the purpose of the Faith of Baha'u'llah are indissolubly linked. It is the
creative energies which His Revelation has released in the "year sixty,"
and later reinforced by the successive effusions of celestial power
vouchsafed in the "year nine" and the "year eighty" to all mankind, that
have instilled into humanity the capacity to attain this final stage in
its organic and collective evolution. It is with the Golden Age of His
Dispensation that the consummation of this process will be forever
associated. It is the structure of His New World Order, now stirring in
the womb of the administrative institutions He Himself has created, that
will serve both as a pattern and a nucleus of that world commonwealth
which is the sure, the inevitable destiny of the peoples and nations of
the earth.

Just as the organic evolution of mankind has been slow and gradual, and
involved successively the unification of the family, the tribe, the
city-state, and the nation, so has the light vouchsafed by the Revelation
of God, at various stages in the evolution of religion, and reflected in
the successive Dispensations of the past, been slow and progressive.
Indeed the measure of Divine Revelation, in every age, has been adapted
to, and commensurate with, the degree of social progress achieved in that
age by a constantly evolving humanity.

"It hath been decreed by Us," explains Baha'u'llah, "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." "All created things," 'Abdu'l-Baha,
elucidating this truth, has affirmed, "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