As we view the world around us, we are compelled to observe the manifold
evidences of that universal fermentation which, in every continent of the
globe and in every department of human life, be it religious, social,
economic or political, is purging and reshaping humanity in anticipation
of the Day when the wholeness of the human race will have been recognized
and its unity established. A twofold process, however, can be
distinguished, each tending, in its own way and with an accelerated
momentum, to bring to a climax the forces that are transforming the face
of our planet. The first is essentially an integrating process, while the
second is fundamentally disruptive. The former, as it steadily evolves,
unfolds a System which may well serve as a pattern for that world polity
towards which a strangely-disordered world is continually advancing; while
the latter, as its disintegrating influence deepens, tends to tear down,
with increasing violence, the antiquated barriers that seek to block
humanity's progress towards its destined goal. The constructive process
stands associated with the nascent Faith of Baha'u'llah, and is the
harbinger of the New World Order that Faith must erelong establish. The
destructive forces that characterize the other should be identified with a
civilization that has refused to answer to the expectation of a new age,
and is consequently falling into chaos and decline.
A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude yet
unspeakably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is being waged as a
result of these opposing tendencies, in this age of transition through
which the organized community of the followers of Baha'u'llah and mankind
as a whole are passing.
The Spirit that has incarnated itself in the institutions of a rising
Faith has, in the course of its onward march for the redemption of the
world, encountered and is now battling with such forces as are, in most
instances, the very negation of that Spirit, and whose continued existence
must inevitably hinder it from achieving its purpose. The hollow and
outworn institutions, the obsolescent doctrines and beliefs, the effete
and discredited traditions which these forces represent, it should be
observed, have, in certain instances, been undermined by virtue of their
senility, the loss of their cohesive power, and their own inherent
corruption. A few have been swept away by the onrushing forces which the
Baha'i Faith has, at the hour of its birth, so mysteriously released.
Others, as a direct result of a vain and feeble resistance to its rise in
the initial stages of its development, have died out and been utterly
discredited. Still others, fearful of the pervasive influence of the
institutions in which that same Spirit had, at a later stage, been
embodied, had mobilized their forces and launched their attack, destined
to sustain, in their turn, after a brief and illusory success, an
ignominious defeat.