Juliet: May 19 – ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s effect on Juliet’s atheist friend

On Sunday, 19 May, He spoke at the Church of the Divine Paternity.[see The Promulgation of Universal Peace] This was unbearably beautiful. The church is Byzantine, making me think of the worship of the early Christians. The interior is of grey stone.

Oh the look of His that day! Then, more vividly than ever, He shone as the Good Shepherd, returned at last to His flocks. I wept through the whole service. At the end of the pew in front of me sat Lua, her eyes fixed on the master, rapt, adoring, her beauty immeasurably heightened by that recognition, that adoration.

Soon I caught a glimpse of another rapt face—a man’s—my old friend, Mr. Bailey’s. Mr. Bailey is the last person I could have hoped to see there. A very old gentleman, he had always seemed to me a hopelessly unconvertible atheist. At least he would never listen to a word from me about the Cause. And now, here he sat, and never have I seen a face more touched. His eyes were wistful, like a child’s, shyly reverent and as limpid as though there were tears in them.

He met me that afternoon at the Master’s apartment, making his entrance with these words: “I have been thinking since this morning that the way to the attainment of greatness is through elimination.”

“You felt,” I ventured, “‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s simplicity?”

“One would naturally feel,”—huffily—”the simplicity of Niagara.”

“And the beauty of His Face?”

“The patriarchal grandeur of His face cannot be denied.”

Later, how his eyes hung on that Face while the Master talked with him!