lieved in Him and acknowledged His command were indeed honored with new life, and a new spirit and life became true of them. For previous to believing in God and submitting to the Manifestation of Himself, they had the greatest attachment to temporal effects and properties, such as wife, children, food, drink and the like, to such an extent that they spent night and day in seeking vanities and means of enjoyment, and exerted themselves in procuring transient possessions. Aside from these things, before arriving at the sea of faith, they were so firm and rooted in the limitations of their fathers and forefathers, and in following their ceremonies and laws, that if sentenced to death, they would rather submit than allow the change of a single letter of the habitual customs which prevailed among the multitude. For the people have cried, "Verily, we found our fathers practising a religion and we are guided in their foot-steps" (K. S. 43).
The same people, notwithstanding these limited veils and above-mentioned customs, as soon as they drank the choice wine of Faith from the chalice of Assurance in the hands of the Manifestations of the Praised One, were so transformed that they would abandon wives, children, property, incumbrances, life and belief, yea, all else save God. They were so overcome by excess of longing for God, and by ecstasies of eternal joy, that they would not value the world and all therein as a wisp of straw. Can they not be declared as of "new creation" and "return?" Like
