dministrative Order established by His Will, "fear not if this Branch be
severed from this material world and cast aside its leaves; nay, the
leaves thereof shall flourish, for this Branch will grow after it is cut
off from this world below, it shall reach the loftiest pinnacles of glory,
and it shall bear such fruits as will perfume the world with their
fragrance."

To what else if not to the power and majesty which this Administrative
Order--the rudiments of the future all-enfolding Baha'i Commonwealth--is
destined to manifest, can these utterances of Baha'u'llah allude: "The
world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of
this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been
revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System--the
like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed."

The Bab Himself, in the course of His references to "Him Whom God will
make manifest" anticipates the System and glorifies the World Order which
the Revelation of Baha'u'llah is destined to unfold. "Well is it with
him," is His remarkable statement in the third chapter of the Persian
Bayan, "who fixeth his gaze upon the Order of Baha'u'llah and rendereth
thanks unto his Lord! For He will assuredly be made manifest. God hath
indeed irrevocably ordained it in the Bayan."

In the Tablets of Baha'u'llah where the institutions of the International
and Local Houses of Justice are specifically designated and formally
established; in the institution of the Hands of the Cause of God which
first Baha'u'llah and then 'Abdu'l-Baha brought into being; in the
institution of both local and national Assemblies which in their embryonic
stage were already functioning in the days preceding 'Abdu'l-Baha's
ascension; in the authority with which the Author of our Faith and the
Center of His Covenant have in their Tablets chosen to confer upon them;
in the institution of the Local Fund which operated according to
'Abdu'l-Baha's specific injunctions addressed to certain Assemblies in
Persia; in the verses of the Kitab-i-Aqdas the implications of which
clearly anticipate the institution of the Guardianship; in the explanation
which 'Abdu'l-Baha, in one of His Tablets, has given to, and the emphasis
He has placed upon, the hereditary principle and the law of primogeniture
as having been upheld by the Prophets of the past--in these we can discern
the faint glimmerings and discover the earliest intimation of