and
procured a boat and rowed us across, knowing that it was not in our
power to give him any reward, except to pray for him that he might
recover his lost land, and to give him some spiritual comfort.

After the pleasure of meeting with this brother so opportunely, we
went on encouraged, and soon reached Dera Baba Nanak, the residence
of the descendants of the famous Guru and the seat of a darbar (Sikh
temple), the gilded dome of which we saw glittering in the sun. Passing
over our stay here and at other intervening places, I might mention
our visit to Gadian, rendered famous by being the headquarters of the
Muhammadan reformer Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who died in 1908. This man had
collected round him a band of zealous followers, but, unfortunately,
the good he might have done was nullified by his impious claim to be
the returned Messiah, in accordance with which he professed miraculous
powers, and demanded a correspondingly abject obedience.

Heavy rain-clouds were overcasting the sky when we set out, and we had
scarcely covered the eleven miles of unmade road that connects Batala
with Gadian when the downpour commenced, and continued throughout
the day. Moulvi Muhammad Sadiq, the head-master of the Mirza's High
School, received us with the greatest courtesy, and gave us one of the
schoolrooms to rest in, and shortly afterwards, as the Mirza himself
was indisposed and unable to see us, we were taken into the presence
of his lieutenant, Moulvi Moha-ud-din. This Moulvi is very learned,
probably the most learned in Gadian; he comes from the town of Bhera,
in the Panjab, but has travelled a good deal. He was teaching theology
to a large class of youths and men in Eastern fashion, reclining
on a simple mat and cushion himself, while his pupils sat on the
ground round him. Tea was brought in for us and him while he went
on teaching. The Hadis from which the pupils were reading was on the
subject of prayer, and the Moulvi explained the passages with great
force and perspicuity as the pupils read them out turn by turn. After
some dissertation on the correct intonation of prayers, he took up
(probably for our benefit) a comparison of the texts of the Quran and
the Bible, showing how the custom of committing the former to memory
had resulted in its verbal correctness. Following the same line,
Muhammad Sadiq compared with this the recent criticisms on the Bible
by the Christian expositors; and the "Encyclopaedia Biblica," which
h