Know of a certainty that in every Dispensation the light of
Divine Revelation hath been vouchsafed unto men in direct proportion to their
spiritual capacity. Consider the sun. How feeble its rays the moment it
appeareth above the horizon. How gradually its warmth and potency increase as
it approacheth its zenith, enabling meanwhile all created things to adapt
themselves to the growing intensity of its light. How steadily it declineth
until it reacheth its setting point. Were it, all of a sudden, to manifest the
energies latent within it, it would, no doubt, cause injury to all created
things.... In like manner, if the Sun of Truth were suddenly to reveal, at the
earliest stages of its manifestation, the full measure of the potencies which
the providence of the Almighty hath bestowed upon it, the earth of human
understanding would waste away and be consumed; for men’s hearts would neither
sustain the intensity of its revelation, nor be able to mirror forth the
radiance of its light. Dismayed and overpowered, they would cease to exist.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah’)
