|
<<previous |
next>> |
|
|
The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
|
Pages 169-171
|
|
Universal Fermentation
| |
1 |
As we view the world around us, we are compelled to observe
the manifold evidences of that universal fermentation which, in
every continent of the globe and in every department of human life,
be it religious, social, economic or political, is purging and reshaping
humanity in anticipation of the Day when the wholeness of the human
race will have been recognized and its unity established. A twofold
process, however, can be distinguished, each tending, in its own
way and with an accelerated momentum, to bring to a climax the
forces that are transforming the face of our planet. The first is essentially
an integrating process, while the second is fundamentally
disruptive. The former, as it steadily evolves, unfolds a System
which may well serve as a pattern for that world polity towards
which a strangely-disordered world is continually advancing; while
the latter, as its disintegrating influence deepens, tends to tear down,
with increasing violence, the antiquated barriers that seek to block
humanity's progress towards its destined goal. The constructive
process stands associated with the nascent Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and
is the harbinger of the New World Order that Faith must erelong
establish. The destructive forces that characterize the other should
be identified with a civilization that has refused to answer to the
expectation of a new age, and is consequently falling into chaos and
decline.
| |
2 |
A titanic, a spiritual struggle, unparalleled in its magnitude yet
unspeakably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is being waged
as a result of these opposing tendencies, in this age of transition
through which the organized community of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh
and mankind as a whole are passing.
| |
3 |
The Spirit that has incarnated itself in the institutions of a rising
Faith has, in the course of its onward march for the redemption
of the world, encountered and is now battling with such forces as
are, in most instances, the very negation of that Spirit, and whose
continued existence must inevitably hinder it from achieving its
purpose. The hollow and outworn institutions, the obsolescent doctrines
and beliefs, the effete and discredited traditions which these
forces represent, it should be observed, have, in certain instances,
been undermined by virtue of their senility, the loss of their cohesive
power, and their own inherent corruption. A few have been swept
away by the onrushing forces which the Bahá'í Faith has, at the
hour of its birth, so mysteriously released. Others, as a direct
result of a vain and feeble resistance to its rise in the initial stages
of its development, have died out and been utterly discredited. Still
others, fearful of the pervasive influence of the institutions in which
that same Spirit had, at a later stage, been embodied, had mobilized
their forces and launched their attack, destined to sustain, in their
turn, after a brief and illusory success, an ignominious defeat.
| |
|
|
|