cumstances of the age
in which it hath appeared.

As to thy question regarding the sayings of the leaders of past religions.
Every wise and praiseworthy man will no doubt eschew such vain and
profitless talk. The incomparable Creator hath created all men from one
same substance, and hath exalted their reality above the rest of His
creatures. Success or failure, gain or loss, must, therefore, depend upon
man's own exertions. The more he striveth, the greater will be his
progress. We fain would hope that the vernal showers of the bounty of God
may cause the flowers of true understanding to spring from the soil of
men's hearts, and may wash them from all earthly defilements.

XXXV: PONDER A WHILE. WHAT IS IT THAT PROMPTED,...

Ponder a while. What is it that prompted, in every Dispensation, the
peoples of the earth to shun the Manifestation of the All-Merciful? What
could have impelled them to turn away from Him and to challenge His
authority? Were men to meditate on these words which have flowed from the
Pen of the Divine Ordainer, they would, one and all, hasten to embrace the
truth of this God-given, and ever-enduring Revelation, and would testify
to that which He Himself hath solemnly affirmed. It is the veil of idle
imaginations which, in the days of the Manifestations of the Unity of God
and the Day Springs of His everlasting glory, hath intervened, and will
continue to intervene, between them and the rest of mankind. For in those
days, He Who is the Eternal Truth manifesteth Himself in conformity with
that which He Himself hath purposed, and not according to the desires and
expectations of men. Even as He hath revealed: "So oft, then, as an
Apostle cometh to you with that which your souls desire not, do ye swell
with pride, and treat some as impostors, and slay others."

There can be no doubt whatever that had these Apostles appeared, in bygone
ages and cycles, in accordance with the vain imaginations which the hearts
of men had devised, no one would have repudiated the truth of these
sanctified Beings. Though such men have been, night and day, remembering
the one true God, and have been devoutly engaged in the exercise of their
devotions, yet they failed in the end to recognize, and partake of the
grace of, the Day Springs of the signs of God and the Manifestations of
His irrefutable evidences. To this the Scriptures bear witness. Thou hast,
no doubt, heard about it.

Consider the Dispensation of Jesu