Pleasing and acceptable as is a righteous person before
God's Holy Threshold, yet good works should proceed from knowledge. However
matchless and exquisite may be a blind man's handiwork, yet he himself is
deprived of seeing it. How sorely do certain animals labour on man's behalf,
what loads they bear for him, how greatly they contribute to his ease and
comfort; and yet, because they are unwitting, they earn no recompense for all
their pains. The clouds rain down their bounty, nurturing the plants and
flowers, and imparting verdure and enchantment to the plain and prairie, the
forest and the garden; but yet, unconscious as they are of the results and
fruit of their outpourings, they win no praise or honour, nor earn the
gratitude and approbation of any man. The lamp imparteth light, but as it hath
no consciousness of doing so, no one is indebted to it. This apart, a man of
righteous deeds and goodly conduct will assuredly turn towards the Light, in
whichever quarter he behold it. The point is this, that faith compriseth both
knowledge and the performance of good works.
(‘Abdu’l-Baha, from a Tablet,
included in a memorandum from the Research Department of the Universal House of
Justice dated 28 March 1996)
