Mankind, in these fateful years, [World War II] which at
once signalize the passing of the first century of the Bahá'í Era and proclaim
the opening of a new one, is, as ordained by Him Who is both the Judge and the
Redeemer of the human race, being simultaneously called upon to give account of
its past actions, and is being purged and prepared for its future mission. It
can neither escape the responsibilities of the past, nor shirk those of the
future. God, the Vigilant, the Just, the Loving, the All-Wise Ordainer, can, in
this supreme Dispensation, neither allow the sins of an unregenerate humanity,
whether of omission or of commission, to go unpunished, nor will He be willing
to abandon His children to their fate, and refuse them that culminating and blissful
stage in their long, their slow and painful evolution throughout the ages,
which is at once their inalienable right and their true destiny.
- Shoghi
Effendi (From a letter dated 28 March 1941 to the Bahá'ís of the West,
published as ‘The Promised Day is Come’)
