________________
214
diseases the most eminent physicians pronounced incurable, have been restored to health by this divine means.
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
A more remarkable case is the following. A simpleminded recluse had cut off his tongue, and throwing it towards the threshold of the palace, said, 'If that certain blissful thought, which I just now have, has been put into my heart by God, my tongue will get well; for the sincerity of my belief must lead to a happy issue.' The day was not ended before he obtained his wish.
Those who are acquainted with the religious knowledge and the piety of His Majesty, will not attach any importance to some of his customs 2, remarkable as they may appear at first; and those who knew His Majesty's charity and love of justice, do not even see anything remarkable in them. In the magnanimity of his heart, he never thinks of his perfection, though he is the ornament of the world. Hence he even keeps back many who leclare themselves willing to become his disciples. He often says, 'Why should I claim to guide men, before I myself am guided?' But when a novice bears on his forehead the sign of earnestness of purpose, and he be daily enquiring more and more, His Majesty accepts him, and admits him on a Sunday, when the world-illuminating sun is in its highest splendour. Notwithstanding every strictness and reluctance shown by His Majesty in admitting novices, there are many thousands, men of all classes, who have cast over their shoulders the mantle
1 His thought was this. If Akbar is a prophet, he must, from his supernatural wisdom, find out in what condition I am lying here.
2 He [Akbar] showed, besides, no partiality to the Mahometans: and when in straits for money would even plunder the mosques to equip his cavalry. Yet there remained in the Breast of the monarch a stronghold of idolatry, on which they [the Portuguese Missionaries] could never make any impression. Not only did he adore the sun, and make long prayers to it four times a day; he also held himself forth as an object of worship; and though exceedingly tolerant as to other modes of faith, never would admit of any encroachments on his own divinity. Murray's Discoveries,' ii. p. 95.