To argue, therefore, that differences of regulations, observances and other practices constitute any significant objection to the idea of revealed religion’s essential oneness is to miss the purpose that these prescriptions served. More seriously, it misses the fundamental distinction between the eternal and the transitory features of religion’s function. The essential message of religion is immutable. It is, in Bahá’u’lláh’s words, “the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future”.[20] Its role in opening the way for the soul to enter into an evermore mature relationship with its Creator—and in endowing it with an ever-greater measure of moral autonomy in disciplining the animal impulses of human nature—is not at all irreconcilable with its providing auxiliary guidance that enhances the process of civilization building.