Towards the end of the nineteenth century the Christians who lived at Tyari, a small town in Kurdistan, had an interesting way of treating lunatics. They would bury them alive, with a full church burial service, but leaving a small hole through which the patient could breathe. After twenty-four hours they would disinter the lunatic. Sometimes the nervous shock would have had beneficial results!

The Rev.Wigram was an Anglican minister resident in the district. He wrote a book, "The cradle of Mankind, Life in Eastern Kurdistan". He writes of one such case that came to his notice. "The man was buried all right, and in due time his friends came to disinter him. As soon as the stones were removed, he sprang up, crying 'I am risen! I am risen! It is the Last Day!'

Then, looking round upon the men who had come to resurrect him, he exclaimed disgustedly, 'But who would have expected to see you at the Resurrection of the Just?'

So many of us are inclined to limit the scope of Divine salvation to a narrow circle of our fellow-believers, or consign to Divine disfavour those who may not agree with us on the interpretation of the Scriptures or the practice of the Christian life. Maybe our Master, seeing deeper than we do, does not attach over-much importance to these little eccentricities of ours. But it is good for us to realise that He is quietly choosing his own from every part of the "field", and that we do not well to condemn other earnest souls as unworthy of the Kingdom because in some fashion or another they do not measure up to our own conception of the Divine calling.

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