bmissive as the earth, that from the soil
of your being there may blossom the fragrant, the holy and multicolored
hyacinths of My knowledge. Be ablaze as the fire, that ye may burn away
the veils of heedlessness and set aglow, through the quickening energies
of the love of God, the chilled and wayward heart. Be light and
untrammeled as the breeze, that ye may obtain admittance into the
precincts of My court, My inviolable Sanctuary.

CLIII: O BANISHED AND FAITHFUL FRIEND! QUENCH THE...

O banished and faithful friend! Quench the thirst of heedlessness with the
sanctified waters of My grace, and chase the gloom of remoteness through
the morning-light of My Divine presence. Suffer not the habitation wherein
dwelleth My undying love for thee to be destroyed through the tyranny of
covetous desires, and overcloud not the beauty of the heavenly Youth with
the dust of self and passion. Clothe thyself with the essence of
righteousness, and let thine heart be afraid of none except God. Obstruct
not the luminous spring of thy soul with the thorns and brambles of vain
and inordinate affections, and impede not the flow of the living waters
that stream from the fountain of thine heart. Set all thy hope in God, and
cleave tenaciously to His unfailing mercy. Who else but Him can enrich the
destitute, and deliver the fallen from his abasement?

O My servants! Were ye to discover the hidden, the shoreless oceans of My
incorruptible wealth, ye would, of a certainty, esteem as nothing the
world, nay, the entire creation. Let the flame of search burn with such
fierceness within your hearts as to enable you to attain your supreme and
most exalted goal--the station at which ye can draw nigh unto, and be
united with, your Best-Beloved....

O My servants! Let not your vain hopes and idle fancies sap the
foundations of your belief in the All-Glorious God, inasmuch as such
imaginings have been wholly unprofitable unto men, and failed to direct
their steps unto the straight Path. Think ye, O My servants, that the Hand
of My all-encompassing, My overshadowing, and transcendent sovereignty is
chained up, that the flow of Mine ancient, My ceaseless, and all-pervasive
mercy is checked, or that the clouds of My sublime and unsurpassed favors
have ceased to rain their gifts upon men? Can ye imagine that the wondrous
works that have proclaimed My divine and resistless power are withdrawn,
or that the potency of My will and purpose hath been