r
to pious worship nor ascetic practice, won the day. Wherefore, thank ye
God for setting upon your heads the crown of glory everlasting, for
granting unto you this immeasurable grace.

The time hath come when, as a thank-offering for this bestowal, ye should
grow in faith and constancy as day followeth day, and should draw ever
nearer to the Lord, your God, becoming magnetized to such a degree, and so
aflame, that your holy melodies in praise of the Beloved will reach upward
to the Company on high; and that each one of you, even as a nightingale in
this rose garden of God, will glorify the Lord of Hosts, and become the
teacher of all who dwell on earth.

7: O YE SPIRITUAL FRIENDS OF 'ABDU'L-BAHA! A TRUSTED ...

O ye spiritual friends of 'Abdu'l-Baha! A trusted messenger hath arrived
and hath, in the world of the spirit, delivered a message from God's loved
ones. This auspicious courier bringeth fragrances of great ardour and
wafteth the life-giving breezes of the love of God. He maketh the heart to
dance for joy and filleth up the soul with an ecstasy of love and rapture.
So intensely hath the glory of Divine Unity penetrated souls and hearts
that all are now bound one to another with heavenly ties, and all are even
as a single heart, a single soul. Wherefore reflections of the spirit and
impressions of the Divine are now mirrored clear and sharp in the deep
heart's core. I beg of God to strengthen these spiritual bonds as day
followeth day, and make this mystic oneness to shine ever more brightly,
until at last all shall be as troops marshalled together beneath the
banner of the Covenant within the sheltering shade of the Word of God;
that they may strive with all their might until universal fellowship,
close and warm, and unalloyed love, and spiritual relationships, will
connect all the hearts in the world. Then will all humankind, because of
this fresh and dazzling bounty, be gathered in a single homeland. Then
will conflict and dissension vanish from the face of the earth, then will
mankind be cradled in love for the beauty of the All-Glorious. Discord
will change to accord, dissension to unison. The roots of malevolence will
be torn out, the basis of aggression destroyed. The bright rays of union
will obliterate the darkness of limitations, and the splendours of heaven
will make the human heart to be even as a mine veined richly with the love
of God.

O ye loved ones of the Lord! This is the hour when