“Nay, good youth,” said Sergius, “I have renounced the sending forth of missionaries, having made ample trial with my spiritual son, the Prophet Abdallah.”

“What!” exclaimed the youth, “was Abdallah the Adite thy disciple?”

“Even so,” said Sergius.  “Hearken to his history.

“Never have I instructed so promising a pupil as Abdallah, nor when he was first my disciple do I deem that he was other than the most simple-minded and well-intentioned of youths.  I always called him son, a title I have never bestowed on another.  Like thee, he had compassion on the darkness around him, and craved my leave to go forth and dispel it.

“‘My son,’ said I, ’I will not restrain thee:  thou art no longer a child.  Thou hast heard me discourse on the subject of persecution, and knowest that poison was administered to me personally on account of my inability to perceive the supernatural light emanating from the navel of Brother Gregory.  Thou art aware that thou wilt be beaten with rods and pricked with goads, chained and starved in a dungeon, very probably blinded, very possibly burned with fire?’

“‘All these things I am prepared to undergo,’ said Abdallah; and he embraced me and bid me farewell.

“After certain moons he returned covered with weals and scars, and his bones protruded through his skin.

“‘Whence are these weals and scars?’ asked I, ’and what signifies this protrusion of thy bones?’

“‘The weals and the scars,’ answered he, ’proceed from the floggings inflicted upon me by command of the Caliph; and my bones protrude by reason of the omission of his officers to furnish me with either food or drink in the dungeon wherein I was imprisoned by his orders.’

“‘O my son,’ exclaimed I, ’in the eyes of faith and right reason these scars are lovelier than the moles of beauty, and the sight of thy bones is like the beholding of hidden treasure!’

“And Abdallah strove to look as though he believed me; nor did he entirely fail therein.  And I took him, and fed him, and healed him, and sent him forth a second time into the world.

“And after a space he returned, covered as before with wounds and bruises, but comely and somewhat fat.

“‘Whence this sleekness of body, my son?’ I asked.

“‘Through the charity of the Caliph’s wives,’ he answered, ’who have fed me secretly, I having assured them that in remembrance of this good work each of them in the world to come would have seven husbands.’

“‘How knewest thou this, my son?’ I inquired.

“‘In truth, father,’ he said, ’I did not know it; but I thought it probable.’

“‘O my son! my son!’ exclaimed I, ’thou art on a dangerous road.  To win over weak ignorant people by promises of what they shall receive in a future life, whereof thou knowest no more than they do!  Knowest thou not that the inestimable blessings of religion are of an inward and spiritual nature?  Did I ever promise any disciple any recompense for his enlightenment and good deeds, save flogging, starvation, and burning?’