O ye friends of God! Joy and happiness of the people of faithfulness consists in serving the Threshold of the Most High and turning their faces to the Kingdom of Abha. The hope of the lovers is self-sacrifice, and the yearning of the longing ones is self-effacement and evanescence. For love is an irresistible power and an inextinguishable conflagration and the mirror of the love of God is the great martyrdom. Therefore, the sanctified souls and the Manifestations of God yearned for self-abnegation and attainment to the city of martyrdom. They gave up their lives, experienced exile and banishment, endured persecution and dire calamities, became subject to imprisonment and bondage and the targets of the arrows of oppression, and objects of the sword of malice. They did not complain, neither did they become disheartened. They drank the cup of martyrdom from the Hand of the Cup-Bearer of Providence, and tasted with the greatest joy the sweetness of annihilation. They found not a moment of rest. They sought not an instant of tranquility. They withstood the persecution of the enemies and became the centers of derision and scoffing of the people of envy. They sacrificed their homes and property and became homeless and wanderers. They experienced not one hour of safety, nor a day of repose of mind or body. This is the proof of the sincere lover and this is the evidence of the faithful friend. If it were not so every stranger would become a friend and the deprived one would become the confidant of the mysteries, the remote one would become the near one and the outcast would become the beloved. (‘Abdu’l-Baha, from a Tablet, Star of the West, vol. 1. No. 3, April 28, 1910)
