The second century of the Baha'i Era has dawned. The second stage of the
Divine Plan has been launched. The second epoch of the Formative Age of
the Baha'i Dispensation has opened. The tragedy of a continent, so
blessed, so rich in history, so harassed, is moving towards a climax. The
vanguard of the torchbearers of a world-redeeming civilization are landing
on its shores and are settling in its capitals. An epoch has commenced,
inaugurating the systematic conquest of the European continent by the
organized body of the "apostles of Baha'u'llah," destined to unfold its
potentialities in the course of succeeding centuries, and bidding fair to
eclipse the radiance of those past ages which have successfully witnessed
the introduction of the Christian Faith into the continent's northern
climes, the efflorescence of Islamic culture that shed such radiance along
its southern shores, and the rise of the Reformation in its very heart.
The stage is set. The hour is propitious. The signal is sounded.
Baha'u'llah's spiritual battalions are moving into position. The initial
clash between the forces of darkness and the army of light, as unnoticed
as the landing, two milleniums ago, of the apostles of Christ on the
southern shores of the European continent, is being registered by the
denizens of the Abha Kingdom. The Author of the Plan that has set so
titanic an enterprise in motion is Himself mounted at the head of these
battalions, and leads them on to capture the cities of men's hearts. A
continent, twice blessed by 'Abdu'l-Baha's successive visits to its
shores, and the scene of His first public appearance in the West; which
has been the cradle of a civilization to some of whose beneficent features
the pen of Baha'u'llah has paid significant tribute; on whose soil both
the Greek and Roman civilizations were born and flourished; which has
contributed so richly to the unfoldment of American civilization; the
fountainhead of American culture; the mother of Christendom, and the scene
of the greatest exploits of the followers of Jesus Christ; in some of
whose outlying territories have been won some of the most resplendent
victories which ushered in the Golden Age of Islam; which sustained, in
its very heart, the violent impact of the onrushing hosts of that Faith,
intent on the subjugation of its cities, but which refused to bend the
knee to its invaders, and succeeded in the end in repulsing their
assault--such a continent is now experiencing, at the hands of the little
as yet unnoticed band of pioneers sent forth by the enviable, the
privileged, the dynamic American Baha'i Community, the first stirrings of
that spiritual revolution which must culminate, in the Golden Age that is
as yet unborn, in the permanent establishment of Baha'u'llah's Order
throughout that continent.