“We Baha’is are neither afraid to, nor ashamed of, mentioning the names of these prominent backsliders. On the contrary, they represent to us what a soldier’s ribbons do to him: they are the campaigns we have successfully fought and every one of them is dear to our hearts. The storms they have loosed upon us have not only driven the roots of our Faith in Baha’u’llah’s system deeper, but have demonstrated to us that, for the first time in history, a religion has been given to men which cannot be split up into sects, for the two Wills — those of Baha’u’llah and the Master (Abdu’l Baha) — are so strongly constructed and so authentic beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is impossible to divorce the body of the teachings from their provisions. The principle of successorship, endowed with the right of Divine interpretation, is the very hub of the Cause into which its Doctrines and Laws fit like the spokes of a wheel – tear out the hub and you have to throw away the whole thing. This is why our enemies have, for a hundred years, failed to establish anything outside the Faith which could thrive or prosper.”
“For what beauty does not produce envy, and what purity does not produce slander, and what goodness does not challenge the evil hidden in an envious heart?”
Alborz
