The Miner Who Needed No Interpreter
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When in Bahá'í history
Howard Colby Ives wrote about an illiterate miner who walked a great distance to meet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá while He was in San Francisco:
This man, though uneducated, had great spiritual capacity. He attended a meeting at which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke. He seemed enthralled as the measured, bell-like tones fell from the Master's lips. When the interpreter took up the passage in English this miner started as if awakening. "Why does that man interrupt?" he whispered. Then again ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke, and again the visitor was lost in attention. Again the interpreter translated as the speaker paused. At this the miner's indignation was aroused. "Why do they let that man interrupt? He should be put out."
"He is the official interpreter," one sitting beside him explained. "He translates the Persian into English."
"Was He speaking in Persian?" was the naïve answer, "Why anyone could understand that."
Source: Earl Redman, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Their Midst, p. 232, quoting Howard Colby Ives, Portals to Freedom, ch. 7.
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: universal-language-heart-heart).
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