persed through His writings, which Baha'u'llah
addressed to the world's ecclesiastical leaders of all
denominations--messages in which He discloses, clearly and unreservedly,
the claims of His Revelation, summons them to heed His call, and
denounces, in certain specific cases, their perversity, their extreme
arrogance and tyranny.

In immortal passages of His Kitab-i-Aqdas and other Tablets He bids the
entire company of these ecclesiastical leaders to "fear God," to "rein in"
their pens, "fling away idle fancies and imaginings, and turn then towards
the Horizon of Certitude"; warns them to "weigh not the Book of God
(Kitab-i-Aqdas) with such standards and sciences as are current" amongst
them; designates that same Book as the "Unerring Balance established
amongst men"; laments over their blindness and waywardness; asserts His
superiority in vision, insight, utterance and wisdom; proclaims His innate
and God-given knowledge; cautions them not to "shut out the people by yet
another veil," after He Himself had "rent the veils asunder"; accuses them
of having been "the cause of the repudiation of the Faith in its early
days"; and adjures them to "peruse with fairness and justice that which
hath been sent down" by Him, and to "nullify not the Truth" with the
things they possess.

To Pope Pius IX, the undisputed head of the most powerful Church in
Christendom, possessor of both temporal and spiritual authority, He, a
Prisoner in the army barracks of the penal-colony of Akka, addressed a
most weighty Epistle, in which He announces that "He Who is the Lord of
Lords is come overshadowed with clouds," and that "the Word which the Son
concealed is made manifest." He, moreover, warns him not to dispute with
Him even as the Pharisees of old disputed with Jesus Christ; bids him
leave his palaces unto such as desire them, "sell all the embellished
ornaments" in his possession, "expend them in the path of God," abandon
his kingdom unto the kings, "arise ... amidst the peoples of the earth,"
and summon them to His Faith. Regarding him as one of the suns of the
heaven of God's names, He cautions him to guard himself lest "darkness
spread its veils" over him; calls upon him to "exhort the kings" to "deal
equitably with men"; and counsels him to walk in the footsteps of his
Lord, and follow His example.

To the patriarchs of the Christian Church He issued a specific summons in
which He proclaims the coming of the Promised One; exhorts th