Such a unique and momentous crisis in the life of organized mankind may,
moreover, be likened to the culminating stage in the political evolution
of the great American Republic--the stage which marked the emergence of a
unified community of federated states. The stirring of a new national
consciousness, and the birth of a new type of civilization, infinitely
richer and nobler than any which its component parts could have severally
hoped to achieve, may be said to have proclaimed the coming of age of the
American people. Within the territorial limits of this nation, this
consummation may be viewed as the culmination of the process of human
government. The diversified and loosely related elements of a divided
community were brought together, unified and incorporated into one
coherent system. Though this entity may continue gaining in cohesive
power, though the unity already achieved may be further consolidated,
though the civilization to which that unity could alone have given birth
may expand and flourish, yet the machinery essential to such an unfoldment
may be said to have been, in its essential structure, erected, and the
impulse required to guide and sustain it may be regarded as having been
fundamentally imparted. No stage above and beyond this consummation of
national unity can, within the geographical limits of that nation, be
imagined, though the highest destiny of its people, as a constituent
element in a still larger entity that will embrace the whole of mankind,
may still remain unfulfilled. Considered as an isolated unit, however,
this process of integration may be said to have reached its highest and
final consummation.
Such is the stage to which an evolving humanity is collectively
approaching. The Revelation entrusted by the Almighty Ordainer to
Baha'u'llah, His followers firmly believe, has been endowed with such
potentialities as are commensurate with the maturity of the human race--the
crowning and most momentous stage in its evolution from infancy to
manhood.
The successive Founders of all past Religions Who, from time immemorial,
have shed, with ever-increasing intensity, the splendor of one common
Revelation at the various stages which have marked the advance of mankind
towards maturity may thus, in a sense, be regarded as preliminary
Manifestations, anticipating and paving the way for the advent of that Day
of Days when the whole earth will have fructified and the tree of humanity
will have yielded its destined fruit.
Incontrovertible as is this truth, its challenging character should never
be allowed to obscure the purpose, or distort the principle, underlying
the utterances of Baha'u'llah--utterances that have established for all
time the absolute oneness of all the Prophets, Himself included, whether
belonging to the past or to the future. Though the mission of the Prophets
preceding Baha'u'llah may be viewed in that light, though the measure of
Divine Revelation with which each has been entrusted must, as a result of
this process of evolution, necessarily differ, their common origin, their
essential unity, their identity of purpose, should at no time and under no
circumstances be misapprehended or denied. That all the Messengers of God
should be regarded as "abiding in the same Tabernacle, soaring in the same
Heaven, seated upon the same Throne, uttering the same Speech, and
proclaiming the same Faith" must, however much we may extol the measure of
Divine Revelation vouchsafed to mankind at this crowning stage of its
evolution, remain the unalterable foundation and central tenet of Baha'i
belief. Any variations in the splendor which each of these Manifestations
of the Light of God has shed upon the world should be ascribed not to any
inherent superiority involved in the essential character of any one of
them, but rather to the progressive capacity, the ever-increasing
spiritual receptiveness, which mankind, in its progress towards maturity,
has invariably manifested.