O thou flame of God's love! What thou hast written hath brought great joy,
for thy letter was as a garden from which roses of inner meanings spread
abroad the sweet exhalations of the love of God. In the same way, my
answers will serve as rainshowers and dew, to bestow on those spiritual
plants that have blossomed in the garden of thy heart more freshness and
delicate beauty than words can tell.
Thou didst write of afflictive tests that have assailed thee. To the loyal
soul, a test is but God's grace and favour; for the valiant doth joyously
press forward to furious battle on the field of anguish, when the coward,
whimpering with fright, will tremble and shake. So too, the proficient
student, who hath with great competence mastered his subjects and
committed them to memory, will happily exhibit his skills before his
examiners on the day of his tests. So too will solid gold wondrously gleam
and shine out in the assayer's fire.
It is clear, then, that tests and trials are, for sanctified souls, but
God's bounty and grace, while to the weak, they are a calamity, unexpected
and sudden.
These tests, even as thou didst write, do but cleanse the spotting of self
from off the mirror of the heart, till the Sun of Truth can cast its rays
thereon; for there is no veil more obstructive than the self, and however
tenuous that veil may be, at the last it will completely shut a person
out, and deprive him of his portion of eternal grace.
O thou enraptured handmaid of the Lord! When the believers, men and women,
pass in thought before my eyes, I feel myself warmed at the fire of God's
love, and I pray that the Almighty will succour those holy souls with His
invisible hosts. Praised be the Lord that the prophecies of all His
Manifestations have now been clearly fulfilled, in this greatest of all
days, this holy and blessed age.
O thou enraptured handmaid of God! Nearness is verily of the soul, not of
the body; and the help that is sought, and the help that cometh, is not
material but of the spirit; nevertheless it is my hope that thou wilt
attain to nearness in every sense. The bounties of God will verily
encompass a sanctified soul even as the sun's light doth the moon and
stars: be thou assured of this.
Waft thou to each one of the believers, men and women alike, fragrant
breaths of holiness on behalf of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Inspire them all and urge
them on to shed abroad the sweet savours of the Lord.