The gravity of the emergency facing the North American believers is
unprecedented since the initiation of the Divine Plan and unparalleled in
the history of the American Baha'i Community since 'Abdu'l-Baha's passing.
No obstacle is insuperable, no sacrifice too great for attainment of
supremely important objective. The eyes of her sister communities in every
continent of the globe and of her daughter communities of Latin America,
handicapped by a variety of adverse circumstances, are fixed upon the
community of followers of Baha'u'llah in North American continent who are
enjoying the blessings of internal peace, adequate resources,
administrative experience and organizing ability for their divinely
appointed mission, expecting them to arise and avert the reverse which
would mar the splendor of their record of unexampled stewardship. I am
moved to plead, at this eleventh hour, that the rank and file of the
community, particularly the members resident in long-established leading
strongholds of the Faith--New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Washington--issue forth unhesitatingly, determinedly, sacrifice every
interest, assume positions in the forefront of the struggle and emulate in
the course of the first decade of second Baha'i century, opening years of
the second epoch of Formative Age of the Faith, exploits of their
spiritual progenitors, the dawn-breakers of the Heroic Age, which
immortalized the dawn of the first Baha'i century. The immediate fortunes
of the Plan are precariously hanging in the balance. The three months'
interval is swiftly running out. My heart aches at contemplation of the
possibility of failure of the stalwart community to rise to the heights of
the occasion. I refuse to believe that its members, invested with unique
apostolic mission of 'Abdu'l-Baha, will shrink from meeting the most
challenging requirement of the present hour.
[February 1, 1948]