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XXIII: Consider the former generations. Witness
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Consider the former generations. Witness how every time the Day Star of Divine bounty hath
shed the light of His Revelation upon the world, the
people of His Day have arisen against Him, and repudiated
His truth. They who were regarded as the
leaders of men have invariably striven to hinder their
followers from turning unto Him Who is the Ocean
of God's limitless bounty. |
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Behold how the people, as a result of the verdict
pronounced by the divines of His age, have cast
Abraham, the Friend of God, into fire; how Moses,
He Who held converse with the Almighty, was denounced
as liar and slanderer. Reflect how Jesus, the
Spirit of God, was, notwithstanding His extreme
meekness and perfect tender-heartedness, treated by
His enemies. So fierce was the opposition which He,
the Essence of Being and Lord of the visible and invisible,
had to face, that He had nowhere to lay His
head. He wandered continually from place to place,
deprived of a permanent abode. Ponder that which
befell Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, may the
life of all else be a sacrifice unto Him. How severe the
afflictions which the leaders of the Jewish people and
of the idol-worshipers caused to rain upon Him,
Who is the sovereign Lord of all, in consequence of
His proclamation of the unity of God and of the
truth of His Message! By the righteousness of My
Cause! My Pen groaneth, and all created things weep
with a great weeping, as a result of the woes He
suffered at the hands of them that have broken the
Covenant of God, violated His Testament, rejected
His proofs, and disputed His signs. Thus recount We
unto thee the tale of that which happened in days
past, haply thou mayest comprehend. |
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Thou hast known how grievously the Prophets of
God, His Messengers and Chosen Ones, have been
afflicted. Meditate a while on the motive and reason
which have been responsible for such a persecution.
At no time, in no Dispensation, have the Prophets of
God escaped the blasphemy of their enemies, the
cruelty of their oppressors, the denunciation of the
learned of their age, who appeared in the guise of
uprightness and piety. Day and night they passed
through such agonies as none can ever measure, except
the knowledge of the one true God, exalted be
His glory. |
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Consider this wronged One. Though the clearest
proofs attest the truth of His Cause; though the
prophecies He, in an unmistakable language, hath
made have been fulfilled; though, in spite of His
not being accounted among the learned, His being
unschooled and inexperienced in the disputations
current among the divines, He hath rained upon men
the showers of His manifold and Divinely-inspired
knowledge; yet, behold how this generation hath
rejected His authority, and rebelled against Him! He
hath, during the greater part of His life, been sore-tried
in the clutches of His enemies. His sufferings
have now reached their culmination in this afflictive
Prison, into which His oppressors have so unjustly
thrown Him. God grant that, with a penetrating
vision and radiant heart, thou mayest observe the
things that have come to pass and are now happening,
and, pondering them in thine heart, mayest
recognize that which most men have, in this Day,
failed to perceive. Please God, He may enable thee to
inhale the sweet fragrance of His Day, to partake of
the limitless effusions of His grace, to quaff thy fill,
through His gracious favor, from the most great
Ocean that surgeth in this Day in the name of the
Ancient King, and to remain firm and immovable as
the mountain in His Cause. |
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Say: Glory be to Thee Who hast caused all the
holy Ones to confess their helplessness before the
manifold revelations of Thy might, and every
Prophet to acknowledge His nothingness at the
effulgence of Thine abiding glory. I beseech Thee, by
Thy name that hath unlocked the gates of Heaven
and filled with ecstasy the Concourse on high, to
enable me to serve Thee, in this Day, and to
strengthen me to observe that which Thou didst prescribe
in Thy Book. Thou knowest, O my Lord, what
is in me; but I know not what is in Thee. Thou art
the All-Knowing, the All-Informed. |
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