another: "If this be the very truth from before
Thee, rain down stones upon us from heaven." (1)
Even as the people of Israel, in the time of Moses,
bartered away the bread of heaven for the sordid
things of the earth, these people, likewise, sought
to exchange the divinely-revealed verses for their
foul, their vile, and idle desires. In like manner,
thou beholdest in this day that although spiritual
sustenance hath descended from the heaven of
divine mercy, and been showered from the clouds
of His loving kindness, and although the seas of
life, at the behest of the Lord of all being, are
surging within the Ridván of the heart, yet these
people, ravenous as the dogs, have gathered
around carrion, and contented themselves with the
stagnant waters of a briny lake. Gracious God!
how strange the way of this people! They clamour
for guidance, although the standards of Him Who
guideth all things are already hoisted. They cleave
to the obscure intricacies of knowledge, when He,
Who is the Object of all knowledge, shineth as the
sun. They see the sun with their own eyes, and yet
question that brilliant Orb as to the proof of its
light. They behold the vernal showers descending
upon them, and yet seek an evidence of that
1. Qur'án 8:32.