Signs of Moral Downfall
No more, I believe, need be said of the decline of religious institutions, the disintegration of which constitutes so important an aspect of the Formative Period of the Baha'i Era. Islam had both as a result of the rising tide of secularism and in direct consequence of its declared and persistent hostility to the Faith of Baha'u'llah sunk to a depth of abasement rarely attained in its history. Christianity had, likewise, owing to causes not wholly dissimilar to those operating in the case of its sister Faith, steadily weakened, and was contributing, in an increasing measure, its share to the process of general disintegration - a process that must necessarily precede the fundamental reconstruction of human society. (186:1)

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