ion
of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and throughout a whole century, have been
instrumental in weeding out its harmful elements, in fortifying its
foundations, in demonstrating its resilience, and in releasing a further
measure of its latent powers.

Now that the provisions of a divinely appointed Covenant had been
indubitably proclaimed; now that the purpose of the Covenant was clearly
apprehended and its fundamentals had become immovably established in the
hearts of the overwhelming majority of the adherents of the Faith; and now
that the first assaults launched by its would-be subverters had been
successfully repulsed, the Cause for which that Covenant had been designed
could forge ahead along the course traced for it by the finger of its
Author. Shining exploits and unforgettable victories had already
signalized the birth of that Cause and accompanied its rise in several
countries of the Asiatic continent, and particularly in the homeland of
its Founder. The mission of its newly-appointed Leader, the steward of its
glory and the diffuser of its light, was, as conceived by Himself, to
enrich and extend the bounds of the incorruptible patrimony entrusted to
His hands by shedding the illumination of His Father's Faith upon the
West, by expounding the fundamental precepts of that Faith and its
cardinal principles, by consolidating the activities which had already
been initiated for the promotion of its interests, and, finally, by
ushering in, through the provisions of His own Will, the Formative Age in
its evolution.

A year after the ascension of Baha'u'llah, 'Abdu'l-Baha had, in a verse
which He had revealed, and which had evoked the derision of the
Covenant-breakers, already foreshadowed an auspicious event which
posterity would recognize as one of the greatest triumphs of His ministry,
which in the end would confer an inestimable blessing upon the western
world, and which erelong was to dispel the grief and the apprehensions
that had surrounded the community of His fellow-exiles in Akka. The Great
Republic of the West, above all the other countries of the Occident, was
singled out to be the first recipient of God's inestimable blessing, and
to become the chief agent in its transmission to so many of her sister
nations throughout the five continents of the earth.

The importance of so momentous a development in the evolution of the Faith
of Baha'u'llah--the establishment of His Cause in the North American
continent--a