y seem very unjust that the innocent should suffer for
the guilty, but 'Abdu'l-Baha assures us that the injustice is only
apparent and that, in the long run, perfect justice prevails. He writes:--

As to the subject of babes and children and weak ones who are
afflicted by the hands of the oppressors ... for those souls there
is a recompense in another world ... that suffering is the
greatest mercy of God. Verily that mercy of the Lord is far better
than all the comfort of this world and the growth and development
appertaining to this place of mortality.

Prayer and Natural Law

Many find a difficulty in believing in the efficacy of prayer because they
think that answers to prayer would involve arbitrary interference with the
laws of nature. An analogy may help to remove this difficulty. If a magnet
be held over some iron filings the latter will fly upwards and cling to
it, but this involves no interference with the law of gravitation. The
force of gravity continues to act on the filings just as before. What has
happened is that a superior force has been brought into play--another force
whose action is just as regular and calculable as that of gravity. The
Baha'i view is that prayer brings into action higher forces, as yet
comparatively little known; but there seems no reason to believe that
these forces are more arbitrary in their action than the physical forces.
The difference is that they have not yet been fully studied and
experimentally investigated, and their action appears mysterious and
incalculable because of our ignorance.

Another difficulty which some find perplexing is that prayer seems too
feeble a force to produce the great results often claimed to it. Analogy
may serve to clear up this difficulty also. A small force, when applied to
the sluice gate of a reservoir, may release and regulate an enormous flow
of water-power, or, when applied to the steering gear of an ocean liner,
may control the course of the huge vessel. In the Baha'i view, the power
that brings about answers to prayer is the inexhaustible Power of God. The
part of the suppliant is only to exert the feeble force necessary to
release the flow or determine the course of the Divine Bounty, which is
ever ready to serve those who have learned how to draw upon it.

Baha'i Prayers

Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha have revealed innumerable prayers for the use
of Their followers at various times and for va