sioned by Baha'u'llah. As such, they were integral
parts of an Administrative Order that will, in time, "assert its claim and
demonstrate its capacity to be regarded not only as the nucleus but the
very pattern of the New World Order destined to embrace in the fullness of
time the whole of mankind".(71)

For a few in the young communities of the West, such a departure from
traditional conceptions of the nature and role of religion proved too
great a test, and Baha'i communities suffered the distress of seeing
valued co-workers drift away in search of spiritual pursuits more
congenial to their inclinations. For the vast majority of believers,
however, great messages from the Guardian's pen, such as "The Goal of a
New World Order" and "The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah", threw brilliant
light on precisely the issue that most concerned them, the relationship
between spiritual truth and social development, inspiring in them a
determination to play their part in laying the foundations of humanity's
future.

The Guardian provided, as well, the organizing image for this mighty work.
The "Heroic Age" of Baha'u'llah's Dispensation, he declared, had ended
with the passing of 'Abdu'l-Baha. The Baha'i community now embarked on the
"Iron Age", the "Formative Age", in which the Administrative Order would
be erected throughout the planet, its institutions established and the
"society building" powers inherent in it fully revealed. Far ahead lay
what Shoghi Effendi called the "Golden Age" of the Dispensation, leading
eventually to the emergence of the Baha'i World Commonwealth that will
constitute the establishment on earth of the Kingdom of God and the
creation of a world civilization.(72) The impulse that had been initially
communicated to human consciousness through the revelation of the Creative
Word itself, whose revolutionary social implications had been proclaimed
by the Master, was now being translated by their appointed interpreter
into the vocabulary of political and economic transformation in which the
public discourse of the century was everywhere taking place. Lending the
process irresistible force, illuminating ever new dimensions of Baha'i
experience, and serving as the mainspring of the unification of humankind
it proclaimed was the Covenant that Baha'u'llah had established between
Himself and those who turn to Him.

Although not initially designated "Spiritual Assemblies", the councils
that local Baha'i communities in