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21 April 1912 |
I have come here to visit you. With the greatest longing I have
wished to see you. Realizing it was only with great difficulty that
you could come to me and that very few could make the trip, I decided
to come to you so that all might have the pleasure of meeting.
Praise be to God! I am here, and I am looking into your faces—faces radiant with inner beauty, hearts attracted to the Kingdom of
Abhá, spirits exhilarated through the glad tidings of God. Therefore,
I have experienced the greatest possible happiness. And
surely this happiness must be mutual, for the hearts are connected
with each other and are filled with the same vibration. The flame
and the light of love are reflected in all. Spiritual susceptibilities
and heart longings fill every heart. If we should offer a hundred
thousand thanksgivings every moment to the threshold of God for
this love which has blended the Orient and Occident, we would fail
to express our gratitude sufficiently. If all the powers of earth should
seek to bring about this love between East and West, they would
prove incapable. If they wished to establish this unity, it would
prove impossible. But Bahá’u’lláh has accomplished both through
the power of the Holy Spirit, and this bond of unity through love is
indissoluble. It shall continue unto time everlasting, and day by
day its power shall increase. Erelong it shall enchain the world,
and eventually the hearts of all the nations of the world will be
brought together by its constraining clasp. The world of humanity
shall become the manifestation of the lights of Divinity, and the
bestowals of God shall surround all. From the standpoints of both
material and spiritual civilization extraordinary progress and development
will be witnessed. In this present cycle there will be an
evolution in civilization unparalleled in the history of the world.
The world of humanity has, heretofore, been in the stage of infancy;
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now it is approaching maturity. Just as the individual human
organism, having attained the period of maturity, reaches its fullest
degree of physical strength and ripened intellectual faculties so that
in one year of this ripened period there is witnessed an unprecedented
measure of development, likewise the world of humanity
in this cycle of its completeness and consummation will realize an
immeasurable upward progress, and that power of accomplishment
whereof each individual human reality is the depository of
God—that outworking Universal Spirit—like the intellectual faculty,
will reveal itself in infinite degrees of perfection.
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Therefore, thank ye God that ye have come into the plane of
existence in this radiant century wherein the bestowals of God are
appearing from all directions, when the doors of the Kingdom have
been opened unto you, the call of God is being raised, and the virtues
of the human world are in the process of unfoldment. The day
has come when all darkness is to be dispelled, and the Sun of Truth
shall shine forth radiantly. This time of the world may be likened to
the equinoctial in the annual cycle. For, verily, this is the spring
season of God. In the Holy Books a promise is given that the
springtime of God shall make itself manifest; Jerusalem, the Holy
City, shall descend from heaven; Zion shall leap forth and dance;
and the Holy Land shall be submerged in the ocean of divine effulgence.
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At the time of the vernal equinox in the material world a wonderful
vibrant energy and new life-quickening is observed
everywhere in the vegetable kingdom; the animal and human kingdoms
are resuscitated and move forward with a new impulse. The
whole world is born anew, resurrected. Gentle zephyrs are set in
motion, wafting and fragrant; flowers bloom; the trees are in blossom,
the air temperate and delightful; how pleasant and beautiful
become the mountains, fields and meadows. Likewise, the
spiritual bounty and springtime of God quicken the world of humanity
with a new animus and vivification. All the virtues which
have been deposited and potential in human hearts are being revealed
from that Reality as flowers and blossoms from divine gardens.
It is a day of joy, a time of happiness, a period of spiritual
growth. I beg of God that this divine spiritual civilization may have
the fullest impression and effect upon you. May you become as
growing plants. May the trees of your hearts bring forth new leaves
and variegated blossoms. May ideal fruits appear from them in
order that the world of humanity, which has grown and developed
in material civilization, may be quickened in the bringing forth of
spiritual ideals. Just as human intellects have revealed the secrets
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of matter and have brought forth from the realm of the invisible the
mysteries of nature, may minds and spirits, likewise, come into the
knowledge of the verities of God, and the realities of the Kingdom
be made manifest in human hearts. Then the world will be the
paradise of Abhá, the standard of the Most Great Peace will be
borne aloft, and the oneness of the world of humanity in all its beauty,
glory and significance will become apparent. And now in your
presence I wish to pray in your behalf. Let your hearts be attentive
and directed to the Kingdom of Abhá.
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