establishing a
Covenant endowed with an authority comparable to the Covenant which
Baha'u'llah had Himself instituted.

"So firm and mighty is this Covenant," He Who is its appointed Center has
affirmed, "that from the beginning of time until the present day no
religious Dispensation hath produced its like." "It is indubitably clear,"
He, furthermore, has stated, "that the pivot of the oneness of mankind is
nothing else but the power of the Covenant." "Know thou," He has written,
"that the 'Sure Handle' mentioned from the foundation of the world in the
Books, the Tablets and the Scriptures of old is naught else but the
Covenant and the Testament." And again: "The lamp of the Covenant is the
light of the world, and the words traced by the Pen of the Most High a
limitless ocean." "The Lord, the All-Glorified," He has moreover declared,
"hath, beneath the shade of the Tree of Anisa (Tree of Life), made a new
Covenant and established a great Testament... Hath such a Covenant been
established in any previous Dispensation, age, period or century? Hath
such a Testament, set down by the Pen of the Most High, ever been
witnessed? No, by God!" And finally: "The power of the Covenant is as the
heat of the sun which quickeneth and promoteth the development of all
created things on earth. The light of the Covenant, in like manner, is the
educator of the minds, the spirits, the hearts and souls of men." To this
same Covenant He has in His writings referred as the "Conclusive
Testimony," the "Universal Balance," the "Magnet of God's grace," the
"Upraised Standard," the "Irrefutable Testament," "the all-mighty
Covenant, the like of which the sacred Dispensations of the past have
never witnessed" and "one of the distinctive features of this most mighty
cycle."

Extolled by the writer of the Apocalypse as "the Ark of His (God)
Testament"; associated with the gathering beneath the "Tree of Anisa"
(Tree of Life) mentioned by Baha'u'llah in the Hidden Words; glorified by
Him, in other passages of His writings, as the "Ark of Salvation" and as
"the Cord stretched betwixt the earth and the Abha Kingdom," this Covenant
has been bequeathed to posterity in a Will and Testament which, together
with the Kitab-i-Aqdas and several Tablets, in which the rank and station
of 'Abdu'l-Baha are unequivocally disclosed, constitute the chief
buttresses designed by the Lord of the Covenant Himself to shield and
support, after His ascension, the appointed C