Hazrat Maulvi Nooruddin - Khalifatul-Masih I — Page 272
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES Hadrat Maulw i Nur-ud-D i n ra — Khalifatul Masih I 272 beheld him her face lit up and with a wistful smile she submitted: "Sir, I would make the covenant;" to which he responded graciously: "Repeat after me what I say. " He then pronounced phrase by phrase the words of the pledge and she repeated them after him. At the end he made a silent supplication, in which the ladies of the family, my mother and I joined, and he left. I came to know later as the result of my own observation that this had been most unusual on his part, the more so as the novice was a woman whose husband was not a member of the Movement. No question was asked on either side, not a single word was said apart from the prescribed formula of the pledge. It seemed that there was complete spiritual accord between the seeker and the sought. My mother’s soul was at rest, her quest had led her to her spiritual heaven. She never saw him again, except in her dreams, but her commitment continued total and unalloyed through all trials and tribulations, till her last conscious breath more than a third of a century later. Nothing ever disturbed her serenity, her faith was proof against everything and upheld her in all situations. She stayed on in the company of Hadrat Ummul Mu’min i n for about half an hour during which was laid the foundation of a close friendship between them that lasted throughout her life. When we returned home she must have felt that within a couple of hours she would be called upon to face the hardest trial of her life, but she was so certain that the step she had taken had been divinely directed that she must have been sustained by the conviction that He Who had led her so far would support her throughout. She had never had any serious difference with her husband, and now they faced a crisis that touched upon the