notable services, tenacity, modesty, unwavering devotion fully merit high
tribute by American believers. Do not advise, however, that you designate
her a martyr.
Cablegram January 28, 1946
HISTORIC DECISIONS
Overjoyed, profoundly thankful for munificent donation made by American
Baha'i community for international relief. Urge establishment of
communication with German believers and careful consultation with their
representatives to collaborate in publication and expansion of much needed
German Baha'i literature. Delighted at news of consolidation of activities
in Central America, the progress of the Public Campaigns and development
of youth activities. Advise address special immediate appeal to American
believers to insure large, representative attendance at approaching
Convention owing to momentous, historic decisions to be disclosed to
assembled representatives of ever-victorious, increasingly blessed,
spiritually maturing American Baha'i community.
Cablegram February 25, 1946
MOMENTOUS RESPONSIBILITIES
The assistance extended by the American Baha'i Community to the
long-suffering German believers is a further evidence of their readiness,
so abundantly demonstrated in the past, to champion the interests, and to
rehabilitate the institutions of their sister communities throughout the
Baha'i world. This support, so generously extended, so consistently and
faithfully offered by the rank and file of the American believers, and
particularly by their elected National representatives, is but a
subsidiary aspect of the tremendous undertakings which, in both the North
and South American continents, the standard bearers of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah have initiated and developed, for the promotion of its
interests, during the concluding decades of the first Baha'i century.
The twofold task which they have so nobly undertaken--the proclamation of
the Faith in the North American continent and the consolidation of its
nascent institutions in Latin America--must, whatever plan is devised in
the coming years for the furtherance of their world-wide mission--be
relentlessly prosecuted. That further responsibilities, of a momentous
character, will have to be superimposed on the stalwart prosecutors of
'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan, as they gird up their loins to carry a stage
further their historic labors in obedience to His wishes, no one can for a
moment doubt. As the field of their activities, ranging over entire
continents, grows in scope and in importance, the aims and purposes
associated with the first stage of their glorious mission must, in no
wise, be either neglected or forgotten. The steady multiplication of
groups and of Spiritual Assemblies throughout the States of the great
American Republic, the continual broadcasting of the Divine Message to the
leaders of public opinion and the masses, as well as the establishment of
the newly fledged local Assemblies throughout Latin America on an
unassailable basis, and the dissemination of Baha'i literature among its
people, demand whatever the nature of the supplementary responsibilities
that will have to be assumed in the years to come, the closest attention
on the part of the entire body of the American believers, and must
continue to be regarded as the fundamental issues facing their national
representatives. The exploits immortalizing the first stage of the Divine
Plan, however glorious their record, have yet to yield their noblest
fruits. Efforts unremitting, systematic, and continent-wide in their
scope, can alone garner a harvest worthy of the high confidence placed in
them by 'Abdu'l-Baha. May they prove themselves increasingly worthy of so
high a privilege, so glorious a task.
March 25, 1946
INAUGURATION OF SECOND SEVEN YEAR PLAN
Message to 1946 Convention
Hail with joyous heart the delegates of the American Baha'i Community
assembled beneath the dome of the Mother Temple of the West in momentous
Convention of the first year of peace. The souls are uplifted in
thanksgiving for the protection vouchsafed by Providence to the preeminent
community of the Baha'i world enabling its members to consummate, despite
the tribulations of a world-convulsing conflict, the first stage of
'Abdu'l-Baha's Plan. The Campaign culminating the Centenary of the
inauguration of the Baha'i Era completed sixteen months ere the appointed
time the exterior ornamentation of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, laid the
basis of the administrative order in every virgin state and province of
the North American Continent, almost doubled the Assemblies established
since the inception of the Faith, established Assemblies in fourteen
republics of Latin America, constituted active groups in remaining
republics, swelled to sixty the sovereign states within the pale of the
Faith.
The two-year respite, well-earned after the expenditure of such a colossal
effort, covering such a tremendous range, during so dark a period, is now
ended. The prosecutors of the Plan who in the course of six war-ridden
years achieved such prodigies of service in the Western Hemisphere from
Alaska to Magallanes are now collectively summoned to assume in the course
of the peaceful years ahead still weightier responsibilities for the
opening decade of the Second Century. The time is ripe, events are
pressing. Hosts on high are sounding the signal for inauguration of second
Seven Year Plan designed to culminate first Centennial of the year Nine
marking the mystic birth of Baha'u'llah's prophetic mission in
Siyah-_Ch_al at Tihran.
A two-fold responsibility urgently calls the vanguard of the dawn-breakers
of Baha'u'llah's Order, torch-bearers of world civilization, executors of
'Abdu'l-Baha's mandate, to arise and simultaneously bring to fruition the
tasks already undertaken and launch fresh enterprises beyond the borders
of the Western Hemisphere.
The first objective of the new Plan is consolidation of victories already
won throughout the Americas, involving multiplication of Baha'i centers,
bolder proclamation of the Faith to the masses. The second objective is
completion of the interior ornamentation of the holiest House of Worship
in the Baha'i world designed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of
the inception of this historic enterprise. The third objective is the
formation of three national Assemblies, pillars of the Universal House of
Justice, in the Dominion of Canada, Central and South America. The fourth
objective is the initiation of systematic teaching activity in war-torn,
spiritually famished European continent, cradle of world-famed
civilizations, twice-blest by 'Abdu'l-Baha's visits, whose rulers
Baha'u'llah specifically and collectively addressed, aiming at
establishment of Assemblies in the Iberian Peninsula, the Low Countries,
the Scandinavian states, and Italy. No effort is too great for community
belonging to the continent whose rulers Baha'u'llah addressed in the Most
Holy Book, whose members were invested with spiritual primacy by
'Abdu'l-Baha and named by Him apostles of His Father, whose country was
the first western nation to respond to the Divine Message and deemed
worthy to be first to build the Tabernacle of the Most Great Peace, whose
administrators evolved the pattern of the embryonic world order,
consummated the first stage of the Divine Plan, and whose elevation to the
throne of everlasting dominion the Center of the Covenant confidently
anticipated. As the resistless impulse propelling the Plan accelerates,
the American Community must rise to new levels of potency in response to
the divine mandate, scale loftier heights of heroism, insure fuller
participation of the rank and file of members, and closer collaboration
with the agencies designed to insure attainment of the fourfold
objectives, and evince greater audacity in tearing down the barriers in
its path.
Upon the success of the second Seven Year Plan depends the launching,
after a brief respite of three brief years, of a yet more momentous third
Seven Year Plan which, when consummated through the establishment of the
structure of the administrative order in the remaining sovereign states
and chief dependencies of the entire globe, must culminate in and be
befittingly commemorated through world-wide celebrations marking the
Centennial of the formal assumption by Baha'u'llah of the Prophetic Office
associated with Daniel's prophecy and the world triumph of the Baha'i
revelation and signalizing the termination of the initial epoch in the
evolution of the Plan whose mysterious, resistless processes must continue
to shed ever-increasing lustre on successive generations of both the
Formative and Golden Ages of the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
Pledging ten thousand dollars as my initial contribution for the
furtherance of the manifold purposes of a glorious crusade surpassing
every enterprise undertaken by the followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah
in the course of the first Baha'i century.
April 25, 1946
SPIRITUAL CONQUEST OF THE OLD WORLD
Opening phase of spiritual conquest of the old world under divinely
conceived Plan must be speedily and befittingly inaugurated. Feel
necessity prompt dispatch of nine competent pioneers to as many countries
as feasible charged to initiate systematic teaching work, commence
settlement and promote dissemination of literature. Urge establishment of
auxiliary office in Geneva as adjunct to International Bureau equipped
with facilities to foster development of Assemblies in countries falling
within the scope of Plan. Recommend European Teaching Committee undertake
without delay measures aiming at close collaboration of British Publishing
Trust and Publishing Committee of German National Assembly. Advise include
Duchy of Luxembourg in Low Countries and enlarge range of Plan through
addition of Switzerland. Owing to considerable sum already accumulated in
Tihran I prefer to divert sum for International Relief not yet forwarded
to Persia, as well as Assembly's annual contribution to World Center, to
funds earmarked for all-important far-flung European teaching and
publication activities. The challenge offered by virgin fields of Europe
outweighs momentous character of task already confronting American Baha'i
Community in the Americas. Vast distances sundering the old and new world
are visibly, providentially contracting, enabling the ambassadors of
Baha'u'llah's New World Order swiftly to discharge their apostolic mission
through the continent destined to be stepping-stone to still vaster
enterprises associated with future stages of divinely impelled,
ever-unfolding, world-encircling Plan.
Cablegram June 5, 1946
THIRTY NEW ASSEMBLIES
Appeal National Teaching Committee unitedly arise play notable part in
stupendous exertions now being made by Baha'i communities throughout
Americas in furtherance of second Seven Year Plan. Plead focus attention
enable thirty groups having six or more members speedily attain Assembly
status. Devoutly praying number of Assemblies functioning in North America
will reach one hundred and seventy-five ere expiry of second year of
second stage of Divine Plan. Attainment of this immediate objective will
challenge and galvanize all other agencies functioning in Latin America
and European continent to follow the superb example set for sister
committees laboring at the heart of the mother community of the Western
hemisphere.
Cablegram June 13, 1946
A GOD-GIVEN MANDATE
The opening years of the second century of the Baha'i Era are witnessing
the launching of yet another stage of an enterprise the range of whose
unfolding processes we can, at the present time, but dimly visualize.
However familiar we may be with its origin, however conscious of its
magnitude and bold character, however cognizant of the signal success that
has attended its initial operation, in the Western Hemisphere, we find
ourselves nevertheless incapable of either grasping the import of its
tremendous potentialities, or of correctly appraising the significance of
the present phase of its development. Nor can we assess its reaction, as
the momentum of the mysterious forces driving it onward augments, on the
fortunes of the divers communities whose members are consciously laboring
for the achievement of purposes akin to the high aims that animate its
promoters, or estimate its impact, as its scope is further enlarged and
its fruition is accelerated, on the immediate destinies of mankind in
general.
The impulse from which this historic world-embracing crusade, which, alike
in the character of its Founder and the nature of the tasks committed to
its participants, is unprecedented in religious history, derives its
creative power may be said to have in a sense originated with the mandate
issued by the Bab in His "Qayyumu'l-Asma," one of His earliest and
greatest works, as far back as the opening years of the first Baha'i
century, and directed specifically to the "peoples of the West," to "issue
forth" from their "cities" and aid His Cause.
To this initial impulse given by the Herald of our Faith, whilst confined
in the heart of far-away Asia, a still greater force was communicated, and
a more specific direction given, when the Author of our Faith Himself,
having already set foot on the fringes of the continent of Europe,
addressed, in His Kitab-i-Aqdas, from behind the walls of the prison-city
of Akka, some of the most celebrated passages of that Book to the Chief
Magistrates of the entire American continent, bidding them "bind with the
hands of justice the broken," and "crush the oppressor" with the "rod of
the commandments" of their Lord. Unlike the kings of the earth whom He had
so boldly condemned in that same Book, unlike the European Sovereigns whom
He had either rebuked, warned or denounced, such as the French Emperor,
the most powerful monarch of his time, the Conqueror of that monarch, the
Heir of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Caliph of Islam, the Rulers of
America were not only spared the ominous and emphatic warnings which He
uttered against the crowned heads of the world, but were called upon to
bring their corrective and healing influence to bear upon the injustices
perpetrated by the tyrannical and the ungodly. To this remarkable
pronouncement, conferring such distinction upon the sovereign rulers of
the Western Hemisphere, must be added not only the passages in which the
Author of our Faith clearly foreshadows the revelation of the "signs of
His dominion" in the West, but also the no less significant verbal
affirmations which, according to reliable eye-witnesses, He more than once
made in regard to the glorious destiny which America was to attain in the
days to come.
That same impulse was markedly accelerated when the Center of the Covenant
Himself, through a series of successive acts, chose to disclose, to an
unprecedented extent, the character of the Mission reserved for the
followers of Baha'u'llah in that continent, and to delineate the tasks
whereby that God-given design was to be fulfilled. No sooner had He
mounted the helm of the Faith than He unmistakably revealed to His
followers His purpose of making the establishment of that Faith in the
West, and particularly in the New World, one of the chief objectives of
His ministry. No sooner had that great feat been accomplished than He
undertook to visit those centers which His disciples had labored to
establish, and, through a number of symbolic acts and weighty
pronouncements, to pave the way for the inauguration of the collective
undertaking He was preparing those disciples to carry out. In the Tablets
of the Divine Plan, revealed at a later stage, and in circumstances almost
as critical as those which had accompanied the inception of the Faith in
the West, and which may be designated as the Charter of the Plan with
which He was to entrust them in the evening of His life, He, in a language
still more graphic and in terms more definite than those used by either
the Bab or Baha'u'llah, revealed the high distinction and the glorious
work which America, and particularly the United States and Canada, was to
achieve in both the Formative and Golden Ages of the Baha'i Dispensation.
His references to the "extraordinary brilliancy" of the light which His
Father's Revelation was to shed in the West; His prediction that "the West
will have replaced the East" "through the splendor" of that Faith; His
specific prophecies regarding the future of the American continent, as the
"land wherein the splendors of His light shall be revealed" and "the
mysteries of His Faith shall be unveiled," and which "will lead all
nations spiritually"; His even more specific tribute to the Great Republic
of the West which He proclaims to be "worthy of being the first to build
the Tabernacle of the Most Great Peace and proclaim the oneness of
mankind," to be "equipped and empowered to accomplish that which will
adorn the pages of history, to become the envy of the world, and be blest
in both the East and the West"; His yet more startling words addressed to
the followers of the Faith in that Republic, referring to them as
"apostles of Baha'u'llah," characterizing their mission as "unspeakably
glorious," and assuring them that "should success crown your enterprise
... the throne of the Kingdom of God will, in the plenitude of its majesty
and glory, be firmly established"; and finally, His soul-stirring
assertion that "the moment this Divine Message is carried forward by the
American believers from the shores of America, and is propagated through
the continents of Europe, of Asia, of Africa and of Australasia, and as
far as the islands of the Pacific, this community will find itself
securely established upon the throne of an everlasting dominion," and that
"the whole earth" will "resound with the praises of its majesty and
greatness"--all these, in conjunction with the explicit and detailed
instructions embodied in His Tablets, in connection with the execution of
their mission, may be regarded as having fixed the pattern, and revealed a
measure of the glory, of the Plan itself, which, after His ascension, was
to be collectively and formally prosecuted.
The creation of the administrative machinery of the Faith, according to
the precepts laid down in 'Abdu'l-Baha's Will and Testament, and on which,
during the opening years of its Formative Age, the resources and attention
of the trustees of the Plan were chiefly concentrated, provided, after
several years of assiduous labor, the agencies for its proper and
systematic execution. The first stage of that enterprise, which had been
held in abeyance, for well nigh twenty years, while the administrative
institutions of the Faith were slowly taking shape and were being
perfected, was finally launched during the last decade of that same
century whose opening years will be associated with the earliest though
veiled intimation of the phenomenal destiny which the followers of the
Faith of Baha'u'llah in the New World are to fulfill. The successful
consummation of the first stage of that long-deferred Mission, made
possible through the brilliant execution of a Seven Year Plan, embracing
the entire Western Hemisphere, synchronized with, and was befittingly
commemorated through, the historic celebrations that marked the
termination of that century.
The opening decade of the second Baha'i century coincides with the
launching of the second Seven Year Plan, destined alike to consolidate the
exploits that have shed such lustre on the last years of the preceding
century, and to carry the Plan a stage further across the ocean to the
shores of the Old World, and to communicate, through the operation of its
regenerative power, its healing influence to the peoples of the most
afflicted, impoverished and agitated continent of the globe. We who stand
on the threshold of this gigantic and two-fold undertaking are unable to
discern the exact course which its immediate operation, both on the home
front and in fields far from the scene of its earliest victories, is
destined to take, the setbacks it may suffer, or the triumphs it must
ultimately achieve. The objectives, however, which must orientate its
prosecutors, and arouse them to a higher pitch of concerted endeavor, are
clearly defined, and by no means beyond their collective power to achieve.
The double task already undertaken to enlarge the basis of the
administrative structure of the Faith throughout the states and provinces
of the North American continent and throughout Latin America, and to
proclaim its truths and principles to the masses, should be relentlessly
pursued, whilst the range of the operation of the Plan is being steadily
enlarged. The administrative centers--foci at which the ever expanding
activities of a rising Order must converge--whose total number had not
exceeded forty at the time of 'Abdu'l-Baha's visit to America, which at
the inception of the first Seven Year Plan had risen to three hundred, and
had swelled to over a thousand ere the expiry of the first Baha'i century,
should through resolute effort and careful planning, be continually and
speedily multiplied. Particular care should be constantly exercised to
enable the groups scattered throughout the length and breadth of the
states and provinces of the United States and Canada to attain Assembly
status, and assume gradually the responsibilities and functions assigned
to them in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Baha. A
corresponding increase in the number of such centers throughout both
Central and South America should likewise be aimed at. Bolder measures
designed to proclaim the verities of the Faith, its tenets, its claims and
the purpose of its institutions, through the press and radio, through
displays, exhibits and conferences, and through a wider dissemination of
its literature in English, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a more
convincing presentation of its aims and teachings to the leaders of public
opinion, should, moreover, be seriously and systematically undertaken not
only in the mother country but also throughout the Latin Republics where
the structural basis of Baha'u'llah's embryonic Order has already been
established.
Collateral with this process of consolidation in North, Central and South
America, a special effort should be exerted to bring to a final conclusion
the construction of the most holy Temple which will ever be erected by the
followers of the Faith of Baha'u'llah, and whose inception, forty-three
years ago, synchronized with the erection in the city of I_sh_qabad of the
first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of the Baha'i world. The completion of the
interior ornamentation of the Temple, following upon its exterior
decoration, and fitting it for the purposes for which it was ordained, and
coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of its inception, will, in
itself, pave the way for the gradual erection of those Dependencies which
are designed to supplement the functions which the Central Edifice is
destined to perform, and whose future development must needs be provided
for during successive stages in the unfoldment of the Divine Plan itself.