a'u'llah draws to a close a period which, in many
ways, is unparalleled in the world's religious history. The first century
of the Baha'i Era had by now run half its course. An epoch, unsurpassed in
its sublimity, its fecundity and duration by any previous Dispensation,
and characterized, except for a short interval of three years, by half a
century of continuous and progressive Revelation, had terminated. The
Message proclaimed by the Bab had yielded its golden fruit. The most
momentous, though not the most spectacular phase of the Heroic Age had
ended. The Sun of Truth, the world's greatest Luminary, had risen in the
Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran, had broken through the clouds which enveloped it
in Ba_gh_dad, had suffered a momentary eclipse whilst mounting to its
zenith in Adrianople and had set finally in Akka, never to reappear ere
the lapse of a full millenium. God's newborn Faith, the cynosure of all
past Dispensations, had been fully and unreservedly proclaimed. The
prophecies announcing its advent had been remarkably fulfilled. Its
fundamental laws and cardinal principles, the warp and woof of the fabric
of its future World Order, had been clearly enunciated. Its organic
relation to, and its attitude towards, the religious systems which
preceded it had been unmistakably defined. The primary institutions,
within which an embryonic World Order was destined to mature, had been
unassailably established. The Covenant designed to safeguard the unity and
integrity of its world-embracing system had been irrevocably bequeathed to
posterity. The promise of the unification of the whole human race, of the
inauguration of the Most Great Peace, of the unfoldment of a world
civilization, had been incontestably given. The dire warnings,
foreshadowing catastrophes destined to befall kings, ecclesiastics,
governments and peoples, as a prelude to so glorious a consummation, had
been repeatedly uttered. The significant summons to the Chief Magistrates
of the New World, forerunner of the Mission with which the North American
continent was to be later invested, had been issued. The initial contact
with a nation, a descendant of whose royal house was to espouse its Cause
ere the expiry of the first Baha'i century, had been established. The
original impulse which, in the course of successive decades, has
conferred, and will continue to confer, in the years to come, inestimable
benefits of both spiritual and institutional significance upon God's