Praise be to Him Who hath rent the dark asunder, hath blotted out the
night, hath drawn aside the coverings and torn away the veils; Whose light
thereupon shone out, Whose signs and tokens were spread abroad, and His
mysteries laid bare. Then did His clouds part and loaded down the earth
with His bounties and bestowals, and made all things sweet with rain, and
caused the fresh greenery of knowledge and the hyacinths of certitude to
spring forth and to shake and tremble for joy, till the whole world was
scented with the fragrance of His holiness.
Salutations and praise, blessings and glory be upon those divine
realities, those sacred windflowers that have come forth out of this
supreme bestowal, this flooding grace that hath roared like a clashing sea
of gifts and bounties, tossing its waves to the high heavens.
O God, my God! Praise be unto Thee for kindling the fire of divine love in
the Holy Tree on the summit of the loftiest mount: that Tree which is
'neither of the east nor of the west,'(65) that fire which blazed out till
the flame of it soared upward to the Concourse on high, and from it those
realities caught the light of guidance, and cried out: 'Verily have we
perceived a fire on the slope of Mount Sinai.'(66)
O God, my God! Increase Thou this fire, as day followeth day, till the
blast of it setteth in motion all the earth. O Thou, my Lord! Kindle the
light of Thy love in every heart, breathe into men's souls the spirit of
Thy knowledge, gladden their breasts with the verses of Thy oneness. Call
Thou to life those who dwell in their tombs, warn Thou the prideful, make
happiness world-wide, send down Thy crystal waters, and in the assemblage
of manifest splendours, pass round that cup which is 'tempered at the
camphor fountain.'(67)
Verily art Thou the Giving, the Forgiving, the Ever-Bestowing. Verily art
Thou the Merciful, the Compassionate.
O ye loved ones of God! The wine-cup of Heaven overfloweth, the banquet of
God's Covenant is bright with festive lights, the dawn of all bestowals is
breaking, the gentle winds of grace are blowing, and out of the invisible
world come good tidings of bounties and gifts. In flower-spangled meadows
hath the divine springtime pitched its tents, and the spiritual are
inhaling sweet scents from the Sheba of the spirit, carried their way by
the east wind. Now doth the mystic nightingale carol its odes, and buds of
inner meaning are bursting into blossoms delicate and fair. The field
larks are become the festival's musicians, and lifting wondrous voices
they cry and sing to the melodies of the Company on high, 'Blessed are ye!
Glad Tidings! Glad Tidings!' And they urge on the revellers of the Abha
Paradise to drink their fill, and they eloquently hold forth upon the
celestial tree, and utter their sacred cries. All this, that withered
souls who tread the desert of the heedless, and faded ones lost in the
sands of unconcern, may come to throbbing life again, and present
themselves at the feasts and revels of the Lord God.
Praise be to Him! The renown of His Cause hath reached to east and west,
and word of the power of the Abha Beauty hath quickened north and south.
That cry from the American continent is a choir of holiness, that shout
from far and near that riseth even to the Company on high is 'Ya
Baha'u'l-Abha!' Now is the east lit up with a glory, and the west
rose-sweet, and all the earth is fragrant with ambergris, and the winds
that blow over the Holy Shrine are laden with musk. Erelong shall ye see
that even the darkest lands are bright, and the continents of Europe and
Africa have turned into gardens of flowers, and forests of blossoming
trees.
But since the dawning of this Day-Star was in Persia, and since from that
orient the sun shone upon the west, it is our fondest hope that the flames
of love's fire should blaze ever more vehemently in that land, and that
there the splendour of this Holy Faith should grow ever more intense. May
the tumult of God's Cause so shake that land to its foundations, may the
spiritual force of His Word so manifest itself, as to make Iran the core
and focus of well-being and peace. May rectitude and conciliation, and
love and trust, issuing forth from Iran, bring immortality to all on
earth. May she raise on the highest summits the banner of public order, of
purest spirituality, of universal peace.
O ye loved ones of God! In this, the Baha'i dispensation, God's Cause is
spirit unalloyed. His Cause belongeth not to the material world. It cometh
neither for strife nor war, nor for acts of mischief or of shame; it is
neither for quarrelling with other Faiths, nor for conflicts with the
nations. Its only army is the love of God, its only joy the clear wine of
His knowledge, its only battle the expounding of the Truth; its one
crusade is against the insistent self, the evil promptings of the human
heart. Its victory is to submit and yield, and to be selfless is its
everlasting glory. In brief, it is spirit upon spirit:
Unless ye must,
Bruise not the serpent in the dust,
How much less wound a man.
And if ye can,
No ant should ye alarm,
Much less a brother harm.
Let all your striving be for this, to become the source of life and
immortality, and peace and comfort and joy, to every human soul, whether
one known to you or a stranger, one opposed to you or on your side. Look
ye not upon the purity or impurity of his nature: look ye upon the
all-embracing mercy of the Lord, the light of Whose grace hath embosomed
the whole earth and all who dwell thereon, and in the plenitude of Whose
bounty are immersed both the wise and the ignorant. Stranger and friend
alike are seated at the table of His favour. Even as the believer, the
denier who turneth away from God doth at the same time cup his hands and
drink from the sea of His bestowals.
It behoveth the loved ones of the Lord to be the signs and tokens of His
universal mercy and the embodiments of His own excelling grace. Like the
sun, let them cast their rays upon garden and rubbish heap alike, and even
as clouds in spring, let them shed down their rain upon flower and thorn.
Let them seek but love and faithfulness, let them not follow the ways of
unkindness, let their talk be confined to the secrets of friendship and of
peace. Such are the attributes of the righteous, such is the
distinguishing mark of those who serve His Threshold.
The Abha Beauty endured the most afflictive of calamities. He bore
countless agonies and ills. He enjoyed not a moment's peace, drew not an
easeful breath. He wandered, homeless, over desert sands and mountain
slopes; He was shut in a fortress, and a prison cell. But to Him, His
pauper's mat of straw was an eternal throne of glory, and His heavy chains
a sovereign's carcanet. By day, by night, He lived under a whirring sword,
and He was ready from moment to moment for death on the cross. He bore all
this that He might purify the world, and deck it out with the tender
mercies of the Lord God; that He might set it at rest; that conflict and
aggression might be put to flight, the lance and the keen blade be
exchanged for loving fellowship, malevolence and war turn into safety and
gentleness and love, that battlefields of hate and wrath should become
gardens of delight, and places where once the blood-drenched armies
clashed, be fragrant pleasure grounds; that warfare should be seen as
shame, and the resort to arms, even as a loathsome sickness, be shunned by
every people; that universal peace raise its pavilions on the loftiest
mounts, and war be made to perish forever from the earth.
Wherefore must the loved ones of God, laboriously, with the waters of
their striving, tend and nourish and foster this tree of hope. In
whatsoever land they dwell, let them with a whole heart befriend and be
companions to those who are either close to them, or far removed. Let
them, with qualities like unto those of heaven, promote the institutions
and the religion of God. Let them never lose heart, never be despondent,
never feel afflicted. The more antagonism they meet, the more let them
show their own good faith; the more torments and calamities they have to
face, the more generously let them pass round the bounteous cup. Such is
the spirit which will become the life of the world, such is the spreading
light at its heart: and he who may be and do other than this is not worthy
to serve at the Holy Threshold of the Lord.
O ye loved ones of God! The Sun of Truth is shining down from invisible
skies; know ye the value of these days. Lift up your heads, and grow ye
cypress-tall in these swift-running streams. Take ye joy in the beauty of
the narcissus of Najd, for night will fall and it will be no more....
O ye loved ones of God! Praise be to Him, the bright banner of the
Covenant is flying higher every day, while the flag of perfidy hath been
reversed, and hangeth at half-mast. The benighted attackers have been
shaken to their core; they are now as ruined sepulchres, and even as blind
creatures that dwell beneath the earth they creep and crawl about a corner
of the tomb, and out of that hole, from time to time, like unto savage
beasts, do they jibber and howl. Glory be to God! How can the darkness
hope to overcome the light, how can a magician's cords hold fast 'a
serpent plain for all to see'? 'Then lo! It swallowed up their lying
wonders.'(68) Alas for them! They have deluded themselves with a fable,
and to indulge their appetites they have done away with their own selves.
They gave up everlasting glory in exchange for human pride, and they
sacrificed greatness in both worlds to the demands of the insistent self.
This is that of which We have forewarned you. Erelong shall ye behold the
foolish in manifest loss.
O my Lord and my Hope! Help Thou Thy loved ones to be steadfast in Thy
mighty Covenant, to remain faithful to Thy manifest Cause, and to carry
out the commandments Thou didst set down for them in Thy Book of
Splendours; that they may become banners of guidance and lamps of the
Company above, wellsprings of Thine infinite wisdom, and stars that lead
aright, as they shine down from the supernal sky.
Verily art Thou the Invincible, the Almighty, the All-Powerful.