Bahá'u'lláh and the New EraEsslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Religion
Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era
Esslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Bahai Faith; Bahá'u'lláh, 1817-1892
The Bahá’í Commonwealth of the future of which this vast
Administrative Order is the sole framework, is, both in theory and
practice, not only unique in the entire history of political
institutions, but can find no parallel in the annals of any of the
world’s recognized religious systems. No form of democratic
government; no system of autocracy or of dictatorship, whether
monarchical or republican; no intermediary scheme of a purely
aristocratic order; nor even any of the recognized types of
theocracy, whether it be the Hebrew Commonwealth, or the various
Christian ecclesiastical organizations, or the Imamate or the
Caliphate in Islám—none of these can be identified or be said to
conform with the Administrative Order which the master-hand of its
perfect Architect has fashioned....
Let no one, while this System is still in its infancy, misconceive
its character, belittle its significance or misrepresent its
purpose. The bedrock on which this Administrative Order is founded
is God’s immutable Purpose for mankind in this day. The Source
from which it derives its inspiration is no one less than
Bahá’u’lláh Himself.... The central, the underlying aim which
animates it is the establishment of the New World Order as
adumbrated by Bahá’u’lláh. The methods it employs, the standard it
inculcates, incline it to neither East nor West, neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither rich nor poor, neither white nor colored. Its
watchword is the unification of the human race; its standard the
“Most Great Peace.” ... February 8, 1934.
The contrast between the accumulating evidences of steady
consolidation that accompany the rise of the Administrative Order
of the Faith of God, and the forces of disintegration which batter
at the fabric of a travailing society, is as clear as it is
arresting. Both within and outside the Bahá’í world the signs and
tokens which, in a mysterious manner, are heralding the birth of
that World Order, the establishment of which must signalize the
Golden Age of the Cause of God, are growing and multiplying day by
day....
“Soon,” Bahá’u’lláh’s own words proclaim it, “will the present day
Order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.” ...
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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