et to traverse. It was against the
most intense resistance at every level of society, among governed and
governors alike, that the political, social and conceptual changes of the
past hundred years were achieved. Ultimately, they were accomplished only
at the cost of terrible suffering. It would be unrealistic to imagine that
the challenges lying ahead may not exact an even greater toll of a human
race that still seeks, by every means in its power, to avoid the spiritual
implications of the experience it is undergoing. Shoghi Effendi's words on
the consequences of this obduracy of heart and mind make sober reading:

Adversities unimaginably appalling, undreamed of crises and upheavals,
war, famine, and pestilence, might well combine to engrave in the soul of
an unheeding generation those truths and principles which it has disdained
to recognize and follow.(153)

* * * * *

Barely a third of the twentieth century had elapsed when the Guardian
summoned the followers of Baha'u'llah to a far deeper understanding of the
Cause itself than anything they had yet appreciated. The Faith had reached
the point, he said, when it was "ceasing to designate itself a movement, a
fellowship and the like", designations which, although perhaps appropriate
at a time when the message was first being introduced to the West, now
"did grave injustice to its ever-unfolding system". Rejecting as adequate
even the term "religion" in its familiar sense, he pointed out that the
Faith was already:

...visibly succeeding in demonstrating its claim and title to be regarded
as a World Religion, destined to attain, in the fullness of time, the
status of a world-embracing Commonwealth, which would be at once the
instrument and the guardian of the Most Great Peace announced by its
Author.(154)

As the century advanced, the same creative Force that was awakening the
generality of humankind to its oneness was progressively releasing the
powers inherent in the Cause and opening a new role for it in human
affairs. Over the first two decades of the century, through the loving
care of the Master, the spiritual and administrative foundations necessary
to Baha'u'llah's purpose were established. On the base thus made
available--during the thirty-six years of his own ministry, and the
subsequent six years during which his Ten Year Crusade guided the
community's efforts--Shoghi Effendi devoted himself to refining the
administrativ