Translations:Yirmi Altıncı Lem'a/111/en

Just as this mystery of mercy is in force for the young, so is it in force for the elderly, who resemble young in regard to weakness and impotence. I have had experiences which have led me to form the unshakeable conviction that just as the sustenance of infants is sent to them in wondrous fashion by divine mercy on account of their impotence, being made to flow forth from the springs of breasts; so too the sustenance of believing elderly, who acquire innocence, is sent in the form of plenty. This truth is also proved by the Hadith which says: “If it were not for your elderly folk with their bent backs, calamities would have descended on you in floods.”(*)It states both that a household’s source of plenty is its elderly inhabitants, and that it is the elderly that preserve the household from the visitation of calamities.