Dearly-beloved brethren in 'Abdu'l-Baha! With the ascension of Baha'u'llah
the Day-Star of Divine guidance which, as foretold by _Sh_ay_kh_ Ahmad and
Siyyid Kazim, had risen in _Sh_iraz, and, while pursuing its westward
course, had mounted its zenith in Adrianople, had finally sunk below the
horizon of Akka, never to rise again ere the complete revolution of one
thousand years. The setting of so effulgent an Orb brought to a definite
termination the period of Divine Revelation--the initial and most
vitalizing stage in the Baha'i era. Inaugurated by the Bab, culminating in
Baha'u'llah, anticipated and extolled by the entire company of the
Prophets of this great prophetic cycle, this period has, except for the
short interval between the Bab's martyrdom and Baha'u'llah's shaking
experiences in the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran, been characterized by almost
fifty years of continuous and progressive Revelation--a period which by its
duration and fecundity must be regarded as unparalleled in the entire
field of the world's spiritual history.
The passing of 'Abdu'l-Baha, on the other hand, marks the closing of the
Heroic and Apostolic Age of this same Dispensation--that primitive period
of our Faith the splendors of which can never be rivaled, much less be
eclipsed, by the magnificence that must needs distinguish the future
victories of Baha'u'llah's Revelation. For neither the achievements of the
champion-builders of the present-day institutions of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, nor the tumultuous triumphs which the heroes of its Golden
Age will in the coming days succeed in winning, can measure with, or be
included within the same category as, the wondrous works associated with
the names of those who have generated its very life and laid its pristine
foundations. That first and creative age of the Baha'i era must, by its
very nature, stand above and apart from the formative period into which we
have entered and the golden age destined to succeed it.
'Abdu'l-Baha, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no
parallel whatsoever in any of the world's recognized religious systems,
may be said to have closed the Age to which He Himself belonged and opened
the one in which we are now laboring. His Will and Testament should thus
be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which the mind of Him
Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the continuity
of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Baha'i
Dispensation. The period in which the seed of the Faith had been slowly
germinating is thus intertwined both with the one which must witness its
efflorescence and the subsequent age in which that seed will have finally
yielded its golden fruit.
The creative energies released by the Law of Baha'u'llah, permeating and
evolving within the mind of 'Abdu'l-Baha, have, by their very impact and
close interaction, given birth to an Instrument which may be viewed as the
Charter of the New World Order which is at once the glory and the promise
of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the
inevitable offspring resulting from that mystic intercourse between Him
Who communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the
One Who was its vehicle and chosen recipient. Being the Child of the
Covenant--the Heir of both the Originator and the Interpreter of the Law of
God--the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha can no more be divorced from
Him Who supplied the original and motivating impulse than from the One Who
ultimately conceived it. Baha'u'llah's inscrutable purpose, we must ever
bear in mind, has been so thoroughly infused into the conduct of
'Abdu'l-Baha, and their motives have been so closely wedded together, that
the mere attempt to dissociate the teachings of the former from any system
which the ideal Exemplar of those same teachings has established would
amount to a repudiation of one of the most sacred and basic truths of the
Faith.
The Administrative Order, which ever since 'Abdu'l-Baha's ascension has
evolved and is taking shape under our very eyes in no fewer than forty
countries of the world, may be considered as the framework of the Will
itself, the inviolable stronghold wherein this new-born child is being
nurtured and developed. This Administrative Order, as it expands and
consolidates itself, will no doubt manifest the potentialities and reveal
the full implications of this momentous Document--this most remarkable
expression of the Will of One of the most remarkable Figures of the
Dispensation of Baha'u'llah. It will, as its component parts, its organic
institutions, begin to function with efficiency and vigor, assert its
claim and demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus
but the very pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the
fullness of time the whole of mankind.
It should be noted in this connection that this Administrative Order is
fundamentally different from anything that any Prophet has previously
established, inasmuch as Baha'u'llah has Himself revealed its principles,
established its institutions, appointed the person to interpret His Word
and conferred the necessary authority on the body designed to supplement
and apply His legislative ordinances. Therein lies the secret of its
strength, its fundamental distinction, and the guarantee against
disintegration and schism. Nowhere in the sacred scriptures of any of the
world's religious systems, nor even in the writings of the Inaugurator of
the Babi Dispensation, do we find any provisions establishing a covenant
or providing for an administrative order that can compare in scope and
authority with those that lie at the very basis of the Baha'i
Dispensation. Has either Christianity or Islam, to take as an instance two
of the most widely diffused and outstanding among the world's recognized
religions, anything to offer that can measure with, or be regarded as
equivalent to, either the Book of Baha'u'llah's Covenant or to the Will
and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha? Does the text of either the Gospel or the
Qur'an confer sufficient authority upon those leaders and councils that
have claimed the right and assumed the function of interpreting the
provisions of their sacred scriptures and of administering the affairs of
their respective communities? Could Peter, the admitted chief of the
Apostles, or the Imam 'Ali, the cousin and legitimate successor of the
Prophet, produce in support of the primacy with which both had been
invested written and explicit affirmations from Christ and Muhammad that
could have silenced those who either among their contemporaries or in a
later age have repudiated their authority and, by their action,
precipitated the schisms that persist until the present day? Where, we may
confidently ask, in the recorded sayings of Jesus Christ, whether in the
matter of succession or in the provision of a set of specific laws and
clearly defined administrative ordinances, as distinguished from purely
spiritual principles, can we find anything approaching the detailed
injunctions, laws and warnings that abound in the authenticated utterances
of both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha? Can any passage of the Qur'an, which
in respect to its legal code, its administrative and devotional ordinances
marks already a notable advance over previous and more corrupted
Revelations, be construed as placing upon an unassailable basis the
undoubted authority with which Muhammad had, verbally and on several
occasions, invested His successor? Can the Author of the Babi Dispensation
however much He may have succeeded through the provisions of the Persian
Bayan in averting a schism as permanent and catastrophic as those that
afflicted Christianity and Islam--can He be said to have produced
instruments for the safeguarding of His Faith as definite and efficacious
as those which must for all time preserve the unity of the organized
followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah?
Alone of all the Revelations gone before it this Faith has, through the
explicit directions, the repeated warnings, the authenticated safeguards
incorporated and elaborated in its teachings, succeeded in raising a
structure which the bewildered followers of bankrupt and broken creeds
might well approach and critically examine, and seek, ere it is too late,
the invulnerable security of its world-embracing shelter.
No wonder that He Who through the operation of His Will has inaugurated so
vast and unique an Order and Who is the Center of so mighty a Covenant
should have written these words: "So firm and mighty is this Covenant that
from the beginning of time until the present day no religious Dispensation
hath produced its like." "Whatsoever is latent in the innermost of this
holy cycle," He wrote during the darkest and most dangerous days of His
ministry, "shall gradually appear and be made manifest, for now is but the
beginning of its growth and the dayspring of the revelation of its signs."
"Fear not," are His reassuring words foreshadowing the rise of the
Administrative Order established by His Will, "fear not if this Branch be
severed from this material world and cast aside its leaves; nay, the
leaves thereof shall flourish, for this Branch will grow after it is cut
off from this world below, it shall reach the loftiest pinnacles of glory,
and it shall bear such fruits as will perfume the world with their
fragrance."
To what else if not to the power and majesty which this Administrative
Order--the rudiments of the future all-enfolding Baha'i Commonwealth--is
destined to manifest, can these utterances of Baha'u'llah allude: "The
world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of
this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been
revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System--the
like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed."
The Bab Himself, in the course of His references to "Him Whom God will
make manifest" anticipates the System and glorifies the World Order which
the Revelation of Baha'u'llah is destined to unfold. "Well is it with
him," is His remarkable statement in the third chapter of the Persian
Bayan, "who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Baha'u'llah and rendereth
thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath
indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan."
In the Tablets of Baha'u'llah where the institutions of the International
and Local Houses of Justice are specifically designated and formally
established; in the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God which
first Baha'u'llah and then 'Abdu'l-Baha brought into being; in the
institution of both local and national Assemblies which in their embryonic
stage were already functioning in the days preceding 'Abdu'l-Baha's
ascension; in the authority with which the Author of our Faith and the
Center of His Covenant have in their Tablets chosen to confer upon them;
in the institution of the Local Fund which operated according to
'Abdu'l-Baha's specific injunctions addressed to certain Assemblies in
Persia; in the verses of the Kitab-i-Aqdas the implications of which
clearly anticipate the institution of the Guardianship; in the explanation
which 'Abdu'l-Baha, in one of His Tablets, has given to, and the emphasis
He has placed upon, the hereditary principle and the law of primogeniture
as having been upheld by the Prophets of the past--in these we can discern
the faint glimmerings and discover the earliest intimation of the nature
and working of the Administrative Order which the Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha was
at a later time destined to proclaim and formally establish.
An attempt, I feel, should at the present juncture be made to explain the
character and functions of the twin pillars that support this mighty
Administrative Structure--the institutions of the Guardianship and of the
Universal House of Justice. To describe in their entirety the diverse
elements that function in conjunction with these institutions is beyond
the scope and purpose of this general exposition of the fundamental
verities of the Faith. To define with accuracy and minuteness the
features, and to analyze exhaustively the nature of the relationships
which, on the one hand, bind together these two fundamental organs of the
Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha and connect, on the other, each of them to the Author
of the Faith and the Center of His Covenant is a task which future
generations will no doubt adequately fulfill. My present intention is to
elaborate certain salient features of this scheme which, however close we
may stand to its colossal structure, are already so clearly defined that
we find it inexcusable to either misconceive or ignore.
It should be stated, at the very outset, in clear and unambiguous
language, that these twin institutions of the Administrative Order of
Baha'u'llah should be regarded as divine in origin, essential in their
functions and complementary in their aim and purpose. Their common, their
fundamental object is to insure the continuity of that divinely-appointed
authority which flows from the Source of our Faith, to safeguard the unity
of its followers and to maintain the integrity and flexibility of its
teachings. Acting in conjunction with each other these two inseparable
institutions administer its affairs, coeordinate its activities, promote
its interests, execute its laws and defend its subsidiary institutions.
Severally, each operates within a clearly defined sphere of jurisdiction;
each is equipped with its own attendant institutions--instruments designed
for the effective discharge of its particular responsibilities and duties.
Each exercises, within the limitations imposed upon it, its powers, its
authority, its rights and prerogatives. These are neither contradictory,
nor detract in the slightest degree from the position which each of these
institutions occupies. Far from being incompatible or mutually
destructive, they supplement each other's authority and functions, and are
permanently and fundamentally united in their aims.
Divorced from the institution of the Guardianship the World Order of
Baha'u'llah would be mutilated and permanently deprived of that hereditary
principle which, as 'Abdu'l-Baha has written, has been invariably upheld
by the Law of God. "In all the Divine Dispensations," He states, in a
Tablet addressed to a follower of the Faith in Persia, "the eldest son
hath been given extraordinary distinctions. Even the station of
prophethood hath been his birthright." Without such an institution the
integrity of the Faith would be imperiled, and the stability of the entire
fabric would be gravely endangered. Its prestige would suffer, the means
required to enable it to take a long, an uninterrupted view over a series
of generations would be completely lacking, and the necessary guidance to
define the sphere of the legislative action of its elected representatives
would be totally withdrawn.
Severed from the no less essential institution of the Universal House of
Justice this same System of the Will of 'Abdu'l-Baha would be paralyzed in
its action and would be powerless to fill in those gaps which the Author
of the Kitab-i-Aqdas has deliberately left in the body of His legislative
and administrative ordinances.
"He is the Interpreter of the Word of God," 'Abdu'l-Baha, referring to the
functions of the Guardian of the Faith, asserts, using in His Will the
very term which He Himself had chosen when refuting the argument of the
Covenant-breakers who had challenged His right to interpret the utterances
of Baha'u'llah. "After him," He adds, "will succeed the first-born of his
lineal descendants." "The mighty stronghold," He further explains, "shall
remain impregnable and safe through obedience to him who is the Guardian
of the Cause of God." "It is incumbent upon the members of the House of
Justice, upon all the A_gh_san, the Afnan, the Hands of the Cause of God,
to show their obedience, submissiveness and subordination unto the
Guardian of the Cause of God."
"It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice," Baha'u'llah,
on the other hand, declares in the Eighth Leaf of the Exalted Paradise,
"to take counsel together regarding those things which have not outwardly
been revealed in the Book, and to enforce that which is agreeable to them.
God will verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth, and He verily is
the Provider, the Omniscient." "Unto the Most Holy Book" (the
Kitab-i-Aqdas), 'Abdu'l-Baha states in His Will, "every one must turn, and
all that is not expressly recorded therein must be referred to the
Universal House of Justice. That which this body, whether unanimously or
by a majority doth carry, that is verily the truth and the purpose of God
Himself. Whoso doth deviate therefrom is verily of them that love discord,
hath shown forth malice, and turned away from the Lord of the Covenant."
Not only does 'Abdu'l-Baha confirm in His Will Baha'u'llah's above-quoted
statement, but invests this body with the additional right and power to
abrogate, according to the exigencies of time, its own enactments, as well
as those of a preceding House of Justice. "Inasmuch as the House of
Justice," is His explicit statement in His Will, "hath power to enact laws
that are not expressly recorded in the Book and bear upon daily
transactions, so also it hath power to repeal the same... This it can do
because these laws form no part of the divine explicit text."
Referring to both the Guardian and the Universal House of Justice we read
these emphatic words: "The sacred and youthful Branch, the Guardian of the
Cause of God, as well as the Universal House of Justice to be universally
elected and established, are both under the care and protection of the
Abha Beauty, under the shelter and unerring guidance of the Exalted One
(the Bab) (may my life be offered up for them both). Whatsoever they
decide is of God."
From these statements it is made indubitably clear and evident that the
Guardian of the Faith has been made the Interpreter of the Word and that
the Universal House of Justice has been invested with the function of
legislating on matters not expressly revealed in the teachings. The
interpretation of the Guardian, functioning within his own sphere, is as
authoritative and binding as the enactments of the International House of
Justice, whose exclusive right and prerogative is to pronounce upon and
deliver the final judgment on such laws and ordinances as Baha'u'llah has
not expressly revealed. Neither can, nor will ever, infringe upon the
sacred and prescribed domain of the other. Neither will seek to curtail
the specific and undoubted authority with which both have been divinely
invested.
Though the Guardian of the Faith has been made the permanent head of so
august a body he can never, even temporarily, assume the right of
exclusive legislation. He cannot override the decision of the majority of
his fellow-members, but is bound to insist upon a reconsideration by them
of any enactment he conscientiously believes to conflict with the meaning
and to depart from the spirit of Baha'u'llah's revealed utterances. He
interprets what has been specifically revealed, and cannot legislate
except in his capacity as member of the Universal House of Justice. He is
debarred from laying down independently the constitution that must govern
the organized activities of his fellow-members, and from exercising his
influence in a manner that would encroach upon the liberty of those whose
sacred right is to elect the body of his collaborators.
It should be borne in mind that the institution of the Guardianship has
been anticipated by 'Abdu'l-Baha in an allusion He made in a Tablet
addressed, long before His own ascension, to three of His friends in
Persia. To their question as to whether there would be any person to whom
all the Baha'is would be called upon to turn after His ascension He made
the following reply: "As to the question ye have asked me, know verily
that this is a well-guarded secret. It is even as a gem concealed within
its shell. That it will be revealed is predestined. The time will come
when its light will appear, when its evidences will be made manifest, and
its secrets unraveled."
Dearly-beloved friends! Exalted as is the position and vital as is the
function of the institution of the Guardianship in the Administrative
Order of Baha'u'llah, and staggering as must be the weight of
responsibility which it carries, its importance must, whatever be the
language of the Will, be in no wise over-emphasized. The Guardian of the
Faith must not under any circumstances, and whatever his merits or his
achievements, be exalted to the rank that will make him a co-sharer with
'Abdu'l-Baha in the unique position which the Center of the Covenant
occupies--much less to the station exclusively ordained for the
Manifestation of God. So grave a departure from the established tenets of
our Faith is nothing short of open blasphemy. As I have already stated, in
the course of my references to 'Abdu'l-Baha's station, however great the
gulf that separates Him from the Author of a Divine Revelation it can
never measure with the distance that stands between Him Who is the Center
of Baha'u'llah's Covenant and the Guardians who are its chosen ministers.
There is a far, far greater distance separating the Guardian from the
Center of the Covenant than there is between the Center of the Covenant
and its Author.
No Guardian of the Faith, I feel it my solemn duty to place on record, can
ever claim to be the perfect exemplar of the teachings of Baha'u'llah or
the stainless mirror that reflects His light. Though overshadowed by the
unfailing, the unerring protection of Baha'u'llah and of the Bab, and
however much he may share with 'Abdu'l-Baha the right and obligation to
interpret the Baha'i teachings, he remains essentially human and cannot,
if he wishes to remain faithful to his trust, arrogate to himself, under
any pretense whatsoever, the rights, the privileges and prerogatives which
Baha'u'llah has chosen to confer upon His Son. In the light of this truth
to pray to the Guardian of the Faith, to address him as lord and master,
to designate him as his holiness, to seek his benediction, to celebrate
his birthday, or to commemorate any event associated with his life would
be tantamount to a departure from those established truths that are
enshrined within our beloved Faith. The fact that the Guardian has been
specifically endowed with such power as he may need to reveal the purport
and disclose the implications of the utterances of Baha'u'llah and of
'Abdu'l-Baha does not necessarily confer upon him a station co-equal with
those Whose words he is called upon to interpret. He can exercise that
right and discharge this obligation and yet remain infinitely inferior to
both of them in rank and different in nature.
To the integrity of this cardinal principle of our Faith the words, the
deeds of its present and future Guardians must abundantly testify. By
their conduct and example they must needs establish its truth upon an
unassailable foundation and transmit to future generations unimpeachable
evidences of its reality.
For my own part to hesitate in recognizing so vital a truth or to
vacillate in proclaiming so firm a conviction must constitute a shameless
betrayal of the confidence reposed in me by 'Abdu'l-Baha and an
unpardonable usurpation of the authority with which He Himself has been
invested.
A word should now be said regarding the theory on which this
Administrative Order is based and the principle that must govern the
operation of its chief institutions. It would be utterly misleading to
attempt a comparison between this unique, this divinely-conceived Order
and any of the diverse systems which the minds of men, at various periods
of their history, have contrived for the government of human institutions.
Such an attempt would in itself betray a lack of complete appreciation of
the excellence of the handiwork of its great Author. How could it be
otherwise when we remember that this Order constitutes the very pattern of
that divine civilization which the almighty Law of Baha'u'llah is designed
to establish upon earth? The divers and ever-shifting systems of human
polity, whether past or present, whether originating in the East or in the
West, offer no adequate criterion wherewith to estimate the potency of its
hidden virtues or to appraise the solidity of its foundations.
The Baha'i Commonwealth of the future, of which this vast Administrative
Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and practice, not only
unique in the entire history of political institutions, but can find no
parallel in the annals of any of the world's recognized religious systems.
No form of democratic government; no system of autocracy or of
dictatorship, whether monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme of
a purely aristocratic order; nor even any of the recognized types of
theocracy, whether it be the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various Christian
ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the Caliphate in
Islam--none of these can be identified or be said to conform with the
Administrative Order which the master-hand of its perfect Architect has
fashioned.
This new-born Administrative Order incorporates within its structure
certain elements which are to be found in each of the three recognized
forms of secular government, without being in any sense a mere replica of
any one of them, and without introducing within its machinery any of the
objectionable features which they inherently possess. It blends and
harmonizes, as no government fashioned by mortal hands has as yet
accomplished, the salutary truths which each of these systems undoubtedly
contains without vitiating the integrity of those God-given verities on
which it is ultimately founded.
The Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah must in no wise be
regarded as purely democratic in character inasmuch as the basic
assumption which requires all democracies to depend fundamentally upon
getting their mandate from the people is altogether lacking in this
Dispensation. In the conduct of the administrative affairs of the Faith,
in the enactment of the legislation necessary to supplement the laws of
the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the members of the Universal House of Justice, it
should be borne in mind, are not, as Baha'u'llah's utterances clearly
imply, responsible to those whom they represent, nor are they allowed to
be governed by the feelings, the general opinion, and even the convictions
of the mass of the faithful, or of those who directly elect them. They are
to follow, in a prayerful attitude, the dictates and promptings of their
conscience. They may, indeed they must, acquaint themselves with the
conditions prevailing among the community, must weigh dispassionately in
their minds the merits of any case presented for their consideration, but
must reserve for themselves the right of an unfettered decision. "God will
verily inspire them with whatsoever He willeth," is Baha'u'llah's
incontrovertible assurance. They, and not the body of those who either
directly or indirectly elect them, have thus been made the recipients of
the divine guidance which is at once the life-blood and ultimate safeguard
of this Revelation. Moreover, he who symbolizes the hereditary principle
in this Dispensation has been made the interpreter of the words of its
Author, and ceases consequently, by virtue of the actual authority vested
in him, to be the figurehead invariably associated with the prevailing
systems of constitutional monarchies.
Nor can the Baha'i Administrative Order be dismissed as a hard and rigid
system of unmitigated autocracy or as an idle imitation of any form of
absolutistic ecclesiastical government, whether it be the Papacy, the
Imamate or any other similar institution, for the obvious reason that upon
the international elected representatives of the followers of Baha'u'llah
has been conferred the exclusive right of legislating on matters not
expressly revealed in the Baha'i writings. Neither the Guardian of the
Faith nor any institution apart from the International House of Justice
can ever usurp this vital and essential power or encroach upon that sacred
right. The abolition of professional priesthood with its accompanying
sacraments of baptism, of communion and of confession of sins, the laws
requiring the election by universal suffrage of all local, national, and
international Houses of Justice, the total absence of episcopal authority
with its attendant privileges, corruptions and bureaucratic tendencies,
are further evidences of the non-autocratic character of the Baha'i
Administrative Order and of its inclination to democratic methods in the
administration of its affairs.
Nor is this Order identified with the name of Baha'u'llah to be confused
with any system of purely aristocratic government in view of the fact that
it upholds, on the one hand, the hereditary principle and entrusts the
Guardian of the Faith with the obligation of interpreting its teachings,
and provides, on the other, for the free and direct election from among
the mass of the faithful of the body that constitutes its highest
legislative organ.
Whereas this Administrative Order cannot be said to have been modeled
after any of these recognized systems of government, it nevertheless
embodies, reconciles and assimilates within its framework such wholesome
elements as are to be found in each one of them. The hereditary authority
which the Guardian is called upon to exercise, the vital and essential
functions which the Universal House of Justice discharges, the specific
provisions requiring its democratic election by the representatives of the
faithful--these combine to demonstrate the truth that this divinely
revealed Order, which can never be identified with any of the standard
types of government referred to by Aristotle in his works, embodies and
blends with the spiritual verities on which it is based the beneficent
elements which are to be found in each one of them. The admitted evils
inherent in each of these systems being rigidly and permanently excluded,
this unique Order, however long it may endure and however extensive its
ramifications, cannot ever degenerate into any form of despotism, of
oligarchy, or of demagogy which must sooner or later corrupt the machinery
of all man-made and essentially defective political institutions.
Dearly-beloved friends! Significant as are the origins of this mighty
administrative structure, and however unique its features, the happenings
that may be said to have heralded its birth and signalized the initial
stage of its evolution seem no less remarkable. How striking, how edifying
the contrast between the process of slow and steady consolidation that
characterizes the growth of its infant strength and the devastating onrush
of the forces of disintegration that are assailing the outworn
institutions, both religious and secular, of present-day society!
The vitality which the organic institutions of this great, this
ever-expanding Order so strongly exhibit; the obstacles which the high
courage, the undaunted resolution of its administrators have already
surmounted; the fire of an unquenchable enthusiasm that glows with
undiminished fervor in the hearts of its itinerant teachers; the heights
of self-sacrifice which its champion-builders are now attaining; the
breadth of vision, the confident hope, the creative joy, the inward peace,
the uncompromising integrity, the exemplary discipline, the unyielding
unity and solidarity which its stalwart defenders manifest; the degree to
which its moving Spirit has shown itself capable of assimilating the
diversified elements within its pale, of cleansing them of all forms of
prejudice and of fusing them with its own structure--these are evidences of
a power which a disillusioned and sadly shaken society can ill afford to
ignore.
Compare these splendid manifestations of the spirit animating this vibrant
body of the Faith of Baha'u'llah with the cries and agony, the follies and
vanities, the bitterness and prejudices, the wickedness and divisions of
an ailing and chaotic world. Witness the fear that torments its leaders
and paralyzes the action of its blind and bewildered statesmen. How fierce
the hatreds, how false the ambitions, how petty the pursuits, how
deep-rooted the suspicions of its peoples! How disquieting the
lawlessness, the corruption, the unbelief that are eating into the vitals
of a tottering civilization!
Might not this process of steady deterioration which is insidiously
invading so many departments of human activity and thought be regarded as
a necessary accompaniment to the rise of this almighty Arm of Baha'u'llah?
Might we not look upon the momentous happenings which, in the course of
the past twenty years, have so deeply agitated every continent of the
earth, as ominous signs simultaneously proclaiming the agonies of a
disintegrating civilization and the birthpangs of that World Order--that
Ark of human salvation--that must needs arise upon its ruins?
The catastrophic fall of mighty monarchies and empires in the European
continent, allusions to some of which may be found in the prophecies of
Baha'u'llah; the decline that has set in, and is still continuing, in the
fortunes of the _Sh_i'ih hierarchy in His own native land; the fall of the
Qajar dynasty, the traditional enemy of His Faith; the overthrow of the
Sultanate and the Caliphate, the sustaining pillars of Sunni Islam, to
which the destruction of Jerusalem in the latter part of the first century
of the Christian era offers a striking parallel; the wave of
secularization which is invading the Muhammadan ecclesiastical
institutions in Egypt and sapping the loyalty of its staunchest
supporters; the humiliating blows that have afflicted some of the most
powerful Churches of Christendom in Russia, in Western Europe and Central
America; the dissemination of those subversive doctrines that are
undermining the foundations and overthrowing the structure of seemingly
impregnable strongholds in the political and social spheres of human
activity; the signs of an impending catastrophe, strangely reminiscent of
the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, which threatens to engulf the
whole structure of present-day civilization--all witness to the tumult
which the birth of this mighty Organ of the Religion of Baha'u'llah has
cast into the world--a tumult which will grow in scope and in intensity as
the implications of this constantly evolving Scheme are more fully
understood and its ramifications more widely extended over the surface of
the globe.
A word more in conclusion. The rise and establishment of this
Administrative Order--the shell that shields and enshrines so precious a
gem--constitutes the hall-mark of this second and formative age of the
Baha'i era. It will come to be regarded, as it recedes farther and farther
from our eyes, as the chief agency empowered to usher in the concluding
phase, the consummation of this glorious Dispensation.
Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive its
character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its purpose. The
bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded is God's immutable
Purpose for mankind in this day. The Source from which it derives its
inspiration is no one less than Baha'u'llah Himself. Its shield and
defender are the embattled hosts of the Abha Kingdom. Its seed is the
blood of no less than twenty thousand martyrs who have offered up their
lives that it may be born and flourish. The axis round which its
institutions revolve are the authentic provisions of the Will and
Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Its guiding principles are the truths which He
Who is the unerring Interpreter of the teachings of our Faith has so
clearly enunciated in His public addresses throughout the West. The laws
that govern its operation and limit its functions are those which have
been expressly ordained in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The seat round which its
spiritual, its humanitarian and administrative activities will cluster are
the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar and its Dependencies. The pillars that sustain
its authority and buttress its structure are the twin institutions of the
Guardianship and of the Universal House of Justice. The central, the
underlying aim which animates it is the establishment of the New World
Order as adumbrated by Baha'u'llah. The methods it employs, the standard
it inculcates, incline it to neither East nor West, neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither white nor colored. Its watchword
is the unification of the human race; its standard the "Most Great Peace";
its consummation the advent of that golden millennium--the Day when the
kingdoms of this world shall have become the Kingdom of God Himself, the
Kingdom of Baha'u'llah.