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The last twenty-three years of that same century coincided with the first epoch of the second, the Iron and Formative, Age of the Dispensation of Baha'u'llah - the first of a series of epochs which must precede the inception of the last and Golden Age of that Dispensation - a Dispensation which, as the Author of the Faith has Himself categorically asserted, must extend over a period of no less than one thousand years, and which will constitute the first stage in a series of Dispensations, to be established by future Manifestations, all deriving their inspiration from the Author of the Baha'i Revelation, and destined to last, in their aggregate, no less than five thousand centuries. (5:1) We are now entering the second epoch of the second Age of the first of these Dispensations. The first epoch witnessed the birth and the primary stages in the erection of the framework of the Administrative Order of the Faith - the nucleus and pattern of its World Order - according to the precepts laid down in 'Abdu'l-Baha's Will and Testament, as well as the launching of the initial phase of the world-encompassing plan bequeathed by Him to the American Baha'i Community. That epoch was characterized by a twofold process aiming at the consolidation of the administrative structure of the Faith and the extension of the range of its institutions. It witnessed on the one hand, the emergence and the laying of the groundwork of that embryonic World Order whose advent was announced by the Bab in the Bayan, whose laws were revealed by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, and whose features were delineated by 'Abdu'l-Baha in His Will and Testament. It was marked on the other hand by the launching, in the Western Hemisphere, of the first stage of a plan whose original impulse was communicated by the Herald of our Faith in His Qayyumu'l-Asma', to whose implications the Author of the Baha'i Revelation alluded in His Tablets, and whose Charter was revealed by the Center of His Covenant in the evening of His life.
(5:2)
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