Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 89
89 From the remotest corners of the earth men have gath- ered to see the British Exhibition, but how many step outside their houses to see God? They think they cannot see Him either at home or abroad, and, therefore, make no effort to find Him. We cannot afford to trust our spiritual welfare to the life to come. No man is permitted to visit this world twice. If he finds nothing in this life, and in the life to come he discovers that he has all along been in error, where lies the remedy? If there is no God and no future life, he shall have wasted this life in running after a delusion. Every religion asserts that it can lead men to God in the life to come, but in such a vital matter how can one act on a supposition? We are told to do this or that, but what we want to know is what will God do for us in return? Our acts and conduct are like knocking at a door, but the question is (in the words of a man who lit up the world with his light nineteen hundred years ago) will it be opened to us? If the door is not to be opened to us and our knocking is to be in vain, what has religion taught us? An incongruous noise, which we could have made even without the guidance of a religion! All that it has done for us is that it has created in our hearts a longing which it cannot satisfy! A true religion, there- fore, must teach us something whereby we can cause the door to open before we leave this world, so that before our retreat is finally cut off we should be assured that we are following the right path.