in itself clear
away the choking weeds that now hinder the unfoldment and future
efflorescence of God's struggling Faith?

Let Baha'u'llah Himself shed the illumination of His words upon our path
as we steer our course amid the pitfalls and miseries of this troubled
age. More than fifty years ago, in a world far removed from the ills and
trials that now torment it, there flowed from His Pen these prophetic
words: "The world is in travail and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its
face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight
that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will
long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly
appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then and only
then will the Divine Standard be unfurled and the Nightingale of Paradise
warble its melody."

The Impotence of Statesmanship

Dearly-beloved friends! Humanity, whether viewed in the light of man's
individual conduct or in the existing relationships between organized
communities and nations, has, alas, strayed too far and suffered too great
a decline to be redeemed through the unaided efforts of the best among its
recognized rulers and statesmen--however disinterested their motives,
however concerted their action, however unsparing in their zeal and
devotion to its cause. No scheme which the calculations of the highest
statesmanship may yet devise; no doctrine which the most distinguished
exponents of economic theory may hope to advance; no principle which the
most ardent of moralists may strive to inculcate, can provide, in the last
resort, adequate foundations upon which the future of a distracted world
can be built. No appeal for mutual tolerance which the worldly-wise might
raise, however compelling and insistent, can calm its passions or help
restore its vigor. Nor would any general scheme of mere organized
international coeoperation, in whatever sphere of human activity, however
ingenious in conception, or extensive in scope, succeed in removing the
root cause of the evil that has so rudely upset the equilibrium of
present-day society. Not even, I venture to assert, would the very act of
devising the machinery required for the political and economic unification
of the world--a principle that has been increasingly advocated in recent
times--provide in itself the antidote against the poison that is steadily
undermining the vigor of organized