m of Glory.

CHAPTER 11: VARIOUS ORDINANCES AND TEACHINGS

Know thou that in every age and dispensation all divine ordinances are
changed and transformed according to the requirement of the time, except
the law of love, which, like a fountain, always flows and is never
overtaken by change.--BAHA'U'LLAH.

Monastic Life

Baha'u'llah, like Muhammad, forbids His followers to lead lives of
monastic seclusion.

In the Tablet to Napoleon III we read:--

O concourse of monks! Seclude not yourselves in churches and
cloisters. Come forth by My leave, and occupy yourselves with that
which will profit your souls and the souls of men.... Enter ye
into wedlock, that after you someone may fill your place. We have
forbidden you perfidious acts, and not that which will demonstrate
fidelity. Have ye clung to the standards fixed by your own selves,
and cast the standards of God behind your backs? Fear God, and be
not of the foolish. But for man, who would make mention of Me on
My earth, and how could My attributes and My name have been
revealed? Ponder ye, and be not of them that are veiled and fast
asleep. He that wedded not (Jesus) found no place wherein to dwell
or lay His head, by reason of that which the hands of the
treacherous had wrought. His sanctity consisteth not in that which
ye believe or fancy, but rather in the things We possess. Ask,
that ye may apprehend His station which hath been exalted above
the imaginings of all that dwell on earth. Blessed are they who
perceive it.

Does it not seem strange that Christian sects should have instituted the
monastic life and celibacy for the clergy, in view of the facts that
Christ chose married men for His disciples, and both He Himself and His
apostles lived lives of active beneficence, in close association and
familiar intercourse with the people?

In the Muhammadan Qur'an we read:--

To Jesus the son of Mary We gave the Gospel, and We put into the
hearts of those who followed Him kindness and compassion: but as
to the monastic life, they invented it themselves. The desire only
of pleasing god did We prescribe to them, and this they observed
not as it ought to have been observed.--Qur'an, s. lviii. 27.

Whatever justification there may have been for the monastic life in
ancient times and bygone circumstances, Baha'u'llah declares that such
justification no l