of their Lord. Unlike the kings of the earth whom He had
so boldly condemned in that same Book, unlike the European Sovereigns whom
He had either rebuked, warned or denounced, such as the French Emperor,
the most powerful monarch of his time, the Conqueror of that monarch, the
Heir of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Caliph of Islam, the Rulers of
America were not only spared the ominous and emphatic warnings which He
uttered against the crowned heads of the world, but were called upon to
bring their corrective and healing influence to bear upon the injustices
perpetrated by the tyrannical and the ungodly. To this remarkable
pronouncement, conferring such distinction upon the sovereign rulers of
the Western Hemisphere, must be added not only the passages in which the
Author of our Faith clearly foreshadows the revelation of the "signs of
His dominion" in the West, but also the no less significant verbal
affirmations which, according to reliable eye-witnesses, He more than once
made in regard to the glorious destiny which America was to attain in the
days to come.

That same impulse was markedly accelerated when the Center of the Covenant
Himself, through a series of successive acts, chose to disclose, to an
unprecedented extent, the character of the Mission reserved for the
followers of Baha'u'llah in that continent, and to delineate the tasks
whereby that God-given design was to be fulfilled. No sooner had He
mounted the helm of the Faith than He unmistakably revealed to His
followers His purpose of making the establishment of that Faith in the
West, and particularly in the New World, one of the chief objectives of
His ministry. No sooner had that great feat been accomplished than He
undertook to visit those centers which His disciples had labored to
establish, and, through a number of symbolic acts and weighty
pronouncements, to pave the way for the inauguration of the collective
undertaking He was preparing those disciples to carry out. In the Tablets
of the Divine Plan, revealed at a later stage, and in circumstances almost
as critical as those which had accompanied the inception of the Faith in
the West, and which may be designated as the Charter of the Plan with
which He was to entrust them in the evening of His life, He, in a language
still more graphic and in terms more definite than those used by either
the Bab or Baha'u'llah, revealed the high distinction and the glorious
work which America, and particularly the