he indescribable state of decadence, with its attendant
corruption, confusion, intolerance, and oppression, in both the civil and
religious life of Persia, so graphically portrayed by the pen of a
considerable number of scholars, diplomats, and travelers, at the hour of
the Revelation of Baha'u'llah--all demonstrate this basic and inescapable
fact. To contend that the innate worthiness, the high moral standard, the
political aptitude, and social attainments of any race or nation is the
reason for the appearance in its midst of any of these Divine Luminaries
would be an absolute perversion of historical facts, and would amount to a
complete repudiation of the undoubted interpretation placed upon them, so
clearly and emphatically, by both Baha'u'llah and 'Abdu'l-Baha.

How great, then, must be the challenge to those who, belonging to such
races and nations, and having responded to the call which these Prophets
have raised, to unreservedly recognize and courageously testify to this
indubitable truth, that not by reason of any racial superiority, political
capacity, or spiritual virtue which a race or nation might possess, but
rather as a direct consequence of its crying needs, its lamentable
degeneracy, and irremediable perversity, has the Prophet of God chosen to
appear in its midst, and with it as a lever has lifted the entire human
race to a higher and nobler plane of life and conduct. For it is precisely
under such circumstances, and by such means that the Prophets have, from
time immemorial, chosen and were able to demonstrate their redemptive
power to raise from the depths of abasement and of misery, the people of
their own race and nation, empowering them to transmit in turn to other
races and nations the saving grace and the energizing influence of their
Revelation.

In the light of this fundamental principle it should always be borne in
mind, nor can it be sufficiently emphasized, that the primary reason why
the Bab and Baha'u'llah chose to appear in Persia, and to make it the
first repository of their Revelation, was because, of all the peoples and
nations of the civilized world, that race and nation had, as so often
depicted by 'Abdu'l-Baha, sunk to such ignominious depths, and manifested
so great a perversity, as to find no parallel among its contemporaries.
For no more convincing proof could be adduced demonstrating the
regenerating spirit animating the Revelations proclaimed by the Bab and
Baha'u'llah than th