--provisional translation by Stephen N. Lambden
[Sighting from His howdah the Black Sea, as He approached
the port of Samsun, Bahá'u'lláh, at the request of Mirza Aqa Jan, revealed a
Tablet, designated Lawh-i-Hawdaj (Tablet of the Howdah), which by such
allusions as the "Divine Touchstone," "the grievous and
tormenting Mischief," reaffirmed and supplemented the dire predictions
recorded in the recently revealed Tablet of the Holy Mariner. (Shoghi Effendi,
‘God Passes By’)]
These are verses which were disclosed in the Pavilion of
Eternity and the Howdah of Holiness at the moment when the Greatest Name
arrived at the precinct of majesty in the land of Sāmsūn, at the shore of a
mighty ocean. Then did the hosts of the inspiration of God descend, so
splendidly ornamented, that all who are in the heavens and on earth were
thunderstruck thereat. Before them did the Sun of the Divine Beauty radiate
forth in an holy, ethereal Temple and addressed the Ark with the like of that
which had streamed forth from the Pen of God aforetime, in a Tablet in which We
addressed the Holy Mariner with a secret, sorrowful Call. And this in
accordance with what hath this moment been sent down in this Tablet from an
holy, luminous Pen. And whomsoever desires to comprehend the mysteries of the
Command on the part of One, Wise, All-Knowing, let such an one consider these
two Tablets and thus become cognizant of the mysteries of God; eyes solaced
thereby and one numbered among such as are possessed of certainty.
The times of reclining in the Howdah of Holiness hath been
completed and the Beauty of the Divine Essence hath emerged unto a mighty,
noble panorama. Say: 'The terrestrial
journey hath found completion at the shore of a mighty ocean.' At this did the
Howdah of Immortality weep and a luminous Ship of Holiness rejoice.
