Neither the irreparable loss sustained by the termination of the earthly
life of a vigilant Master, nor the acute distress caused by the financial
collapse which suddenly swept their country, nor the unprecedented tragedy
of a world crisis that swept their land and its people into its vortex,
nor the perils and uncertainties, the exhaustion and the disillusionment
associated with its aftermath nor even the soul-shaking tests which
periodically assailed them, through the defection and the attacks of
Covenant-breakers, occupying, by virtue of their kinship to, or their long
association with, the Founder of their community, exalted positions at the
World Center of the Faith, or in the land from which it sprang, or in
their own country--none of these have succeeded in vitiating the hidden
spring of their spiritual life, in deflecting them from their chosen
course, or in even retarding the forward march and fruition of their
enterprises. In the toilsome task of fixing the pattern, of laying the
foundations, of erecting the machinery, and of setting in operation the
Administrative Order of their Faith, in the execution of the successive
stages in the erection and exterior ornamentation of their Temple, in the
launching of the initial enterprise under 'Abdu'l-Baha's Divine Plan,
which enabled them to establish the structural basis of the Order,
recently laid in their homeland, in every republic of Central and South
America; in the sustained, the systematic and prodigious effort exerted
for the enlargement of the administrative foundations of the institutions
of their Faith in every state and province of the United States and the
Dominion of Canada; in the parallel endeavors aimed at the widespread
dissemination of its literature, and the proclamation of its verities and
tenets to the masses; in the launching of the Second Seven Year Plan,
which has extended the ramifications of the Divine Plan across the
Atlantic to ten sovereign states of the European continent and which has
already yielded a rich return through the formation of the first Canadian
Baha'i National Assembly and the convocation of the first European
Teaching Conference; in the repeated, the timely, the spontaneous and
generous contributions they have made, on numerous occasions, for the
relief of the persecuted among their brethren, for the defense of their
institutions, for the vindication of their rights, for the consolidation
of their activities and the progress of their enterprises--in all these the
champions of the Faith of Baha'u'llah have, with ever-increasing emphasis,
borne witness to the sublimity of the faith which burns within their
breasts, to the radiance of the vision that shines clearly and steadily
before their eyes, the sureness and rapidity that mark their gigantic
strides, and the vastness and glory of the unique mission entrusted to
their hands.
Milestones of historic significance have been successively reached and
rapidly left behind. A still stonier stretch of road now lies before them.
Rumblings of catastrophes yet more dreadful agitate with increasing
frequency a sorely stressed and chaotic world, presenting a challenge to
grapple with the unfinished tasks, a challenge graver and still more
pressing than any hitherto experienced.