'Abdu'l-Bahá From Last Tablet to America: "The Divine Gardener cuts off the dry or weak branch from the good tree and grafts to it, a branch from another tree."

"Consider this text of the New Testament: the brothers of His Holiness Christ, came to Him and they said: “These are your brothers.” He answered that His brothers were those who believed in God, and refused to associate with His own brothers. Likewise Qurratu’l-Ayn, who is celebrated in all the world, when she believed in God and was attracted to the Divine Breaths, she forsook her two eldest sons, although they were her two oldest children, because they did not become believers, and thereafter did not meet them. She said: “All the friends of God are my children, but these two are not. I will have nothing to do with them.” Consider! The Divine Gardener cuts off the dry or weak branch from the good tree and grafts to it, a branch from another tree. He both separates and unites. This is that which His Holiness Christ says: that from all the world they come and enter the Kingdom, and the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out. Noah’s grandson, Canaan, was detested in the sight of Noah and others were accepted. The brothers of the Blessed Beauty never met them. He said: “This is an eternal separation between you and Me.” All this was not because the Blessed Beauty was despotic; but because these persons, through their own actions and words, deprived themselves from the bounties and bestowals of the Blessed Beauty. His Holiness Christ did not exercise despotism in the case of Judas Iscariot and His own brothers, – but they separated themselves. In short, the point is this: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is extremely kind, but when the disease is leprosy, what am I to do? Just as in bodily diseases we must prevent intermingling and infection and put into effect sanitary laws – because the infectious physical diseases uproot the foundation of humanity; likewise one must protect and safeguard the blessed souls from the breaths and fatal spiritual diseases; otherwise violation, like the plague, will become a contagion and all will perish. In the early days, after the Ascension, of the Blessed Beauty, the centre of violation was alone; little by little the infection spread; and this was due to companionship and association." Star of the West XIII. p. 1.