O ye [1] children of the Kingdom!
It is New Year; that is to say, the rounding of the cycle of
the year. A year is the expression of a cycle (of the sun); but now is the
beginning of a cycle of Realty, a New Cycle, a New Age, a New Century, a New Time and a New Year. Therefore it is very
blessed.
I wish this blessing to appear and become manifest in the
faces and characteristics of the believers, so that they, too, may become a new
people, and having found new life and been baptized with fire and spirit, may
make the world a new world, to the end that the old earth may disappear and the
new earth appear; old ideas depart and new thoughts come; old garments be cast
aside and new garments put on; ancient politics whose foundation is war be discarded
and modern politics founded on peace raise the standard of victory; the new
star shine and gleam and the new sun illumine and radiate; new flowers bloom;
the new spring become known; the new breeze blow; the new bounty descend; the
new tree give forth new fruit; the new voice become raised and this new sound
reach the ears, that the new will follow the new, and all the old furnishings
and adornments be cast aside and new decorations put in their places. ('Abdu'l-Baha, 'Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Baha', vol. 1)
[1]
Revealed for American believers in 1906, who had sent Abdul-Baha a New Year’s
greeting
