"Keep me, O my Father, my Lord!
I am without virtues; all virtues are Thine!"
* For accounts of Goru (teacher) Nanak, and the poet Kabir, see further on.
And one more enlightened than the great Goru hath written, "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."
Thus lying, exposed and helpless, death—even the destruction of the soul, everlasting ruin—steals upon us, as the fearful beast drew nigh to the child. How could man, guilty and hell-deserving, be saved?
Here is the grand mystery of love which the Scriptures declare, even the avatar (incarnation) of the Divine Jesus, the Son of God. He left heaven and assumed a mortal body, that in that body He might suffer and die. He came between man and eternal destruction. The love of the king who encountered a fierce tiger to save a poor child is as nothing compared to the love of the Heavenly King, who won salvation for man by the awful struggle in which He overcame death by dying.
And who is the Farebwala (father of deceit) who seeks to keep us from the knowledge of this love, in order to rob us and make us his slaves?
Behold the spirit of evil, Satan, who would hold all mankind in bondage, and tries to hide from us the knowledge of a Saviour King who is willing to adopt us as His children. To millions of Hindus, he represents heaven as peopled with monsters of iniquity, gods and goddesses so wicked that were they human beings they would be sentenced to death for their crimes!
And what are the mirror and the bracelet hidden by Farebwala under the black cover of Ignorance?
The name of the bracelet is Conscience. It is the precious gift of God; it warns us when danger to the soul, when temptation is near. But is it not too true that the conscience of those who know not the true God has been darkened? When falsehood is spoken, when covetousness is felt, when other sins are indulged in, does the unenlightened conscience give its warning pressure? Reader! Have you not learned to do evil frequently without even knowing that it is evil?
The mirror is the Word of God, the treasure of truth, now to be procured in many of the languages of the East. * Reader! Have you looked into its pages? Let me tell you something of what you would gain by studying the Holy Scriptures with prayer.