The Boy Who Had No Copy

*A retelling for children, based on **The Chosen Highway** by Lady Blomfield.*

1 / 11

Long ago, Bahá'u'lláh lived for two years in the mountains of Kurdistán. He dressed in the simple clothes of a dervish, a wandering holy man, and nobody there knew who He really was. People spoke of Him as "the Nameless One."

2 / 11

One day, near a village in the mountains, He saw a boy weeping bitterly.

3 / 11

"Little man, why art thou weeping?" Bahá'u'lláh asked.

4 / 11

The boy looked up and saw a dervish, and told Him the whole story. The schoolmaster had punished him for writing so badly. The boy could not write well, and he had no copy, no good example of the letters to practise from. Now he was afraid to go back to school.

5 / 11

Bahá'u'lláh said to him, "Weep no longer. I will set a copy for thee, and show thee how to imitate it."

6 / 11

He wrote out the letters in His own hand and showed the boy how to copy them. Then He told the boy to take the writing and show it to his schoolmaster.

7 / 11

When the schoolmaster saw it, he was astonished. The writing was so fine that he asked who had given it to the boy.

8 / 11

"He wrote it for me, the dervish on the mountain," said the boy.

9 / 11

"He is no dervish the writer of this, but a royal personage," said the schoolmaster.

10 / 11

*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["A Copy for a Weeping Schoolboy"](/stories/ch-the-boys-ruined-copybook).*

11 / 11