bearer," Baha'u'llah explicitly
declares, "is adapted to humanity's spiritual receptiveness and capacity;
otherwise, the Light that shines within me can neither wax nor wane.
Whatever I manifest is nothing more or less than the measure of the Divine
glory which God has bidden me reveal."

If the Light that is now streaming forth upon an increasingly responsive
humanity with a radiance that bids fair to eclipse the splendor of such
triumphs as the forces of religion have achieved in days past; if the
signs and tokens which proclaimed its advent have been, in many respects,
unique in the annals of past Revelations; if its votaries have evinced
traits and qualities unexampled in the spiritual history of mankind; these
should be attributed not to a superior merit which the Faith of
Baha'u'llah, as a Revelation isolated and alien from any previous
Dispensation, might possess, but rather should be viewed and explained as
the inevitable outcome of the forces that have made of this present age an
age infinitely more advanced, more receptive, and more insistent to
receive an ampler measure of Divine Guidance than has hitherto been
vouchsafed to mankind.

Necessity for a Fresh Revelation

Dearly beloved friends: Who, contemplating the helplessness, the fears and
miseries of humanity in this day, can any longer question the necessity
for a fresh revelation of the quickening power of God's redemptive love
and guidance? Who, witnessing on one hand the stupendous advance achieved
in the realm of human knowledge, of power, of skill and inventiveness, and
viewing on the other the unprecedented character of the sufferings that
afflict, and the dangers that beset, present-day society, can be so blind
as to doubt that the hour has at last struck for the advent of a new
Revelation, for a re-statement of the Divine Purpose, and for the
consequent revival of those spiritual forces that have, at fixed
intervals, rehabilitated the fortunes of human society? Does not the very
operation of the world-unifying forces that are at work in this age
necessitate that He Who is the Bearer of the Message of God in this day
should not only reaffirm that self-same exalted standard of individual
conduct inculcated by the Prophets gone before Him, but embody in His
appeal, to all governments and peoples, the essentials of that social
code, that Divine Economy, which must guide humanity's concerted efforts
in establishing that all-embracing federati