this, He manifested His loving-kindness and His longsuffering mercy.

The grace of God not merely awakens man and brings him to repentance and faith, but goes much further and may be described as sustaining grace. This the Qur'an clearly teaches. It is of the grace of God and His never failing mercy that the believer is kept true to his first ideals and his first endeavour. By God's grace he is enabled to overcome the many temptations to relapse which come upon him in the course of his life; and it is by God's grace that he is assisted in the steadfast performance of his duties as a believer.

Thus it was through God's grace that Muhammad himself was preserved true to his mission, and prevented from falling away. 'They had well nigh beguiled thee from what we revealed to thee, and caused thee to invent some other thing in our name; but in that case they have taken thee as a friend: and unless we had confirmed thee, thou hadst well nigh have leaned to them a little.' ¹

Similarly others also are sustained by God's grace and favour, and are kept true to the message of the divine revelation, and protected from the wiles of Satan. 'But for the goodness and mercy of God towards you, ye would have followed Satan, except a few.' ²

In times of temptation and difficulty believers are urged to have recourse to God that He may keep them firm and steadfast. 'When some phantom from Satan toucheth thee, remember Him.' ³

Lot is represented as recognizing the need of divine help to preserve him and his family from falling into the evil habits and customs of the citizens of Sodom. 'He said, I utterly abhor your doings: O Lord, deliver me and my family from what they act.' ¹

The general teaching of the Qur'an from beginning to end may be said to be this truth, that apart from God's help man can do nothing to please Him.

We have seen elsewhere that, according to the Qur'an, man cannot but fall from time to time into sin, but this falling away from grace is not because the grace of God cannot sustain him, but because, in the weakness of his nature, man cannot constantly lean on the divine grace. The grace of God is all-sufficient, but man's faith and perseverance are not steadfast, and never can be steadfast. Yet even when he falls, he may be restored.

God's grace may, therefore, be described as restoring grace; for it is of the mercy of God and by His grace, that the believer, when he falls away, is brought back again into the true path. 'Had not favour from his Lord reached him (Jonah), he had surely been cast forth on the naked (shore), covered with shame; but His Lord chose him and made him (one) of the just .' ²

This grace of God, however, does not force the will of man, and restore him to the right way against his own determination to follow evil. There is a doctrine of irremediable falling from grace in the Qur'an. The believer who has fallen away from God may so struggle, against it that he becomes hardened in sin and cannot