, and guide the yearning,
and ravish the hearts of the lovers.

The Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha is His decisive decree; it gathers
the believers together; it preserves their unity; it ensures the
protection of the Faith of God. It designates a specific Centre,
irrefutably and in writing establishing Shoghi Effendi as Guardian of the
Faith and Chosen Branch, so that his name is recorded in the Preserved
Tablet, by the fingers of grace and bounty. How grateful should we be that
such a bounty was bestowed, and such a favour granted.

Now is the time to arise to serve the Faith with all our might, that our
loyalty may be clearly proven, and that we may perfectly, to the fullest
extent and in minutest detail, carry out the requirements of
self-sacrifice. It is my hope that one and all, we shall succeed in this.

36: The ascension of Him Who was the Temple ...

(158) The ascension of Him Who was the Temple of the Covenant, the setting
of Him Who was the Orb of harmony, 'Abdu'l-Baha, may our lives be
sacrificed for the wrongs He suffered, was the most dire calamity, and the
most dread of ordeals. It dissolved our very hearts, it laid low the very
pillars of our being. It made our eyes to shed tears of blood, and our
sighs and the sound of our weeping reached upward to the Concourse on
High. Then did a sea of anguish roll up great waves of grief, and a
whirlwind of sorrow swept over the peoples of the earth.

That blessed soul, following the ascension of the sacred Abha Beauty, may
our lives be sacrificed for the dust of His sacred threshold, and until
the hour when His own luminous spirit rose up to the realms on high, for a
period of thirty years had neither a peaceful day nor a night of quiet
rest. Singly and alone, He set about to reform the world, and to educate
and refine its peoples. He invited all manner of beings to enter the
Kingdom of God; He watered the Tree of the Faith; He guarded the celestial
Lote-Tree from the tempest; He defeated the foes of the Faith, and He
frustrated the hopes of the malevolent; and always vigilant, He protected
God's Cause and defended His Law.

That subtle and mysterious Being, that Essence of eternal glory, underwent
trials and sorrows all the days of His life. He was made the target of
every calumny and malicious accusation, by foes both without and within.
His lot, in all His life, was to be wronged, and be subjected to toil, to
pain and grief. Under these condition