Let me assure you, at the outset, of the deep sympathy of the Ladies of the Household, of the friends the world over, and of myself, in your great suffering, and our unfailing prayers to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, that He may dissipate these gathering clouds of animosity and strife, and relieve your great and beloved country from its present state of uncertainty and peril. Why fear and sorrow? Have we not the express promise of the Master, uttered after the termination of the Great War, that Germany, now humbled and weakened, will no doubt be freed from its fetters and will develop, materially and spiritually, and shall one day emerge from this sad turmoil strong, united and prosperous, ready to take her place in the great Family of the advanced nations of the world? I am enclosing for you all my translation of a number of selections from the Master’s soul-stirring and comforting words, revealed some twenty-five years ago, and during the darkest days of his incarceration in the prison-city of Akká. You will I hope translate them and publish them in your Bahá’í organ the “Sun of Truth”, copies of which I shall be most pleased to receive and share with my friends in the Holy Land. I am enclosing also a copy of my last letter to you, wherein I have asked you, among other things, to send me a detailed report of your activities, and I sincerely hope that I shall soon be in receipt of a detailed answer from you on all the points which I have raised in my last letter. I am also enclosing my revised translation of the Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh, both Arabic and Persian, and hope to send you more of His Words and Teachings in future. Awaiting your news, and wishing you the highest success in your glorious work of service, I am your devoted brother LETTER OF 4 DECEMBER 1923 4 December 1923 To the dearly-beloved friends throughout Germany. Care of the National Spiritual Assembly My well-beloved friends: What a joy to correspond with you again, and express, after a long and unbroken silence, my warm sentiments of love and affection for those tried, yet steadfast, lovers of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! Your trials and sufferings have been a constant source of anxiety and painful sorrow, not to me alone, but to the Ladies of the Household as well as to the friends at large. True, humanity is to-day widely afflicted with unprecedented ills and calamities, but you, the chosen and favoured children of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have, by some wisdom inscrutable to us all, received the fullest measure of this distress, and are carrying the burden of your cares with heroic fortitude, unflinching faith, and undaunted courage worthy of the admiration of even the most severely tried of your fellow-sufferers in far-away Persia.