in your burning ...

(180) The letter that you wrote in your burning grief, on the passing of
the world's Beloved, the Orb of the Covenant--wrote with weeping eyes and a
heart afire, has come. Once again, it brings back the full force of this
calamity, and renews our mourning. This was the most ruinous of disasters,
the most dreaded of ordeals, the most hurtful of misfortunes. It was an
earthquake that shook the pillars of the world; it caused a tumult and an
uproar among the dwellers of earth and heaven. This terrible separation
came upon us as an inescapable trial and a dismal decree. It destroyed all
hopes of happiness, and all joy perished. By this departure, the sparkling
stars were dimmed, and the heavens of mystic meaning split apart. It set
the skies on fire, it scorched the seven spheres. From this departure,
sorrow enveloped all mankind, it brought pain and tears to all the peoples
of the earth. The lightning bolt of it consumed the world and struck the
hearts of its inhabitants, so that they put on sackcloth and poured ashes
on their heads. This disaster, coming all unawares, made the morning dark,
and turned bright noon to night. From our breasts rose burning sighs, and
from our eyes streamed our life blood. Even the Concourse on High moaned
and lamented, and their clamour rose to the highest Heaven, and the
weeping denizens of the pavilions of glory, striking at their faces,
raised their plaintive cries. Mourning, shedding tears, their garments
rent, their heads uncovered, their feet bare, the Maids of Heaven hastened
out of their lofty, immaculate chambers, and groaned and cried out.

'Abdu'l-Baha, may our lives be sacrificed for His sacred dust, that
peerless Beloved of the world, from the day that Baha'u'llah ascended
until the hour of His own spotless soul's departure to the kingdom of
light and the realm beyond, had neither a quiet night's rest nor a
peaceful day, for thirty years. At all times His heart wept and sorrowed,
and in the dark of the night from His anguished breast rose burning sighs,
sorely wounded as He was by the arrows of the opposers and the rebellious.
Then at first light, He would lift up His wondrous, melodious voice and
commune with the dwellers in the high mansions of Heaven.

He would face the storms of tribulation with a heart full of fervour and
love; He would breast the waves of calamities and oncoming ordeals with
overflowing joy. With the balm of His loving-kindness, He w