of the planet
in our time and the awakening aspirations of the mass of its inhabitants
have at last produced the conditions that permit achievement of the ideal,
although in a manner far different from that imagined by imperial dreamers
of the past. To this effort the governments of the world have contributed
the founding of the United Nations Organization, with all its great
blessings, all its regrettable shortcomings.

Somewhere ahead lie the further great changes that will eventually impel
acceptance of the principle of world government itself. The United Nations
does not possess such a mandate, nor is there anything in the current
discourse of political leaders that seriously envisions so radical a
restructuring of the administration of the affairs of the planet. That it
will come about in due course Baha'u'llah has made unmistakably clear.
That yet greater suffering and disillusionment will be required to impel
humanity to this great leap forward appears, alas, equally clear. Its
establishment will require national governments and other centres of power
to surrender to international determination, unconditionally and
irreversibly, the full measure of overriding authority implicit in the
word "government".

This is the context in which Baha'is must strive to appreciate the unique
victory that the Cause won in 1963, and which has consolidated itself over
the years since then. A full understanding of its meaning is beyond the
reach of the present and perhaps of the next several generations of
believers. To the extent that a Baha'i does grasp it, he or she will hold
nothing back in a determination to serve its unfolding purpose.

The process leading to the election of the Universal House of Justice--made
possible by the successful completion of the three initial stages of the
Master's Divine Plan under the leadership of Shoghi Effendi--very likely
constituted history's first global democratic election. Each of the
successive elections since then has been carried out by an ever broader
and more diverse body of the community's chosen delegates, a development
that has now reached the point that it incontestably represents the will
of a cross-section of the entire human race. There is nothing in
existence--nothing indeed envisioned by any group of people --that in any
way resembles this achievement.

When one considers, further, the spiritual atmosphere that pervades Baha'i
elections and the principled conduct called fo