on which is to signalize the
advent of the Kingdom of God on this earth?

May we not, therefore, recognizing as we do the necessity for such a
revelation of God's redeeming power, meditate upon the supreme grandeur of
the System unfolded by the hand of Baha'u'llah in this day? May we not
pause, pressed though we be by the daily preoccupations which the
ever-widening range of the administrative activities of His Faith must
involve, to reflect upon the sanctity of the responsibilities it is our
privilege to shoulder?

The Station of the Bab

Not only in the character of the revelation of Baha'u'llah, 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 Bab, every follower of Baha'u'llah 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 Bab 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 Baha'u'llah,
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
Baha'u'llah, and is finally attested by the Will and Testament of
'Abdu'l-Baha.

Nowhere but in the Kitab-i-Iqan, Baha'u'llah'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
Bab, the promised Qa'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 Qa'im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and
five letters to be made manifest." "Behold," adds Baha'u'llah, "how great
and lofty is His station!" "Of His Revelation,"