Kedar has married a Bedouin maid, and is happy in his free life in the old land.  Naught but the desert could satisfy him; he would stagnate in the calm life which those in the Jordan valley are finding so pleasant.

As yet he and Manasseh have not been molested in their work by the Moslems; and in their remote mountain recesses they are persistently fighting against heathendom, and are leading many to live better and nobler lives.

And Yusuf?  He is in his home-land again.  Once more he stands upon the highest point of the Guebre temple.  The priests have not refused him admittance, for no one has recognized in this harmless old man the once Guebre Yusuf.

Ah, it is heathen Persia still!  The fires flicker upon the altar, and the idolatrous chants arise on the air.  Yusuf covers his face with his mantle and weeps.  He has but a few years of strength before him, but he will spend them in trying to bring the Gospel of love to these poor, blind people.

He grieves for his benighted country; but when the moon slowly rises, shedding her soft rays over the old scene, the mountains, the valleys below, all calm, peaceful, radiant, he is comforted.  He thinks of Him who “created the lesser orb to rule the night,” and a great joy fills his heart that he has been led to a recognition of Him, and that he has been enabled to lead others to Him.

His face glows with serene happiness and hope.  He raises his eyes to the calm, deep heavens, and says: 

“O Father, I thank thee that ’mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts,’ and his dear Son!  I thank thee that thou hast led me to see Truth!  O God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works!  Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come!  And now, Father, ‘what wait I for?  My hope is in thee,’ the great God, the ever-loving Father, now and for evermore.  Amen and amen.”

And there will we leave him.

                      “May he live
    Longer than I have time to tell his years! 
    Ever beloved and loving, may his rule be! 
    And when old Time shall lead him to his end,
    Goodness and he fill up one monument!”

—­Shakespeare.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The month of Ramadhan was held as holy prior to Mohammed’s time;
    its sanctity was but confirmed by him.

[2] Medina at this time bore the name of Yathrib, but in this volume
    we shall give it the later and better-known name of “Medina,”
    derived from the earlier “Mahdinah.”

[3] The Moslems now assert that the sacred fire went out of itself
    at the birth of Mohammed.

[4] A fourth, the “Darb-el-Sharki,” or Eastern Road, has since been
    built by order of the wife of the famous Haroun al Raschid.