Negligence

All the people of the world are, as thou dost observe, in the sleep of negligence. They have forgotten God altogether. They are all busy in war and strife. They are undergoing misery and destruction.  They are, like unto the loathsome worms, trying to lodge in the depth of the ground, while a single flood of rain sweeps all their nests and lodging away. Nevertheless, they do not come to their senses.

But alas! man is not grateful for this supreme good, but sleeps the sleep of negligence, being careless of the great mercy which God has shown towards him, turning his face away from the light and going on his way in darkness.

Does not the dawn of a new day arouse the sleeping ones from their couches of negligence and awaken all those who are not dead?

I earnestly exhort you: let not your hearts be fettered by the material things of this world; I charge you not to lie contentedly on the beds of negligence, prisoners of matter, but to arise and free yourselves from its chains!

Let there be no more silence nor reticence, taciturnity nor negligence.

Should anyone, God forbid, manifest one iota of . . . negligence in carrying out his duties . . . such a person will surely be deprived of the blessings of the Almighty. Beware, beware, lest ye fall short of what hath been set forth in this letter.

Such is this mortal abode -- a storehouse of afflictions and suffering. It is negligence that binds man to it for no comfort can be secured by any soul in this world, from monarch down to the least subject.

The messenger of God is often sad, but his sadness does not come from causes relating to himself. He longs that a soul become illumined, but the soul prefers darkness; he yearns to change the ignorance of the people into knowledge, their error into guidance, their insincerity into truth, their faithlessness into firmness; but people prefer their own shadows and he who manifests God becomes sad over the negligence of these sleeping ones.