is
consummation may be viewed as the culmination of the process of human
government. The diversified and loosely related elements of a divided
community were brought together, unified and incorporated into one
coherent system. Though this entity may continue gaining in cohesive
power, though the unity already achieved may be further consolidated,
though the civilization to which that unity could alone have given birth
may expand and flourish, yet the machinery essential to such an unfoldment
may be said to have been, in its essential structure, erected, and the
impulse required to guide and sustain it may be regarded as having been
fundamentally imparted. No stage above and beyond this consummation of
national unity can, within the geographical limits of that nation, be
imagined, though the highest destiny of its people, as a constituent
element in a still larger entity that will embrace the whole of mankind,
may still remain unfulfilled. Considered as an isolated unit, however,
this process of integration may be said to have reached its highest and
final consummation.

Such is the stage to which an evolving humanity is collectively
approaching. The Revelation entrusted by the Almighty Ordainer to
Baha'u'llah, His followers firmly believe, has been endowed with such
potentialities as are commensurate with the maturity of the human race--the
crowning and most momentous stage in its evolution from infancy to
manhood.

The successive Founders of all past Religions Who, from time immemorial,
have shed, with ever-increasing intensity, the splendor of one common
Revelation at the various stages which have marked the advance of mankind
towards maturity may thus, in a sense, be regarded as preliminary
Manifestations, anticipating and paving the way for the advent of that Day
of Days when the whole earth will have fructified and the tree of humanity
will have yielded its destined fruit.

Incontrovertible as is this truth, its challenging character should never
be allowed to obscure the purpose, or distort the principle, underlying
the utterances of Baha'u'llah--utterances that have established for all
time the absolute oneness of all the Prophets, Himself included, whether
belonging to the past or to the future. Though the mission of the Prophets
preceding Baha'u'llah may be viewed in that light, though the measure of
Divine Revelation with which each has been entrusted must, as a result of
this process of evolution, necessar