[Stockholm, Sweden, July 21-26, 1953]
With a glad and grateful heart I welcome the convocation, in the capital
city of Sweden, of the third of a series of Intercontinental Teaching
Conferences associated with the world-wide festivities commemorating the
centenary of the Mission of Baha'u'llah and destined to exert a profound
and lasting influence on the immediate fortunes of His Faith in all
continents of the globe.
I look back, with feelings of wonder, thankfulness and joy, upon the chain
of memorable circumstances which, a little over a century ago, accompanied
the introduction of the Faith into, and marked the inception of its
nascent institutions within, a continent which, in the course of the last
two thousand years, has exercised on the destiny of the human race a
pervasive influence unequaled by that of any other continent of the globe.
I feel impelled, on this historic occasion, when the members of the
American, the British, the German and the newly formed Italo-Swiss
National Spiritual Assemblies, as well as representatives of the Baha'is
of the United Kingdom, of Eire, of Germany, of Austria, of the
Scandinavian and Benelux countries, of the Iberian Peninsula, of Italy, of
Switzerland, of France and of Finland are assembled, to pay a warm tribute
to the valiant labors of the early British and French Baha'i pioneers, who
at the very dawn of the Faith in Europe, strove with such diligence,
consecration and resolution, to fan into flame that holy fire which the
hand of the appointed Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant had kindled in the
northwest extremity of that continent on the morrow of His Father's
ascension. I recall the slow eastward spread of that infant light which
led to the gradual emergence of the German and Austrian Baha'i
Communities, during the darkest period of 'Abdu'l-Baha's incarceration in
the prison-fortress of Akka. I am reminded of His subsequent epoch-making
visit, soon after His providential release from His forty-year confinement
in the Most Great Prison, to these newly fledged struggling communities,
of His patient seed-sowing destined to yield at a later age its first
fruits, and constituting a landmark of the utmost significance in the rise
and establishment of the Faith of Baha'u'llah in that continent.