The last twenty-three years of that same century [the first
century of the Faith] coincided with the first epoch of the second, the Iron
and Formative, Age of the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh—the first of a series of
epochs which must precede the inception of the last and Golden Age of that
Dispensation—a Dispensation which, as the Author of the Faith has Himself
categorically asserted, must extend over a period of no less than one thousand
years, and which will constitute the first stage in a series of Dispensations,
to be established by future Manifestations, all deriving their inspiration from
the Author of the Bahá’í Revelation, and destined to last, in their aggregate,
no less than five thousand centuries. (Shoghi Effendi, letter dated June 5,
1947; ‘Citadel of Faith’)
