The present and remaining contracts, designed to consummate the
magnificent enterprise, initiated almost fifty years ago, in the heart of
the North American continent and complete an edifice consecrated for all
time by the loving hands of the Center of Baha'u'llah's Covenant,
constituting the foremost symbol of the Faith, and incarnating the soul of
the American Baha'i Community in the Western Hemisphere, must be speedily
and systematically carried out, however onerous the task may become, in
consequence of the inevitable fluctuations to which the present economic
conditions are subjected, in preparation for the jubilee that must mark
the completion of that holy edifice. The recent broadening of the
administrative basis of the Faith in a land that has served, and will long
remain the base of the spiritual operations now being conducted in both
hemispheres, in response to the ringing call of 'Abdu'l-Baha, sounded
three decades ago in His historic Tablets, must, no matter how arduous and
insistent the tasks to be performed in Latin America and Europe, be fully
maintained, and the process continually enlarged and steadily
consolidated. The various agencies designed to carry the Message to the
masses, and to present to them befittingly the teachings of its Author,
must, likewise, be vigilantly preserved, supported and encouraged. The
essential preliminaries, calculated to widen the basis of the forthcoming
Latin American national Baha'i assemblies, to familiarize the Latin
American believers with the administrative duties and functions they will
be called upon to discharge and to enrich and deepen their knowledge of
the essentials of their Faith, its ideals, its history, its requirements
and its problems, must be carried out with ever-increasing energy as the
hour of the emergence of these Latin American communities into independent
existence steadily and inexorably approaches. The necessary guidance,
which can alone be properly insured through the maintenance of an
uninterrupted extension of administrative assistance, through the
settlement of pioneers and the visits of itinerant teachers to the
daughter communities, must under no circumstances be completely withdrawn,
after their independence has been achieved. Above all, the momentous
enterprise initiated in the transatlantic field of service, so vast in
conception, so timely, so arduous, so far-reaching in its potentialities,
so infinitely meritorious, must in the face of obstacles, however
insurmountable they may seem, be continually reinvigorated through
undiminished financial support, through an ever-expanding supply of
literature in each of the required languages, through frequent, and
whenever possible prolonged, visits of itinerant teachers, through the
continued settlement of pioneers, through the consolidation of the
assemblies already established, through the early constitution of properly
functioning assemblies in the few remaining goal countries as yet deprived
of this inestimable blessing, and last but not least through the exertion
of sustained and concentrated efforts designed to supplement these foci of
Baha'i national administrative activity with subsidiary centers whose
formation will herald the inauguration of teaching enterprises throughout
the provinces of each of these ten countries.
As the dynamic forces, sweeping forward the First Seven Year Plan, on the
last stages of its execution, rose rapidly to a crescendo, culminating in
the nationwide celebrations marking the centenary of the Faith of
Baha'u'llah and synchronized with a further and still more precipitous
decline in the fortunes of a war-torn bleeding society, so must every
aggravation in the state of a world still harassed by the ravages of a
devastating conflict, and now hovering on the brink of a yet more crucial
struggle, be accompanied by a still more ennobling manifestation of the
spirit of this second crusade, whose consummation might well coincide with
a period of distress far more acute than the one through which humanity is
now passing.