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Citadel of Faith
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Pages 26-27
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EUROPE FEELS STIRRINGS OF SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION
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The second century of the Bahá'í Era has dawned. The second
stage of the Divine Plan has been launched. The second epoch of the
Formative Age of the Bahá'í Dispensation has opened. The tragedy
of a continent, so blessed, so rich in history, so harassed, is moving
towards a climax. The vanguard of the torchbearers of a world-redeeming
civilization are landing on its shores and are settling in its
capitals. An epoch has commenced, inaugurating the systematic conquest
of the European continent by the organized body of the "apostles
of Bahá'u'lláh," destined to unfold its potentialities in the course of
succeeding centuries, and bidding fair to eclipse the radiance of those
past ages which have successfully witnessed the introduction of the
Christian Faith into the continent's northern climes, the efflorescence
of Islamic culture that shed such radiance along its southern shores, and
the rise of the Reformation in its very heart.
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The stage is set. The hour is propitious. The signal is sounded.
Bahá'u'lláh's spiritual battalions are moving into position. The initial
clash between the forces of darkness and the army of light, as unnoticed
as the landing, two milleniums ago, of the apostles of Christ on the
southern shores of the European continent, is being registered by the
denizens of the Abhá Kingdom. The Author of the Plan that has set so
titanic an enterprise in motion is Himself mounted at the head of these
battalions, and leads them on to capture the cities of men's hearts. A
continent, twice blessed by `Abdu'l-Bahá's successive visits to its shores,
and the scene of His first public appearance in the West; which has
been the cradle of a civilization to some of whose beneficent features the
pen of Bahá'u'lláh has paid significant tribute; on whose soil both the
Greek and Roman civilizations were born and flourished; which has
contributed so richly to the unfoldment of American civilization; the
fountainhead of American culture; the mother of Christendom, and
the scene of the greatest exploits of the followers of Jesus Christ; in
some of whose outlying territories have been won some of the most
resplendent victories which ushered in the Golden Age of Islám; which
sustained, in its very heart, the violent impact of the onrushing hosts of
that Faith, intent on the subjugation of its cities, but which refused to
bend the knee to its invaders, and succeeded in the end in repulsing
their assault--such a continent is now experiencing, at the hands of
the little as yet unnoticed band of pioneers sent forth by the enviable,
the privileged, the dynamic American Bahá'í Community, the first
stirrings of that spiritual revolution which must culminate, in the
Golden Age that is as yet unborn, in the permanent establishment of
Bahá'u'lláh's Order throughout that continent.
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