The relatively small number of Bahá’ís may still seem insignificant in comparison with the followers of the ancient religions, but they are confident that a divine Power has blessed them with the high privilege of serving a new order into which will throng the multitudes of East and West at no distant day.
While, therefore, it remains true that the Holy Spirit has reflected from pure hearts in all countries still unconscious of the Source, and the growth of the Faith can be witnessed in the many efforts outside the Bahá’í community to promote one or another of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings, nevertheless the lack of any enduring foundation in the old order is convincing proof that the ideals of the Kingdom can only become fruitful within the framework of the Bahá’í community.
Prophethood of Báb and Bahá’u’lláh
The more we study the lives and teachings of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, the more impossible does it seem to find any explanation of Their greatness, except that of Divine Inspiration. They were reared in an atmosphere of fanaticism and bigotry. They had only the most elementary education. They had no contact with Western culture. They had no political or financial power to back Them. They asked nothing from men, and receive little but injustice and oppression. The great ones of earth ignored or opposed Them. They were scourged and tortured, imprisoned and subjected to direst calamities in the fulfillment of Their mission. They were alone against the world, having no help but that of God, yet already Their triumph is manifest and magnificent.
The grandeur and sublimity of Their ideals, the nobility and self-sacrifice of Their lives; Their dauntless courage and conviction, Their amazing wisdom and knowledge, Their grasp of the needs of both Eastern and Western peoples, the comprehensiveness and adequacy of Their teachings, Their power to inspire wholehearted devotion and enthusiasm in Their followers, the penetration and potency of Their influence, the progress of the Movement They founded—surely these constitute proofs of Prophethood as convincing as any which the history of religion can show.