th it, and a
hundred years hence, circumstances having profoundly changed and the
conditions having altered, another House of Justice will then have power,
according to the exigencies of the time, to alter that law. This it can do
because that law formeth no part of the divine explicit text. The House of
Justice is both the initiator and the abrogator of its own laws." Such is
the immutability of His revealed Word. Such is the elasticity which
characterizes the functions of His appointed ministers. The first
preserves the identity of His Faith, and guards the integrity of His law.
The second enables it, even as a living organism, to expand and adapt
itself to the needs and requirements of an ever-changing society.

Dear friends! Feeble though our Faith may now appear in the eyes of men,
who either denounce it as an offshoot of Islam, or contemptuously ignore
it as one more of those obscure sects that abound in the West, this
priceless gem of Divine Revelation, now still in its embryonic state,
shall evolve within the shell of His law, and shall forge ahead, undivided
and unimpaired, till it embraces the whole of mankind. Only those who have
already recognized the supreme station of Baha'u'llah, only those whose
hearts have been touched by His love, and have become familiar with the
potency of His spirit, can adequately appreciate the value of this Divine
Economy--His inestimable gift to mankind.

Leaders of religion, exponents of political theories, governors of human
institutions, who at present are witnessing with perplexity and dismay the
bankruptcy of their ideas, and the disintegration of their handiwork,
would do well to turn their gaze to the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, and to
meditate upon the World Order which, lying enshrined in His teachings, is
slowly and imperceptibly rising amid the welter and chaos of present-day
civilization. They need have no doubt or anxiety regarding the nature, the
origin or validity of the institutions which the adherents of the Faith
are building up throughout the world. For these lie embedded in the
teachings themselves, unadulterated and unobscured by unwarrantable
inferences, or unauthorized interpretations of His Word.

How pressing and sacred the responsibility that now weighs upon those who
are already acquainted with these teachings! How glorious the task of
those who are called upon to vindicate their truth, and demonstrate their
practicability to an unbelieving world! Noth