First a few words from the cover of the book:                                                        ...in the midst of the second world war Shoghi Effendi addressed  to the Bahais of the West a long letter which became a book, 'The Promised Day is Come'. In it he spelled out in clear and powerful language the Bahai understanding of the crisis of our age...Shoghi Effendi looks at history in the light of its essence: the relationship between temporal man and eternal God.
Viewed in this light, history reveals a meaning and a pattern which were not perceptible before. Man's actions acquire significance when it is demonstrated that it was his own recalcitrance, his rejection of Gods will that led to the turmoil, the upheavals, in which he has become so hopelessly enmeshed.

 "                              The Promised Day is Come

   A tempest, unprecedented in its violence, unpredictable in its course, catasrophic in its immediate effects, unimaginably glorious in its ultimate consequences, is at present sweeping the face of the earth. Its driving power is remorselessly gaining in range and momentum. Its cleansing force, however much undetected, is increasing with every passing day. Humanity, gripped in the clutches of its devastating power, is smitten by the evidences of its resistless fury. It can neither perceive its origin, nor probe its significance, nor discern its outcome. Bewildered, agonized and helpless, it watches this great and mighty wind of God invading the remotest and fairest regions of the earth, rocking its foundations, deranging its equilibrium, sundering its nations, disrupting the homes of its peoples, wasting its cities, driving into exile its kings, pulling down its bulwarks, upprooting its institutions, dimming its light, and harrowing up the souls of its inhabitants.
'The time for the destruction of the world and its people,' Bahaullahs prophetic pen has proclaimed, 'hath arrived.''The hour is approaching,' He specifically affirms, 'when the most great convulsion will have appeared.'
'The promised day is come, the day when tormenting trials will have surged above your heads, and beneath your feet, saying:'Taste ye what your hands have wrought!' 'Soon shall the blasts of His chastisement beat upon you, and the dust of hell shall enshroud you.' And again:'And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake.''The day is approaching when its (civilization) flame will devour the cities, when the Tongue of grandeur will proclaim::'The Kingdom is God's, the Almighty, the All-Praised!' 'The day will soon come,' He, referring to the foolish ones of the earth, has written, 'whereon they will cry out for help and receive no answer.' 'The day is approaching,' He moreover has prophesied, 'when the wrathful anger of the Almighty will have taken hold of them. He, verily is the Omnipotent, the All-Subduing, the Most Powerfull. He shall cleanse the earth from the defilement of their corruption, and shall give it for an heritage unto such of His servants as are nigh unto Him.'
'As to those Who deny Him Who is the Sublime Gate of God,' the Bab, for His part, has affirmed....,'for them We have prepared, as justly decreed by God, a sore torment. And He, God, is the Mighty, the Wise.' And further, 'O peoples of the earth! I swear by your Lord! Ye shall act as former generations have acted. Warn ye, then, yourselves of the terrible, the most grievous vengence of God. For God is, verily, potent over all things.' And again: 'By My glory! I will make the infidels to taste, with the hands of My power, retributions unknown of any one except Me, and will waft over the faithful those muskscented breaths which I have nursed in the midmost heart of My throne.'
Dear friends! The powerful operations of this titanic upheaval are comprehensible to none except such as have recognized the claims of both Bahaullah and the Bab. Their followers know full well whence it comes, and what it will ultimately lead to. Though ignorant of how far it will reach, they clearly recognize its genesis, are aware of its direction, acknowledge its necessity, observe confidently its mysterious processes, ardently pray for the mitigation of its severity, intelligently labor to assuage its fury, and anticipate, with undimmed vision, the consummation of the fears and the hopes it must necessarily engender.
 
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Laila