O kings of the earth! We see you increasing every year your
expenditures, and laying the burden thereof on your subjects. This, verily, is
wholly and grossly unjust. Fear the sighs and tears of this Wronged One, and
lay not excessive burdens on your peoples. Do not rob them to rear palaces for
yourselves; nay rather choose for them that which ye choose for yourselves.
Thus We unfold to your eyes that which profiteth you, if ye but perceive. Your
people are your treasures. Beware lest your rule violate the commandments of
God, and ye deliver your wards to the hands of the robber. By them ye rule, by
their means ye subsist, by their aid ye conquer. Yet, how disdainfully ye look
upon them! How strange, how very strange! .
- Baha'u'llah (Tablet to Queen
Victoria, Suriy-i-Haykal [Tablet of Temple]; ‘The Summons of the Lord of Hosts’)
