mountains surge upward, the earth begins to breathe; it is delivered from harmful tremors and upheavals, and its tranquillity as it pursues its duty of rotation is no longer disturbed. In the same way that masts are planted in ships to protect them from turbulence and preserve their balance, so too mountains are set up on the deck of the ship that is the earth, as masts and stores, as is indicated by verses of the Qur'an of Miraculous Exposition such as these:

And the mountains as pegs, [^9] ∗ And We have cast down anchors, [^10] ∗ And the mountains He anchored them. [^11]

[^9]:Qur'an, 78:7.

[^10]:Qur'an, 50:7.

[^11]:Qur'an, 79:32.

Then, too, there are stored up and preserved in the mountains all kinds of springs, waters, minerals and other materials needed by animate beings, in so wise, skilful, generous and foreseeing a fashion that they prove that they are the storehouses and warehouses and servants of One possessing infinite power, One possessing infinite wisdom. Deducing from these two examples the other duties and instances of wisdom — as great as mountains — of the mountains and plains, the traveller sees through the general instances of wisdom in them and particularly in regard to the fashion in which all manner of things are stored up in them providentially, the testimony they give and the Divine unity they proclaim declaring "There is no god but He," — a declaration as powerful and firm as the mountains and vast and expansive as the plains — and he too says, "I believe in God."

In expression of this meaning, it was said in the Fifth Degree of the First Station:

There is no god but God, to the necessity of whose existence point all the mountains and plains together with what is in them and upon them, by the testimony of the sublimity of the comprehensiveness of the truth of the storing up, administration, dissemination of seed, preservation, and regulation, a truth providential, dominical, vast, general, well- ordered, and perfect, and to be observed. ∗ ∗ ∗

6. Degree: Trees and Plants {6}

Then, while that traveller was travelling in his mind through the mountains and plains, the gate to the arboreal and vegetable realm was opened before him. He was summoned inside: "Come," they said, "Inspect our realm and read our incriptions." Entering, he saw that a splendid and well- adorned assembly for the proclamation of God's unity and a circle for the mentioning of His names and the offering of thanks to Him, had been