of mankind to
quake."

Has not 'Abdu'l-Baha 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 millenium of which poets of all ages have
sung and seers have long dreamed. Upon it will depend the fulfilment 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 Baha'u'llah--a World Order that shall reflect, however
dimly, upon this earthly plane, the ineffable splendours of the Abha
Kingdom.

One word more in conclusion. The proclamation of the Oneness of
Mankind--the head corner-stone of Baha'u'llah'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 Baha'u'llah 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.

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 Revelation, of the past in a
language suited to its essential requirements. A