It is impossible to imagine how different the history of the past century and a half would have been had any of the leading arbiters of world affairs addressed by Bahá’u’lláh spared time for reflection on a conception of reality supported by the moral credentials of its Author, moral credentials of the kind they professed to hold in the highest regard. What is unmistakable to a Bahá’í is that, despite such failure, the transformations announced in Bahá’u’lláh’s message are resistlessly accomplishing themselves. Through shared discoveries and shared travails, peoples of diverse cultures are brought face to face with the common humanity lying just beneath the surface of imagined differences of identity. Whether stubbornly opposed in some societies or welcomed elsewhere as a release from meaningless and suffocating limitations, the sense that the earth’s inhabitants are indeed “the leaves of one tree”(4) is slowly becoming the standard by which humanity’s collective efforts are now judged. Loss of faith in the certainties of materialism and the progressive globalizing of human experience reinforce one another in the longing they inspire for understanding about the purpose of existence. Basic values are challenged; parochial attachments are surrendered; once unthinkable demands are accepted. It is this universal upheaval, Bahá’u’lláh explains, for which the scriptures of past religions employed the imagery of “the Day of Resurrection”: “The shout hath been raised, and the people have come forth from their graves, and arising, are gazing around them.”(5) Beneath all of the dislocation and suffering, the process is essentially a spiritual one: “The breeze of the All-Merciful hath wafted, and the souls have been quickened in the tombs of their bodies.”(6) “Throughout history, the primary agents of spiritual development have...”