Should
the Ancient Beauty be unveiled in the fullness of His glory mortal eyes
would be blinded by the dazzling intensity of His revelation."

In the Suriy-i-Sabr, revealed as far back as the year 1863, on the very
first day of His arrival in the garden of Ridvan, He thus affirms: "God
hath sent down His Messengers to succeed to Moses and Jesus, and He will
continue to do so till 'the end that hath no end'; so that His grace may,
from the heaven of Divine bounty, be continually vouchsafed to mankind."

"I am not apprehensive for My own self," Baha'u'llah still more explicitly
declares, "My fears are for Him Who will be sent down unto you after
Me--Him Who will be invested with great sovereignty and mighty dominion."
And again He writes in the Suratu'l-Haykal: "By those words which I have
revealed, Myself is not intended, but rather He Who will come after Me. To
it is witness God, the All-Knowing." "Deal not with Him," He adds, "as ye
have dealt with Me."

In a more circumstantial passage the Bab upholds the same truth in His
writings. "It is clear and evident," He writes in the Persian Bayan, "that
the object of all preceding Dispensations hath been to pave the way for
the advent of Muhammad, the Apostle of God. These, including the
Muhammadan Dispensation, have had, in their turn, as their objective the
Revelation proclaimed by the Qa'im. The purpose underlying this
Revelation, as well as those that preceded it, has, in like manner, been
to announce the advent of the Faith of Him Whom God will make manifest.
And this Faith--the Faith of Him Whom God will make manifest--in its turn,
together with all the Revelations gone before it, have as their object the
Manifestation destined to succeed it. And the latter, no less than all the
Revelations preceding it, prepare the way for the Revelation which is yet
to follow. The process of the rise and setting of the Sun of Truth will
thus indefinitely continue--a process that hath had no beginning and will
have no end."

"Know of a certainty," Baha'u'llah explains in this connection, "that in
every Dispensation the light of Divine Revelation hath been vouchsafed to
men in direct proportion to their spiritual capacity. Consider the sun.
How feeble its rays the moment it appeareth above the horizon. How
gradually its warmth and potency increase as it approacheth its zenith,
enabling meanwhile all created things to adapt themselves to the growing
intensity of its light. How steadi