the mercy and loving-kindness of God which did not cast off mankind because of the Fall, but held out a hope of pardon and of restoration to His favour. But this point we do not, at present, desire to emphasize. What we appeal here to this verse for is not to claim that the Qur'an teaches the mercy and loving-kindness of God; but simply to bring out the fact that is implicitly assumed in it, that fallen man required, and, of course, we may make the application general and say, still requires, the help of God's grace in some way or other which is left undefined, that he may find his way back again to the favour of God of which sin has bereft him.

Further, the Qur'an goes on to teach that those who desire to please God, must realize and acknowledge this dependence. This realization and acknowledgement of dependence on God is the beginning of true religion in the heart. The first step in the embracing of Islam is to realize that there is but one true God, to acknowledge one's dependence upon Him, and to resolve to submit to His will as the guide of life. This, however, is not the whole of religion. God claims of man much more — nay, very much more. He demands that man, having recognized his dependence on Him, and having resolved to submit to Him, must learn from Him the way of salvation, and become experienced in it through practice. 'The Arabs of the desert say, We believe. Answer, Ye do by no means believe; but say, We have embraced Islam: for the faith hath not yet entered into your hearts' [Suratu'l-Hujurat (xlix) 14]. In other passages the distinction is, perhaps, not so clearly insisted on; but this one verse is sufficient to show that it exists.

While this dependence on God is general, and is not confined to the moral and physical needs of man, yet it is in connexion with these that man's need of God is specially felt. It is in any attempt that he may make to attain to that goal for which he was created that man, as a matter of actual fact, feels and experiences most keenly his need of God's help. Without God and His grace man could never overcome those evil tendencies against which the soul has such a fierce battle to fight from the very commencement of its earthly life, and so attain to righteousness and the blessed mansions above. Thus we find in Suratu'n-Nur (xxiv) 21, 'If (it were) not (for) the indulgence of God and His mercy towards you, there had not been so much as one of you cleansed (from his guilt) for ever' (cf. iv. 85; ii. 61). And that this is the feeling of those who have experienced God's grace and help is seen from such passages as, 'Praised be God who hath directed us into this (felicity)! for we should not have been (rightly) directed, if God had not directed us' [Suratu'l-A'raf (vii) 41]. They know that what they have attained to has been reached through no merit of their own but solely because God has directed them.

This direction includes not merely knowledge through the revelation of His will, but also the influencing of their hearts and minds to accept His guidance. Man, then, needs God's enlightening revelation, but also His guidance that he may personally accept this revelation and incline his heart to obey it. This question of 'direction' and what is meant by it must come up again in considering the doctrine of salvation. We shall take for granted here that it includes both of these