Speech

Almost regardless of the location or the audience, Dorothy opened her talks by reading a prayer aloud.  She kept this habit her whole life.  Even in the middle of a formal speech Dorothy would occasionally close her eyes for a long moment to pray.  Before approaching the platform she often said this prayer revealed by Bahá’u’lláh:

Praised be to Thee, O my God!  Thou hast guided me to the horizon of Thy Manifestation and made me known through Thy Name! I beg of Thee, by the radiant light of Thy gifts and by the waves of Thy beneficence, to endow my utterance with inspiration from the traces of Thy  Supreme Pen that it may attract the realities of all things. Verily, Thou art the One Who is powerful in all that He wills by His Word, the mighty, the wonderful!

Copper to Gold, a biography of Dorothy Baker, p. 184