In the Dominion of Canada, to whose significance and future the Author of
the Tablets of the Divine Plan has repeatedly referred, and in all the
nine provinces of which, as a direct result of the operation of the first
Seven Year Plan, the Faith has established its spiritual assemblies, the
Canadian believers, as a token of their recognition of the significance of
the forthcoming formation of their first National Spiritual Assembly, must
arise and carry out befittingly the task allotted to them in their
homeland. Irrespective of the smallness of their numbers, notwithstanding
the vastness of the territory for which they have been made responsible,
and as a sign of their appreciation of the great bounty and independent
status soon to be conferred upon them, they must, unitedly, exert a
supreme effort to enlarge the limits, multiply the administrative centers,
consolidate the institutions, and broadcast the truths and essentials of
their beloved Faith throughout the length and breadth of that immense
dominion.
The thirteen Canadian assemblies already formed should be, at all costs,
maintained and fortified. The fifty-six localities where Baha'is reside
should receive immediate attention, and the most promising among them
should be chosen for the establishment of future assemblies, in order to
broaden the basis and reinforce the foundations of the future pillar of
the Universal House of Justice. Particular attention should, moreover, be
paid to the need for the establishment, without delay, of the first
Canadian Baha'i summer school, which, as the scope of the activities of
the Canadian believers extends, will have to be gradually supplemented by
other institutions of a similar character, as has been the case in the
development of summer schools in the United States of America. Preliminary
steps should, likewise, be taken for the incorporation of all firmly
grounded spiritual assemblies, as a prelude to the establishment of local
and national endowments. The institution of the local Fund, in every
center where the administrative structure of the Faith has been erected,
should be assiduously developed. The holding of conferences designed to
foster the unity, the solidarity and harmonious development of the
Canadian Baha'i Community should be steadily encouraged. An organized
attempt should be made to broadcast the Message to the masses and their
leaders through the medium of the press and radio. A deliberate and
sustained endeavor should be exerted to win fresh recruits for the Faith
from the ranks of the considerable French-speaking population of that
dominion. The greatest care should be exercised to attract the attention,
and win the support of other minorities in that land, such as the Indians,
the Eskimos, the Dukhobors and the Negroes, thereby reinforcing the
representative character of a rapidly developing community.
Nor should that community, as its local centers multiply, and the fabric
of its national institutions is erected, and its maturity is demonstrated,
and its independence vindicated, lose sight of, or neglect, the weighty
provisions of those Tablets of the Divine Plan, addressed specifically to
its members by 'Abdu'l-Baha, wherein He confers upon them the mission of
carrying the Message of His Father to territories and islands beyond the
confines of that dominion, to Newfoundland and the Franklin Islands, to
the Yukon, to Mackenzie, Keewatin, Ungava and Greenland. The tentative
steps recently taken by a Danish believer in disseminating Baha'i
literature in the territory of Greenland, in a number of settlements and
outposts beyond the Arctic Circle, and in dispatching Baha'i books to
Godthaab, its capital, and as far north as Upernavik on Baffin Bay,
constitutes a modest yet historic beginning which the Canadian believers,
in the light of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Tablets addressed to them, must follow up
in the years to come.
"Should the fire of the love of God be kindled in Greenland," He
significantly assures them in one of the Tablets of the Divine Plan, "all
the ice of that country will be melted, and its cold weather become
temperate--that is, if the hearts be touched with the heat of the love of
God, that territory will become a divine rose garden and a heavenly
paradise, and the souls, even as fruitful trees, will acquire the utmost
freshness and beauty. Effort, the utmost effort, is required."
Theirs is the duty, the privilege and honor, once their central
administrative institution is firmly established, its subsidiary agencies
are vigorously operating, and its immediate requirements are met, to take
preliminary measures, on however small a scale, ere the Second Seven Year
Plan is terminated, for the dispatch of a handful of pioneers to some of
these territories, as an evidence of the determination and capacity of a
newly independent national community to assume the functions, and
discharge the responsibilities with which it has been invested in those
immortal Tablets by the pen of the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant.
"There is no difference between countries," is 'Abdu'l-Baha's testimony in
one of those Tablets. "The future of the Dominion of Canada, however, is
very great, and the events connected with it infinitely glorious. It shall
become the object of the glance of Providence, and shall show forth the
bounties of the All-Glorious." "Again I repeat," He, in that same Tablet
affirms, "that the future of Canada is very great, whether from a material
or a spiritual standpoint.... The clouds of the Kingdom will water the
seeds of guidance which have been sown there."