My Mother — Page 139
Miscellaneous 139 choice of her suite. She chose the one that had the easiest access. She explained that people of every sort and condition must feel free to walk in whenever they wished. They should not feel inhib- ited in any way. In Qadian she would not use the car for going into town, for the Prayer Services, or calling on Hazrat Ummul Momineen or paying her respects to Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih. She always walked. When I urged her to use the car, she said: ‘My dear this is a town of saints. The roads are dusty. It would be sacrilege if the dust raised by the car were to incommode any of the pious persons. ’ Towards the end of 1936 when the question of the marriage of King Edward VIII began to be agitated in the press, I asked Mother to pray that the King may be rightly guided in this dif- ficult matter. She said that for some days she had been witness- ing a succession of confusing and disturbing scenes in her dreams. It could be that they had reference to the situation in which the King was placed, and she would pray for him. Thereafter, I enquired from her two or three times and each time she said the confusion seemed to be multiplying and she was afraid that the affair would not be satis factorily resolved. Soon official intimation was received that the King had decided to abdi- cate. When I told Mother she was perplexed and said: ‘This man lacks a sense of duty. He is prepared to discard the highest posi- tion in the world for the sake of a woman!’ Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih II instituted the practical demon- stration of the dignity of manual labour. One day was appointed in every month on which all able-bodied male adults resident in a particular quarter of Qadian were required to participate in the