ion or
tradition; the oneness of the entire human race, the pivotal principle and
fundamental doctrine of the Faith; the basic unity of all religions; the
condemnation of all forms of prejudice, whether religious, racial, class
or national; the harmony which must exist between religion and science;
the equality of men and women, the two wings on which the bird of human
kind is able to soar; the introduction of compulsory education; the
adoption of a universal auxiliary language; the abolition of the extremes
of wealth and poverty; the institution of a world tribunal for the
adjudication of disputes between nations; the exaltation of work,
performed in the spirit of service, to the rank of worship; the
glorification of justice as the ruling principle in human society, and of
religion as a bulwark for the protection of all peoples and nations; and
the establishment of a permanent and universal peace as the supreme goal
of all mankind--these stand out as the essential elements of that Divine
polity which He proclaimed to leaders of public thought as well as to the
masses at large in the course of these missionary journeys.(25)

At the heart of the Master's message was the announcement that the
long-promised Day for the unification of humanity and the establishment on
earth of the Kingdom of God had come. That Kingdom, as unveiled in
'Abdu'l-Baha's letters and talks, owed nothing whatever to the
other-worldly assumptions familiar from the teachings of traditional
religion. Rather, the Master proclaimed the coming of age of humankind and
the emergence of a global civilization in which the development of the
whole range of human potentialities will be the fruit of the interaction
between universal spiritual values, on the one hand, and, on the other,
material advances that were even then still undreamed of.

The means to achieve the goal, He said, had already come into existence.
What was needed was the will to act and the faith to persist:

All of us know that international peace is good, that it is the cause of
life, but volition and action are necessary. Inasmuch as this century is
the century of light, capacity for achieving peace has been assured. It is
certain that these ideas will be spread among men to such a degree that
they will result in action.(26)

Although expressed with unfailing courtesy and consideration, the
principles of the new Revelation were set out uncompromisingly in both
private and public encounte