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The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
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Pages 61-63
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The Station of the Báb
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Not only in the character of the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, however
stupendous be His claim, does the greatness of this Dispensation
reside. For among the distinguishing features of His Faith
ranks, as a further evidence of its uniqueness, the fundamental
truth that in the person of its Forerunner, the Báb, every follower
of Bahá'u'lláh recognizes not merely an inspired annunciator but
a direct Manifestation of God. It is their firm belief that, no matter
how short the duration of His Dispensation, and however brief
the period of the operation of His laws, the Báb had been endowed
with a potency such as no founder of any of the past religions was,
in the providence of the Almighty, allowed to possess. That He was
not merely the precursor of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, that He
was more than a divinely-inspired personage, that His was the
station of an independent, self-sufficient Manifestation of God, is
abundantly demonstrated by Himself, is affirmed in unmistakable
terms by Bahá'u'lláh, and is finally attested by the Will and Testament
of `Abdu'l-Bahá.
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Nowhere but in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Bahá'u'lláh's masterly exposition
of the one unifying truth underlying all the Revelations of the
past, can we obtain a clearer apprehension of the potency of those
forces inherent in that Preliminary Manifestation with which His
own Faith stands indissolubly associated. Expatiating upon the unfathomed
import of the signs and tokens that have accompanied the
Revelation proclaimed by the Báb, the promised Qá'im, He recalls
these prophetic words: "Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All
that the Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof. No man
thus far hath known more than these two letters. But when the
Qá'im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and five letters
to be made manifest." "Behold," adds Bahá'u'lláh, "how great and
lofty is His station!" "Of His Revelation," He further adds, "the
Prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones, have either not been
informed, or in pursuance of God's inscrutable Decree, they have
not disclosed."
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And yet, immeasurably exalted as is the station of the Báb,
and marvellous as have been the happenings that have signalized
the advent of His Cause, so wondrous a Revelation cannot but
pale before the effulgence of that Orb of unsurpassed splendor
Whose rise He foretold and whose superiority He readily acknowledged.
We have but to turn to the writings of the Báb Himself in
order to estimate the significance of that Quintessence of Light of
which He, with all the majesty of His power, was but its humble
and chosen Precursor.
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Again and again the Báb admits, in glowing and unequivocal
language, the préeminent character of a Faith destined to be made
manifest after Him and to supersede His Cause. "The germ," He
asserts in the Persian Bayán, the chief and best-preserved repository
of His laws, "that holds within itself the potentialities of the
Revelation that is to come is endowed with a potency superior to the
combined forces of all those who follow me." "Of all the tributes,"
the Báb repeatedly proclaims in His writings, "I have paid to Him
Who is to come after Me, the greatest is this, My written confession,
that no words of Mine can adequately describe Him, nor can any reference
to Him in my Book, the Bayán, do justice to His Cause." Addressing
Siyyid Yahyáy-i-Darábí, surnamed Vahíd, the most learned
and influential among his followers, He says: "By the righteousness
of Him Whose power causeth the seed to germinate and Who breatheth
the spirit of life into all things, were I to be assured that in the
day of His Manifestation thou wilt deny Him, I would unhesitatingly
disown thee and repudiate thy faith.... If, on the other
hand, I be told that a Christian, who beareth no allegiance to My
Faith, will believe in Him, the same will I regard as the apple of
Mine eye."
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