Though powerless to avert the impending contest [1] the
followers of Bahá’u’lláh can, by the spirit they evince and the efforts they
exert help to circumscribe its range, shorten its duration, allay its
hardships, proclaim its salutary consequences, and demonstrate its necessary
and vital role in the shaping of human destiny. Theirs is the duty to hold,
aloft and undimmed, the torch of Divine guidance, as the shades of night
descend upon, and ultimately envelop the entire human race. Theirs is the
function, amidst its tumults, perils and agonies, to witness to the vision, and
proclaim the approach, of that re-created society, that Christ-promised
Kingdom, that World Order whose generative impulse is the spirit of none other than
Bahá’u’lláh Himself, whose dominion is the entire planet, whose watchword is
unity, whose animating power is the force of Justice, whose directive purpose
is the reign of righteousness and truth, and whose supreme glory is the
complete, the undisturbed and everlasting felicity of the whole of human kind.
(Baha’u’llah, quoted by Shoghi Effendi in a letter dated July 28, 1939;
‘Messages to America’)
[1] “…the most great convulsion”
