…let your faces be more radiant with hope and heavenly
determination to serve the Cause of God, to spread the pure fragrances of the
divine rose garden of unity, to awaken spiritual susceptibilities in the hearts
of mankind, to kindle anew the spirit of humanity with divine fires and to
reflect the glory of heaven to this gloomy world of materialism. When you
possess these divine susceptibilities, you will be able to awaken and develop
them in others. We cannot give of our wealth to the poor unless we possess it.
How can the poor give to the poor? How can the soul that is deprived of the
heavenly bounties develop in other souls capacity to receive those bounties?
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk, 12 April 1912, Home of Mr. and Mrs. MacNutt, New
York; ‘The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by 'Abdu'l-Bahá
during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912’)
