while the Most
Great Peace will, in turn, usher in that Most Great, that World
Civilization which shall remain forever associated with Him Who beareth
the Most Great Name.

Beloved friends! Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the
Revelation of Baha'u'llah dawned upon the world--a Revelation, the nature
of which, as affirmed by Himself, "none among the Manifestations of old,
except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended." For a
whole century God has respited mankind, that it might acknowledge the
Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His Cause, proclaim His greatness,
and establish His Order. In a hundred volumes, the repositories of
priceless precepts, mighty laws, unique principles, impassioned
exhortations, reiterated warnings, amazing prophecies, sublime
invocations, and weighty commentaries, the Bearer of such a Message has
proclaimed, as no Prophet before Him has done, the Mission with which God
had entrusted Him. To emperors, kings, princes and potentates, to rulers,
governments, clergy and peoples, whether of the East or of the West,
whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Zoroastrian, He addressed, for
well-nigh fifty years, and in the most tragic circumstances, these
priceless pearls of knowledge and wisdom that lay hid within the ocean of
His matchless utterance. Forsaking fame and fortune, accepting
imprisonment and exile, careless of ostracism and obloquy, submitting to
physical indignities and cruel deprivations, He, the Vicegerent of God on
earth, suffered Himself to be banished from place to place and from
country to country, till at length He, in the Most Great Prison, offered
up His martyred son as a ransom for the redemption and unification of all
mankind. "We verily," He Himself has testified, "have not fallen short of
Our duty to exhort men, and to deliver that whereunto I was bidden by God,
the Almighty, the All-Praised. Had they hearkened unto Me, they would have
beheld the earth another earth." And again: "Is there any excuse left for
anyone in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the Mighty Throne! My
signs have encompassed the earth, and My power enveloped all mankind, and
yet the people are wrapped in a strange sleep!"

WHAT RESPONSE TO HIS CALL?

How--we may well ask ourselves--has the world, the object of such Divine
solicitude, repaid Him Who sacrificed His all for its sake? What manner of
welcome did it accord Him, and what response did His call evoke?