In the prosecution of their task neither the whisperings of the
treacherous nor the virulent attacks of their avowed enemies were allowed
to deflect them from their high purpose or to undermine their faith in the
sublimity of their calling. The agitation provoked by him who in his
incessant and sordid pursuit of earthly riches would have, but for
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s warning, sullied the fair name of their Faith, had left
them in the main undisturbed. Schooled by tribulation and secure within
the stronghold of their fast evolving institutions they scorned his
insinuations and by their unswerving loyalty were able to shatter his
hopes. They refused to allow any consideration of the admitted prestige
and past services of his father and of his associates to weaken their
determination to ignore entirely the person whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had so
emphatically condemned. The veiled attacks with which a handful of deluded
enthusiasts subsequently sought in the pages of their periodical to check
the growth and blight the prospects of an infant Administration had
likewise failed to achieve their purpose. The attitude which a besotted
woman later on assumed, her ludicrous assertions, her boldness in flouting
the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and in challenging its authenticity and her
attempts to subvert its principles were again powerless to produce the
slightest breach in the ranks of its valiant upholders. The treacherous
schemes which the ambition of a perfidious and still more recent enemy has
devised and through which he is still striving to deface ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
noble handiwork and corrupt its administrative principles are being once
more completely frustrated. These intermittent and abortive attempts on
the part of its assailants to force the surrender of the newly built
stronghold of the Faith its defenders have from the very beginning utterly
disdained. No matter how fierce the assaults of the enemy or skillful his
stratagem they have refused to yield one jot or one tittle of their
cherished convictions. His insinuations and clamor they have consistently
ignored. The motives which animated his actions, the methods he steadily
pursued, the precarious privileges he seemed momentarily to enjoy they
could not but despise. Thriving for a time through the devices which their
scheming minds had conceived and supported by the ephemeral advantages
which fame, ability or fortune can confer these notorious exponents of
corruption and heresy have succeeded in protruding for a time their ugly
features only to sink, as rapidly as they had risen, into the mire of an
ignominious end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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