elopment, to the
increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease,
to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of
physical health, to the sharpening and refinement of the human brain, to
the exploitation of the unused and unsuspected resources of the planet, to
the prolongation of human life, and to the furtherance of any other agency
that can stimulate the intellectual, the moral, and spiritual life of the
entire human race.

A world federal system, ruling the whole earth and exercising
unchallengeable authority over its unimaginably vast resources, blending
and embodying the ideals of both the East and the West, liberated from the
curse of war and its miseries, and bent on the exploitation of all the
available sources of energy on the surface of the planet, a system in
which Force is made the servant of Justice, whose life is sustained by its
universal recognition of one God and by its allegiance to one common
Revelation--such is the goal towards which humanity, impelled by the
unifying forces of life, is moving.

(11 March 1936, published in "The World Order of Baha'u'llah: Selected
Letters", pp. 162-63, 201-4) [48]

49: The world-shaking ordeal which Baha'u'llah, as quoted in the foregoing
pages,...

The world-shaking ordeal which Baha'u'llah, as quoted in the foregoing
pages, has so graphically prophesied, may find it [the American nation]
swept, to an unprecedented degree, into its vortex. Out of it it will
probably emerge, unlike its reactions to the last world conflict,
consciously determined to seize its opportunity, to bring the full weight
of its influence to bear upon the gigantic problems that such an ordeal
must leave in its wake, and to exorcise forever, in conjunction with its
sister nations of both the East and the West, the greatest curse which,
from time immemorial, has afflicted and degraded the human race.

Then, and only then, will the American nation, moulded and purified in the
crucible of a common war, inured to its rigours, and disciplined by its
lessons, be in a position to raise its voice in the councils of the
nations, itself lay the corner-stone of a universal and enduring peace,
proclaim the solidarity, the unity, and maturity of mankind, and assist in
the establishment of the promised reign of righteousness on earth. Then,
and only then, will the American nation, while the community of the
American believers within its heart