The onrushing forces so miraculously released through the
agency of two independent and swiftly successive Manifestations are now under
our very eyes and through the care of the chosen stewards of a far-flung Faith
being gradually mustered and disciplined. They are slowly crystallizing into
institutions that will come to be regarded as the hall-mark and glory of the
age we are called upon to establish and by our deeds immortalize. For upon our
present-day efforts, and above all upon the extent to which we strive to
remodel our lives after the pattern of sublime heroism associated with those
gone before us, must depend the efficacy of the instruments we now fashion --
instruments that must erect the structure of that blissful Commonwealth which
must signalize the Golden Age of our Faith.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Dispensation
of Bahá'u'lláh’ 8 February 1934, ‘The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: Selected
Letters’; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. II, The Significance of the
Formative Age of the Faith)
