The Shining Lamp — Page 96
96 awe of the prophecy of a Living God had killed him. Though he appeared to still be alive, there was no life left in him. I most verily affirm that he would have never filed a lawsuit even if all these people had [threatened to] cut him into pieces, nor would he have agreed to make a declaration under oath even if I had offered him ten million rupees! His heart had become convinced about me, but there was rejection on his tongue. And I know very well that in this regard, there was no one who could testify more to my truthfulness than Atham. In short, with regard to the case of Atham, the Christian priests behaved rather insolently by concealing the truth. They went about celebrating in merriment, taking out processions beginning from Amritsar to other major cities of the Punjab and India. They created so much uproar the likes of which had not been seen from the beginning of the British reign until now. Whilst celebrating this false joy—against which their inner conscience lambasted them—they exposed a sordid standard. They wrote letters to me filled with obscene profanities and created so much uproar and insolence, distributing thousands of leaflets as though they had achieved a thousand victories. Despite all the exhilaration, the corpse of Atham could not make a single move, and he could not even publish a two-page leaflet in celebration of this false victory. He did, however, publish in a newspaper that he was not a party to the mischief and uproar carried out by the Christian priests, and it was all contrary to his wishes. Despite the fact that he concealed the truth, he refrained from sharp hostilities and mach- inations until the point he suffered death within seven months of my last public announcement in accord with the Divine rev- elation. In short, this was the most significant mischief in which