Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 48
! ! 48 Listen to the Sermon, with the I ntention of A cting upon it Address to the Ladies Delivered by Hazrat Mirza Bashir - ud - D in Mahmud Ahmad, Khalifat - ul - Masih II ra April 12, 1920 , in Sialkot This speech was delivered in Punjabi by Ha z rat Khalifa t - ul - Masih II ra. The editor of Al - Fazl then translated it in to Urdu. In the past few days, I have received many letters from ladies requesting that I should address them. This enthusiasm is appreciated. H owever , mere enthusiasm does not suffice unless it is follo wed by actions. For example, a man is dying of hunger, and he is advised to eat. But if no food is given to him, how can h e fill his stomach? Similarly, those ladi es who listen to religious discourse but do not act upon i t gain no benefit f ro m it. In fact, they have more to fear than those ladies who have never had the opportunity to hear any religious discourse. This is because t hose who have not heard [such discussions] may be excused, but those who have listened to them and have failed to implement anything from them are all the more guilty and are sinners. Generally, women consider sermons to be a form of entertainment. Just as children watch something entertaining and then forget about it soon after, so do women [pay no heed to sermons]. There is a [significant] proportion of men that listen s to sermons and act s upon them, but generally speaking, ladies do not derive any benefit. For this reason, they do not excel in their mo rals, religion, civilization, or in their social condition and they fail to benefit in any other way.