'Abdu'l-Baha… may be said to have closed the Age to which He
Himself belonged and opened the one in which we are now labouring. His Will and
Testament should thus be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which
the mind of Him Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the
continuity of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Baha'i
Dispensation. The period in which the seed of the Faith had been slowly
germinating is thus intertwined both with the one which must witness its
efflorescence and the subsequent age in which that seed will have finally
yielded its golden fruit.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a message dated 8 February
1934, printed as ‘The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah’ in ‘The World Order of
Baha'u'llah’)
