the wealth and dignity, the ease and luxury wherein they are,
and the distress and affliction wherein I am, I would certainly choose
that wherein I am today, and I would not now exchange one atom of these
afflictions for all that hath been created in the kingdom of production!
Were it not for afflictions in the way of God My continuance would have no
sweetness for Me, nor would My life profit Me. Let it not be hidden from
the discerning and such as look towards the chiefest outlook that I,
during the greater part of My days, was as a Servant sitting beneath a
sword suspended by a single hair who knoweth not when it shall descend
upon Him, whether it shall descend instantly or after a while. And in all
this We give thanks to God the Lord of the worlds, and We praise Him under
all circumstances: verily He is a witness unto all things.

"We ask God to extend His shadow,(47) that the unitarians may haste
thereto, and that the sincere may take shelter therein; and to bestow on
[these] servants flowers from the garden of his grace and stars from the
horizon of his favors; and to assist him in that which he liketh and
approveth; and to help him unto that which shall bring him near to the
Dayspring of His Most Comely Names, that he may not shut his eyes to the
wrong which he seeth, but may regard his subjects with the eye of favor
and preserve them from violence. And we ask Him (exalted is He) to make
thee a helper unto His religion and a regarder of His justice, that thou
mayest rule over [His] servants as thou rulest over those of thy kindred,
and mayest choose for them what thou wouldest choose for thyself. Verily
He is the Potent, the Exalted, the Protecting, the Self-Subsistent."

Now since suitable occasion hath arisen it hath been considered
appropriate that some of the precepts of Baha'u'llah which are contained
in tracts and epistles should also be inserted briefly in this treatise,
so that the main principles and practice and [their] foundations and basis
may become clear and apparent. And these texts have been copied from
numerous tracts.

Amongst them [is this]: "Consort with [people of all] religions with
spirituality and fragrance.... Beware lest the zeal of ignorance possess
you amongst mankind. All originated from God and returneth unto Him:
verily He is the Source of creation and the Goal of the worlds."

And amongst them [is this]: "Ye are forbidden sedition and strife in the
books and epistles; and herein I