Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 107
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 107 move him from his determined stand that he would not take the oath. This was proof enough that he was afraid to do so lest divine wrath should overtake him for taking a false oath. The proceedings of the debate had effectively exposed the hollowness of the claim that Jesus was God, as taught by the Church, and had afforded an excellent opportunity to Ahmad to set forth the excellence of the teachings of Islam in their proper perspective. This had proved a great setback for Christianity in the Punjab in general and for the Amritsar mission and its head Dr Henry Martyn Clark in particular. An amusing incident in the course of the debate, engineered by Dr Clark and his colleagues, served to bring them into ridicule and to show that their attitude towards religion lacked all seriousness and that they considered the. whole subject as a joke. One day they procured the presence of three persons, one of them lame, another blind and a third dumb, at Dr Clark's bungalow, and when the sitting com- menced they pretended. that they desired to test the truth of the claim of the Promised Messiah through a sign. They alleged that Jesus used to cure the maimed and the blind by virtue of his spiritual power, and that as Ahmad claimed to be the Promised Messiah, he should be able to heal such afflicted persons in the same way. They added that in order to facili- tate matters they had three such persons ready at hand for Ahmad to heal. Ahmad was not at all perturbed by the demand and pointed out that it was the Gospels that men- tioned these so-called miracles ofJ esus, and they also reported Jesus as saying that ifhis disciples had faith as much as a grain of mustard seed, they would also be able to heal the sick with their touch and even perform greater wonders. He thanked them for having provided the opportunity for their own faith to be tested. If what Jesus said was true they should now proceed to establish its truth by healing the three persons whose attendance they had themselves arranged. He himself had not made any claim that he could heal the afflicted with his touch and was not called upon to demonstrate any such sign. The Christian divines were completely frustrated by