had eagerly awaited the day of His Revelation, who had called upon Him
in the daytime and in the night season, who had implored Him to gather
them together in His presence and to grant that they may lay down their
lives in His path, be led aright by His guidance and illumined by His
light--this very people condemned and reviled Him, and inflicted upon Him
such cruelties as transcend both My capacity to tell and thine ability to
hear them. My very pen crieth out at this moment and the ink weepeth sore
and groaneth. By God! Wert thou to hearken with thine inner ear, thou
wouldst in truth hear the lamentations of the denizens of heaven; and wert
thou to remove the veil from before thine eyes, thou wouldst behold the
Maids of Heaven overcome and the holy souls overwhelmed, beating upon
their faces and fallen upon the dust.

26 Alas, alas, for that which befell Him Who was the Manifestation of the
Self of God, and for that which He and His loved ones were made to suffer!
The people inflicted upon them what no soul hath ever inflicted upon
another, and what no infidel hath wrought against a believer or suffered
at his hand. Alas, alas! That immortal Being sat upon the darksome dust,
the Holy Spirit lamented in the retreats of glory, the pillars of the
Throne crumbled in the exalted dominion, the joy of the world was changed
into sorrow in the crimson land, and the voice of the Nightingale was
silenced in the golden realm. Woe betide them for what their hands have
wrought and for what they have committed!

27 Hearken then unto that which the Bird of Heaven uttered, in the
sweetest and most wondrous accents, and in the most perfect and exalted
melodies, concerning them--an utterance that shall fill them with remorse
from now unto "the day when mankind shall stand before the Lord of the
worlds": "Although they had before prayed for victory over those who
believed not, yet when there came unto them He of Whom they had knowledge,
they disbelieved in Him. The curse of God on the infidels!"(21) Such
indeed are their condition and attainments in their vain and empty life.
Erelong shall they be cast into the fire of affliction and find none to
help or succour them.

28 Be not veiled by aught that hath been revealed in the Qur'an, or by
what thou hast learned from the works of those Suns of immaculacy and
Moons of majesty,(22) regarding the perversion of the Texts by the
fanatical or their alteration by their corruptors. By these stat