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"No machinery falling short of the standard inculcated by the Bahá'í..."
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No machinery falling short of the standard inculcated by the Bahá'í
Revelation, and at variance with the sublime pattern ordained in His teachings,
which the collective efforts of mankind may yet devise can ever hope to achieve
anything above or beyond that "Lesser Peace" to which the Author of our Faith
has Himself alluded in His writings. "Now that ye have refused the Most Great
Peace," He, admonishing the kings and rulers of the earth, has written, "hold
ye fast unto this the Lesser Peace, that haply ye may in some degree better
your own condition and that of your dependents." Expatiating on this Lesser
Peace, He thus addresses in that same Tablet the rulers of the earth: "Be
reconciled among yourselves, that ye may need no more armaments save in a
measure to safeguard your territories and dominions... Be united, O kings of
the earth, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and
your peoples find rest, if ye be of them that comprehend. Should any one among
you take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught
but manifest justice."
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The Most Great Peace, on the other hand, as conceived by Bahá'u'lláh -- a
peace that must inevitably follow as the practical consequence of the
spiritualization of the world and the fusion of all its races, creeds, classes
and nations -- can rest on no other basis, and can be preserved through no
other agency, except the divinely appointed ordinances that are implicit in the
World Order that stands associated with His Holy Name....
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...
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The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, whose supreme mission is none other but the
achievement of this organic and spiritual unity of the whole body of nations,
should, if we be faithful to its implications, be regarded as signalizing
through its advent the coming of age of the entire human race. It should be
viewed not merely as yet another spiritual revival in the ever-changing
fortunes of mankind, not only as a further stage in a chain of progressive
Revelations, nor even as the culmination of one of a series of recurrent
prophetic cycles, but rather as marking the last and highest stage in the
stupendous evolution of man's collective life on this planet. The emergence of
a world community, the consciousness of world citizenship, the founding of a
world civilization and culture -- all of which must synchronize with the
initial stages in the unfoldment of the Golden Age of the Bahá'í Era -- should,
by their very nature, be regarded, as far as this planetary life is concerned,
as the furthermost limits in the organization of human society, though man, as
an individual, will, nay must indeed as a result of such a consummation,
continue indefinitely to progress and develop.
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...
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The whole of mankind is groaning, is dying to be led to unity, and to
terminate its age-long martyrdom. And yet it stubbornly refuses to embrace the
light and acknowledge the sovereign authority of the one Power that can
extricate it from its entanglements, and avert the woeful calamity that
threatens to engulf it.
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