To the fourth, and by far the most momentous, the most arduous, the most
challenging task to be carried out under the Second Seven Year Plan--the
systematic launching of a crusade in a mighty, a tormented, a spiritually
famished continent, a continent drawn, in recent years through political
developments as well as through improvement in the means of
transportation, so close to the great republic of the West, and
constituting a stepping-stone on the road leading to the redemption of the
Old World--I must now direct the attention of my readers.
This as yet unfought and unbelievably potent crusade, embarked upon in the
opening decade of the second century of the Baha'i Era, signalizing the
commencement of the second epoch of the Formative Age of the Dispensation
of Baha'u'llah, and marking the first stage in the propulsion of a
divinely conceived Plan across the borders of the Western Hemisphere,
must, as its pace augments, reveal the first signs and tokens which, as
anticipated by the Author of the Plan Himself, must accompany the carrying
of His Father's Message across the ocean, at the hands of His "apostles,"
from the shores of their homeland to the European continent. "The moment,"
is His powerfully sustaining, gloriously inspiring promise, "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 Australia, and as far as the islands of the Pacific, this
community will find itself securely established upon the throne of an
everlasting dominion. Then will all the peoples of the world witness that
this community is spiritually illumined and divinely guided. Then will the
whole earth resound with the praises of its majesty and greatness."
The first stage in this transatlantic field of service which those
crusading for the Cause of Baha'u'llah in the Western Hemisphere are now
entering is a step fraught with possibilities such as no mind can
adequately envisage. Its challenge is overwhelming and its potentialities
unfathomable. Its hazards, rigors and pitfalls are numerous, its field
immense, the number of its promoters as yet utterly inadequate, the
resources required for its effective prosecution barely tapped. The races,
nations and classes included within its orbit are numerous and highly
diversified, and the prizes to be won by its victors incalculably great.
The hatreds that inflame, the rivalries that agitate, the controversies
that confuse, the miseries that afflict, these races, nations and classes
are bitter and of long standing. The influence and fanaticism, whether
ecclesiastical or political, of potentially hostile organizations, firmly
entrenched within their ancestral strongholds, are formidable.
The members of the North American Baha'i Community, to whose care the
immediate destinies of this fate-laden crusade have been entrusted, are
standing at a new crossroads. Behind them is an imperishable record, brief
yet illustrious, of feats performed over the entire range of the Western
Hemisphere. Before them stretches a vista alluring in its as yet hazy
outlines, entrancing in its magnitude, reaching to the far horizons of as
yet unconquered territories. They can look back, since that crusade was
launched, upon a decade of modest beginnings, of toilsome labors, of
richly deserved rewards. They now look forward to successive epochs
reaching as far as the fringes of that Golden Age that is to be, glowing
in the light of God-given promises, destined to be traversed at the cost
of infinite toil and of heroic self-sacrifice.
They can neither retrace their steps, nor falter, nor even afford to mark
time. The sands are running out, the short span of six brief years
intervening between the present hour and the termination of the second
stage of the enterprise on which they have embarked will soon expire. The
hosts on high, having sounded the signal, are impatient to rush forward,
and demonstrate anew the irresistible force of their might. Europe, in the
throes of the aftermath of a horribly devastating conflict, calls
desperately, in one of the darkest hours of its history, for that
sovereign remedy which only the Plan, conceived by a divinely appointed
Physician, can administer. Sister communities, in the north and in the
heart of that continent, alive to the needs, the opportunities and the
glorious mission of the vanguard of Baha'u'llah's crusaders, now landing
on the shores of that agitated continent, are only too eager to reinforce
the stupendous exertions that must needs be made for its ultimate
redemption. Nor will other sister communities further afield refrain, for
a moment, from lending a helping hand, once the progress of this gigantic
movement now set in motion is accelerated. Above and beyond them all,
unsleeping, ever-solicitous, unerring, is the Pilot of their bark, the
Charterer of their course, the Founder of their spiritual fellowship, the
Bestower of that primacy which is the hallmark of their destiny.