tale of that which happened in days past, haply thou mayest comprehend.

Thou hast known how grievously the Prophets of God, His Messengers and
Chosen Ones, have been afflicted. Meditate a while on the motive and
reason which have been responsible for such a persecution. At no time, in
no Dispensation, have the Prophets of God escaped the blasphemy of their
enemies, the cruelty of their oppressors, the denunciation of the learned
of their age, who appeared in the guise of uprightness and piety. Day and
night they passed through such agonies as none can ever measure, except
the knowledge of the one true God, exalted be His glory.

Consider this wronged One. Though the clearest proofs attest the truth of
His Cause; though the prophecies He, in an unmistakable language, hath
made have been fulfilled; though, in spite of His not being accounted
among the learned, His being unschooled and inexperienced in the
disputations current among the divines, He hath rained upon men the
showers of His manifold and Divinely-inspired knowledge; yet, behold how
this generation hath rejected His authority, and rebelled against Him! He
hath, during the greater part of His life, been sore-tried in the clutches
of His enemies. His sufferings have now reached their culmination in this
afflictive Prison, into which His oppressors have so unjustly thrown Him.
God grant that, with a penetrating vision and radiant heart, thou mayest
observe the things that have come to pass and are now happening, and,
pondering them in thine heart, mayest recognize that which most men have,
in this Day, failed to perceive. Please God, He may enable thee to inhale
the sweet fragrance of His Day, to partake of the limitless effusions of
His grace, to quaff thy fill, through His gracious favor, from the most
great Ocean that surgeth in this Day in the name of the Ancient King, and
to remain firm and immovable as the mountain in His Cause.

Say: Glory be to Thee Who hast caused all the holy Ones to confess their
helplessness before the manifold revelations of Thy might, and every
Prophet to acknowledge His nothingness at the effulgence of Thine abiding
glory. I beseech Thee, by Thy name that hath unlocked the gates of Heaven
and filled with ecstasy the Concourse on high, to enable me to serve Thee,
in this Day, and to strengthen me to observe that which Thou didst
prescribe in Thy Book. Thou knowest, O my Lord, what is in me; but I know
not what is in Thee. Thou art t