Consider The Former Generations Witness

Sources: Gleanings From The Writings Of Baha'u'llah

Consider the former generations. Witness how every time the Day Star of

Divine bounty hath shed the light of His Revelation upon the world, the

people of His Day have arisen against Him, and repudiated His truth. They

who were regarded as the leaders of men have invariably striven to hinder

their followers from turning unto Him Who is the Ocean of God's limitless

bounty.



Behold how the people, as a result of the verdict pronounced by the

divines of His age, have cast Abraham, the Friend of God, into fire; how

Moses, He Who held converse with the Almighty, was denounced as liar and

slanderer. Reflect how Jesus, the Spirit of God, was, notwithstanding His

extreme meekness and perfect tender-heartedness, treated by His enemies.

So fierce was the opposition which He, the Essence of Being and Lord of

the visible and invisible, had to face, that He had nowhere to lay His

head. He wandered continually from place to place, deprived of a permanent

abode. Ponder that which befell Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, may

the life of all else be a sacrifice unto Him. How severe the afflictions

which the leaders of the Jewish people and of the idol-worshipers caused

to rain upon Him, Who is the sovereign Lord of all, in consequence of His

proclamation of the unity of God and of the truth of His Message! By the

righteousness of My Cause! My Pen groaneth, and all created things weep

with a great weeping, as a result of the woes He suffered at the hands of

them that have broken the Covenant of God, violated His Testament,

rejected His proofs, and disputed His signs. Thus recount We unto thee the

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 the All-Knowing, the All-Informed.