| Kitáb-i-Íqán | 155 |
wife, children, food, drink, and the like, so much
so that in the day-time and in the night season his
one concern had been to amass riches and procure
for himself the means of enjoyment and pleasure.
Aside from these things, before his partaking of
the reviving waters of faith, he had been so
wedded to the traditions of his forefathers, and so
passionately devoted to the observance of their
customs and laws, that he would have preferred to
suffer death rather than violate one letter of those
superstitious forms and manners current amongst
his people. Even as the people have cried: "Verily
we found our fathers with a faith, and verily, in
their footsteps we follow." (1)
These same people, though wrapt in all these
veils of limitation, and despite the restraint of such
observances, as soon as they drank the immortal
draught of faith, from the cup of certitude, at the
hand of the Manifestation of the All-Glorious,
were so transformed that they would renounce for
His sake their kindred, their substance, their lives,
their beliefs, yea, all else save God! So overpowering
was their yearning for God, so uplifting their
transports of ecstatic delight, that the world and
