During this Formative Age of the Faith, and in the course of
present and succeeding epochs, the last and crowning stage in the erection of
the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh—the
election of the Universal House of Justice—will have been completed, the
Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Mother-Book of His Revelation, will have been codified and
its laws promulgated, the Lesser Peace will have been established, the unity of
mankind will have been achieved and its maturity attained, the Plan conceived
by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá will have been executed, the emancipation of the Faith from the
fetters of religious orthodoxy will have been effected, and its independent
religious status will have been universally recognized, whilst in the course of
the Golden Age, destined to consummate the Dispensation itself, the banner of
the Most Great Peace, promised by its Author, will have been unfurled, the
World Bahá’í Commonwealth will have emerged in the plenitude of its power and
splendor, and the birth and efflorescence of a world civilization, the child of
that Peace, will have conferred its inestimable blessings upon all mankind.
(Shoghi
Effendi, from a letter dated circa June 1947; ‘Citadel of Faith’)
