Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 10
10 AHMADIYY AT them, the Revd Mr Butler M. A. who was a learned -cleric and often had occasion to carryon religious discussions with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, held him in high esteem. When the time came for Mr Butler to return to Britain he made it a point to call on Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in his office to say goodbye to him. One curious incident that happened during his stay in Sialkot was that one night, when he was asleep in a room in the second storey of a house, he heard a sound which appeared to proceed from the beam of the roof as if a bird was pecking at it. It occurred to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad that the beam might break and the roof might fall down. There were several other people asleep in the room. He awakened them and urged them to go out of the room with him. They put him off with the explanation that the sound probably indi- cated the movement of a rat, and they all went back to sleep. A short while later the sound was repeated and Mirza Ghu- lam Ahmad urged his companions again to go out of the room, but they paid no attention to him. He heard the sound again and this time he insisted that they should all go out of the room. He sawall of them go out and was himself the last to leave the room. He had hardly gone out when the roof fell down and carried down with it the floor of the room which was the roof of the lower storey. Thus all of them escaped the risk of serious injury. In 1868 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's mother died and his father sent a messenger to him apprising him of the tragedy and directing him to resign his post and return to Qadian. Mirza' Ghulam Ahmad complied immediately with his father's direction and proceeded to Qadian. He has summed up his impressions of his stay at Sialkot as follows: While I was under my father's care I had most unwillingly spent a few years in the employ of the British government, but my father finding that separation from me sat heavy on him directed me to resign my appointment which I did gladly and returned to my father. This brief experience of official life made me realize that most people ~n that position lead very undesirable lives. Very few