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To the Ministers of the Turkish State, He, in that same Tablet, revealed: "It behooveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep the precepts of God, and to forsake your own laws and regulations, and to be of them who are guided aright ... Ye shall, erelong, discover the consequences of that which ye shall have done in this vain life, and shall be repaid for them ... How great the number of those who, in bygone ages, have committed the things ye have committed, and who, though superior to you in rank, have, in the end, returned unto dust, and been consigned to their inevitable doom! ... Ye shall follow in their wake, and shall be made to enter a habitation wherein none shall be found to befriend or help you ... The days of your life shall roll away, and all the things with which ye are occupied, and of which ye boast yourselves, shall perish, and ye shall, most certainly, be summoned by a company of His angels to appear at the spot where the limbs of the entire creation shall be made to tremble, and the flesh of every oppressor to creep ... This is the day that shall inevitably come upon you, the hour that none can put back. (177:1) To the inhabitants of Constantinople, while He lived the life of an exile in their midst, Baha'u'llah, in that same Tablet, addressed these words: "Fear God, ye inhabitants of the City, and sow not the seeds of dissension amongst men ... Your days shall pass away as have the days of them who were before you. To dust shall ye return, even as your fathers of old did return." "We found," He, moreover, remarks, "upon Our arrival in the City its governors and elders as children gathered about and disporting themselves with clay ... Our inner eye wept sore over them, and over their transgressions and their total disregard of the thing for which they were created ... The day is approaching when God will have raised up a people who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights from them that, without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice. God assuredly dominateth the lives of them that wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will, most certainly, lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of avengers." "Wherefore," He graciously exhorteth them, "hearken ye unto My speech, and return ye to God and repent, that He, through His grace, may have mercy upon you, may wash away your sins, and forgive your trespasses. The greatness of His mercy surpasseth the fury of His wrath, and His grace encompasseth all who have been called into being and been clothed with the robe of life, be they of the past or of the future."
(177:2)
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