Homo Sum
HOMO SUM By Georg Ebers Volume 5. CHAPTER XVIII. Common natures can only be lightly touched by the immeasurable depth of anguish that is experienced by a soul that despairs of itself; but the more heavily the blow of such suffering falls, the more surely does it work with purifying power on him who has to taste of that cup. Paulus thought no more of the fair, sleeping woman; tortured by acute remorse he lay on the hard stones, feeling that he had striven in vain. When he had taken Hermas' sin and punishment and disgrace upon himself, it had seemed to him that he was treading in the very footsteps of the Saviour. And now?--He felt like one who, while running for a prize,
THE SEVEN VALLEYS OF BAHA'U'LLAH
_In the Name of God, the Clement, the Merciful._
Praise be to God Who hath made being to come forth from nothingness;
graven upon the tablet of man the secrets of preexistence; taught him from
the mysteries of divine utterance that which he knew not; made him a
Luminous Book unto those who believed and surrendered themselves; caused
him to witness the creation of all things (Kullu Shay') in this black and
ruinous age, and to speak forth from the apex of eternity with a wondrous
voice in the Excellent Temple(1): to the end that every man may testify,
in himself, by himself, in the station of the Manifestation of his Lord,
that verily there is no God save Him, and that every man may thereby win
his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything
whatsoever but that he shall see God therein.
And I praise and glorify the first sea which hath branched from the ocean
of the Divine Essence, and the first morn which hath glowed from the
Horizon of Oneness, and the first sun which hath risen in the Heaven of
Eternity, and the first fire which was lit from the Lamp of Preexistence
in the lantern of singleness: He who was Ahmad in the kingdom of the
exalted ones, and Muhammad amongst the concourse of the near ones, and
Mahmud(2) in the realm of the sincere ones. "...by whichsoever (name) ye
will, invoke Him: He hath most excellent names"(3) in the hearts of those
HOMO SUM By Georg Ebers Volume 5. CHAPTER XVIII. Common natures can only be lightly touched by the immeasurable depth of anguish that is experienced by a soul that despairs of itself; but the more heavily the blow of such suffering falls, the more surely does it work with purifying power on him who has to taste of that cup. Paulus thought no more of the fair, sleeping woman; tortured by acute remorse he lay on the hard stones, feeling that he had striven in vain. When he had taken Hermas' sin and punishment and disgrace upon himself, it had seemed to him that he was treading in the very footsteps of the Saviour. And now?--He felt like one who, while running for a prize,