O spiritual friends and loved ones of the All-Merciful!
In every Age believers are many but the tested are few. Render ye praise unto God ye that are tested believers, that ye have been subjected to every kind of trial and ordeal in the path of the supreme Lord. In the fire of ordeals, your faces have flushed aglow like unto pure gold, and amidst the flames of cruelty and oppression which the wicked had kindled, ye suffered yourselves to be consumed while remaining all the time patient. Thus ye have initiated every believer into the ways of steadfastness and fortitude.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a Tablet, included in a message from the Universal House of Justice dated 19 May 2009 addressed to the Believers in the Cradle of the Faith; Online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
