Then, and only then, will the vast, the majestic process, set in motion at
the dawn of the Adamic cycle, attain its consummation--a process which
commenced six thousand years ago, with the planting, in the soil of the
divine will, of the tree of divine revelation, and which has already
passed through certain stages and must needs pass through still others ere
it attains its final consummation. The first part of this process was the
slow and steady growth of this tree of divine revelation, successively
putting forth its branches, shoots and offshoots, and revealing its
leaves, buds and blossoms, as a direct consequence of the light and warmth
imparted to it by a series of progressive dispensations associated with
Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad and other Prophets, and of the
vernal showers of blood shed by countless martyrs in their path. The
second part of this process was the fruition of this tree, "that belongeth
neither to the East nor to the West," when the Bab appeared as the perfect
fruit and declared His mission in the Year Sixty in the city of _Sh_iraz.
The third part was the grinding of this sacred seed, of infinite
preciousness and potency, in the mill of adversity, causing it to yield
its oil, six years later, in the city of Tabriz. The fourth part was the
ignition of this oil by the hand of Providence in the depths and amidst
the darkness of the Siyah-_Ch_al of Tihran a hundred years ago. The fifth,
was the clothing of that flickering light, which had scarcely penetrated
the adjoining territory of 'Iraq, in the lamp of revelation, after an
eclipse lasting no less than ten years, in the city of Ba_gh_dad. The
sixth, was the spread of the radiance of that light, shining with added
brilliancy in its crystal globe in Adrianople, and later on in the
fortress town of Akka, to thirteen countries in the Asiatic and African
continents. The seventh was its projection, from the Most Great Prison, in
the course of the ministry of the Center of the Covenant, across the seas
and the shedding of its illumination upon twenty sovereign states and
dependencies in the American, the European, and Australian continents. The
eighth part of that process was the diffusion of that same light in the
course of the first, and the opening years of the second, epoch of the
Formative Age of the Faith, over ninety-four sovereign states,
dependencies and islands of the planet, as a result of the prosecution of
a series of national plans, initiated by eleven national spiritual
assemblies throughout the Baha'i world, utilizing the agencies of a newly
emerged, divinely appointed Administrative Order, and which has now
culminated in the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Baha'u'llah's
Mission. The ninth part of this process--the stage we are now entering--is
the further diffusion of that same light over one hundred and thirty-one
additional territories and islands in both the Eastern and Western
Hemispheres, through the operation of a decade-long world spiritual
crusade whose termination will, God willing, coincide with the Most Great
Jubilee commemorating the centenary of the declaration of Baha'u'llah in
Ba_gh_dad. And finally the tenth part of this mighty process must be the
penetration of that light, in the course of numerous crusades and of
successive epochs of both the Formative and Golden Ages of the Faith, into
all the remaining territories of the globe through the erection of the
entire machinery of Baha'u'llah's Administrative Order in all territories,
both East and West, the stage at which the light of God's triumphant Faith
shining in all its power and glory will have suffused and enveloped the
entire planet.
This present Crusade, on the threshold of which we now stand, will,
moreover, by virtue of the dynamic forces it will release and its wide
repercussions over the entire surface of the globe, contribute effectually
to the acceleration of yet another process of tremendous significance
which will carry the steadily evolving Faith of Baha'u'llah through its
present stages of obscurity, of repression, of emancipation and of
recognition--stages one or another of which Baha'i national communities in
various parts of the world now find themselves in--to the stage of
establishment, the stage at which the Faith of Baha'u'llah will be
recognized by the civil authorities as the state religion, similar to that
which Christianity entered in the years following the death of the Emperor
Constantine, a stage which must later be followed by the emergence of the
Baha'i state itself, functioning, in all religious and civil matters, in
strict accordance with the laws and ordinances of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the
Most Holy, the Mother-Book of the Baha'i Revelation, a stage which, in the
fullness of time, will culminate in the establishment of the World Baha'i
Commonwealth, functioning in the plenitude of its powers, and which will
signalize the long-awaited advent of the Christ-promised Kingdom of God on
earth--the Kingdom of Baha'u'llah--mirroring however faintly upon this
humble handful of dust the glories of the Abha Kingdom.
This final and crowning stage in the evolution of the plan wrought by God
Himself for humanity will, in turn, prove to be the signal for the birth
of a world civilization, incomparable in its range, its character and
potency, in the history of mankind--a civilization which posterity will,
with one voice, acclaim as the fairest fruit of the Golden Age of the
Dispensation of Baha'u'llah, and whose rich harvest will be garnered
during future dispensations destined to succeed one another in the course
of the five thousand century Baha'i Cycle.
[May 4, 1953]