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et to traverse. It was against the most intense resistance at every level of society, among governed and governors alike, that the political, social and conceptual changes of the past hundred years were achieved. Ultimately, they were accomplished only at the cost of terrible suffering. It would be unrealistic to imagine that the challenges lying ahead may not exact an even greater toll of a human race that still seeks, by every means in its power, to avoid the spiritual implications of the experience it is undergoing. Shoghi Effendi's words on the consequences of this obduracy of heart and mind make sober reading: Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and upheavals, war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it has disdained to recognize and follow.(153) * * * * * Barely a third of the twentieth century had elapsed when the Guardian summoned the followers of Baha'u'llah to a far deeper understanding of the Cause itself than anything they had yet appreciated. The Faith had reached the point, he said, when it was "ceasing to designate itself a movement, a fellowship and the like", designations which, although perhaps appropriate at a time when the message was first being introduced to the West, now "did grave injustice to its ever-unfolding system". Rejecting as adequate even the term "religion" in its familiar sense, he pointed out that the Faith was already: ...visibly succeeding in demonstrating its claim and title to be regarded as a World Religion, destined to attain, in the fullness of time, the status of a world-embracing Commonwealth, which would be at once the instrument and the guardian of the Most Great Peace announced by its Author.(154) As the century advanced, the same creative Force that was awakening the generality of humankind to its oneness was progressively releasing the powers inherent in the Cause and opening a new role for it in human affairs. Over the first two decades of the century, through the loving care of the Master, the spiritual and administrative foundations necessary to Baha'u'llah's purpose were established. On the base thus made available--during the thirty-six years of his own ministry, and the subsequent six years during which his Ten Year Crusade guided the community's efforts--Shoghi Effendi devoted himself to refining the administrativ
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