Foreword to ‘God Passes By’ by Shoghi Effendi – a descriptive list

•   1844: “the inception of the Bábí Dispensation, …the inauguration of the Bahá’í Era, …the commencement of the Bahá’í Cycle, and… the birth of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá”
• 1844: The “culmination of a universal prophetic cycle”
• The magnitude of Baha’u’llah’s “shadow” on “successive Prophets destined to be raised up after Him”
• “a tumult in human society such as no mind can fathom”
• “a fermentation in the general life of mankind”
• The “emergence of His [Baha’u’llah’s] embryonic World Order…has ‘deranged the equilibrium of the world and revolutionized mankind’s ordered life’”
• The “spirit” which is ““vibrating in the innermost realities of all created things”
• The “evidences of the travail of an age that has sustained the impact of His [Baha’u’llah’s] Revelation, that has ignored His summons”
• The Guardian’s purpose in writing God Passes By
• In ‘God Passes By’ the Guardian makes a review of certain worldwide events from 1844 to 1944
• In ‘God Passes By’ the Guardian identifies “momentous happenings” within the Faith during its first 100-year worldwide growth and expansion
• Subjects not in the scope of this book
• Baha'i administrative institutions
• Subjects not ignored in the book
• The “Heroic, the Primitive, the Apostolic Age of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, and… the initial stages of the Formative, the Transitional, the Iron Age”
• The first century of the Bahá’í Era contains: “…four distinct periods, of unequal duration, each of specific import and of tremendous and indeed unappraisable significance.”
• High-level features of the first period of the first Baha’i century: -1844–1853
• High-level features of the second period of the first Baha’i century: -1853–1892
• High-level features of the third period of the first Baha’i century: -1892–1921
• High-level features of the fourth period of the first Baha’i century: -1921–1944
• The “four periods” within 1844-1944: - “progressive stages in a single evolutionary process, vast, steady and irresistible”
• The unfoldment of “a divinely-conceived Order”
• The gradual spread of the Faith during 1844-1944
• The gradual increase in the diversity of the followers of the Faith during 1844-1944
• 1844-1944: The gradual increase in Baha’i literature
• The “apparent evolution in the scope” of the teachings of the Faith during 1844-1944
• The “distinct gradation in the character of the opposition” the Faith encountered during 1844-1944
• The “appreciable advance in the rise” of the institutions of the Faith during 1844-1944
• The “marked improvement in the conditions surrounding the pilgrimages” during 1844-1944