Greatly encouraged by the splendid progress of the tremendous drive
initiated in response to my appeal. The zero hour is inexorably
approaching. Nineteen additional settlers can and must be provided.
Praying with increasing fervor for total success, complete victory.
[April 6, 1948]
MARVELOUS ACCELERATION
[FIRST MESSAGE TO 1948 CONVENTION]
I am moved to share with assembled delegates of the fortieth American
Baha'i Convention the following facts and figures testifying to the
present status of the World Faith of Baha'u'llah and disclosing the
marvelous acceleration in the double process of the extension of its range
and the consolidation of the institutions of its Administrative Order in
the Eastern and Western Hemispheres in the course of the first four years
of the second Baha'i century.
The number of countries opened to the Faith total ninety-one. Baha'i
literature is translated and printed in fifty-one languages.
Representatives of thirty-one races are enrolled in the Baha'i World
Community. Eighty-eight assemblies, national and local, are incorporated.
The number of localities where Baha'is have established residence has been
raised to over thirty in Australasia, to over forty in Germany and
Austria, over sixty in the Dominion of Canada, over eighty in the Indian
subcontinent and Burma, over one hundred in Latin America, over seven
hundred in Persia and to over twelve hundred in the United States of
America.
The value of international Baha'i endowments in the Holy Land and the
Jordan Valley is estimated at over six hundred thousand pounds. National
Baha'i endowments on the North American continent are valued at over two
million dollars. The area of land dedicated to the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar
in Persia is approximately four million square meters. The value of the
national Haziratu'l-Quds in the capitals of India and Persia respectively
is six hundred thousand rupees and fifty thousand pounds. The area of land
dedicated to the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in South America is ninety
thousand square meters. The number of pieces of Baha'i literature sold and
distributed in the course of one year in North America is over eighty
thousand pieces. The record of the number of visitors to the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in America in one year is over seventeen thousand
and the total number of visitors since its erection is over one quarter of
a million. The number of states in the American Union formally recognizing
Baha'i marriage certificates is now eight. The number of national
assemblies functioning in the Baha'i world is raised to nine through the
formation of the first Canadian National Assembly, to be shortly
reinforced through the constitution of two additional assemblies in South
and Central America and the West Indies.
The second seven-year, the six-year, the four and one-half year, the
six-year, the three-year, the five-year and forty-five month plans
respectively launched by the American, British, Indian, Australasian,
Iraqi, Canadian, and Persian National Spiritual Assemblies, some
culminating at the first Centennial of the birth of Baha'u'llah's mission,
others the Hundredth Anniversary of the Bab's Martyrdom, are aiming at the
establishment of three national assemblies in Canada and Latin America,
the completion of the interior ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the
West, the formation of spiritual assemblies in ten sovereign states of the
European continent, the constitution of nineteen assemblies in the British
Isles, doubling the number of assemblies in India, Pakistan and Burma, the
reconstitution of the dissolved assemblies and the establishment of
ninety-five new centers in Persia, the conversion of groups in Bahrein,
the Hijaz and Af_gh_anistan into assemblies, the formation of
administrative nuclei in the Arabian territories of Yemen, Oman, Hasa and
Kuweit; the formation of thirty-one groups and seven assemblies in
Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania; the multiplication of centers in the
provinces of 'Iraq, including the district of Shattu'l-Arab; the
incorporation of the Canadian National Assembly; doubling the number of
assemblies and raising to one hundred the centers in the Dominion of
Canada; the constitution of nuclei in Newfoundland and Greenland and the
participation of Eskimos and Red Indians in the local institutions of the
Administrative Order.
Plans and specifications have been prepared, and preliminary measures
taken, to place contracts for the arcade of the Bab's Sepulcher. Historic
International Baha'i Congresses held in South and Central America and an
inter-European Teaching Conference projected for Geneva paving the way for
future World Baha'i Congress. Recognition extended to the Faith by United
Nations as international non-governmental body, enabling appointment of
accredited representatives to United Nations conferences, is heralding
world recognition for a universal proclamation of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah.
[April 16, 1948]
BRILLIANT ACHIEVEMENTS
[SECOND MESSAGE TO 1948 CONVENTION]
Joyfully acclaim brilliant achievements transcending fondest hopes and
setting the seal of complete victory on the stupendous labors undertaken
by American Baha'i Community in the second year of the Second Seven Year
Plan. The constitution of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada, the
heroic feat of raising to almost two hundred the number of spiritual
assemblies in the North American continent, the marvelous expansion of the
daughter communities in Latin America, the successful conclusion of the
preliminary phase of the interior ornamentation of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, and the crowning exploit of the formation of no
less than seven assemblies in the newly opened transcontinental field,
endow with everlasting fame the second epoch of the Formative Age,
immeasurably enrich the annals of the opening decade of the second Baha'i
century, and constitute a landmark in the unfoldment of the second stage
of the execution of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Plan.
The primacy of the American Baha'i Community is reasserted, fully
vindicated and completely safeguarded. Recent successive victories
proclaim the undiminished strength and exemplary valor of the rank and
file of the community whether administrators, teachers or pioneers in
three continents regarded as the latest links in the chain of
uninterrupted achievements performed by its members in the council, and
teaching field for over a quarter of a century. I recall on this joyous
occasion with pride, emotion, thankfulness, the resplendent record of
stewardship of this dearly loved, richly endowed, unflinchingly resolute
community, whose administrators have assumed the preponderating share in
perfecting the machinery of the Administrative Order, whose elected
representatives have raised the edifice and completed the exterior
ornamentation of the Mother Temple of the West, whose trail-blazers opened
an overwhelming majority of the ninety-one countries now included within
the pale of the Faith, whose pioneers established flourishing communities
in twenty republics of Latin America, whose benefactors extended in ample
measure assistance in various ways to their sorely pressed brethren in
distant fields, whose members scattered themselves to thirteen hundred
centers in every state of the American Union, every province of the
Dominion of Canada, whose firmest champion succeeded in winning royalty's
allegiance to the Message of Baha'u'llah, whose heroes and martyrs laid
down their lives in its service in fields as remote as Honolulu, Buenos
Aires, Sidney, Isfahan, whose vanguard pushed its outposts to the
antipodes on the farthest verge of the South American continent, to the
vicinity of the Arctic Circle, to the northern, southern, and western
fringes of the European continent, whose ambassadors are now convening, on
the soil of one of the newly won territories, its historic first
conference designed to consolidate the newly won prizes, whose spokesmen
are securing recognition of the institutions of Baha'u'llah's rising World
Order in the United Nations.
Appeal to members of the community so privileged, so loved, so valorous,
endowed with such potentialities to unitedly press forward however
afflictive the trials their countrymen may yet experience, however
grievous the tribulations the land of their heart's desire may yet suffer,
however oppressive an anxiety the temporary severance of external
communications with the World Center of their Faith may engender, however
onerous the tasks still to be accomplished, until every single obligation
under the present Plan is honorably fulfilled, enabling them to launch in
its appointed time the third crusade destined to bring glorious
consummation to the first epoch in the evolution of their divinely
appointed world mission, fulfill the prophecy uttered by Daniel over
twenty centuries ago, contribute the major share of the world triumph of
the Faith of Baha'u'llah envisaged by the Center of His Covenant, and
hasten the opening of the Golden Age of the Baha'i Dispensation.
[April 26, 1948]