# Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah: A Reflection

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: George Townshend, Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah: A Reflection, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah:
> 
> A Reflection
> 
> George Townshend
> published in Bahá'í WorldVol. 3 (1928-1930), pp. 274-277
> 
> 1930
> 
> Here the world's religions meet and are fused into one by the fire of a great
> love. "This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory, uttered by
> the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the prophets of old. We have
> taken the inner essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity."
> 
> In an age of compendiums there is no other compendium such as this. No other
> pen has attempted to make a summary which shall be so concise and so complete
> as to contain in less than eight score brief Words of Counsel the vital
> substance of the world-religions. In a newly printed version of Shoghi
> Effendi, the "Hidden Words" makes a small pocket volume of fifty-five pages.
> 
> Yet for all its terseness it bears none of the marks of a digest or an
> abstract. It has the sweep, the force, the freshness of an original work. It
> is rich with imagery, laden with thought, throbbing with emotion. Even at the
> remove of a translation one feels the strength and majesty of the style and
> marvels at the character of a writing which combines so warm and tender a
> loving kindness with such dignity and elevation.
> 
> The teaching of the book throughout is borne up as if on wings by the most
> intense and steadfast spirituality. With the first utterance the reader is
> caught away to the heavenly places, and the vision is not obscured when the
> precepts given deal with the details of workaday life, with the duty of
> following a craft or a profession and of earning a livelihood to spend on
> one's kindred for the love of God. The picture given of man and of human
> nature is noble and exalted. If he be in appearance a "pillar of dust," a
> "fleeting shadow" yet he is in his true being a "child of the divine, and
> invisible essence," a "companion of God's Throne." The created worlds are
> designed for his training. The purpose of all religious teaching is to make
> him worthy of the love of God and able to receive his bounties.
> 
> The "Hidden Words" is a love-song. It has for its background the romance of
> all the ages—the Love of God and Man, of the Creator and His creature. Its
> theme is God's faithfulness and the unfaithfulness of Man. It tells of the
> Great Beloved Who separates from Himself His creatures that through the power
> of the Spirit breathed in them they may of their own will find their way to
> that reunion with Him which is their paradise and their eternal home. It
> tells how they turned away to phantoms of their own devising, how He ever with
> unwearying love sought them and would not leave them to the ruin they invoked
> but called them back that they might enter yet the unshut gates of heaven.
> Only the final event of the love-story is lacking. God calls, and when His
> utterance is complete He pauses that man may answer, and waits—listening.
> 
> Love is the cause of creation: it is the Beginning, the End and the Way.
> God, as yet a Hidden Treasure, knew His love for man, drew him out of the
> wastes of nothingness, printed on him His Own image and revealed to him His
> beauty. Apart from God man has nothing and is nothing; but in union with God
> he possesses all things. God ordained for his training every atom in the
> universe and the essence of all created things. He is the dominion of God and
> will not perish: the light of God which will never be put out; the glory of
> God which fades not, the robe of God which wears not out. Wrought out of the
> clay of love and of the essence of knowledge he is created rich and noble. He
> is indeed the lamp of God, and the Light of Lights is in him. He is God's
> stronghold and God's love is in him. His heart is God's home; his spirit the
> place of God's revelation. Would he sanctify his soul, he could look back
> beyond the gates of birth and recall the eternal command and antenatal
> covenant of God. Would he but look within himself, he would see there God
> standing powerful, mighty and supreme.
> 
> Alas! in the proud illusion of his separateness, man has forgotten whence he
> came, and what he is, and whither he moves. He has turned away from his True
> Beloved and given his heart to a stranger and an enemy. Bound fast in the
> prison of self, dreading that death which might be to him the messenger of
> joy, he has rejected the immortal wine of wisdom for the poor dregs of an
> earthly cup and has given up eternal dominion that he might revel for an hour
> in the lordship of a passing world.
> 
> So blinded by arrogance and rebellion have mankind become that they live well
> content amid these sterile imaginings. They are no longer able to tell Truth
> from error nor to recognize it when it stands before them in naked purity.
> Though they enter the presence of the All-Glorious; though the Manifestation
> of Him Whom they affect to seek is before them and the Face of the Mighty One
> in all its beauty looks into their face, yet are they blind and see not.
> Their eyes behold not their Beloved; their hands touch not the hem of His
> robe. Though every utterance of His contains a thousand and a thousand
> mysteries, none understands, none heeds. He made the human heart to be His
> dwelling place; but it is given to another. Among His own on earth He is
> homeless. Nay more, His own heap on him persecutions. The dove of holiness
> is imprisoned in the claws of owls. The everlasting candle is beset by the
> blasts of earth. The world's darkness gathers about the Celestial Youth. The
> people of tyranny wrong Love's King of Kings. The angels weep at the
> spectacle; lamentations fill the heaven of heavens; but men glory in their
> shame and esteem their impiety a sign of their loyalty to God's cause.
> 
> In His mercy and compassion, God leaves them not to self-destruction.
> Sternly but lovingly He upbraids them, He warns them. He summons them from
> the couch of heedlessness to the field of endeavor and heroic adventure. He
> demands of them a faith and courage that will dare the utmost in His service,
> a fortitude that will endure serenely every calamity, a devotion that will
> rejoice in tribulation and in death itself for the Beloved's sake.
> 
> He gives them counsel upon counsel. With definiteness and force He shows
> what God expects of His lovers. The toils and perils of the Homeward Way are
> many and grievous; but true love will overcome them all and be grateful for
> afflictions through which it can prove its strength. None can set out upon
> this journey unless his heart is single and his affections are centered
> without reserve on God. If he would see God's beauty he must be blind to all
> other beauty. If he would hear God's word, he must stop his ear to all else.
> If he would attain to the knowledge of God he must put aside all other
> learning. If he would love God he will turn away from himself; if he would
> seek God's pleasure he will forget his own. So complete will be his devotion
> that he will yield up all for the dear sake of God and welcome with longing
> the martyr's death.
> 
> Earth has a thousand ties to bind man from their God: envy, pride,
> indolence, ambition, covetousness, the habit of detraction, the ascription to
> others of what one would not like to have ascribed to oneself. Against such
> things as these He warns all who wish to reach the bourne of Love, bids them
> keep ever before them the rule of Justice ("the best beloved of all things in
> God's sight"), and every day to bring themselves to account ere the
> opportunities given here on earth are snatched from them for ever by the hand
> of death.
> 
> He reminds them of the treasures He has laid up for those who are faithful to
> the end. Upon the sacred tree of glory He has hung the fairest fruits and has
> prepared everlasting rest in the garden of eternal delight. Sweet is that
> holy ecstasy, glorious that domain. Imperishable sovereignty awaits them
> there, and in the joy of reunion they will mirror forth the beauty of God
> Himself and become the revelation of His immortal splendor.
> 
> Now in this age, He declares, yet greater rewards and ampler powers are
> vouchsafed to mankind than in times gone by. God's favor is complete, His
> proof manifest, His evidence established. He has opened in the heavenly
> heights a new garden, a new degree of nearness to God. Whoso attains thereto,
> for him the flowers of that garden will breathe the sweet mysteries of love,
> for him its fruits will yield the secrets of divine and consummate wisdom.
> 
> Yet even in this great day of revelation the fulness of God's ultimate being
> has not been uttered. So much has been said as the will of the Most High
> permits: and no more. What has been set forth is measured by man's capacity
> to understand it. God's true estate and the sweetness of His voice remain
> undivulged.
> 
> How strange and pitiful that in the East the warmth of heart and breadth of
> mind of him who wrote this little book should have brought on him the
> relentless hate of the priests of his land. Born the heir of an ancient and
> noble family of Persia and endowed with vast wealth, he was through priestly
> envy deprived of all his possessions, driven into exile, chained, tortured and
> at last consigned to a life-imprisonment in the city of 'Akká, a gaol reserved
> for the lowest criminals of the Ottoman Empire and reputed so pestilential
> that the birds of the air fell dead as they flew over it.
> 
> Strange, too, that this devotional volume, so beautiful in its thought and
> also (it is said) in the classic purity of its style, should never have drawn
> to itself the attention of an English scholar and should remain after seventy
> years unknown to the religion and the culture of the West.
> 
> METADATA
> 
> Views17811 views since posted 1999; last edit 2021-08-11 18:22 UTC;
> 
> previous at archive.org.../townshend_hidden_words_reflection;
> URLs changed in 2010, see archive.org.../bahai-library.org
> Language
> English
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> public domain
> History
> Typed 1999 by Gwyn and Joe Magaditsch; Proofread 1999 by Gwyn and Joe Magaditsch.
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> Shortlink: bahai-library.com/62
> Citation: ris/62
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> — *Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah: A Reflection (Used by permission of the curator)*