursed, only because
he had done what he felt to be right.
Harmuzi’s cruel daughter-in-law grudged her even the food which she ate.
“Thou canst not grind the corn, or bring water from the well,” she said;
“and yet thou dost devour our substance. Go out into the street and beg!
When passers-by look on your blind eyes, they may at least put a handful
of grain into your vessel.”
Hungry and sad, and bowed down by sorrow, poor Harmuzi, wrapped in her
chaddar, sat at the corner of a street, with a brass vessel, called a
bartan, beside her, and held out her thin hand for alms. She had sat
there for hours, whilst many passed by her, but as yet she had received
nothing from any one,—not so much as a word of pity. At last Harmuzi
heard a slight sound, as if something were being poured into her bartan;
and when she put forth her hand to feel, lo! the vessel was full of
rice. Then some one gently took the blind woman by the hand, and raised
her, and led her back towards the house of the undutiful son. Harmuzi
blessed the kind stranger again and again, and asked Vishnu to load him
with blessings. He who led her spake not a word in reply, but left her at
the corner of a street that was nigh to the house of her undutiful son.
The next day Harmuzi was again driven forth by her daughter-in-law to
beg, and felt her way slowly to the same spot where the merciful stranger
had found her. This time she had not to wait so long. Again was her
bartan filled with rice, again the same gentle hand led the blind woman
back; and she blessed him who had showed her mercy. But the stranger
spake no word in reply.
And this went on for many days. The supply of rice never failed, and
Harmuzi knew not that he who filled her bartan often himself hungered
that she might be fed. Harmuzi marvelled that she never heard the sound
of the stranger’s voice. “He hath been smitten with dumbness,” she said
to herself.
One day poor Harmuzi, with bruise marks on her face, sat in her usual
place; she was bitterly weeping, for the hand of her wicked younger son
had been lifted up against his blind and helpless mother. At the sight
of Harmuzi’s bruises and tears, he who had so long restrained himself[53]
could keep silence no longer.
“O mother—mother!” he cried. Harmuzi knew the voice of her lost Nand
Kishore, and suddenly rising and stretching out her arms, she fell on his
neck weeping.
“O my beloved!” she cried, “is it thou? How is it that thou hast so long
fed and cared for her who, in an evil hour, cursed her own first-born
son?”
“Dear to my soul!” replied Nand Kishore, “do you not know that He who
said, _He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of
Me_, also gave this command, _Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee_?”