In the fifth chapter of Matthew beginning with the
thirty-seventh verse He counsels: “Resist not evil and injury with its like;
but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
And further, from the forty-third verse: “Ye have heard that it hath been said,
‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and thou shalt not vex thine enemy with enmity.’
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is
in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth down the rain of His mercy on the just and on the unjust. For if ye
love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the
same?”
Many were the counsels of this kind that were uttered by
that Dayspring of Divine wisdom, and souls who have become characterized with
such attributes of holiness are the distilled essence of creation and the
sources of true civilization.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘The Secret of Divine
Civilization’)
