e two
admittedly most powerful potentates of the East, as well as by the
opposition of the twin sacerdotal orders of _Sh_i'ah and Sunni Islam. The
third period (1892-1921) revolves around the vibrant personality of
'Abdu'l-Baha, mysterious in His essence, unique in His station,
astoundingly potent in both the charm and strength of His character. It
commences with the announcement of the Covenant of Baha'u'llah, a document
without parallel in the history of any earlier Dispensation, attains its
climax in the emphatic assertion by the Center of that Covenant, in the
City of the Covenant, of the unique character and far-reaching
implications of that Document, and closes with His passing and the
interment of His remains on Mt. Carmel. It will go down in history as a
period of almost thirty years' duration, in which tragedies and triumphs
have been so intertwined as to eclipse at one time the Orb of the
Covenant, and at another time to pour forth its light over the continent
of Europe, and as far as Australasia, the Far East and the North American
continent. The fourth period (1921-1944) is motivated by the forces
radiating from the Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Baha, that Charter of
Baha'u'llah's New World Order, the offspring resulting from the mystic
intercourse between Him Who is the Source of the Law of God and the mind
of the One Who is the vehicle and interpreter of that Law. The inception
of this fourth, this last period of the first Baha'i century synchronizes
with the birth of the Formative Age of the Baha'i Era, with the founding
of the Administrative Order of the Faith of Baha'u'llah--a system which is
at once the harbinger, the nucleus and pattern of His World Order. This
period, covering the first twenty-three years of this Formative Age, has
already been distinguished by an outburst of further hostility, of a
different character, accelerating on the one hand the diffusion of the
Faith over a still wider area in each of the five continents of the globe,
and resulting on the other in the emancipation and the recognition of the
independent status of several communities within its pale.

These four periods are to be regarded not only as the component, the
inseparable parts of one stupendous whole, but as progressive stages in a
single evolutionary process, vast, steady and irresistible. For as we
survey the entire range which the operation of a century-old Faith has
unfolded before us, we cannot escape the conclusi