nto the world. Well is it with them who
obey him, and call him to remembrance." "Great is the blessedness of that
divine," He, in another connection, has written, "that hath not allowed
knowledge to become a veil between him and the One Who is the Object of
all knowledge, and who, when the Self-Subsisting appeared, hath turned
with a beaming face towards Him. He, in truth, is numbered with the
learned. The inmates of Paradise seek the blessing of his breath, and his
lamp sheddeth its radiance over all who are in heaven and on earth. He,
verily, is numbered with the inheritors of the Prophets. He that beholdeth
him hath, verily, beheld the True One, and he that turneth towards him
hath, verily, turned towards God, the Almighty, the All-Wise." "Respect ye
the divines amongst you," is His exhortation, "They whose acts conform to
the knowledge they possess, who observe the statutes of God, and decree
the things God hath decreed in the Book. Know ye that they are the lamps
of guidance betwixt earth and heaven. They that have no consideration for
the position and merit of the divines amongst them have, verily, altered
the bounty of God vouchsafed unto them."

Dear friends! I have, in the preceding pages, attempted to represent this
world-afflicting ordeal that has laid its grip upon mankind as primarily a
judgment of God pronounced against the peoples of the earth, who, for a
century, have refused to recognize the One Whose advent had been promised
to all religions, and in Whose Faith all nations can alone, and must
eventually, seek their true salvation. I have quoted certain passages from
the writings of Baha'u'llah and the Bab that reveal the character, and
foreshadow the occurrence of this divinely inflicted visitation. I have
enumerated the woeful trials with which the Faith, its Herald, its
Founder, and its Exemplar, have been afflicted, and exposed the tragic
failure of the generality of mankind and its leaders to protest against
these tribulations, and to acknowledge the claims advanced by those Who
bore them. I have, moreover, indicated that a direct, an awful, an
inescapable responsibility rested on the sovereigns of the earth and the
world's religious leaders who, in the days of the Bab and Baha'u'llah,
held within their grasp the reins of absolute political and religious
authority. I have also endeavored to show how, as a result of the direct
and active antagonism of some of them to the Faith, and the neglect by
oth