Soon will your swiftly-passing days be over, and the fame
and riches, the comforts, the joys provided by this rubbish-heap, the world,
will be gone without a trace. Summon ye, then, the people to God, and invite
humanity to follow the example of the Company on high. Be ye loving fathers to
the orphan, and a refuge to the helpless, and a treasury for the poor, and a
cure for the ailing. Be ye the helpers of every victim of oppression, the
patrons of the disadvantaged. Think ye at all times of rendering some service
to every member of the human race. Pay ye no heed to aversion and rejection, to
disdain, hostility, injustice: act ye in the opposite way. Be ye sincerely
kind, not in appearance only.
(‘Abdu'l-Baha, ‘Selections from the Writings of
Abdu'l-Baha’)
