.'... Fear God, O concourse of
kings, and suffer not yourselves to be deprived of this most sublime
grace. Fling away, then, the things ye possess, and take fast hold on the
Handle of God, the Exalted, the Great. Set your hearts towards the Face of
God, and abandon that which your desires have bidden you to follow, and be
not of those who perish. Relate unto them, O servant, the story of 'Ali
[the Bab], when He came unto them with truth, bearing His glorious and
weighty Book, and holding in His hands a testimony and proof from God, and
holy and blessed tokens from Him. Ye, however, O kings, have failed to
heed the Remembrance of God in His days and to be guided by the lights
which arose and shone forth above the horizon of a resplendent Heaven. Ye
examined not His Cause when so to do would have been better for you than
all that the sun shineth upon, could ye but perceive it. Ye remained
careless until the divines of Persia--those cruel ones--pronounced judgment
against Him, and unjustly slew Him. His spirit ascended unto God, and the
eyes of the inmates of Paradise and the angels that are nigh unto Him wept
sore by reason of this cruelty. Beware that ye be not careless henceforth
as ye have been careless aforetime. Return, then, unto God, your Maker,
and be not of the heedless.... My face hath come forth from the veils, and
shed its radiance upon all that is in heaven and on earth; and yet, ye
turned not towards Him, notwithstanding that ye were created for Him, O
concourse of kings! Follow, therefore, that which I speak unto you, and
hearken unto it with your hearts, and be not of such as have turned aside.
For your glory consisteth not in your sovereignty, but rather in your
nearness unto God and your observance of His command as sent down in His
holy and preserved Tablets. Should any one of you rule over the whole
earth, and over all that lieth within it and upon it, its seas, its lands,
its mountains, and its plains, and yet be not remembered by God, all these
would profit him not, could ye but know it.... Arise, then, and make
steadfast your feet, and make ye amends for that which hath escaped you,
and set then yourselves towards His holy Court, on the shore of His mighty
Ocean, so that the pearls of knowledge and wisdom, which God hath stored
up within the shell of His radiant heart, may be revealed unto you....
Beware lest ye hinder the breeze of God from blowing over your hearts, the
breeze through which the hearts