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."

What we witness at the present time, during "this gravest crisis in the
history of civilization," recalling such times in which "religions have
perished and are born," is the adolescent stage in the slow and painful
evolution of humanity, preparatory to the attainment of the stage of
manhood, the stage of maturity, the promise of which is embedded in the
teachings, and enshrined in the prophecies, of Baha'u'llah. The tumult of
this age of transition is characteristic of the impetuosity and irrational
instincts of youth, its follies, its prodigality, its pride, its
self-assurance, its rebelliousness, and contempt of discipline.

THE GREAT AGE TO COME

The ages of its infancy and childhood are past, never again to return,
while the Great Age, the consummation of all ages, which must signalize
the coming of age of the entire human race, is yet to come. The
convulsions of this transitional and most turbulent period in the annals
of humanity are the essential prerequisites, and herald the inevitable
approach, of that Age of Ages, "the time of the end," in which the folly
and tumult of strife that has, since the dawn of history, blackened the
annals of mankind, will have been finally transmuted into the wisdom and
the tranquility of an undisturbed, a universal, and lasting peace, in
which the discord and separation of the children of men will have given
way to the worldwide reconciliation, and the complete unification of the
divers elements that constitute human society.

This will indeed be the fitting climax of that process of integration
which, starting with the family, the smallest unit in the scale of human
organization, must, after having called successively into being the tribe,
the city-state, and the nation, continue to operate until it culminates in
the unification of the whole world, the final object and the crowning
glory of human evolution on this planet. It is this stage which humanity,
willingly or unwillingly, is resistlessly approaching. It is for this
stage that this vast, this fiery ordeal which humanity is experiencing is
mysteriously paving the way. It is with this stage that the fortunes and