… Praise be to God that thou hast attained!… Thou hast come to see a
prisoner and an exile…. We desire but the good of the world and happiness of
the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of
bondage and banishment…. That all nations should become one in faith and all
men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men
should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and
differences of race be annulled—what harm is there in this?… Yet so it
shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the
“Most Great Peace” shall come…. Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not
this that which Christ foretold?… Yet do we see your kings and rulers
lavishing their treasures more freely on means for the destruction of the human
race than on that which would conduce to the happiness of mankind…. These
strifes and this bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one
kindred and one family…. Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his
country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind….
(Words spoken to E. G. Browne, from his pen portrait of
Bahá’u’lláh, J. E. Esslemont, “Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era”, 5th
rev. ed. (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1987), pp. 39–40) [17]
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