But Abdul-Baha—praise be to God!—is in perfect peace, composure and rest. He is not even disturbed through this calumny and fiction, but rather hath referred all affairs to the pre-ordained decree and in perfect joy and happiness is ready to give up his life, expecting every ordeal.

Praise be to God!—the kind friends of God are also in a state of resignation and submissiveness. All are happy, thankful, joyful, and content. But the center of violation presumed that after the shedding of the blood of this oppressed one, or the throwing of him into the Mediterranean Sea, he will become nameless, traceless and forgotten, and that he [himself] would find an arena to gallop in and could win, with the spear of suspicions and fictions, the object of his hopes and desire. In vain! In vain! If there be no permanence to the fragrance of the musk of faithfulness, will any one be attracted by the vile odor of jealousy? If the deer of God be torn asunder by dogs and wolves, no one will run after the blood-thirsty wolf. If the nightingale of significances end his days, no one will listen to the croaking of the raven, nor to the cawing of the crow. what vain imagination is this, and what an ignorant display! Their actions are like unto a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty imagines to be water, but when he reaches it, finds it to be nothing.

In sooth, O ye friends of God, make firm your feet and heart, make perfect resolve through the power of