The deepening crisis ominously threatening further to derange the
equilibrium of a politically convulsed, economically disrupted, socially
subverted, morally decadent and spiritually moribund society is testing
the tenacity, taxing the resources and challenging the spirit throughout
three continents of the chosen trustees and valiant executors of
'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan. This present hour, however critical, fraught
with uncertainty, cannot and must not retard the unfoldment of the
manifold tasks so brilliantly inaugurated, so diligently prosecuted, so
dazzling in their prospects.
The record of the Baha'i community since inception of the Formative Age
conclusively demonstrates that accomplishment of signal acts accompanied,
or followed upon, periods of acute distress in European and American
contemporary history. The machinery of the Administrative Order was
established, and preliminary stage of construction of the House of Worship
was undertaken, by a grief-stricken community in the anxious years
following the sudden removal of its loving, watchful Founder. The
superstructure of the Temple was erected amid the strain and stress of an
economic depression of an unprecedented severity gripping the North
American continent. The first Seven Year Plan, opening stage in the
execution of the historic mission entrusted to the American Baha'i
Community, was launched in the face of a gathering storm culminating in
the direst conflict yet experienced by mankind. The Tablets of the Divine
Plan were revealed amidst the turmoil of the first World War involving
great danger to the life of their Author. The remains of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
mother and brother were transferred to site of monuments constituting
focus of institutions of future World Administrative Center and erected on
the morrow of the outbreak of hostilities while the Holy Land was
increasingly exposed to the perils precipitated by the second conflict.
The daughter communities of Latin America were called into being and
exterior ornamentation of the Temple was consummated while the American
mother community was in the throes of the last, most harassing stage of
the devastating struggle. The world-wide Centenary celebrations crowning
these enterprises were undertaken in such perilous circumstances and
carried out despite the formidable obstacles engendered through
prolongation of hostilities. National administrative headquarters were
established in Tihran, Cairo, Ba_gh_dad, Delhi and Sydney, national and
international endowments were enriched and assemblies incorporated in
countries confronted by growing threat of invasion and encirclement.
The Second Seven Year Plan inaugurating the transatlantic mission
embracing Scandinavia, the Low Countries, Switzerland, the Iberian and
Italian Peninsulas, was launched on the morrow of the catastrophic
upheaval despite the exhaustion, confusion, distress and restrictions
afflicting a war-shattered continent. The first fruits of this newly
launched Plan were garnered through convocation of first European Teaching
Conference and erection of the ninth pillar of the Universal House of
Justice in the Dominion of Canada despite premonitory rumblings of a third
ordeal threatening to engulf the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. The
central structure of the Bab's Sepulcher was built while the precious life
of its builder was hanging perilously in the balance. Plans were drawn,
contracts placed and foundations laid for its arcade while the holy places
were ravaged by flames of the civil strife burning fiercely in the Holy
Land.
Precious years are inexorably slipping by. The world outlook is steadily
darkening. The American Community's most arduous feats still lie ahead.
Disasters overtaking Europe and America, more afflictive than any
tribulations yet suffered in either continent, may yet attend still more
majestic revelations in the unfoldment of concluding stage of the Second
Seven Year Plan destined to witness successively the raising of the tenth
and eleventh pillars of the Universal House of Justice, and the
celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Mother Temple of the West.
The champion builders of Baha'u'llah's rising World Order must scale
nobler heights of heroism as humanity plunges into greater depths of
despair, degradation, dissension and distress. Let them forge ahead into
the future serenely confident that the hour of their mightiest exertions
and the supreme opportunity for their greatest exploits must coincide with
the apocalyptic upheaval marking the lowest ebb in mankind's
fast-declining fortunes.
[November 3, 1948]