eers and doctors of former times
which I have not mentioned here, since I mislike the copious citation from
sayings of the past; for quotation from the words of others proveth
acquired learning, not the divine bestowal. Even so much as We have quoted
here is out of deference to the wont of men and after the manner of the
friends. Further, such matters are beyond the scope of this epistle. Our
unwillingness to recount their sayings is not from pride, rather is it a
manifestation of wisdom and a demonstration of grace.

If Khidr did wreck the vessel on the sea,
Yet in this wrong there are a thousand rights.(47)

Otherwise, this Servant regardeth Himself as utterly lost and as nothing,
even beside one of the beloved of God, how much less in the presence of
His holy ones. Exalted be My Lord, the Supreme! Moreover, our aim is to
recount the stages of the wayfarer's journey, not to set forth the
conflicting utterances of the mystics.

Although a brief example hath been given concerning the beginning and
ending of the relative world, the world of attributes, yet a second
illustration is now added, that the full meaning may be manifest. For
instance, let thine Eminence consider his own self; thou art first in
relation to thy son, last in relation to thy father. In thine outward
appearance, thou tellest of the appearance of power in the realms of
divine creation; in thine inward being thou revealest the hidden mysteries
which are the divine trust deposited within thee. And thus firstness and
lastness, outwardness and inwardness are, in the sense referred to, true
of thyself, that in these four states conferred upon thee thou shouldst
comprehend the four divine states, and that the nightingale of thine heart
on all the branches of the rosetree of existence, whether visible or
concealed, should cry out: "He is the first and the last, the Seen and the
Hidden...."(48)

These statements are made in the sphere of that which is relative, because
of the limitations of men. Otherwise, those personages who in a single
step have passed over the world of the relative and the limited, and dwelt
on the fair plane of the Absolute, and pitched their tent in the worlds of
authority and command--have burned away these relativities with a single
spark, and blotted out these words with a drop of dew. And they swim in
the sea of the spirit, and soar in the holy air of light. Then what life
have words, on such a plane, that "first" and "last"