Title: The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh
Author: Shoghi Effendi, 1897-1957
Language: English
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The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh


by Shoghi Effendi



Edition 1, (September 2006)



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                                 CONTENTS


Baha’i Terms of Use
The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh
   The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh
   Sources of the Bahá’í World Order
   Local and National Houses of Justice
   The Institution of Guardianship
   The Animating Purpose of Bahá’í Institutions
   Situation in Egypt
THE WORLD ORDER OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH: FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
   The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Further Considerations
   A Blessing in Disguise
   Distinguishing Features of Bahá’í World Order
   The Onslaught of All Peoples and Kindreds
   Difference Between Bahá’í Faith and Ecclesiastical Organizations
   A Living Organism
   The Greatest Drama of the World’s Spiritual History
THE GOAL OF A NEW WORLD ORDER
   The Goal of a New World Order
   A War-Weary World
   The Signs of Impending Chaos
   The Impotence of Statesmanship
   The Guiding Principles of World Order
   Seven Lights of Unity
   A World Super-State
   Unity in Diversity
   The Principle of Oneness
   The Federation of Mankind
   The Fire of Ordeal
   The Mouthpiece of God
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE CAUSE OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
   The Golden Age of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh
   America’s Contribution to the Cause
   Decline of Mortal Dominion
   Contrast with Religions of the Past
   Fundamental Principle of Religious Truth
   Necessity for a Fresh Revelation
   The Station of the Báb
   The Outpouring of Divine Grace
   The Divine Polity
   Our Beloved Temple
AMERICA AND THE MOST GREAT PEACE
   America and the Most Great Peace
THE DISPENSATION OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH
   The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh
   The Báb
   ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
   The Administrative Order
THE UNFOLDMENT OF WORLD CIVILIZATION
   The Unfoldment of World Civilization
   Humanity’s Coming of Age
   The Process of Integration
   The Final Consummation
   Pangs of Death and Birth
   Universal Fermentation
   This Age of Transition
   Collapse of Islám
   Deterioration of Christian Institutions
   Signs of Moral Downfall
   Breakdown of Political and Economic Structure
   Bahá’u’lláh’s Principle of Collective Security
   Community of the Most Great Name
   A World Religion
   Divine Retribution
   World Unity the Goal



THE WORLD ORDER OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH



The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh


To the members of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the
United States and Canada.

Dearly-beloved co-workers:

I have been acquainted by the perusal of your latest communications with
the nature of the doubts that have been publicly expressed, by one who is
wholly misinformed as to the true precepts of the Cause, regarding the
validity of institutions that stand inextricably interwoven with the Faith
of Bahá’u’lláh. Not that I for a moment view such faint misgivings in the
light of an open challenge to the structure that embodies the Faith, nor
is it because I question in the least the unyielding tenacity of the faith
of the American believers, if I venture to dwell upon what seems to me
appropriate observations at the present stage of the evolution of our
beloved Cause. I am indeed inclined to welcome these expressed
apprehensions inasmuch as they afford me an opportunity to familiarize the
elected representatives of the believers with the origin and the character
of the institutions which stand at the very basis of the World Order
ushered in by Bahá’u’lláh. We should feel truly thankful for such futile
attempts to undermine our beloved Faith—attempts that protrude their ugly
face from time to time, seem for a while able to create a breach in the
ranks of the faithful, recede finally into the obscurity of oblivion, and
are thought of no more. Such incidents we should regard as the
interpositions of Providence, designed to fortify our faith, to clarify
our vision, and to deepen our understanding of the essentials of His
Divine Revelation.



Sources of the Bahá’í World Order


It would, however, be helpful and instructive to bear in mind certain
basic principles with reference to the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
which, together with the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, constitutes the chief depository
wherein are enshrined those priceless elements of that Divine
Civilization, the establishment of which is the primary mission of the
Bahá’í Faith. A study of the provisions of these sacred documents will
reveal the close relationship that exists between them, as well as the
identity of purpose and method which they inculcate. Far from regarding
their specific provisions as incompatible and contradictory in spirit,
every fair-minded inquirer will readily admit that they are not only
complementary, but that they mutually confirm one another, and are
inseparable parts of one complete unit. A comparison of their contents
with the rest of Bahá’í sacred Writings will similarly establish the
conformity of whatever they contain with the spirit as well as the letter
of the authenticated writings and sayings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.
In fact, he who reads the Aqdas with care and diligence will not find it
hard to discover that the Most Holy Book itself anticipates in a number of
passages the institutions which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá ordains in His Will. By
leaving certain matters unspecified and unregulated in His Book of Laws,
Bahá’u’lláh seems to have deliberately left a gap in the general scheme of
Bahá’í Dispensation, which the unequivocal provisions of the Master’s Will
have filled. To attempt to divorce the one from the other, to insinuate
that the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh have not been upheld, in their entirety
and with absolute integrity, by what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has revealed in His
Will, is an unpardonable affront to the unswerving fidelity that has
characterized the life and labors of our beloved Master.

I will not attempt in the least to assert or demonstrate the authenticity
of the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, for that in itself would betray
an apprehension on my part as to the unanimous confidence of the believers
in the genuineness of the last written wishes of our departed Master. I
will only confine my observations to those issues which may assist them to
appreciate the essential unity that underlies the spiritual, the
humanitarian, and the administrative principles enunciated by the Author
and the Interpreter of the Bahá’í Faith.

I am at a loss to explain that strange mentality that inclines to uphold
as the sole criterion of the truth of the Bahá’í Teachings what is
admittedly only an obscure and unauthenticated translation of an oral
statement made by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in defiance and total disregard of the
available text of all of His universally recognized writings. I truly
deplore the unfortunate distortions that have resulted in days past from
the incapacity of the interpreter to grasp the meaning of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
and from his incompetence to render adequately such truths as have been
revealed to him by the Master’s statements. Much of the confusion that has
obscured the understanding of the believers should be attributed to this
double error involved in the inexact rendering of an only partially
understood statement. Not infrequently has the interpreter even failed to
convey the exact purport of the inquirer’s specific questions, and, by his
deficiency of understanding and expression in conveying the answer of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, has been responsible for reports wholly at variance with the
true spirit and purpose of the Cause. It was chiefly in view of the
misleading nature of the reports of the informal conversations of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá with visiting pilgrims, that I have insistently urged the
believers of the West to regard such statements as merely personal
impressions of the sayings of their Master, and to quote and consider as
authentic only such translations as are based upon the authenticated text
of His recorded utterances in the original tongue.

It should be remembered by every follower of the Cause that the system of
Bahá’í administration is not an innovation imposed arbitrarily upon the
Bahá’ís of the world since the Master’s passing, but derives its authority
from the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is specifically prescribed in
unnumbered Tablets, and rests in some of its essential features upon the
explicit provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. It thus unifies and correlates
the principles separately laid down by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and
is indissolubly bound with the essential verities of the Faith. To
dissociate the administrative principles of the Cause from the purely
spiritual and humanitarian teachings would be tantamount to a mutilation
of the body of the Cause, a separation that can only result in the
disintegration of its component parts, and the extinction of the Faith
itself.



Local and National Houses of Justice


It should be carefully borne in mind that the local as well as the
international Houses of Justice have been expressly enjoined by the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas; that the institution of the National Spiritual Assembly, as
an intermediary body, and referred to in the Master’s Will as the
“Secondary House of Justice,” has the express sanction of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá;
and that the method to be pursued for the election of the International
and National Houses of Justice has been set forth by Him in His Will, as
well as in a number of His Tablets. Moreover, the institutions of the
local and national Funds, that are now the necessary adjuncts to all local
and national spiritual assemblies, have not only been established by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the Tablets He revealed to the Bahá’ís of the Orient, but
their importance and necessity have been repeatedly emphasized by Him in
His utterances and writings. The concentration of authority in the hands
of the elected representatives of the believers; the necessity of the
submission of every adherent of the Faith to the considered judgment of
Bahá’í Assemblies; His preference for unanimity in decision; the decisive
character of the majority vote; and even the desirability for the exercise
of close supervision over all Bahá’í publications, have been sedulously
instilled by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as evidenced by His authenticated and
widely-scattered Tablets. To accept His broad and humanitarian Teachings
on one hand, and to reject and dismiss with neglectful indifference His
more challenging and distinguishing precepts, would be an act of manifest
disloyalty to that which He has cherished most in His life.

That the Spiritual Assemblies of today will be replaced in time by the
Houses of Justice, and are to all intents and purposes identical and not
separate bodies, is abundantly confirmed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself. He has
in fact in a Tablet addressed to the members of the first Chicago
Spiritual Assembly, the first elected Bahá’í body instituted in the United
States, referred to them as the members of the “House of Justice” for that
city, and has thus with His own pen established beyond any doubt the
identity of the present Bahá’í Spiritual Assemblies with the Houses of
Justice referred to by Bahá’u’lláh. For reasons which are not difficult to
discover, it has been found advisable to bestow upon the elected
representatives of Bahá’í communities throughout the world the temporary
appellation of Spiritual Assemblies, a term which, as the position and
aims of the Bahá’í Faith are better understood and more fully recognized,
will gradually be superseded by the permanent and more appropriate
designation of House of Justice. Not only will the present-day Spiritual
Assemblies be styled differently in future, but they will be enabled also
to add to their present functions those powers, duties, and prerogatives
necessitated by the recognition of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, not merely as
one of the recognized religious systems of the world, but as the State
Religion of an independent and Sovereign Power. And as the Bahá’í Faith
permeates the masses of the peoples of East and West, and its truth is
embraced by the majority of the peoples of a number of the Sovereign
States of the world, will the Universal House of Justice attain the
plenitude of its power, and exercise, as the supreme organ of the Bahá’í
Commonwealth, all the rights, the duties, and responsibilities incumbent
upon the world’s future super-state.

It must be pointed out, however, in this connection that, contrary to what
has been confidently asserted, the establishment of the Supreme House of
Justice is in no way dependent upon the adoption of the Bahá’í Faith by
the mass of the peoples of the world, nor does it presuppose its
acceptance by the majority of the inhabitants of any one country. In fact,
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Himself, in one of His earliest Tablets, contemplated the
possibility of the formation of the Universal House of Justice in His own
lifetime, and but for the unfavorable circumstances prevailing under the
Turkish régime, would have, in all probability, taken the preliminary
steps for its establishment. It will be evident, therefore, that given
favorable circumstances, under which the Bahá’ís of Persia and of the
adjoining countries under Soviet rule, may be enabled to elect their
national representatives, in accordance with the guiding principles laid
down in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s writings, the only remaining obstacle in the way of
the definite formation of the International House of Justice will have
been removed. For upon the National Houses of Justice of the East and the
West devolves the task, in conformity with the explicit provisions of the
Will, of electing directly the members of the International House of
Justice. Not until they are themselves fully representative of the rank
and file of the believers in their respective countries, not until they
have acquired the weight and the experience that will enable them to
function vigorously in the organic life of the Cause, can they approach
their sacred task, and provide the spiritual basis for the constitution of
so august a body in the Bahá’í world.



The Institution of Guardianship


It must be also clearly understood by every believer that the institution
of Guardianship does not under any circumstances abrogate, or even in the
slightest degree detract from, the powers granted to the Universal House
of Justice by Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, and repeatedly and
solemnly confirmed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will. It does not constitute in
any manner a contradiction to the Will and Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, nor
does it nullify any of His revealed instructions. It enhances the prestige
of that exalted assembly, stabilizes its supreme position, safeguards its
unity, assures the continuity of its labors, without presuming in the
slightest to infringe upon the inviolability of its clearly-defined sphere
of jurisdiction. We stand indeed too close to so monumental a document to
claim for ourselves a complete understanding of all its implications, or
to presume to have grasped the manifold mysteries it undoubtedly contains.
Only future generations can comprehend the value and the significance
attached to this Divine Masterpiece, which the hand of the Master-builder
of the world has designed for the unification and the triumph of the
world-wide Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. Only those who come after us will be in a
position to realize the value of the surprisingly strong emphasis that has
been placed on the institution of the House of Justice and of the
Guardianship. They only will appreciate the significance of the vigorous
language employed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with reference to the band of
Covenant-breakers that has opposed Him in His days. To them alone will be
revealed the suitability of the institutions initiated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to
the character of the future society which is to emerge out of the chaos
and confusion of the present age. In this connection, I cannot but feel
amused at the preposterous and fantastic idea that Muḥammad-‘Alí, the
prime mover and the focal center of unyielding hostility to the person of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, should have freely associated himself with the members of
the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the forging of a will which in the words of
the writer herself, is but a “recital of the plottings” in which for
thirty years Muḥammad-‘Alí has been busily engaged. To such a hopeless
victim of confused ideas, I feel I can best reply by a genuine expression
of compassion and pity, mingled with my hopes for her deliverance from so
profound a delusion. It was in view of the aforesaid observations, that I
have, after the unfortunate and unavoidable delay occasioned by my ill
health and absence from the Holy Land during the Master’s passing,
hesitated to resort to the indiscriminate circulation of the Will,
realizing full well that it was primarily directed to the recognized
believers, and only indirectly concerned the larger body of the friends
and sympathizers of the Cause.



The Animating Purpose of Bahá’í Institutions


And now, it behooves us to reflect on the animating purpose and the
primary functions of these divinely-established institutions, the sacred
character and the universal efficacy of which can be demonstrated only by
the spirit they diffuse and the work they actually achieve. I need not
dwell upon what I have already reiterated and emphasized that the
administration of the Cause is to be conceived as an instrument and not a
substitute for the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, that it should be regarded as a
channel through which His promised blessings may flow, that it should
guard against such rigidity as would clog and fetter the liberating forces
released by His Revelation. I need not enlarge at the present moment upon
what I have stated in the past, that contributions to the local and
national Funds are of a purely voluntary character; that no coercion or
solicitation of funds is to be tolerated in the Cause; that general
appeals addressed to the communities as a body should be the only form in
which the financial requirements of the Faith are to be met; that the
financial support accorded to a very few workers in the teaching and
administrative fields is of a temporary nature; that the present
restrictions imposed on the publication of Bahá’í literature will be
definitely abolished; that the World Unity activity is being carried out
as an experiment to test the efficacy of the indirect method of teaching;
that the whole machinery of assemblies, of committees and conventions is
to be regarded as a means, and not an end in itself; that they will rise
or fall according to their capacity to further the interests, to
cöordinate the activities, to apply the principles, to embody the ideals
and execute the purpose of the Bahá’í Faith. Who, I may ask, when viewing
the international character of the Cause, its far-flung ramifications, the
increasing complexity of its affairs, the diversity of its adherents, and
the state of confusion that assails on every side the infant Faith of God,
can for a moment question the necessity of some sort of administrative
machinery that will insure, amid the storm and stress of a struggling
civilization, the unity of the Faith, the preservation of its identity,
and the protection of its interests? To repudiate the validity of the
assemblies of the elected ministers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh would be
to reject those countless Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wherein
They have extolled the station of the “trustees of the Merciful,”
enumerated their privileges and duties, emphasized the glory of their
mission, revealed the immensity of their task, and warned them of the
attacks they must needs expect from the unwisdom of their friends as well
as from the malice of their enemies. It is surely for those to whose hands
so priceless a heritage has been committed to prayerfully watch lest the
tool should supersede the Faith itself, lest undue concern for the minute
details arising from the administration of the Cause obscure the vision of
its promoters, lest partiality, ambition, and worldliness tend in the
course of time to becloud the radiance, stain the purity, and impair the
effectiveness of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.



Situation in Egypt


I have already referred in my previous communications of January 10, 1926,
and February 12, 1927, to the perplexing yet highly significant situation
that has arisen in Egypt as a result of the final judgment of the Muslim
ecclesiastical court in that country pronounced against our Egyptian
brethren, denouncing them as heretics, expelling them from their midst,
and refusing them the application and benefits of the Muslim Law. I have
also acquainted you with the difficulties with which they are faced, and
the plans which they have conceived, in order to obtain from the Egyptian
civil authorities a recognition of the independent status of their Faith.
It must be explained, however, that in the Muslim countries of the Near
and Middle East, with the exception of Turkey which has lately abolished
all ecclesiastical courts under its rule, every recognized religious
community has, in matters of personal status such as marriage, divorce and
inheritance, its own ecclesiastical court, totally independent of the
civil and criminal tribunals, there being in such instances no civil code
promulgated by the government and embracing all the different religious
communities. Hitherto regarded as a sect of Islám, the Bahá’ís of Egypt,
who for the most part are of Muslim origin, and unable therefore to refer
for purposes of marriage and divorce to the recognized religious tribunals
of any other denomination, find themselves in consequence in a delicate
and anomalous position. They have naturally resolved to refer their case
to the Egyptian Government, and have prepared for this purpose a petition
to be addressed to the head of the Egyptian Cabinet. In this document they
have set forth the motives compelling them to seek recognition from their
rulers, have asserted their readiness and their qualifications to exercise
the functions of an independent Bahá’í court, have assured them of their
implicit obedience and loyalty to the State, and of their abstinence from
interference in the politics of their country. They have also decided to
accompany the text of their petition with a copy of the judgment of the
Court, with selections from Bahá’í writings, and with the document that
sets forth the principles of their national constitution which, with few
exceptions, is identical with the Declaration and By-laws promulgated by
your Assembly.

I have insisted that the provisions of their constitution should, in all
its details, conform to the text of the Declaration of Trust and By-laws
which you have established, endeavoring thereby to preserve the uniformity
which I feel is essential in all Bahá’í National Constitutions. I would
like, therefore, in this connection to request of you what I have already
intimated to them, that whatever amendments you may decide to introduce in
the text of the Declaration and By-laws should be duly communicated to me,
that I may take the necessary steps for the introduction of similar
changes in the text of all other National Bahá’í Constitutions.

It will be readily admitted that in view of the peculiar privileges
granted to recognized religious Communities in the Islamic countries of
the Near and Middle East, the request which is to be submitted by the
Bahá’í Egyptian National Assembly to the Government of Egypt is more
substantial and far-reaching than what has already been granted by the
Federal Authorities to your Assembly. For their petition is chiefly
concerned with a formal request for recognition by the highest civil
authorities in Egypt of the Egyptian National Spiritual Assembly as a
recognized and independent Bahá’í court, free and able to execute and
apply in all matters of personal status such laws and ordinances as have
been promulgated by Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas.

I have asked them to approach informally the authorities concerned, and to
make the fullest possible inquiry as a preliminary measure to the formal
presentation of their historic petition. Any assistance which your
Assembly, after careful deliberation, may find it advisable to offer to
the valiant promoters of the Faith in that land will be deeply
appreciated, and will serve to confirm the solidarity that characterizes
the Bahá’í Communities of East and West. Whatever the outcome of this
mighty issue—and none can fail to appreciate the incalculable
possibilities of the present situation—we can rest assured that the
guiding Hand that has released these forces will, in His inscrutable
wisdom and by His omnipotent power, continue to shape and direct their
course for the glory, the ultimate emancipation, and the unqualified
recognition of His Faith.

Your true brother,
Shoghi.

Haifa, Palestine.
February 27, 1929.



THE WORLD ORDER OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH: FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS



The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh: Further Considerations


To the beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout
the West.

Dearly-beloved co-workers:

Amid the reports that have of late reached the Holy Land, most of which
witness to the triumphant march of the Cause, a few seem to betray a
certain apprehension regarding the validity of the institutions which
stand inseparably associated with the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. These
expressed misgivings appear to be actuated by certain whisperings which
have emanated from quarters which are either wholly misinformed regarding
the fundamentals of the Bahá’í Revelation, or which deliberately contrive
to sow the seeds of dissension in the hearts of the faithful.



A Blessing in Disguise


Viewed in the light of past experience, the inevitable result of such
futile attempts, however persistent and malicious they may be, is to
contribute to a wider and deeper recognition by believers and unbelievers
alike of the distinguishing features of the Faith proclaimed by
Bahá’u’lláh. These challenging criticisms, whether or not dictated by
malice, cannot but serve to galvanize the souls of its ardent supporters,
and to consolidate the ranks of its faithful promoters. They will purge
the Faith from those pernicious elements whose continued association with
the believers tends to discredit the fair name of the Cause, and to
tarnish the purity of its spirit. We should welcome, therefore, not only
the open attacks which its avowed enemies persistently launch against it,
but should also view as a blessing in disguise every storm of mischief
with which they who apostatize their faith or claim to be its faithful
exponents assail it from time to time. Instead of undermining the Faith,
such assaults, both from within and from without, reinforce its
foundations, and excite the intensity of its flame. Designed to becloud
its radiance, they proclaim to all the world the exalted character of its
precepts, the completeness of its unity, the uniqueness of its position,
and the pervasiveness of its influence.

I do not feel for one moment that such clamor, mostly attributable to
impotent rage against the resistless march of the Cause of God, can ever
distress the valiant warriors of the Faith. For these heroic souls,
whether they be contending in America’s impregnable stronghold, or
struggling in the heart of Europe, and across the seas as far as the
continent of Australasia, have already abundantly demonstrated the
tenacity of their Faith and the abiding value of their conviction.



Distinguishing Features of Bahá’í World Order


I feel it, however, incumbent upon me by virtue of the responsibility
attached to the Guardianship of the Faith, to dwell more fully upon the
essential character and the distinguishing features of that world order as
conceived and proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh. I feel impelled, at the present
stage of the evolution of the Bahá’í Revelation, to state candidly and
without any reservation, whatever I regard may tend to insure the
preservation of the integrity of the nascent institutions of the Faith. I
strongly feel the urge to elucidate certain facts, which would at once
reveal to every fair-minded observer the unique character of that Divine
Civilization the foundations of which the unerring hand of Bahá’u’lláh has
laid, and the essential elements of which the Will and Testament of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá has disclosed. I consider it my duty to warn every beginner
in the Faith that the promised glories of the Sovereignty which the Bahá’í
teachings foreshadow, can be revealed only in the fullness of time, that
the implications of the Aqdas and the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as the twin
repositories of the constituent elements of that Sovereignty, are too
far-reaching for this generation to grasp and fully appreciate. I cannot
refrain from appealing to them who stand identified with the Faith to
disregard the prevailing notions and the fleeting fashions of the day, and
to realize as never before that the exploded theories and the tottering
institutions of present-day civilization must needs appear in sharp
contrast with those God-given institutions which are destined to arise
upon their ruin. I pray that they may realize with all their heart and
soul the ineffable glory of their calling, the overwhelming responsibility
of their mission, and the astounding immensity of their task.

For let every earnest upholder of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh realize that
the storms which this struggling Faith of God must needs encounter, as the
process of the disintegration of society advances, shall be fiercer than
any which it has already experienced. Let him be aware that so soon as the
full measure of the stupendous claim of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh comes to
be recognized by those time-honored and powerful strongholds of orthodoxy,
whose deliberate aim is to maintain their stranglehold over the thoughts
and consciences of men, this infant Faith will have to contend with
enemies more powerful and more insidious than the cruellest
torture-mongers and the most fanatical clerics who have afflicted it in
the past. What foes may not in the course of the convulsions that shall
seize a dying civilization be brought into existence, who will reinforce
the indignities which have already been heaped upon it!



The Onslaught of All Peoples and Kindreds


We have only to refer to the warnings uttered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in order to
realize the extent and character of the forces that are destined to
contest with God’s holy Faith. In the darkest moments of His life, under
‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd’s régime, when He stood ready to be deported to the most
inhospitable regions of Northern Africa, and at a time when the auspicious
light of the Bahá’í Revelation had only begun to break upon the West, He,
in His parting message to the cousin of the Báb, uttered these prophetic
and ominous words: “How great, how very great is the Cause! How very
fierce the onslaught of all the peoples and kindreds of the earth. Ere
long shall the clamor of the multitude throughout Africa, throughout
America, the cry of the European and of the Turk, the groaning of India
and China, be heard from far and near. One and all, they shall arise with
all their power to resist His Cause. Then shall the knights of the Lord,
assisted by His grace from on high, strengthened by faith, aided by the
power of understanding, and reinforced by the legions of the Covenant,
arise and make manifest the truth of the verse: ‘Behold the confusion that
hath befallen the tribes of the defeated!’”

Stupendous as is the struggle which His words foreshadow, they also
testify to the complete victory which the upholders of the Greatest Name
are destined eventually to achieve. Peoples, nations, adherents of divers
faiths, will jointly and successively arise to shatter its unity, to sap
its force, and to degrade its holy name. They will assail not only the
spirit which it inculcates, but the administration which is the channel,
the instrument, the embodiment of that spirit. For as the authority with
which Bahá’u’lláh has invested the future Bahá’í Commonwealth becomes more
and more apparent, the fiercer shall be the challenge which from every
quarter will be thrown at the verities it enshrines.



Difference Between Bahá’í Faith and Ecclesiastical Organizations


It behooves us, dear friends, to endeavor not only to familiarize
ourselves with the essential features of this supreme Handiwork of
Bahá’u’lláh, but also to grasp the fundamental difference existing between
this world-embracing, divinely-appointed Order and the chief
ecclesiastical organizations of the world, whether they pertain to the
Church of Christ, or to the ordinances of the Muḥammadan Dispensation.

For those whose priceless privilege is to guard over, administer the
affairs, and advance the interests of these Bahá’í institutions will have,
sooner or later, to face this searching question: “Where and how does this
Order established by Bahá’u’lláh, which to outward seeming is but a
replica of the institutions established in Christianity and Islám, differ
from them? Are not the twin institutions of the House of Justice and of
the Guardianship, the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God, the
institution of the national and local Assemblies, the institution of the
Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár, but different names for the institutions of the
Papacy and the Caliphate, with all their attending ecclesiastical orders
which the Christians and Moslems uphold and advocate? What can possibly be
the agency that can safeguard these Bahá’í institutions, so strikingly
resemblant, in some of their features, to those which have been reared by
the Fathers of the Church and the Apostles of Muḥammad, from witnessing
the deterioration in character, the breach of unity, and the extinction of
influence, which have befallen all organized religious hierarchies? Why
should they not eventually suffer the self-same fate that has overtaken
the institutions which the successors of Christ and Muḥammad have reared?”

Upon the answer given to these challenging questions will, in a great
measure, depend the success of the efforts which believers in every land
are now exerting for the establishment of God’s kingdom upon the earth.
Few will fail to recognize that the Spirit breathed by Bahá’u’lláh upon
the world, and which is manifesting itself with varying degrees of
intensity through the efforts consciously displayed by His avowed
supporters and indirectly through certain humanitarian organizations, can
never permeate and exercise an abiding influence upon mankind unless and
until it incarnates itself in a visible Order, which would bear His name,
wholly identify itself with His principles, and function in conformity
with His laws. That Bahá’u’lláh in His Book of Aqdas, and later
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His Will—a document which confirms, supplements, and
correlates the provisions of the Aqdas—have set forth in their entirety
those essential elements for the constitution of the world Bahá’í
Commonwealth, no one who has read them will deny. According to these
divinely-ordained administrative principles, the Dispensation of
Bahá’u’lláh—the Ark of human salvation—must needs be modeled. From them,
all future blessings must flow, and upon them its inviolable authority
must ultimately rest.

For Bahá’u’lláh, we should readily recognize, has not only imbued mankind
with a new and regenerating Spirit. He has not merely enunciated certain
universal principles, or propounded a particular philosophy, however
potent, sound and universal these may be. In addition to these He, as well
as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá after Him, has, unlike the Dispensations of the past,
clearly and specifically laid down a set of Laws, established definite
institutions, and provided for the essentials of a Divine Economy. These
are destined to be a pattern for future society, a supreme instrument for
the establishment of the Most Great Peace, and the one agency for the
unification of the world, and the proclamation of the reign of
righteousness and justice upon the earth. Not only have they revealed all
the directions required for the practical realization of those ideals
which the Prophets of God have visualized, and which from time immemorial
have inflamed the imagination of seers and poets in every age. They have
also, in unequivocal and emphatic language, appointed those twin
institutions of the House of Justice and of the Guardianship as their
chosen Successors, destined to apply the principles, promulgate the laws,
protect the institutions, adapt loyally and intelligently the Faith to the
requirements of progressive society, and consummate the incorruptible
inheritance which the Founders of the Faith have bequeathed to the world.

Should we look back upon the past, were we to search out the Gospel and
the Qur’án, we will readily recognize that neither the Christian nor the
Islamic Dispensations can offer a parallel either to the system of Divine
Economy so thoroughly established by Bahá’u’lláh, or to the safeguards
which He has provided for its preservation and advancement. Therein, I am
profoundly convinced, lies the answer to those questions to which I have
already referred.

None, I feel, will question the fact that the fundamental reason why the
unity of the Church of Christ was irretrievably shattered, and its
influence was in the course of time undermined, was that the Edifice which
the Fathers of the Church reared after the passing of His First Apostle
was an Edifice that rested in nowise upon the explicit directions of
Christ Himself. The authority and features of their administration were
wholly inferred, and indirectly derived, with more or less justification,
from certain vague and fragmentary references which they found scattered
amongst His utterances as recorded in the Gospel. Not one of the
sacraments of the Church; not one of the rites and ceremonies which the
Christian Fathers have elaborately devised and ostentatiously observed;
not one of the elements of the severe discipline they rigorously imposed
upon the primitive Christians; none of these reposed on the direct
authority of Christ, or emanated from His specific utterances. Not one of
these did Christ conceive, none did He specifically invest with sufficient
authority to either interpret His Word, or to add to what He had not
specifically enjoined.

For this reason, in later generations, voices were raised in protest
against the self-appointed Authority which arrogated to itself privileges
and powers which did not emanate from the clear text of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, and which constituted a grave departure from the spirit
which that Gospel did inculcate. They argued with force and justification
that the canons promulgated by the Councils of the Church were not
divinely-appointed laws, but were merely human devices which did not even
rest upon the actual utterances of Jesus. Their contention centered around
the fact that the vague and inconclusive words, addressed by Christ to
Peter, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,” could
never justify the extreme measures, the elaborate ceremonials, the
fettering creeds and dogmas, with which His successors have gradually
burdened and obscured His Faith. Had it been possible for the Church
Fathers, whose unwarranted authority was thus fiercely assailed from every
side, to refute the denunciations heaped upon them by quoting specific
utterances of Christ regarding the future administration of His Church, or
the nature of the authority of His Successors, they would surely have been
capable of quenching the flame of controversy, and preserving the unity of
Christendom. The Gospel, however, the only repository of the utterances of
Christ, afforded no such shelter to these harassed leaders of the Church,
who found themselves helpless in the face of the pitiless onslaught of
their enemy, and who eventually had to submit to the forces of schism
which invaded their ranks.

In the Muḥammadan Revelation, however, although His Faith as compared with
that of Christ was, so far as the administration of His Dispensation is
concerned, more complete and more specific in its provisions, yet in the
matter of succession, it gave no written, no binding and conclusive
instructions to those whose mission was to propagate His Cause. For the
text of the Qur’án, the ordinances of which regarding prayer, fasting,
marriage, divorce, inheritance, pilgrimage, and the like, have after the
revolution of thirteen hundred years remained intact and operative, gives
no definite guidance regarding the Law of Succession, the source of all
the dissensions, the controversies, and schisms which have dismembered and
discredited Islám.

Not so with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Unlike the Dispensation of
Christ, unlike the Dispensation of Muḥammad, unlike all the Dispensations
of the past, the apostles of Bahá’u’lláh in every land, wherever they
labor and toil, have before them in clear, in unequivocal and emphatic
language, all the laws, the regulations, the principles, the institutions,
the guidance, they require for the prosecution and consummation of their
task. Both in the administrative provisions of the Bahá’í Dispensation,
and in the matter of succession, as embodied in the twin institutions of
the House of Justice and of the Guardianship, the followers of Bahá’u’lláh
can summon to their aid such irrefutable evidences of Divine Guidance that
none can resist, that none can belittle or ignore. Therein lies the
distinguishing feature of the Bahá’í Revelation. Therein lies the strength
of the unity of the Faith, of the validity of a Revelation that claims not
to destroy or belittle previous Revelations, but to connect, unify, and
fulfill them. This is the reason why Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have
both revealed and even insisted upon certain details in connection with
the Divine Economy which they have bequeathed to us, their followers. This
is why such an emphasis has been placed in their Will and Testament upon
the powers and prerogatives of the ministers of their Faith.

For nothing short of the explicit directions of their Book, and the
surprisingly emphatic language with which they have clothed the provisions
of their Will, could possibly safeguard the Faith for which they have both
so gloriously labored all their lives. Nothing short of this could protect
it from the heresies and calumnies with which denominations, peoples, and
governments have endeavored, and will, with increasing vigor, endeavor to
assail it in future.

We should also bear in mind that the distinguishing character of the
Bahá’í Revelation does not solely consist in the completeness and
unquestionable validity of the Dispensation which the teachings of
Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have established. Its excellence lies also in
the fact that those elements which in past Dispensations have, without the
least authority from their Founders, been a source of corruption and of
incalculable harm to the Faith of God, have been strictly excluded by the
clear text of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings. Those unwarranted practices, in
connection with the sacrament of baptism, of communion, of confession of
sins, of asceticism, of priestly domination, of elaborate ceremonials, of
holy war and of polygamy, have one and all been rigidly suppressed by the
Pen of Bahá’u’lláh; whilst the rigidity and rigor of certain observances,
such as fasting, which are necessary to the devotional life of the
individual, have been considerably abated.



A Living Organism


It should also be borne in mind that the machinery of the Cause has been
so fashioned, that whatever is deemed necessary to incorporate into it in
order to keep it in the forefront of all progressive movements, can,
according to the provisions made by Bahá’u’lláh, be safely embodied
therein. To this testify the words of Bahá’u’lláh, as recorded in the
Eighth Leaf of the exalted Paradise: “It is incumbent upon the Trustees of
the House of Justice to take counsel together regarding those things which
have not outwardly been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is
agreeable to them. God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He
willeth, and He, verily, is the Provider, the Omniscient.” Not only has
the House of Justice been invested by Bahá’u’lláh with the authority to
legislate whatsoever has not been explicitly and outwardly recorded in His
holy Writ, upon it has also been conferred by the Will and Testament of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá the right and power to abrogate, according to the changes and
requirements of the time, whatever has been already enacted and enforced
by a preceding House of Justice. In this connection, He revealed the
following in His Will: “And inasmuch as the House of Justice hath power to
enact laws that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily
transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same. Thus for example,
the House of Justice enacteth today a certain law and enforceth it, and a
hundred years hence, circumstances having profoundly changed and the
conditions having altered, another House of Justice will then have power,
according to the exigencies of the time, to alter that law. This it can do
because that law formeth no part of the divine explicit text. The House of
Justice is both the initiator and the abrogator of its own laws.” Such is
the immutability of His revealed Word. Such is the elasticity which
characterizes the functions of His appointed ministers. The first
preserves the identity of His Faith, and guards the integrity of His law.
The second enables it, even as a living organism, to expand and adapt
itself to the needs and requirements of an ever-changing society.

Dear friends! Feeble though our Faith may now appear in the eyes of men,
who either denounce it as an offshoot of Islám, or contemptuously ignore
it as one more of those obscure sects that abound in the West, this
priceless gem of Divine Revelation, now still in its embryonic state,
shall evolve within the shell of His law, and shall forge ahead, undivided
and unimpaired, till it embraces the whole of mankind. Only those who have
already recognized the supreme station of Bahá’u’lláh, only those whose
hearts have been touched by His love, and have become familiar with the
potency of His spirit, can adequately appreciate the value of this Divine
Economy—His inestimable gift to mankind.

Leaders of religion, exponents of political theories, governors of human
institutions, who at present are witnessing with perplexity and dismay the
bankruptcy of their ideas, and the disintegration of their handiwork,
would do well to turn their gaze to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and to
meditate upon the World Order which, lying enshrined in His teachings, is
slowly and imperceptibly rising amid the welter and chaos of present-day
civilization. They need have no doubt or anxiety regarding the nature, the
origin or validity of the institutions which the adherents of the Faith
are building up throughout the world. For these lie embedded in the
teachings themselves, unadulterated and unobscured by unwarrantable
inferences, or unauthorized interpretations of His Word.

How pressing and sacred the responsibility that now weighs upon those who
are already acquainted with these teachings! How glorious the task of
those who are called upon to vindicate their truth, and demonstrate their
practicability to an unbelieving world! Nothing short of an immovable
conviction in their divine origin, and their uniqueness in the annals of
religion; nothing short of an unwavering purpose to execute and apply them
to the administrative machinery of the Cause, can be sufficient to
establish their reality, and insure their success. How vast is the
Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh! How great the magnitude of His blessings
showered upon humanity in this day! And yet, how poor, how inadequate our
conception of their significance and glory! This generation stands too
close to so colossal a Revelation to appreciate, in their full measure,
the infinite possibilities of His Faith, the unprecedented character of
His Cause, and the mysterious dispensations of His Providence.

In the Íqán, Bahá’u’lláh, wishing to emphasize the transcendent character
of this new Day of God, reinforces the strength of His argument by His
reference to the text of a correct and authorized tradition, which reveals
the following: “Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All that the
Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof. No man thus far hath known
more than these two letters. But when the Qá’im shall arise, He will cause
the remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest.” And then
immediately follow these confirming and illuminating words of Bahá’u’lláh:
“Consider: He hath declared knowledge to consist of twenty and seven
letters, and regarded all the prophets, from Adam even unto Muḥammad, the
‘seal,’ as expounders of only two letters thereof. He also saith that the
Qá’im will reveal all the remaining twenty and five letters. Behold from
this utterance how great and lofty is His station! His rank excelleth that
of all the prophets, and His revelation transcendeth the comprehension and
understanding of all their chosen ones. A revelation, of which the
prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones have either not been informed
or which, in pursuance of God’s inscrutable decree, they have not
disclosed—such a revelation, these vile and villainous people have sought
to measure with their own deficient minds, their own deficient learning
and understanding.”

In another passage of the same Book, Bahá’u’lláh, referring to the
transformation effected by every Revelation in the ways, thoughts and
manners of the people, reveals these words: “Is not the object of every
Revelation to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a
transformation that shall manifest itself, both outwardly and inwardly,
that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions? For if the
character of mankind be not changed, the futility of God’s universal
Manifestations would be apparent.”

Did not Christ Himself, addressing His disciples, utter these words: “I
have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit
when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth”?

From the text of this recognized tradition, as well as from the words of
Christ, as attested by the Gospel, every unprejudiced observer will
readily apprehend the magnitude of the Faith which Bahá’u’lláh has
revealed, and recognize the staggering weight of the claim He has
advanced. No wonder if ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has portrayed in such lurid colors the
fierceness of the agitation that shall center in the days to come round
the nascent institutions of the Faith. We can now but faintly discern the
beginnings of that turmoil which the rise and ascendancy of the Cause of
God is destined to cast in the world.



The Greatest Drama of the World’s Spiritual History


Whether in the ferocious and insidious campaign of repression and cruelty
which the rulers of Russia have launched against the upholders of the
Faith under their rule; whether in the unyielding animosity with which the
Shiites of Islám are trampling upon the sacred rights of the adherents of
the Cause in connection with Bahá’u’lláh’s house in Ba_gh_dád; whether in
the impotent rage which has impelled the ecclesiastical leaders of the
Sunnite sect of Islám to expel our Egyptian brethren from their midst—in
all of these we can perceive the manifestations of the relentless hate
which peoples, religions, and governments entertain for so pure, so
innocent, so glorious a Faith.

Ours is the duty to ponder these things in our heart, to strive to widen
our vision, and to deepen our comprehension of this Cause, and to arise,
resolutely and unreservedly, to play our part, however small, in this
greatest drama of the world’s spiritual history.

Your brother and co-worker,
Shoghi.

Haifa, Palestine,
March 21, 1930.



THE GOAL OF A NEW WORLD ORDER



The Goal of a New World Order


Fellow-believers in the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh:

The inexorable march of recent events has carried humanity so near to the
goal foreshadowed by Bahá’u’lláh that no responsible follower of His
Faith, viewing on all sides the distressing evidences of the world’s
travail, can remain unmoved at the thought of its approaching deliverance.

It would not seem inappropriate, at a time when we are commemorating the
world over the termination of the first decade since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s sudden
removal from our midst, to ponder, in the light of the teachings
bequeathed by Him to the world, such events as have tended to hasten the
gradual emergence of the World Order anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh.

Ten years ago, this very day, there flashed upon the world the news of the
passing of Him Who alone, through the ennobling influence of His love,
strength and wisdom, could have proved its stay and solace in the many
afflictions it was destined to suffer.

How well we, the little band of His avowed supporters who lay claim to
have recognized the Light that shone within Him, can still remember His
repeated allusions, in the evening of His earthly life, to the tribulation
and turmoil with which an unregenerate humanity was to be increasingly
afflicted. How poignantly some of us can recall His pregnant remarks, in
the presence of the pilgrims and visitors who thronged His doors on the
morrow of the jubilant celebrations that greeted the termination of the
World War—a war, which by the horrors it evoked, the losses it entailed
and the complications it engendered, was destined to exert so far-reaching
an influence on the fortunes of mankind. How serenely, yet how powerfully,
He stressed the cruel deception which a Pact, hailed by peoples and
nations as the embodiment of triumphant justice and the unfailing
instrument of an abiding peace, held in store for an unrepented humanity.
Peace, Peace, how often we heard Him remark, the lips of potentates and
peoples unceasingly proclaim, whereas the fire of unquenched hatreds still
smoulders in their hearts. How often we heard Him raise His voice, whilst
the tumult of triumphant enthusiasm was still at its height and long
before the faintest misgivings could have been felt or expressed,
confidently declaring that the Document, extolled as the Charter of a
liberated humanity, contained within itself seeds of such bitter deception
as would further enslave the world. How abundant are now the evidences
that attest the perspicacity of His unerring judgment!

Ten years of unceasing turmoil, so laden with anguish, so fraught with
incalculable consequences to the future of civilization, have brought the
world to the verge of a calamity too awful to contemplate. Sad indeed is
the contrast between the manifestations of confident enthusiasm in which
the Plenipotentiaries at Versailles so freely indulged and the cry of
unconcealed distress which victors and vanquished alike are now raising in
the hour of bitter delusion.



A War-Weary World


Neither the force which the framers and guarantors of the Peace Treaties
have mustered, nor the lofty ideals which originally animated the author
of the Covenant of the League of Nations, have proved a sufficient bulwark
against the forces of internal disruption with which a structure so
laboriously contrived had been consistently assailed. Neither the
provisions of the so-called Settlement which the victorious Powers have
sought to impose, nor the machinery of an institution which America’s
illustrious and far-seeing President had conceived, have proved, either in
conception or practice, adequate instruments to ensure the integrity of
the Order they had striven to establish. “The ills from which the world
now suffers,” wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in January, 1920, “will multiply; the
gloom which envelops it will deepen. The Balkans will remain discontented.
Its restlessness will increase. The vanquished Powers will continue to
agitate. They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of
war. Movements, newly-born and world-wide in their range, will exert their
utmost effort for the advancement of their designs. The Movement of the
Left will acquire great importance. Its influence will spread.”

Economic distress, since those words were written, together with political
confusion, financial upheavals, religious restlessness and racial
animosities, seem to have conspired to add immeasurably to the burdens
under which an impoverished, a war-weary world is groaning. Such has been
the cumulative effect of these successive crises, following one another
with such bewildering rapidity, that the very foundations of society are
trembling. The world, to whichever continent we turn our gaze, to however
remote a region our survey may extend, is everywhere assailed by forces it
can neither explain nor control.

Europe, hitherto regarded as the cradle of a highly-vaunted civilization,
as the torch-bearer of liberty and the mainspring of the forces of world
industry and commerce, stands bewildered and paralyzed at the sight of so
tremendous an upheaval. Long-cherished ideals in the political no less
than in the economic sphere of human activity are being severely tested
under the pressure of reactionary forces on one hand and of an insidious
and persistent radicalism on the other. From the heart of Asia distant
rumblings, ominous and insistent, portend the steady onslaught of a creed
which, by its negation of God, His Laws and Principles, threatens to
disrupt the foundations of human society. The clamor of a nascent
nationalism, coupled with a recrudescence of skepticism and unbelief, come
as added misfortunes to a continent hitherto regarded as the symbol of
age-long stability and undisturbed resignation. From darkest Africa the
first stirrings of a conscious and determined revolt against the aims and
methods of political and economic imperialism can be increasingly
discerned, adding their share to the growing vicissitudes of a troubled
age. Not even America, which until very recently prided itself on its
traditional policy of aloofness and the self-contained character of its
economy, the invulnerability of its institutions and the evidences of its
growing prosperity and prestige, has been able to resist the impelling
forces that have swept her into the vortex of an economic hurricane that
now threatens to impair the basis of her own industrial and economic life.
Even far-away Australia, which, owing to its remoteness from the
storm-centers of Europe, would have been expected to be immune from the
trials and torments of an ailing continent, has been caught in this
whirlpool of passion and strife, impotent to extricate herself from their
ensnaring influence.



The Signs of Impending Chaos


Never indeed have there been such widespread and basic upheavals, whether
in the social, economic or political spheres of human activity as those
now going on in different parts of the world. Never have there been so
many and varied sources of danger as those that now threaten the structure
of society. The following words of Bahá’u’lláh are indeed significant as
we pause to reflect upon the present state of a strangely disordered
world: “How long will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will
injustice continue? How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men?
How long will discord agitate the face of society? The winds of despair
are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and
afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending
convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing
order appears to be lamentably defective.”

The disquieting influence of over thirty million souls living under
minority conditions throughout the continent of Europe; the vast and
ever-swelling army of the unemployed with its crushing burden and
demoralizing influence on governments and peoples; the wicked, unbridled
race of armaments swallowing an ever-increasing share of the substance of
already impoverished nations; the utter demoralization from which the
international financial markets are now increasingly suffering; the
onslaught of secularism invading what has hitherto been regarded as the
impregnable strongholds of Christian and Muslim orthodoxy—these stand out
as the gravest symptoms that bode ill for the future stability of the
structure of modern civilization. Little wonder if one of Europe’s
préeminent thinkers, honored for his wisdom and restraint, should have
been forced to make so bold an assertion: “The world is passing through
the gravest crisis in the history of civilization.” “We stand,” writes
another, “before either a world catastrophe, or perhaps before the dawn of
a greater era of truth and wisdom.” “It is in such times,” he adds, “that
religions have perished and are born.”

Might we not already discern, as we scan the political horizon, the
alignment of those forces that are dividing afresh the continent of Europe
into camps of potential combatants, determined upon a contest that may
mark, unlike the last war, the end of an epoch, a vast epoch, in the
history of human evolution? Are we, the privileged custodians of a
priceless Faith, called upon to witness a cataclysmical change,
politically as fundamental and spiritually as beneficent as that which
precipitated the fall of the Roman Empire in the West? Might it not
happen—every vigilant adherent of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh might well
pause to reflect—that out of this world eruption there may stream forces
of such spiritual energy as shall recall, nay eclipse, the splendor of
those signs and wonders that accompanied the establishment of the Faith of
Jesus Christ? Might there not emerge out of the agony of a shaken world a
religious revival of such scope and power as to even transcend the potency
of those world-directing forces with which the Religions of the Past have,
at fixed intervals and according to an inscrutable Wisdom, revived the
fortunes of declining ages and peoples? Might not the bankruptcy of this
present, this highly-vaunted materialistic civilization, in itself clear
away the choking weeds that now hinder the unfoldment and future
efflorescence of God’s struggling Faith?

Let Bahá’u’lláh Himself shed the illumination of His words upon our path
as we steer our course amid the pitfalls and miseries of this troubled
age. More than fifty years ago, in a world far removed from the ills and
trials that now torment it, there flowed from His Pen these prophetic
words: “The world is in travail and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its
face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight
that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will
long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly
appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then and only
then will the Divine Standard be unfurled and the Nightingale of Paradise
warble its melody.”



The Impotence of Statesmanship


Dearly-beloved friends! Humanity, whether viewed in the light of man’s
individual conduct or in the existing relationships between organized
communities and nations, has, alas, strayed too far and suffered too great
a decline to be redeemed through the unaided efforts of the best among its
recognized rulers and statesmen—however disinterested their motives,
however concerted their action, however unsparing in their zeal and
devotion to its cause. No scheme which the calculations of the highest
statesmanship may yet devise; no doctrine which the most distinguished
exponents of economic theory may hope to advance; no principle which the
most ardent of moralists may strive to inculcate, can provide, in the last
resort, adequate foundations upon which the future of a distracted world
can be built. No appeal for mutual tolerance which the worldly-wise might
raise, however compelling and insistent, can calm its passions or help
restore its vigor. Nor would any general scheme of mere organized
international cöoperation, in whatever sphere of human activity, however
ingenious in conception, or extensive in scope, succeed in removing the
root cause of the evil that has so rudely upset the equilibrium of
present-day society. Not even, I venture to assert, would the very act of
devising the machinery required for the political and economic unification
of the world—a principle that has been increasingly advocated in recent
times—provide in itself the antidote against the poison that is steadily
undermining the vigor of organized peoples and nations. What else, might
we not confidently affirm, but the unreserved acceptance of the Divine
Program enunciated, with such simplicity and force as far back as sixty
years ago, by Bahá’u’lláh, embodying in its essentials God’s divinely
appointed scheme for the unification of mankind in this age, coupled with
an indomitable conviction in the unfailing efficacy of each and all of its
provisions, is eventually capable of withstanding the forces of internal
disintegration which, if unchecked, must needs continue to eat into the
vitals of a despairing society. It is towards this goal—the goal of a new
World Order, Divine in origin, all-embracing in scope, equitable in
principle, challenging in its features—that a harassed humanity must
strive.

To claim to have grasped all the implications of Bahá’u’lláh’s prodigious
scheme for world-wide human solidarity, or to have fathomed its import,
would be presumptuous on the part of even the declared supporters of His
Faith. To attempt to visualize it in all its possibilities, to estimate
its future benefits, to picture its glory, would be premature at even so
advanced a stage in the evolution of mankind.



The Guiding Principles of World Order


All we can reasonably venture to attempt is to strive to obtain a glimpse
of the first streaks of the promised Dawn that must, in the fullness of
time, chase away the gloom that has encircled humanity. All we can do is
to point out, in their broadest outlines, what appear to us to be the
guiding principles underlying the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, as amplified
and enunciated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Center of His Covenant with all
mankind and the appointed Interpreter and Expounder of His Word.

That the unrest and suffering afflicting the mass of mankind are in no
small measure the direct consequences of the World War and are
attributable to the unwisdom and shortsightedness of the framers of the
Peace Treaties only a biased mind can refuse to admit. That the financial
obligations contracted in the course of the war, as well as the imposition
of a staggering burden of reparations upon the vanquished, have, to a very
great extent, been responsible for the maldistribution and consequent
shortage of the world’s monetary gold supply, which in turn has, to a very
great measure, accentuated the phenomenal fall in prices and thereby
relentlessly increased the burdens of impoverished countries, no impartial
mind would question. That inter-governmental debts have imposed a severe
strain on the masses of the people in Europe, have upset the equilibrium
of national budgets, have crippled national industries, and led to an
increase in the number of the unemployed, is no less apparent to an
unprejudiced observer. That the spirit of vindictiveness, of suspicion, of
fear and rivalry, engendered by the war, and which the provisions of the
Peace Treaties have served to perpetuate and foster, has led to an
enormous increase of national competitive armaments, involving during the
last year the aggregate expenditure of no less than a thousand million
pounds, which in turn has accentuated the effects of the world-wide
depression, is a truth that even the most superficial observer will
readily admit. That a narrow and brutal nationalism, which the post-war
theory of self-determination has served to reinforce, has been chiefly
responsible for the policy of high and prohibitive tariffs, so injurious
to the healthy flow of international trade and to the mechanism of
international finance, is a fact which few would venture to dispute.

It would be idle, however, to contend that the war, with all the losses it
involved, the passions it aroused and the grievances it left behind, has
solely been responsible for the unprecedented confusion into which almost
every section of the civilized world is plunged at present. Is it not a
fact—and this is the central idea I desire to emphasize—that the
fundamental cause of this world unrest is attributable, not so much to the
consequences of what must sooner or later come to be regarded as a
transitory dislocation in the affairs of a continually changing world, but
rather to the failure of those into whose hands the immediate destinies of
peoples and nations have been committed, to adjust their system of
economic and political institutions to the imperative needs of a rapidly
evolving age? Are not these intermittent crises that convulse present-day
society due primarily to the lamentable inability of the world’s
recognized leaders to read aright the signs of the times, to rid
themselves once for all of their preconceived ideas and fettering creeds,
and to reshape the machinery of their respective governments according to
those standards that are implicit in Bahá’u’lláh’s supreme declaration of
the Oneness of Mankind—the chief and distinguishing feature of the Faith
He proclaimed? For the principle of the Oneness of Mankind, the
cornerstone of Bahá’u’lláh’s world-embracing dominion, implies nothing
more nor less than the enforcement of His scheme for the unification of
the world—the scheme to which we have already referred. “In every
Dispensation,” writes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “the light of Divine Guidance has been
focussed upon one central theme.... In this wondrous Revelation, this
glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God and the
distinguishing feature of His Law is the consciousness of the Oneness of
Mankind.”

How pathetic indeed are the efforts of those leaders of human institutions
who, in utter disregard of the spirit of the age, are striving to adjust
national processes, suited to the ancient days of self-contained nations,
to an age which must either achieve the unity of the world, as adumbrated
by Bahá’u’lláh, or perish. At so critical an hour in the history of
civilization it behooves the leaders of all the nations of the world,
great and small, whether in the East or in the West, whether victors or
vanquished, to give heed to the clarion call of Bahá’u’lláh and,
thoroughly imbued with a sense of world solidarity, the sine quà non of
loyalty to His Cause, arise manfully to carry out in its entirety the one
remedial scheme He, the Divine Physician, has prescribed for an ailing
humanity. Let them discard, once for all, every preconceived idea, every
national prejudice, and give heed to the sublime counsel of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
the authorized Expounder of His teachings. You can best serve your
country, was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s rejoinder to a high official in the service of
the federal government of the United States of America, who had questioned
Him as to the best manner in which he could promote the interests of his
government and people, if you strive, in your capacity as a citizen of the
world, to assist in the eventual application of the principle of
federalism underlying the government of your own country to the
relationships now existing between the peoples and nations of the world.

In The Secret of Divine Civilization (The Mysterious Forces of
Civilization), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s outstanding contribution to the future
reorganization of the world, we read the following:

“True civilization will unfurl its banner in the midmost heart of the
world whenever a certain number of its distinguished and high-minded
sovereigns—the shining exemplars of devotion and determination—shall, for
the good and happiness of all mankind, arise, with firm resolve and clear
vision, to establish the Cause of Universal Peace. They must make the
Cause of Peace the object of general consultation, and seek by every means
in their power to establish a Union of the nations of the world. They must
conclude a binding treaty and establish a covenant, the provisions of
which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must proclaim it to
all the world and obtain for it the sanction of all the human race. This
supreme and noble undertaking—the real source of the peace and well-being
of all the world—should be regarded as sacred by all that dwell on earth.
All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to ensure the stability and
permanence of this Most Great Covenant. In this all-embracing Pact the
limits and frontiers of each and every nation should be clearly fixed, the
principles underlying the relations of governments towards one another
definitely laid down, and all international agreements and obligations
ascertained. In like manner, the size of the armaments of every government
should be strictly limited, for if the preparations for war and the
military forces of any nation should be allowed to increase, they will
arouse the suspicion of others. The fundamental principle underlying this
solemn Pact should be so fixed that if any government later violate any
one of its provisions, all the governments on earth should arise to reduce
it to utter submission, nay the human race as a whole should resolve, with
every power at its disposal, to destroy that government. Should this
greatest of all remedies be applied to the sick body of the world, it will
assuredly recover from its ills and will remain eternally safe and
secure.”

“A few,” He further adds, “unaware of the power latent in human endeavor,
consider this matter as highly impracticable, nay even beyond the scope of
man’s utmost efforts. Such is not the case, however. On the contrary,
thanks to the unfailing grace of God, the loving-kindness of His favored
ones, the unrivaled endeavors of wise and capable souls, and the thoughts
and ideas of the peerless leaders of this age, nothing whatsoever can be
regarded as unattainable. Endeavor, ceaseless endeavor, is required.
Nothing short of an indomitable determination can possibly achieve it.
Many a cause which past ages have regarded as purely visionary, yet in
this day has become most easy and practicable. Why should this most great
and lofty Cause—the day-star of the firmament of true civilization and the
cause of the glory, the advancement, the well-being and the success of all
humanity—be regarded as impossible of achievement? Surely the day will
come when its beauteous light shall shed illumination upon the assemblage
of man.”



Seven Lights of Unity


In one of His Tablets ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, elucidating further His noble theme,
reveals the following:

“In cycles gone by, though harmony was established, yet, owing to the
absence of means, the unity of all mankind could not have been achieved.
Continents remained widely divided, nay even among the peoples of one and
the same continent association and interchange of thought were well nigh
impossible. Consequently intercourse, understanding and unity amongst all
the peoples and kindreds of the earth were unattainable. In this day,
however, means of communication have multiplied, and the five continents
of the earth have virtually merged into one.... In like manner all the
members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or
villages, have become increasingly interdependent. For none is
self-sufficiency any longer possible, inasmuch as political ties unite all
peoples and nations, and the bonds of trade and industry, of agriculture
and education, are being strengthened every day. Hence the unity of all
mankind can in this day be achieved. Verily this is none other but one of
the wonders of this wondrous age, this glorious century. Of this past ages
have been deprived, for this century—the century of light—has been endowed
with unique and unprecedented glory, power and illumination. Hence the
miraculous unfolding of a fresh marvel every day. Eventually it will be
seen how bright its candles will burn in the assemblage of man.

“Behold how its light is now dawning upon the world’s darkened horizon.
The first candle is unity in the political realm, the early glimmerings of
which can now be discerned. The second candle is unity of thought in world
undertakings, the consummation of which will ere long be witnessed. The
third candle is unity in freedom which will surely come to pass. The
fourth candle is unity in religion which is the corner-stone of the
foundation itself, and which, by the power of God, will be revealed in all
its splendor. The fifth candle is the unity of nations—a unity which in
this century will be securely established, causing all the peoples of the
world to regard themselves as citizens of one common fatherland. The sixth
candle is unity of races, making of all that dwell on earth peoples and
kindreds of one race. The seventh candle is unity of language, i.e., the
choice of a universal tongue in which all peoples will be instructed and
converse. Each and every one of these will inevitably come to pass,
inasmuch as the power of the Kingdom of God will aid and assist in their
realization.”



A World Super-State


Over sixty years ago, in His Tablet to Queen Victoria, Bahá’u’lláh,
addressing “the concourse of the rulers of the earth,” revealed the
following:

“Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which
profiteth mankind and bettereth the condition thereof.... Regard the world
as the human body which, though created whole and perfect, has been
afflicted, through divers causes, with grave ills and maladies. Not for
one day did it rest, nay its sicknesses waxed more severe, as it fell
under the treatment of unskilled physicians who have spurred on the steed
of their worldly desires and have erred grievously. And if at one time,
through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was healed,
the rest remained afflicted as before. Thus informeth you the All-Knowing,
the All-Wise.... That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy
and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of
all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no
wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful
and inspired Physician. This verily is the truth, and all else naught but
error.”

In a further passage Bahá’u’lláh adds these words: “We see you adding
every year unto your expenditures and laying the burden thereof on the
people whom ye rule; this verily is naught but grievous injustice. Fear
the sighs and tears of this Wronged One, and burden not your peoples
beyond that which they can endure.... Be reconciled among yourselves, that
ye may need armaments no more save in a measure to safeguard your
territories and dominions. Be united, O concourse of the sovereigns of the
world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you and
your peoples find rest. Should any one among you take up arms against
another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest
justice.”

What else could these weighty words signify if they did not point to the
inevitable curtailment of unfettered national sovereignty as an
indispensable preliminary to the formation of the future Commonwealth of
all the nations of the world? Some form of a world super-state must needs
be evolved, in whose favor all the nations of the world will have
willingly ceded every claim to make war, certain rights to impose taxation
and all rights to maintain armaments, except for purposes of maintaining
internal order within their respective dominions. Such a state will have
to include within its orbit an international executive adequate to enforce
supreme and unchallengeable authority on every recalcitrant member of the
commonwealth; a world parliament whose members shall be elected by the
people in their respective countries and whose election shall be confirmed
by their respective governments; and a supreme tribunal whose judgment
will have a binding effect even in such cases where the parties concerned
did not voluntarily agree to submit their case to its consideration. A
world community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently
demolished and the interdependence of Capital and Labor definitely
recognized; in which the clamor of religious fanaticism and strife will
have been forever stilled; in which the flame of racial animosity will
have been finally extinguished; in which a single code of international
law—the product of the considered judgment of the world’s federated
representatives—shall have as its sanction the instant and coercive
intervention of the combined forces of the federated units; and finally a
world community in which the fury of a capricious and militant nationalism
will have been transmuted into an abiding consciousness of world
citizenship—such indeed, appears, in its broadest outline, the Order
anticipated by Bahá’u’lláh, an Order that shall come to be regarded as the
fairest fruit of a slowly maturing age.

“The Tabernacle of Unity,” Bahá’u’lláh proclaims in His message to all
mankind, “has been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers.... Of
one tree are all ye the fruit and of one bough the leaves.... The world is
but one country and mankind its citizens.... Let not a man glory in that
he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his
kind.”



Unity in Diversity


Let there be no misgivings as to the animating purpose of the world-wide
Law of Bahá’u’lláh. Far from aiming at the subversion of the existing
foundations of society, it seeks to broaden its basis, to remold its
institutions in a manner consonant with the needs of an ever-changing
world. It can conflict with no legitimate allegiances, nor can it
undermine essential loyalties. Its purpose is neither to stifle the flame
of a sane and intelligent patriotism in men’s hearts, nor to abolish the
system of national autonomy so essential if the evils of excessive
centralization are to be avoided. It does not ignore, nor does it attempt
to suppress, the diversity of ethnical origins, of climate, of history, of
language and tradition, of thought and habit, that differentiate the
peoples and nations of the world. It calls for a wider loyalty, for a
larger aspiration than any that has animated the human race. It insists
upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the
imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive
centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on
the other. Its watchword is unity in diversity such as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Himself has explained:

“Consider the flowers of a garden. Though differing in kind, color, form
and shape, yet, inasmuch as they are refreshed by the waters of one
spring, revived by the breath of one wind, invigorated by the rays of one
sun, this diversity increaseth their charm and addeth unto their beauty.
How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and
blossoms, the fruit, the branches and the trees of that garden were all of
the same shape and color! Diversity of hues, form and shape enricheth and
adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like manner,
when divers shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought
together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty
and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest. Naught
but the celestial potency of the Word of God, which ruleth and
transcendeth the realities of all things, is capable of harmonizing the
divergent thoughts, sentiments, ideas and convictions of the children of
men.”

The call of Bahá’u’lláh is primarily directed against all forms of
provincialism, all insularities and prejudices. If long-cherished ideals
and time-honored institutions, if certain social assumptions and religious
formulae have ceased to promote the welfare of the generality of mankind,
if they no longer minister to the needs of a continually evolving
humanity, let them be swept away and relegated to the limbo of obsolescent
and forgotten doctrines. Why should these, in a world subject to the
immutable law of change and decay, be exempt from the deterioration that
must needs overtake every human institution? For legal standards,
political and economic theories are solely designed to safeguard the
interests of humanity as a whole, and not humanity to be crucified for the
preservation of the integrity of any particular law or doctrine.



The Principle of Oneness


Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot
round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve —is no mere outburst
of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its
appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of
brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the
fostering of harmonious cöoperation among individual peoples and nations.
Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the
Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not
only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of
those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as
members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation
of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution
adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its
influence. It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day
society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. It
constitutes a challenge, at once bold and universal, to outworn
shibboleths of national creeds—creeds that have had their day and which
must, in the ordinary course of events as shaped and controlled by
Providence, give way to a new gospel, fundamentally different from, and
infinitely superior to, what the world has already conceived. It calls for
no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole
civilized world—a world organically unified in all the essential aspects
of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade
and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of
the national characteristics of its federated units.

It represents the consummation of human evolution—an evolution that has
had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent
development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to
the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the
institution of independent and sovereign nations.

The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh,
carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that
attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only
necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and
that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in
establishing it.

So marvellous a conception finds its earliest manifestations in the
efforts consciously exerted and the modest beginnings already achieved by
the declared adherents of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh who, conscious of the
sublimity of their calling and initiated into the ennobling principles of
His Administration, are forging ahead to establish His Kingdom on this
earth. It has its indirect manifestations in the gradual diffusion of the
spirit of world solidarity which is spontaneously arising out of the
welter of a disorganized society.

It would be stimulating to follow the history of the growth and
development of this lofty conception which must increasingly engage the
attention of the responsible custodians of the destinies of peoples and
nations. To the states and principalities just emerging from the welter of
the great Napoleonic upheaval, whose chief preoccupation was either to
recover their rights to an independent existence or to achieve their
national unity, the conception of world solidarity seemed not only remote
but inconceivable. It was not until the forces of nationalism had
succeeded in overthrowing the foundations of the Holy Alliance that had
sought to curb their rising power, that the possibility of a world order,
transcending in its range the political institutions these nations had
established, came to be seriously entertained. It was not until after the
World War that these exponents of arrogant nationalism came to regard such
an order as the object of a pernicious doctrine tending to sap that
essential loyalty upon which the continued existence of their national
life depended. With a vigor that recalled the energy with which the
members of the Holy Alliance sought to stifle the spirit of a rising
nationalism among the peoples liberated from the Napoleonic yoke, these
champions of an unfettered national sovereignty, in their turn, have
labored and are still laboring to discredit principles upon which their
own salvation must ultimately depend.

The fierce opposition which greeted the abortive scheme of the Geneva
Protocol; the ridicule poured upon the proposal for a United States of
Europe which was subsequently advanced, and the failure of the general
scheme for the economic union of Europe, may appear as setbacks to the
efforts which a handful of foresighted people are earnestly exerting to
advance this noble ideal. And yet, are we not justified in deriving fresh
encouragement when we observe that the very consideration of such
proposals is in itself an evidence of their steady growth in the minds and
hearts of men? In the organized attempts that are being made to discredit
so exalted a conception are we not witnessing the repetition, on a larger
scale, of those stirring struggles and fierce controversies that preceded
the birth, and assisted in the reconstruction, of the unified nations of
the West?



The Federation of Mankind


To take but one instance. How confident were the assertions made in the
days preceding the unification of the states of the North American
continent regarding the insuperable barriers that stood in the way of
their ultimate federation! Was it not widely and emphatically declared
that the conflicting interests, the mutual distrust, the differences of
government and habit that divided the states were such as no force,
whether spiritual or temporal, could ever hope to harmonize or control?
And yet how different were the conditions prevailing a hundred and fifty
years ago from those that characterize present-day society! It would
indeed be no exaggeration to say that the absence of those facilities
which modern scientific progress has placed at the service of humanity in
our time made of the problem of welding the American states into a single
federation, similar though they were in certain traditions, a task
infinitely more complex than that which confronts a divided humanity in
its efforts to achieve the unification of all mankind.

Who knows that for so exalted a conception to take shape a suffering more
intense than any it has yet experienced will have to be inflicted upon
humanity? Could anything less than the fire of a civil war with all its
violence and vicissitudes—a war that nearly rent the great American
Republic—have welded the states, not only into a Union of independent
units, but into a Nation, in spite of all the ethnic differences that
characterized its component parts? That so fundamental a revolution,
involving such far-reaching changes in the structure of society, can be
achieved through the ordinary processes of diplomacy and education seems
highly improbable. We have but to turn our gaze to humanity’s
blood-stained history to realize that nothing short of intense mental as
well as physical agony has been able to precipitate those epoch-making
changes that constitute the greatest landmarks in the history of human
civilization.



The Fire of Ordeal


Great and far-reaching as have been those changes in the past, they cannot
appear, when viewed in their proper perspective, except as subsidiary
adjustments preluding that transformation of unparalleled majesty and
scope which humanity is in this age bound to undergo. That the forces of a
world catastrophe can alone precipitate such a new phase of human thought
is, alas, becoming increasingly apparent. That nothing short of the fire
of a severe ordeal, unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse and weld the
discordant entities that constitute the elements of present-day
civilization, into the integral components of the world commonwealth of
the future, is a truth which future events will increasingly demonstrate.

The prophetic voice of Bahá’u’lláh warning, in the concluding passages of
the Hidden Words, “the peoples of the world” that “an unforeseen calamity
is following them and that grievous retribution awaiteth them” throws
indeed a lurid light upon the immediate fortunes of sorrowing humanity.
Nothing but a fiery ordeal, out of which humanity will emerge, chastened
and prepared, can succeed in implanting that sense of responsibility which
the leaders of a new-born age must arise to shoulder.

I would again direct your attention to those ominous words of Bahá’u’lláh
which I have already quoted: “And when the appointed hour is come, there
shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to
quake.”

Has not ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself asserted in unequivocal language that
“another war, fiercer than the last, will assuredly break out”?

Upon the consummation of this colossal, this unspeakably glorious
enterprise—an enterprise that baffled the resources of Roman statesmanship
and which Napoleon’s desperate efforts failed to achieve—will depend the
ultimate realization of that millennium of which poets of all ages have
sung and seers have long dreamed. Upon it will depend the fulfillment of
the prophecies uttered by the Prophets of old when swords shall be beaten
into ploughshares and the lion and the lamb lie down together. It alone
can usher in the Kingdom of the Heavenly Father as anticipated by the
Faith of Jesus Christ. It alone can lay the foundation for the New World
Order visualized by Bahá’u’lláh—a World Order that shall reflect, however
dimly, upon this earthly plane, the ineffable splendors of the Abhá
Kingdom.

One word more in conclusion. The proclamation of the Oneness of
Mankind—the head corner-stone of Bahá’u’lláh’s all-embracing dominion—can
under no circumstances be compared with such expressions of pious hope as
have been uttered in the past. His is not merely a call which He raised,
alone and unaided, in the face of the relentless and combined opposition
of two of the most powerful Oriental potentates of His day—while Himself
an exile and prisoner in their hands. It implies at once a warning and a
promise—a warning that in it lies the sole means for the salvation of a
greatly suffering world, a promise that its realization is at hand.

Uttered at a time when its possibility had not yet been seriously
envisaged in any part of the world, it has, by virtue of that celestial
potency which the Spirit of Bahá’u’lláh has breathed into it, come at last
to be regarded, by an increasing number of thoughtful men, not only as an
approaching possibility, but as the necessary outcome of the forces now
operating in the world.



The Mouthpiece of God


Surely the world, contracted and transformed into a single highly complex
organism by the marvellous progress achieved in the realm of physical
science, by the world-wide expansion of commerce and industry, and
struggling, under the pressure of world economic forces, amidst the
pitfalls of a materialistic civilization, stands in dire need of a
restatement of the Truth underlying all the Revelations of the past in a
language suited to its essential requirements. And what voice other than
that of Bahá’u’lláh—the Mouthpiece of God for this age—is capable of
effecting a transformation of society as radical as that which He has
already accomplished in the hearts of those men and women, so diversified
and seemingly irreconcilable, who constitute the body of His declared
followers throughout the world?

That such a mighty conception is fast budding out in the minds of men,
that voices are being raised in its support, that its salient features
must fast crystallize in the consciousness of those who are in authority,
few indeed can doubt. That its modest beginnings have already taken shape
in the world-wide Administration with which the adherents of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh stand associated only those whose hearts are tainted by
prejudice can fail to perceive.

Ours, dearly-beloved co-workers, is the paramount duty to continue, with
undimmed vision and unabated zeal, to assist in the final erection of that
Edifice the foundations of which Bahá’u’lláh has laid in our hearts, to
derive added hope and strength from the general trend of recent events,
however dark their immediate effects, and to pray with unremitting fervor
that He may hasten the approach of the realization of that Wondrous Vision
which constitutes the brightest emanation of His Mind and the fairest
fruit of the fairest civilization the world has yet seen.

Might not the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh mark the inauguration of so vast an era in human history?

Your true brother,
SHOGHI

Haifa, Palestine,
November 28, 1931



THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE CAUSE OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH



The Golden Age of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh


To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout the
United States and Canada.

Friends and fellow-defenders of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh:

Significant as have been the changes that have lately overtaken a swiftly
awakening humanity at this transitional phase of its checkered history,
the steady consolidation of the institutions which the administrators of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh are, in every land, toiling to establish should
appear no less remarkable to even those who are as yet imperfectly
acquainted with the obstacles they have had to surmount or the meagre
resources on which they could rely.

That a Faith which, ten years ago, was severely shaken by the sudden
removal of an incomparable Master should have, in the face of tremendous
obstacles, maintained its unity, resisted the malignant onslaught of its
ill-wishers, silenced its calumniators, broadened the basis of its
far-flung administration, and raised upon it institutions symbolizing its
ideals of worship and service, should be deemed sufficient evidence of the
invincible power with which the Almighty has chosen to invest it from the
moment of its inception.

That the Cause associated with the name of Bahá’u’lláh feeds itself upon
those hidden springs of celestial strength which no force of human
personality, whatever its glamour, can replace; that its reliance is
solely upon that mystic Source with which no worldly advantage, be it
wealth, fame, or learning can compare; that it propagates itself by ways
mysterious and utterly at variance with the standards accepted by the
generality of mankind, will, if not already apparent, become increasingly
manifest as it forges ahead towards fresh conquests in its struggle for
the spiritual regeneration of mankind.

Indeed, how could it, unsupported as it has ever been by the counsels and
the resources of the wise, the rich, and the learned in the land of its
birth, have succeeded in breaking asunder the shackles that weighed upon
it at the hour of its birth, in emerging unscathed from the storms that
agitated its infancy, had not its animating breath been quickened by that
spirit which is born of God, and on which all success, wherever and
however it be sought, must ultimately depend?

It is not necessary for me to recall, even in their briefest outline, the
heart-rending details of that appalling tragedy which marked the
birth-pangs of our beloved Faith, enacted in a land notorious for its
unrestrained fanaticisms, its crass ignorance, its unbridled cruelty. Nor
do I need to expatiate on the valor, the sublime fortitude, that defied
the cruel torture-mongers of that race, or stress the number, or emphasize
the purity of the lives, of those who died willingly that their Cause
might live and prosper. Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the indignation
which those atrocities evoked, and the feelings of unqualified admiration
that surged, in the breasts of countless men and women, in regions remote
from the scene of those indescribable cruelties. Suffice it to say that
upon these heroes of Bahá’u’lláh’s native land was bestowed the
inestimable privilege of sealing with their life-blood the early triumphs
of their cherished Faith, and of paving the way for its approaching
victory. In the blood of the unnumbered martyrs of Persia lay the seed of
the Divinely-appointed Administration which, though transplanted from its
native soil, is now budding out, under your loving care, into a new order,
destined to overshadow all mankind.



America’s Contribution to the Cause


For great as have been the attainments and unforgettable the services of
the pioneers of the heroic age of the Cause in Persia, the contribution
which their spiritual descendants, the American believers, the
champion-builders of the organic structure of the Cause, are now making
towards the fulfillment of the Plan which must usher in the golden age of
the Cause is no less meritorious in this strenuous period of its history.
Few, if any, I venture to assert, among these privileged framers and
custodians of the constitution of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh are even dimly
aware of the preponderating rôle which the North American continent is
destined to play in the future orientation of their world-embracing Cause.
Nor does any appreciable number among them seem sufficiently conscious of
the decisive influence which they already exercise in the direction and
management of its affairs.

“The continent of America,” wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in February, 1917, “is, in
the eyes of the one true God, the land wherein the splendors of His light
shall be revealed, where the mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled,
where the righteous will abide, and the free assemble.”

That the supporters of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, throughout the United
States and Canada, are increasingly demonstrating the truth of this solemn
affirmation is evident to even a casual observer of the record of their
manifold services, whether in their individual capacities or through their
concerted endeavors. The manifestations of spontaneous loyalty which
marked their response to the expressed wishes of a departed Master; the
generosity with which they have, on more than one occasion, arisen to lend
a helping hand to the needy and harassed among their brethren in Persia;
the vigor with which they have resisted the shameless attacks which
unrelenting enemies, both from within and without, have, with increasing
frequency, launched against them; the example which the body of their
national representatives have set to their sister Assemblies in fashioning
the instruments essential to the effective discharge of their collective
duties; their successful intervention on behalf of their persecuted
fellow-workers in Russia; the moral support they have extended to their
Egyptian fellow-disciples at a most critical stage in their struggle for
emancipation from the fetters of Islamic orthodoxy; the historic services
rendered by those intrepid pioneers who, faithful to the call of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, forsook their homes to plant, in the uttermost corners of
the globe, the standard of His Faith; and, last but not least, the
magnificence of their self-sacrifice, culminating in the completion of the
super-structure of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—these stand out each as an
eloquent testimony to the indomitable character of the faith Bahá’u’lláh
has kindled in their hearts.

Who, contemplating so splendid a record of service, can doubt that these
faithful stewards of the redeeming grace of God have preserved, undivided
and unimpaired, the priceless heritage entrusted to their charge? Have
they not, one might well reflect, in ways which only future historians
will indicate, approached the high standard that characterized those deeds
of imperishable renown accomplished by those that have gone before them?

Not by the material resources which the members of this infant community
can now summon to their aid; not by the numerical strength of its
present-day supporters; nor by any direct tangible benefits its votaries
can as yet confer upon the multitude of the needy and the disconsolate
among their countrymen, should its potentialities be tested or its worth
determined. Nowhere but in the purity of its precepts, the sublimity of
its standards, the integrity of its laws, the reasonableness of its
claims, the comprehensiveness of its scope, the universality of its
program, the flexibility of its institutions, the lives of its founders,
the heroism of its martyrs, and the transforming power of its influence,
should the unprejudiced observer seek to obtain the true criterion that
can enable him to fathom its mysteries or to estimate its virtue.



Decline of Mortal Dominion


How unfair, how irrelevant, to venture any comparison between the slow and
gradual consolidation of the Faith proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh and those
man-created movements which, having their origin in human desires and with
their hopes centered on mortal dominion, must inevitably decline and
perish! Springing from a finite mind, begotten of human fancy, and
oftentimes the product of ill-conceived designs, such movements succeed,
by reason of their novelty, their appeal to man’s baser instincts and
their dependence upon the resources of a sordid world, in dazzling for a
time the eyes of men, only to plunge finally from the heights of their
meteoric career into the darkness of oblivion, dissolved by the very
forces that had assisted in their creation.

Not so with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Born in an environment of
appalling degradation, springing from a soil steeped in age-long
corruptions, hatreds and prejudice, inculcating principles irreconcilable
with the accepted standards of the times, and faced from the beginning
with the relentless enmity of government, church and people, this nascent
Faith of God has, by virtue of the celestial potency with which it has
been endowed, succeeded, in less than four score years and ten, in
emancipating itself from the galling chains of Islamic domination, in
proclaiming the self-sufficiency of its ideals and the independent
integrity of its laws, in planting its banner in no less than forty of the
most advanced countries of the world, in establishing its outposts in
lands beyond the farthest seas, in consecrating its religious edifices in
the midmost heart of the Asiatic and American continents, in inducing two
of the most powerful governments of the West to ratify the instruments
essential to its administrative activities, in obtaining from royalty
befitting tributes to the excellence of its teachings, and, finally, in
forcing its grievances upon the attention of the representatives of the
highest Tribunal in the civilized world, and in securing from its members
written affirmations that are tantamount to a tacit recognition of its
religious status and to an express declaration of the justice of its
cause.

Circumscribed though its power as a social force may as yet appear, and
however obvious may seem the present ineffectiveness of its
world-embracing program, we, who stand identified with its blessed name,
cannot but marvel at the measure of its achievements if we but compare
them with the modest accomplishments that have marked the rise of the
Dispensations of the past. Where else, if not in the Revelation of
Bahá’u’lláh, can the unbiased student of comparative religion cite
instances of a claim as stupendous as that which the Author of that Faith
advanced, foes as relentless as those which He faced, a devotion more
sublime than that which He kindled, a life as eventful and as enthralling
as that which He led? Has Christianity or Islám, has any Dispensation that
preceded them, offered instances of such combinations of courage and
restraint, of magnanimity and power, of broad-mindedness and loyalty, as
those which characterized the conduct of the heroes of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh? Where else do we find evidences of a transformation as swift,
as complete, and as sudden, as those effected in the lives of the apostles
of the Báb? Few, indeed, are the instances recorded in any of the
authenticated annals of the religions of the past of a self-abnegation as
complete, a constancy as firm, a magnanimity as sublime, a loyalty as
uncompromising, as those which bore witness to the character of that
immortal band which stands identified with this Divine Revelation—this
latest and most compelling manifestation of the love and the omnipotence
of the Almighty!



Contrast with Religions of the Past


We may vainly search in the records of the earliest beginnings of any of
the recognized religions of the past for episodes as thrilling in their
details, or as far-reaching in their consequences, as those that illumine
the pages of the history of this Faith. The almost incredible
circumstances attending the martyrdom of that youthful Prince of Glory;
the forces of barbaric repression which this tragedy subsequently
released; the manifestations of unsurpassed heroism to which it gave rise;
the exhortations and warnings which have streamed from the pen of the
Divine Prisoner in His Epistles to the potentates of the Church and the
monarchs and rulers of the world; the undaunted loyalty with which our
brethren are battling in Muslim countries with the forces of religious
orthodoxy—these may be reckoned as the most outstanding features of what
the world will come to recognize as the greatest drama in the world’s
spiritual history.

I need not recall, in this connection, the unfortunate episodes that have,
admittedly, and to a very great extent, marred the early history of both
Judaism and Islám. Nor is it necessary to stress the damaging effect of
the excesses, the rivalries and divisions, the fanatical outbursts and
acts of ingratitude that are associated with the early development of the
people of Israel and with the militant career of the ruthless pioneers of
the Faith of Muḥammad.

It would be sufficient for my purpose to call attention to the great
number of those who, in the first two centuries of the Christian era,
“purchased an ignominious life by betraying the holy Scriptures into the
hands of the infidels,” the scandalous conduct of those bishops who were
thereby branded as traitors, the discord of the African Church, the
gradual infiltration into Christian doctrine of the principles of the
Mithraic cult, of the Alexandrian school of thought, of the precepts of
Zoroastrianism and of Grecian philosophy, and the adoption by the churches
of Greece and of Asia of the institutions of provincial synods of a model
which they borrowed from the representative councils of their respective
countries.

How great was the obstinacy with which the Jewish converts among the early
Christians adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and how fervent
their eagerness to impose them on the Gentiles! Were not the first fifteen
bishops of Jerusalem all circumcised Jews, and had not the congregation
over which they presided united the laws of Moses with the doctrine of
Christ? Is it not a fact that no more than a twentieth part of the
subjects of the Roman Empire had enlisted themselves under the standard of
Christ before the conversion of Constantine? Was not the ruin of the
Temple, in the city of Jerusalem, and of the public religion of the Jews,
severely felt by the so-called Nazarenes, who persevered, above a century,
in the practice of the Mosaic Law?

How striking the contrast when we remember, in the light of the
afore-mentioned facts, the number of those followers of Bahá’u’lláh who,
in Persia and the adjoining countries, had enlisted at the time of His
Ascension as the convinced supporters of His Faith! How encouraging to
observe the undeviating loyalty with which His valiant followers are
guarding the purity and integrity of His clear and unequivocal teachings!
How edifying the spectacle of those who are battling with the forces of a
firmly intrenched orthodoxy in their struggle to emancipate themselves
from the fetters of an outworn creed! How inspiring the conduct of those
Muslim followers of Bahá’u’lláh who view, not with regret or apathy, but
with feelings of unconcealed satisfaction, the deserved chastisement which
the Almighty has inflicted upon those twin institutions of the Sultanate
and the Caliphate, those engines of despotism and sworn enemies of the
Cause of God!



Fundamental Principle of Religious Truth


Let no one, however, mistake my purpose. The Revelation, of which
Bahá’u’lláh is the source and center, abrogates none of the religions that
have preceded it, nor does it attempt, in the slightest degree, to distort
their features or to belittle their value. It disclaims any intention of
dwarfing any of the Prophets of the past, or of whittling down the eternal
verity of their teachings. It can, in no wise, conflict with the spirit
that animates their claims, nor does it seek to undermine the basis of any
man’s allegiance to their cause. Its declared, its primary purpose is to
enable every adherent of these Faiths to obtain a fuller understanding of
the religion with which he stands identified, and to acquire a clearer
apprehension of its purpose. It is neither eclectic in the presentation of
its truths, nor arrogant in the affirmation of its claims. Its teachings
revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not
absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final.
Unequivocally and without the least reservation it proclaims all
established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims,
complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose,
indispensable in their value to mankind.

“All the Prophets of God,” asserts Bahá’u’lláh in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “abide
in the same tabernacle, soar in the same heaven, are seated upon the same
throne, utter the same speech, and proclaim the same Faith.” From the
“beginning that hath no beginning,” these Exponents of the Unity of God
and Channels of His incessant utterance have shed the light of the
invisible Beauty upon mankind, and will continue, to the “end that hath no
end,” to vouchsafe fresh revelations of His might and additional
experiences of His inconceivable glory. To contend that any particular
religion is final, that “all Revelation is ended, that the portals of
Divine mercy are closed, that from the daysprings of eternal holiness no
sun shall rise again, that the ocean of everlasting bounty is forever
stilled, and that out of the Tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of
God have ceased to be made manifest” would indeed be nothing less than
sheer blasphemy.

“They differ,” explains Bahá’u’lláh in that same epistle, “only in the
intensity of their revelation and the comparative potency of their light.”
And this, not by reason of any inherent incapacity of any one of them to
reveal in a fuller measure the glory of the Message with which He has been
entrusted, but rather because of the immaturity and unpreparedness of the
age He lived in to apprehend and absorb the full potentialities latent in
that Faith.

“Know of a certainty,” explains Bahá’u’lláh, “that in every Dispensation
the light of Divine Revelation has been vouchsafed to men in direct
proportion to their spiritual capacity. Consider the sun. How feeble its
rays the moment it appears above the horizon. How gradually its warmth and
potency increase as it approaches its zenith, enabling meanwhile all
created things to adapt themselves to the growing intensity of its light.
How steadily it declines until it reaches its setting point. Were it, all
of a sudden, to manifest the energies latent within it, it would, no
doubt, cause injury to all created things.... In like manner, if the Sun
of Truth were suddenly to reveal, at the earliest stages of its
manifestation, the full measure of the potencies which the providence of
the Almighty has bestowed upon it, the earth of human understanding would
waste away and be consumed; for men’s hearts would neither sustain the
intensity of its revelation, nor be able to mirror forth the radiance of
its light. Dismayed and overpowered, they would cease to exist.”

It is for this reason, and this reason only, that those who have
recognized the Light of God in this age, claim no finality for the
Revelation with which they stand identified, nor arrogate to the Faith
they have embraced powers and attributes intrinsically superior to, or
essentially different from, those which have characterized any of the
religious systems that preceded it.

Does not Bahá’u’lláh Himself allude to the progressiveness of Divine
Revelation and to the limitations which an inscrutable Wisdom has chosen
to impose upon Him? What else can this passage of the Hidden Words imply,
if not that He Who revealed it disclaimed finality for the Revelation
entrusted to Him by the Almighty? “O Son of Justice! In the night-season
the beauty of the immortal Being hath repaired from the emerald height of
fidelity unto the Sadratu’l-Muntahá, and wept with such a weeping that the
concourse on high and the dwellers of the realms above wailed at His
lamenting. Whereupon there was asked, Why the wailing and weeping? He made
reply: As bidden I waited expectant upon the hill of faithfulness, yet
inhaled not from them that dwell on earth the fragrance of fidelity. Then
summoned to return I beheld, and lo! certain doves of holiness were sore
tried within the claws of the dogs of earth. Thereupon the Maid of Heaven
hastened forth, unveiled, and resplendent, from Her mystic mansion, and
asked of their names, and all were told but one. And when urged, the first
Letter thereof was uttered, whereupon the dwellers of the celestial
chambers rushed forth out of their habitation of glory. And whilst the
second letter was pronounced they fell down, one and all, upon the dust.
At that moment a Voice was heard from the inmost shrine: ‘Thus far and no
farther.’ Verily we bear witness to that which they have done and now are
doing.”

“The Revelation of which I am the bearer,” Bahá’u’lláh explicitly
declares, “is adapted to humanity’s spiritual receptiveness and capacity;
otherwise, the Light that shines within me can neither wax nor wane.
Whatever I manifest is nothing more or less than the measure of the Divine
glory which God has bidden me reveal.”

If the Light that is now streaming forth upon an increasingly responsive
humanity with a radiance that bids fair to eclipse the splendor of such
triumphs as the forces of religion have achieved in days past; if the
signs and tokens which proclaimed its advent have been, in many respects,
unique in the annals of past Revelations; if its votaries have evinced
traits and qualities unexampled in the spiritual history of mankind; these
should be attributed not to a superior merit which the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh, as a Revelation isolated and alien from any previous
Dispensation, might possess, but rather should be viewed and explained as
the inevitable outcome of the forces that have made of this present age an
age infinitely more advanced, more receptive, and more insistent to
receive an ampler measure of Divine Guidance than has hitherto been
vouchsafed to mankind.



Necessity for a Fresh Revelation


Dearly beloved friends: Who, contemplating the helplessness, the fears and
miseries of humanity in this day, can any longer question the necessity
for a fresh revelation of the quickening power of God’s redemptive love
and guidance? Who, witnessing on one hand the stupendous advance achieved
in the realm of human knowledge, of power, of skill and inventiveness, and
viewing on the other the unprecedented character of the sufferings that
afflict, and the dangers that beset, present-day society, can be so blind
as to doubt that the hour has at last struck for the advent of a new
Revelation, for a re-statement of the Divine Purpose, and for the
consequent revival of those spiritual forces that have, at fixed
intervals, rehabilitated the fortunes of human society? Does not the very
operation of the world-unifying forces that are at work in this age
necessitate that He Who is the Bearer of the Message of God in this day
should not only reaffirm that self-same exalted standard of individual
conduct inculcated by the Prophets gone before Him, but embody in His
appeal, to all governments and peoples, the essentials of that social
code, that Divine Economy, which must guide humanity’s concerted efforts
in establishing that all-embracing federation which is to signalize the
advent of the Kingdom of God on this earth?

May we not, therefore, recognizing as we do the necessity for such a
revelation of God’s redeeming power, meditate upon the supreme grandeur of
the System unfolded by the hand of Bahá’u’lláh in this day? May we not
pause, pressed though we be by the daily preoccupations which the
ever-widening range of the administrative activities of His Faith must
involve, to reflect upon the sanctity of the responsibilities it is our
privilege to shoulder?



The Station of the Báb


Not only in the character of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, however
stupendous be His claim, does the greatness of this Dispensation reside.
For among the distinguishing features of His Faith ranks, as a further
evidence of its uniqueness, the fundamental truth that in the person of
its Forerunner, the Báb, every follower of Bahá’u’lláh recognizes not
merely an inspired annunciator but a direct Manifestation of God. It is
their firm belief that, no matter how short the duration of His
Dispensation, and however brief the period of the operation of His laws,
the Báb had been endowed with a potency such as no founder of any of the
past religions was, in the providence of the Almighty, allowed to possess.
That He was not merely the precursor of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh,
that He was more than a divinely-inspired personage, that His was the
station of an independent, self-sufficient Manifestation of God, is
abundantly demonstrated by Himself, is affirmed in unmistakable terms by
Bahá’u’lláh, and is finally attested by the Will and Testament of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Nowhere but in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Bahá’u’lláh’s masterly exposition of the
one unifying truth underlying all the Revelations of the past, can we
obtain a clearer apprehension of the potency of those forces inherent in
that Preliminary Manifestation with which His own Faith stands
indissolubly associated. Expatiating upon the unfathomed import of the
signs and tokens that have accompanied the Revelation proclaimed by the
Báb, the promised Qá’im, He recalls these prophetic words: “Knowledge is
twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two
letters thereof. No man thus far hath known more than these two letters.
But when the Qá’im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and
five letters to be made manifest.” “Behold,” adds Bahá’u’lláh, “how great
and lofty is His station!” “Of His Revelation,” He further adds, “the
Prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones, have either not been
informed, or in pursuance of God’s inscrutable Decree, they have not
disclosed.”

And yet, immeasurably exalted as is the station of the Báb, and marvellous
as have been the happenings that have signalized the advent of His Cause,
so wondrous a Revelation cannot but pale before the effulgence of that Orb
of unsurpassed splendor Whose rise He foretold and whose superiority He
readily acknowledged. We have but to turn to the writings of the Báb
Himself in order to estimate the significance of that Quintessence of
Light of which He, with all the majesty of His power, was but its humble
and chosen Precursor.

Again and again the Báb admits, in glowing and unequivocal language, the
préeminent character of a Faith destined to be made manifest after Him and
to supersede His Cause. “The germ,” He asserts in the Persian Bayán, the
chief and best-preserved repository of His laws, “that holds within itself
the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is endowed with a
potency superior to the combined forces of all those who follow me.” “Of
all the tributes,” the Báb repeatedly proclaims in His writings, “I have
paid to Him Who is to come after Me, the greatest is this, My written
confession, that no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any
reference to Him in my Book, the Bayán, do justice to His Cause.”
Addressing Siyyid Yaḥyáy-i-Darábí, surnamed Vahíd, the most learned and
influential among his followers, He says: “By the righteousness of Him
Whose power causeth the seed to germinate and Who breatheth the spirit of
life into all things, were I to be assured that in the day of His
Manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly disown thee and
repudiate thy faith.... If, on the other hand, I be told that a Christian,
who beareth no allegiance to My Faith, will believe in Him, the same will
I regard as the apple of Mine eye.”



The Outpouring of Divine Grace


“If all the peoples of the world,” Bahá’u’lláh Himself affirms, “be
invested with the powers and attributes destined for the Letters of the
Living, the chosen disciples of the Báb, whose station is ten thousand
times more glorious than any which the apostles of old have attained, and
if they, one and all, should, swift as the twinkling of an eye, hesitate
to recognize the Light of my Revelation, their faith shall be of no avail,
and they shall be accounted among the infidels.” “So tremendous,” He
writes, “is the outpouring of Divine grace in this Dispensation that if
mortal hands could be swift enough to record them, within the space of a
single day and night, there would stream verses of such number as to be
equivalent to the whole of the Persian Bayán.”

Such, dearly-beloved friends, is the effusion of celestial grace
vouchsafed by the Almighty to this age, this most illumined century! We
stand too close to so colossal a Revelation to expect in this, the first
century of its era, to arrive at a just estimate of its towering grandeur,
its infinite possibilities, its transcendent beauty. Small though our
present numbers may be, however limited our capacities, or circumscribed
our influence, we, into whose hands so pure, so tender, so precious a
heritage has been entrusted, should at all times strive, with unrelaxing
vigilance, to abstain from any thoughts, words, or deeds, that might tend
to dim its brilliance, or injure its growth. How tremendous our
responsibility; how delicate and laborious our task!

Dear friends: Clear and emphatic as are the instructions which our
departed Master has reiterated in countless Tablets bequeathed by Him to
His followers throughout the world, a few, owing to the restricted
influence of the Cause in the West, have been purposely withheld from the
body of His occidental disciples, who, despite their numerical
inferiority, are now exercising such a preponderating influence in the
direction and administration of its affairs. I feel it, therefore,
incumbent upon me to stress, now that the time is ripe, the importance of
an instruction which, at the present stage of the evolution of our Faith,
should be increasingly emphasized, irrespective of its application to the
East or to the West. And this principle is no other than that which
involves the non-participation by the adherents of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh, whether in their individual capacities or collectively as
local or national Assemblies, in any form of activity that might be
interpreted, either directly or indirectly, as an interference in the
political affairs of any particular government. Whether it be in the
publications which they initiate and supervise; or in their official and
public deliberations; or in the posts they occupy and the services they
render; or in the communications they address to their fellow-disciples;
or in their dealings with men of eminence and authority; or in their
affiliations with kindred societies and organizations, it is, I am firmly
convinced, their first and sacred obligation to abstain from any word or
deed that might be construed as a violation of this vital principle.
Theirs is the duty to demonstrate, on one hand, the nonpolitical character
of their Faith, and to assert, on the other, their unqualified loyalty and
obedience to whatever is the considered judgment of their respective
governments.



The Divine Polity


Let them refrain from associating themselves, whether by word or by deed,
with the political pursuits of their respective nations, with the policies
of their governments and the schemes and programs of parties and factions.
In such controversies they should assign no blame, take no side, further
no design, and identify themselves with no system prejudicial to the best
interests of that world-wide Fellowship which it is their aim to guard and
foster. Let them beware lest they allow themselves to become the tools of
unscrupulous politicians, or to be entrapped by the treacherous devices of
the plotters and the perfidious among their countrymen. Let them so shape
their lives and regulate their conduct that no charge of secrecy, of
fraud, of bribery or of intimidation may, however ill-founded, be brought
against them. Let them rise above all particularism and partisanship,
above the vain disputes, the petty calculations, the transient passions
that agitate the face, and engage the attention, of a changing world. It
is their duty to strive to distinguish, as clearly as they possibly can,
and if needed with the aid of their elected representatives, such posts
and functions as are either diplomatic or political from those that are
purely administrative in character, and which under no circumstances are
affected by the changes and chances that political activities and party
government, in every land, must necessarily involve. Let them affirm their
unyielding determination to stand, firmly and unreservedly, for the way of
Bahá’u’lláh, to avoid the entanglements and bickerings inseparable from
the pursuits of the politician, and to become worthy agencies of that
Divine Polity which incarnates God’s immutable Purpose for all men.

It should be made unmistakably clear that such an attitude implies neither
the slightest indifference to the cause and interests of their own
country, nor involves any insubordination on their part to the authority
of recognized and established governments. Nor does it constitute a
repudiation of their sacred obligation to promote, in the most effective
manner, the best interests of their government and people. It indicates
the desire cherished by every true and loyal follower of Bahá’u’lláh to
serve, in an unselfish, unostentatious and patriotic fashion, the highest
interests of the country to which he belongs, and in a way that would
entail no departure from the high standards of integrity and truthfulness
associated with the teachings of his Faith.

As the number of the Bahá’í communities in various parts of the world
multiplies and their power, as a social force, becomes increasingly
apparent, they will no doubt find themselves increasingly subjected to the
pressure which men of authority and influence, in the political domain,
will exercise in the hope of obtaining the support they require for the
advancement of their aims. These communities will, moreover, feel a
growing need of the good-will and the assistance of their respective
governments in their efforts to widen the scope, and to consolidate the
foundations, of the institutions committed to their charge. Let them
beware lest, in their eagerness to further the aims of their beloved
Cause, they should be led unwittingly to bargain with their Faith, to
compromise with their essential principles, or to sacrifice, in return for
any material advantage which their institutions may derive, the integrity
of their spiritual ideals. Let them proclaim that in whatever country they
reside, and however advanced their institutions, or profound their desire
to enforce the laws, and apply the principles, enunciated by Bahá’u’lláh,
they will, unhesitatingly, subordinate the operation of such laws and the
application of such principles to the requirements and legal enactments of
their respective governments. Theirs is not the purpose, while endeavoring
to conduct and perfect the administrative affairs of their Faith, to
violate, under any circumstances, the provisions of their country’s
constitution, much less to allow the machinery of their administration to
supersede the government of their respective countries.

It should also be borne in mind that the very extension of the activities
in which we are engaged, and the variety of the communities which labor
under divers forms of government, so essentially different in their
standards, policies, and methods, make it absolutely essential for all
those who are the declared members of any one of these communities to
avoid any action that might, by arousing the suspicion or exciting the
antagonism of any one government, involve their brethren in fresh
persecutions or complicate the nature of their task. How else, might I
ask, could such a far-flung Faith, which transcends political and social
boundaries, which includes within its pale so great a variety of races and
nations, which will have to rely increasingly, as it forges ahead, on the
good-will and support of the diversified and contending governments of the
earth—how else could such a Faith succeed in preserving its unity, in
safeguarding its interests, and in ensuring the steady and peaceful
development of its institutions?

Such an attitude, however, is not dictated by considerations of selfish
expediency, but is actuated, first and foremost, by the broad principle
that the followers of Bahá’u’lláh will, under no circumstances, suffer
themselves to be involved, whether as individuals or in their collective
capacities, in matters that would entail the slightest departure from the
fundamental verities and ideals of their Faith. Neither the charges which
the uninformed and the malicious may be led to bring against them, nor the
allurements of honors and rewards, will ever induce them to surrender
their trust or to deviate from their path. Let their words proclaim, and
their conduct testify, that they who follow Bahá’u’lláh, in whatever land
they reside, are actuated by no selfish ambition, that they neither thirst
for power, nor mind any wave of unpopularity, of distrust or criticism,
which a strict adherence to their standards might provoke.

Difficult and delicate though be our task, the sustaining power of
Bahá’u’lláh and of His Divine guidance will assuredly assist us if we
follow steadfastly in His way, and strive to uphold the integrity of His
laws. The light of His redeeming grace, which no earthly power can
obscure, will if we persevere, illuminate our path, as we steer our course
amid the snares and pitfalls of a troubled age, and will enable us to
discharge our duties in a manner that would redound to the glory and the
honor of His blessed Name.



Our Beloved Temple


And finally, dearly-beloved brethren, let me once more direct your
attention to the pressing claims of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár, our beloved
Temple. Need I remind you of the imperative necessity of carrying out to a
successful conclusion, while there is yet time, the great enterprise to
which, before the eyes of a watching world, we stand committed? Need I
stress the great damage which further delay in the prosecution of this
divinely-appointed task must, even in these critical and unforeseen
circumstances, inflict upon the prestige of our beloved Cause? I am, I can
assure you, acutely conscious of the stringency of the circumstances with
which you are faced, the embarrassments under which you labor, the cares
with which you are burdened, the pressing urgency of the demands that are
being incessantly made upon your depleted resources. I am, however, still
more profoundly aware of the unprecedented character of the opportunity
which it is your privilege to seize and utilize. I am aware of the
incalculable blessings that must await the termination of a collective
enterprise which, by the range and quality of the sacrifices it entailed,
deserves to be ranked among the most outstanding examples of Bahá’í
solidarity ever since those deeds of brilliant heroism immortalized the
memory of the heroes of Nayríz, of Zanján, and of Tabarsí. I appeal to
you, therefore, friends and fellow-disciples of Bahá’u’lláh, for a more
abundant measure of self-sacrifice, for a higher standard of concerted
effort, for a still more compelling evidence of the reality of the faith
that glows within you.

And in this fervent plea, my voice is once more reinforced by the
passionate, and perhaps, the last, entreaty, of the Greatest Holy Leaf,
whose spirit, now hovering on the edge of the Great Beyond, longs to carry
on its flight to the Abhá Kingdom, and into the presence of a Divine, an
almighty Father, an assurance of the joyous consummation of an enterprise,
the progress of which has so greatly brightened the closing days of her
earthly life. That the American believers, those stout-hearted pioneers of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, will unanimously respond, with that same
spontaneous generosity, that same measure of self-sacrifice, as have
characterized their response to her appeals in the past, no one who is
familiar with the vitality of their faith can possibly question.

Would to God that by the end of the spring of the year 1933 the multitudes
who, from the remote corners of the globe, will throng the grounds of the
Great Fair to be held in the neighborhood of that hallowed shrine may, as
a result of your sustained spirit of self-sacrifice, be privileged to gaze
on the arrayed splendor of its dome—a dome that shall stand as a flaming
beacon and a symbol of hope amidst the gloom of a despairing world.

Your true brother,
SHOGHI

Haifa, Palestine,
March 21, 1932



AMERICA AND THE MOST GREAT PEACE



America and the Most Great Peace


To the beloved of the Lord and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout
the United States and Canada.

Friends and fellow-promoters of the Faith of God:

Forty years will have elapsed ere the close of this coming summer since
the name of Bahá’u’lláh was first mentioned on the American continent.
Strange indeed must appear to every observer, pondering in his heart the
significance of so great a landmark in the spiritual history of the great
American Republic, the circumstances which have attended this first public
reference to the Author of our beloved Faith. Stranger still must seem the
associations which the brief words uttered on that historic occasion must
have evoked in the minds of those who heard them.

Of pomp and circumstance, of any manifestations of public rejoicing or of
popular applause, there were none to greet this first intimation(1) to
America’s citizens of the existence and purpose of the Revelation
proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh. Nor did he who was its chosen instrument
profess himself a believer in the indwelling potency of the tidings he
conveyed, or suspect the magnitude of the forces which so cursory a
mention was destined to release.

Announced through the mouth of an avowed supporter of that narrow
ecclesiasticism which the Faith itself has challenged and seeks to
extirpate, characterized at the moment of its birth as an obscure offshoot
of a contemptible creed, the Message of the Most Great Name, fed by
streams of unceasing trial and warmed by the sunshine of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
tender care, has succeeded in driving its roots deep into America’s genial
soil, has in less than half a century sent out its shoots and tendrils as
far as the remotest corners of the globe, and now stands, clothed in the
majesty of the consecrated Edifice it has reared in the heart of that
continent, determined to proclaim its right and vindicate its capacity to
redeem a stricken people. Unsupported by any of the advantages which
talent, rank and riches can confer, the community of the American
believers, despite its tender age, its numerical strength, its limited
experience, has by virtue of the inspired wisdom, the united will, the
incorruptible loyalty of its administrators and teachers achieved the
distinction of an undisputed leadership among its sister communities of
East and West in hastening the advent of the Golden Age anticipated by
Bahá’u’lláh.

And yet how grave the crises which this infant, this blessed, community
has weathered in the course of its checkered history! How slow and painful
the process that gradually brought it forth from the obscurity of
unmitigated neglect to the broad daylight of public recognition! How
severe the shocks which the ranks of its devoted adherents have sustained
through the defection of the faint in heart, the malice of the
mischief-maker, the treachery of the proud and the ambitious! What storms
of ridicule, of abuse and of calumny its representatives have had to face
in their staunch support of the integrity, and their valiant defense of
the fair name, of the Faith they had espoused! How persistent the
vicissitudes and disconcerting the reverses with which its privileged
members, young and old alike, individually and collectively, have had to
contend in their heroic endeavors to scale the heights which a loving
Master had summoned them to attain!

Many and powerful have been its enemies who, as soon as they discovered
the evidences of the growing ascendancy of its declared supporters, have
vied with one another in hurling at its face the vilest imputations and in
pouring out upon the Object of its devotion the vials of their fiercest
wrath. How often have these sneered at the scantiness of its resources and
the seeming stagnation of its life! How bitterly they ridiculed its
origins and, misconceiving its purpose, dismissed it as a useless
appendage of an expiring creed! Have they not in their written attacks
stigmatized the heroic person of the Forerunner of so holy a Revelation as
a coward recanter, a perverted apostate, and denounced the entire range of
His voluminous writings as the idle chatter of a thoughtless man? Have
they not chosen to ascribe to its divine Founder the basest motives which
an unscrupulous plotter and usurper can conceive, and regarded the Center
of His Covenant as the embodiment of ruthless tyranny, a stirrer of
mischief, and a notorious exponent of expediency and fraud? Its
world-unifying principles these impotent enemies of a steadily-rising
Faith have time and again denounced as fundamentally defective, have
pronounced its all-embracing program as utterly fantastic, and regarded
its vision of the future as chimerical and positively deceitful. The
fundamental verities that constitute its doctrine its foolish ill-wishers
have represented as a cloak of idle dogma, its administrative machinery
they have refused to differentiate from the soul of the Faith itself, and
the mysteries it reveres and upholds they have identified with sheer
superstition. The principle of unification which it advocates and with
which it stands identified they have misconceived as a shallow attempt at
uniformity, its repeated assertions of the reality of supernatural
agencies they have condemned as a vain belief in magic, and the glory of
its idealism they have rejected as mere utopia. Every process of
purification whereby an inscrutable Wisdom chose from time to time to
purge the body of His chosen followers of the defilement of the
undesirable and the unworthy, these victims of an unrelenting jealousy
have hailed as a symptom of the invading forces of schism which were soon
to sap its strength, vitiate its vitality, and complete its ruin.

Dearly-beloved friends! It is not for me, nor does it seem within the
competence of any one of the present generation, to trace the exact and
full history of the rise and gradual consolidation of this invincible arm,
this mighty organ, of a continually advancing Cause. It would be premature
at this early stage of its evolution, to attempt an exhaustive analysis,
or to arrive at a just estimate, of the impelling forces that have urged
it forward to occupy so exalted a place among the various instruments
which the Hand of Omnipotence has fashioned, and is now perfecting, for
the execution of His divine Purpose. Future historians of this mighty
Revelation, endowed with pens abler than any which its present-day
supporters can claim to possess, will no doubt transmit to posterity a
masterly exposition of the origins of those forces which, through a
remarkable swing of the pendulum, have caused the administrative center of
the Faith to gravitate, away from its cradle, to the shores of the
American continent and towards its very heart—the present mainspring and
chief bulwark of its fast evolving institutions. On them will devolve the
task of recording the history, and of estimating the significance, of so
radical a revolution in the fortunes of a slowly maturing Faith. Theirs
will be the opportunity to extol the virtues and to immortalize the memory
of those men and women who have participated in its accomplishment. Theirs
will be the privilege of evaluating the share which each of these
champion-builders of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh has had in ushering in
that golden Millennium, the promise of which lies enshrined in His
teachings.

Does not the history of primitive Christianity and of the rise of Islám,
each in its own way, offer a striking parallel to this strange phenomenon
the beginnings of which we are now witnessing in this, the first century
of the Bahá’í Era? Has not the Divine Impulse which gave birth to each of
these great religious systems been driven, through the operation of those
forces which the irresistible growth of the Faith itself had released, to
seek away from the land of its birth and in more propitious climes a ready
field and a more adequate medium for the incarnation of its spirit and the
propagation of its cause? Have not the Asiatic churches of Jerusalem, of
Antioch and of Alexandria, consisting chiefly of those Jewish converts,
whose character and temperament inclined them to sympathize with the
traditional ceremonies of the Mosaic Dispensation, been forced as they
steadily declined to recognize the growing ascendancy of their Greek and
Roman brethren? Have they not been compelled to acknowledge the superior
valor and the trained efficiency which have enabled these standard-bearers
of the Cause of Jesus Christ to erect the symbols of His world-wide
dominion on the ruins of a collapsing Empire? Has not the animating spirit
of Islám been constrained, under the pressure of similar circumstances, to
abandon the inhospitable wastes of its Arabian Home, the theatre of its
greatest sufferings and exploits, to yield in a distant land the fairest
fruit of its slowly maturing civilization?

“From the beginning of time until the present day,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself
affirms, “the light of Divine Revelation hath risen in the East and shed
its radiance upon the West. The illumination thus shed hath, however,
acquired in the West an extraordinary brilliancy. Consider the Faith
proclaimed by Jesus. Though it first appeared in the East, yet not until
its light had been shed upon the West did the full measure of its
potentialities become manifest.” “The day is approaching,” He, in another
passage, assures us, “when ye shall witness how, through the splendor of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, the West will have replaced the East, radiating
the light of Divine Guidance.” “In the books of the Prophets,” He again
asserts, “certain glad-tidings are recorded which are absolutely true and
free from doubt. The East hath ever been the dawning-place of the Sun of
Truth. In the East all the Prophets of God have appeared ...The West hath
acquired illumination from the East but in some respects the reflection of
the light hath been greater in the Occident. This is specially true of
Christianity. Jesus Christ appeared in Palestine and His teachings were
founded in that country. Although the doors of the Kingdom were first
opened in that land and the bestowals of God were spread broadcast from
its center, the people of the West have embraced and promulgated
Christianity more fully than the people of the East.”

Little wonder that from the same unerring pen there should have flowed,
after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s memorable visit to the West, these often-quoted
words, the significance of which it would be impossible for me to
overrate: “The continent of America,” He announced in a Tablet unveiling
His Divine Plan to the believers residing in the North-Eastern States of
the American Republic, “is in the eyes of the one true God the land
wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed, where the mysteries
of His Faith shall be unveiled, where the righteous will abide and the
free assemble.” “May this American democracy,” He Himself, while in
America, was heard to remark, “be the first nation to establish the
foundation of international agreement. May it be the first nation to
proclaim the unity of mankind. May it be the first to unfurl the standard
of the ‘Most Great Peace’... The American people are indeed worthy of
being the first to build the tabernacle of the great peace and proclaim
the oneness of mankind... May America become the distributing center of
spiritual enlightenment and all the world receive this heavenly blessing.
For America has developed powers and capacities greater and more wonderful
than other nations... May the inhabitants of this country become like
angels of heaven with faces turned continually toward God. May all of them
become servants of the omnipotent One. May they rise from their present
material attainments to such a height that heavenly illumination may
stream from this center to all the peoples of the world... This American
nation is equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will adorn the
pages of history, to become the envy of the world and be blest in both the
East and the West for the triumph of its people... The American continent
gives signs and evidences of very great advancement. Its future is even
more promising, for its influence and illumination are far-reaching. It
will lead all nations spiritually.”

Would it seem extravagant, in the light of so sublime an utterance, to
expect that in the midst of so enviable a region of the earth and out of
the agony and wreckage of an unprecedented crisis there should burst forth
a spiritual renaissance which, as it propagates itself through the
instrumentality of the American believers, will rehabilitate the fortunes
of a decadent age? It was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself, His most intimate
associates testify, Who, on more than one occasion, intimated that the
establishment of His Father’s Faith in the North American continent ranked
as the most outstanding among the threefold aims which, as He conceived
it, constituted the principal objective of His ministry. It was He Who, in
the heyday of His life and almost immediately after His Father’s
ascension, conceived the idea of inaugurating His mission by enlisting the
inhabitants of so promising a country under the banner of Bahá’u’lláh. He
it was Who in His unerring wisdom and out of the abundance of His heart
chose to bestow on His favored disciples, to the very last day of His
life, the tokens of His unfailing solicitude and to overwhelm them with
the marks of His special favor. It was He Who, in His declining years, as
soon as delivered from the shackles of a long and cruel incarceration,
decided to visit the land which had remained for so many years the object
of His infinite care and love. It was He Who, through the power of His
presence and the charm of His utterance, infused into the entire body of
His followers those sentiments and principles which could alone sustain
them amidst the trials which the very prosecution of their task would
inevitably engender. Was He not, through the several functions which He
exercised whilst He dwelt amongst them, whether in the laying of the
corner-stone of their House of Worship, or in the Feast which He offered
them and at which He chose to serve them in person, or in the emphasis
which He on a more solemn occasion placed on the implications of His
spiritual station—was He not, thereby, deliberately bequeathing to them
all the essentials of that spiritual heritage which He knew they would
ably safeguard and by their deeds continually enrich? And finally who can
doubt that in the Divine Plan which, in the evening of His life, He
unveiled to their eyes He was investing them with that spiritual primacy
on which they could rely in the fulfillment of their high destiny?

“O ye apostles of Bahá’u’lláh!” He thus addresses them in one of His
Tablets, “May my life be sacrificed for you!... Behold the portals which
Bahá’u’lláh hath opened before you! Consider how exalted and lofty is the
station you are destined to attain; how unique the favors with which you
have been endowed.” “My thoughts,” He tells them in another passage, “are
turned towards you, and my heart leaps within me at your mention. Could ye
know how my soul glows with your love, so great a happiness would flood
your hearts as to cause you to become enamored with each other.” “The full
measure of your success,” He declares in another Tablet, “is as yet
unrevealed, its significance still unapprehended. Ere long ye will, with
your own eyes, witness how brilliantly every one of you, even as a shining
star, will radiate in the firmament of your country the light of Divine
Guidance and will bestow upon its people the glory of an everlasting
life.” “The range of your future achievements,” He once more affirms,
“still remains undisclosed. I fervently hope that in the near future the
whole earth may be stirred and shaken by the results of your
achievements.” “The Almighty,” He assures them, “will no doubt grant you
the help of His grace, will invest you with the tokens of His might, and
will endue your souls with the sustaining power of His holy Spirit.” “Be
not concerned,” He admonishes them, “with the smallness of your numbers,
neither be oppressed by the multitude of an unbelieving world... Exert
yourselves; your mission is unspeakably glorious. Should success crown
your enterprise, America will assuredly evolve into a center from which
waves of spiritual power will emanate, and the throne of the Kingdom of
God will, in the plentitude of its majesty and glory, be firmly
established.”

“The hope which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá cherishes for you,” He thus urges them, “is
that the same success which has attended your efforts in America may crown
your endeavors in other parts of the world, that through you the fame of
the Cause of God may be diffused throughout the East and the West and the
advent of the Kingdom of the Lord of Hosts be proclaimed in all the five
continents of the globe... Thus far ye have been untiring in your labors.
Let your exertions, henceforth, increase a thousandfold. Summon the people
in these countries, capitals, islands, assemblies and churches to enter
the Abhá Kingdom. The scope of your exertions must needs be extended. The
wider its range, the more striking will be the evidences of Divine
assistance... Oh! that I could travel, even though on foot and in the
utmost poverty, to these regions and, raising the call of Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá
in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans, promote the Divine
teachings! This, alas, I cannot do! How intensely I deplore it! Please
God, ye may achieve it.” And finally, as if to crown all His previous
utterances, is this solemn affirmation embodying His Vision of America’s
spiritual destiny: “The moment this Divine Message is carried forward by
the American believers from the shores of America and is propagated
through the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia,
and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself
securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion. Then will
all the peoples of the world witness that this community is spiritually
illumined and divinely guided. Then will the whole earth resound with the
praises of its majesty and greatness.”

It is in the light of these above-quoted words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that every
thoughtful and conscientious believer should ponder the significance of
this momentous utterance of Bahá’u’lláh: “In the East the light of His
Revelation hath broken; in the West have appeared the signs of His
dominion. Ponder this in your hearts, O people, and be not of those who
have turned a deaf ear to the admonitions of Him Who is the Almighty, the
All-Praised... Should they attempt to conceal its light on the continent,
it will assuredly rear its head in the midmost heart of the ocean, and,
raising its voice, proclaim: ‘I am the life-giver of the world!’”

Dearly-beloved friends! Can our eyes be so dim as to fail to recognize in
the anguish and turmoil which, greater than in any other country and in a
manner unprecedented in its history, are now afflicting the American
nation, evidences of the beginnings of that spiritual renaissance which
these pregnant words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so clearly foreshadow? The throes and
twinges of agony which the soul of a nation in travail is now beginning to
experience abundantly proclaim it. Contrast the sad plight of the nations
of the earth, and in particular this great Republic of the West, with the
rising fortunes of that handful of its citizens, whose mission, if they be
faithful to their trust, is to heal its wounds, restore its confidence and
revive its shattered hopes. Contrast the dreadful convulsions, the
internecine conflicts, the petty disputes, the outworn controversies, the
interminable revolutions that agitate the masses, with the calm new light
of Peace and of Truth which envelops, guides and sustains those valiant
inheritors of the law and love of Bahá’u’lláh. Compare the disintegrating
institutions, the discredited statesmanship, the exploded theories, the
appalling degradation, the follies and furies, the shifts, shams and
compromises that characterize the present age, with the steady
consolidation, the holy discipline, the unity and cohesiveness, the
assured conviction, the uncompromising loyalty, the heroic self-sacrifice
that constitute the hallmark of these faithful stewards and harbingers of
the golden age of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh.

Small wonder that these prophetic words should have been revealed by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “The East,” He assures us, “hath verily been illumined with
the light of the Kingdom. Ere long will this same light shed a still
greater illumination upon the West. Then will the hearts of its people be
vivified through the potency of the teachings of God and their souls be
set aglow by the undying fire of His love.” “The prestige of the Faith of
God,” He asserts, “has immensely increased. Its greatness is now manifest.
The day is approaching when it will have cast a tremendous tumult in men’s
hearts. Rejoice, therefore, O denizens of America, rejoice with exceeding
gladness!”

Most prized and best-beloved brethren! As we look back upon the forty
years which have passed since the auspicious rays of the Bahá’í Revelation
first warmed and illuminated the American continent we find that they may
well fall into four distinct periods, each culminating in an event of such
significance as to constitute a milestone along the road leading the
American believers towards their promised victory. The first of these four
decades (1893–1903), characterized by a process of slow and steady
fermentation, may be said to have culminated in the historic pilgrimages
undertaken by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s American disciples to the shrine of
Bahá’u’lláh. The ten years which followed (1903–1913), so full of the
tests and trials which agitated, cleansed and energized the body of the
earliest pioneers of the Faith in that land, had as their happy climax
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s memorable visit to America. The third period (1913–1923), a
period of quiet and uninterrupted consolidation, had as its inevitable
result the birth of that divinely-appointed Administration, the
foundations of which the Will of a departed Master had unmistakably
established. The remaining ten years (1923–1933), distinguished throughout
by further internal development, as well as by a notable expansion of the
international activities of a growing community, witnessed the completion
of the superstructure of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—the Administration’s
mighty bulwark, the symbol of its strength and the sign of its future
glory.

Each of these successive periods would seem to have contributed its
distinct share in enriching the spiritual life of that community, and in
preparing its members for the discharge of the tremendous responsibilities
of their unique mission. The pilgrimages which its foremost
representatives were moved to undertake in that earliest period of its
history fired the souls of its members with a love and zeal which no
amount of adversity could quench. The tests and tribulations it
subsequently suffered enabled those who survived them to obtain a grasp of
the implications of their faith that no opposition, however determined and
well-organized, could ever hope to weaken. The institutions which its
tried and tested adherents later on established furnished their promoters
with that poise and stability which the increase of their numbers and the
ceaseless extension of their activities urgently demanded. And finally the
Temple which the exponents of an already firmly established Administration
were inspired to erect gave them the vision which neither the storms of
internal disorder nor the whirlwinds of international commotion could
possibly obscure.

It would take me too long to attempt even a brief description of the first
stirrings which the introduction of the Bahá’í Revelation into the New
World, as conceived, initiated and directed by our beloved Master,
immediately created. Nor does space permit me to narrate the circumstances
attending the epoch-making visit of the first American pilgrims to
Bahá’u’lláh’s hallowed shrine, to relate the deeds which signalized the
return of these bearers of a new-born Gospel to their native country, or
to assess the immediate consequences of their achievements. No word of
mine would suffice to express how instantly the revelation of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s hopes, expectations and purpose for an awakened continent,
electrified the minds and hearts of those who were privileged to hear Him,
who were made the recipients of His inestimable blessings and the chosen
repositories of His confidence and trust. I can never hope to interpret
adequately the feelings that surged within those heroic hearts as they sat
at their Master’s feet, beneath the shelter of His prison-house, eager to
absorb and intent to preserve the effusions of His divine Wisdom. I can
never pay sufficient tribute to that spirit of unyielding determination
which the impact of a magnetic personality and the spell of a mighty
utterance kindled in the entire company of these returning pilgrims, these
consecrated heralds of the Covenant of God, at so decisive an epoch of
their history. The memory of such names as Lua, Chase, MacNutt, Dealy,
Goodall, Dodge, Farmer and Brittingham—to mention only a few of that
immortal galaxy now gathered to the glory of Bahá’u’lláh—will for ever
remain associated with the rise and establishment of His Faith in the
American continent, and will continue to shed on its annals a lustre that
time can never dim.

It was through these pilgrimages, as they succeeded one another in the
years immediately following the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh, that the
splendor of the Covenant, beclouded for a time by the apparent ascendancy
of its Arch-Breaker, emerged triumphant amidst the vicissitudes which had
afflicted it. It was through the arrival of these pilgrims, and these
alone, that the gloom which had enveloped the disconsolate members of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s family was finally dispelled. Through the agency of these
successive visitors the Greatest Holy Leaf, who alone with her Brother
among the members of her Father’s household had to confront the rebellion
of almost the entire company of her relatives and associates, found that
consolation which so powerfully sustained her till the very close of her
life. By the forces which this little band of returning pilgrims was able
to release in the heart of that continent the death-knell of every scheme
initiated by the would-be wrecker of the Cause of God was sounded.

The Tablets which were subsequently revealed by the untiring pen of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, embodying in passionate and unequivocal language His
instructions and counsels, His appeals and comments, His hopes and wishes,
His fears and warnings, soon began to be translated, published and
circulated throughout the length and breadth of the North American
continent, providing the ever-widening circle of the first believers with
that spiritual sustenance which could alone enable them to survive the
severe trials they were soon to experience.

The hour of an unprecedented crisis was, however, inexorably approaching.
Evidences of dissension, actuated by pride and ambition, were beginning to
obscure the radiance and retard the growth of the newly-born community
which the apostolic teachers of that continent had labored to establish.
He who had been instrumental in inaugurating so splendid an era in the
history of the Faith, on whom the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant had
conferred the titles of “Bahá’s Peter,” of the “Shepherd of God’s Flocks,”
of the “Conqueror of America,” upon whom had been bestowed the unique
privilege of helping ‘Abdu’l-Bahá lay the foundation-stone of the Báb’s
Mausoleum on Mt. Carmel—such a man, blinded by his extraordinary success
and aspiring after an uncontrolled domination over the beliefs and
activities of his fellow-disciples, insolently raised the standard of
revolt. Seceding from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and allying himself with the Arch-Enemy
of the Faith of God, this deluded apostate sought, by perverting the
teachings and directing a campaign of unrelenting vilification against the
person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to undermine the faith of those believers whom he
had during no less than eight years, so strenuously toiled to convert. By
the tracts he published, through the active collaboration of the
emissaries of his chief Ally, and reinforced by the efforts which the
Christian ecclesiastical enemies of the Bahá’í Revelation were beginning
to exert, he succeeded in dealing the nascent Faith of God a blow from
which it could only slowly and painfully recover.

I need not dwell on the immediate effects of this serious yet transitory
cleavage in the ranks of the American adherents of the Cause of
Bahá’u’lláh. Nor do I need to expatiate on the character of the defamatory
writings that poured upon them. Nor does it seem necessary to recount the
measures to which an ever-vigilant Master resorted in order to assuage and
eventually to dissipate their apprehensions. It is for the future
historian to appraise the value of the mission of each of the four chosen
messengers of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who, in rapid succession, were dispatched by
Him to pacify and reinvigorate that troubled community. His will be the
task of tracing, in the work which these deputies of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were
commissioned to undertake, the beginnings of that vast Administration, the
corner-stone of which these messengers were instructed to lay—an
Administration whose symbolic Edifice He, at a later time, was to found in
person and whose basis and scope the provisions of His Will were destined
to widen.

Suffice it to say that at this stage of its evolution the activities of an
invincible Faith had assumed such dimensions as to force on the one hand
its enemies to devise fresh weapons for their projected assaults, and on
the other to encourage its supreme Promoter to instruct its followers,
through qualified representatives and teachers, in the rudiments of an
Administration which, as it evolved, would at once incarnate, safeguard
and foster its spirit. The works of such stubborn assailants as those of
Vatralsky, Wilson, Jessup and Richardson vie with one another in their
futile attempts to stain its purity, to arrest its march and compel its
surrender. To the charges of Nihilism, of heresy, of Muḥammadan
Gnosticism, of immorality, of Occultism and Communism so freely leveled
against them, the undismayed victims of such outrageous denunciations,
acting under the instructions of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, retorted by initiating a
series of activities which by their very nature were to be the precursors
of permanent, officially recognized administrative institutions. The
inauguration of Chicago’s first House of Spirituality designated by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá as that city’s “House of Justice”; the establishment of the
Bahá’í Publishing Society; the founding of the Green Acre Fellowship; the
publication of the Star of the West; the holding of the first Bahá’í
National Convention, synchronizing with the transference of the sacred
remains of the Báb to its final resting-place on Mt. Carmel; the
incorporation of the Bahá’í Temple Unity and the formation of the
Executive Committee of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—these stand out as the
most conspicuous accomplishments of the American believers which have
immortalized the memory of the most turbulent period of their history.
Launched through these very acts into the troublesome seas of ceaseless
tribulation, piloted by the mighty arm of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and manned by the
bold initiative and abundant vitality of a band of sorely-tried disciples,
the Ark of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant has, ever since those days, been
steadily pursuing its course contemptuous of the storms of bitter
misfortune that have raged, and which must continue to assail it, as it
forges ahead towards the promised haven of undisturbed security and peace.

Unsatisfied with the achievements which crowned the concerted efforts of
their elected representatives within the American continent, and
emboldened by the initial success of their pioneer teachers, beyond its
confines, in Great Britain, France and Germany, the community of the
American believers resolved to win in distant climes fresh recruits to the
advancing army of Bahá’u’lláh. Setting out from the western shores of
their native land and impelled by the indomitable energy of a new-born
faith, these itinerant teachers of the Gospel of Bahá’u’lláh pushed on
towards the islands of the Pacific, and as far as China and Japan,
determined to establish beyond the farthest seas the outposts of their
beloved Faith. Both at home and abroad this community had by that time
demonstrated its capacity to widen the range and consolidate the
foundations of its vast endeavors. The angry voices that had been raised
in protest against its rise were being drowned amid the acclamations with
which the East greeted its recent victories. Those ugly features that had
loomed so threateningly were gradually receding into the distance,
furnishing a still wider field to these noble warriors for the exercise of
their latent energies.

The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh in the continent of America had indeed been
resuscitated. Phoenix-like it had risen in all its freshness, vigor and
beauty and was now, through the voice of its triumphant exponents,
insistingly calling to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, imploring Him to undertake a journey
to its shores. The first fruits of the mission entrusted to its worthy
upholders had lent such poignancy to their call that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who had
just been delivered from the fetters of a galling tyranny, found Himself
unable to resist. His great, His incomparable, love for His own favored
children impelled Him to respond. Their passionate entreaty had, moreover,
been reinforced by the numerous invitations which representatives of
various interested organizations, whether religious, educational or
humanitarian, had extended to Him, expressing their eagerness to receive
from His own mouth an exposition of His Father’s teachings.

Though bent with age, though suffering from ailments resulting from the
accumulated cares of fifty years of exile and captivity, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá set
out on His memorable journey across the seas to the land where He might
bless by His presence, and sanctify through His deeds, the mighty acts His
spirit had led His disciples to perform. The circumstances that have
attended His triumphal progress through the chief cities of the United
States and Canada my pen is utterly incapable of describing. The joys
which the announcement of His arrival evoked, the publicity which His
activities created, the forces which His utterances released, the
opposition which the implications of His teachings excited, the
significant episodes to which His words and deeds continually gave
rise—these future generations will, no doubt, minutely and befittingly
register. They will carefully delineate their features, will cherish and
preserve their memory, and will transmit unimpaired the record of their
minutest details to their descendants. It would indeed be presumptuous on
our part to attempt, at the present time, to sketch even the bare outline
of so vast, so enthralling a theme. Contemplating after the lapse of above
twenty years this notable landmark in America’s spiritual history we still
find ourselves compelled to confess our inability to grasp its import or
to fathom its mystery. I have alluded in the preceding pages to a few of
the more salient features of that never-to-be-forgotten visit. These
incidents, as we look back upon them, eloquently proclaim ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
specific purpose to confer through these symbolic functions upon the
first-born of the communities of the West that spiritual primacy which was
to be the birthright of the American believers.

The seeds which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ceaseless activities so lavishly scattered
had endowed the United States and Canada, nay the entire continent, with
potentialities such as it had never known in its history. On the small
band of His trained and beloved disciples, and through them on their
descendants, He, through that visit, had bequeathed a priceless heritage—a
heritage which carried with it the sacred and primary obligation to arise
and carry on in that fertile field the work He had so gloriously
initiated. We can dimly picture to ourselves the wishes that must have
welled from His eager heart as He bade His last farewell to that promising
country. An inscrutable Wisdom, we can well imagine Him remark to His
disciples on the eve of His departure, has, in His infinite bounty singled
out your native land for the execution of a mighty purpose. Through the
agency of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant I, as the ploughman, have been called
upon since the beginning of my ministry to turn up and break its ground.
The mighty confirmations that have, in the opening days of your career,
rained upon you have prepared and invigorated its soil. The tribulations
you subsequently were made to suffer have driven deep furrows into the
field which my hands had prepared. The seeds with which I have been
entrusted I have now scattered far and wide before you. Under your loving
care, by your ceaseless exertions, every one of these seeds must
germinate, every one must yield its destined fruit. A winter of
unprecedented severity will soon be upon you. Its storm-clouds are fast
gathering on the horizon. Tempestuous winds will assail you from every
side. The Light of the Covenant will be obscured through my departure.
These mighty blasts, this wintry desolation, shall however pass away. The
dormant seed will burst into fresh activity. It shall put forth its buds,
shall reveal, in mighty institutions, its leaves and blossoms. The vernal
showers which the tender mercies of my heavenly Father will cause to
descend upon you will enable this tender plant to spread out its branches
to regions far beyond the confines of your native land. And finally the
steadily mounting sun of His Revelation, shining in its meridian splendor,
will enable this mighty Tree of His Faith to yield, in the fullness of
time and on your soil, its golden fruit.

The implications of such a parting message could not long remain
unrevealed to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s initiated disciples. No sooner had He
concluded His long and arduous journey across the American and European
continents than the tremendous happenings to which He had alluded began to
be made manifest. A conflict, such as He had predicted, severed for a time
all means of communication with those on whom He had come to place such
implicit trust and from whom He was expecting so much in return. The
wintry desolation, with all its havoc and carnage, pursued during four
years its relentless course, while He, repairing to the quiet solitude of
His residence in the close neighborhood of Bahá’u’lláh’s hallowed shrine,
continued to communicate His thoughts and wishes to those whom He had left
behind and on whom He had conferred the unique tokens of His favor. In the
immortal Tablets which, in the long hours of His communion with His
dearly-beloved friends He was moved to reveal, He unfolded to their eyes
His conception of their spiritual destiny, His Plan for the mission He
wished them to undertake. The seeds His hands had sown He was now watering
with that same care, that same love and patience, which had characterized
His previous endeavors whilst He was laboring in their midst.

The clarion call which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had raised was the signal for an
outburst of renewed activity which, alike in the motives it inspired and
the forces it set in motion, America had scarcely experienced. Lending an
unprecedented impetus to the work which the enterprising ambassadors of
the Message of Bahá’u’lláh had initiated in distant lands, this mighty
movement has continued to spread until the present day, has gathered
momentum as it extended its ramifications over the surface of the globe,
and will continue to accelerate its march until the last wishes of its
original Promoter are completely fulfilled.

Forsaking home, kindred, friends and position a handful of men and women,
fired with a zeal and confidence which no human agency can kindle, arose
to carry out the mandate which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had issued. Sailing northward
as far as Alaska, pushing on to the West Indies, penetrating the South
American continent to the banks of the Amazon and across the Andes to the
southernmost ends of the Argentine Republic, pressing on westward into the
island of Tahiti and beyond it to the Australian continent and still
beyond it as far as New Zealand and Tasmania, these intrepid heralds of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh have succeeded by their very acts in setting to
the present generation of their fellow-believers throughout the East an
example which they may well emulate. Headed by their illustrious
representative, who ever since the call of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was raised has
been twice round the world and is still, with marvellous courage and
fortitude, enriching the matchless record of her services, these men and
women have been instrumental in extending, to a degree as yet unsurpassed
in Bahá’í history, the sway of Bahá’u’lláh’s universal dominion. In the
face of almost insurmountable obstacles they have succeeded in most of the
countries through which they have passed or in which they have resided, in
proclaiming the teachings of their Faith, in circulating its literature,
in defending its cause, in laying the basis of its institutions and in
reinforcing the number of its declared supporters. It would be impossible
for me to unfold in this short compass the tale of such heroic actions.
Nor can any tribute of mine do justice to the spirit which has enabled
these standard-bearers of the Religion of God to win such laurels and to
confer such distinction on the generation to which they belong.

The Cause of Bahá’u’lláh had by that time encircled the globe. Its light,
born in darkest Persia, had been carried successively to the European, the
African and the American continents, and was now penetrating the heart of
Australia, encompassing thereby the whole earth with a girdle of shining
glory. The share which such worthy, such stout-hearted, disciples have had
in brightening the last days of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s earthly life He alone has
truly recognized and can sufficiently estimate. The unique and eternal
significance of such accomplishments the labors of the rising generation
will assuredly reveal, their memory its works will befittingly preserve
and extol. How deep a satisfaction ‘Abdu’l-Bahá must have felt, while
conscious of the approaching hour of His departure, as He witnessed the
first fruits of the international services of these heroes of His Father’s
Faith! To their keeping He had committed a great and goodly heritage. In
the twilight of His earthly life He could rest content in the serene
assurance that such able hands could be relied upon to preserve its
integrity and exalt its virtue.

The passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, so sudden in the circumstances which caused
it, so dramatic in its consequences, could neither impede the operation of
such a dynamic force nor obscure its purpose. Those fervid appeals,
embodied in the Will and Testament of a departed Master, could not but
confirm its aim, define its character and reinforce the promise of its
ultimate success.

Out of the pangs of anguish which His bereaved followers have suffered,
amid the heat and dust which the attacks launched by a sleepless enemy had
precipitated, the Administration of Bahá’u’lláh’s invincible Faith was
born. The potent energies released through the ascension of the Center of
His Covenant crystallized into this supreme, this infallible Organ for the
accomplishment of a Divine Purpose. The Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
unveiled its character, reaffirmed its basis, supplemented its principles,
asserted its indispensability, and enumerated its chief institutions. With
that self-same spontaneity which had characterized her response to the
Message proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh America had now arisen to espouse the
cause of the Administration which the Will and Testament of His Son had
unmistakably established. It was given to her, and to her alone, in the
turbulent years following the revelation of so momentous a Document, to
become the fearless champion of that Administration, the pivot of its
new-born institutions and the leading promoter of its influence. To their
Persian brethren, who in the heroic age of the Faith had won the crown of
martyrdom, the American believers, forerunners of its golden age, were now
worthily succeeding, bearing in their turn the palm of a hard-won victory.
The unbroken record of their illustrious deeds had established beyond the
shadow of a doubt their preponderating share in shaping the destinies of
their Faith. In a world writhing with pain and declining into chaos this
community—the vanguard of the liberating forces of Bahá’u’lláh—succeeded
in the years following ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passing in raising high above the
institutions established by its sister communities in East and West what
may well constitute the chief pillar of that future House—a House which
posterity will regard as the last refuge of a tottering civilization.

In the prosecution of their task neither the whisperings of the
treacherous nor the virulent attacks of their avowed enemies were allowed
to deflect them from their high purpose or to undermine their faith in the
sublimity of their calling. The agitation provoked by him who in his
incessant and sordid pursuit of earthly riches would have, but for
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s warning, sullied the fair name of their Faith, had left
them in the main undisturbed. Schooled by tribulation and secure within
the stronghold of their fast evolving institutions they scorned his
insinuations and by their unswerving loyalty were able to shatter his
hopes. They refused to allow any consideration of the admitted prestige
and past services of his father and of his associates to weaken their
determination to ignore entirely the person whom ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had so
emphatically condemned. The veiled attacks with which a handful of deluded
enthusiasts subsequently sought in the pages of their periodical to check
the growth and blight the prospects of an infant Administration had
likewise failed to achieve their purpose. The attitude which a besotted
woman later on assumed, her ludicrous assertions, her boldness in flouting
the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and in challenging its authenticity and her
attempts to subvert its principles were again powerless to produce the
slightest breach in the ranks of its valiant upholders. The treacherous
schemes which the ambition of a perfidious and still more recent enemy has
devised and through which he is still striving to deface ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
noble handiwork and corrupt its administrative principles are being once
more completely frustrated. These intermittent and abortive attempts on
the part of its assailants to force the surrender of the newly built
stronghold of the Faith its defenders have from the very beginning utterly
disdained. No matter how fierce the assaults of the enemy or skillful his
stratagem they have refused to yield one jot or one tittle of their
cherished convictions. His insinuations and clamor they have consistently
ignored. The motives which animated his actions, the methods he steadily
pursued, the precarious privileges he seemed momentarily to enjoy they
could not but despise. Thriving for a time through the devices which their
scheming minds had conceived and supported by the ephemeral advantages
which fame, ability or fortune can confer these notorious exponents of
corruption and heresy have succeeded in protruding for a time their ugly
features only to sink, as rapidly as they had risen, into the mire of an
ignominious end.

From the midst of these afflictive trials, reminiscent in some of their
aspects of the violent storm that had accompanied the birth of the Faith
in their native land, the American believers had again triumphantly
emerged, their course undeflected, their fame unsullied, their heritage
unimpaired. A series of magnificent accomplishments, each more significant
than the previous, were to shed increasing lustre on an already
illustrious record. In the dark years immediately following ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
ascension their deeds shone with a radiance that made them the object of
the envy and the admiration of the less privileged among their brethren.
The entire community, untrammeled and supremely confident, was rising to a
great and glorious opportunity. The forces that had motivated its birth,
that had assisted in its rise, were now accelerating its growth, in a
manner and with such rapidity that neither the pangs of a world-wide
sorrow nor the unceasing convulsions of a distracted age could paralyze
its efforts or retard its march.

Internally the community had embarked in a number of enterprises that were
to enable it on the one hand to extend still further the scope of its
spiritual jurisdiction and on the other to fashion the essential
instruments for the creation and consolidation of the institutions which
such an extension imperatively demanded. Externally its undertakings were
inspired by the twofold objective of prosecuting, even more intensely than
before, the admirable work which in each of the five continents its
international teachers had initiated, and of assuming an increasing share
in the handling and solution of the delicate and complex problems with
which a newly-emancipated Faith was being confronted. The birth of the
Administration in that continent had signalized these praiseworthy
exertions. Its gradual consolidation was destined to insure their
continuance and to accentuate their effectiveness.

To enumerate only the most outstanding accomplishments which, in their own
country and beyond its confines, have so greatly enhanced the prestige of
the American believers and have redounded to the glory and honor of the
Most Great Name is all I can presently undertake, leaving to future
generations the task of explaining their import and of affixing a fitting
estimate to their value. To the body of their elected representatives must
be attributed the honor of having been the first among their sister
Assemblies of East and West to devise, promulgate and legalize the
essential instruments for the effective discharge of their collective
duties—instruments which every properly constituted Bahá’í community must
regard as a pattern worthy to be adopted and copied. To their efforts must
likewise be ascribed the historic achievement of establishing their
national endowments upon a permanent and unassailable basis and of
creating the necessary agency for the formation of those subsidiary organs
whose function is to administer on behalf of their trustees such
possessions as these may acquire beyond the limits of their immediate
jurisdiction. By the weight of their moral support so freely extended to
their Egyptian brethren they were able to remove some of the most
formidable obstacles which the Faith had to surmount in its struggle to
enfranchise itself from the fetters of Muslim orthodoxy. Through the
effective and timely intervention of these same elected representatives
they were able to avert the woes and dangers which had menaced their
persecuted fellow-workers in the Soviet Republics, and to ward off the
rage which had threatened with immediate ruin one of the most precious and
noblest of Bahá’í institutions. Nothing short of the whole-hearted
assistance, whether moral or financial which the American believers,
individually and collectively, were moved to extend on several occasions
to the needy and harassed among their brethren in Persia could have saved
these hapless victims of the consequences of the calamities that had
visited them in the years following ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension. It was the
publicity which the efforts of their American brethren had created, the
protests they were led to make, the appeals and petitions they had
submitted, which mitigated these sufferings and curbed the violence of the
worst and most tyrannical opponents of the Faith in that land. Who else,
if not one of their most distinguished representatives, has risen to force
upon the attention of the highest Tribunal the world has yet seen the
grievances which a Faith, robbed of one of its holiest sanctuaries, had
suffered at the hand of the usurper? Who else has succeeded in securing,
through patient and persistent effort, those written affirmations which
proclaim the justice of a persecuted cause and tacitly recognize its right
to an independent religious status? “The Commission,” is the resolution
passed by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations,
“recommends that the Council should ask the British Government to make
representations to the Iráqí Government with a view to the immediate
redress of the denial of justice from which the petitioners (the Bahá’í
Spiritual Assembly of Ba_gh_dád) have suffered.” Has any one else except
an American believer been led to obtain from royalty such remarkable and
repeated testimonies to the regenerating power of the Faith of God, such
striking references to the universality of its teachings and the sublimity
of its mission. “The Bahá’í teaching,” such is the Queen’s written
testimony, “brings peace and understanding. It is like a wide embrace
gathering together all those who have long searched for words of hope. It
accepts all great Prophets gone before, it destroys no other creeds and
leaves all doors open. Saddened by the continual strife amongst believers
of many confessions and wearied of their intolerance towards each other, I
discovered in the Bahá’í teaching the real spirit of Christ so often
denied and misunderstood: Unity instead of strife, Hope instead of
condemnation, Love instead of hate, and a great reassurance for all men.”
Have not the American adherents of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, through the
courage displayed by one of the most brilliant members of their community,
been instrumental in paving the way for the removal of those barriers
which have, for well-nigh a century, hampered the growth and crippled the
energy of their fellow-believers in Persia? Is it not America who, ever
mindful of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s passionate entreaty, has sent out to the ends of
the earth a steadily increasing number of its most consecrated
citizens—men and women the one wish of whose lives is to consolidate the
foundations of Bahá’u’lláh’s world-embracing dominion? In the northernmost
capitals of Europe, in most of its central states, throughout the Balkan
Peninsula, along the shores of the African, the Asiatic and South American
continents are to be found this day a small band of women pioneers who,
single-handed and with scanty resources, are toiling for the advent of the
Day ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has foretold. Did not the attitude of the Greatest Holy
Leaf, as she approached the close of her life, bear eloquent testimony to
the incomparable share which her steadfast and self-sacrificing lovers in
that continent have had in lightening the burden which had weighed so long
and so heavily on her heart? And finally who can be so bold as to deny
that the completion of the superstructure of the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár—the
crowning glory of America’s past and present achievements—has forged that
mystic chain which is to link, more firmly than ever, the hearts of its
champion-builders with Him Who is the Source and Center of their Faith and
the Object of their truest adoration?

Fellow-believers in the American continent! Great indeed have been your
past and present achievements! Immeasurably greater are the wonders which
the future has in store for you! The Edifice your sacrifices have raised
still remains to be clothed. The House which must needs be supported by
the highest administrative institution your hands have reared, is as yet
unbuilt. The provisions of the chief Repository of those laws that must
govern its operation are thus far mostly undisclosed. The Standard which,
if ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s wishes are to be fulfilled, must be raised in your own
country has yet to be unfurled. The Unity of which that standard is to be
the symbol is far from being yet established. The machinery which must
needs incarnate and preserve that unity is not even created. Will it be
America, will it be one of the countries of Europe, who will arise to
assume the leadership essential to the shaping of the destinies of this
troubled age? Will America allow any of her sister communities in East or
West to achieve such ascendancy as shall deprive her of that spiritual
primacy with which she has been invested and which she has thus far so
nobly retained? Will she not rather contribute, by a still further
revelation of those inherent powers that motivate her life, to enhance the
priceless heritage which the love and wisdom of a departed Master have
conferred upon her?

Her past has been a testimony to the inexhaustible vitality of her faith.
May not her future confirm it?

Your true brother,
SHOGHI.

Haifa, Palestine,
April 21, 1933.



THE DISPENSATION OF BAHÁ’U’LLÁH



The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh


To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout the
West.

Fellow-laborers in the Divine Vineyard:

On the 23rd of May of this auspicious year the Bahá’í world will celebrate
the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. We, who
at this hour find ourselves standing on the threshold of the last decade
of the first century of the Bahá’í era, might well pause to reflect upon
the mysterious dispensations of so august, so momentous a Revelation. How
vast, how entrancing the panorama which the revolution of four score years
and ten unrolls before our eyes! Its towering grandeur well-nigh
overwhelms us. To merely contemplate this unique spectacle, to visualize,
however dimly, the circumstances attending the birth and gradual
unfoldment of this supreme Theophany, to recall even in their barest
outline the woeful struggles that proclaimed its rise and accelerated its
march, will suffice to convince every unbiased observer of those eternal
truths that motivate its life and which must continue to impel it forward
until it achieves its destined ascendancy.

Dominating the entire range of this fascinating spectacle towers the
incomparable figure of Bahá’u’lláh, transcendental in His majesty, serene,
awe-inspiring, unapproachably glorious. Allied, though subordinate in
rank, and invested with the authority of presiding with Him over the
destinies of this supreme Dispensation, there shines upon this mental
picture the youthful glory of the Báb, infinite in His tenderness,
irresistible in His charm, unsurpassed in His heroism, matchless in the
dramatic circumstances of His short yet eventful life. And finally there
emerges, though on a plane of its own and in a category entirely apart
from the one occupied by the twin Figures that preceded Him, the vibrant,
the magnetic personality of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, reflecting to a degree that no
man, however exalted his station, can hope to rival, the glory and power
with which They who are the Manifestations of God are alone endowed.

With ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension, and more particularly with the passing of
His well-beloved and illustrious sister the Most Exalted Leaf—the last
survivor of a glorious and heroic age—there draws to a close the first and
most moving chapter of Bahá’í history, marking the conclusion of the
Primitive, the Apostolic Age of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh. It was
‘Abdu’l-Bahá Who, through the provisions of His weighty Will and
Testament, has forged the vital link which must for ever connect the age
that has just expired with the one we now live in—the Transitional and
Formative period of the Faith—a stage that must in the fullness of time
reach its blossom and yield its fruit in the exploits and triumphs that
are to herald the Golden Age of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.

Dearly-beloved friends! The onrushing forces so miraculously released
through the agency of two independent and swiftly successive
Manifestations are now under our very eyes and through the care of the
chosen stewards of a far-flung Faith being gradually mustered and
disciplined. They are slowly crystallizing into institutions that will
come to be regarded as the hall-mark and glory of the age we are called
upon to establish and by our deeds immortalize. For upon our present-day
efforts, and above all upon the extent to which we strive to remodel our
lives after the pattern of sublime heroism associated with those gone
before us, must depend the efficacy of the instruments we now
fashion—instruments that must erect the structure of that blissful
Commonwealth which must signalize the Golden Age of our Faith.

It is not my purpose, as I look back upon these crowded years of heroic
deeds, to attempt even a cursory review of the mighty events that have
transpired since 1844 until the present day. Nor have I any intention to
undertake an analysis of the forces that have precipitated them, or to
evaluate their influence upon peoples and institutions in almost every
continent of the globe. The authentic record of the lives of the first
believers of the primitive period of our Faith, together with the
assiduous research which competent Bahá’í historians will in the future
undertake, will combine to transmit to posterity such masterly exposition
of the history of that age as my own efforts can never hope to accomplish.
My chief concern at this challenging period of Bahá’í history is rather to
call the attention of those who are destined to be the champion-builders
of the Administrative Order of Bahá’u’lláh to certain fundamental verities
the elucidation of which must tremendously assist them in the effective
prosecution of their mighty enterprise.

The international status which the Religion of God has thus far achieved,
moreover, imperatively demands that its root principles be now definitely
clarified. The unprecedented impetus which the illustrious deeds of the
American believers have lent to the onward march of the Faith; the intense
interest which the first Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár of the West is fast
awakening among divers races and nations; the rise and steady
consolidation of Bahá’í institutions in no less than forty of the most
advanced countries of the world; the dissemination of Bahá’í literature in
no fewer than twenty-five of the most widely-spoken languages; the success
that has recently attended the nation-wide efforts of the Persian
believers in the preliminary steps they have taken for the establishment,
in the outskirts of the capital-city of their native land, of the third
Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár of the Bahá’í world; the measures that are being
taken for the immediate formation of their first National Spiritual
Assembly representing the interests of the overwhelming majority of Bahá’í
adherents; the projected erection of yet another pillar of the Universal
House of Justice, the first of its kind, in the Southern Hemisphere; the
testimonies, both verbal and written, that a struggling Faith has obtained
from Royalty, from governmental institutions, international tribunals, and
ecclesiastical dignitaries; the publicity it has received from the charges
which unrelenting enemies, both new and old, have hurled against it; the
formal enfranchisement of a section of its followers from the fetters of
Muslim orthodoxy in a country that may be regarded as the most enlightened
among Islamic nations—these afford ample proof of the growing momentum
with which the invincible community of the Most Great Name is marching
forward to ultimate victory.

Dearly-beloved friends! I feel it incumbent upon me, by virtue of the
obligations and responsibilities which as Guardian of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh I am called upon to discharge, to lay special stress, at a
time when the light of publicity is being increasingly focussed upon us,
upon certain truths which lie at the basis of our Faith and the integrity
of which it is our first duty to safeguard. These verities, if valiantly
upheld and properly assimilated, will, I am convinced, powerfully
reinforce the vigor of our spiritual life and greatly assist in
counteracting the machinations of an implacable and vigilant enemy.

To strive to obtain a more adequate understanding of the significance of
Bahá’u’lláh’s stupendous Revelation must, it is my unalterable conviction,
remain the first obligation and the object of the constant endeavor of
each one of its loyal adherents. An exact and thorough comprehension of so
vast a system, so sublime a revelation, so sacred a trust, is for obvious
reasons beyond the reach and ken of our finite minds. We can, however, and
it is our bounden duty to seek to derive fresh inspiration and added
sustenance as we labor for the propagation of His Faith through a clearer
apprehension of the truths it enshrines and the principles on which it is
based.

In a communication addressed to the American believers I have in the
course of my explanation of the station of the Báb made a passing
reference to the incomparable greatness of the Revelation of which He
considered Himself to be the humble Precursor. He Whom Bahá’u’lláh has
acclaimed in the Kitáb-i-Íqán as that promised Qá’im Who has manifested no
less than twenty-five out of the twenty-seven letters which all the
Prophets were destined to reveal—so great a Revealer has Himself testified
to the préeminence of that superior Revelation that was soon to supersede
His own. “The germ,” the Báb asserts in the Persian Bayán, “that holds
within itself the potentialities of the Revelation that is to come is
endowed with a potency superior to the combined forces of all those who
follow me.” “Of all the tributes,” He again affirms, “I have paid to Him
Who is to come after Me, the greatest is this, My written confession, that
no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any reference to Him
in My Book, the Bayán, do justice to His Cause.” “The Bayán,” He in that
same Book categorically declares, “and whosoever is therein revolve round
the saying of ‘Him Whom God shall make manifest,’ even as the Alif (the
Gospel) and whosoever was therein revolved round the saying of Muḥammad,
the Apostle of God.” “A thousand perusals of the Bayán,” He further
remarks, “cannot equal the perusal of a single verse to be revealed by
‘Him Whom God shall make manifest.’... Today the Bayán is in the stage of
seed; at the beginning of the manifestation of ‘Him Whom God shall make
manifest’ its ultimate perfection will become apparent.... The Bayán and
such as are believers therein yearn more ardently after Him than the
yearning of any lover after his beloved.... The Bayán deriveth all its
glory from ‘Him Whom God shall make manifest.’ All blessing be upon him
who believeth in Him and woe betide him that rejecteth His truth.”

Addressing Siyyid Yaḥyáy-i-Darábí surnamed Vahíd, the most learned, the
most eloquent and influential among His followers, the Báb utters this
warning: “By the righteousness of Him Whose power causeth the seed to
germinate and Who breatheth the spirit of life into all things, were I to
be assured that in the day of His manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I
would unhesitatingly disown thee and repudiate thy faith.... If, on the
other hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance to My
Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple of Mine
Eye.”

In one of His prayers He thus communes with Bahá’u’lláh: “Exalted art
Thou, O my Lord the Omnipotent! How puny and contemptible my word and all
that pertaineth unto me appear unless they be related to Thy great glory.
Grant that through the assistance of Thy grace whatsoever pertaineth unto
me may be acceptable in Thy sight.”

In the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá—the Báb’s commentary on the Súrih of
Joseph—characterized by the Author of the Íqán as “the first, the greatest
and mightiest” of the books revealed by the Báb, we read the following
references to Bahá’u’lláh: “Out of utter nothingness, O great and
omnipotent Master, Thou hast, through the celestial potency of Thy might,
brought me forth and raised me up to proclaim this Revelation. I have made
none other but Thee my trust; I have clung to no will but Thy will... O
Thou Remnant of God! I have sacrificed myself wholly for Thee: I have
accepted curses for Thy sake, and have yearned for naught but martyrdom in
the path of Thy love. Sufficient witness unto me is God, the Exalted, the
Protector, the Ancient of Days.” “And when the appointed hour hath
struck,” He again addresses Bahá’u’lláh in that same commentary, “do Thou,
by the leave of God, the All-Wise, reveal from the heights of the Most
Lofty and Mystic Mount a faint, an infinitesimal glimmer of Thy
impenetrable Mystery, that they who have recognized the radiance of the
Sinaic Splendor may faint away and die as they catch a lightening glimpse
of the fierce and crimson Light that envelops Thy Revelation.”

As a further testimony to the greatness of the Revelation identified with
Bahá’u’lláh may be cited the following extracts from a Tablet addressed by
‘Abdu’l-Bahá to an eminent Zoroastrian follower of the Faith: “Thou hadst
written that in the sacred books of the followers of Zoroaster it is
written that in the latter days, in three separate Dispensations, the sun
must needs be brought to a standstill. In the first Dispensation, it is
predicted, the sun will remain motionless for ten days; in the second for
twice that time; in the third for no less than one whole month. The
interpretation of this prophecy is this: the first Dispensation to which
it refers is the Muḥammadan Dispensation during which the Sun of Truth
stood still for ten days. Each day is reckoned as one century. The
Muḥammadan Dispensation must have, therefore, lasted no less than one
thousand years, which is precisely the period that has elapsed from the
setting of the Star of the Imamate to the advent of the Dispensation
proclaimed by the Báb. The second Dispensation referred to in this
prophecy is the one inaugurated by the Báb Himself, which began in the
year 1260 A.H. and was brought to a close in the year 1280 A.H. As to the
third Dispensation—the Revelation proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh—inasmuch as
the Sun of Truth when attaining that station shineth in the plenitude of
its meridian splendor its duration hath been fixed for a period of one
whole month, which is the maximum time taken by the sun to pass through a
sign of the Zodiac. From this thou canst imagine the magnitude of the
Bahá’í cycle—a cycle that must extend over a period of at least five
hundred thousand years.”

From the text of this explicit and authoritative interpretation of so
ancient a prophecy it is evident how necessary it is for every faithful
follower of the Faith to accept the divine origin and uphold the
independent status of the Muḥammadan Dispensation. The validity of the
Imamate is, moreover, implicitly recognized in these same passages—that
divinely-appointed institution of whose most distinguished member the Báb
Himself was a lineal descendant, and which continued for a period of no
less than two hundred and sixty years to be the chosen recipient of the
guidance of the Almighty and the repository of one of the two most
precious legacies of Islám.

This same prophecy, we must furthermore recognize, attests the independent
character of the Bábí Dispensation and corroborates indirectly the truth
that in accordance with the principle of progressive revelation every
Manifestation of God must needs vouchsafe to the peoples of His day a
measure of divine guidance ampler than any which a preceding and less
receptive age could have received or appreciated. For this reason, and not
for any superior merit which the Bahá’í Faith may be said to inherently
possess, does this prophecy bear witness to the unrivaled power and glory
with which the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh has been invested—a
Dispensation the potentialities of which we are but beginning to perceive
and the full range of which we can never determine.

The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh should indeed be regarded, if we wish to be
faithful to the tremendous implications of its message, as the culmination
of a cycle, the final stage in a series of successive, of preliminary and
progressive revelations. These, beginning with Adam and ending with the
Báb, have paved the way and anticipated with an ever-increasing emphasis
the advent of that Day of Days in which He Who is the Promise of All Ages
should be made manifest.

To this truth the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh abundantly testify. A mere
reference to the claims which, in vehement language and with compelling
power, He Himself has repeatedly advanced cannot but fully demonstrate the
character of the Revelation of which He was the chosen bearer. To the
words that have streamed from His pen—the fountainhead of so impetuous a
Revelation—we should, therefore, direct our attention if we wish to obtain
a clearer understanding of its importance and meaning. Whether in His
assertion of the unprecedented claim He has advanced, or in His allusions
to the mysterious forces He has released, whether in such passages as
extol the glories of His long-awaited Day, or magnify the station which
they who have recognized its hidden virtues will attain, Bahá’u’lláh and,
to an almost equal extent, the Báb and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have bequeathed to
posterity mines of such inestimable wealth as none of us who belong to
this generation can befittingly estimate. Such testimonies bearing on this
theme are impregnated with such power and reveal such beauty as only those
who are versed in the languages in which they were originally revealed can
claim to have sufficiently appreciated. So numerous are these testimonies
that a whole volume would be required to be written in order to compile
the most outstanding among them. All I can venture to attempt at present
is to share with you only such passages as I have been able to glean from
His voluminous writings.

“I testify before God,” proclaims Bahá’u’lláh, “to the greatness, the
inconceivable greatness of this Revelation. Again and again have We in
most of Our Tablets borne witness to this truth, that mankind may be
roused from its heedlessness.” “In this most mighty Revelation,” He
unequivocally announces, “all the Dispensations of the past have attained
their highest, their final consummation.” “That which hath been made
manifest in this préeminent, this most exalted Revelation, stands
unparalleled in the annals of the past, nor will future ages witness its
like.” “He it is,” referring to Himself He further proclaims, “Who in the
Old Testament hath been named Jehovah, Who in the Gospel hath been
designated as the Spirit of Truth, and in the Qur’án acclaimed as the
Great Announcement.” “But for Him no Divine Messenger would have been
invested with the robe of prophethood, nor would any of the sacred
scriptures have been revealed. To this bear witness all created things.”
“The word which the one true God uttereth in this day, though that word be
the most familiar and commonplace of terms, is invested with supreme, with
unique distinction.” “The generality of mankind is still immature. Had it
acquired sufficient capacity We would have bestowed upon it so great a
measure of Our knowledge that all who dwell on earth and in heaven would
have found themselves, by virtue of the grace streaming from Our pen,
completely independent of all knowledge save the knowledge of God, and
would have been securely established upon the throne of abiding
tranquillity.” “The Pen of Holiness, I solemnly affirm before God, hath
writ upon My snow-white brow and in characters of effulgent glory these
glowing, these musk-scented and holy words: ‘Behold ye that dwell on
earth, and ye denizens of heaven, bear witness, He in truth is your
Well-Beloved. He it is Whose like the world of creation hath not seen, He
Whose ravishing beauty hath delighted the eye of God, the Ordainer, the
All-Powerful, the Incomparable!’”

“Followers of the Gospel,” Bahá’u’lláh addressing the whole of Christendom
exclaims, “behold the gates of heaven are flung open. He that had ascended
unto it is now come. Give ear to His voice calling aloud over land and
sea, announcing to all mankind the advent of this Revelation—a Revelation
through the agency of which the Tongue of Grandeur is now proclaiming:
‘Lo, the sacred Pledge hath been fulfilled, for He, the Promised One, is
come!’” “The voice of the Son of Man is calling aloud from the sacred
vale: ‘Here am I, here am I, O God my God!’ ... whilst from the Burning
Bush breaketh forth the cry: ‘Lo, the Desire of the world is made manifest
in His transcendent glory!’ The Father hath come. That which ye were
promised in the Kingdom of God is fulfilled. This is the Word which the
Son veiled when He said to those around Him that at that time they could
not bear it... Verily the Spirit of Truth is come to guide you unto all
truth... He is the One Who glorified the Son and exalted His Cause...”
“The Comforter Whose advent all the scriptures have promised is now come
that He may reveal unto you all knowledge and wisdom. Seek Him over the
entire surface of the earth, haply ye may find Him.”

“Call out to Zion, O Carmel,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “and announce the joyful
tidings: ‘He that was hidden from mortal eyes is come! His all-conquering
sovereignty is manifest; His all-encompassing splendor is revealed...
Hasten forth and circumambulate the City of God that hath descended from
heaven—the celestial Kaaba round which have circled in adoration the
favored of God, the pure in heart and the company of the most exalted
angels.’” “I am the One,” He in another connection affirms, “Whom the
tongue of Isaiah hath extolled, the One with Whose name both the Torah and
the Evangel were adorned.” “The glory of Sinai hath hastened to circle
round the Day-Spring of this Revelation, while from the heights of the
Kingdom the voice of the Son of God is heard proclaiming: ‘Bestir
yourselves, ye proud ones of the earth, and hasten ye towards Him.’ Carmel
hath in this day hastened in longing adoration to attain His court, whilst
from the heart of Zion there cometh the cry: ‘The promise of all ages is
now fulfilled. That which had been announced in the holy writ of God, the
Beloved, the Most High, is made manifest.’” “Ḥijáz is astir by the breeze
announcing the tidings of joyous reunion. ‘Praise be to Thee,’ We hear her
exclaim, ‘O my Lord, the Most High. I was dead through my separation from
Thee; the breeze laden with the fragrance of Thy presence hath brought me
back to life. Happy is he that turneth unto Thee, and woe betide the
erring.’” “By the one true God, Elijah hath hastened unto My court and
hath circumambulated in the day-time and in the night-season My throne of
glory.” “Solomon in all his majesty circles in adoration around Me in this
day, uttering this most exalted word: ‘I have turned my face towards Thy
face, O Thou omnipotent Ruler of the world! I am wholly detached from all
things pertaining unto me, and yearn for that which Thou dost possess.’”
“Had Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, attained this Day,” Bahá’u’lláh writes
in a Tablet revealed on the eve of His banishment to the penal colony of
Akká, “He would have exclaimed: ‘I have truly recognized Thee, O Thou the
Desire of the Divine Messengers!’ Had Abraham attained it, He too, falling
prostrate upon the ground, and in the utmost lowliness before the Lord thy
God, would have cried: ‘Mine heart is filled with peace, O Thou Lord of
all that is in heaven and on earth! I testify that Thou hast unveiled
before mine eyes all the glory of Thy power and the full majesty of Thy
law!’... Had Moses Himself attained it, He, likewise, would have raised
His voice saying: ‘All praise be to Thee for having lifted upon me the
light of Thy countenance and enrolled me among them that have been
privileged to behold Thy face!’” “North and South both vibrate to the call
announcing the advent of our Revelation. We can hear the voice of Mecca
acclaiming: ‘All praise be to Thee, O Lord my God, the All-Glorious, for
having wafted over me the breath redolent with the fragrance of Thy
presence!’ Jerusalem, likewise, is calling aloud: ‘Lauded and magnified
art Thou, O Beloved of earth and heaven, for having turned the agony of my
separation from Thee into the joy of a life-giving reunion!’”

“By the righteousness of God,” Bahá’u’lláh wishing to reveal the full
potency of His invincible power asserts, “should a man, all alone, arise
in the name of Bahá and put on the armor of His love, him will the
Almighty cause to be victorious, though the forces of earth and heaven be
arrayed against him.” “By God besides Whom is none other God! Should any
one arise for the triumph of our Cause, him will God render victorious
though tens of thousands of enemies be leagued against him. And if his
love for Me wax stronger, God will establish his ascendancy over all the
powers of earth and heaven. Thus have We breathed the spirit of power into
all regions.”

“This is the King of Days,” He thus extols the age that has witnessed the
advent of His Revelation, “the Day that hath seen the coming of the
Best-beloved, Him Who through all eternity hath been acclaimed the Desire
of the World.” “The world of being shineth in this Day with the
resplendency of this Divine Revelation. All created things extol its
saving grace and sing its praises. The universe is wrapt in an ecstasy of
joy and gladness. The Scriptures of past Dispensations celebrate the great
jubilee that must needs greet this most great Day of God. Well is it with
him that hath lived to see this Day and hath recognized its station.”
“Were mankind to give heed in a befitting manner to no more than one word
of such a praise it would be so filled with delight as to be overpowered
and lost in wonder. Entranced, it would then shine forth resplendent above
the horizon of true understanding.”

“Be fair, ye peoples of the world;” He thus appeals to mankind, “is it
meet and seemly for you to question the authority of one Whose presence
‘He Who conversed with God’ (Moses) hath longed to attain, the beauty of
Whose countenance ‘God’s Well-beloved’ (Muḥammad) had yearned to behold,
through the potency of Whose love the ‘Spirit of God’ (Jesus) ascended to
heaven, for Whose sake the ‘Primal Point’ (the Báb) offered up His life?”
“Seize your chance,” He admonishes His followers, “inasmuch as a fleeting
moment in this Day excelleth centuries of a bygone age... Neither sun nor
moon hath witnessed a day such as this... It is evident that every age in
which a Manifestation of God hath lived is divinely ordained and may, in a
sense, be characterized as God’s appointed Day. This Day, however, is
unique and is to be distinguished from those that have preceded it. The
designation ‘Seal of the Prophets’ fully reveals and demonstrates its high
station.”

Expatiating on the forces latent in His Revelation Bahá’u’lláh reveals the
following: “Through the movement of Our Pen of glory We have, at the
bidding of the omnipotent Ordainer, breathed a new life into every human
frame and instilled into every word a fresh potency. All created things
proclaim the evidences of this world-wide regeneration.” “This is,” He
adds, “the most great, the most joyful tidings imparted by the pen of this
wronged One to mankind.” “How great,” He in another passage exclaims, “is
the Cause! How staggering the weight of its message! This is the Day of
which it hath been said: ‘O my son! verily God will bring everything to
light though it were but the weight of a grain of mustard seed, and hidden
in a rock, or in the heavens or in the earth; for God is subtile, informed
of all.’” “By the righteousness of the one true God! If one speck of a
jewel be lost and buried beneath a mountain of stones, and lie hidden
beyond the seven seas, the Hand of Omnipotence will assuredly reveal it in
this day, pure and cleansed from dross.” “He that partaketh of the waters
of My Revelation will taste all the incorruptible delights ordained by God
from the beginning that hath no beginning to the end that hath no end.”
“Every single letter proceeding from Our mouth is endowed with such
regenerative power as to enable it to bring into existence a new
creation—a creation the magnitude of which is inscrutable to all save God.
He verily hath knowledge of all things.” “It is in Our power, should We
wish it, to enable a speck of floating dust to generate, in less than the
twinkling of an eye, suns of infinite, of unimaginable splendor, to cause
a dewdrop to develop into vast and numberless oceans, to infuse into every
letter such a force as to empower it to unfold all the knowledge of past
and future ages.” “We are possessed of such power which, if brought to
light, will transmute the most deadly of poisons into a panacea of
unfailing efficacy.”

Estimating the station of the true believer He remarks: “By the sorrows
which afflict the beauty of the All-Glorious! Such is the station ordained
for the true believer that if to an extent smaller than a needle’s eye the
glory of that station were to be unveiled to mankind, every beholder would
be consumed away in his longing to attain it. For this reason it hath been
decreed that in this earthly life the full measure of the glory of his own
station should remain concealed from the eyes of such a believer.” “If the
veil be lifted,” He similarly affirms, “and the full glory of the station
of those who have turned wholly towards God, and in their love for Him
renounced the world, be made manifest, the entire creation would be
dumbfounded.”

Stressing the superlative character of His Revelation as compared with the
Dispensation preceding it, Bahá’u’lláh makes the following affirmation:
“If all the peoples of the world be invested with the powers and
attributes destined for the Letters of the Living, the Báb’s chosen
disciples, whose station is ten thousand times more glorious than any
which the apostles of old have attained, and if they, one and all, should,
swift as the twinkling of an eye, hesitate to recognize the light of My
Revelation, their faith shall be of no avail and they shall be accounted
among the infidels.” “So tremendous is the outpouring of Divine grace in
this Dispensation that if mortal hands could be swift enough to record
them, within the space of a single day and night there would stream verses
of such number as to be equivalent to the whole of the Persian Bayán.”

“Give heed to my warning, ye people of Persia,” He thus addresses His
countrymen, “If I be slain at your hands, God will assuredly raise up one
who will fill the seat made vacant through my death; for such is God’s
method carried into effect of old, and no change can ye find in God’s mode
of dealing.” “Should they attempt to conceal His light on the continent,
He will assuredly rear His head in the midmost heart of the ocean and,
raising His voice, proclaim: ‘I am the lifegiver of the world!’... And if
they cast Him into a darksome pit, they will find Him seated on earth’s
loftiest heights calling aloud to all mankind: ‘Lo, the Desire of the
world is come in His majesty, His sovereignty, His transcendent dominion!’
And if He be buried beneath the depths of the earth, His Spirit soaring to
the apex of heaven shall peal the summons: ‘Behold ye the coming of the
Glory; witness ye the Kingdom of God, the most Holy, the Gracious, the
All-Powerful!’” “Within the throat of this Youth,” is yet another
astounding statement, “there lie prisoned accents which, if revealed to
mankind to an extent smaller than a needle’s eye, would suffice to cause
every mountain to crumble, the leaves of the trees to be discolored and
their fruits to fall; would compel every head to bow down in worship and
every face to turn in adoration towards this omnipotent Ruler Who, at
sundry times and in diverse manners, appeareth as a devouring flame, as a
billowing ocean, as a radiant light, as the tree which, rooted in the soil
of holiness, lifteth its branches and spreadeth out its limbs as far as
and beyond the throne of deathless glory.”

Anticipating the System which the irresistible power of His Law was
destined to unfold in a later age, He writes: “The world’s equilibrium
hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this
new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through
the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the like of which mortal
eyes have never witnessed.” “The Hand of Omnipotence hath established His
Revelation upon an unassailable, an enduring foundation. Storms of human
strife are powerless to undermine its basis, nor will men’s fanciful
theories succeed in damaging its structure.”

In the Súratu’l-Haykal, one of the most challenging works of Bahá’u’lláh,
the following verses, each of which testifies to the resistless power
infused into the Revelation proclaimed by its Author, have been recorded:
“Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but
His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self,
and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His
Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised.
There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could
be seen but God.” “The Holy Spirit Itself hath been generated through the
agency of a single letter revealed by this Most Great Spirit, if ye be of
them that comprehend.”... “Within the treasury of Our Wisdom there lies
unrevealed a knowledge, one word of which, if we chose to divulge it to
mankind, would cause every human being to recognize the Manifestation of
God and to acknowledge His omniscience, would enable every one to discover
the secrets of all the sciences, and to attain so high a station as to
find himself wholly independent of all past and future learning. Other
knowledges We do as well possess, not a single letter of which We can
disclose, nor do We find humanity able to hear even the barest reference
to their meaning. Thus have We informed you of the knowledge of God, the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” “The day is approaching when God will have, by
an act of His Will, raised up a race of men the nature of which is
inscrutable to all save God, the All-Powerful, the Self-Subsisting.” “He
will, ere long, out of the Bosom of Power draw forth the Hands of
Ascendancy and Might—Hands who will arise to win victory for this Youth
and who will purge mankind from the defilement of the outcast and the
ungodly. These Hands will gird up their loins to champion the Faith of
God, and will, in My name the self-subsistent, the mighty, subdue the
peoples and kindreds of the earth. They will enter the cities and will
inspire with fear the hearts of all their inhabitants. Such are the
evidences of the might of God; how fearful, how vehement is His might!”

Such is, dearly-beloved friends, Bahá’u’lláh’s own written testimony to
the nature of His Revelation. To the affirmations of the Báb, each of
which reinforces the strength, and confirms the truth, of these remarkable
statements, I have already referred. What remains for me to consider in
this connection are such passages in the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the
appointed Interpreter of these same utterances, as throw further light
upon and amplify various features of this enthralling theme. The tone of
His language is indeed as emphatic and His tribute no less glowing than
that of either Bahá’u’lláh or the Báb.

“Centuries, nay ages, must pass away,” He affirms in one of His earliest
Tablets, “ere the Day-Star of Truth shineth again in its mid-summer
splendor, or appeareth once more in the radiance of its vernal glory...
How thankful must we be for having been made in this Day the recipients of
so overwhelming a favor! Would that we had ten thousand lives that we
might lay them down in thanksgiving for so rare a privilege, so high an
attainment, so priceless a bounty!” “The mere contemplation,” He adds, “of
the Dispensation inaugurated by the Blessed Beauty would have sufficed to
overwhelm the saints of bygone ages—saints who longed to partake for one
moment of its great glory.” “The holy ones of past ages and centuries
have, each and all, yearned with tearful eyes to live, though for one
moment, in the Day of God. Their longings unsatisfied, they repaired to
the Great Beyond. How great, therefore, is the bounty of the Abhá Beauty
Who, notwithstanding our utter unworthiness, hath through His grace and
mercy breathed into us in this divinely-illumined century the spirit of
life, hath gathered us beneath the standard of the Beloved of the world,
and chosen to confer upon us a bounty for which the mighty ones of bygone
ages had craved in vain.” “The souls of the well-favored among the
concourse on high,” He likewise affirms, “the sacred dwellers of the most
exalted Paradise, are in this day filled with burning desire to return
unto this world, that they may render such service as lieth in their power
to the threshold of the Abhá Beauty.”

“The effulgence of God’s splendrous mercy,” He, in a passage alluding to
the growth and future development of the Faith, declares, “hath enveloped
the peoples and kindreds of the earth, and the whole world is bathed in
its shining glory... The day will soon come when the light of Divine unity
will have so permeated the East and the West that no man dare any longer
ignore it.” “Now in the world of being the Hand of divine power hath
firmly laid the foundations of this all-highest bounty and this wondrous
gift. Whatsoever is latent in the innermost of this holy cycle shall
gradually appear and be made manifest, for now is but the beginning of its
growth and the dayspring of the revelation of its signs. Ere the close of
this century and of this age, it shall be made clear and evident how
wondrous was that springtide and how heavenly was that gift!”

In confirmation of the exalted rank of the true believer, referred to by
Bahá’u’lláh, He reveals the following: “The station which he who hath
truly recognized this Revelation will attain is the same as the one
ordained for such prophets of the house of Israel as are not regarded as
Manifestations ‘endowed with constancy.’”

In connection with the Manifestations destined to follow the Revelation of
Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes this definite and weighty declaration:
“Concerning the Manifestations that will come down in the future ‘in the
shadows of the clouds,’ know verily that in so far as their relation to
the source of their inspiration is concerned they are under the shadow of
the Ancient Beauty. In their relation, however, to the age in which they
appear, each and every one of them ‘doeth whatsoever He willeth.’”

“O my friend!” He thus addresses in one of His Tablets a man of recognized
authority and standing, “The undying Fire which the Lord of the Kingdom
hath kindled in the midst of the holy Tree is burning fiercely in the
midmost heart of the world. The conflagration it will provoke will envelop
the whole earth. Its blazing flames will illuminate its peoples and
kindreds. All the signs have been revealed; every prophetic allusion hath
been manifested. Whatever hath been enshrined in all the Scriptures of the
past hath been made evident. To doubt or hesitate is no more possible...
Time is pressing. The Divine Charger is impatient, and can tarry no
longer. Ours is the duty to rush forward and, ere it is too late, win the
victory.” And finally, is this most stirring passage which He, in one of
His moments of exultation, was moved to address to one of His most trusted
and eminent followers in the earliest days of His ministry: “What more
shall I say? What else can my pen recount? So loud is the call that
reverberates from the Abhá Kingdom that mortal ears are well-nigh deafened
with its vibrations. The whole creation, methinks, is being disrupted and
is bursting asunder through the shattering influence of the Divine summons
issued from the throne of glory. More than this I cannot write.”

Dearly-beloved friends! Enough has been said, and the quoted excerpts from
the writings of the Báb, of Bahá’u’lláh and of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are
sufficiently numerous and varied, to convince the conscientious reader of
the sublimity of this unique cycle in the world’s religious history. It
would be utterly impossible to over-exaggerate its significance or to
overrate the influence it has exerted and which it must increasingly exert
as its great system unfolds itself amidst the welter of a collapsing
civilization.

To whoever may read these pages a word of warning seems, however,
advisable before I proceed further with the development of my argument.
Let no one meditating, in the light of the afore-quoted passages, on the
nature of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, mistake its character or
misconstrue the intent of its Author. The divinity attributed to so great
a Being and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in
so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or
misinterpreted. The human temple that has been made the vehicle of so
overpowering a Revelation must, if we be faithful to the tenets of our
Faith, ever remain entirely distinguished from that “innermost Spirit of
Spirits” and “eternal Essence of Essences”—that invisible yet rational God
Who, however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth,
can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible
and all-embracing Reality in the concrete and limited frame of a mortal
being. Indeed, the God Who could so incarnate His own reality would, in
the light of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, cease immediately to be God. So
crude and fantastic a theory of Divine incarnation is as removed from, and
incompatible with, the essentials of Bahá’í belief as are the no less
inadmissible pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God— both of
which the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh emphatically repudiate and the fallacy
of which they expose.

He Who in unnumbered passages claimed His utterance to be the “Voice of
Divinity, the Call of God Himself” thus solemnly affirms in the
Kitáb-i-Íqán: “To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that
God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immeasurably exalted
beyond every human attribute such as corporeal existence, ascent and
descent, egress and regress... He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the
ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality
everlastingly hidden from the sight of men... He standeth exalted beyond
and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness... ‘God
was alone; there was none else beside Him’ is a sure testimony of this
truth.”

“From time immemorial,” Bahá’u’lláh, speaking of God, explains, “He, the
Divine Being, hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted
Self, and will everlasting continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable
mystery of His unknowable Essence... Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses,
are thunderstruck upon the Sinai of their search at God’s forbidding
voice, ‘Thou shalt never behold Me!’; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as
great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the
interdiction ‘Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!’” “How bewildering
to me, insignificant as I am,” Bahá’u’lláh in His communion with God
affirms, “is the attempt to fathom the sacred depths of Thy knowledge! How
futile my efforts to visualize the magnitude of the power inherent in
Thine handiwork—the revelation of Thy creative power!” “When I
contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee,” He, in
yet another prayer revealed in His own handwriting, testifies, “I am moved
to proclaim to all created things ‘verily I am God!’; and when I consider
my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!”

“The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days,” Bahá’u’lláh further
states in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “being thus closed in the face of all beings,
He, the Source of infinite grace ... hath caused those luminous Gems of
Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of
the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart
unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being and tell of the
subtleties of His imperishable Essence... All the Prophets of God, His
well-favored, His holy and chosen Messengers are, without exception, the
bearers of His names and the embodiments of His attributes... These
Tabernacles of Holiness, these primal Mirrors which reflect the Light of
unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible of the
Invisibles.”

That Bahá’u’lláh should, notwithstanding the overwhelming intensity of His
Revelation, be regarded as essentially one of these Manifestations of God,
never to be identified with that invisible Reality, the Essence of
Divinity itself, is one of the major beliefs of our Faith—a belief which
should never be obscured and the integrity of which no one of its
followers should allow to be compromised.

Nor does the Bahá’í Revelation, claiming as it does to be the culmination
of a prophetic cycle and the fulfillment of the promise of all ages,
attempt, under any circumstances, to invalidate those first and
everlasting principles that animate and underlie the religions that have
preceded it. The God-given authority, vested in each one of them, it
admits and establishes as its firmest and ultimate basis. It regards them
in no other light except as different stages in the eternal history and
constant evolution of one religion, Divine and indivisible, of which it
itself forms but an integral part. It neither seeks to obscure their
Divine origin, nor to dwarf the admitted magnitude of their colossal
achievements. It can countenance no attempt that seeks to distort their
features or to stultify the truths which they instill. Its teachings do
not deviate a hairbreadth from the verities they enshrine, nor does the
weight of its message detract one jot or one tittle from the influence
they exert or the loyalty they inspire. Far from aiming at the overthrow
of the spiritual foundation of the world’s religious systems, its avowed,
its unalterable purpose is to widen their basis, to restate their
fundamentals, to reconcile their aims, to reinvigorate their life, to
demonstrate their oneness, to restore the pristine purity of their
teachings, to cöordinate their functions and to assist in the realization
of their highest aspirations. These divinely-revealed religions, as a
close observer has graphically expressed it, “are doomed not to die, but
to be reborn... ‘Does not the child succumb in the youth and the youth in
the man; yet neither child nor youth perishes?’”

“They Who are the Luminaries of Truth and the Mirrors reflecting the light
of Divine Unity,” Bahá’u’lláh explains in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “in whatever
age and cycle they are sent down from their invisible habitations of
ancient glory unto this world to educate the souls of men and endue with
grace all created things, are invariably endowed with an all-compelling
power and invested with invincible sovereignty... These sanctified
Mirrors, these Day-Springs of ancient glory are one and all the exponents
on earth of Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its essence and
ultimate purpose. From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is
derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a
reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless
glory... Through them is transmitted a grace that is infinite, and by them
is revealed the light that can never fade... Human tongue can never
befittingly sing their praise, and human speech can never unfold their
mystery.” “Inasmuch as these Birds of the celestial Throne,” He adds, “are
all sent down from the heaven of the Will of God, and as they all arise to
proclaim His irresistible Faith, they therefore are regarded as one soul
and the same person... They all abide in the same tabernacle, soar in the
same heaven, are seated upon the same throne, utter the same speech, and
proclaim the same Faith... They only differ in the intensity of their
revelation and the comparative potency of their light... That a certain
attribute of God hath not been outwardly manifested by these Essences of
Detachment doth in no wise imply that they Who are the Day-Springs of
God’s attributes and the Treasuries of His holy names did not actually
possess it.”

It should also be borne in mind that, great as is the power manifested by
this Revelation and however vast the range of the Dispensation its Author
has inaugurated, it emphatically repudiates the claim to be regarded as
the final revelation of God’s will and purpose for mankind. To hold such a
conception of its character and functions would be tantamount to a
betrayal of its cause and a denial of its truth. It must necessarily
conflict with the fundamental principle which constitutes the bedrock of
Bahá’í belief, the principle that religious truth is not absolute but
relative, that Divine Revelation is orderly, continuous and progressive
and not spasmodic or final. Indeed, the categorical rejection by the
followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh of the claim to finality which any
religious system inaugurated by the Prophets of the past may advance is as
clear and emphatic as their own refusal to claim that same finality for
the Revelation with which they stand identified. “To believe that all
revelation is ended, that the portals of Divine mercy are closed, that
from the daysprings of eternal holiness no sun shall rise again, that the
ocean of everlasting bounty is forever stilled, and that out of the
tabernacle of ancient glory the Messengers of God have ceased to be made
manifest” must constitute in the eyes of every follower of the Faith a
grave, an inexcusable departure from one of its most cherished and
fundamental principles.

A reference to some of the already quoted utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and
‘Abdu’l-Bahá will surely suffice to establish, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, the truth of this cardinal principle. Might not the following
passage of the Hidden Words be, likewise, construed as an allegorical
allusion to the progressiveness of Divine Revelation and an admission by
its Author that the Message with which He has been entrusted is not the
final and ultimate expression of the will and guidance of the Almighty? “O
Son of Justice! In the night-season the beauty of the immortal Being hath
repaired from the emerald height of fidelity unto the Sadratu’l-Muntahá,
and wept with such a weeping that the concourse on high and the dwellers
of the realms above wailed at His lamenting. Whereupon there was asked,
Why the wailing and weeping? He made reply: As bidden I waited expectant
upon the hill of faithfulness, yet inhaled not from them that dwell on
earth the fragrance of fidelity. Then summoned to return I beheld, and lo!
certain doves of holiness were sore tried within the claws of the dogs of
earth. Thereupon the Maid of heaven hastened forth unveiled and
resplendent from Her mystic mansion, and asked of their names, and all
were told but one. And when urged, the first letter thereof was uttered,
whereupon the dwellers of the celestial chambers rushed forth out of their
habitation of glory. And whilst the second letter was pronounced they fell
down, one and all, upon the dust. At that moment a voice was heard from
the inmost shrine: ‘Thus far and no farther.’ Verily We bear witness to
that which they have done and now are doing.”

In a more explicit language Bahá’u’lláh testifies to this truth in one of
His Tablets revealed in Adrianople: “Know verily that the veil hiding Our
countenance hath not been completely lifted. We have revealed Our Self to
a degree corresponding to the capacity of the people of Our age. Should
the Ancient Beauty be unveiled in the fullness of His glory mortal eyes
would be blinded by the dazzling intensity of His revelation.”

In the Súriy-i-Sabr, revealed as far back as the year 1863, on the very
first day of His arrival in the garden of Ridván, He thus affirms: “God
hath sent down His Messengers to succeed to Moses and Jesus, and He will
continue to do so till ‘the end that hath no end’; so that His grace may,
from the heaven of Divine bounty, be continually vouchsafed to mankind.”

“I am not apprehensive for My own self,” Bahá’u’lláh still more explicitly
declares, “My fears are for Him Who will be sent down unto you after
Me—Him Who will be invested with great sovereignty and mighty dominion.”
And again He writes in the Súratu’l-Haykal: “By those words which I have
revealed, Myself is not intended, but rather He Who will come after Me. To
it is witness God, the All-Knowing.” “Deal not with Him,” He adds, “as ye
have dealt with Me.”

In a more circumstantial passage the Báb upholds the same truth in His
writings. “It is clear and evident,” He writes in the Persian Bayán, “that
the object of all preceding Dispensations hath been to pave the way for
the advent of Muḥammad, the Apostle of God. These, including the
Muḥammadan Dispensation, have had, in their turn, as their objective the
Revelation proclaimed by the Qá’im. The purpose underlying this
Revelation, as well as those that preceded it, has, in like manner, been
to announce the advent of the Faith of Him Whom God will make manifest.
And this Faith—the Faith of Him Whom God will make manifest—in its turn,
together with all the Revelations gone before it, have as their object the
Manifestation destined to succeed it. And the latter, no less than all the
Revelations preceding it, prepare the way for the Revelation which is yet
to follow. The process of the rise and setting of the Sun of Truth will
thus indefinitely continue—a process that hath had no beginning and will
have no end.”

“Know of a certainty,” Bahá’u’lláh explains in this connection, “that in
every Dispensation the light of Divine Revelation hath been vouchsafed to
men in direct proportion to their spiritual capacity. Consider the sun.
How feeble its rays the moment it appeareth above the horizon. How
gradually its warmth and potency increase as it approacheth its zenith,
enabling meanwhile all created things to adapt themselves to the growing
intensity of its light. How steadily it declineth until it reacheth its
setting point. Were it all of a sudden to manifest the energies latent
within it, it would no doubt cause injury to all created things... In like
manner, if the Sun of Truth were suddenly to reveal, at the earliest
stages of its manifestation, the full measure of the potencies which the
providence of the Almighty hath bestowed upon it, the earth of human
understanding would waste away and be consumed; for men’s hearts would
neither sustain the intensity of its revelation, nor be able to mirror
forth the radiance of its light. Dismayed and overpowered, they would
cease to exist.”

In the light of these clear and conclusive statements it is our clear duty
to make it indubitably evident to every seeker after truth that from “the
beginning that hath no beginning” the Prophets of the one, the unknowable
God, including Bahá’u’lláh Himself, have all, as the channels of God’s
grace, as the exponents of His unity, as the mirrors of His light and the
revealers of His purpose, been commissioned to unfold to mankind an
ever-increasing measure of His truth, of His inscrutable will and Divine
guidance, and will continue to “the end that hath no end” to vouchsafe
still fuller and mightier revelations of His limitless power and glory.

We might well ponder in our hearts the following passages from a prayer
revealed by Bahá’u’lláh which strikingly affirm, and are a further
evidence of, the reality of the great and essential truth lying at the
very core of His Message to mankind: “Praise be to Thee, O Lord my God,
for the wondrous revelations of Thine inscrutable decree and the manifold
woes and trials Thou hast destined for myself. At one time Thou didst
deliver me into the hands of Nimrod; at another Thou hast allowed
Pharaoh’s rod to persecute me. Thou alone canst estimate, through Thine
all-encompassing knowledge and the operation of Thy Will, the incalculable
afflictions I have suffered at their hands. Again Thou didst cast me into
the prison-cell of the ungodly for no reason except that I was moved to
whisper into the ears of the well-favored denizens of Thy kingdom an
intimation of the vision with which Thou hadst, through Thy knowledge,
inspired me and revealed to me its meaning through the potency of Thy
might. And again Thou didst decree that I be beheaded by the sword of the
infidel. Again I was crucified for having unveiled to men’s eyes the
hidden gems of Thy glorious unity, for having revealed to them the
wondrous signs of Thy sovereign and everlasting power. How bitter the
humiliations heaped upon me, in a subsequent age, on the plain of Karbilá!
How lonely did I feel amidst Thy people; to what state of helplessness I
was reduced in that land! Unsatisfied with such indignities, my
persecutors decapitated me and carrying aloft my head from land to land
paraded it before the gaze of the unbelieving multitude and deposited it
on the seats of the perverse and faithless. In a later age I was suspended
and my breast was made a target to the darts of the malicious cruelty of
my foes. My limbs were riddled with bullets and my body was torn asunder.
Finally, behold how in this day my treacherous enemies have leagued
themselves against me, and are continually plotting to instill the venom
of hate and malice into the souls of Thy servants. With all their might
they are scheming to accomplish their purpose... Grievous as is my plight,
O God, my Well-beloved, I render thanks unto Thee, and my spirit is
grateful for whatsoever hath befallen me in the path of Thy good-pleasure.
I am well pleased with that which Thou didst ordain for me, and welcome,
however calamitous, the pains and sorrows I am made to suffer.”



The Báb


Dearly-beloved friends! That the Báb, the inaugurator of the Bábí
Dispensation, is fully entitled to rank as one of the self-sufficient
Manifestations of God, that He has been invested with sovereign power and
authority, and exercises all the rights and prerogatives of independent
Prophethood, is yet another fundamental verity which the Message of
Bahá’u’lláh insistently proclaims and which its followers must
uncompromisingly uphold. That He is not to be regarded merely as an
inspired Precursor of the Bahá’í Revelation, that in His person, as He
Himself bears witness in the Persian Bayán, the object of all the Prophets
gone before Him has been fulfilled, is a truth which I feel it my duty to
demonstrate and emphasize. We would assuredly be failing in our duty to
the Faith we profess and would be violating one of its basic and sacred
principles if in our words or by our conduct we hesitate to recognize the
implications of this root principle of Bahá’í belief, or refuse to uphold
unreservedly its integrity and demonstrate its truth. Indeed the chief
motive actuating me to undertake the task of editing and translating
Nabíl’s immortal Narrative has been to enable every follower of the Faith
in the West to better understand and more readily grasp the tremendous
implications of His exalted station and to more ardently admire and love
Him.

There can be no doubt that the claim to the twofold station ordained for
the Báb by the Almighty, a claim which He Himself has so boldly advanced,
which Bahá’u’lláh has repeatedly affirmed, and to which the Will and
Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has finally given the sanction of its testimony,
constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Bahá’í Dispensation. It is
a further evidence of its uniqueness, a tremendous accession to the
strength, to the mysterious power and authority with which this holy cycle
has been invested. Indeed the greatness of the Báb consists primarily, not
in His being the divinely-appointed Forerunner of so transcendent a
Revelation, but rather in His having been invested with the powers
inherent in the inaugurator of a separate religious Dispensation, and in
His wielding, to a degree unrivaled by the Messengers gone before Him, the
scepter of independent Prophethood.

The short duration of His Dispensation, the restricted range within which
His laws and ordinances have been made to operate, supply no criterion
whatever wherewith to judge its Divine origin and to evaluate the potency
of its message. “That so brief a span,” Bahá’u’lláh Himself explains,
“should have separated this most mighty and wondrous Revelation from Mine
own previous Manifestation, is a secret that no man can unravel and a
mystery such as no mind can fathom. Its duration had been foreordained,
and no man shall ever discover its reason unless and until he be informed
of the contents of My Hidden Book.” “Behold,” Bahá’u’lláh further explains
in the Kitáb-i-Badí’, one of His works refuting the arguments of the
people of the Bayán, “behold, how immediately upon the completion of the
ninth year of this wondrous, this most holy and merciful Dispensation, the
requisite number of pure, of wholly consecrated and sanctified souls had
been most secretly consummated.”

The marvelous happenings that have heralded the advent of the Founder of
the Bábí Dispensation, the dramatic circumstances of His own eventful
life, the miraculous tragedy of His martyrdom, the magic of His influence
exerted on the most eminent and powerful among His countrymen, to all of
which every chapter of Nabíl’s stirring narrative testifies, should in
themselves be regarded as sufficient evidence of the validity of His claim
to so exalted a station among the Prophets.

However graphic the record which the eminent chronicler of His life has
transmitted to posterity, so luminous a narrative must pale before the
glowing tribute paid to the Báb by the pen of Bahá’u’lláh. This tribute
the Báb Himself has, by the clear assertion of His claim, abundantly
supported, while the written testimonies of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have powerfully
reinforced its character and elucidated its meaning.

Where else if not in the Kitáb-i-Íqán can the student of the Bábí
Dispensation seek to find those affirmations that unmistakably attest the
power and spirit which no man, except he be a Manifestation of God, can
manifest? “Could such a thing,” exclaims Bahá’u’lláh, “be made manifest
except through the power of a Divine Revelation and the potency of God’s
invincible Will? By the righteousness of God! Were any one to entertain so
great a Revelation in his heart the thought of such a declaration would
alone confound him! Were the hearts of all men to be crowded into his
heart, he would still hesitate to venture upon so awful an enterprise.”
“No eye,” He in another passage affirms, “hath beheld so great an
outpouring of bounty, nor hath any ear heard of such a Revelation of
loving-kindness... The Prophets ‘endowed with constancy,’ whose loftiness
and glory shine as the sun, were each honored with a Book which all have
seen, and the verses of which have been duly ascertained. Whereas the
verses which have rained from this Cloud of divine mercy have been so
abundant that none hath yet been able to estimate their number... How can
they belittle this Revelation? Hath any age witnessed such momentous
happenings?”

Commenting on the character and influence of those heroes and martyrs whom
the spirit of the Báb had so magically transformed Bahá’u’lláh reveals the
following: “If these companions be not the true strivers after God, who
else could be called by this name?... If these companions, with all their
marvelous testimonies and wondrous works, be false, who then is worthy to
claim for himself the truth?... Has the world since the days of Adam
witnessed such tumult, such violent commotion?... Methinks, patience was
revealed only by virtue of their fortitude, and faithfulness itself was
begotten only by their deeds.”

Wishing to stress the sublimity of the Báb’s exalted station as compared
with that of the Prophets of the past, Bahá’u’lláh in that same epistle
asserts: “No understanding can grasp the nature of His Revelation, nor can
any knowledge comprehend the full measure of His Faith.” He then quotes,
in confirmation of His argument, these prophetic words: “Knowledge is
twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two
letters thereof. No man thus far hath known more than these two letters.
But when the Qá’im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and
five letters to be made manifest.” “Behold,” He adds, “how great and lofty
is His station! His rank excelleth that of all the Prophets and His
Revelation transcendeth the comprehension and understanding of all their
chosen ones.” “Of His Revelation,” He further adds, “the Prophets of God,
His saints and chosen ones, have either not been informed, or, in
pursuance of God’s inscrutable decree, they have not disclosed.”

Of all the tributes which Bahá’u’lláh’s unerring pen has chosen to pay to
the memory of the Báb, His “Best-Beloved,” the most memorable and touching
is this brief, yet eloquent passage which so greatly enhances the value of
the concluding passages of that same epistle. “Amidst them all,” He
writes, referring to the afflictive trials and dangers besetting Him in
the city of Ba_gh_dád, “We stand life in hand wholly resigned to His Will,
that perchance through God’s loving kindness and grace, this revealed and
manifest Letter (Bahá’u’lláh) may lay down His life as a sacrifice in the
path of the Primal Point, the most exalted Word (the Báb). By Him, at
Whose bidding the Spirit hath spoken, but for this yearning of Our soul,
We would not, for one moment, have tarried any longer in this city.”

Dearly-beloved friends! So resounding a praise, so bold an assertion
issued by the pen of Bahá’u’lláh in so weighty a work, are fully re-echoed
in the language in which the Source of the Bábí Revelation has chosen to
clothe the claims He Himself has advanced. “I am the Mystic Fane,” the Báb
thus proclaims His station in the Qayyúmu’l-Asmá, “which the Hand of
Omnipotence hath reared. I am the Lamp which the Finger of God hath lit
within its niche and caused to shine with deathless splendor. I am the
Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai in the gladsome Spot,
and lay concealed in the midst of the Burning Bush.” “O Qurratu’l-‘Ayn!”
He, addressing Himself in that same commentary, exclaims, “I recognize in
Thee none other except the ‘Great Announcement’—the Announcement voiced by
the Concourse on high. By this name, I bear witness, they that circle the
Throne of Glory have ever known Thee.” “With each and every Prophet, Whom
We have sent down in the past,” He further adds, “We have established a
separate Covenant concerning the ‘Remembrance of God’ and His Day.
Manifest, in the realm of glory and through the power of truth, are the
‘Remembrance of God’ and His Day before the eyes of the angels that circle
His mercy-seat.” “Should it be Our wish,” He again affirms, “it is in Our
power to compel, through the agency of but one letter of Our Revelation,
the world and all that is therein to recognize, in less than the twinkling
of an eye, the truth of Our Cause.”

“I am the Primal Point,” the Báb thus addresses Muḥammad _Sh_áh from the
prison-fortress of Máh-Kú, “from which have been generated all created
things... I am the Countenance of God Whose splendor can never be
obscured, the light of God whose radiance can never fade... All the keys
of heaven God hath chosen to place on My right hand, and all the keys of
hell on My left... I am one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word
of God. Whosoever hath recognized Me, hath known all that is true and
right, and hath attained all that is good and seemly... The substance
wherewith God hath created Me is not the clay out of which others have
been formed. He hath conferred upon Me that which the worldly-wise can
never comprehend, nor the faithful discover.” “Should a tiny ant,” the
Báb, wishing to stress the limitless potentialities latent in His
Dispensation, characteristically affirms, “desire in this day to be
possessed of such power as to be able to unravel the abstrusest and most
bewildering passages of the Qur’án, its wish will no doubt be fulfilled,
inasmuch as the mystery of eternal might vibrates within the innermost
being of all created things.” “If so helpless a creature,” is
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s comment on so startling an affirmation, “can be endowed
with so subtle a capacity, how much more efficacious must be the power
released through the liberal effusions of the grace of Bahá’u’lláh!”

To these authoritative assertions and solemn declarations made by
Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb must be added ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own incontrovertible
testimony. He, the appointed interpreter of the utterances of both
Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb, corroborates, not by implication but in clear and
categorical language, both in His Tablets and in His Testament, the truth
of the statements to which I have already referred.

In a Tablet addressed to a Bahá’í in Mázindarán, in which He unfolds the
meaning of a misinterpreted statement attributed to Him regarding the rise
of the Sun of Truth in this century, He sets forth, briefly but
conclusively, what should remain for all time our true conception of the
relationship between the two Manifestations associated with the Bahá’í
Dispensation. “In making such a statement,” He explains, “I had in mind no
one else except the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, the character of whose
Revelations it had been my purpose to elucidate. The Revelation of the Báb
may be likened to the sun, its station corresponding to the first sign of
the Zodiac—the sign Aries—which the sun enters at the Vernal Equinox. The
station of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation, on the other hand, is represented by
the sign Leo, the sun’s mid-summer and highest station. By this is meant
that this holy Dispensation is illumined with the light of the Sun of
Truth shining from its most exalted station, and in the plenitude of its
resplendency, its heat and glory.”

“The Báb, the Exalted One,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá more specifically affirms in
another Tablet, “is the Morn of Truth, the splendor of Whose light shineth
throughout all regions. He is also the Harbinger of the Most Great Light,
the Abhá Luminary. The Blessed Beauty is the One promised by the sacred
books of the past, the revelation of the Source of light that shone upon
Mount Sinai, Whose fire glowed in the midst of the Burning Bush. We are,
one and all, servants of their threshold, and stand each as a lowly keeper
at their door.” “Every proof and prophecy,” is His still more emphatic
warning, “every manner of evidence, whether based on reason or on the text
of the scriptures and traditions, are to be regarded as centered in the
persons of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb. In them is to be found their complete
fulfillment.”

And finally, in His Will and Testament, the repository of His last wishes
and parting instructions, He in the following passage, specifically
designed to set forth the guiding principles of Bahá’í belief, sets the
seal of His testimony on the Báb’s dual and exalted station: “The
foundation of the belief of the people of Bahá (may my life be offered up
for them) is this: His holiness the exalted One (the Báb) is the
Manifestation of the unity and oneness of God and the Forerunner of the
Ancient Beauty (Bahá’u’lláh). His holiness, the Abhá Beauty (Bahá’u’lláh)
(may my life be offered up as a sacrifice for His steadfast friends) is
the supreme Manifestation of God and the Day-Spring of His most divine
Essence.” “All others,” He significantly adds, “are servants unto Him and
do His bidding.”



‘Abdu’l-Bahá


Dearly-beloved friends! I have in the foregoing pages ventured to attempt
an exposition of such truths as I firmly believe are implicit in the claim
of Him Who is the Fountain-Head of the Bahá’í Revelation. I have moreover
endeavored to dissipate such misapprehensions as may naturally arise in
the mind of any one contemplating so superhuman a manifestation of the
glory of God. I have striven to explain the meaning of the divinity with
which He Who is the vehicle of so mysterious an energy must needs be
invested. That the Message which so great a Being has, in this age, been
commissioned by God to deliver to mankind recognizes the divine origin and
upholds the first principles of every Dispensation inaugurated by the
prophets of the past, and stands inextricably interwoven with each one of
them, I have also to the best of my ability undertaken to demonstrate.
That the Author of such a Faith, Who repudiates the claim to finality
which leaders of various denominations uphold has, despite the vastness of
His Revelation, disclaimed it for Himself I have, likewise, felt it
necessary to prove and emphasize. That the Báb, notwithstanding the
duration of His Dispensation, should be regarded primarily, not as the
chosen Precursor of the Bahá’í Faith, but as One invested with the
undivided authority assumed by each of the independent Prophets of the
past, seemed to me yet another basic principle the elucidation of which
would be extremely desirable at the present stage of the evolution of our
Cause.

An attempt I strongly feel should now be made to clarify our minds
regarding the station occupied by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the significance of His
position in this holy Dispensation. It would be indeed difficult for us,
who stand so close to such a tremendous figure and are drawn by the
mysterious power of so magnetic a personality, to obtain a clear and exact
understanding of the rôle and character of One Who, not only in the
Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh but in the entire field of religious history,
fulfills a unique function. Though moving in a sphere of His own and
holding a rank radically different from that of the Author and the
Forerunner of the Bahá’í Revelation, He, by virtue of the station ordained
for Him through the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, forms together with them what
may be termed the Three Central Figures of a Faith that stands
unapproached in the world’s spiritual history. He towers, in conjunction
with them, above the destinies of this infant Faith of God from a level to
which no individual or body ministering to its needs after Him, and for no
less a period than a full thousand years, can ever hope to rise. To
degrade His lofty rank by identifying His station with or by regarding it
as roughly equivalent to, the position of those on whom the mantle of His
authority has fallen would be an act of impiety as grave as the no less
heretical belief that inclines to exalt Him to a state of absolute
equality with either the central Figure or Forerunner of our Faith. For
wide as is the gulf that separates ‘Abdu’l-Bahá from Him Who is the Source
of an independent Revelation, it can never be regarded as commensurate
with the greater distance that stands between Him Who is the Center of the
Covenant and His ministers who are to carry on His work, whatever be their
name, their rank, their functions or their future achievements. Let those
who have known ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who through their contact with His magnetic
personality have come to cherish for Him so fervent an admiration,
reflect, in the light of this statement, on the greatness of One Who is so
far above Him in station.

That ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is not a Manifestation of God, that, though the
successor of His Father, He does not occupy a cognate station, that no one
else except the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh can ever lay claim to such a station
before the expiration of a full thousand years—are verities which lie
embedded in the specific utterances of both the Founder of our Faith and
the Interpreter of His teachings.

“Whoso layeth claim to a Revelation direct from God,” is the express
warning uttered in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, “ere the expiration of a full
thousand years, such a man is assuredly a lying imposter. We pray God that
He may graciously assist him to retract and repudiate such claim. Should
he repent, God will no doubt forgive him. If, however, he persists in his
error, God will assuredly send down one who will deal mercilessly with
him. Terrible indeed is God in punishing!” “Whosoever,” He adds as a
further emphasis, “interpreteth this verse otherwise than its obvious
meaning is deprived of the Spirit of God and of His mercy which
encompasseth all created things.” “Should a man appear,” is yet another
conclusive statement, “ere the lapse of a full thousand years—each year
consisting of twelve months according to the Qur’án, and of nineteen
months of nineteen days each, according to the Bayán—and if such a man
reveal to your eyes all the signs of God, unhesitatingly reject him!”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own statements, in confirmation of this warning, are no
less emphatic and binding: “This is,” He declares, “my firm, my unshakable
conviction, the essence of my unconcealed and explicit belief—a conviction
and belief which the denizens of the Abhá Kingdom fully share: The Blessed
Beauty is the Sun of Truth, and His light the light of truth. The Báb is
likewise the Sun of Truth, and His light the light of truth... My station
is the station of servitude—a servitude which is complete, pure and real,
firmly established, enduring, obvious, explicitly revealed and subject to
no interpretation whatever... I am the Interpreter of the Word of God;
such is my interpretation.”

Does not ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His own Will—in a tone and language that might
well confound the most inveterate among the breakers of His Father’s
Covenant—rob of their chief weapon those who so long and so persistently
had striven to impute to Him the charge of having tacitly claimed a
station equal, if not superior, to that of Bahá’u’lláh? “The foundation of
the belief of the people of Bahá is this,” thus proclaims one of the
weightiest passages of that last document left to voice in perpetuity the
directions and wishes of a departed Master, “His Holiness the Exalted One
(the Báb) is the Manifestation of the unity and oneness of God and the
Forerunner of the Ancient Beauty. His Holiness the Abhá Beauty
(Bahá’u’lláh) (may my life be a sacrifice for His steadfast friends) is
the supreme Manifestation of God and the Day-Spring of His most divine
Essence. All others are servants unto Him and do His bidding.”

From such clear and formally laid down statements, incompatible as they
are with any assertion of a claim to Prophethood, we should not by any
means infer that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is merely one of the servants of the Blessed
Beauty, or at best one whose function is to be confined to that of an
authorized interpreter of His Father’s teachings. Far be it from me to
entertain such a notion or to wish to instill such sentiments. To regard
Him in such a light is a manifest betrayal of the priceless heritage
bequeathed by Bahá’u’lláh to mankind. Immeasurably exalted is the station
conferred upon Him by the Supreme Pen above and beyond the implications of
these, His own written statements. Whether in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the most
weighty and sacred of all the works of Bahá’u’lláh, or in the
Kitáb-i-‘Ahd, the Book of His Covenant, or in the Súriy-i-_Gh_usn (Tablet
of the Branch), such references as have been recorded by the pen of
Bahá’u’lláh—references which the Tablets of His Father addressed to Him
mightily reinforce—invest ‘Abdu’l-Bahá with a power, and surround Him with
a halo, which the present generation can never adequately appreciate.

He is, and should for all time be regarded, first and foremost, as the
Center and Pivot of Bahá’u’lláh’s peerless and all-enfolding Covenant, His
most exalted handiwork, the stainless Mirror of His light, the perfect
Exemplar of His teachings, the unerring Interpreter of His Word, the
embodiment of every Bahá’í ideal, the incarnation of every Bahá’í virtue,
the Most Mighty Branch sprung from the Ancient Root, the Limb of the Law
of God, the Being “round Whom all names revolve,” the Mainspring of the
Oneness of Humanity, the Ensign of the Most Great Peace, the Moon of the
Central Orb of this most holy Dispensation—styles and titles that are
implicit and find their truest, their highest and fairest expression in
the magic name ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He is, above and beyond these appellations,
the “Mystery of God”—an expression by which Bahá’u’lláh Himself has chosen
to designate Him, and which, while it does not by any means justify us to
assign to Him the station of Prophethood, indicates how in the person of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá the incompatible characteristics of a human nature and
superhuman knowledge and perfection have been blended and are completely
harmonized.

“When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is
ended,” proclaims the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, “turn your faces towards Him Whom God
hath purposed, Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.” And again, “When
the Mystic Dove will have winged its flight from its Sanctuary of Praise
and sought its far-off goal, its hidden habitation, refer ye whatsoever ye
understand not in the Book to Him Who hath branched from this mighty
Stock.”

In the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd, moreover, Bahá’u’lláh solemnly and explicitly
declares: “It is incumbent upon the A_gh_sán, the Afnán and My kindred to
turn, one and all, their faces towards the Most Mighty Branch. Consider
that which We have revealed in Our Most Holy Book: ‘When the ocean of My
presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended, turn your
faces toward Him Whom God hath purposed, Who hath branched from this
Ancient Root.’ The object of this sacred verse is none other except the
Most Mighty Branch (‘Abdu’l-Bahá). Thus have We graciously revealed unto
you our potent Will, and I am verily the Gracious, the All-Powerful.”

In the Súriy-i-_Gh_usn (Tablet of the Branch) the following verses have
been recorded: “There hath branched from the Sadratu’l-Muntahá this sacred
and glorious Being, this Branch of Holiness; well is it with him that hath
sought His shelter and abideth beneath His shadow. Verily the Limb of the
Law of God hath sprung forth from this Root which God hath firmly
implanted in the Ground of His Will, and Whose Branch hath been so
uplifted as to encompass the whole of creation. Magnified be He,
therefore, for this sublime, this blessed, this mighty, this exalted
Handiwork!... A Word hath, as a token of Our grace, gone forth from the
Most Great Tablet—a Word which God hath adorned with the ornament of His
own Self, and made it sovereign over the earth and all that is therein,
and a sign of His greatness and power among its people ...Render thanks
unto God, O people, for His appearance; for verily He is the most great
Favor unto you, the most perfect bounty upon you; and through Him every
mouldering bone is quickened. Whoso turneth towards Him hath turned
towards God, and whoso turneth away from Him hath turned away from My
beauty, hath repudiated My Proof, and transgressed against Me. He is the
Trust of God amongst you, His charge within you, His manifestation unto
you and His appearance among His favored servants... We have sent Him down
in the form of a human temple. Blest and sanctified be God Who createth
whatsoever He willeth through His inviolable, His infallible decree. They
who deprive themselves of the shadow of the Branch, are lost in the
wilderness of error, are consumed by the heat of worldly desires, and are
of those who will assuredly perish.”

“O Thou Who art the apple of Mine eye!” Bahá’u’lláh, in His own
handwriting, thus addresses ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “My glory, the ocean of My
loving-kindness, the sun of My bounty, the heaven of My mercy rest upon
Thee. We pray God to illumine the world through Thy knowledge and wisdom,
to ordain for Thee that which will gladden Thine heart and impart
consolation to Thine eyes.” “The glory of God rest upon Thee,” He writes
in another Tablet, “and upon whosoever serveth Thee and circleth around
Thee. Woe, great woe, betide him that opposeth and injureth Thee. Well is
it with him that sweareth fealty to Thee; the fire of hell torment him who
is Thine enemy.” “We have made Thee a shelter for all mankind,” He, in yet
another Tablet, affirms, “a shield unto all who are in heaven and on
earth, a stronghold for whosoever hath believed in God, the Incomparable,
the All-Knowing. God grant that through Thee He may protect them, may
enrich and sustain them, that He may inspire Thee with that which shall be
a wellspring of wealth unto all created things, an ocean of bounty unto
all men, and the dayspring of mercy unto all peoples.”

“Thou knowest, O my God,” Bahá’u’lláh, in a prayer revealed in
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s honor, supplicates, “that I desire for Him naught except
that which Thou didst desire, and have chosen Him for no purpose save that
which Thou hadst intended for Him. Render Him victorious, therefore,
through Thy hosts of earth and heaven... Ordain, I beseech Thee, by the
ardor of My love for Thee and My yearning to manifest Thy Cause, for Him,
as well as for them that love Him, that which Thou hast destined for Thy
Messengers and the Trustees of Thy Revelation. Verily, Thou art the
Almighty, the All-Powerful.”

In a letter dictated by Bahá’u’lláh and addressed by Mírzá Áqá Ján, His
amanuensis, to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá while the latter was on a visit to Beirut, we
read the following: “Praise be to Him Who hath honored the Land of Bá
(Beirut) through the presence of Him round Whom all names revolve. All the
atoms of the earth have announced unto all created things that from behind
the gate of the Prison-city there hath appeared and above its horizon
there hath shone forth the Orb of the beauty of the great, the Most Mighty
Branch of God—His ancient and immutable Mystery—proceeding on its way to
another land. Sorrow, thereby, hath enveloped this Prison-city, whilst
another land rejoiceth... Blessed, doubly blessed, is the ground which His
footsteps have trodden, the eye that hath been cheered by the beauty of
His countenance, the ear that hath been honored by hearkening to His call,
the heart that hath tasted the sweetness of His love, the breast that hath
dilated through His remembrance, the pen that hath voiced His praise, the
scroll that hath borne the testimony of His writings.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, writing in confirmation of the authority conferred upon Him
by Bahá’u’lláh, makes the following statement: “In accordance with the
explicit text of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas Bahá’u’lláh hath made the Center of the
Covenant the Interpreter of His Word—a Covenant so firm and mighty that
from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation
hath produced its like.”

Exalted as is the rank of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and however profuse the praises
with which in these sacred Books and Tablets Bahá’u’lláh has glorified His
son, so unique a distinction must never be construed as conferring upon
its recipient a station identical with, or equivalent to, that of His
Father, the Manifestation Himself. To give such an interpretation to any
of these quoted passages would at once, and for obvious reasons, bring it
into conflict with the no less clear and authentic assertions and warnings
to which I have already referred. Indeed, as I have already stated, those
who overestimate ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s station are just as reprehensible and have
done just as much harm as those who underestimate it. And this for no
other reason except that by insisting upon an altogether unwarranted
inference from Bahá’u’lláh’s writings they are inadvertently justifying
and continuously furnishing the enemy with proofs for his false
accusations and misleading statements.

I feel it necessary, therefore, to state without any equivocation or
hesitation that neither in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas nor in the Book of
Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant, nor even in the Tablet of the Branch, nor in any
other Tablet, whether revealed by Bahá’u’lláh or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is there
any authority whatever for the opinion that inclines to uphold the
so-called “mystic unity” of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, or to establish
the identity of the latter with His Father or with any preceding
Manifestation. This erroneous conception may, in part, be ascribed to an
altogether extravagant interpretation of certain terms and passages in the
Tablet of the Branch, to the introduction into its English translation of
certain words that are either non-existent, misleading, or ambiguous in
their connotation. It is, no doubt, chiefly based upon an altogether
unjustified inference from the opening passages of a Tablet of
Bahá’u’lláh, extracts of which, as reproduced in the Bahá’í Scriptures,
immediately precede, but form no part of, the said Tablet of the Branch.
It should be made clear to every one reading those extracts that by the
phrase “the Tongue of the Ancient” no one else is meant but God, and that
the term “the Greatest Name” is an obvious reference to Bahá’u’lláh, and
that “the Covenant” referred to is not the specific Covenant of which
Bahá’u’lláh is the immediate Author and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the Center but that
general Covenant which, as inculcated by the Bahá’í teaching, God Himself
invariably establishes with mankind when He inaugurates a new
Dispensation. “The Tongue” that “gives,” as stated in those extracts, the
“glad-tidings” is none other than the Voice of God referring to
Bahá’u’lláh, and not Bahá’u’lláh referring to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

Moreover, to maintain that the assertion “He is Myself,” instead of
denoting the mystic unity of God and His Manifestations, as explained in
the Kitáb-i-Íqán, establishes the identity of Bahá’u’lláh with
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, would constitute a direct violation of the oft-repeated
principle of the oneness of God’s Manifestations—a principle which the
Author of these same extracts is seeking by implication to emphasize.

It would also amount to a reversion to those irrational and superstitious
beliefs which have insensibly crept, in the first century of the Christian
era, into the teachings of Jesus Christ, and by crystallizing into
accepted dogmas have impaired the effectiveness and obscured the purpose
of the Christian Faith.

“I affirm,” is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s own written comment on the Tablet of the
Branch, “that the true meaning, the real significance, the innermost
secret of these verses, of these very words, is my own servitude to the
sacred Threshold of the Abhá Beauty, my complete self-effacement, my utter
nothingness before Him. This is my resplendent crown, my most precious
adorning. On this I pride myself in the kingdom of earth and heaven.
Therein I glory among the company of the well-favored!” “No one is
permitted,” He warns us in the passage which immediately follows, “to give
these verses any other interpretation.” “I am,” He, in this same
connection, affirms, “according to the explicit texts of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas
and the Kitáb-i-‘Ahd the manifest Interpreter of the Word of God... Whoso
deviates from my interpretation is a victim of his own fancy.”

Furthermore, the inescapable inference from the belief in the identity of
the Author of our Faith with Him Who is the Center of His Covenant would
be to place ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in a position superior to that of the Báb, the
reverse of which is the fundamental, though not as yet universally
recognized, principle of this Revelation. It would also justify the charge
with which, all throughout ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ministry, the Covenant-Breakers
have striven to poison the minds and pervert the understanding of
Bahá’u’lláh’s loyal followers.

It would be more correct, and in consonance with the established
principles of Bahá’u’lláh and the Báb, if instead of maintaining this
fictitious identity with reference to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, we regard the
Forerunner and the Founder of our Faith as identical in reality—a truth
which the text of the Súratu’l-Haykal unmistakably affirms. “Had the
Primal Point (the Báb) been someone else beside Me as ye claim,” is
Bahá’u’lláh’s explicit statement, “and had attained My presence, verily He
would have never allowed Himself to be separated from Me, but rather We
would have had mutual delights with each other in My Days.” “He Who now
voiceth the Word of God,” Bahá’u’lláh again affirms, “is none other except
the Primal Point Who hath once again been made manifest.” “He is,” He thus
refers to Himself in a Tablet addressed to one of the Letters of the
Living, “the same as the One Who appeared in the year sixty (1260 A.H.).
This verily is one of His mighty signs.” “Who,” He pleads in the
Súriy-i-Damm, “will arise to secure the triumph of the Primal Beauty (the
Báb) revealed in the countenance of His succeeding Manifestation?”
Referring to the Revelation proclaimed by the Báb He conversely
characterizes it as “My own previous Manifestation.”

That ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is not a Manifestation of God, that He gets His light,
His inspiration and sustenance direct from the Fountain-head of the Bahá’í
Revelation; that He reflects even as a clear and perfect Mirror the rays
of Bahá’u’lláh’s glory, and does not inherently possess that indefinable
yet all-pervading reality the exclusive possession of which is the
hallmark of Prophethood; that His words are not equal in rank, though they
possess an equal validity with the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh; that He is
not to be acclaimed as the return of Jesus Christ, the Son Who will come
“in the glory of the Father”—these truths find added justification, and
are further reinforced, by the following statement of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
addressed to some believers in America, with which I may well conclude
this section: “You have written that there is a difference among the
believers concerning the ‘Second Coming of Christ.’ Gracious God! Time and
again this question hath arisen, and its answer hath emanated in a clear
and irrefutable statement from the pen of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, that what is meant
in the prophecies by the ‘Lord of Hosts’ and the ‘Promised Christ’ is the
Blessed Perfection (Bahá’u’lláh) and His holiness the Exalted One (the
Báb). My name is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. My qualification is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. My
reality is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. My praise is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Thraldom to the
Blessed Perfection is my glorious and refulgent diadem, and servitude to
all the human race my perpetual religion... No name, no title, no mention,
no commendation have I, nor will ever have, except ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. This is
my longing. This is my greatest yearning. This is my eternal life. This is
my everlasting glory.”



The Administrative Order


Dearly-beloved brethren in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! With the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh
the Day-Star of Divine guidance which, as foretold by _Sh_ay_kh_ Aḥmad and
Siyyid Kázim, had risen in _Sh_íráz, and, while pursuing its westward
course, had mounted its zenith in Adrianople, had finally sunk below the
horizon of Akká, never to rise again ere the complete revolution of one
thousand years. The setting of so effulgent an Orb brought to a definite
termination the period of Divine Revelation—the initial and most
vitalizing stage in the Bahá’í era. Inaugurated by the Báb, culminating in
Bahá’u’lláh, anticipated and extolled by the entire company of the
Prophets of this great prophetic cycle, this period has, except for the
short interval between the Báb’s martyrdom and Bahá’u’lláh’s shaking
experiences in the Síyáh-_Ch_ál of Ṭihrán, been characterized by almost
fifty years of continuous and progressive Revelation—a period which by its
duration and fecundity must be regarded as unparalleled in the entire
field of the world’s spiritual history.

The passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, on the other hand, marks the closing of the
Heroic and Apostolic Age of this same Dispensation—that primitive period
of our Faith the splendors of which can never be rivaled, much less be
eclipsed, by the magnificence that must needs distinguish the future
victories of Bahá’u’lláh’s Revelation. For neither the achievements of the
champion-builders of the present-day institutions of the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh, nor the tumultuous triumphs which the heroes of its Golden
Age will in the coming days succeed in winning, can measure with, or be
included within the same category as, the wondrous works associated with
the names of those who have generated its very life and laid its pristine
foundations. That first and creative age of the Bahá’í era must, by its
very nature, stand above and apart from the formative period into which we
have entered and the golden age destined to succeed it.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no
parallel whatsoever in any of the world’s recognized religious systems,
may be said to have closed the Age to which He Himself belonged and opened
the one in which we are now laboring. His Will and Testament should thus
be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which the mind of Him
Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the continuity
of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Bahá’í
Dispensation. The period in which the seed of the Faith had been slowly
germinating is thus intertwined both with the one which must witness its
efflorescence and the subsequent age in which that seed will have finally
yielded its golden fruit.

The creative energies released by the Law of Bahá’u’lláh, permeating and
evolving within the mind of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, have, by their very impact and
close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the
Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise
of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the
inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him
Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the
One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the
Covenant—the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of
God—the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá can no more be divorced from
Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who
ultimately conceived it. Bahá’u’lláh’s inscrutable purpose, we must ever
bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and their motives have been so closely wedded together, that
the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system
which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would
amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the
Faith.

The Administrative Order, which ever since ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s ascension has
evolved and is taking shape under our very eyes in no fewer than forty
countries of the world, may be considered as the framework of the Will
itself, the inviolable stronghold wherein this new-born child is being
nurtured and developed. This Administrative Order, as it expands and
consolidates itself, will no doubt manifest the potentialities and reveal
the full implications of this momentous Document—this most remarkable
expression of the Will of One of the most remarkable Figures of the
Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. It will, as its component parts, its organic
institutions, begin to function with efficiency and vigor, assert its
claim and demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus
but the very pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the
fullness of time the whole of mankind.

It should be noted in this connection that this Administrative Order is
fundamentally different from anything that any Prophet has previously
established, inasmuch as Bahá’u’lláh has Himself revealed its principles,
established its institutions, appointed the person to interpret His Word
and conferred the necessary authority on the body designed to supplement
and apply His legislative ordinances. Therein lies the secret of its
strength, its fundamental distinction, and the guarantee against
disintegration and schism. Nowhere in the sacred scriptures of any of the
world’s religious systems, nor even in the writings of the Inaugurator of
the Bábí Dispensation, do we find any provisions establishing a covenant
or providing for an administrative order that can compare in scope and
authority with those that lie at the very basis of the Bahá’í
Dispensation. Has either Christianity or Islám, to take as an instance two
of the most widely diffused and outstanding among the world’s recognized
religions, anything to offer that can measure with, or be regarded as
equivalent to, either the Book of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant or to the Will
and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Does the text of either the Gospel or the
Qur’án confer sufficient authority upon those leaders and councils that
have claimed the right and assumed the function of interpreting the
provisions of their sacred scriptures and of administering the affairs of
their respective communities? Could Peter, the admitted chief of the
Apostles, or the Imám ‘Alí, the cousin and legitimate successor of the
Prophet, produce in support of the primacy with which both had been
invested written and explicit affirmations from Christ and Muḥammad that
could have silenced those who either among their contemporaries or in a
later age have repudiated their authority and, by their action,
precipitated the schisms that persist until the present day? Where, we may
confidently ask, in the recorded sayings of Jesus Christ, whether in the
matter of succession or in the provision of a set of specific laws and
clearly defined administrative ordinances, as distinguished from purely
spiritual principles, can we find anything approaching the detailed
injunctions, laws and warnings that abound in the authenticated utterances
of both Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? Can any passage of the Qur’án, which
in respect to its legal code, its administrative and devotional ordinances
marks already a notable advance over previous and more corrupted
Revelations, be construed as placing upon an unassailable basis the
undoubted authority with which Muḥammad had, verbally and on several
occasions, invested His successor? Can the Author of the Bábí Dispensation
however much He may have succeeded through the provisions of the Persian
Bayán in averting a schism as permanent and catastrophic as those that
afflicted Christianity and Islám—can He be said to have produced
instruments for the safeguarding of His Faith as definite and efficacious
as those which must for all time preserve the unity of the organized
followers of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh?

Alone of all the Revelations gone before it this Faith has, through the
explicit directions, the repeated warnings, the authenticated safeguards
incorporated and elaborated in its teachings, succeeded in raising a
structure which the bewildered followers of bankrupt and broken creeds
might well approach and critically examine, and seek, ere it is too late,
the invulnerable security of its world-embracing shelter.

No wonder that He Who through the operation of His Will has inaugurated so
vast and unique an Order and Who is the Center of so mighty a Covenant
should have written these words: “So firm and mighty is this Covenant that
from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation
hath produced its like.” “Whatsoever is latent in the innermost of this
holy cycle,” He wrote during the darkest and most dangerous days of His
ministry, “shall gradually appear and be made manifest, for now is but the
beginning of its growth and the dayspring of the revelation of its signs.”
“Fear not,” are His reassuring words foreshadowing the rise of the
Administrative Order established by His Will, “fear not if this Branch be
severed from this material world and cast aside its leaves; nay, the
leaves thereof shall flourish, for this Branch will grow after it is cut
off from this world below, it shall reach the loftiest pinnacles of glory,
and it shall bear such fruits as will perfume the world with their
fragrance.”

To what else if not to the power and majesty which this Administrative
Order—the rudiments of the future all-enfolding Bahá’í Commonwealth—is
destined to manifest, can these utterances of Bahá’u’lláh allude: “The
world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of
this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been
revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System—the
like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.”

The Báb Himself, in the course of His references to “Him Whom God will
make manifest” anticipates the System and glorifies the World Order which
the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is destined to unfold. “Well is it with
him,” is His remarkable statement in the third chapter of the Persian
Bayán, “who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Bahá’u’lláh and rendereth
thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath
indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayán.”

In the Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh where the institutions of the International
and Local Houses of Justice are specifically designated and formally
established; in the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God which
first Bahá’u’lláh and then ‘Abdu’l-Bahá brought into being; in the
institution of both local and national Assemblies which in their embryonic
stage were already functioning in the days preceding ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s
ascension; in the authority with which the Author of our Faith and the
Center of His Covenant have in their Tablets chosen to confer upon them;
in the institution of the Local Fund which operated according to
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s specific injunctions addressed to certain Assemblies in
Persia; in the verses of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas the implications of which
clearly anticipate the institution of the Guardianship; in the explanation
which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in one of His Tablets, has given to, and the emphasis
He has placed upon, the hereditary principle and the law of primogeniture
as having been upheld by the Prophets of the past—in these we can discern
the faint glimmerings and discover the earliest intimation of the nature
and working of the Administrative Order which the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was
at a later time destined to proclaim and formally establish.

An attempt, I feel, should at the present juncture be made to explain the
character and functions of the twin pillars that support this mighty
Administrative Structure—the institutions of the Guardianship and of the
Universal House of Justice. To describe in their entirety the diverse
elements that function in conjunction with these institutions is beyond
the scope and purpose of this general exposition of the fundamental
verities of the Faith. To define with accuracy and minuteness the
features, and to analyze exhaustively the nature of the relationships
which, on the one hand, bind together these two fundamental organs of the
Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and connect, on the other, each of them to the Author
of the Faith and the Center of His Covenant is a task which future
generations will no doubt adequately fulfill. My present intention is to
elaborate certain salient features of this scheme which, however close we
may stand to its colossal structure, are already so clearly defined that
we find it inexcusable to either misconceive or ignore.

It should be stated, at the very outset, in clear and unambiguous
language, that these twin institutions of the Administrative Order of
Bahá’u’lláh should be regarded as divine in origin, essential in their
functions and complementary in their aim and purpose. Their common, their
fundamental object is to insure the continuity of that divinely-appointed
authority which flows from the Source of our Faith, to safeguard the unity
of its followers and to maintain the integrity and flexibility of its
teachings. Acting in conjunction with each other these two inseparable
institutions administer its affairs, cöordinate its activities, promote
its interests, execute its laws and defend its subsidiary institutions.
Severally, each operates within a clearly defined sphere of jurisdiction;
each is equipped with its own attendant institutions—instruments designed
for the effective discharge of its particular responsibilities and duties.
Each exercises, within the limitations imposed upon it, its powers, its
authority, its rights and prerogatives. These are neither contradictory,
nor detract in the slightest degree from the position which each of these
institutions occupies. Far from being incompatible or mutually
destructive, they supplement each other’s authority and functions, and are
permanently and fundamentally united in their aims.

Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of
Bahá’u’lláh would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary
principle which, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, has been invariably upheld
by the Law of God. “In all the Divine Dispensations,” He states, in a
Tablet addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, “the eldest son
hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of
prophethood hath been his birthright.” Without such an institution the
integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire
fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means
required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series
of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to
define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives
would be totally withdrawn.

Severed from the no less essential institution of the Universal House of
Justice this same System of the Will of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would be paralyzed in
its action and would be powerless to fill in those gaps which the Author
of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas has deliberately left in the body of His legislative
and administrative ordinances.

“He is the Interpreter of the Word of God,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, referring to the
functions of the Guardian of the Faith, asserts, using in His Will the
very term which He Himself had chosen when refuting the argument of the
Covenant-breakers who had challenged His right to interpret the utterances
of Bahá’u’lláh. “After him,” He adds, “will succeed the first-born of his
lineal descendants.” “The mighty stronghold,” He further explains, “shall
remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian
of the Cause of God.” “It is incumbent upon the members of the House of
Justice, upon all the A_gh_sán, the Afnán, the Hands of the Cause of God,
to show their obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the
Guardian of the Cause of God.”

“It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice,” Bahá’u’lláh,
on the other hand, declares in the Eighth Leaf of the Exalted Paradise,
“to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly
been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them.
God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He verily is
the Provider, the Omniscient.” “Unto the Most Holy Book” (the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá states in His Will, “every one must turn, and
all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the
Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or
by a majority doth carry, that is verily the truth and the purpose of God
Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord,
hath shown forth malice, and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant.”

Not only does ‘Abdu’l-Bahá confirm in His Will Bahá’u’lláh’s above-quoted
statement, but invests this body with the additional right and power to
abrogate, according to the exigencies of time, its own enactments, as well
as those of a preceding House of Justice. “Inasmuch as the House of
Justice,” is His explicit statement in His Will, “hath power to enact laws
that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily
transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same... This it can do
because these laws form no part of the divine explicit text.”

Referring to both the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice we read
these emphatic words: “The sacred and youthful Branch, the Guardian of the
Cause of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice to be universally
elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the
Abhá Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted One
(the Báb) (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they
decide is of God.”

From these statements it is made indubitably clear and evident that the
Guardian of the Faith has been made the Interpreter of the Word and that
the Universal House of Justice has been invested with the function of
legislating on matters not expressly revealed in the teachings. The
interpretation of the Guardian, functioning within his own sphere, is as
authoritative and binding as the enactments of the International House of
Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative is to pronounce upon and
deliver the final judgment on such laws and ordinances as Bahá’u’lláh has
not expressly revealed. Neither can, nor will ever, infringe upon the
sacred and prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail
the specific and undoubted authority with which both have been divinely
invested.

Though the Guardian of the Faith has been made the permanent head of so
august a body he can never, even temporarily, assume the right of
exclusive legislation. He cannot override the decision of the majority of
his fellow-members, but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them
of any enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning
and to depart from the spirit of Bahá’u’lláh’s revealed utterances. He
interprets what has been specifically revealed, and cannot legislate
except in his capacity as member of the Universal House of Justice. He is
debarred from laying down independently the constitution that must govern
the organized activities of his fellow-members, and from exercising his
influence in a manner that would encroach upon the liberty of those whose
sacred right is to elect the body of his collaborators.

It should be borne in mind that the institution of the Guardianship has
been anticipated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in an allusion He made in a Tablet
addressed, long before His own ascension, to three of His friends in
Persia. To their question as to whether there would be any person to whom
all the Bahá’ís would be called upon to turn after His ascension He made
the following reply: “As to the question ye have asked me, know verily
that this is a well-guarded secret. It is even as a gem concealed within
its shell. That it will be revealed is predestined. The time will come
when its light will appear, when its evidences will be made manifest, and
its secrets unraveled.”

Dearly-beloved friends! Exalted as is the position and vital as is the
function of the institution of the Guardianship in the Administrative
Order of Bahá’u’lláh, and staggering as must be the weight of
responsibility which it carries, its importance must, whatever be the
language of the Will, be in no wise over-emphasized. The Guardian of the
Faith must not under any circumstances, and whatever his merits or his
achievements, be exalted to the rank that will make him a co-sharer with
‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the unique position which the Center of the Covenant
occupies—much less to the station exclusively ordained for the
Manifestation of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of
our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy. As I have already stated, in
the course of my references to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s station, however great the
gulf that separates Him from the Author of a Divine Revelation it can
never measure with the distance that stands between Him Who is the Center
of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant and the Guardians who are its chosen ministers.
There is a far, far greater distance separating the Guardian from the
Center of the Covenant than there is between the Center of the Covenant
and its Author.

No Guardian of the Faith, I feel it my solemn duty to place on record, can
ever claim to be the perfect exemplar of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh or
the stainless mirror that reflects His light. Though overshadowed by the
unfailing, the unerring protection of Bahá’u’lláh and of the Báb, and
however much he may share with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá the right and obligation to
interpret the Bahá’í teachings, he remains essentially human and cannot,
if he wishes to remain faithful to his trust, arrogate to himself, under
any pretense whatsoever, the rights, the privileges and prerogatives which
Bahá’u’lláh has chosen to confer upon His Son. In the light of this truth
to pray to the Guardian of the Faith, to address him as lord and master,
to designate him as his holiness, to seek his benediction, to celebrate
his birthday, or to commemorate any event associated with his life would
be tantamount to a departure from those established truths that are
enshrined within our beloved Faith. The fact that the Guardian has been
specifically endowed with such power as he may need to reveal the purport
and disclose the implications of the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh and of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá does not necessarily confer upon him a station co-equal with
those Whose words he is called upon to interpret. He can exercise that
right and discharge this obligation and yet remain infinitely inferior to
both of them in rank and different in nature.

To the integrity of this cardinal principle of our Faith the words, the
deeds of its present and future Guardians must abundantly testify. By
their conduct and example they must needs establish its truth upon an
unassailable foundation and transmit to future generations unimpeachable
evidences of its reality.

For my own part to hesitate in recognizing so vital a truth or to
vacillate in proclaiming so firm a conviction must constitute a shameless
betrayal of the confidence reposed in me by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and an
unpardonable usurpation of the authority with which He Himself has been
invested.

A word should now be said regarding the theory on which this
Administrative Order is based and the principle that must govern the
operation of its chief institutions. It would be utterly misleading to
attempt a comparison between this unique, this divinely-conceived Order
and any of the diverse systems which the minds of men, at various periods
of their history, have contrived for the government of human institutions.
Such an attempt would in itself betray a lack of complete appreciation of
the excellence of the handiwork of its great Author. How could it be
otherwise when we remember that this Order constitutes the very pattern of
that divine civilization which the almighty Law of Bahá’u’lláh is designed
to establish upon earth? The divers and ever-shifting systems of human
polity, whether past or present, whether originating in the East or in the
West, offer no adequate criterion wherewith to estimate the potency of its
hidden virtues or to appraise the solidity of its foundations.

The Bahá’í Commonwealth of the future, of which this vast Administrative
Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and practice, not only
unique in the entire history of political institutions, but can find no
parallel in the annals of any of the world’s recognized religious systems.
No form of democratic government; no system of autocracy or of
dictatorship, whether monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme of
a purely aristocratic order; nor even any of the recognized types of
theocracy, whether it be the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various Christian
ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the Caliphate in
Islám—none of these can be identified or be said to conform with the
Administrative Order which the master-hand of its perfect Architect has
fashioned.

This new-born Administrative Order incorporates within its structure
certain elements which are to be found in each of the three recognized
forms of secular government, without being in any sense a mere replica of
any one of them, and without introducing within its machinery any of the
objectionable features which they inherently possess. It blends and
harmonizes, as no government fashioned by mortal hands has as yet
accomplished, the salutary truths which each of these systems undoubtedly
contains without vitiating the integrity of those God-given verities on
which it is ultimately founded.

The Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh must in no wise be
regarded as purely democratic in character inasmuch as the basic
assumption which requires all democracies to depend fundamentally upon
getting their mandate from the people is altogether lacking in this
Dispensation. In the conduct of the administrative affairs of the Faith,
in the enactment of the legislation necessary to supplement the laws of
the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the members of the Universal House of Justice, it
should be borne in mind, are not, as Bahá’u’lláh’s utterances clearly
imply, responsible to those whom they represent, nor are they allowed to
be governed by the feelings, the general opinion, and even the convictions
of the mass of the faithful, or of those who directly elect them. They are
to follow, in a prayerful attitude, the dictates and promptings of their
conscience. They may, indeed they must, acquaint themselves with the
conditions prevailing among the community, must weigh dispassionately in
their minds the merits of any case presented for their consideration, but
must reserve for themselves the right of an unfettered decision. “God will
verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth,” is Bahá’u’lláh’s
incontrovertible assurance. They, and not the body of those who either
directly or indirectly elect them, have thus been made the recipients of
the divine guidance which is at once the life-blood and ultimate safeguard
of this Revelation. Moreover, he who symbolizes the hereditary principle
in this Dispensation has been made the interpreter of the words of its
Author, and ceases consequently, by virtue of the actual authority vested
in him, to be the figurehead invariably associated with the prevailing
systems of constitutional monarchies.

Nor can the Bahá’í Administrative Order be dismissed as a hard and rigid
system of unmitigated autocracy or as an idle imitation of any form of
absolutistic ecclesiastical government, whether it be the Papacy, the
Imamate or any other similar institution, for the obvious reason that upon
the international elected representatives of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh
has been conferred the exclusive right of legislating on matters not
expressly revealed in the Bahá’í writings. Neither the Guardian of the
Faith nor any institution apart from the International House of Justice
can ever usurp this vital and essential power or encroach upon that sacred
right. The abolition of professional priesthood with its accompanying
sacraments of baptism, of communion and of confession of sins, the laws
requiring the election by universal suffrage of all local, national, and
international Houses of Justice, the total absence of episcopal authority
with its attendant privileges, corruptions and bureaucratic tendencies,
are further evidences of the non-autocratic character of the Bahá’í
Administrative Order and of its inclination to democratic methods in the
administration of its affairs.

Nor is this Order identified with the name of Bahá’u’lláh to be confused
with any system of purely aristocratic government in view of the fact that
it upholds, on the one hand, the hereditary principle and entrusts the
Guardian of the Faith with the obligation of interpreting its teachings,
and provides, on the other, for the free and direct election from among
the mass of the faithful of the body that constitutes its highest
legislative organ.

Whereas this Administrative Order cannot be said to have been modeled
after any of these recognized systems of government, it nevertheless
embodies, reconciles and assimilates within its framework such wholesome
elements as are to be found in each one of them. The hereditary authority
which the Guardian is called upon to exercise, the vital and essential
functions which the Universal House of Justice discharges, the specific
provisions requiring its democratic election by the representatives of the
faithful—these combine to demonstrate the truth that this divinely
revealed Order, which can never be identified with any of the standard
types of government referred to by Aristotle in his works, embodies and
blends with the spiritual verities on which it is based the beneficent
elements which are to be found in each one of them. The admitted evils
inherent in each of these systems being rigidly and permanently excluded,
this unique Order, however long it may endure and however extensive its
ramifications, cannot ever degenerate into any form of despotism, of
oligarchy, or of demagogy which must sooner or later corrupt the machinery
of all man-made and essentially defective political institutions.

Dearly-beloved friends! Significant as are the origins of this mighty
administrative structure, and however unique its features, the happenings
that may be said to have heralded its birth and signalized the initial
stage of its evolution seem no less remarkable. How striking, how edifying
the contrast between the process of slow and steady consolidation that
characterizes the growth of its infant strength and the devastating onrush
of the forces of disintegration that are assailing the outworn
institutions, both religious and secular, of present-day society!

The vitality which the organic institutions of this great, this
ever-expanding Order so strongly exhibit; the obstacles which the high
courage, the undaunted resolution of its administrators have already
surmounted; the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm that glows with
undiminished fervor in the hearts of its itinerant teachers; the heights
of self-sacrifice which its champion-builders are now attaining; the
breadth of vision, the confident hope, the creative joy, the inward peace,
the uncompromising integrity, the exemplary discipline, the unyielding
unity and solidarity which its stalwart defenders manifest; the degree to
which its moving Spirit has shown itself capable of assimilating the
diversified elements within its pale, of cleansing them of all forms of
prejudice and of fusing them with its own structure—these are evidences of
a power which a disillusioned and sadly shaken society can ill afford to
ignore.

Compare these splendid manifestations of the spirit animating this vibrant
body of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh with the cries and agony, the follies and
vanities, the bitterness and prejudices, the wickedness and divisions of
an ailing and chaotic world. Witness the fear that torments its leaders
and paralyzes the action of its blind and bewildered statesmen. How fierce
the hatreds, how false the ambitions, how petty the pursuits, how
deep-rooted the suspicions of its peoples! How disquieting the
lawlessness, the corruption, the unbelief that are eating into the vitals
of a tottering civilization!

Might not this process of steady deterioration which is insidiously
invading so many departments of human activity and thought be regarded as
a necessary accompaniment to the rise of this almighty Arm of Bahá’u’lláh?
Might we not look upon the momentous happenings which, in the course of
the past twenty years, have so deeply agitated every continent of the
earth, as ominous signs simultaneously proclaiming the agonies of a
disintegrating civilization and the birthpangs of that World Order—that
Ark of human salvation—that must needs arise upon its ruins?

The catastrophic fall of mighty monarchies and empires in the European
continent, allusions to some of which may be found in the prophecies of
Bahá’u’lláh; the decline that has set in, and is still continuing, in the
fortunes of the _Sh_í’ih hierarchy in His own native land; the fall of the
Qájár dynasty, the traditional enemy of His Faith; the overthrow of the
Sultanate and the Caliphate, the sustaining pillars of Sunní Islám, to
which the destruction of Jerusalem in the latter part of the first century
of the Christian era offers a striking parallel; the wave of
secularization which is invading the Muḥammadan ecclesiastical
institutions in Egypt and sapping the loyalty of its staunchest
supporters; the humiliating blows that have afflicted some of the most
powerful Churches of Christendom in Russia, in Western Europe and Central
America; the dissemination of those subversive doctrines that are
undermining the foundations and overthrowing the structure of seemingly
impregnable strongholds in the political and social spheres of human
activity; the signs of an impending catastrophe, strangely reminiscent of
the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, which threatens to engulf the
whole structure of present-day civilization—all witness to the tumult
which the birth of this mighty Organ of the Religion of Bahá’u’lláh has
cast into the world—a tumult which will grow in scope and in intensity as
the implications of this constantly evolving Scheme are more fully
understood and its ramifications more widely extended over the surface of
the globe.

A word more in conclusion. The rise and establishment of this
Administrative Order—the shell that shields and enshrines so precious a
gem—constitutes the hall-mark of this second and formative age of the
Bahá’í era. It will come to be regarded, as it recedes farther and farther
from our eyes, as the chief agency empowered to usher in the concluding
phase, the consummation of this glorious Dispensation.

Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive its
character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its purpose. The
bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded is God’s immutable
Purpose for mankind in this day. The Source from which it derives its
inspiration is no one less than Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Its shield and
defender are the embattled hosts of the Abhá Kingdom. Its seed is the
blood of no less than twenty thousand martyrs who have offered up their
lives that it may be born and flourish. The axis round which its
institutions revolve are the authentic provisions of the Will and
Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Its guiding principles are the truths which He
Who is the unerring Interpreter of the teachings of our Faith has so
clearly enunciated in His public addresses throughout the West. The laws
that govern its operation and limit its functions are those which have
been expressly ordained in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. The seat round which its
spiritual, its humanitarian and administrative activities will cluster are
the Ma_sh_riqu’l-A_dh_kár and its Dependencies. The pillars that sustain
its authority and buttress its structure are the twin institutions of the
Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice. The central, the
underlying aim which animates it is the establishment of the New World
Order as adumbrated by Bahá’u’lláh. The methods it employs, the standard
it inculcates, incline it to neither East nor West, neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither white nor colored. Its watchword
is the unification of the human race; its standard the “Most Great Peace”;
its consummation the advent of that golden millennium—the Day when the
kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of God Himself, the
Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh.

SHOGHI.

Haifa, Palestine,
February 8, 1934.



THE UNFOLDMENT OF WORLD CIVILIZATION



The Unfoldment of World Civilization


To the beloved of God and the handmaids of the Merciful throughout the
West.

Friends and fellow-heirs of the grace of Bahá’u’lláh:

As your co-sharer in the building up of the New World Order which the mind
of Bahá’u’lláh has visioned, and whose features the pen of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
its perfect Architect, has delineated, I pause to contemplate with you the
scene which the revolution of well-nigh fifteen years after His passing
unfolds before us.

The contrast between the accumulating evidences of steady consolidation
that accompany the rise of the Administrative Order of the Faith of God,
and the forces of disintegration which batter at the fabric of a
travailing society, is as clear as it is arresting. Both within and
outside the Bahá’í world the signs and tokens which, in a mysterious
manner, are heralding the birth of that World Order, the establishment of
which must signalize the Golden Age of the Cause of God, are growing and
multiplying day by day. No fair-minded observer can any longer fail to
discern them. He cannot be misled by the painful slowness characterizing
the unfoldment of the civilization which the followers of Bahá’u’lláh are
laboring to establish. Nor can he be deluded by the ephemeral
manifestations of returning prosperity which at times appear to be capable
of checking the disruptive influence of the chronic ills afflicting the
institutions of a decaying age. The signs of the times are too numerous
and compelling to allow him to mistake their character or to belittle
their significance. He can, if he be fair in his judgment, recognize in
the chain of events which proclaim on the one hand the irresistible march
of the institutions directly associated with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh
and foreshadow on the other the downfall of those powers and
principalities that have either ignored or opposed it—he can recognize in
them all evidences of the operation of God’s all-pervasive Will, the
shaping of His perfectly ordered and world-embracing Plan.

“Soon,” Bahá’u’lláh’s own words proclaim it, “will the present day Order
be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord
speaketh the truth and is the Knower of things unseen.” “By Myself,” He
solemnly asserts, “the day is approaching when We will have rolled up the
world and all that is therein, and spread out a new Order in its stead.
He, verily, is powerful over all things.” “The world’s equilibrium,” He
explains, “hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this Most
Great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been
revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System,
the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.” “The signs of
impending convulsions and chaos,” He warns the peoples of the world, “can
now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing Order appeareth to be
lamentably defective.”

Dearly-beloved friends! This New World Order, whose promise is enshrined
in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, whose fundamental principles have been
enunciated in the writings of the Center of His Covenant, involves no less
than the complete unification of the entire human race. This unification
should conform to such principles as would directly harmonize with the
spirit that animates, and the laws that govern the operation of, the
institutions that already constitute the structural basis of the
Administrative Order of His Faith.

No machinery falling short of the standard inculcated by the Bahá’í
Revelation, and at variance with the sublime pattern ordained in His
teachings, which the collective efforts of mankind may yet devise can ever
hope to achieve anything above or beyond that “Lesser Peace” to which the
Author of our Faith has Himself alluded in His writings. “Now that ye have
refused the Most Great Peace,” He, admonishing the kings and rulers of the
earth, has written, “hold ye fast unto this the Lesser Peace, that haply
ye may in some degree better your own condition and that of your
dependents.” Expatiating on this Lesser Peace, He thus addresses in that
same Tablet the rulers of the earth: “Be reconciled among yourselves, that
ye may need no more armaments save in a measure to safeguard your
territories and dominions... Be united, O kings of the earth, for thereby
will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find
rest, if ye be of them that comprehend. Should any one among you take up
arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but
manifest justice.”

The Most Great Peace, on the other hand, as conceived by Bahá’u’lláh—a
peace that must inevitably follow as the practical consequence of the
spiritualization of the world and the fusion of all its races, creeds,
classes and nations—can rest on no other basis, and can be preserved
through no other agency, except the divinely appointed ordinances that are
implicit in the World Order that stands associated with His Holy Name. In
His Tablet, revealed almost seventy years ago to Queen Victoria,
Bahá’u’lláh, alluding to this Most Great Peace, has declared: “That which
the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument
for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one
universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except
through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician.
This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error... Consider
these days in which the Ancient Beauty, He Who is the Most Great Name,
hath been sent down to regenerate and unify mankind. Behold how with drawn
swords they rose against Him, and committed that which caused the Faithful
Spirit to tremble. And whenever We said unto them: ‘Lo, the World Reformer
is come,’ they made reply: ‘He, in truth, is one of the stirrers of
mischief.’” “It beseemeth all men in this Day,” He, in another Tablet,
asserts, “to take firm hold on the Most Great Name, and to establish the
unity of all mankind. There is no place to flee to, no refuge that any one
can seek, except Him.”



Humanity’s Coming of Age


The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, whose supreme mission is none other but the
achievement of this organic and spiritual unity of the whole body of
nations, should, if we be faithful to its implications, be regarded as
signalizing through its advent the coming of age of the entire human race.
It should be viewed not merely as yet another spiritual revival in the
ever-changing fortunes of mankind, not only as a further stage in a chain
of progressive Revelations, nor even as the culmination of one of a series
of recurrent prophetic cycles, but rather as marking the last and highest
stage in the stupendous evolution of man’s collective life on this planet.
The emergence of a world community, the consciousness of world
citizenship, the founding of a world civilization and culture—all of which
must synchronize with the initial stages in the unfoldment of the Golden
Age of the Bahá’í Era—should, by their very nature, be regarded, as far as
this planetary life is concerned, as the furthermost limits in the
organization of human society, though man, as an individual, will, nay
must indeed as a result of such a consummation, continue indefinitely to
progress and develop.

That mystic, all-pervasive, yet indefinable change, which we associate
with the stage of maturity inevitable in the life of the individual and
the development of the fruit must, if we would correctly apprehend the
utterances of Bahá’u’lláh, have its counterpart in the evolution of the
organization of human society. A similar stage must sooner or later be
attained in the collective life of mankind, producing an even more
striking phenomenon in world relations, and endowing the whole human race
with such potentialities of well-being as shall provide, throughout the
succeeding ages, the chief incentive required for the eventual fulfillment
of its high destiny. Such a stage of maturity in the process of human
government must, for all time, if we would faithfully recognize the
tremendous claim advanced by Bahá’u’lláh, remain identified with the
Revelation of which He was the Bearer.

In one of the most characteristic passages He Himself has revealed, He
testifies in a language that none can mistake to the truth of this
distinguishing principle of Bahá’í belief: “It hath been decreed by Us
that the Word of God and all the potentialities thereof shall be
manifested unto men in strict conformity with such conditions as have been
foreordained by Him Who is the All-Knowing, the All-Wise... Should the
Word be allowed to release suddenly all the energies latent within it, no
man could sustain the weight of so mighty a revelation... Consider that
which hath been sent down unto Muḥammad, the Apostle of God. The measure
of the Revelation of which He was the Bearer had been clearly foreordained
by Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Powerful. They that heard Him,
however, could apprehend His purpose only to the extent of their station
and spiritual capacity. He, in like manner, uncovered the Face of Wisdom
in proportion to their ability to sustain the burden of His Message. No
sooner had mankind attained the stage of maturity, than the Word revealed
to men’s eyes the latent energies with which it had been endowed—energies
which manifested themselves in the plenitude of their glory when the
Ancient Beauty appeared, in the year sixty, in the person of
‘Alí-Muḥammad, the Báb.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, elucidating this fundamental verity, has written: “All
created things have their degree or stage of maturity. The period of
maturity in the life of a tree is the time of its fruit-bearing... The
animal attains a stage of full growth and completeness, and in the human
kingdom man reaches his maturity when the light of his intelligence
attains its greatest power and development... Similarly there are periods
and stages in the collective life of humanity. At one time it was passing
through its stage of childhood, at another its period of youth, but now it
has entered its long-predicted phase of maturity, the evidences of which
are everywhere apparent... That which was applicable to human needs during
the early history of the race can neither meet nor satisfy the demands of
this day, this period of newness and consummation. Humanity has emerged
from its former state of limitation and preliminary training. Man must now
become imbued with new virtues and powers, new moral standards, new
capacities. New bounties, perfect bestowals, are awaiting and already
descending upon him. The gifts and blessings of the period of youth,
although timely and sufficient during the adolescence of mankind, are now
incapable of meeting the requirements of its maturity.”



The Process of Integration


Such a unique and momentous crisis in the life of organized mankind may,
moreover, be likened to the culminating stage in the political evolution
of the great American Republic—the stage which marked the emergence of a
unified community of federated states. The stirring of a new national
consciousness, and the birth of a new type of civilization, infinitely
richer and nobler than any which its component parts could have severally
hoped to achieve, may be said to have proclaimed the coming of age of the
American people. Within the territorial limits of this nation, this
consummation may be viewed as the culmination of the process of human
government. The diversified and loosely related elements of a divided
community were brought together, unified and incorporated into one
coherent system. Though this entity may continue gaining in cohesive
power, though the unity already achieved may be further consolidated,
though the civilization to which that unity could alone have given birth
may expand and flourish, yet the machinery essential to such an unfoldment
may be said to have been, in its essential structure, erected, and the
impulse required to guide and sustain it may be regarded as having been
fundamentally imparted. No stage above and beyond this consummation of
national unity can, within the geographical limits of that nation, be
imagined, though the highest destiny of its people, as a constituent
element in a still larger entity that will embrace the whole of mankind,
may still remain unfulfilled. Considered as an isolated unit, however,
this process of integration may be said to have reached its highest and
final consummation.

Such is the stage to which an evolving humanity is collectively
approaching. The Revelation entrusted by the Almighty Ordainer to
Bahá’u’lláh, His followers firmly believe, has been endowed with such
potentialities as are commensurate with the maturity of the human race—the
crowning and most momentous stage in its evolution from infancy to
manhood.

The successive Founders of all past Religions Who, from time immemorial,
have shed, with ever-increasing intensity, the splendor of one common
Revelation at the various stages which have marked the advance of mankind
towards maturity may thus, in a sense, be regarded as preliminary
Manifestations, anticipating and paving the way for the advent of that Day
of Days when the whole earth will have fructified and the tree of humanity
will have yielded its destined fruit.

Incontrovertible as is this truth, its challenging character should never
be allowed to obscure the purpose, or distort the principle, underlying
the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh—utterances that have established for all
time the absolute oneness of all the Prophets, Himself included, whether
belonging to the past or to the future. Though the mission of the Prophets
preceding Bahá’u’lláh may be viewed in that light, though the measure of
Divine Revelation with which each has been entrusted must, as a result of
this process of evolution, necessarily differ, their common origin, their
essential unity, their identity of purpose, should at no time and under no
circumstances be misapprehended or denied. That all the Messengers of God
should be regarded as “abiding in the same Tabernacle, soaring in the same
Heaven, seated upon the same Throne, uttering the same Speech, and
proclaiming the same Faith” must, however much we may extol the measure of
Divine Revelation vouchsafed to mankind at this crowning stage of its
evolution, remain the unalterable foundation and central tenet of Bahá’í
belief. Any variations in the splendor which each of these Manifestations
of the Light of God has shed upon the world should be ascribed not to any
inherent superiority involved in the essential character of any one of
them, but rather to the progressive capacity, the ever-increasing
spiritual receptiveness, which mankind, in its progress towards maturity,
has invariably manifested.



The Final Consummation


Only those who are willing to associate the Revelation proclaimed by
Bahá’u’lláh with the consummation of so stupendous an evolution in the
collective life of the whole human race can grasp the significance of the
words which He, while alluding to the glories of this promised Day and to
the duration of the Bahá’í Era, has deemed fit to utter. “This is the King
of Days,” He exclaims, “the Day that hath seen the coming of the
Best-Beloved, Him Who, through all eternity, hath been acclaimed the
Desire of the World.” “The Scriptures of past Dispensations,” He further
asserts, “celebrate the great jubilee that must needs greet this most
great Day of God. Well is it with him that hath lived to see this Day and
hath recognized its station.” “It is evident,” He, in another passage
explains, “that every age in which a Manifestation of God hath lived is
divinely-ordained, and may, in a sense, be characterized as God’s
appointed Day. This Day, however, is unique, and is to be distinguished
from those that have preceded it. The designation ‘Seal of the Prophets’
fully revealeth its high station. The Prophetic Cycle hath verily ended.
The Eternal Truth is now come. He hath lifted up the ensign of power, and
is now shedding upon the world the unclouded splendor of His Revelation.”
“In this most mighty Revelation,” He, in categorical language, declares,
“all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their
final consummation. That which hath been made manifest in this préeminent,
this most exalted Revelation, standeth unparalleled in the annals of the
past, nor will future ages witness its like.”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s authentic pronouncements should, likewise, be recalled as
confirming, in no less emphatic manner, the unexampled vastness of the
Bahá’í Dispensation. “Centuries,” He affirms in one of His Tablets, “nay,
countless ages, must pass away ere the Day-Star of Truth shineth again in
its mid-summer splendor, or appeareth once more in the radiance of its
vernal glory... The mere contemplation of the Dispensation inaugurated by
the Blessed Beauty would have sufficed to overwhelm the saints of bygone
ages—saints who longed to partake, for one moment, of its great glory.”
“Concerning the Manifestations that will come down in the future ‘in the
shadows of the clouds,’” He, in a still more definite language, affirms,
“know, verily, that in so far as their relation to the Source of their
inspiration is concerned, they are under the shadow of the Ancient Beauty.
In their relation, however, to the age in which they appear, each and
every one of them ‘doeth whatsoever He willeth.’” “This holy
Dispensation,” He, alluding to the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, explains,
“is illumined with the light of the Sun of Truth shining from its most
exalted station, and in the plenitude of its resplendency, its heat and
glory.”



Pangs of Death and Birth


Dearly-beloved friends: Though the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has been
delivered, the World Order which such a Revelation must needs beget is as
yet unborn. Though the Heroic Age of His Faith is passed, the creative
energies which that Age has released have not as yet crystallized into
that world society which, in the fullness of time, is to mirror forth the
brightness of His glory. Though the framework of His Administrative Order
has been erected, and the Formative Period of the Bahá’í Era has begun,
yet the promised Kingdom into which the seed of His institutions must
ripen remains as yet uninaugurated. Though His Voice has been raised, and
the ensigns of His Faith have been lifted up in no less than forty
countries of both the East and the West, yet the wholeness of the human
race is as yet unrecognized, its unity unproclaimed, and the standard of
its Most Great Peace unhoisted.

“The heights,” Bahá’u’lláh Himself testifies, “which, through the most
gracious favor of God, mortal man can attain in this Day are as yet
unrevealed to his sight. The world of being hath never had, nor doth it
yet possess, the capacity for such a revelation. The day, however, is
approaching when the potentialities of so great a favor will, by virtue of
His behest, be manifested unto men.”

For the revelation of so great a favor a period of intense turmoil and
wide-spread suffering would seem to be indispensable. Resplendent as has
been the Age that has witnessed the inception of the Mission with which
Bahá’u’lláh has been entrusted, the interval which must elapse ere that
Age yields its choicest fruit must, it is becoming increasingly apparent,
be overshadowed by such moral and social gloom as can alone prepare an
unrepentant humanity for the prize she is destined to inherit.

Into such a period we are now steadily and irresistibly moving. Amidst the
shadows which are increasingly gathering about us we can faintly discern
the glimmerings of Bahá’u’lláh’s unearthly sovereignty appearing fitfully
on the horizon of history. To us, the “generation of the half-light,”
living at a time which may be designated as the period of the incubation
of the World Commonwealth envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh, has been assigned a
task whose high privilege we can never sufficiently appreciate, and the
arduousness of which we can as yet but dimly recognize. We may well
believe, we who are called upon to experience the operation of the dark
forces destined to unloose a flood of agonizing afflictions, that the
darkest hour that must precede the dawn of the Golden Age of our Faith has
not yet struck. Deep as is the gloom that already encircles the world, the
afflictive ordeals which that world is to suffer are still in preparation,
nor can their blackness be as yet imagined. We stand on the threshold of
an age whose convulsions proclaim alike the death-pangs of the old order
and the birth-pangs of the new. Through the generating influence of the
Faith announced by Bahá’u’lláh this New World Order may be said to have
been conceived. We can, at the present moment, experience its stirrings in
the womb of a travailing age—an age waiting for the appointed hour at
which it can cast its burden and yield its fairest fruit.

“The whole earth,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “is now in a state of pregnancy.
The day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when
from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting
blossoms, the most heavenly blessings. Immeasurably exalted is the breeze
that wafteth from the garment of thy Lord, the Glorified! For lo, it hath
breathed its fragrance and made all things new! Well is it with them that
comprehend.” “The onrushing winds of the grace of God,” He, in the
Súratu’l-Haykal, proclaims, “have passed over all things. Every creature
hath been endowed with all the potentialities it can carry. And yet the
peoples of the world have denied this grace! Every tree hath been endowed
with the choicest fruits, every ocean enriched with the most luminous
gems. Man, himself, hath been invested with the gifts of understanding and
knowledge. The whole creation hath been made the recipient of the
revelation of the All-Merciful, and the earth the repository of things
inscrutable to all except God, the Truth, the Knower of things unseen. The
time is approaching when every created thing will have cast its burden.
Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that encompasseth all
things, whether seen or unseen!”

“The Call of God,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written, “when raised, breathed a new
life into the body of mankind, and infused a new spirit into the whole
creation. It is for this reason that the world hath been moved to its
depths, and the hearts and consciences of men been quickened. Erelong the
evidences of this regeneration will be revealed, and the fast asleep will
be awakened.”



Universal Fermentation


As we view the world around us, we are compelled to observe the manifold
evidences of that universal fermentation which, in every continent of the
globe and in every department of human life, be it religious, social,
economic or political, is purging and reshaping humanity in anticipation
of the Day when the wholeness of the human race will have been recognized
and its unity established. A twofold process, however, can be
distinguished, each tending, in its own way and with an accelerated
momentum, to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face
of our planet. The first is essentially an integrating process, while the
second is fundamentally disruptive. The former, as it steadily evolves,
unfolds a System which may well serve as a pattern for that world polity
towards which a strangely-disordered world is continually advancing; while
the latter, as its disintegrating influence deepens, tends to tear down,
with increasing violence, the antiquated barriers that seek to block
humanity’s progress towards its destined goal. The constructive process
stands associated with the nascent Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and is the
harbinger of the New World Order that Faith must erelong establish. The
destructive forces that characterize the other should be identified with a
civilization that has refused to answer to the expectation of a new age,
and is consequently falling into chaos and decline.

A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude yet
unspeakably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is being waged as a
result of these opposing tendencies, in this age of transition through
which the organized community of the followers of Bahá’u’lláh and mankind
as a whole are passing.

The Spirit that has incarnated itself in the institutions of a rising
Faith has, in the course of its onward march for the redemption of the
world, encountered and is now battling with such forces as are, in most
instances, the very negation of that Spirit, and whose continued existence
must inevitably hinder it from achieving its purpose. The hollow and
outworn institutions, the obsolescent doctrines and beliefs, the effete
and discredited traditions which these forces represent, it should be
observed, have, in certain instances, been undermined by virtue of their
senility, the loss of their cohesive power, and their own inherent
corruption. A few have been swept away by the onrushing forces which the
Bahá’í Faith has, at the hour of its birth, so mysteriously released.
Others, as a direct result of a vain and feeble resistance to its rise in
the initial stages of its development, have died out and been utterly
discredited. Still others, fearful of the pervasive influence of the
institutions in which that same Spirit had, at a later stage, been
embodied, had mobilized their forces and launched their attack, destined
to sustain, in their turn, after a brief and illusory success, an
ignominious defeat.



This Age of Transition


It is not my purpose to call to mind, much less to attempt a detailed
analysis of, the spiritual struggles that have ensued, or to note the
victories that have redounded to the glory of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh
since the day of its foundation. My chief concern is not with the
happenings that have distinguished the First, the Apostolic Age of the
Bahá’í Dispensation, but rather with the outstanding events that are
transpiring in, and the tendencies which characterize, the formative
period of its development, this Age of Transition, whose tribulations are
the precursors of that Era of blissful felicity which is to incarnate
God’s ultimate purpose for all mankind.

To the catastrophic fall of mighty kingdoms and empires, on the eve of
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s departure, Whose passing may be said to have ushered in the
opening phase of the Age of Transition in which we now live, I have, in a
previous communication, briefly alluded. The dissolution of the German
Empire, the humiliating defeat inflicted upon its ruler, the successor and
lineal descendant of the Prussian King and Emperor to whom Bahá’u’lláh had
addressed His solemn and historic warning, together with the extinction of
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the remnant of the once-great Holy Roman
Empire, were both precipitated by a war whose outbreak signalized the
opening of the Age of Frustration destined to precede the establishment of
the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Both of these momentous events may be
viewed as the earliest occurrences of that turbulent Age, into the outer
fringes of whose darkest phase we are now beginning to enter.

To the Conqueror of Napoleon III, the Author of our Faith had, on the
morrow of the King’s victory, addressed, in His Most Holy Book, this clear
and ominous warning: “O King of Berlin! ...Take heed lest pride debar thee
from recognizing the Day-Spring of Divine Revelation, lest earthly desires
shut thee out, as by a veil, from the Lord of the Throne above and of the
earth below. Thus counseleth thee the Pen of the Most High. He, verily, is
the Most Gracious, the All-Bountiful. Do thou remember the one whose power
transcended thy power (Napoleon III), and whose station excelled thy
station. Where is he? Whither are gone the things he possessed? Take
warning, and be not of them that are fast asleep. He it was who cast the
Tablet of God behind him, when We made known unto him what the hosts of
tyranny had caused Us to suffer. Wherefore, disgrace assailed him from all
sides, and he went down to dust in great loss. Think deeply, O King,
concerning him, and concerning them who, like unto thee, have conquered
cities and ruled over men. The All-Merciful brought them down from their
palaces to their graves. Be warned, be of them who reflect.”

“O banks of the Rhine!” Bahá’u’lláh, in another passage of that same Book,
prophesies, “We have seen you covered with gore, inasmuch as the swords of
retribution were drawn against you; and so you shall have another turn.
And We hear the lamentations of Berlin, though she be today in conspicuous
glory.”



Collapse of Islám


The collapse of the power of the _Sh_í’ih hierarchy, in a land which had
for centuries been one of the impregnable strongholds of Muslim
fanaticism, was the inevitable consequence of that wave of secularization
which, at a later time, was to invade some of the most powerful and
conservative ecclesiastical institutions in both the European and American
continents. Though not the direct outcome of the last war, this sudden
trembling which had seized this hitherto immovable pillar of Islamic
orthodoxy accentuated the problems and deepened the restlessness with
which a war-weary world was being afflicted. _Sh_í’ih Islám had lost once
for all, in Bahá’u’lláh’s native land and as the direct consequence of its
implacable hostility to His Faith, its combative power, had forfeited its
rights and privileges, had been degraded and demoralized, and was being
condemned to hopeless obscurity and ultimate extinction. No less than
twenty thousand martyrs, however, had to sacrifice their lives ere the
Cause for which they had stood and died could register this initial
victory over those who were the first to repudiate its claims and mow down
its gallant warriors. “Vileness and poverty were stamped upon them, and
they returned with wrath from God.”

“Behold,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, commenting on the decline of a fallen
people, “how the sayings and doings of _Sh_í’ih Islám have dulled the joy
and fervor of its early days, and tarnished the pristine brilliancy of its
light. In its primitive days, whilst they still adhered to the precepts
associated with the name of their Prophet, the Lord of mankind, their
career was marked by an unbroken chain of victories and triumphs. As they
gradually strayed from the path of their Ideal Leader and Master, as they
turned away from the light of God and corrupted the principle of His
Divine unity, and as they increasingly centered their attention upon them
who were only the revealers of the potency of His Word, their power was
turned into weakness, their glory into shame, their courage into fear.
Thou dost witness to what a pass they have come.”

The downfall of the Qájár Dynasty, the avowed defender and the willing
instrument of a decaying clergy, almost synchronized with the humiliation
which the _Sh_í’ih ecclesiastical leaders had suffered. From Muḥammad
_Sh_áh down to the last and feeble monarch of that dynasty, the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh was denied the impartial consideration, the disinterested and
fair treatment which its cause had rightly demanded. It had, on the
contrary, been atrociously harassed, consistently betrayed and prosecuted.
The martyrdom of the Báb; the banishment of Bahá’u’lláh; the confiscation
of His earthly possessions; His incarceration in Mázindarán; the reign of
terror that confined Him in the most pestilential of dungeons; the
intrigues, the protests, and calumnies which thrice renewed His exile and
led to His ultimate imprisonment in the most desolate of cities; the
shameful sentences passed, with the connivance of the judicial and
ecclesiastical authorities, against the person, the property, and the
honor of His innocent followers—these stand out as among the blackest acts
for which posterity will hold this blood-stained dynasty responsible. One
more barrier that had sought to obstruct the forward march of the Faith
was now removed.

Though Bahá’u’lláh had been banished from His native land, the tide of
calamity which had swept with such fury over Him and over the followers of
the Báb, was by no means receding. Under the jurisdiction of the Sulṭán of
Turkey, the arch-enemy of His Cause, a new chapter in the history of His
ever-recurring trials had opened. The overthrow of the Sultanate and the
Caliphate, the twin pillars of Sunní Islám, can be regarded in no other
light except as the inevitable consequence of the fierce, the sustained
and deliberate persecution which the monarchs of the tottering House of
U_th_mán, the recognized successors of the Prophet Muḥammad, had launched
against it. From the city of Constantinople, the traditional seat of both
the Sultanate and the Caliphate, the rulers of Turkey had, for a period
covering almost three quarters of a century, striven, with unabated zeal,
to stem the tide of a Faith they feared and abhorred. From the time
Bahá’u’lláh set foot on Turkish soil and was made a virtual prisoner of
the most powerful potentate of Islám to the year of the Holy Land’s
liberation from Turkish yoke, successive Caliphs, and in particular the
Sulṭáns ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz and ‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd, had, in the full exercise of the
spiritual and temporal authority which their exalted office had conferred
upon them, afflicted both the Founder of our Faith and the Center of His
Covenant with such pain and tribulation as no mind can fathom nor pen or
tongue describe. They alone could have measured or borne them.

To these afflictive trials Bahá’u’lláh has repeatedly testified: “By the
righteousness of the Almighty! Were I to recount to thee the tale of the
things that have befallen Me, the souls and minds of men would be
incapable of sustaining its weight. God Himself beareth Me witness.”
“Twenty years have passed,” He, addressing the kings of Christendom, has
written, “during which We have, each day, tasted the agony of a fresh
tribulation. No one of them that were before Us hath endured the things We
have endured. Would that ye could perceive it! They that rose up against
us have put us to death, have shed our blood, have plundered our property,
and violated our honor.” “Recall to mind My sorrows,” He, in another
connection, has revealed, “My cares and anxieties, My woes and trials, the
state of My captivity, the tears that I have shed, the bitterness of Mine
anguish, and now Mine imprisonment in this far-off land... Couldst thou be
told what hath befallen the Ancient Beauty, thou wouldst flee into the
wilderness, and weep with a great weeping... Every morning I arose from my
bed, I discovered the hosts of countless afflictions massed behind My
door; and every night when I lay down, lo, My heart was torn with agony at
what it had suffered from the fiendish cruelty of its foes.”

The orders which these foes issued, the banishments they decreed, the
indignities they inflicted, the plans they devised, the investigations
they conducted, the threats they pronounced, the atrocities they were
prepared to commit, the intrigues and baseness to which they, their
ministers, their governors, and military chieftains had stooped,
constitute a record which can hardly find a parallel in the history of any
revealed religion. The mere recital of the most salient features of that
sinister theme would suffice to fill a volume. They knew full well that
the spiritual and administrative Center of the Cause they had striven to
eradicate had now shifted to their dominion, that its leaders were Turkish
citizens, and that whatever resources these could command were at their
mercy. That for a period of almost three score years and ten, while still
in the plenitude of its unquestioned authority, while reinforced by the
endless machinations of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of a
neighboring nation, and assured of the support of those of Bahá’u’lláh’s
kindred who had rebelled against, and seceded from, His Cause, this
despotism should have failed in the end to extirpate a mere handful of its
condemned subjects must, to every unbelieving observer, remain one of the
most intriguing and mysterious episodes of contemporary history.

The Cause of which Bahá’u’lláh was still the visible leader had, despite
the calculations of a short-sighted enemy, undeniably triumphed. No
unbiased mind, penetrating the surface of conditions surrounding the
Prisoner of Akká, could any longer mistake or deny it. Though the tension
which had been relaxed was, for a time, heightened after Bahá’u’lláh’s
ascension and the perils of a still unsettled situation were revived, it
was becoming increasingly evident that the insidious forces of decay,
which for many a long year were eating into the vitals of a diseased
nation, were now moving towards a climax. A series of internal
convulsions, each more devastating than the previous one, had already been
unchained, destined to bring in their wake one of the most catastrophic
occurrences of modern times. The murder of that arrogant despot in the
year 1876; the Russo-Turkish conflict that soon followed in its wake; the
wars of liberation which succeeded it; the rise of the Young Turk
movement; the Turkish Revolution of 1909 that precipitated the downfall of
‘Abdu’l-Ḥamíd; the Balkan wars with their calamitous consequences; the
liberation of Palestine enshrining within its bosom the cities of Akká and
Haifa, the world center of an emancipated Faith; the further dismemberment
decreed by the Treaty of Versailles; the abolition of the Sultanate and
the downfall of the House of U_th_mán; the extinction of the Caliphate;
the disestablishment of the State Religion; the annulment of the
_Sh_arí’ah Law and the promulgation of a universal Civil Code; the
suppression of various orders, beliefs, traditions and ceremonials
believed to be inextricably interwoven with the fabric of the Muslim
Faith—these followed with an ease and swiftness that no man had dared
envisage. In these devastating blows, administered by friend and foe
alike, by Christian nations and professing Muslims, every follower of the
persecuted Faith of Bahá’u’lláh recognized evidences of the directing Hand
of the departed Founder of his religion, Who, from the invisible Realm,
was unloosing a flood of well-deserved calamities upon a rebellious
religion and nation.

Compare the evidences of Divine visitation which befell the persecutors of
Jesus Christ with these historic retributions which, in the latter part of
the first century of the Bahá’í Era, have hurled to dust the chief
adversary of the religion of Bahá’u’lláh. Had not the Roman Emperor, in
the second half of the first century of the Christian Era, after a
distressful siege of Jerusalem, laid waste the Holy City, destroyed the
Temple, desecrated and robbed the Holy of Holies of its treasures, and
transported them to Rome, reared a pagan colony on the mount of Zion,
massacred the Jews, and exiled and dispersed the survivors?

Compare, moreover, these words which the persecuted Christ, as witnessed
by the Gospel, addressed to Jerusalem, with Bahá’u’lláh’s apostrophe to
Constantinople, revealed while He lay in His far-off Prison, and recorded
in His Most Holy Book: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
Prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings!” And again, as He wept over the city: “If thou hadst known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon
thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee
round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the
ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

“O Spot that art situate on the shores of the two seas!” Bahá’u’lláh thus
apostrophizes the City of Constantinople, “The throne of tyranny hath,
verily, been established upon thee, and the flame of hatred hath been
kindled within thy bosom, in such wise that the Concourse on high and they
who circle around the Exalted Throne have wailed and lamented. We behold
in thee the foolish ruling over the wise, and darkness vaunting itself
against the light. Thou art indeed filled with manifest pride. Hath thine
outward splendor made thee vainglorious? By Him Who is the Lord of
mankind! It shall soon perish, and thy daughters and thy widows and all
the kindreds that dwell within thee shall lament. Thus informeth thee the
All-Knowing, the All-Wise.”

To Sulṭán ‘Abdu’l-‘Azíz, the monarch who decreed each of Bahá’u’lláh’s
three banishments, the Founder of our Faith, while a prisoner in the
Sulṭán’s capital, addressed these words: “Hearken, O king, to the speech
of Him that speaketh the truth, Him that doth not ask thee to recompense
Him with the things God hath chosen to bestow upon thee, Him Who
unerringly treadeth the Straight Path ...Set before thine eyes God’s
unerring Balance and, as one standing in His presence, weigh in that
Balance thine actions every day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself
to account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning, on the day when no man
shall have strength to stand for fear of God, the day when the hearts of
the heedless ones shall be made to tremble.”

To the Ministers of the Turkish State, He, in that same Tablet, revealed:
“It behooveth you, O Ministers of State, to keep the precepts of God, and
to forsake your own laws and regulations, and to be of them who are guided
aright... Ye shall, erelong, discover the consequences of that which ye
shall have done in this vain life, and shall be repaid for them... How
great the number of those who, in bygone ages, have committed the things
ye have committed, and who, though superior to you in rank, have, in the
end, returned unto dust, and been consigned to their inevitable doom!...
Ye shall follow in their wake, and shall be made to enter a habitation
wherein none shall be found to befriend or help you... The days of your
life shall roll away, and all the things with which ye are occupied, and
of which ye boast yourselves, shall perish, and ye shall, most certainly,
be summoned by a company of His angels to appear at the spot where the
limbs of the entire creation shall be made to tremble, and the flesh of
every oppressor to creep... This is the day that shall inevitably come
upon you, the hour that none can put back.”

To the inhabitants of Constantinople, while He lived the life of an exile
in their midst, Bahá’u’lláh, in that same Tablet, addressed these words:
“Fear God, ye inhabitants of the City, and sow not the seeds of dissension
amongst men... Your days shall pass away as have the days of them who were
before you. To dust shall ye return, even as your fathers of old did
return.” “We found,” He, moreover, remarks, “upon Our arrival in the City
its governors and elders as children gathered about and disporting
themselves with clay... Our inner eye wept sore over them, and over their
transgressions and their total disregard of the thing for which they were
created... The day is approaching when God will have raised up a people
who will call to remembrance Our days, who will tell the tale of Our
trials, who will demand the restitution of Our rights from them that,
without a tittle of evidence, have treated Us with manifest injustice. God
assuredly dominateth the lives of them that wronged Us, and is well aware
of their doings. He will, most certainly, lay hold on them for their sins.
He, verily, is the fiercest of avengers.” “Wherefore,” He graciously
exhorteth them, “hearken ye unto My speech, and return ye to God and
repent, that He, through His grace, may have mercy upon you, may wash away
your sins, and forgive your trespasses. The greatness of His mercy
surpasseth the fury of His wrath, and His grace encompasseth all who have
been called into being and been clothed with the robe of life, be they of
the past or of the future.”

And, finally, in the Lawḥ-i-Ra’ís we find these prophetic words recorded:
“Hearken, O Chief ... to the Voice of God, the Sovereign, the Help in
Peril, the Self-Subsisting... Thou hast, O Chief, committed that which
hath made Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, groan in the Most Exalted
Paradise. The world hath made thee proud, so much so that thou hast turned
away from the Face through Whose brightness the Concourse on high hath
been illumined. Soon thou shalt find thyself in evident loss... The day is
approaching when the Land of Mystery (Adrianople) and what is beside it
shall be changed, and shall pass out of the hands of the King, and
commotions shall appear, and the voice of lamentation shall be raised, and
the evidences of mischief shall be revealed on all sides, and confusion
shall spread by reason of that which hath befallen these captives at the
hands of the hosts of oppression. The course of things shall be altered,
and conditions shall wax so grievous, that the very sands on the desolate
hills will moan, and the trees on the mountain will weep, and blood will
flow out of all things. Then wilt thou behold the people in sore
distress.”

Thirteen hundred years had to elapse from the death of the Prophet
Muḥammad ere the illegitimacy of the institution of the Caliphate, the
founders of which had usurped the authority of the lawful successors of
the Apostle of God, would be fully and publicly demonstrated. An
institution which in its inception had trampled upon so sacred a right and
unchained the forces of so distressful a schism, an institution which, in
the latter days, had dealt so grievous a blow to a Faith Whose Forerunner
was Himself a descendant of the very Imáms whose authority that
institution had repudiated, deserved full well the chastisement that had
sealed its fate.

The text of certain Muḥammadan traditions, the authenticity of which
Muslims themselves recognize, and which have been extensively quoted by
eminent Oriental Bahá’í scholars and authors, will serve to corroborate
the argument and illuminate the theme I have attempted to expound: “In the
latter days a grievous calamity shall befall My people at the hands of
their ruler, a calamity such as no man ever heard to surpass it. So fierce
will it be that none can find a shelter. God will then send down One of My
descendants, One sprung from My family, Who will fill the earth with
equity and justice, even as it hath been filled with injustice and
tyranny.” And, again: “A day shall be witnessed by My people whereon there
will have remained of Islám naught but a name, and of the Qur’án naught
but a mere appearance. The doctors of that age shall be the most evil the
world hath ever seen. Mischief hath proceeded from them, and on them will
it recoil.” And, again: “At that hour His malediction shall descend upon
you, and your curse shall afflict you, and your religion shall remain an
empty word on your tongues. And when these signs appear amongst you,
anticipate the day when the red-hot wind will have swept over you, or the
day when ye will have been disfigured, or when stones will have rained
upon you.”

“O people of the Qur’án,” Bahá’u’lláh, addressing the combined forces of
Sunní and _Sh_í’ih Islám, significantly affirms, “Verily, the Prophet of
God, Muḥammad, sheddeth tears at the sight of your cruelty. Ye have
assuredly followed your evil and corrupt desires, and turned away your
face from the light of guidance. Erelong will ye witness the result of
your deeds; for the Lord, My God, lieth in wait and is watchful of your
behavior... O concourse of Muslim divines! By your deeds the exalted
station of the people hath been abased, the standard of Islám hath been
reversed, and its mighty throne hath fallen.”



Deterioration of Christian Institutions


So much for Islám and the crippling blows its leaders and institutions
have received—and may yet receive—in this, the first century of the Bahá’í
Era. If I have dwelt too long on this theme, if I have, to a
disproportionate degree, quoted from the sacred writings in support of my
argument, it is solely because of my firm conviction that these
retributive calamities that have rained down upon the foremost oppressor
of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh should rank not only among the stirring
occurrences of this Age of Transition, but as some of the most startling
and significant events of contemporary history.

Both Sunní and _Sh_í’ih Islám had, through the convulsions that had seized
them, contributed to the acceleration of the disruptive process to which I
have previously referred—a process which, by its very nature, is to pave
the way for that complete reorganization and unification which the world,
in every aspect of its life, must achieve. What of Christianity and of the
denominations with which it stands identified? Can it be said that this
process of deterioration that has attacked the fabric of the Religion of
Muḥammad has failed to exert its baneful influence on the institutions
associated with the Faith of Jesus Christ? Have these institutions already
experienced the impact of these menacing forces? Are their foundations so
secure and their vitality so great as to enable them to resist this
onslaught? Will they, as the confusion of a chaotic world spreads and
deepens, fall in turn a prey to their violence? Have the more orthodox
among them already arisen, and, if not, will they arise, to repel the
onset of a Cause which, having pulled down the barriers of Muslim
orthodoxy, is now advancing into the heart of Christendom, in both the
European and American continents? Would such a resistance sow the seeds of
further dissension and confusion, and consequently serve indirectly to
hasten the advent of the promised Day?

To these queries we can but partly answer. Time alone can reveal the
nature of the rôle which the institutions directly associated with the
Christian Faith are destined to assume in this, the Formative Period of
the Bahá’í Era, this dark age of transition through which humanity as a
whole is passing. Such events as have already transpired, however, are of
such a nature as can indicate the direction in which these institutions
are moving. We can, in some degree, appraise the probable effect which the
forces operating both within the Bahá’í Faith and outside it will exert
upon them.

That the forces of irreligion, of a purely materialistic philosophy, of
unconcealed paganism have been unloosed, are now spreading, and, by
consolidating themselves, are beginning to invade some of the most
powerful Christian institutions of the western world, no unbiased observer
can fail to admit. That these institutions are becoming increasingly
restive, that a few among them are already dimly aware of the pervasive
influence of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh, that they will, as their inherent
strength deteriorates and their discipline relaxes, regard with deepening
dismay the rise of His New World Order, and will gradually determine to
assail it, that such an opposition will in turn accelerate their decline,
few, if any, among those who are attentively watching the progress of His
Faith would be inclined to question.

“The vitality of men’s belief in God,” Bahá’u’lláh has testified, “is
dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever
restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of
human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can
cleanse and revive it?” “The world is in travail,” He has further written,
“and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards
waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight that to disclose it now
would not be meet and seemly.”

This menace of secularism that has attacked Islám and is undermining its
remaining institutions, that has invaded Persia, has penetrated into
India, and raised its triumphant head in Turkey, has already manifested
itself in both Europe and America, and is, in varying degrees, and under
various forms and designations, challenging the basis of every established
religion, and in particular the institutions and communities identified
with the Faith of Jesus Christ. It would be no exaggeration to say that we
are moving into a period which the future historian will regard as one of
the most critical in the history of Christianity.

Already a few among the protagonists of the Christian Religion admit the
gravity of the situation that confronts them. “A wave of materialism is
sweeping round the world”; is the testimony of its missionaries, as
witnessed by the text of their official reports, “the drive and pressure
of modern industrialism, which are penetrating even the forests of Central
Africa and the plains of Central Asia, make men everywhere dependent on,
and preoccupied with, material things. At home the Church has talked,
perhaps too glibly, in pulpit or on platform of the menace of secularism;
though even in England we can catch more than a glimpse of its meaning.
But to the Church overseas these things are grim realities, enemies with
which it is at grips... The Church has a new danger to face in land after
land—determined and hostile attack. From Soviet Russia a definitely
anti-religious Communism is pushing west into Europe and America, East
into Persia, India, China and Japan. It is an economic theory, definitely
harnessed to disbelief in God. It is a religious irreligion... It has a
passionate sense of mission, and is carrying on its anti-God campaign at
the Church’s base at home, as well as launching its offensive against its
front-line in non-Christian lands. Such a conscious, avowed, organized
attack against religion in general and Christianity in particular is
something new in history. Equally deliberate in some lands in its
determined hostility to Christianity is another form of social and
political faith—nationalism. But the nationalist attack on Christianity,
unlike Communism, is often bound up with some form of national
religion—with Islám in Persia and Egypt, with Buddhism in Ceylon, while
the struggle for communal rights in India is allied with a revival both of
Hinduism and Islám.”

I need not attempt in this connection an exposition of the origin and
character of those economic theories and political philosophies of the
post-war period, that have directly and indirectly exerted, and are still
exerting, their pernicious influence on the institutions and beliefs
connected with one of the most widely-spread and best organized religious
systems of the world. It is with their influence rather than with their
origin that I am chiefly concerned. The excessive growth of industrialism
and its attendant evils—as the aforementioned quotation bears witness—the
aggressive policies initiated and the persistent efforts exerted by the
inspirers and organizers of the Communist movement; the intensification of
a militant nationalism, associated in certain countries with a
systematized work of defamation against all forms of ecclesiastical
influence, have no doubt contributed to the de-Christianization of the
masses, and been responsible for a notable decline in the authority, the
prestige and power of the Church. “The whole conception of God,” the
persecutors of the Christian Religion have insistently proclaimed, “is a
conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a
conception quite unworthy of free men.” “Religion,” one of their leaders
has asserted, “is an opiate of the people.” “Religion,” declares the text
of their official publications, “is a brutalization of the people.
Education must be so directed as to efface from the people’s minds this
humiliation and this idiocy.”

The Hegelian philosophy which, in other countries, has, in the form of an
intolerant and militant nationalism, insisted on deifying the state, has
inculcated the war-spirit, and incited to racial animosity, has, likewise,
led to a marked weakening of the Church and to a grave diminution of its
spiritual influence. Unlike the bold offensive which an avowedly atheistic
movement had chosen to launch against it, both within the Soviet union and
beyond its confines, this nationalistic philosophy, which Christian rulers
and governments have upheld, is an attack directed against the Church by
those who were previously its professed adherents, a betrayal of its cause
by its own kith and kin. It was being stabbed by an alien and militant
atheism from without, and by the preachers of a heretical doctrine from
within. Both of these forces, each operating in its own sphere and using
its own weapons and methods, have moreover been greatly assisted and
encouraged by the prevailing spirit of modernism, with its emphasis on a
purely materialistic philosophy, which, as it diffuses itself, tends
increasingly to divorce religion from man’s daily life.

The combined effect of these strange and corrupt doctrines, these
dangerous and treacherous philosophies, has, as was natural, been severely
felt by those whose tenets inculcated an opposite and wholly
irreconcilable spirit and principle. The consequences of the clash that
inevitably ensued between these contending interests, were, in some cases,
disastrous, and the damage that has been wrought irreparable. The
disestablishment and dismemberment of the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia,
following upon the blow which the Church of Rome had sustained as a result
of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; the commotion that
subsequently seized the Catholic Church and culminated in its separation
from the State in Spain; the persecution of the same Church in Mexico; the
perquisitions, arrests, intimidation and terrorization to which Catholics
and Lutherans alike are being subjected in the heart of Europe; the
turmoil into which another branch of the Church has been thrown as a
result of the military campaign in Africa; the decline that has set in the
fortunes of Christian Missions, both Anglican and Presbyterian, in Persia,
Turkey, and the Far East; the ominous signs that foreshadow serious
complications in the equivocal and precarious relationships now existing
between the Holy See and certain nations in the continent of Europe—these
stand out as the most striking features of the reverses which, in almost
every part of the world, the members and leaders of Christian
ecclesiastical institutions have suffered.

That the solidarity of some of these institutions has been irretrievably
shattered is too apparent for any intelligent observer to mistake or deny.
The cleavage between the fundamentalists and the liberals among their
adherents is continually widening. Their creeds and dogmas have been
watered down, and in certain instances ignored and discarded. Their hold
upon human conduct is loosening, and the personnel of their ministries is
dwindling in number and in influence. The timidity and insincerity of
their preachers are, in several instances, being exposed. Their endowments
have, in some countries, disappeared, and the force of their religious
training has declined. Their temples have been partly deserted and
destroyed, and an oblivion of God, of His teachings and of His Purpose,
has enfeebled and heaped humiliation upon them.

Might not this disintegrating tendency, from which Sunní and _Sh_í’ih
Islám have so conspicuously suffered, unloose, as it reaches its climax,
still further calamities upon the various denominations of the Christian
Church? In what manner and how rapidly this process, which has already set
in, will develop the future alone can reveal. Nor can it, at the present
time, be estimated to what extent will the attacks which a still powerful
clergy may yet launch against the strongholds of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh
in the West accentuate this decline and widen the range of inescapable
disasters.

If Christianity wishes and expects to serve the world in the present
crisis, writes a minister of the Presbyterian Church in America, it must
“cut back through Christianity to Christ, back through the centuries-old
religion about Jesus to the original religion of Jesus.” Otherwise, he
significantly adds, “the spirit of Christ will live in institutions other
than our own.”

So marked a decline in the strength and cohesion of the elements
constituting Christian society has led, in its turn, as we might well
anticipate, to the emergence of an increasing number of obscure cults, of
strange and new worships, of ineffective philosophies, whose sophisticated
doctrines have intensified the confusion of a troubled age. In their
tenets and pursuits they may be said to reflect and bear witness to the
revolt, the discontent, and the confused aspirations of the disillusioned
masses that have deserted the cause of the Christian churches and seceded
from their membership.

A parallel might almost be drawn between these confused and confusing
systems of thought that are the direct outcome of the helplessness and
confusion afflicting the Christian Faith and the great variety of popular
cults, of fashionable and evasive philosophies which flourished in the
opening centuries of the Christian Era, and which attempted to absorb and
pervert the state religion of that Roman people. The pagan worshipers who
constituted, at that time, the bulk of the population of the Western Roman
Empire, found themselves surrounded, and in certain instances menaced, by
the prevailing sect of the Neo-Platonists, by the followers of nature
religions, by Gnostic philosophers, by Philonism, Mithraism, the adherents
of the Alexandrian cult, and a multitude of kindred sects and beliefs, in
much the same way as the defenders of the Christian Faith, the
preponderating religion of the western world, are realizing, in the first
century of the Bahá’í Era, how their influence is being undermined by a
flood of conflicting beliefs, practices and tendencies which their own
bankruptcy had helped to create. It was, however, this same Christian
Religion, which has now fallen into such a state of impotence, that
eventually proved itself capable of sweeping away the institutions of
paganism and of swamping and suppressing the cults that had flourished in
that age.

Such institutions as have strayed far from the spirit and teachings of
Jesus Christ must of necessity, as the embryonic World Order of
Bahá’u’lláh takes shape and unfolds, recede into the background, and make
way for the progress of the divinely-ordained institutions that stand
inextricably interwoven with His teachings. The indwelling Spirit of God
which, in the Apostolic Age of the Church, animated its members, the
pristine purity of its teachings, the primitive brilliancy of its light,
will, no doubt, be reborn and revived as the inevitable consequence of
this redefinition of its fundamental verities, and the clarification of
its original purpose.

For the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh—if we would faithfully appraise it—can never,
and in no aspect of its teachings, be at variance, much less conflict,
with the purpose animating, or the authority invested in, the Faith of
Jesus Christ. This glowing tribute which Bahá’u’lláh Himself has been
moved to pay to the Author of the Christian Religion stands as sufficient
testimony to the truth of this central principle of Bahá’í belief:—“Know
thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole
creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a
fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as
witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee.
The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning
which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have
produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but
manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His
all-pervasive and resplendent Spirit. We testify that when He came into
the world, He shed the splendor of His glory upon all created things.
Through Him the leper recovered from the leprosy of perversity and
ignorance. Through Him the unchaste and wayward were healed. Through His
power, born of Almighty God, the eyes of the blind were opened, and the
soul of the sinner sanctified... He it is Who purified the world. Blessed
is the man who, with a face beaming with light, hath turned towards Him.”



Signs of Moral Downfall


No more, I believe, need be said of the decline of religious institutions,
the disintegration of which constitutes so important an aspect of the
Formative Period of the Bahá’í Era. Islám had both as a result of the
rising tide of secularism and in direct consequence of its declared and
persistent hostility to the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh sunk to a depth of
abasement rarely attained in its history. Christianity had, likewise,
owing to causes not wholly dissimilar to those operating in the case of
its sister Faith, steadily weakened, and was contributing, in an
increasing measure, its share to the process of general disintegration—a
process that must necessarily precede the fundamental reconstruction of
human society.

The signs of moral downfall, as distinct from the evidences of decay in
religious institutions, would appear to be no less noticeable and
significant. The decline that has set in in the fortunes of Islamic and
Christian institutions may be said to have had its counterpart in the life
and conduct of the individuals that compose them. In whichever direction
we turn our gaze, no matter how cursory our observation of the doings and
sayings of the present generation, we can not fail to be struck by the
evidences of moral decadence which, in their individual lives no less than
in their collective capacity, men and women around us exhibit.

There can be no doubt that the decline of religion as a social force, of
which the deterioration of religious institutions is but an external
phenomenon, is chiefly responsible for so grave, so conspicuous an evil.
“Religion,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “is the greatest of all means for the
establishment of order in the world and for the peaceful contentment of
all that dwell therein. The weakening of the pillars of religion hath
strengthened the hands of the ignorant and made them bold and arrogant.
Verily I say, whatsoever hath lowered the lofty station of religion hath
increased the waywardness of the wicked, and the result cannot be but
anarchy.” “Religion,” He, in another Tablet, has stated, “is a radiant
light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the
peoples of the world, for the fear of God impelleth man to hold fast to
that which is good, and shun all evil. Should the lamp of religion be
obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of fairness, of
justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.” “Know thou,” He, in
yet another connection, has written, “that they who are truly wise have
likened the world unto the human temple. As the body of man needeth a
garment to clothe it, so the body of mankind must needs be adorned with
the mantle of justice and wisdom. Its robe is the Revelation vouchsafed
unto it by God.”

No wonder, therefore, that when, as a result of human perversity, the
light of religion is quenched in men’s hearts, and the divinely appointed
Robe, designed to adorn the human temple, is deliberately discarded, a
deplorable decline in the fortunes of humanity immediately sets in,
bringing in its wake all the evils which a wayward soul is capable of
revealing. The perversion of human nature, the degradation of human
conduct, the corruption and dissolution of human institutions, reveal
themselves, under such circumstances, in their worst and most revolting
aspects. Human character is debased, confidence is shaken, the nerves of
discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the
sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty, of
solidarity, of reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling
of peacefulness, of joy and of hope is gradually extinguished.

Such, we might well admit, is the state which individuals and institutions
alike are approaching. “No two men,” Bahá’u’lláh, lamenting the plight of
an erring humanity, has written, “can be found who may be said to be
outwardly and inwardly united. The evidences of discord and malice are
apparent everywhere, though all were made for harmony and union.” “How
long,” He, in the same Tablet, exclaims, “will humanity persist in its
waywardness? How long will injustice continue? How long is chaos and
confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of
society? The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and
the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily
increasing.”

The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of
patriotic arrogance; the increasing evidences of selfishness, of
suspicion, of fear and of fraud; the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness,
of drunkenness and of crime; the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish
pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures; the weakening of
family solidarity; the laxity in parental control; the lapse into
luxurious indulgence; the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the
consequent rising tide of divorce; the degeneracy of art and music, the
infection of literature, and the corruption of the press; the extension of
the influence and activities of those “prophets of decadence” who advocate
companionate marriage, who preach the philosophy of nudism, who call
modesty an intellectual fiction, who refuse to regard the procreation of
children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage, who denounce
religion as an opiate of the people, who would, if given free rein, lead
back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate extinction—these
appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society
that must either be reborn or perish.



Breakdown of Political and Economic Structure


Politically a similar decline, a no less noticeable evidence of
disintegration and confusion, can be discovered in the age we live in—the
age which a future historian might well recognize to have been the
preamble to the Great Age, whose golden days we can as yet but dimly
visualize.

The passionate and violent happenings that have, in recent years, strained
to almost the point of complete breakdown the political and economic
structure of society are too numerous and complex to attempt, within the
limitations of this general survey, to arrive at an adequate estimate of
their character. Nor have these tribulations, grievous as they have been,
seemed to have reached their climax, and exerted the full force of their
destructive power. The whole world, wherever and however we survey it,
offers us the sad and pitiful spectacle of a vast, an enfeebled, and
moribund organism, which is being torn politically and strangulated
economically by forces it has ceased to either control or comprehend. The
Great Depression, the aftermath of the severest ordeals humanity had ever
experienced, the disintegration of the Versailles system, the
recrudescence of militarism in its most menacing aspects, the failure of
vast experiments and new-born institutions to safeguard the peace and
tranquillity of peoples, classes and nations, have bitterly disillusioned
humanity and prostrated its spirits. Its hopes are, for the most part,
shattered, its vitality is ebbing, its life strangely disordered, its
unity severely compromised.

On the continent of Europe inveterate hatreds and increasing rivalries are
once more aligning its ill-fated peoples and nations into combinations
destined to precipitate the most awful and implacable tribulations that
mankind throughout its long record of martyrdom has suffered. On the North
American continent economic distress, industrial disorganization,
widespread discontent at the abortive experiments designed to readjust an
ill-balanced economy, and restlessness and fear inspired by the
possibility of political entanglements in both Europe and Asia, portend
the approach of what may well prove to be one of the most critical phases
of the history of the American Republic. Asia, still to a great extent in
the grip of one of the severest trials she has, in her recent history,
experienced, finds herself menaced on her eastern confines by the onset of
forces that threaten to intensify the struggles which the growing
nationalism and industrialization of her emancipated races must ultimately
engender. In the heart of Africa, there blazes the fire of an atrocious
and bloody war—a war which, whatever its outcome, is destined to exert,
through its world-wide repercussions, a most disturbing influence on the
races and colored nations of mankind.

With no less than ten million people under arms, drilled and instructed in
the use of the most abominable engines of destruction that science has
devised; with thrice that number chafing and fretting at the rule of alien
races and governments; with an equally vast army of embittered citizens
impotent to procure for themselves the material goods and necessities
which others are deliberately destroying; with a still greater mass of
human beings groaning under the burden of ever-mounting armaments, and
impoverished by the virtual collapse of international trade—with evils
such as these, humanity would seem to be definitely entering the outer
fringes of the most agonizing phase of its existence.

Is it to be wondered at, that in the course of a recent statement made by
one of the outstanding Ministers in Europe this warning should have been
deliberately uttered: “If war should break out again on a major scale in
Europe, it must bring the collapse of civilization as we know it in its
wake. In the words of the late Lord Bryce, ‘If you don’t end war, war will
end you.’” “Poor Europe is in a state of neurasthenia...”, is the
testimony of one of the most outstanding figures among its present-day
dictators. “It has lost its recuperative power, the vital force of
cohesion, of synthesis. Another war would destroy us.” “It is likely,”
writes one of the most eminent and learned dignitaries of the Christian
Church, “there will have to be one more great conflict in Europe to
definitely establish once and for all an international authority. This
conflict will be the most horrible of horribles, and possibly this
generation will be called on to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives.”

The disastrous failure of both the Disarmament and Economic Conferences;
the obstacles confronting the negotiations for the limitation of Naval
armaments; the withdrawal of two of the most powerful and heavily armed
nations of the world from the activities and membership of the League of
Nations; the ineptitude of the parliamentary system of government as
witnessed by recent developments in Europe and America; the inability of
the leaders and exponents of the Communist movement to vindicate the
much-vaunted principle of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; the perils
and privations to which the rulers of the Totalitarian states have, in
recent years, exposed their subjects—all these demonstrate, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, the impotence of present-day institutions to avert the
calamities with which human society is being increasingly threatened. What
else remains, a bewildered generation may well ask, that can repair the
cleavage that is constantly widening, and which may, at any time, engulf
it?

Beset on every side by the cumulative evidences of disintegration, of
turmoil and of bankruptcy, serious-minded men and women, in almost every
walk of life, are beginning to doubt whether society, as it is now
organized, can, through its unaided efforts, extricate itself from the
slough into which it is steadily sinking. Every system, short of the
unification of the human race, has been tried, repeatedly tried, and been
found wanting. Wars again and again have been fought, and conferences
without number have met and deliberated. Treaties, pacts and covenants
have been painstakingly negotiated, concluded and revised. Systems of
government have been patiently tested, have been continually recast and
superseded. Economic plans of reconstruction have been carefully devised,
and meticulously executed. And yet crisis has succeeded crisis, and the
rapidity with which a perilously unstable world is declining has been
correspondingly accelerated. A yawning gulf threatens to involve in one
common disaster both the satisfied and dissatisfied nations, democracies
and dictatorships, capitalists and wage-earners, Europeans and Asiatics,
Jew and Gentile, white and colored. An angry Providence, the cynic might
well observe, has abandoned a hapless planet to its fate, and fixed
irrevocably its doom. Sore-tried and disillusioned, humanity has no doubt
lost its orientation, and would seem to have lost as well its faith and
hope. It is hovering, unshepherded and visionless, on the brink of
disaster. A sense of fatality seems to pervade it. An ever-deepening gloom
is settling on its fortunes as she recedes further and further from the
outer fringes of the darkest zone of its agitated life and penetrates its
very heart.

And yet while the shadows are continually deepening, might we not claim
that gleams of hope, flashing intermittently on the international horizon,
appear at times to relieve the darkness that encircles humanity? Would it
be untrue to maintain that in a world of unsettled faith and disturbed
thought, a world of steadily mounting armaments, of unquenchable hatreds
and rivalries, the progress, however fitful, of the forces working in
harmony with the spirit of the age can already be discerned? Though the
great outcry raised by post-war nationalism is growing louder and more
insistent every day, the League of Nations is as yet in its embryonic
state, and the storm clouds that are gathering may for a time totally
eclipse its powers and obliterate its machinery, yet the direction in
which the institution itself is operating is most significant. The voices
that have been raised ever since its inception, the efforts that have been
exerted, the work that has already been accomplished, foreshadow the
triumphs which this presently constituted institution, or any other body
that may supersede it, is destined to achieve.



Bahá’u’lláh’s Principle of Collective Security


A general Pact on security has been the central purpose towards which
these efforts have, ever since the League was born, tended to converge.
The Treaty of Guarantee which, in the initial stages of its development,
its members had considered and discussed; the debate on the Geneva
Protocol, the discussion of which, at a later period, aroused among the
nations, both within the League and outside it, such fierce controversy;
the subsequent proposal for a United States of Europe and for the economic
unification of that continent; and last but not least the policy of
sanctions initiated by its members, may be regarded as the most
significant landmarks in its checkered history. That no less than fifty
nations of the world, all members of the League of Nations, should have,
after mature deliberation, recognized and been led to pronounce their
verdict against an act of aggression which in their judgment has been
deliberately committed by one of their fellow-members, one of the foremost
Powers of Europe; that they should have, for the most part, agreed to
impose collectively sanctions on the condemned aggressor, and should have
succeeded in carrying out, to a very great measure, their decision, is no
doubt an event without parallel in human history. For the first time in
the history of humanity the system of collective security, foreshadowed by
Bahá’u’lláh and explained by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, has been seriously envisaged,
discussed and tested. For the first time in history it has been officially
recognized and publicly stated that for this system of collective security
to be effectively established strength and elasticity are both
essential—strength involving the use of an adequate force to ensure the
efficacy of the proposed system, and elasticity to enable the machinery
that has been devised to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of its
aggrieved upholders. For the first time in human history tentative efforts
have been exerted by the nations of the world to assume collective
responsibility, and to supplement their verbal pledges by actual
preparation for collective action. And again, for the first time in
history, a movement of public opinion has manifested itself in support of
the verdict which the leaders and representatives of nations have
pronounced, and for securing collective action in pursuance of such a
decision.

How clear, how prophetic, must sound the words uttered by Bahá’u’lláh in
the light of recent international developments:—“Be united, O concourse of
the sovereigns of the world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be
stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest. Should any one among you
take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught
but manifest justice.” “The time must come,” He, foreshadowing the
tentative efforts that are now being made, has written, “when the
imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing
assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of
the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations,
must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the
world’s Great Peace among men... Should any king take up arms against
another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.”

“The sovereigns of the world,” writes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in elaboration of this
theme, “must conclude a binding treaty, and establish a covenant, the
provisions of which shall be sound, inviolable and definite. They must
proclaim it to all the world, and obtain for it the sanction of all the
human race... All the forces of humanity must be mobilized to insure the
stability and permanence of this Most Great Covenant... The fundamental
principle underlying this solemn Pact should be so fixed that if any
government later violate any one of its provisions, all the governments on
earth should arise to reduce it to utter submission, nay the human race as
a whole should resolve, with every power at its disposal, to destroy that
government.”

There can be no doubt whatever that what has already been accomplished,
significant and unexampled though it is in the history of mankind, still
immeasurably falls short of the essential requirements of the system which
these words foreshadow. The League of Nations, its opponents will observe,
still lacks the universality which is the prerequisite of abiding success
in the efficacious settlement of international disputes. The United States
of America, its begetter, has repudiated it, and is still holding aloof,
while Germany and Japan, who ranked among its most powerful supporters,
have abandoned its cause and withdrawn from its membership. The decisions
arrived at and the action thus far taken, others will maintain, should be
regarded as no more than a magnificent gesture, rather than a conclusive
evidence of international solidarity. Still others may contend that though
such a verdict has been pronounced, and such pledges been given,
collective action must, in the end, fail in its ultimate purpose, and that
the League itself will perish and be submerged by the flood of
tribulations destined to overtake the whole race. Be that as it may, the
significance of the steps already taken cannot be ignored. Whatever the
present status of the League or the outcome of its historic verdict,
whatever the trials and reverses which, in the immediate future, it may
have to face and sustain, the fact must be recognized that so important a
decision marks one of the most distinctive milestones on the long and
arduous road that must lead it to its goal, the stage at which the oneness
of the whole body of nations will be made the ruling principle of
international life.

This historic step, however, is but a faint glimmer in the darkness that
envelops an agitated humanity. It may well prove to be no more than a mere
flash, a fugitive gleam, in the midst of an ever-deepening confusion. The
process of disintegration must inexorably continue, and its corrosive
influence must penetrate deeper and deeper into the very core of a
crumbling age. Much suffering will still be required ere the contending
nations, creeds, classes and races of mankind are fused in the crucible of
universal affliction, and are forged by the fires of a fierce ordeal into
one organic commonwealth, one vast, unified, and harmoniously functioning
system. Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and
upheavals, war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in
the soul of an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it
has disdained to recognize and follow. A paralysis more painful than any
it has yet experienced must creep over and further afflict the fabric of a
broken society ere it can be rebuilt and regenerated.

“The civilization,” writes Bahá’u’lláh, “so often vaunted by the learned
exponents of arts and sciences will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of
moderation, bring great evil upon men... If carried to excess,
civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of
goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation... The day is
approaching when its flame will devour the cities, when the Tongue of
Grandeur will proclaim: ‘The Kingdom is God’s, the Almighty, the
All-Praised!’” “From the moment the Súriy-i-Ra’ís (Tablet to Ra’ís) was
revealed,” He further explains, “until the present day, neither hath the
world been tranquillized, nor have the hearts of its peoples been at
rest... Its sickness is approaching the stage of utter hopelessness,
inasmuch as the true Physician is debarred from administering the remedy,
whilst unskilled practitioners are regarded with favor, and are accorded
full freedom to act. The dust of sedition hath clouded the hearts of men,
and blinded their eyes. Erelong they will perceive the consequences of
what their hands have wrought in the Day of God.” “This is the Day,” He
again has written, “whereon the earth shall tell out her tidings. The
workers of iniquity are her burdens... The Crier hath cried out, and men
have been torn away, so great hath been the fury of His wrath. The people
of the left hand sigh and bemoan. The people of the right abide in noble
habitations: they quaff the Wine that is life indeed from the hands of the
All-Merciful, and are, verily, the blissful.”



Community of the Most Great Name


Who else can be the blissful if not the community of the Most Great Name,
whose world-embracing, continually consolidating activities constitute the
one integrating process in a world whose institutions, secular as well as
religious, are for the most part dissolving? They indeed are “the people
of the right,” whose “noble habitation” is fixed on the foundations of the
World Order of Bahá’u’lláh—the Ark of everlasting salvation in this most
grievous Day. Of all the kindreds of the earth they alone can recognize,
amidst the welter of a tempestuous age, the Hand of the Divine Redeemer
that traces its course and controls its destinies. They alone are aware of
the silent growth of that orderly world polity whose fabric they
themselves are weaving.

Conscious of their high calling, confident in the society-building power
which their Faith possesses, they press forward, undeterred and
undismayed, in their efforts to fashion and perfect the necessary
instruments wherein the embryonic World Order of Bahá’u’lláh can mature
and develop. It is this building process, slow and unobtrusive, to which
the life of the world-wide Bahá’í Community is wholly consecrated, that
constitutes the one hope of a stricken society. For this process is
actuated by the generating influence of God’s changeless Purpose, and is
evolving within the framework of the Administrative Order of His Faith.

In a world the structure of whose political and social institutions is
impaired, whose vision is befogged, whose conscience is bewildered, whose
religious systems have become anemic and lost their virtue, this healing
Agency, this leavening Power, this cementing Force, intensely alive and
all-pervasive, has been taking shape, is crystallizing into institutions,
is mobilizing its forces, and is preparing for the spiritual conquest and
the complete redemption of mankind. Though the society which incarnates
its ideals be small, and its direct and tangible benefits as yet
inconsiderable, yet the potentialities with which it has been endowed, and
through which it is destined to regenerate the individual and rebuild a
broken world, are incalculable.

For well nigh a century it has, amid the noise and tumult of a distracted
age, and despite the incessant persecutions to which its leaders,
institutions, and followers have been subjected, succeeded in preserving
its identity, in reinforcing its stability and strength, in maintaining
its organic unity, in preserving the integrity of its laws and its
principles, in erecting its defenses, and in extending and consolidating
its institutions. Numerous and powerful have been the forces that have
schemed, both from within and from without, in lands both far and near, to
quench its light and abolish its holy name. Some have apostatized from its
principles, and betrayed ignominiously its cause. Others have hurled
against it the fiercest anathemas which the embittered leaders of any
ecclesiastical institution are able to pronounce. Still others have heaped
upon it the afflictions and humiliations which sovereign authority can
alone, in the plenitude of its power, inflict.

The utmost its avowed and secret enemies could hope to achieve was to
retard its growth and obscure momentarily its purpose. What they actually
accomplished was to purge and purify its life, to stir it to still greater
depths, to galvanize its soul, to prune its institutions, and cement its
unity. A schism, a permanent cleavage in the vast body of its adherents,
they could never create.

They who betrayed its cause, its lukewarm and faint-hearted supporters,
withered away and dropped as dead leaves, powerless to cloud its radiance
or to imperil its structure. Its most implacable adversaries, they who
assailed it from without, were hurled from power, and, in the most
astonishing fashion, met their doom. Persia had been the first to repress
and oppose it. Its monarchs had miserably fallen, their dynasty had
collapsed, their name was execrated, the hierarchy that had been their
ally and had propped their declining state, had been utterly discredited.
Turkey, which had thrice banished its Founder and inflicted on Him cruel
and life-long imprisonment, had passed through one of the severest ordeals
and far-reaching revolutions that its history has recorded, had shrunk
from one of the most powerful empires to a tiny Asiatic republic, its
Sultanate obliterated, its dynasty overthrown, its Caliphate, the
mightiest institution of Islám, abolished.

Meanwhile the Faith that had been the object of such monstrous betrayals,
and the target for such woeful assaults, was going from strength to
strength, was forging ahead, undaunted and undivided by the injuries it
had received. In the midst of trials it had inspired its loyal followers
with a resolution that no obstacle, however formidable, could undermine.
It had lighted in their hearts a faith that no misfortune, however black,
could quench. It had infused into their hearts a hope that no force,
however determined, could shatter.



A World Religion


Ceasing to designate to itself a movement, a fellowship and the
like—designations that did grave injustice to its ever-unfolding
system—dissociating itself from such appellations as Bábí sect, Asiatic
cult, and offshoot of _Sh_í’ih Islám, with which the ignorant and the
malicious were wont to describe it, refusing to be labeled as a mere
philosophy of life, or as an eclectic code of ethical conduct, or even as
a new religion, the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh is now visibly succeeding in
demonstrating its claim and title to be regarded as a World Religion,
destined to attain, in the fullness of time, the status of a
world-embracing Commonwealth, which would be at once the instrument and
the guardian of the Most Great Peace announced by its Author. Far from
wishing to add to the number of the religious systems, whose conflicting
loyalties have for so many generations disturbed the peace of mankind,
this Faith is instilling into each of its adherents a new love for, and a
genuine appreciation of the unity underlying, the various religions
represented within its pale.

“It is like a wide embrace,” such is the testimony of Royalty to its claim
and position, “gathering together all those who have long searched for
words of hope. It accepts all great Prophets gone before it, destroys no
other creeds, and leaves all doors open.” “The Bahá’í teaching,” she has
further written, “brings peace to the soul and hope to the heart. To those
in search of assurance the words of the Father are as a fountain in the
desert after long wandering.” “Their writings,” she, in another statement
referring to Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, has testified, “are a great cry
toward peace, reaching beyond all limits of frontiers, above all
dissension about rites and dogmas... It is a wondrous message that
Bahá’u’lláh and His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have given us. They have not set it
up aggressively knowing that the germ of eternal truth which lies at its
core cannot but take root and spread.” “If ever the name of Bahá’u’lláh or
‘Abdu’l-Bahá,” is her concluding plea, “comes to your attention, do not
put their writings from you. Search out their Books, and let their
glorious, peace-bringing, love-creating words and lessons sink into your
hearts as they have into mine.”

The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh has assimilated, by virtue of its creative, its
regulative and ennobling energies, the varied races, nationalities, creeds
and classes that have sought its shadow, and have pledged unswerving
fealty to its cause. It has changed the hearts of its adherents, burned
away their prejudices, stilled their passions, exalted their conceptions,
ennobled their motives, cöordinated their efforts, and transformed their
outlook. While preserving their patriotism and safeguarding their lesser
loyalties, it has made them lovers of mankind, and the determined
upholders of its best and truest interests. While maintaining intact their
belief in the Divine origin of their respective religions, it has enabled
them to visualize the underlying purpose of these religions, to discover
their merits, to recognize their sequence, their interdependence, their
wholeness and unity, and to acknowledge the bond that vitally links them
to itself. This universal, this transcending love which the followers of
the Bahá’í Faith feel for their fellow-men, of whatever race, creed, class
or nation, is neither mysterious nor can it be said to have been
artificially stimulated. It is both spontaneous and genuine. They whose
hearts are warmed by the energizing influence of God’s creative love
cherish His creatures for His sake, and recognize in every human face a
sign of His reflected glory.

Of such men and women it may be truly said that to them “every foreign
land is a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land.” For their
citizenship, it must be remembered, is in the Kingdom of Bahá’u’lláh.
Though willing to share to the utmost the temporal benefits and the
fleeting joys which this earthly life can confer, though eager to
participate in whatever activity that conduces to the richness, the
happiness and peace of that life, they can, at no time, forget that it
constitutes no more than a transient, a very brief stage of their
existence, that they who live it are but pilgrims and wayfarers whose goal
is the Celestial City, and whose home the Country of never-failing joy and
brightness.

Though loyal to their respective governments, though profoundly interested
in anything that affects their security and welfare, though anxious to
share in whatever promotes their best interests, the Faith with which the
followers of Bahá’u’lláh stand identified is one which they firmly believe
God has raised high above the storms, the divisions, and controversies of
the political arena. Their Faith they conceive to be essentially
non-political, supra-national in character, rigidly non-partisan, and
entirely dissociated from nationalistic ambitions, pursuits, and purposes.
Such a Faith knows no division of class or of party. It subordinates,
without hesitation or equivocation, every particularistic interest, be it
personal, regional, or national, to the paramount interests of humanity,
firmly convinced that in a world of inter-dependent peoples and nations
the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the
whole, and that no abiding benefit can be conferred upon the component
parts if the general interests of the entity itself are ignored or
neglected.

Small wonder if by the Pen of Bahá’u’lláh these pregnant words, written in
anticipation of the present state of mankind, should have been revealed:
“It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather
for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and
mankind its citizens.” And again, “That one indeed is a man who today
dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race.” “Through the
power released by these exalted words,” He explains, “He hath lent a fresh
impulse, and set a new direction, to the birds of men’s hearts, and hath
obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God’s Holy
Book.”

Their Faith, Bahá’ís firmly believe, is moreover undenominational,
non-sectarian, and wholly divorced from every ecclesiastical system,
whatever its form, origin, or activities. No ecclesiastical organization,
with its creeds, its traditions, its limitations, and exclusive outlook,
can be said (as is the case with all existing political factions, parties,
systems and programs) to conform, in all its aspects, to the cardinal
tenets of Bahá’í belief. To some of the principles and ideals animating
political and ecclesiastical institutions every conscientious follower of
the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh can, no doubt, readily subscribe. With none of
these institutions, however, can he identify himself, nor can he
unreservedly endorse the creeds, the principles and programs on which they
are based.

How can a Faith, it should moreover be borne in mind, whose
divinely-ordained institutions have been established within the
jurisdiction of no less than forty different countries, the policies and
interests of whose governments are continually clashing and growing more
complex and confused every day—how can such a Faith, by allowing its
adherents, whether individually or through its organized councils, to
meddle in political activities, succeed in preserving the integrity of its
teachings and in safeguarding the unity of its followers? How can it
insure the vigorous, the uninterrupted and peaceful development of its
expanding institutions? How can a Faith, whose ramifications have brought
it into contact with mutually incompatible religious systems, sects and
confessions, be in a position, if it permits its adherents to subscribe to
obsolescent observances and doctrines, to claim the unconditional
allegiance of those whom it is striving to incorporate into its
divinely-appointed system? How can it avoid the constant friction, the
misunderstandings and controversies which formal affiliation, as distinct
from association, must inevitably engender?

These directing and regulating principles of Bahá’í belief the upholders
of the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh feel bound, as their Administrative Order
expands and consolidates itself, to assert and vigilantly apply. The
exigencies of a slowly crystallizing Faith impose upon them a duty which
they cannot shirk, a responsibility they cannot evade.

Nor are they unmindful of the imperative necessity of upholding and of
executing the laws, as distinguished from the principles, ordained by
Bahá’u’lláh, both of which constitute the warp and woof of the
institutions upon which the structure of His World Order must ultimately
rest. To demonstrate their usefulness and efficacy, to carry out and apply
them, to safeguard their integrity, to grasp their implications, and to
facilitate their propagation Bahá’í communities in the East, and recently
in the West, are displaying the utmost effort and are willing, if
necessary, to make whatever sacrifices may be demanded. The day may not be
far distant when in certain countries of the East, in which religious
communities exercise jurisdiction in matters of personal status, Bahá’í
Assemblies may be called upon to assume the duties and responsibilities
devolving upon officially constituted Bahá’í courts. They will be
empowered, in such matters as marriage, divorce, and inheritance, to
execute and apply, within their respective jurisdictions, and with the
sanction of civil authorities, such laws and ordinances as have been
expressly provided in their Most Holy Book.

The Faith of Bahá’u’lláh has, in addition to these tendencies and
activities which its evolution is now revealing, demonstrated, in other
spheres, and wherever the illumination of its light has penetrated, the
force of its cohesive strength, of its integrating power, of its
invincible spirit. In the erection and consecration of its House of
Worship in the heart of the North American continent; in the construction
and multiplication of its administrative headquarters in the land of its
birth and in neighboring countries; in the fashioning of the legal
instruments designed to safeguard and regulate the corporate life of its
institutions; in the accumulation of adequate resources, material as well
as cultural, in every continent of the globe; in the endowments which it
has created for itself in the immediate surroundings of its Shrines at its
world center; in the efforts that are being made for the collection, the
verification, and the systematization of the writings of its Founders; in
the measures that are being taken for the acquisition of such historical
sites as are associated with the lives of its Forerunner and its Author,
its heroes and martyrs; in the foundations that are being laid for the
gradual formation and establishment of its educational, its cultural and
humanitarian institutions; in the vigorous efforts that are being exerted
to safeguard the character, stimulate the initiative and coordinate the
world-wide activities of its youth; in the extraordinary vitality with
which its valiant defenders, its elected representatives, its itinerant
teachers and pioneer administrators are pleading its cause, extending its
boundaries, enriching its literature, and strengthening the basis of its
spiritual conquests and triumphs; in the recognition which civil
authorities have, in certain instances, been induced to grant to the body
of its local and national representatives, enabling them to incorporate
their councils, establish their subsidiary institutions, and safeguard
their endowments; in the facilities which these same authorities have
consented to accord to its shrines, its consecrated edifices, and
educational institutions; in the enthusiasm and determination with which
certain communities that had been severely tested and harassed are
resuming their activities; in the spontaneous tributes paid by royalty,
princes, statesmen and scholars to the sublimity of its cause and the
station of its Founders—in these, as in many others, the Faith of
Bahá’u’lláh is proving beyond doubt its virility and capacity to
counteract the disintegrating influences to which religious systems, moral
standards, and political and social institutions are being subjected.

From Iceland to Tasmania, from Vancouver to the China Sea spreads the
radiance and extend the ramifications of this world-enfolding System, this
many-hued and firmly-knit Fraternity, infusing into every man and woman it
has won to its cause a faith, a hope, and a vigor that a wayward
generation has long lost, and is powerless to recover. They who preside
over the immediate destinies of this troubled world, they who are
responsible for its chaotic state, its fears, its doubts, its miseries
will do well, in their bewilderment, to fix their gaze and ponder in their
hearts upon the evidences of this saving grace of the Almighty that lies
within their reach—a grace that can ease their burden, resolve their
perplexities, and illuminate their path.



Divine Retribution


The whole of mankind is groaning, is dying to be led to unity, and to
terminate its age-long martyrdom. And yet it stubbornly refuses to embrace
the light and acknowledge the sovereign authority of the one Power that
can extricate it from its entanglements, and avert the woeful calamity
that threatens to engulf it.

Ominous indeed is the voice of Bahá’u’lláh that rings through these
prophetic words: “O ye peoples of the world! Know, verily, that an
unforeseen calamity followeth you, and grievous retribution awaiteth you.
Think not that which ye have committed hath been effaced in My sight.” And
again: “We have a fixed time for you, O peoples. If ye fail, at the
appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent hold on
you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every
direction. How severe, indeed, is the chastisement with which your Lord
will then chastise you!”

Must humanity, tormented as she now is, be afflicted with still severer
tribulations ere their purifying influence can prepare her to enter the
heavenly Kingdom destined to be established upon earth? Must the
inauguration of so vast, so unique, so illumined an era in human history
be ushered in by so great a catastrophe in human affairs as to recall, nay
surpass, the appalling collapse of Roman civilization in the first
centuries of the Christian Era? Must a series of profound convulsions stir
and rock the human race ere Bahá’u’lláh can be enthroned in the hearts and
consciences of the masses, ere His undisputed ascendancy is universally
recognized, and the noble edifice of His World Order is reared and
established?

The long ages of infancy and childhood, through which the human race had
to pass, have receded into the background. Humanity is now experiencing
the commotions invariably associated with the most turbulent stage of its
evolution, the stage of adolescence, when the impetuosity of youth and its
vehemence reach their climax, and must gradually be superseded by the
calmness, the wisdom, and the maturity that characterize the stage of
manhood. Then will the human race reach that stature of ripeness which
will enable it to acquire all the powers and capacities upon which its
ultimate development must depend.



World Unity the Goal


Unification of the whole of mankind is the hall-mark of the stage which
human society is now approaching. Unity of family, of tribe, of
city-state, and nation have been successively attempted and fully
established. World unity is the goal towards which a harassed humanity is
striving. Nation-building has come to an end. The anarchy inherent in
state sovereignty is moving towards a climax. A world, growing to
maturity, must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness of
human relationships, and establish once for all the machinery that can
best incarnate this fundamental principle of its life.

“A new life,” Bahá’u’lláh proclaims, “is, in this age, stirring within all
the peoples of the earth; and yet none hath discovered its cause, or
perceived its motive.” “O ye children of men,” He thus addresses His
generation, “the fundamental purpose animating the Faith of God and His
Religion is to safeguard the interests and promote the unity of the human
race... This is the straight path, the fixed and immovable foundation.
Whatsoever is raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the
world can never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless
centuries undermine its structure.” “The well-being of mankind,” He
declares, “its peace and security are unattainable unless and until its
unity is firmly established.” “So powerful is the light of unity,” is His
further testimony, “that it can illuminate the whole earth. The one true
God, He Who knoweth all things, Himself testifieth to the truth of these
words... This goal excelleth every other goal, and this aspiration is the
monarch of all aspirations.” “He Who is your Lord, the All-Merciful,” He,
moreover, has written, “cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding
the entire human race as one soul and one body. Haste ye to win your share
of God’s good grace and mercy in this Day that eclipseth all other created
days.”

The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh, implies the
establishment of a world commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds
and classes are closely and permanently united, and in which the autonomy
of its state members and the personal freedom and initiative of the
individuals that compose them are definitely and completely safeguarded.
This commonwealth must, as far as we can visualize it, consist of a world
legislature, whose members will, as the trustees of the whole of mankind,
ultimately control the entire resources of all the component nations, and
will enact such laws as shall be required to regulate the life, satisfy
the needs and adjust the relationships of all races and peoples. A world
executive, backed by an international Force, will carry out the decisions
arrived at, and apply the laws enacted by, this world legislature, and
will safeguard the organic unity of the whole commonwealth. A world
tribunal will adjudicate and deliver its compulsory and final verdict in
all and any disputes that may arise between the various elements
constituting this universal system. A mechanism of world
inter-communication will be devised, embracing the whole planet, freed
from national hindrances and restrictions, and functioning with marvellous
swiftness and perfect regularity. A world metropolis will act as the nerve
center of a world civilization, the focus towards which the unifying
forces of life will converge and from which its energizing influences will
radiate. A world language will either be invented or chosen from among the
existing languages and will be taught in the schools of all the federated
nations as an auxiliary to their mother tongue. A world script, a world
literature, a uniform and universal system of currency, of weights and
measures, will simplify and facilitate intercourse and understanding among
the nations and races of mankind. In such a world society, science and
religion, the two most potent forces in human life, will be reconciled,
will cöoperate, and will harmoniously develop. The press will, under such
a system, while giving full scope to the expression of the diversified
views and convictions of mankind, cease to be mischievously manipulated by
vested interests, whether private or public, and will be liberated from
the influence of contending governments and peoples. The economic
resources of the world will be organized, its sources of raw materials
will be tapped and fully utilized, its markets will be cöordinated and
developed, and the distribution of its products will be equitably
regulated.

National rivalries, hatreds, and intrigues will cease, and racial
animosity and prejudice will be replaced by racial amity, understanding
and cöoperation. The causes of religious strife will be permanently
removed, economic barriers and restrictions will be completely abolished,
and the inordinate distinction between classes will be obliterated.
Destitution on the one hand, and gross accumulation of ownership on the
other, will disappear. The enormous energy dissipated and wasted on war,
whether economic or political, will be consecrated to such ends as will
extend the range of human inventions and technical development, to the
increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease,
to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of
physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to
the exploitation of the unused and unsuspected resources of the planet, to
the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of any other agency
that can stimulate the intellectual, the moral, and spiritual life of the
entire human race.

A world federal system, ruling the whole earth and exercising
unchallengeable authority over its unimaginably vast resources, blending
and embodying the ideals of both the East and the West, liberated from the
curse of war and its miseries, and bent on the exploitation of all the
available sources of energy on the surface of the planet, a system in
which Force is made the servant of Justice, whose life is sustained by its
universal recognition of one God and by its allegiance to one common
Revelation—such is the goal towards which humanity, impelled by the
unifying forces of life, is moving.

“One of the great events,” affirms ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “which is to occur in the
Day of the manifestation of that incomparable Branch is the hoisting of
the Standard of God among all nations. By this is meant that all nations
and kindreds will be gathered together under the shadow of this Divine
Banner, which is no other than the Lordly Branch itself, and will become a
single nation. Religious and sectarian antagonism, the hostility of races
and peoples, and differences among nations, will be eliminated. All men
will adhere to one religion, will have one common faith, will be blended
into one race and become a single people. All will dwell in one common
fatherland, which is the planet itself.” “Now, in the world of being,” He
has moreover explained, “the Hand of Divine power hath firmly laid the
foundations of this all-highest bounty, and this wondrous gift. Whatsoever
is latent in the innermost of this holy Cycle shall gradually appear and
be made manifest, for now is but the beginning of its growth, and the
dayspring of the revelation of its signs. Ere the close of this century
and of this age, it shall be made clear and evident how wondrous was that
spring-tide, and how heavenly was that gift.”

No less enthralling is the vision of Isaiah, the greatest of the Hebrew
Prophets, predicting, as far back as twenty five hundred years ago, the
destiny which mankind must, at its stage of maturity, achieve: “And He
(the Lord) shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people:
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more ...And there shall come forth a rod out of the
stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots... And he shall
smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his
loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf
and the young lion and the fatling together... And the sucking child shall
play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on
the cockatrice’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the sea.”

The writer of the Apocalypse, prefiguring the millenial glory which a
redeemed, a jubilant humanity must witness, has similarly testified: “And
I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the
holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as
a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven
saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them,
and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and
there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall
there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’”

Who can doubt that such a consummation—the coming of age of the human
race—must signalize, in its turn, the inauguration of a world civilization
such as no mortal eye hath ever beheld or human mind conceived? Who is it
that can imagine the lofty standard which such a civilization, as it
unfolds itself, is destined to attain? Who can measure the heights to
which human intelligence, liberated from its shackles, will soar? Who can
visualize the realms which the human spirit, vitalized by the outpouring
light of Bahá’u’lláh, shining in the plenitude of its glory, will
discover?

What more fitting conclusion to this theme than these words of
Bahá’u’lláh, written in anticipation of the golden age of His Faith—the
age in which the face of the earth, from pole to pole, will mirror the
ineffable splendors of the Abhá Paradise? “This is the Day whereon naught
can be seen except the splendors of the Light that shineth from the face
of thy Lord, the Gracious, the Most Bountiful. Verily, We have caused
every soul to expire by virtue of Our irresistible and all-subduing
sovereignty. We have then called into being a new creation, as a token of
Our grace unto men. I am, verily, the All-Bountiful, the Ancient of Days.
This is the Day whereon the unseen world crieth out: ‘Great is thy
blessedness, O earth, for thou hast been made the foot-stool of thy God,
and been chosen as the seat of His mighty throne!’ The realm of glory
exclaimeth: ‘Would that my life could be sacrificed for thee, for He Who
is the Beloved of the All-Merciful hath established His sovereignty upon
thee, through the power of His name that hath been promised unto all
things, whether of the past or of the future.’”

Shoghi.

Haifa, Palestine,
March 11, 1936.



FOOTNOTES


    1 In an address by Dr. Henry H. Jessup at the Parliament of Religions,
      Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.—Editor.





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