A Present to His Royal Highness - The Prince of Wales — Page 66
66 him, and that he would not let him be seized by them and that unlike the enemies of the first Messiah, they would not obtain even an apparent triumph. Hearing this, his enemies put forth still greater effort to compass his destruction, and on several occasions they sent hired men to Quadian to kill him, but on each occasion their plans were frustrated. On some occasions their secret leaked out, on others the assassin failed to find a favourable opportunity for the deed, on others the man employed for the purpose confessed his guilt, and in some cases he was so overcome by the power and glory of his intended victim that instead of killing him he accepted him and was henceforth willing to lay down his life for him. In short, his enemies were confounded at every turn. Seeing that these people prevented men from coming to him and listening to him, the Promised Messiah invited the champions of all religions to demonstrate the truth of their respective religions by seeking the testimony of God in support of the truth of their religions, and he proposed that this might be done either by prayer, or that men who were anxious to see the testimony of God should come and stay with him for forty days, and that if during those forty days they saw the testimony of God they and their companions and followers should accept the Truth, and that if they saw no sign during that period they would be at liberty to reject him as a false prophet. But as his enemies desired not to know the truth but wished to cast doubts on it, they did not agree to either of these proposals, for they feared that if they agreed they would have no answer left for the people and the latter would all accept him. Thus they evaded every criterion put forward by him.