The Guardian feels that, although the Canadian Baha'is are making
excellent progress in consolidating their National Assembly and its
subsidiary committees, in holding Conferences and Summer Schools, in
sending forth travelling teachers, and in contacting the important
minority groups, the Eskimos and Indians, that they are not making
sufficient progress in the all-important field of pioneer activity. If
they are to succeed in accomplishing their plan, a far greater number of
Canadian Baha'is will have to arise and go into the pioneer field. He
feels sure that they can do this, as they have already had the stirring
example of how much was done in the British Isles by a community of about
their size. In comparing the problem which faced the British Baha'is under
their Six Year Plan, and that which faces the Canadian Baha'is under their
Five Year Plan, the friends should bear in mind that they were spared the
severest ordeals of the war, the extreme restrictions and rationing which
the British believers had to put up with. If the British Baha'is, with all
their handicaps and suffering real physical and nervous exhaustion from
the long war years, could accomplish so much, then surely the Canadian
Baha'is, who were spared these conditions, are in a much better state to
carry on and prosecute their tasks. What was done at the very breaking
point in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales could be done--must be
done--by the Canadian believers, with much less effort. Although sacrifice
is required, he feels sure that the friends are ready and willing to make
the necessary sacrifice, and arise to insure that the very first Plan, the
very first organized work undertaken by them as an independent National
Baha'i Community, will be carried forward and victory insured by the
appointed time.
He assures all the members of your Assembly, and through you, the
community that you serve and represent, that your work is very dear to his
heart, and that you are often remembered in his prayers. He is waiting to
receive the good news that many more objectives have been achieved during
this coming Baha'i year.
With warmest Baha'i love,
R. RABBANI.
Dear and Valued Co-workers:
The energy, fidelity and courage, with which the Canadian Baha'i Community
has, in the course of this past year, faced its problems, discharged its
duties and expanded the scope of its teaching and administrative
activities merit the highest praise, and have greatly raised my hopes for
the eventual consummation of the Plan which its members are so steadfastly
prosecuting. Though unable, owing to a chain of circumstances beyond my
control, to address them more frequently and convey to them my feelings of
gratitude and admiration for their recent achievements, I have followed
closely the course of their manifold activities, perused, with care and
interest, the various publications which testify to their unremitting
labours, and remembered them in my prayers in the holy Shrines.