This judgment of God, as viewed by those who have recognized Baha'u'llah
as His Mouthpiece and His greatest Messenger on earth, is both a
retributory calamity and an act of holy and supreme discipline. It is at
once a visitation from God and a cleansing process for all mankind. Its
fires punish the perversity of the human race, and weld its component
parts into one organic, indivisible, world-embracing community. Mankind,
in these fateful years, which at once signalize the passing of the first
century of the Baha'i Era and proclaim the opening of a new one, is, as
ordained by Him Who is both the Judge and the Redeemer of the human race,
being simultaneously called upon to give account of its past actions, and
is being purged and prepared for its future mission. It can neither escape
the responsibilities of the past, nor shirk those of the future. God, the
Vigilant, the Just, the Loving, the All-Wise Ordainer, can, in this
supreme Dispensation, neither allow the sins of an unregenerate humanity,
whether of omission or of commission, to go unpunished, nor will He be
willing to abandon His children to their fate, and refuse them that
culminating and blissful stage in their long, their slow and painful
evolution throughout the ages, which is at once their inalienable right
and their true destiny.
"Bestir yourselves, O people," is, on the one hand, the ominous warning
sounded by Baha'u'llah Himself, "in anticipation of the days of Divine
Justice, for the promised hour is now come." "Abandon that which ye
possess, and seize that which God, Who layeth low the necks of men, hath
brought. Know ye of a certainty that if ye turn not back from that which
ye have committed, chastisement will overtake you on every side, and ye
shall behold things more grievous than that which ye beheld aforetime."
And again: "We have fixed a time for you, O people! If ye fail, at the
appointed hour, to turn towards God, He, verily, will lay violent hold on
you, and will cause grievous afflictions to assail you from every
direction. How severe indeed is the chastisement with which your Lord will
then chastise you!" And again: "God assuredly dominateth the lives of them
that wronged Us, and is well aware of their doings. He will most certainly
lay hold on them for their sins. He, verily, is the fiercest of Avengers."
And finally: "O ye peoples of the world! Know verily that an unforeseen
calamity is following you and that grievous retribution awaiteth you.
Think not the deeds ye have committed have been blotted from My sight. By
My Beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon
tablets of chrysolite."
"The whole earth," Baha'u'llah, on the other hand, forecasting the bright
future in store for a world now wrapt in darkness, emphatically asserts,
"is now in a state of pregnancy. The day is approaching when it will have
yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the
loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly
blessings." "The time is approaching when every created thing will have
cast its burden. Glorified be God Who hath vouchsafed this grace that
encompasseth all things, whether seen or unseen!" "These great
oppressions," He, moreover, foreshadowing humanity's golden age, has
written, "are preparing it for the advent of the Most Great Justice." This
Most Great Justice is indeed the Justice upon which the structure of the
Most Great Peace can alone, and must eventually, rest, while the Most
Great Peace will, in turn, usher in that Most Great, that World
Civilization which shall remain forever associated with Him Who beareth
the Most Great Name.
Beloved friends! Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the
Revelation of Baha'u'llah dawned upon the world--a Revelation, the nature
of which, as affirmed by Himself, "none among the Manifestations of old,
except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended." For a
whole century God has respited mankind, that it might acknowledge the
Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His Cause, proclaim His greatness,
and establish His Order. In a hundred volumes, the repositories of
priceless precepts, mighty laws, unique principles, impassioned
exhortations, reiterated warnings, amazing prophecies, sublime
invocations, and weighty commentaries, the Bearer of such a Message has
proclaimed, as no Prophet before Him has done, the Mission with which God
had entrusted Him. To emperors, kings, princes and potentates, to rulers,
governments, clergy and peoples, whether of the East or of the West,
whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Zoroastrian, He addressed, for
well-nigh fifty years, and in the most tragic circumstances, these
priceless pearls of knowledge and wisdom that lay hid within the ocean of
His matchless utterance. Forsaking fame and fortune, accepting
imprisonment and exile, careless of ostracism and obloquy, submitting to
physical indignities and cruel deprivations, He, the Vicegerent of God on
earth, suffered Himself to be banished from place to place and from
country to country, till at length He, in the Most Great Prison, offered
up His martyred son as a ransom for the redemption and unification of all
mankind. "We verily," He Himself has testified, "have not fallen short of
Our duty to exhort men, and to deliver that whereunto I was bidden by God,
the Almighty, the All-Praised. Had they hearkened unto Me, they would have
beheld the earth another earth." And again: "Is there any excuse left for
anyone in this Revelation? No, by God, the Lord of the Mighty Throne! My
signs have encompassed the earth, and My power enveloped all mankind, and
yet the people are wrapped in a strange sleep!"