" ... yet to outward seeming the divine tests were severe, and the ignorant found grounds for hesitation ...."

 

"He is God.

O servant of the one true God! In cycles gone by, although the signs of God’s power and the truth of His Cause were clear and manifest, yet to outward seeming the divine tests were severe, and the ignorant found grounds for hesitation; for the Sun of Truth shone from behind subtle clouds, inasmuch as the advent of the Promised One was, according to the explicit and decisive terms of the Holy Text, subject to certain conditions. And as the common people, interpreting those Texts according to their literal meanings, found them contrary to their own understanding, they remained veiled and deprived.

For example, the advent of the Promised Qá’im was conditioned upon the appearance of the Dajjál,¹³³ of Sufyání,¹³⁴ of the invincible standard and the unsheathed sword, and of manifest sovereignty; upon the preceding of the Seven Goats and the flight of the dignitaries and leaders of religion from all corners of the world to the Kaaba;¹³⁵ upon the appearance of astonishing signs, the victory over the East and the West, the submission of all peoples, the slaughter of the divines, and the turning of the seven mills by the flowing blood of those ignorant ones."

(Light of the World: Selected Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, #73, Part 1)
www.bahai.org/r/119465248