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50: The world is, in truth, moving on towards its destiny. The… |
The world is, in truth, moving on towards its destiny. The
interdependence of the peoples and nations of the earth, whatever the leaders
of the divisive forces of the world may say or do, is already an accomplished
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fact. Its unity in the economic sphere is now understood and recognized. The
welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and the distress of the
part brings distress to the whole. The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has, in His
own words, “lent a fresh impulse and set a new direction” to this vast process
now operating in the world. The fires lit by this great ordeal are the
consequences of men’s failure to recognize it. They are, moreover, hastening
its consummation. Adversity, prolonged, world wide, afflictive, allied to
chaos and universal destruction, must needs convulse the nations, stir the
conscience of the world, disillusion the masses, precipitate a radical change
in the very conception of society, and coalesce ultimately the disjointed, the
bleeding limbs of mankind into one body, single, organically united, and
indivisible.
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To the general character, the implications and features of this world
commonwealth, destined to emerge, sooner or later, out of the carnage, agony,
and havoc of this great world convulsion, I have already referred in my
previous communications. Suffice it to say that this consummation will, by its
very nature, be a gradual process, and must, as Bahá’u’lláh has Himself
anticipated, lead at first to the establishment of that Lesser Peace which the
nations of the earth, as yet unconscious of His Revelation and yet unwittingly
enforcing the general principles which He has enunciated, will themselves
establish. This momentous and historic step, involving the reconstruction of
mankind, as the result of the universal recognition of its oneness and
wholeness, will bring in its wake the spiritualization of the masses,
consequent to the recognition of the character, and the acknowledgement of the
claims, of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh—the essential condition to that ultimate
fusion of all races, creeds, classes, and nations which must signalize the
emergence of His New World Order.
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Then will the coming of age of the entire human race be proclaimed and
celebrated by all the peoples and nations of the earth. Then will the banner
of the Most Great Peace be hoisted. Then will the world wide sovereignty of
Bahá’u’lláh—the Establisher of the Kingdom of the Father foretold by the
Son, and anticipated by the Prophets of God before Him and after Him—be
recognized, acclaimed, and firmly established. Then will a world civilization
be born, flourish, and perpetuate itself, a civilization with a fullness of
life such as the world has never seen nor can as yet conceive. Then will the
Everlasting Covenant be fulfilled in its completeness. Then will the promise
enshrined in all the Books of God be redeemed, and all the prophecies uttered
by the Prophets of old come to pass, and the vision of seers and poets be
realized. Then will the planet, galvanized through the universal belief of its
dwellers in one God, and their allegiance to one common Revelation, mirror,
within the limitations imposed upon it, the effulgent glories of the
sovereignty of Bahá’u’lláh, shining in the plenitude of its splendour in the
Abhá Paradise, and be made the footstool of His Throne on high, and acclaimed
as the earthly heaven, capable of fulfilling that ineffable destiny fixed for
it, from time immemorial, by the love and wisdom of its Creator.
(28 March 1941, published in “The Promised Day Is Come”, pp. 122–124) [50] |