"Why, All Khan, what is the matter? You look sad. Is anyone in your family ill?"
Ali Khan was a highly respected Mohammedan. The above words were addressed to him by one of his many admiring friends.
"No," he replied, "no one is ill, nor has any misfortune befallen me, praise be to God! But I have had a strange dream which worries me. I am going to my uncle, the Wise, to beg him to interpret it for me."
"You had better not go to him," said his friend. "He has read many Christian books and has accepted foreign teachings. What advice could he give you, anyway?"
"My uncle has often given me good advice; that is why I want to ask him today," Ali replied, and went his way.
He soon reached his uncle's house and told him his dream.
"I dreamed that I was dead," he said. "They had buried my body with the most solemn rites, and my soul was awaiting the arrival of the two angels of death, as we have been taught.
"I do not know where I was, but I saw an immense pair of golden scales, the needle of which reached the sky. I knew that my good and bad deeds were going to be weighed in them. Angels in robes of dazzling whiteness stood ready to carry me to Paradise, if my good deeds made the right side of the balance descend. On the left side Satan was watching for me, ready to take me away, if the bad deeds should outweigh the good. However, I was not afraid of him, for I was sure that Paradise was to be my portion.
Next I saw the servants of Satan carrying big parcels done up in black tissue paper. I understood at once that these were my bad deeds. Their number and size surprised and frightened me. Acts which I had regarded as the folly of youth, acts long forgotten, made the scale dip more and more. I began to tremble, and Satan looked at me triumphantly, as if I were already his prey.
“‘Now bring his bad words,' he shouted. My terror grew, for I had always thought words did not count. I had never considered that words uttered in anger or irritation were sins, and I certainly thought mine less bad than my neighbors. The words were in the form of black balls of various sizes, but all appeared as heavy as lead by the way the mocking, grinning imps threw them into the scale on the left, which descended more and more, so low that it seemed to reach hell itself.
"But worse was yet to come. 'Now bring his bad thoughts,' Satan ordered. I thought I should sink into the earth and could not help exclaiming: `Are we responsible for our thoughts, too?' "
"Indeed we are," interrupted his uncle at this point, "for the Word of God says that the imaginations of the hearts of men are evil from their youth up. So thoughts can also be sins. Evil thoughts defile a man."
But Ali continued his story:
"Although these thoughts only looked like a black cloud, their weight seemed to make the scale dip dreadfully into a horrible abyss. I should have lost consciousness had I not been sustained by the thought that my good deeds and words and thoughts would weigh heavy too, for I believed I had a great number to my credit. 'Hurry! Hurry!' I shouted to the angels, 'Throw my good deeds, my good words, my prayers, my alms into the scale!'
"They obeyed and brought slowly and with solemn faces a certain number of parcels wrapped in white. But the chief of the angels said to me; `Only what was done for the love of God possesses weight; whatever was inspired by self-interest is lighter than a feather.'
"The parcels were thrown into the scale and what did I see? The whole of my good deeds weighed as if it were nothing at all. They did not raise the scale a little bit. My fastings, my ablutions were without any value!
"But my prayers! I cried in despair. For fifty years I have prayed five times a day. If my bad words have weighed so heavy, surely the good ones will weigh more. But I was mistaken. The angels who brought my prayers in white parcels handed them to the bad angels, whose mere touch turned them black. Then to my horror they cast them into the scale containing the bad deeds."
"I can explain the matter," said his uncle quietly. " 'Till now you have used the name of God only with pride, vanity, and a defiled heart, and that is sin. But what else did you see, Ali Khan?"
"I saw the evil spirits draw near and stretch out their hands to seize me, and in that terrible moment I awoke."
"I, too," said his uncle after a pause, "I too have experienced something similar, only I was awake; it was no dream. All my deeds, words, and thoughts came up before me in the light of truth, and my soul shuddered as I heard the words, " 'Thou are weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.'
"Then I realized that I possessed nothing which could be cast into the scale on the right side of the balance."
"Then will all men be plunged into that terrible abyss with the left-hand scale?" exclaimed Ali. "Is there nothing that can be put in the right hand scale to outweigh their sins?"
"Indeed there is," his uncle hastened to reply. "We are not destined to eternal misery. I say the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It was shed for me in payment for my load of sins. As soon as I believed on Him, my faith in Him went into the right side of the balance. Instantly the pan on the left, which my sins had weighed down, rose up empty. In truth, 'we have redemption through His blood' shed on Calvary for sinners. In my joy I cried out with the man of God: " 'Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.' "
"But, uncle," exclaimed Ali Khan, astonished, "is it possible that you are a Christian?"
"Yes," he replied, "by the grace of God I know that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can take away all the sins of which our consciences and the Word of God accuse us."
It is to be hoped that Ali Khan became a Christian like his uncle. We do not know. But we do know that God speaks to men "in dreams and in visions of the night... to keep back their soul from the pit." Job 33:14, 1814For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. (Job 33:14)
18He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword. (Job 33:18).
Till to Jesus' work you cling
By a simple faith,
"Doing" is a deadly thing;
"Doing" ends in death.