of the past.  How vain their sophistry!  How grievous their blindness!  They refuse to recognize the trumpet-blast which so explicitly in this text was sounded through the revelation of Muhammad.  They deprive themselves of the regenerating Spirit of God that breathed into it, and foolishly expect to hear the trumpet-sound of the Seraph of God who is but one of His servants!  Hath not the Seraph himself, the angel of the Judgment Day, and his like been ordained by Muhammad’s own utterance?  Say:  What!  Will ye give that which is for your good in exchange for that which is evil?  Wretched is that which ye have falsely exchanged!  Surely ye are a people, evil, in grievous loss.

Nay, by “trumpet” is meant the trumpet-call of Muhammad’s Revelation, which was sounded in the heart of the universe, and by “resurrection” is meant His own rise to proclaim the Cause of God.  He bade the erring and wayward arise and speed out of the sepulchres of their bodies, arrayed them with the beauteous robe of faith, and quickened them with the breath of a new and wondrous life.  Thus at the hour when Muhammad, that divine Beauty, purposed to unveil one of the mysteries hidden in the symbolic terms “resurrection,” “judgment,” “paradise,” and “hell,” Gabriel, the Voice of Inspiration, was heard saying:  “Erelong will they wag their heads at Thee, and say, ‘When shall this be?’ Say:  ‘Perchance it is nigh.’"(85) The implications of this verse alone suffice the peoples of the world, were they to ponder it in their hearts.

Gracious God!  How far have that people strayed from the way of God!  Although the Day of Resurrection was ushered in through the Revelation of Muhammad, although His light and tokens had encompassed the earth and all that is therein, yet that people derided Him, gave themselves up to those idols which the divines of that age, in their vain and idle fancy, had conceived, and deprived themselves of the light of heavenly grace and of the showers of divine mercy.  Yea, the abject beetle can never scent the fragrance of holiness, and the bat of darkness can never face the splendour of the sun.

Such things have come to pass in the days of every Manifestation of God.  Even as Jesus said:  “Ye must be born again."(86) Again He saith:  “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."(87) The purport of these words is that whosoever in every dispensation is born of the Spirit and is quickened by the breath of the Manifestation of Holiness, he verily is of those that have attained unto “life” and “resurrection” and have entered into the “paradise” of the love of God.  And whosoever is not of them, is condemned to “death” and “deprivation,” to the “fire” of unbelief, and to the “wrath” of God.  In all the scriptures, the books and chronicles, the sentence of death, of fire, of blindness, of want of understanding and hearing, hath been pronounced against those whose lips have tasted not the ethereal cup of true knowledge, and whose hearts have been deprived of the grace of the holy Spirit in their day.  Even as it hath been previously recorded:  “Hearts have they with which they understand not."(88)