And further: "O kings of the earth! The Most Great Law hath been revealed
in this Spot, this Scene of transcendent splendor. Every hidden thing hath
been brought to light, by virtue of the Will of the Supreme Ordainer, He
Who hath ushered in the Last Hour, through Whom the Moon hath been cleft,
and every irrevocable decree expounded.
"Ye are but vassals, O kings of the earth! He Who is the King of Kings
hath appeared, arrayed in His most wondrous glory, and is summoning you
unto Himself, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Take heed lest pride
deter you from recognizing the Source of Revelation; lest the things of
this world shut you out as by a veil from Him Who is the Creator of
heaven. Arise, and serve Him Who is the Desire of all nations, Who hath
created you through a word from Him, and ordained you to be, for all time,
the emblems of His sovereignty.
"By the righteousness of God! It is not Our wish to lay hands on your
kingdoms. Our mission is to seize and possess the hearts of men. Upon them
the eyes of Baha are fastened. To this testifieth the Kingdom of Names,
could ye but comprehend it. Whoso followeth his Lord, will renounce the
world and all that is therein; how much greater, then, must be the
detachment of Him Who holdeth so august a station! Forsake your palaces,
and haste ye to gain admittance into His Kingdom. This, indeed, will
profit you both in this world and in the next. To this testifieth the Lord
of the realm on high, did ye but know it.
"How great is the blessedness that awaiteth the king who will arise to aid
My Cause in My Kingdom, who will detach himself from all else but Me! Such
a king is numbered with the companions of the Crimson Ark, the Ark which
God hath prepared for the people of Baha. All must glorify his name, must
reverence his station, and aid him to unlock the cities with the keys of
My Name, the omnipotent Protector of all that inhabit the visible and
invisible kingdoms. Such a king is the very eye of mankind, the luminous
ornament on the brow of creation, the fountainhead of blessings unto the
whole world. Offer up, O people of Baha, your substance, nay your very
lives, for his assistance."
And further, this evident arraignment in that same Book: "We have asked
nothing from you. For the sake of God We, verily, exhort you, and will be
patient as We have been patient in that which hath befallen Us at your
hands, O concourse of kings!"
Moreover, in His Tablet to Queen Victoria Baha'u'llah thus addresses all
the kings of the earth, summoning them to cleave to the Lesser Peace, as
distinct from that Most Great Peace which those who are fully conscious of
the power of His Revelation and avowedly profess the tenets of His Faith
can alone proclaim and must eventually establish:
"O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your expenditures,
and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is wholly
and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this Wronged One, and lay
not excessive burdens on your peoples. Do not rob them to rear palaces for
yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which ye choose for
yourselves. Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth you, if ye
but perceive. Your people are your treasures. Beware lest your rule
violate the commandments of God, and ye deliver your wards to the hands of
the robber. By them ye rule, by their means ye subsist, by their aid ye
conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look upon them! How strange, how very
strange!
"Now that ye have refused the Most Great Peace, hold ye fast unto this,
the Lesser Peace, that haply ye may in some degree better your own
condition and that of your dependents.
"O rulers of the earth! Be reconciled among yourselves, that ye may need
no more armaments save in a measure to safeguard your territories and
dominions. Beware lest ye disregard the counsel of the All-Knowing, the
Faithful.
"Be united, O kings of the earth, for thereby will the tempest of discord
be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest, if ye be of them that
comprehend. Should anyone among you take up arms against another, rise ye
all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice."
To the Christian kings Baha'u'llah, moreover, particularly directs His
words of censure, and, in a language that cannot be mistaken, He discloses
the true character of His Revelation:
"O kings of Christendom! Heard ye not the saying of Jesus, the Spirit of
God, 'I go away, and come again unto you'? Wherefore, then, did ye fail,
when He did come again unto you in the clouds of heaven, to draw nigh unto
Him, that ye might behold His face, and be of them that attained His
Presence? In another passage He saith: 'When He, the Spirit of Truth, is
come, He will guide you into all truth.' And yet, behold how, when He did
bring the truth, ye refused to turn your faces towards Him, and persisted
in disporting yourselves with your pastimes and fancies. Ye welcomed Him
not, neither did ye seek His Presence, that ye might hear the verses of
God from His own mouth, and partake of the manifold wisdom of the
Almighty, the All-Glorious, the All-Wise. Ye have, by reason of your
failure, hindered the breath of God from being wafted over you, and have
withheld from your souls the sweetness of its fragrance. Ye continue
roving with delight in the valley of your corrupt desires. Ye and all ye
possess shall pass away. Ye shall, most certainly, return to God, and
shall be called to account for your doings in the presence of Him Who
shall gather together the entire creation...."
The Bab, moreover, in the Qayyum-i-Asma, His celebrated commentary on the
Surih of Joseph, revealed in the first year of His Mission, and
characterized by Baha'u'llah as "the first, the greatest, and mightiest of
all books" in the Babi Dispensation, has issued this stirring call to the
kings and princes of the earth:
"O concourse of kings and of the sons of kings! Lay aside, one and all,
your dominion which belongeth unto God.... Vain indeed is your dominion,
for God hath set aside earthly possessions for such as have denied Him....
O concourse of kings! Deliver with truth and in all haste the verses sent
down by Us to the peoples of Turkey and of India, and beyond them, with
power and with truth, to lands in both the East and the West.... By God!
If ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do well; and if ye deny God and
His signs, We, in very truth, having God, can well dispense with all
creatures and all earthly dominion."
And again: "Fear ye God, O concourse of kings, lest ye remain afar from
Him Who is His Remembrance [the Bab], after the Truth hath come unto you
with a Book and signs from God, as spoken through the wondrous tongue of
Him Who is His Remembrance. Seek ye grace from God, for God hath ordained
for you, after ye have believed in Him, a Garden the vastness of which is
as the vastness of the whole of Paradise."
So much for the epoch-making counsels and warnings collectively addressed
by the Bab and Baha'u'llah to the sovereigns of the earth, and more
particularly directed to the kings of Christendom. I would be failing to
do justice to my theme were I to ignore, or even to dismiss briefly, those
audacious, fate-laden apostrophes to individual monarchs who, whether as
kings or emperors, have either viewed with cold indifference the
tribulations, or rejected with contempt the warnings, of the twin Founders
of our Faith. I can neither quote as fully as I should from the two
thousand and more verses that have streamed from the pen of Baha'u'llah
and, to a lesser extent, from that of the Bab, addressed to individual
monarchs in Europe and Asia, nor is it my purpose to expatiate upon the
circumstances that have provoked, or the consequences that have flowed
from, those astounding utterances. The historian of the future, viewing
more widely and in fuller perspective the momentous happenings of the
Apostolic and Formative Ages of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, will no doubt be
able to evaluate accurately and to describe in a circumstantial manner the
causes, the implications and the effects of these Divine Messages which,
in their scope and effectiveness, have certainly no parallel in the
religious annals of mankind.
To the French Emperor, Napoleon III, Baha'u'llah addressed these words: "O
King of Paris! Tell the priest to ring the bells no longer. By God, the
True One! The Most Mighty Bell hath appeared in the form of Him Who is the
Most Great Name, and the fingers of the will of thy Lord, the Most
Exalted, the Most High, toll it out in the heaven of Immortality, in His
Name, the All-Glorious. Thus have the mighty verses of thy Lord been again
sent down unto thee, that thou mayest arise to remember God, the Creator
of earth and heaven, in these days when all the tribes of the earth have
mourned, and the foundations of the cities have trembled, and the dust of
irreligion hath enwrapped all men, except such as thy Lord, the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise, was pleased to spare.... Give ear, O King, unto
the Voice that calleth from the Fire which burneth in this Verdant Tree,
upon this Sinai which hath been raised above the hallowed and snow-white
Spot, beyond the Everlasting City: 'Verily, there is none other God but
Me, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Merciful!' We, in truth, have sent Him
Whom We aided with the Holy Spirit [Jesus], that He may announce unto you
this Light that hath shone forth from the horizon of the will of your
Lord, the Most Exalted, the All-Glorious, and Whose signs have been
revealed in the West, that ye may set your faces towards Him
[Baha'u'llah], on this Day which God hath exalted above all other days,
and whereon the All-Merciful hath shed the splendor of His effulgent glory
upon all who are in heaven and all who are on earth. Arise thou to serve
God and help His Cause. He, verily, will assist thee with the hosts of the
seen and unseen, and will set thee king over all that whereon the sun
riseth. Thy Lord, in truth, is the All-Powerful, the Almighty.... Attire
thy temple with the ornament of My Name, and thy tongue with remembrance
of Me, and thine heart with love for Me, the Almighty, the Most High. We
have desired for thee naught except that which is better for thee than
what thou dost possess and all the treasures of the earth. Thy Lord,
verily, is knowing, informed of all....
"O King! We heard the words thou didst utter in answer to the Czar of
Russia, concerning the decision made regarding the war [Crimean War]. Thy
Lord, verily, knoweth, is informed of all. Thou didst say: 'I lay asleep
upon my couch, when the cry of the oppressed, who were drowned in the
Black Sea, wakened me.' This is what we heard thee say, and, verily, thy
Lord is witness unto what I say. We testify that that which wakened thee
was not their cry, but the promptings of thine own passions, for We tested
thee, and found thee wanting. Comprehend the meaning of My words, and be
thou of the discerning.... Hadst thou been sincere in thy words, thou
wouldst have not cast behind thy back the Book of God, when it was sent
unto thee by Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Wise. We have proved thee
through it, and found thee other than that which thou didst profess.
Arise, and make amends for that which escaped thee. Erelong the world and
all that thou possessest will perish, and the kingdom will remain unto
God, thy Lord and the Lord of thy fathers of old. It behooveth thee not to
conduct thine affairs according to the dictates of thy desires. Fear the
sighs of this Wronged One, and shield Him from the darts of such as act
unjustly. For what thou hast done, thy kingdom shall be thrown into
confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thine hands, as a punishment
for that which thou hast wrought. Then wilt thou know how thou hast
plainly erred. Commotions shall seize all the people in that land, unless
thou arisest to help this Cause, and followest Him Who is the Spirit of
God [Jesus] in this, the straight Path. Hath thy pomp made thee proud? By
My Life! It shall not endure; nay, it shall soon pass away, unless thou
holdest fast by this firm Cord. We see abasement hastening after thee,
while thou art of the heedless.... Abandon thy palaces to the people of
the graves, and thine empire to whosoever desireth it, and turn, then,
unto the Kingdom. This, verily, is what God hath chosen for thee, wert
thou of them that turn unto Him.... Shouldst thou desire to bear the
weight of thy dominion, bear it then to aid the Cause of thy Lord.
Glorified be this station which whoever attaineth thereunto hath attained
unto all good that proceedeth from Him Who is the All-Knowing, the
All-Wise.... Exultest thou over the treasures thou dost possess, knowing
they shall perish? Rejoicest thou in that thou rulest a span of earth,
when the whole world, in the estimation of the people of Baha, is worth as
much as the black in the eye of a dead ant? Abandon it unto such as have
set their affections upon it, and turn thou unto Him Who is the Desire of
the world. Whither are gone the proud and their palaces? Gaze thou into
their tombs, that thou mayest profit by this example, inasmuch as We made
it a lesson unto every beholder. Were the breezes of Revelation to seize
thee, thou wouldst flee the world, and turn unto the Kingdom, and wouldst
expend all thou possessest, that thou mayest draw nigh unto this sublime
Vision."