ith such
laws and ordinances as conform to the imperative needs, and are dictated
by the growing receptivity, of a fast evolving and constantly changing
society, and proclaims its readiness and ability to fuse and incorporate
the contending sects and factions into which they have fallen into a
universal Fellowship, functioning within the framework, and in accordance
with the precepts, of a divinely conceived, a world-unifying, a
world-redeeming Order.

A Revelation, hailed as the promise and crowning glory of past ages and
centuries, as the consummation of all the Dispensations within the Adamic
Cycle, inaugurating an era of at least a thousand years' duration, and a
cycle destined to last no less than five thousand centuries, signalizing
the end of the Prophetic Era and the beginning of the Era of Fulfillment,
unsurpassed alike in the duration of its Author's ministry and the
fecundity and splendor of His mission--such a Revelation was, as already
noted, born amidst the darkness of a subterranean dungeon in Tihran--an
abominable pit that had once served as a reservoir of water for one of the
public baths of the city. Wrapped in its stygian gloom, breathing its
fetid air, numbed by its humid and icy atmosphere, His feet in stocks, His
neck weighed down by a mighty chain, surrounded by criminals and
miscreants of the worst order, oppressed by the consciousness of the
terrible blot that had stained the fair name of His beloved Faith,
painfully aware of the dire distress that had overtaken its champions, and
of the grave dangers that faced the remnant of its followers--at so
critical an hour and under such appalling circumstances the "Most Great
Spirit," as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian, the
Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the Sacred Fire,
the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel respectively, descended
upon, and revealed itself, personated by a "Maiden," to the agonized soul
of Baha'u'llah.

"One night in a dream," He Himself, calling to mind, in the evening of His
life, the first stirrings of God's Revelation within His soul, has
written, "these exalted words were heard on every side: 'Verily, We shall
render Thee victorious by Thyself and by Thy pen. Grieve Thou not for that
which hath befallen Thee, neither be Thou afraid, for Thou art in safety.
Ere long will God raise up the treasures of the earth--men who will aid
Thee through Thyself and through Thy Name, w