The number of the virgin territories of the globe opened to the Faith has,
since the inauguration, and in direct consequence of the vigorous
prosecution, of this stupendous undertaking, been raised to one hundred
and eight, swelling the number of the sovereign states and chief
dependencies included within the pale of the Faith of Baha'u'llah to two
hundred and thirty-six, above two hundred of which have been enlisted
under His banner since the ascension of the Center of His Covenant.
All the territories within the confines of the American, the European, the
Asiatic and the African continents, assigned to ten Baha'i National
Assemblies, have, with the exception of Soviet-controlled territories,
been opened. Of the seventy-two islands allocated to eleven Baha'i
National Assemblies no less than sixty-four have opened their doors to the
vanguard of Baha'i Crusaders, leaving Spitzbergen and Anticosti Island,
situated respectively in the North Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean,
Nicobar Islands, Cocos Island and Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean,
and Loyalty Islands, Sakhalin Island and Hainan Island in the Pacific
Ocean--one of which is a native reserve, two of which are within the Soviet
orbit, while four others are either privately owned or controlled by
private companies--as yet unopened by the heroic band battling for the
Faith of Baha'u'llah.
The northern limits of the Faith in Europe have been pushed beyond the
Arctic Circle as far as 70 degrees latitude, through the settlement of a
Baha'i pioneer in Reals Kolen, Batsfjord, Finnmark, only three degrees
below Arctic Bay, Franklin, the northernmost Baha'i Center established, in
the course of the opening year of the Ten-Year Plan, in the North American
Continent. Valiant pioneers have, moreover, volunteered and are busily
engaged in devising plans, or have actually embarked on the necessary
preparations, to cross the mountain frontiers of Tibet, to enter the
Ukraine, beyond the Iron Curtain, to gain admission to the few remaining,
hitherto inaccessible islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and to
penetrate deep into the Arctic Ocean as far as the icebound island of
Spitzbergen.