--otherwise his
teaching will have no effect.

218: O YE CLOSE AND DEAR FRIENDS OF 'ABDU'L-BAHA! ...

O ye close and dear friends of 'Abdu'l-Baha!

In the Orient scatter perfumes,
And shed splendours on the West.
Carry light unto the Bulgar,
And the Slav with life invest.

One year after the ascension of Baha'u'llah, there came this verse from
the lips of the Centre of the Covenant. The Covenant-breakers found it
strange indeed, and they treated it with scorn. Yet, praised be God, its
effects are now manifest, its power revealed, its import clear; for by
God's grace, today both East and West are trembling for joy, and now, from
sweet waftings of holiness, the whole earth is scented with musk.

The Blessed Beauty, in unmistakable language, hath made this promise in
His Book: 'We behold you from Our realm of glory, and shall aid whosoever
will arise for the triumph of Our Cause with the hosts of the Concourse on
high and a company of Our favoured angels.'(73)

God be thanked, that promised aid hath been vouchsafed, as is plain for
all to see, and it shineth forth as clear as the sun in the heavens.

Wherefore, O ye friends of God, redouble your efforts, strain every nerve,
till ye triumph in your servitude to the Ancient Beauty, the Manifest
Light, and become the cause of spreading far and wide the rays of the
Day-Star of Truth. Breathe ye into the world's worn and wasted body the
fresh breath of life, and in the furrows of every region sow ye holy seed.
Rise up to champion this Cause; open your lips and teach. In the meeting
place of life be ye a guiding candle; in the skies of this world be
dazzling stars; in the gardens of unity be birds of the spirit, singing of
inner truths and mysteries.

Expend your every breath of life in this great Cause and dedicate all your
days to the service of Baha, so that in the end, safe from loss and
deprivation, ye will inherit the heaped-up treasures of the realms above.
For the days of a man are full of peril and he cannot rely on so much as a
moment more of life; and still the people, who are even as a wavering
mirage of illusions, tell themselves that in the end they shall reach the
heights. Alas for them! The men of bygone times hugged these same fancies
to their breasts, until a wave flicked over them and they returned to
dust, and they found themselves excluded and bereft--all save those souls
who had freed themselves from self and had flung away their lives in