To live today in deed and truth the kind of life that Jesus of Nazareth led and bade His followers lead; to love God wholeheartedly, and for God’s sake to love all mankind, even one’s slanderers and enemies; to give consistently good for evil, blessings for curses, kindness for cruelty and, through a career darkened along its entire length by tragic misrepresentation and persecution, to preserve one’s courage, one’s sweetness and calm faith in God - to do all this and yet to play the man in a world of men, sharing at home and in business the common life of humanity, administering when occasion arose affairs large and small and handling complex situations with foresight and firmness — to live in such a manner throughout a long and arduous life, and when, in the fullness of time, death came, to leave to multitudes of mourners a sense of desolation and to be remembered and loved by them all as the servant of God - to how many men is such an achievement given as it has been given in this age of ours to ‘Abdu’l-Baha?
- George Townshend (Hand of the Cause of God [Sometime Cannon of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland]; World Order magazine, October 1936)
