hem is known by a different name, is
characterized by a special attribute, fulfills a definite mission...

Viewed in the light of their second station ... they manifest absolute
servitude, utter destitution, and complete self-effacement. Even as He
saith: "I am the servant of God. I am but a man like you."...

Were any of the all-embracing Manifestations of God to declare: "I am
God," He, verily, speaketh the truth, and no doubt attacheth thereto. For
... through their Revelation, their attributes and names, the Revelation
of God, His names and His attributes, are made manifest in the world....
And were any of them to voice the utterance, "I am the Messenger of God,"
He, also, speaketh the truth, the indubitable truth.... Viewed in this
light, they are all but Messengers of that ideal King, that unchangeable
Essence.... And were they to say, "We are the Servants of God," this also
is a manifest and indisputable fact. For they have been made manifest in
the uttermost state of servitude, a servitude the like of which no man can
possibly attain....(45)

Thus it is that whatsoever be their utterance, whether it pertain to the
realm of Divinity, Lordship, Prophethood, Messengership, Guardianship,
Apostleship, or Servitude, all is true, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Therefore these sayings ... must be attentively considered, that the
divergent utterances of the Manifestations of the Unseen and Day Springs
of Holiness may cease to agitate the soul and perplex the mind.(46)

"AN EVER-ADVANCING CIVILIZATION..."

Implicit in these paragraphs is a perspective which represents the most
challenging feature of Baha'u'llah's exposition of the function of the
Manifestation of God. Divine Revelation is, He says, the motive power of
civilization. When it occurs, its transforming effect on the minds and
souls of those who respond to it is replicated in the new society that
slowly takes shape around their experience. A new center of loyalty
emerges that can win the commitment of peoples from the widest range of
cultures; music and the arts seize on symbols that mediate far richer and
more mature inspirations; a radical redefinition of concepts of right and
wrong makes possible the formulation of new codes of civil law and
conduct; new institutions are conceived in order to give expression to
impulses of moral responsibility previously ignored or unknown: "He was in
the world, and the world was made by him..."(47) As the new cu