centuries rolled away, and that most pure Spirit hath repaired unto the
retreats of its ancient sovereignty. Once more hath the eternal Spirit
breathed into the mystic trumpet, and caused the dead to speed out of
their sepulchres of heedlessness and error unto the realm of guidance and
grace. And yet, that expectant community still crieth out: When shall
these things be? When shall the promised One, the object of our
expectation, be made manifest, that we may arise for the triumph of His
Cause, that we may sacrifice our substance for His sake, that we may offer
up our lives in His path? In like manner, have such false imaginings
caused other communities to stray from the Kawthar of the infinite mercy
of Providence, and to be busied with their own idle thoughts.

Beside this passage, there is yet another verse in the Gospel wherein He
saith: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass
away.”(22) Thus it is that the adherents of Jesus maintained that the law
of the Gospel shall never be annulled, and that whensoever the promised
Beauty is made manifest and all the signs are revealed, He must needs
re-affirm and establish the law proclaimed in the Gospel, so that there
may remain in the world no faith but His faith. This is their fundamental
belief. And their conviction is such that were a person to be made
manifest with all the promised signs and to promulgate that which is
contrary to the letter of the law of the Gospel, they must assuredly
renounce him, refuse to submit to his law, declare him an infidel, and
laugh him to scorn. This is proved by that which came to pass when the sun
of the Muḥammadan Revelation was revealed. Had they sought with a humble
mind from the Manifestations of God in every Dispensation the true meaning
of these words revealed in the sacred books—words the misapprehension of
which hath caused men to be deprived of the recognition of the
Sadratu’l-Muntahá, the ultimate Purpose—they surely would have been guided
to the light of the Sun of Truth, and would have discovered the mysteries