O ye loved ones of God! In this, the Bahá’í dispensation,
God’s Cause is spirit unalloyed. His Cause belongeth not to the material world.
It cometh neither for strife nor war, nor for acts of mischief or of shame; it
is neither for quarrelling with other Faiths, nor for conflicts with the
nations. Its only army is the love of God, its only joy the clear wine of His
knowledge, its only battle the expounding of the Truth; its one crusade is
against the insistent self, the evil promptings of the human heart. Its victory
is to submit and yield, and to be selfless is its everlasting glory. In brief,
it is spirit upon spirit:
Unless ye must,
Bruise not the serpent in the dust,
How much less wound a man.
And if ye can,
No ant should ye alarm,
Much less a brother harm.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Selections from
the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha)
