ones. The portals of
everlasting blessings are opened wide. The succouring armies are standing
ready, waiting to behold what efforts the loved ones will exert as they
carry out the holy Will, as they boil up and roar like waves of the sea.
Let them rest not for a moment, nor wish for quiet and repose; let them
carry out all His behests and thus prove their loyal gratitude for all His
endless grace.

Over a span of thirty years the Centre of God's Covenant rested not, nor
was His human temple ever tranquil and at peace. By day, by night, He
would be teaching and guiding stranger and friend alike, and protecting
the Cause, and seeing to its progress, and for these things He sacrificed
His life. Now does loyalty to Him require that the beloved should rise up
in obedience to His instructions, and devote their efforts to teaching the
Faith, and to passing around from one to the next this winecup tempered at
the camphor fountain,(146) and to protecting God's Cause from the evil
suggestions and the mischief of the adversary, and to guarding the
structure of the holy Covenant from disruption at the hands of the
Covenant-breakers. Now is the time to stand as an impregnable rampart
around the city of the Cause of God, to defend it from the assaults of
alienation and violation, that come against it like Gog and Magog.(147)

Praised be God, those of His friends who have been cradled and fostered
for many a year within His wisdom and His teachings, and have drunk deep
from the soft-flowing waters of true and mystic knowledge, and whose eyes
have been opened, whose ears are attentive, whose hearts are wise--these,
in all that concerns faith and certitude and the abiding by His
instructions, stand fixed and firm as the high mountains. They are even as
the towering palm, the goodly tree 'its root firmly fixed, and its
branches in the heavens.'(148) Their roots run deep, and the fruits they
yield are sweet. They know a mirage for what it is; they know, too, what
will endure--for 'As to the foam, it is quickly gone: and as to what is
useful to man, it remaineth on the earth.'(149) They have heard and read
of how the Covenant met with opposition and violation in the Dispensations
of the past, and have both heard of and seen for themselves the storms of
mischief and the tests that appeared in the early days of this Cause. They
know how these trials are designed to sift and purify, and how the dense
clouds of revolt and violation would gra