A successor or vicegerent the Báb never named, an
interpreter of His teachings He refrained from appointing. So transparently
clear were His references to the Promised One, so brief was to be the duration
of His own Dispensation, that neither the one nor the other was deemed
necessary. All He did was, according to the testimony of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá in “A Traveller’s Narrative,” to
nominate, on the advice of Bahá’u’lláh and of another disciple, Mírzá Yahyá,
who would act solely as a figurehead pending the manifestation of the Promised
One, thus enabling Bahá’u’lláh to promote, in relative security, the Cause so
dear to His heart. - Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)
