e and establishment of the
Administrative Order, upon which the institutions of the future Baha'i
World Commonwealth must needs be ultimately erected in the Golden Age that
must witness the consummation of the Baha'i Dispensation. The Charter
which called into being, outlined the features and set in motion the
processes of, this Administrative Order is none other than the Will and
Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha, His greatest legacy to posterity, the brightest
emanation of His mind and the mightiest instrument forged to insure the
continuity of the three ages which constitute the component parts of His
Father's Dispensation.

The Covenant of Baha'u'llah had been instituted solely through the direct
operation of His Will and purpose. The Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha,
on the other hand, may be regarded as the offspring resulting from that
mystic intercourse between Him Who had generated the forces of a God-given
Faith and the One Who had been made its sole Interpreter and was
recognized as its perfect Exemplar. The creative energies unleashed by the
Originator of the Law of God in this age gave birth, through their impact
upon the mind of Him Who had been chosen as its unerring Expounder, to
that Instrument, the vast implications of which the present generation,
even after the lapse of twenty-three years, is still incapable of fully
apprehending. This Instrument can, if we would correctly appraise it, no
more be divorced from the One Who provided the motivating impulse for its
creation than from Him Who directly conceived it. The purpose of the
Author of the Baha'i Revelation had, as already observed, been so
thoroughly infused into the mind of 'Abdu'l-Baha, and His Spirit had so
profoundly impregnated His being, and their aims and motives been so
completely blended, that to dissociate the doctrine laid down by the
former from the supreme act associated with the mission of the latter
would be tantamount to a repudiation of one of the most fundamental
verities of the Faith.

The Administrative Order which this historic Document has established, it
should be noted, is, by virtue of its origin and character, unique in the
annals of the world's religious systems. No Prophet before Baha'u'llah, it
can be confidently asserted, not even Muhammad Whose Book clearly lays
down the laws and ordinances of the Islamic Dispensation, has established,
authoritatively and in writing, anything comparable to the Administrative
Order which