The responsibility shouldered by an institution ranking as one of the
sustaining pillars of the future Universal House of Justice is indeed
staggering. The Plan entrusted to its infant hands is, in both its
magnitude and implications tremendously vast. The anxieties, the strenuous
exertions attendant upon the proper guidance, the effectual development
and the sound consolidation of a community emerging into independent
national existence, are inevitably trying. The numerical strength of that
community, the immensity of the area serving as the field for the
operation of its Plan, the meagerness of the resources now at its
disposal, the relative inexperience of its newly-recruited members, the
perils overhanging the territory in which they reside in the event of a
future global conflict, the intensity of opposition which the unfoldment
of its mission may provoke in the strongholds of religious orthodoxy
inimical to the liberalizing influences of the Faith it represents--all
these offer a challenge at once severe, inescapable and soul uplifting.
The eyes of its twin-sister community in the North American continent,
which assisted it in achieving its independence, are fixed upon it, eager
to behold, and ready to aid it in its march to glory. Its sister
communities in Latin America, whose coming of age is as yet unattained,
watch with mingled curiosity and envy, its first strides along the steep
path which they themselves are soon to tread. Other sister communities in
the European, African, Asiatic and Australian continents, some of
venerable age, others rich in experience, and resources, still others
tried and tested, by the fires of persecution, observe with keen
anticipation in their hearts and benediction on their lips, the manner in
which this youngest recruit to their ranks will launch upon its career,
the resolution with which it will face its problems, the spirit which will
animate it in its battles and the stupendousness of the efforts required
to win its victories. Above and beyond them the Spirit of a Master Who
nursed it in its infancy and to Whose Plan it now has consecrated its
mature energies, overshadows it with that self-same solicitude that called
it into existence, that stimulated His tender care in its infancy, that
inspired His written promises, that prompted His lavish praise, that
impelled Him to cast the radiance of His person, in the evening of His
life, on its mother city(3), and induced Him, ere His passing, to bequeath
to it so rich a legacy in what may be regarded as one of the mightiest
repositories of His last wishes. No one, of the galaxy of immortal heroes,
now gathered to the glory of Baha'u'llah, can contemplate with greater
delight the advances, which this community has made, or intercede with
greater efficacy on its behalf, than she(4) who has won the peerless title
of the Mother of that community, the initial phase of whose career was
signalized by the founding of the mother community in the European
continent, and the conclusion of which was crowned by a death cementing
the spiritual bonds now indissolubly uniting the North and South American
continents.