O Exalted Leaf, O Distinguished Friend!

O exalted leaf, O distinguished friend! May the glory of God and His praise, His bounty and blessing rest upon you inasmuch as you have remained faithful to the Covenant of God and His Testament.

Your letter so fine and ornate, a gift from the Paradise of the love of God, and a dear token of the celestial Garden of divine knowledge, has been received, and perfumed with its spiritual and ethereal fragrance the nostrils of this maidservant of God, this yearning prisoner.

Praise be to God that He has enabled you, His well-assured leaf, to magnify at all times the glory of His gracious countenance, has sustained your life through the remembrance of His Beauty, has suffered you to rid yourself of all attachment to any one save Him that you may continually commune with His love. He has graciously assisted you to remain faithful to His weighty and irrefutable Testament, to cling tenaciously to the hem of the robe of the Centre of the Covenant of God, the All-Bountiful, and to fix your gaze entirely upon the luminous face of ‘Him Whom God hath purposed’, the One ‘Who hath branched from the pre-existent Root’. In truth, a myriad praises and thanksgiving should be offered in appreciation of this outpouring of divine favours and blessings. We implore the Kingdom of our Lord, the All-Glorious, that He may continually waft upon you His vitalizing breaths, may enrapture you by the uplifting transports of His delight, may quicken you through His Holy Spirit and may grant you confirmation to serve His maidservants and His leaves.

Source: Bahíyyih Khánum, in Bahíyyih Khánum (1982). Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19242.

Khánum, B.. (1982). *Bahíyyih Khánum*. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19242/pg19242-images.html