Now the great Movement for which the Báb had prepared the
way began to show the full range and magnificence of its power. Though
Bahá’u’lláh Himself lived and died an exile and a prisoner and was known to few
Europeans, His epistles proclaiming the new Advent were borne to the great
rulers of both hemispheres, from the Sháh of Persia to the Pope and to the
President of the United States. After His passing, His son ‘Abdu’l-Bahá carried
the tidings in person into Egypt and far through the Western world.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and America, announcing
everywhere that once again the heavens had opened and that a new Dispensation
had come to bless the sons of men. He died in November, 1921; and to-day the
fire that once seemed to have been put out for ever, burns again in every part
of Persia, has established itself on the American continent, and has laid hold
of every country in the world. Around the sacred writings of Bahá’u’lláh and
the authoritative exposition of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá there is growing a large volume of
literature in comment or in witness. The humanitarian and spiritual principles
enunciated decades ago in the darkest East by Bahá’u’lláh and moulded by Him
into a coherent scheme are one after the other being taken by a world
unconscious of their source as the marks of progressive civilisation. And the
sense that mankind has broken with the past and that the old guidance will not
carry it through the emergencies of the present has filled with uncertainty and
dismay all thoughtful men save those who have learned to find in the story of Bahá’u’lláh
the meaning of all the prodigies and portents of our time.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘Introduction to ‘The Dawn-Breakers’)
