Nothing perhaps illustrated so dramatically the spiritual triumph the Master had won at the World Centre of the Faith than the events in Haifa that occurred immediately after His ascension in the early hours of 28 November 1921. The following day a vast concourse of thousands of people, representing the variegated races and sects of the region, followed the funeral cortège up the slopes of Mount Carmel in a state of unaffected grief such as the city had never before witnessed. It was led by representatives of the British government, members of the diplomatic community, and the heads of all of the religious bodies in the area, several of whom participated in the service at the Shrine of the Báb. So unrestrained and unified an outburst of mourning reflected a sudden awareness of the loss of a Figure whose example had served as a focal centre of unity in an angry and divided land. In itself, it served for all with eyes to see as a compelling vindication of the truth of the oneness of humankind which the Master had tirelessly proclaimed. IV With the passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Apostolic Age of the Cause reached its end. The Divine intervention that had begun seventy-seven years earlier on the night the Báb declared His mission to Mulla Ḥusayn—and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself was born—had completed its work. It had been, in the words of Shoghi Effendi, “a period whose splendours no victories in this or any future age, however brilliant, can rival....”(50) Ahead lay the thousand or thousands of years in which the potentialities that this creative force has planted in human consciousness will gradually unfold. Contemplation of so great a juncture in the history of civilization brings into sharp focus the Figure whose nature and role have been unique in this six-thousand-year process. Bahá’u’lláh has called ‘Abdu’l-Bahá “the Mystery of God”. Shoghi Effendi has described Him as “the Centre and Pivot” of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant, the “perfect Exemplar” of the teachings of the Revelation of God for the age of human maturity, and “the Mainspring of the Oneness of Humanity”. No phenomenon in any way comparable to His appearance had accompanied any of the Divine Revelations that had given birth to the other great religious systems in recorded history; all of these had been essentially stages preparing humanity for its coming of age. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was Bahá’u’lláh’s supreme Creation, the One that made everything else possible. An understanding of this truth moved a perceptive American Bahá’í to write: