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I need not dwell on the immediate effects of this serious yet transitory cleavage in the ranks of the American adherents of the Cause of Baha'u'llah. Nor do I need to expatiate on the character of the defamatory writings that poured upon them. Nor does it seem necessary to recount the measures to which an ever-vigilant Master resorted in order to assuage and eventually to dissipate their apprehensions. It is for the future historian to appraise the value of the mission of each of the four chosen messengers of 'Abdu'l-Baha who, in rapid succession, were dispatched by Him to pacify and reinvigorate that troubled community. His will be the task of tracing, in the work which these deputies of 'Abdu'l-Baha were commissioned to undertake, the beginnings of that vast Administration, the corner-stone of which these messengers were instructed to lay - an Administration whose symbolic Edifice He, at a later time, was to found in person and whose basis and scope the provisions of His Will were destined to widen.
(83:1)
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