...And then, the world was fixed:

Be generous in prosperity, and thankful in adversity.
Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbor, and look upon him with a bright and friendly face.
Be a treasure to the poor, an admonisher to the rich, an answerer to the cry of the needy, a preserver of the sanctity of thy pledge.
Be fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech.
Be unjust to no man, and show all meekness to all men.
Be as a lamp unto them that walk in darkness, a joy to the sorrowful, a sea for the thirsty, a haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression.
Let integrity and uprightness distinguish all thine acts.
Be a home for the stranger, a balm to the suffering, a tower of strength for the fugitive.
Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring.
Be an ornament to the countenance of truth,
a crown to the brow of fidelity,
a pillar of the temple of righteousness,
a breath of life to the body of mankind,
an ensign of the hosts of justice,
a luminary above the horizon of virtue,
a dew to the soil of the human heart,
an ark on the ocean of knowledge,
a sun in the heaven of bounty,
a gem on the diadem of wisdom,
a shining light in the firmament of thy generation,
a fruit upon the tree of humility.

----Bahá'u'lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf

__________________________________________________________
*edited Dec 30 @ 10:08 am following a comment from farfor44


It is a beatiful testament to the potential of human nobility - where we could be with a little diligence.

It is not written by a Native American, though it was writen not long before 1892. Oddly enough, I was inspired to put this quote in this journal following a canversation I had with a co-worker (who is Native American).

She had told me about a dream she had, in which a medicine man came to here with a gift: The tail bone of an Orca. He told her in the dream that, "this was the best medicine." She had mentioned this dream had plunged her into deep thought, along the lines of why wouldn't this be the best medicine?

I told her that I really admired orca whales: They were beautiful and graceful; they live in harmony with their environment; they have strong family groups; they are protective and nurturing (of their young)... I told my co-worker that the orca in her dream could have been a symbol of all these things, which for our human world would be the best medicine! I said that the Orca, to me, was like an animal kingdom manifestation of the sentiment, concepts and ideas found in the excerpt from The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf.

I googled the book, and found this from wikipedia:

The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf is the last major work of Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Bahá'í Faith, before his death in 1892. It is a letter written to a Muslim cleric, a violent opponent of the Bahá'ís who, along with his father (called by Bahá'u'lláh "the wolf"), also a Muslim cleric, had put to death a number of Bahá'ís.

cheers,
Tallis