We are indeed living in an age which, if we would correctly
appraise it, should be regarded as one which is witnessing a dual phenomenon.
The first signalizes the death pangs of an order, effete and godless, that has
stubbornly refused, despite the signs and portents of a century-old Revelation,
to attune its processes to the precepts and ideals which that Heaven-sent Faith
proffered it. The second proclaims the birth pangs of an Order, divine and
redemptive, that will inevitably supplant the former, and within Whose
administrative structure an embryonic civilization, incomparable and
world-embracing, is imperceptibly maturing. The one is being rolled up, and is
crashing in oppression, bloodshed, and ruin. The other opens up vistas of a
justice, a unity, a peace, a culture, such as no age has ever seen.
- Shoghi
Effendi (From a letter dated 28 Marc, 1941; ‘The Promised Day is Come’)
