them out, or else teaching him and Çayci Emin and any other of his students who were present. Although Bediuzzaman corrected the copies with the greatest care, he never consulted the originals; they were all in his head.
The high altitude of Kastamonu makes the winters very cold. In several letters Bediuzzaman mentions the bitter cold together with the illnesses he suffered. He was afflicted with chronic lumbago and rheumatism, in addition to which he was poisoned on several occasions. He writes that despite suffering these tribulations in addition to all his other hardships, "I offer endless thanks to my Creator that He has sent me belief, the most sacred remedy for every ill, and the medicine of resignation to the Divine Decree, which results from belief in Divine Determining; it has afforded me complete patience and caused me to offer thanks."
Bediuzzaman's indefatigable endurance is illustrated by the following memory of Çayci Emin's:
"I used to go to Bediuzzaman's house early to light his stove. One day I went it was extremely cold, and without realizing it I had gone two hours before the call to prayer. He was rapt in worship on his prayer-rug. In candlelight in the pre-dawn cold, he was praying in a sad and touching voice, he was pleading, beseeching. Agitated, I waited on my feet for a full one and a half hours. Shivering and trembling, I watched this elevated sight. Finally the sound of the call to prayer began to come from afar.. but the Turkish call to prayer of that time. He turned to me and said:
" `Emin, you made a great mistake! I swear that I have certain times that should the angels come even, I would not receive them... "' Çayci Emin apologized saying he had been misled by the light of the bright moon and said he would not come again before the call to prayer.
Bediuzzaman was subject to constant harassment. Ankara appointed governors to the province whom they knew would keep up the pressure on him. These were the most fearsome days of the Republican People's Party's rule , when it was pursuing its