Then his story came out. A Bible had come into his hands; the character
and call of the Lord Jesus made a great appeal to him. He was haunted by
the words, "sell whatsoever thou hast." He felt he knew what it meant for
him. His family heard of his interest in Christianity. They belonged to
the highest class, were wealthy and officially connected with the heathen
temple-worship. They did their best to dissuade him, then finding that
useless, they kept watch, and had him forcibly taken from the meeting
where he was about to openly confess Christ. The entreaties of his father
and mother shook him greatly but failed to change his decision. He had
been imprisoned, chained hand and foot, and scantily fed, but all to no
purpose. Then he managed to escape and came to the one Christian place he
knew, the Salvation Army, and asked to be taken in.

After about two weeks he disappeared as abruptly as he came. Then one day
he came back, and told his Salvation friend that he had been carried to
Benares, their holy city, and forced to bathe in the Ganges. "But," he
said, "as I stood in the water of the Ganges, I said, 'Lord Jesus, wash me
in Thy precious blood,' and when I was forced to bow to idols, I bowed my
soul to the eternal Father and said, 'Thou art God alone.'" His mother had
implored him on her knees not to disgrace them; his tutor, whom he loved
dearly, and his brothers had joined the father in their plea not to bring
such shame on the family. "Well," the Salvationist said, "now, you know
the meaning of 'sell whatsoever thou hast'" "Not yet," he said, "but I
have sold nearly all."

Again he came back and said quietly, "_I have sold all_." He appeared
deeply grief-stricken, and yet there was a light shining in his eye. In
answer to questions he said, "I have not only ceased to be a Brahmin, I
have ceased to be a human being. I am not only an outcast, I am dead. I