'Abdu'l-Bahá ... "incarnates an institution for which we can find no parallel whatsoever in any of the world's recognized religious systems"

'Abdu'l-Baha

'Abdu'l-Bahá, Who incarnates an institution for which we can find no parallel whatsoever in any of the world's recognized religious systems, may be said to have closed the Age to which He Himself belonged and opened the one in which we are now laboring. His Will and Testament should thus be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link which the mind of Him Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to insure the continuity of the three ages that constitute the component parts of the Bahá'í Dispensation. 
- Shoghi Effendi  (‘The Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, ‘The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh: Selected Letters’; The Compilation of Compilations vol II)