The Bunch of Violets

A retelling for children, based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield (an afternoon in September 1911).

All that morning, important people had come to see 'Abdu'l-Bahá. They wore fine clothes and came from grand houses, and one of them was even a member of the government. But that afternoon, 'Abdu'l-Bahá asked to be taken somewhere completely different. He wanted to go all the way across London, to the poor part of the city called the East End.

So He climbed into a motor-car with His friend Lady Blomfield, and off they went.

The East End was one of the poorest places in all of Europe. Children ran about with no shoes, splashing through puddles in the street. Washing hung on lines strung between the windows. The air was grey and smoky from the boats on the river and the factories nearby. As the car rolled along, 'Abdu'l-Bahá looked carefully at everything. He pointed things out. He asked quiet questions — how much money did the working men earn? How much did a loaf of bread cost? He wanted to truly understand the lives of the people who lived there.

In one of the little streets behind the docks, there was a house where the dock-workers' children came after school for lessons. When the children heard that 'Abdu'l-Bahá was coming, they packed into the hall — as many as the rooms could possibly hold. Small faces, lots of them, many of them dirty, and every single one curious. Who was this visitor coming to see them?

Then 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke to them. And here is the wonderful part: He spoke to these poor children with exactly the same kindness and respect He had shown that very morning to the important man from the government. He did not talk down to them. He did not treat them as if they mattered less.

He told them they were the flowers of their parents' hearts. He told them they belonged to a brand-new century. He told them they were beautiful in the eyes of God. And He told them that the world they would grow up to build must be a world where everyone is treated as a brother and a sister — and that they themselves would be the ones to build it.

When the talk was over, a little girl in a torn dress came forward. All afternoon she had been holding something tightly in her closed hand: a small bunch of violets. Now she held them out to 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

He took the flowers. He bent down low. And He kissed the top of her head. The whole crowded hall went perfectly quiet.

The Master in His turban received the violets, and bent and kissed the small head from which they had come.

The drive home across the city was almost silent. No one needed to say anything at all.

It would have been so easy to think that those barefoot children, in their smoky, forgotten street, did not matter to anyone important. But 'Abdu'l-Bahá crossed the whole city to come to them, and treated them as beautifully as kings and ladies — because to Him, every single child truly was a flower of God.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Among the Children of the East End".

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.