ear it for Christ's sake now, how can you be received
into the company of His soldiers? You have a duty to your parents,
from which you cannot absolve yourself, and no blessing of God will
rest on your actions when you are deceiving them, and till you are
of full age you are bound to obey them."

'Alam Gul was awake a long time that night after the lights were out
and all the other boys in the dormitory were fast asleep under their
quilts. At last he got up, and, with his pocket-knife, cut the cord
that still bound the charm that the old Mullah had made for him, and
stuffed it away among his books. He then knelt down by his bedside for
a few minutes, and when he got into bed again he had made his choice,
and his mind was made up; but there were to be many vicissitudes
before the goal was reached.

'Alam Gul was in the matriculation class now, and a member of the
coveted cricket eleven. He still performed his Muhammadan prayers,
and kept the fast of Ramazan; but the moments which gave him most
satisfaction in the day were those in which he took his little
English Testament into a quiet corner on the roof of the school-house,
and read the words of our Lord, calling the weary and sin-laden to
Himself, and, after set portions of the Muhammadan prayers were over,
in the part reserved for the munajat, or private petitions, he would
pray earnestly in the name of Christ that God would make the way
clear to him to become His disciple, and to incline the hearts of
his relations thereto as well. He had to stand fire, too, among his
school-fellows, now that it had become known that he was an inquirer;
but his position in the school, and the fact that he was nearly the
best bat in the cricket team, and therefore of value to the honour
of the school in the inter-school tournaments, prevented them from
carrying the persecution very far, and it was more banter and sneers
than anything worse. A few irreconcilables, however, tried to injure
his reputation by spreading lying rumours about him, even going to the
head-master with some concocted evidence against his moral character,
which, had that official been less conversant with the wiles of
the backbiters, might have resulted in his expulsion from school,
but actually resulted in their utter discomfiture.

One Muhammadan youth, who professed great zeal for his religion,
was always starting some recriminating religious discussion, till the
other boarders passed a resolution that any o