"The heights," Bahá'u'lláh Himself testifies,
"which, through the most gracious favor of God, mortal man can attain in
this Day are as yet unrevealed to his sight. The world of being hath never had,
nor doth it yet possess, the capacity for such a revelation. The day, however,
is approaching when the potentialities of so great a favor will, by virtue of
His behest, be manifested unto men."
For the revelation of so great a favor a period of intense
turmoil and wide-spread suffering would seem to be indispensable. Resplendent
as has been the Age that has witnessed the inception of the Mission with which
Bahá'u'lláh has been entrusted, the interval which must elapse ere that Age
yields its choicest fruit must, it is becoming increasingly apparent, be
overshadowed by such moral and social gloom as can alone prepare an unrepentant
humanity for the prize she is destined to inherit....
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 11 March 1936, published in ‘The World Order of
Bahá'u'lláh: Selected Letters’; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. II, The
Significance of the Formative Age of Our Faith)
