He Loved the Children of the House

Mr. Furutan, in *Stories of Bahá’u’lláh,* gathers more than one recollection of how Bahá’u’lláh received the children of the household. The witnesses, drawn from the Greatest Holy Leaf, from the grandchildren themselves, and from servants of the house, agree on one thing above all: His attention to children was unhurried.

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He would be sitting, the witnesses record, at His low desk in the upper room. The papers of His revealed Tablets were spread in front of Him. A pen and an inkwell were at His right hand. A believer would be seated near the door, ready to take dictation or to copy what had been revealed. The atmosphere of the room, in those hours, was the atmosphere of the central spiritual work of His ministry.

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Then a small footstep would come on the stair. A child — a grandchild, often, or a small visitor from the household of one of the believers — would appear in the doorway. The work would stop. Bahá’u’lláh would look up, smile, set the pen down, and turn fully to the child. The child would be invited in. The child's small concerns — a lost toy, a quarrel with a brother, a cut on a finger, a complaint about the stew — would be heard out as if they were the affairs of a kingdom.

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He would, the witnesses record, put His own great hand on the child's small head. He would ask questions. He would listen to the answers. He would respond. The child would leave the room, some minutes later, with a piece of fruit in one hand or a sweet from a small jar, and would carry the encounter for the rest of the day.

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The amanuensis would resume his place. The pen would return to the page. The Tablet would continue. Furutan, recording this pattern, observes that no one in the household ever felt that the work had been interrupted; the receiving of the child had been part of the work.

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*When the children came to the door, the writing was put aside.*

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The grandchildren of the family carried these encounters in their bones. Several of them, in old age, would tell the younger Bahá’ís that they had not been able, in any other encounter of their lives, to be quite so completely received. The household had known, before the world knew, that the revelation came down through a hand that did not despise the small voice of a child.

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*Paraphrased from Stories of Bahá'u'lláh (Ali-Akbar Furutan, George Ronald, 1986); see original for full text.*

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