[From the Guardian:]
The perusal of your Annual Report and the messages conveyed by the elected
representatives of the Indian and Burmese Baha'i communities, assembled at
Convention, have served to deepen my sense of admiration for the work
collectively achieved by the members of these communities, and of my
gratitude for the magnificent qualities they display, and for the spirit
which so powerfully animates them in their stewardship to the Faith of
Baha'u'llah.
They now stand on the threshold of a new epoch in the history of the
evolution of the Administrative Order in their land. The transfer of the
central institution of that Order to the capital of India; the wide
measure of centralization which this historic step must needs involve; the
purchase of a befitting seat for the ever expanding activities and
multiplying agencies of that institution in that same capital, the
progressive transfer of the national committees to the national
Haziratu'l-Quds--all these must synchronize with a remarkable, and indeed
unprecedented, intensification of effort in the pioneer field of Baha'i
activity, as well as in the sphere of public teaching, designed to arouse
the masses and proclaim the verities of the Faith throughout the length
and breadth of that subcontinent and its adjoining territory of Burma.
In this twofold activity, supporting directly and indirectly the interests
of the Plan, committed to your charge, the Hindu, the Moslem, the Burmese
and Zoroastrian believers must jointly, unitedly, and effectively
participate. The minority elements in these ever-expanding communities
must be continually stimulated, encouraged, trained and in some cases, as
when an equal number of ballots have been cast in an election, given
priority, in order to reinforce the representative character of Baha'i
institutions, demonstrate the distinction of these institutions from all
other man-made agencies, and win, to an ever-increasing degree, the
sympathy and support of the teeming masses of Hindu and Moslem extraction,
on whose adherence to the Faith, the ultimate progress, establishment, and
triumph of the Cause of Baha'u'llah must chiefly depend.
Courage, good-will, resolution, self-abnegation, are imperatively
required, at this momentous stage in the evolution of these nascent
communities, who, having reared, with assiduous care, the machinery of
their Administrative Order, and launched the Plan which the institutions
of that Order are now so efficiently promoting, have arisen to initiate a
crusade which, as it gathers momentum, must embrace all the diversified
races, classes and creeds of that vast country, and its adjoining
territories. May the impelling power of the Faith which they champion
enable them to surmount every obstacle, and reach their destined goal.