"O kings of the earth! Give ear unto the Voice of God, calling from this
sublime, this fruit-laden Tree, that hath sprung out of the Crimson Hill,
upon the holy Plain, intoning the words: 'There is none other God but He,
the Mighty, the All-Powerful, the All-Wise.'... Fear God, O concourse of
kings, and suffer not yourselves to be deprived of this most sublime
grace. Fling away, then, the things ye possess, and take fast hold on the
Handle of God, the Exalted, the Great. Set your hearts towards the Face of
God, and abandon that which your desires have bidden you to follow, and be
not of those who perish. Relate unto them, O servant, the story of 'Ali
[the Bab], when He came unto them with truth, bearing His glorious and
weighty Book, and holding in His hands a testimony and proof from God, and
holy and blessed tokens from Him. Ye, however, O kings, have failed to
heed the Remembrance of God in His days and to be guided by the lights
which arose and shone forth above the horizon of a resplendent Heaven. Ye
examined not His Cause when so to do would have been better for you than
all that the sun shineth upon, could ye but perceive it. Ye remained
careless until the divines of Persia--those cruel ones--pronounced judgment
against Him, and unjustly slew Him. His spirit ascended unto God, and the
eyes of the inmates of Paradise and the angels that are nigh unto Him wept
sore by reason of this cruelty. Beware that ye be not careless henceforth
as ye have been careless aforetime. Return, then, unto God, your Maker,
and be not of the heedless.... My face hath come forth from the veils, and
shed its radiance upon all that is in heaven and on earth; and yet, ye
turned not towards Him, notwithstanding that ye were created for Him, O
concourse of kings! Follow, therefore, that which I speak unto you, and
hearken unto it with your hearts, and be not of such as have turned aside.
For your glory consisteth not in your sovereignty, but rather in your
nearness unto God and your observance of His command as sent down in His
holy and preserved Tablets. Should any one of you rule over the whole
earth, and over all that lieth within it and upon it, its seas, its lands,
its mountains, and its plains, and yet be not remembered by God, all these
would profit him not, could ye but know it.... Arise, then, and make
steadfast your feet, and make ye amends for that which hath escaped you,
and set then yourselves towards His holy Court, on the shore of His mighty
Ocean, so that the pearls of knowledge and wisdom, which God hath stored
up within the shell of His radiant heart, may be revealed unto you....
Beware lest ye hinder the breeze of God from blowing over your hearts, the
breeze through which the hearts of such as have turned unto Him can be
quickened...."
"Lay not aside the fear of God, O kings of the earth," He, in that same
Tablet has revealed, "and beware that ye transgress not the bounds which
the Almighty hath fixed. Observe the injunctions laid upon you in His
Book, and take good heed not to overstep their limits. Be vigilant, that
ye may not do injustice to anyone, be it to the extent of a grain of
mustard seed. Tread ye the path of justice, for this, verily, is the
straight path. Compose your differences, and reduce your armaments, that
the burden of your expenditures may be lightened, and that your minds and
hearts may be tranquilized. Heal the dissensions that divide you, and ye
will no longer be in need of any armaments except what the protection of
your cities and territories demandeth. Fear ye God, and take heed not to
outstrip the bounds of moderation, and be numbered among the extravagant.
We have learned that you are increasing your outlay every year, and are
laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is more than
they can bear, and is a grievous injustice. Decide justly between men, and
be ye the emblems of justice amongst them. This, if ye judge fairly, is
the thing that behooveth you, and beseemeth your station.
"Beware not to deal unjustly with anyone that appealeth to you, and
entereth beneath your shadow. Walk ye in the fear of God, and be ye of
them that lead a godly life. Rest not on your power, your armies, and
treasures. Put your whole trust and confidence in God, Who hath created
you, and seek ye His help in all your affairs. Succor cometh from Him
alone. He succoreth whom He willeth with the hosts of the heavens and of
the earth.
"Know ye that the poor are the trust of God in your midst. Watch that ye
betray not His trust, that ye deal not unjustly with them and that ye walk
not in the ways of the treacherous. Ye will most certainly be called upon
to answer for His trust on the day when the Balance of Justice shall be
set, the day when unto everyone shall be rendered his due, when the doings
of all men, be they rich or poor, shall be weighed.
"If ye pay no heed unto the counsels which, in peerless and unequivocal
language, We have revealed in this Tablet, Divine chastisement shall
assail you from every direction, and the sentence of His justice shall be
pronounced against you. On that day ye shall have no power to resist Him,
and shall recognize your own impotence. Have mercy on yourselves and on
those beneath you, and judge ye between them according to the precepts
prescribed by God in His most holy and exalted Tablet, a Tablet wherein He
hath assigned to each and every thing its settled measure, in which He
hath given, with distinctness, an explanation of all things, and which is
in itself a monition unto them that believe in Him.
"Examine Our Cause, inquire into the things that have befallen Us, and
decide justly between Us and Our enemies, and be ye of them that act
equitably towards their neighbors. If ye stay not the hand of the
oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what
right have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men? What is it of which ye
can rightly boast? Is it on your food and your drink that ye pride
yourselves, on the riches ye lay up in your treasuries, on the diversity
and the cost of the ornaments with which ye deck yourselves? If true glory
were to consist in the possession of such perishable things, then the
earth on which ye walk must needs vaunt itself over you, because it
supplieth you, and bestoweth upon you, these very things, by the decree of
the Almighty. In its bowels are contained, according to what God hath
ordained, all that ye possess. From it, as a sign of His mercy, ye derive
your riches. Behold then your state, the thing in which ye glory! Would
that ye could perceive it! Nay! By Him Who holdeth in His grasp the
kingdom of the entire creation! Nowhere doth your true and abiding glory
reside except in your firm adherence unto the precepts of God, your
wholehearted observance of His laws, your resolution to see that they do
not remain unenforced, and to pursue steadfastly the right course...."
And again in that same Tablet: "Twenty years have passed, O kings, during
which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh tribulation. No one
of them that were before Us hath endured the things We have endured. Would
that ye could perceive it! They that rose up against Us, have put Us to
death, have shed Our blood, have plundered Our property, and violated Our
honor. Though aware of most of Our afflictions, ye, nevertheless, have
failed to stay the hand of the aggressor. For is it not your clear duty to
restrain the tyranny of the oppressor, and to deal equitably with your
subjects, that your high sense of justice may be fully demonstrated to all
mankind?
"God hath committed into your hands the reins of the government of the
people, that ye may rule with justice over them, safeguard the rights of
the downtrodden, and punish the wrongdoers. If ye neglect the duty
prescribed unto you by God in His Book, your names shall be numbered with
those of the unjust in His sight. Grievous, indeed, will be your error.
Cleave ye to that which your imaginations have devised, and cast behind
your backs the commandments of God, the Most Exalted, the Inaccessible,
the All-Compelling, the Almighty? Cast away the things ye possess, and
cling to that which God hath bidden you observe. Seek ye His grace, for he
that seeketh it treadeth His straight Path.
"Consider the state in which We are, and behold ye the ills and troubles
that have tried Us. Neglect Us not, though it be for a moment, and judge
ye between Us and Our enemies with equity. This will, surely, be a
manifest advantage unto you. Thus do We relate to you Our tale, and
recount the things that have befallen Us, that ye might take off Our ills
and ease Our burden. Let him who will, relieve Us from Our trouble; and as
to him that willeth not, my Lord is assuredly the best of Helpers.
"Warn and acquaint the people, O Servant, with the things We have sent
down unto Thee, and let the fear of no one dismay Thee, and be Thou not of
them that waver. The day is approaching when God will have exalted His
Cause and magnified His testimony in the eyes of all who are in the
heavens and all who are on the earth. Place, in all circumstances, Thy
whole trust in Thy Lord, and fix Thy gaze upon Him, and turn away from all
them that repudiate His truth. Let God, Thy Lord, be Thy sufficing
Succorer and Helper. We have pledged Ourself to secure Thy triumph upon
earth and to exalt Our Cause above all men, though no king be found who
would turn his face towards Thee...."
In the Kitab-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book), that priceless treasury
enshrining for all time the brightest emanations of the mind of
Baha'u'llah, the Charter of His World Order, the chief repository of His
laws, the Harbinger of His Covenant, the Pivotal Work containing some of
His noblest exhortations, weightiest pronouncements, and portentous
prophecies, and revealed during the full tide of His tribulations, at a
time when the rulers of the earth had definitely forsaken Him--in such a
Book we read the following:
"O kings of the earth! He Who is the sovereign Lord of all is come. The
Kingdom is God's, the omnipotent Protector, the Self-Subsisting. Worship
none but God, and, with radiant hearts, lift up your faces unto your Lord,
the Lord of all names. This is a Revelation to which whatever ye possess
can never be compared, could ye but know it. We see you rejoicing in that
which ye have amassed for others, and shutting out yourselves from the
worlds which naught except My Guarded Tablet can reckon. The treasures ye
have laid up have drawn you far away from your ultimate objective. This
ill beseemeth you, could ye but understand it. Wash your hearts from all
earthly defilements, and hasten to enter the Kingdom of your Lord, the
Creator of earth and heaven, Who caused the world to tremble, and all its
peoples to wail, except them that have renounced all things and clung to
that which the Hidden Tablet hath ordained...."