The violent derangement of the world's equilibrium; the
trembling that will seize the limbs of mankind; the radical transformation of
human society; the rolling up of the present-day Order; the fundamental changes
affecting the structure of government; ... the development of infernal engines
of war; the burning of cities; the contamination of the atmosphere of the
earth -- these stand out as the signs
and portents that must either herald or accompany the retributive calamity which,
as decreed by Him Who is the Judge and Redeemer of mankind, must, sooner or
later, afflict a society which, for the most part, and for over a century, has
turned a deaf ear to the Voice of God's Messenger in this day -- a calamity
which must purge the human race of the dross of its age-long corruptions, and
weld its component parts into a firmly knit world-embracing Fellowship – a
Fellowship destined, in the fullness of time, to be incorporated in the
framework, and to be galvanized by the spiritualizing influences, of a
mysteriously expanding, divinely appointed Order, and to flower, in the course
of future Dispensations, into a Civilization, the like of which mankind has, at
no stage in its evolution, witnessed. (Shoghi Effendi, from a letter dated
April 1957; ‘Messages to the Baha’I World 1950-1957’; The Compilation of
Compilations vol. I, Conservation of the Earth's Resources)
