and instruct us with the ease and certainty of the spring.

The manifestations of these four Names occur in all things from the most particular to the most universal. For example, through manifesting the Name of First, a seed, the source of a tree, is a precise programme of it and a small receptacle containing the faultless systems of the tree’s creation and all the conditions of its formation, thus proving the vastness of Divine preservation.

Then, together with the tree’s seeds, its fruit manifests the Name of Last; they are coffers containing the indexes of all the duties the tree has performed in accordance with its nature and the principles of its second life, thus testifying at a maximum level to Divine preservation.

The tree’s physical form, which manifests the Name of Evident, is a finely proportioned, skilfully decorated garment. Like a seventy-hued robe of the houris which has been embroidered with gilded motifs, it demonstrates visibly the vast power, perfect wisdom, and beautiful mercy within Divine preservation.

As for the machinery within the tree, which manifests the Name of Inward, it is a regular, miraculous, faultless factory and workbench, a balanced cauldron of food which leaves unnourished none of its branches, fruits, or leaves, thus proving as brilliantly as the sun the perfect power, justice, and beautiful mercy and wisdom within Divine preservation.

Similarly, in respect of the annual seasons the globe is a tree. Through the manifestation of the Name of First, all the seeds and grains entrusted to Divine preservation in the season of autumn are small collections of the Divine commands concerning the formation of the tree of the face of the earth, which when it is enrobed in the garment of spring, puts forth millions of branches and twigs, and fruits and flowers. So too those seeds are lists of the principles proceeding from Divine Determining, and the tiny pages of the tree’s deeds of the previous summer, and the notebooks of its tasks, which demonstrate self-evidently that they function through the infinite power, justice, wisdom, and mercy of a Glorious and Munificent Preserver.

Then the end of the annual tree of the earth is —in the second autumn, its depositing in those tiny containers all the duties it has