divinely-appointed institution of whose most distinguished member the Bab
Himself was a lineal descendant, and which continued for a period of no
less than two hundred and sixty years to be the chosen recipient of the
guidance of the Almighty and the repository of one of the two most
precious legacies of Islam.

This same prophecy, we must furthermore recognize, attests the independent
character of the Babi Dispensation and corroborates indirectly the truth
that in accordance with the principle of progressive revelation every
Manifestation of God must needs vouchsafe to the peoples of His day a
measure of divine guidance ampler than any which a preceding and less
receptive age could have received or appreciated. For this reason, and not
for any superior merit which the Baha'i Faith may be said to inherently
possess, does this prophecy bear witness to the unrivaled power and glory
with which the Dispensation of Baha'u'llah has been invested--a
Dispensation the potentialities of which we are but beginning to perceive
and the full range of which we can never determine.

The Faith of Baha'u'llah should indeed be regarded, if we wish to be
faithful to the tremendous implications of its message, as the culmination
of a cycle, the final stage in a series of successive, of preliminary and
progressive revelations. These, beginning with Adam and ending with the
Bab, have paved the way and anticipated with an ever-increasing emphasis
the advent of that Day of Days in which He Who is the Promise of All Ages
should be made manifest.

To this truth the utterances of Baha'u'llah abundantly testify. A mere
reference to the claims which, in vehement language and with compelling
power, He Himself has repeatedly advanced cannot but fully demonstrate the
character of the Revelation of which He was the chosen bearer. To the
words that have streamed from His pen--the fountainhead of so impetuous a
Revelation--we should, therefore, direct our attention if we wish to obtain
a clearer understanding of its importance and meaning. Whether in His
assertion of the unprecedented claim He has advanced, or in His allusions
to the mysterious forces He has released, whether in such passages as
extol the glories of His long-awaited Day, or magnify the station which
they who have recognized its hidden virtues will attain, Baha'u'llah and,
to an almost equal extent, the Bab and 'Abdu'l-Baha, have bequeathed to
posterity mines of such inestimable wealth as