reading those extracts that by the
phrase "the Tongue of the Ancient" no one else is meant but God, and that
the term "the Greatest Name" is an obvious reference to Baha'u'llah, and
that "the Covenant" referred to is not the specific Covenant of which
Baha'u'llah is the immediate Author and 'Abdu'l-Baha the Center but that
general Covenant which, as inculcated by the Baha'i teaching, God Himself
invariably establishes with mankind when He inaugurates a new
Dispensation. "The Tongue" that "gives," as stated in those extracts, the
"glad-tidings" is none other than the Voice of God referring to
Baha'u'llah, and not Baha'u'llah referring to 'Abdu'l-Baha.

Moreover, to maintain that the assertion "He is Myself," instead of
denoting the mystic unity of God and His Manifestations, as explained in
the Kitab-i-Iqan, establishes the identity of Baha'u'llah with
'Abdu'l-Baha, would constitute a direct violation of the oft-repeated
principle of the oneness of God's Manifestations--a principle which the
Author of these same extracts is seeking by implication to emphasize.

It would also amount to a reversion to those irrational and superstitious
beliefs which have insensibly crept, in the first century of the Christian
era, into the teachings of Jesus Christ, and by crystallizing into
accepted dogmas have impaired the effectiveness and obscured the purpose
of the Christian Faith.

"I affirm," is 'Abdu'l-Baha's own written comment on the Tablet of the
Branch, "that the true meaning, the real significance, the innermost
secret of these verses, of these very words, is my own servitude to the
sacred Threshold of the Abha Beauty, my complete self-effacement, my utter
nothingness before Him. This is my resplendent crown, my most precious
adorning. On this I pride myself in the kingdom of earth and heaven.
Therein I glory among the company of the well-favored!" "No one is
permitted," He warns us in the passage which immediately follows, "to give
these verses any other interpretation." "I am," He, in this same
connection, affirms, "according to the explicit texts of the Kitab-i-Aqdas
and the Kitab-i-'Ahd the manifest Interpreter of the Word of God... Whoso
deviates from my interpretation is a victim of his own fancy."

Furthermore, the inescapable inference from the belief in the identity of
the Author of our Faith with Him Who is the Center of His Covenant would
be to place 'Abdu'l-Baha in a position superior to that of the Bab, the
rev