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What, then - might we not consider - has, in the face of so complete and ignominious a rejection, happened, and is still happening, in the course, and particularly in the closing years, of this, the first Baha'i century, a century fraught with such tumultuous sufferings and violent outrages for the persecuted Faith of Baha'u'llah? Empires fallen in dust, kingdoms subverted, dynasties extinguished, royalty besmirched, kings assassinated, poisoned, driven into exile, subjugated in their own realms, whilst the few remaining thrones are trembling with the repercussions of the fall of their fellows. (49:1) This process, so gigantic, so catastrophic, may be said to have had its inception on that memorable night when, in an obscure corner of Shiraz, the Bab, in the presence of the First Letter to believe in Him, revealed the first chapter of His celebrated commentary on the Surih of Joseph (The Qayyum-i-Asma'), in which He trumpeted His Call to the sovereigns and princes of the earth. It passed from incubation to visible manifestation when Baha'u'llah's prophecies, enshrined for all time in the Suriy-i-Haykal, and uttered before Napoleon III's dramatic downfall and the self-imposed imprisonment of Pope Pius IX in the Vatican, were fulfilled. It gathered momentum when, in the days of 'Abdu'l-Baha, the Great War extinguished the Romanov, the Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg dynasties, and converted powerful time-honored monarchies into republics. It was further accelerated, soon after 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing, by the demise of the effete Qajar dynasty in Persia, and the stupendous collapse of both the Sultanate and the Caliphate. It is still operating, under our very eyes, as we behold the fate which, in the course of this colossal and ravaging struggle, is successively overtaking the crowned heads of the European continent. Surely, no man, contemplating dispassionately the manifestations of this relentless revolutionizing process, within comparatively so short a time, can escape the conclusion that the last hundred years may well be regarded, in so far as the fortunes of royalty are concerned, as one of the most cataclysmic periods in the annals of mankind.
(49:2)
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