he "words" destined
to remain "closed up" till the "time of the end."

Within a compass of two hundred pages it proclaims unequivocally the
existence and oneness of a personal God, unknowable, inaccessible, the
source of all Revelation, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent and almighty;
asserts the relativity of religious truth and the continuity of Divine
Revelation; affirms the unity of the Prophets, the universality of their
Message, the identity of their fundamental teachings, the sanctity of
their scriptures, and the twofold character of their stations; denounces
the blindness and perversity of the divines and doctors of every age;
cites and elucidates the allegorical passages of the New Testament, the
abstruse verses of the Qur'an, and the cryptic Muhammadan traditions which
have bred those age-long misunderstandings, doubts and animosities that
have sundered and kept apart the followers of the world's leading
religious systems; enumerates the essential prerequisites for the
attainment by every true seeker of the object of his quest; demonstrates
the validity, the sublimity and significance of the Bab's Revelation;
acclaims the heroism and detachment of His disciples; foreshadows, and
prophesies the world-wide triumph of the Revelation promised to the people
of the Bayan; upholds the purity and innocence of the Virgin Mary;
glorifies the Imams of the Faith of Muhammad; celebrates the martyrdom,
and lauds the spiritual sovereignty, of the Imam Husayn; unfolds the
meaning of such symbolic terms as "Return," "Resurrection," "Seal of the
Prophets" and "Day of Judgment"; adumbrates and distinguishes between the
three stages of Divine Revelation; and expatiates, in glowing terms, upon
the glories and wonders of the "City of God," renewed, at fixed intervals,
by the dispensation of Providence, for the guidance, the benefit and
salvation of all mankind. Well may it be claimed that of all the books
revealed by the Author of the Baha'i Revelation, this Book alone, by
sweeping away the age-long barriers that have so insurmountably separated
the great religions of the world, has laid down a broad and unassailable
foundation for the complete and permanent reconciliation of their
followers.

Next to this unique repository of inestimable treasures must rank that
marvelous collection of gem-like utterances, the "Hidden Words" with which
Baha'u'llah was inspired, as He paced, wrapped in His meditations, the
banks of the Tigris. Revea