The Master Grieves for Breakwell
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When in Bahá'í history
Thomas Breakwell breathed his last at seven p.m., on 13 June 1902, at No. 200, rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, in Paris. He was 30 years of age; he had been a Bahá’í for hardly one year. But from that moment on, he possessed all eternity to live and proclaim his Faith.
The mysterious nature of the unspoken communion between the lover and the Beloved can be seen in the way in which Yúnis Khán learned of Thomas's death:
“I was accompanying the Master in the evening from the house where He received His visitors to His home by the seaside. All of a sudden He turned to me and said: ‘Have you heard?’ ‘No, Master,’ I replied, and He said: ‘Breakwell has passed away. I am grieved, very grieved. I have written a prayer of visitation for him. It is very moving, so moving that twice I could not withhold my tears, when I was writing it. You must translate it well, so that whoever reads it will weep.’ I never knew who had given the Master the news of Breakwell's death. If anyone had written or cabled either in English or French, that communication would have passed through my hands. Two days later the prayer of visitation was given to me. It wrung one's heart, and I could not hold back my tears. I translated it into French, and later, with the help of Lua Getsinger, into English.”
Source: Lakshiman-Lepain, The Life of Thomas Breakwell, pp. 37–45; Yúnis Khán’s account as given in H. M. Balyuzi, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant, pp. 78–79.
Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: breakwell).
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