Ahmadiyya Movement — Page 31
31 therefore, that the Grace and Bounty of God were limited to the past ages and do not continue in the present age is tantamount to a belief that God has lost the spirit of Life and is now like a thing dead. But He is ever Perfect and His attributes are not liable to any manner of decay. God speaks to His servants today as He spoke to them in ages past; He hears their prayers today as He heard them in the past; He manifests His signs today as He was wont to manifest them in the past; and He continues to cast on the hearts of His servants the reflection of His Holiness as He did in the past. The belief that He no longer manifests these attributes is the result of an estrangement between God and mankind which, in its turn, is attributable to the fact that the various religions have ceased to possess those life-giving quali- ties with which they were originally endowed, and the professors and advocates of those religions have, in order to conceal this loss, promoted the belief that the world does not today stand in need of witnessing the manifestations of God’s attributes, as it did in days of old. But do we find that the people of today have a greater love for and more sincere belief in God, and are more ready and willing to sacrifice their habits, customs, desires, ideas and their very lives for the pleasure of God than those to whom such manifestations were vouchsafed ? Even if it were admitted that the people of today have a stronger faith in and greater love for God than Moses, Elias, David, Isaiah, John, Jesus, Krishna, Muhammad, and their followers, it would not follow that the world does not stand in need of the manifestations of God’s attributes, for such manifestation is not merely a means of creating in men’s minds belief in the existence of God, it is in itself the goal of human existence. No doubt beauty creates love, but there is no doubt either that love makes a lover still more eager to behold the beauty of the beloved, and the only reward of love is to bring the beloved nearer to the lover. So that, if men today have a greater love for God than those in ages past, they are the better entitled to behold the perfect manifestation of God’s attributes, so that their love may find its satisfaction and