The Question Answered by Silence

I asked ‘Abdu’l-Bahá one day: "Why should I believe in Bahá’u’lláh?" He looked long and searchingly as it seemed into my very soul. The silence deepened. He did not answer. In that silence I had time to consider why I had asked the question, and dimly I began to see that only I myself could supply the reason. After all, why should I believe in anyone or anything except as a means, an incentive, a dynamic for the securing of a fuller, deeper, more perfect life?

Does the cabinet-maker's apprentice ask himself why he should believe in the master wood-worker? He wants to know how to make these raw materials into things of beauty and usefulness. He must believe in anyone who can show him how to do that, providing he first has faith in his own capacity. I had the stuff of life. Was Bahá’u’lláh the Master Workman? If He were I knew that I would follow, even though through blood and tears. But how could I know?

I wondered why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá kept silence so long. Yet was it silence? That stillness held more than words. At last He spoke. He said that the work of a Christian minister is most important. When you preach, or pray, or teach your people your heart must be filled with love for them and love for God. And you must be sincere—very sincere.

He spoke in Persian, the interpreter translating fluently and beautifully. But no one could interpret that Divine Voice. He spoke, indeed, as never mere man spake. One listened entranced and understood inwardly even before the interpreter opened his mouth. It was as though the English skimmed the surface: the voice, the eyes, the smile of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá taught the heart to probe the depths.

He continued, to the effect that: One can never be sincere enough until his heart is entirely severed from attachment to the things of this world. One should not preach love and have a loveless heart, nor preach purity and harbor impure thoughts. Nor preach peace and be at inward strife. He paused and added with a sort of humorous sadness: that He had known ministers who did this. My guilty conscience acquiesced. So had I.

It was not until many months later that I realized that He had answered my question. Certainly I was brought nearer to faith in Bahá’u’lláh as Life's Master Workman. Surely this was a glorious hint as to how the stuff of life could be made into things of beauty and worth.

Source: Howard Colby Ives, Portals to Freedom, ch. 2, p. 42.

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: silence).

Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/silence