the authorized Interpreter of Baha'u'llah's teachings has
instituted, an Order which, by virtue of the administrative principles
which its Author has formulated, the institutions He has established, and
the right of interpretation with which He has invested its Guardian, must
and will, in a manner unparalleled in any previous religion, safeguard
from schism the Faith from which it has sprung. Nor is the principle
governing its operation similar to that which underlies any system,
whether theocratic or otherwise, which the minds of men have devised for
the government of human institutions. Neither in theory nor in practice
can the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah be said to
conform to any type of democratic government, to any system of autocracy,
to any purely aristocratic order, or to any of the various theocracies,
whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic which mankind has witnessed in the
past. It incorporates within its structure certain elements which are to
be found in each of the three recognized forms of secular government, is
devoid of the defects which each of them inherently possesses, and blends
the salutary truths which each undoubtedly contains without vitiating in
any way the integrity of the Divine verities on which it is essentially
founded. The hereditary authority which the Guardian of the Administrative
Order is called upon to exercise, and the right of the interpretation of
the Holy Writ solely conferred upon him; the powers and prerogatives of
the Universal House of Justice, possessing the exclusive right to
legislate on matters not explicitly revealed in the Most Holy Book; the
ordinance exempting its members from any responsibility to those whom they
represent, and from the obligation to conform to their views, convictions
or sentiments; the specific provisions requiring the free and democratic
election by the mass of the faithful of the Body that constitutes the sole
legislative organ in the world-wide Baha'i community--these are among the
features which combine to set apart the Order identified with the
Revelation of Baha'u'llah from any of the existing systems of human
government.

Nor have the enemies who, at the hour of the inception of this
Administrative Order, and in the course of its twenty-three year
existence, both in the East and in the West, from within and from without,
misrepresented its character, or derided and vilified it, or striven to
arrest its march, or contrived t