fear of God would deter him from unlawful and reprehensible actions; and if he be of the former, he would just as assuredly avoid such deeds as would alienate and alarm the people, and act in such a manner as to earn their confidence and trust.  It is therefore evident that reprehensible actions have always emanated, and will ever emanate, from ignorant and foolish souls.  We implore God to guard His servants from turning to anyone save Him, and to draw them nigh unto His presence.  His might, in truth, is equal to all things.

238 Praise be unto Thee, O Lord My God!  Thou hearest the voice of My lamentation, and beholdest My condition, My distress and affliction!  Thou knowest all that is in Me.  If the call I have raised be wholly for Thy sake, then draw thereby the hearts of Thy creatures towards the heaven of Thy knowledge, and the heart of the Sovereign towards the right hand of the throne of Thy name, the All-Merciful.  Supply him then, O My God, with a portion of that goodly sustenance which hath descended from the heaven of Thy generosity and the clouds of Thy mercy, that he may forsake his all and turn unto the court of Thy favour.  Aid him, O My God, to assist Thy Cause and to exalt Thy Word amidst Thy creatures.  Strengthen him, then, with the hosts of the seen and the unseen, that he may subdue every city in Thy Name, and hold sway, through Thy sovereignty and might, over all that dwell on earth, O Thou in Whose hand is the kingdom of creation!  Thou, verily, art the Supreme Ordainer in both the beginning and the end.  No God is there but Thee, the Most Powerful, the All-Glorious, the All-Wise.

239 So grossly hath Our Cause been misrepresented before thy royal presence that, if some unseemly act be committed by but one of this people, it is portrayed as being prompted by their beliefs.  By Him besides Whom there is none other God!  This Servant hath refused even to sanction the commission of reproved actions, how much less those which have been explicitly prohibited in the Book of God.

240 God hath forbidden unto men the drinking of wine, and this prohibition hath been revealed and recorded in His Book.  In spite of this, and of the fact that the learned doctors of the age—­may God increase their numbers!—­have all prohibited the people from such a wretched act, there still remain some who commit it.  The punishment which this act entaileth, however, applieth only to its heedless perpetrators, whilst those noble manifestations of supreme sanctity remain exalted above and exempt from all blame.  Yea, the whole creation, both seen and unseen, beareth witness unto their holiness.

241 Yea, these servants regard the one true God as He Who “doeth as He willeth"(41) and “ordaineth as He pleaseth".(42) Thus they view not as impossible the continued appearance in the contingent world of the Manifestations of His Unity.  Should anyone hold otherwise, how would he be different from those who believe the hand of God to be “chained up"?(43) And if the one true God—­glorified be His mention!—­be indeed regarded as unconstrained, then whatever Cause that Ancient King may please to manifest from the wellspring of His Command must be embraced by all.  No refuge is there for anyone and no haven to hasten unto save God; no protection is there for any soul and no shelter to seek except in Him.