With the ascension of Bahá’u’lláh draws to a close a period
which, in many ways, is unparalleled in the world’s religious history. The
first century of the Bahá’í Era had by now run half its course. An epoch,
unsurpassed in its sublimity, its fecundity and duration by any previous
Dispensation, and characterized, except for a short interval of three years, by
half a century of continuous and progressive Revelation, had terminated. The
Message proclaimed by the Báb had yielded its golden fruit. The most momentous,
though not the most spectacular phase of the Heroic Age had ended. The Sun of
Truth, the world’s greatest Luminary, had risen in the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán,
had broken through the clouds which enveloped it in Baghdád, had
suffered a momentary eclipse whilst mounting to its zenith in Adrianople and
had set finally in Akká, never to reappear ere the lapse of a full millenium.
- Shoghi
Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
