FOURTH PERIOD
THE INCEPTION OF THE FORMATIVE AGE OF THE BAHA'I FAITH 1921- 1944
CHAPTER XXII
The Rise and Establishment of the Administrative Order
With the passing of Abdu'l- Baha the first century of the Baha'i era, whose inception had synchronized with His birth, had run more than three quarters of its course. Seventy- seven years previously the light of the Faith proclaimed by the Bab had risen above the horizon of Shiraz and flashed across the firmament of Persia, dispelling the age- long gloom which had enveloped its people. A blood bath of unusual ferocity, in which government, clergy and people, heedless of the significance of that light and blind to its splendor, had jointly participated, had all but extinguished the radiance of its glory in the land of its birth. Baha'u'llah had at the darkest hour in the fortunes of that Faith been summoned, while Himself a prisoner in Tihran, to reinvigorate its life, and been commissioned to fulfil its ultimate purpose. In Baghdad, upon the termination of the ten- year delay interposed between the first intimation of that Mission and its Declaration, He had revealed the Mystery enshrined in the Bab's embryonic Faith, and disclosed the fruit which it had yielded. In Adrianople Baha'u'llah's Message, the promise of the Babi as well as of all previous Dispensations, had been proclaimed to mankind, and its challenge voiced to the rulers of the earth in both the East and the West. Behind the walls of the prison- fortress of Akka the Bearer of God's newborn Revelation had ordained the laws and formulated the principles that were to constitute the warp and woof of His World Order. He had, moreover, prior to His ascension, instituted the Covenant that was to guide and assist in the laying of its foundations and to safeguard the unity of its builders. Armed with that peerless and potent Instrument, Abdu'l- Baha, His eldest Son and Center of His Covenant, had erected the standard of His Father's Faith in the North American continent, and established an impregnable basis for its institutions in Western Europe, in the Far East and in Australia. He had, in His works, Tablets and addresses, elucidated its principles, interpreted its laws, amplified its doctrine, and erected the rudimentary institutions of its future Administrative Order. In Russia He had raised its first House of Worship, whilst on the slopes of Mt. Carmel He had reared a befitting mausoleum for its Herald, and deposited His remains therein with His Own hands. Through His visits to several cities in Europe and the North American continent He had broadcast Baha'u'llah's Message to the peoples of the West, and heightened the prestige of the Cause of God to a degree it had never previously experienced. And lastly, in the evening of His life, He had through the revelation of the Tablets of the Divine Plan issued His mandate to the community which He Himself had raised up, trained and nurtured, a Plan that must in the years to come enable its members to diffuse the light, and erect the administrative fabric, of the Faith throughout the five continents of the globe. (321:8)

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