The efforts exerted, and the results achieved, by the members of the
American Baha'i Community during the opening months of the two-year
emergency period are such as to merit the highest commendation and praise.
They will, if the effort be sustained, evoke the admiration of the entire
Baha'i world, which is now watching, with feelings of wonder and
expectancy, the outcome of the tremendous labor of this community now
confronted with one of the most challenging, arduous and far-reaching
tasks ever undertaken in its history.
The great forward stride that has already been undertaken, during so short
a period, augurs well for the ultimate victory, now within sight--a victory
which will pave the way for the successful execution of a seven-year
enterprise, destined, in its turn, to enable its executors to launch, at
the appointed time, the third and most glorious stage in the initial
unfoldment of 'Abdu'l-Baha's unique and grand design for that privileged
and conspicuously blessed community.
No less striking has been the achievement of the representatives of this
community in the vast and most recent field of their historic and highly
meritorious endeavors, exerted beyond the confines of their homeland,
where over so vast a territory, on a continent so agitated, and amidst
peoples so disillusioned, so varied in race, language and outlook, so
impoverished spiritually, so paralyzed with fear, so confused in thought,
so abased in their moral standards, so rent by internal schisms, victories
so rich in promise, so startling in their rapidity, so magnificent in
their range, have been won, and ennobled, to such a marked degree, the
deathless record of American Baha'i service to the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
Now that so prodigious and successful an effort has been exerted on behalf
of the historic and sacred Temple, whose completion constitutes so vital
an objective of the Second Seven Year Plan, and so conspicuous a triumph
won in the transatlantic sphere of its operation, its needs and other
vital objectives, both at home and in the Latin American field, must
receive, in the months immediately ahead, the particular attention of both
the national elected representatives of the community who supervise the
working of the Plan and the mass of believers who participate in its
execution.
While the financial requirements of the Mother Temple of the West are
being met with unabated heroism by rich and poor alike in the critical
months that lie ahead, and the measures to ensure the undiminished
support, and the uninterrupted consolidation of the European enterprise
are being assiduously carried out, a parallel effort, no less strenuous
and sustained should be simultaneously exerted in the North American
continent and in Central and South America, for the purpose of preserving
the prizes already won over the length and breadth of the Western
Hemisphere, where the initial impulse of this mighty and Divine Plan has
been felt and its initial victories in foreign fields registered.
The assemblies of the North American continent, constituting the base for
the gigantic operations destined to warm and illuminate, under American
Baha'i auspices, the five continents of the globe, must, at no time and
under no circumstances, be allowed to diminish in number or decline in
strength and in influence. The movement of pioneers, whether settlers or
itinerant teachers, which in fields so distant from this base, has
exhibited so marvelous a vitality, must, within the limits of the homeland
itself, be neither interrupted nor suffer a decline. The groups and
isolated centers so painstakingly formed and established must, conjointly
with this highly commendable and essential duty, be maintained, fostered
and if possible multiplied.
No less attention, while this emergency period taxes, to an unprecedented
degree, the combined resources of the envied trustees of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
Divine Plan, should be directed to the vast network of Baha'i enterprises
initiated throughout Latin America, where the work so nobly conceived, so
diligently prosecuted, so conspicuously blessed, is rapidly nearing the
first stage of its fruition. The flow of pioneers, so vital in all its
aspects, and which has yielded such inestimable benefits at the early
stages of this widely ramified enterprise, must, however urgent the other
tasks already shouldered by an overburdened yet unfailingly protected
community, be neither arrested nor slacken. The outpost of the newly born
communities, established in the Straits of Magallanes in the South, must
be held with undiminished vigor and determination. The major task of
ensuring the breadth and solidity of the foundations laid for the
establishment of two national Baha'i assemblies, through the preservation
of the present assemblies, groups and isolated centers, and the
restoration of any of these vital centers, now dissolved, to their former
status, must be scrupulously watched and constantly encouraged. The
process of the dissemination of Baha'i literature, of Baha'i publication
and translation, must continue unabated, however much the sacrifice
involved. The newly fledged institutions of teaching and regional
committees, of summer schools and of congresses, must be continually
encouraged and increasingly supported by teachers as well as
administrators, by pioneers from abroad, as well as by the native
believers themselves. The highly salutary and spiritually beneficent
experiment of encouraging a more active participation by these newly won
supporters of the Faith in Latin America, and a greater assumption of
administrative responsibility on their part, in the ever expanding
activities to be entrusted wholly to their care in the years to come,
should be, in particular, developed, systematized and placed on a sure and
unassailable foundation. Above all, the paramount duty of deepening the
spiritual life of these newly fledged, these precious and highly esteemed
co-workers, and of enlightening their minds regarding the essential
verities enshrined in their Faith, its fundamental institutions, its
history and genesis--the twin Covenants of Baha'u'llah and of 'Abdu'l-Baha,
the present Administrative Order, the future World Order, the Laws of the
Most Holy Book, the inseparable institutions of the Guardianship and of
the Universal House of Justice, the salient events of the Heroic and
Formative Ages of the Faith, and its relationship with the Dispensations
that have preceded it, its attitude toward the social and political
organizations by which it is surrounded--must continue to constitute the
most vital aspect of the great spiritual Crusade launched by the champions
of the Faith from among the peoples of their sister republics in the
South.
The magnitude of the tasks these heroes and champions of the Faith are
summoned, at this hour, crowded with destiny, to discharge from the
borders of Greenland to the southern extremity of Chile in the Western
Hemisphere, and from Scandinavia in the north, to the Iberian peninsula in
the south of the European continent, is, indeed, breath-taking in its
implications and back-breaking in the strain it imposes. The sacrifices
they are called upon to voluntarily make for the successful performance of
such herculean, such holy, such epoch-making tasks, are comparable to none
but those which their spiritual forbears have willingly accepted at the
hour of the birth of their Faith more than a hundred years ago. Theirs is
the privilege, no less meritorious and perhaps as epoch-making, to
preside, in their own homeland and its neighboring continents, over, and
direct the forces generated by, the birth of an order that posterity will
acclaim as both the offspring of that Faith, and the precursor of the
Golden Age in which that same Faith must, in the fullness of time, find
its fullest expression and most glorious consummation.
How great the opportunity which the present hour, so dark in the fortunes
of mankind and yet so bright in the ever-unfolding history of their Faith,
offers them. How unspeakably precious the reward which they who serve it
will reap! How pitiful and urgent the need of the waiting multitudes of
these continents, summoned to sustain the initial impact of the operation
of a divinely impelled Plan which no force can resist and no power can
rival!
For what this superbly equipped community, this irresistibly advancing
army of the chosen warriors of Baha'u'llah, battling under His banner,
operating in conformity with the explicit Mandate voiced by His beloved
Son, has already achieved, over so extensive a field, in such a brief
time, at such great sacrifice, for so precious a Cause, and in the course
of such turbulent years, I cannot but feel the deepest sense of gratitude
the like of which no achievement, single or collective, rendered in any
other part of the globe, by any community associated with the Cause of the
Most Great Name has evoked. For what it will and must achieve in the
future I entertain feelings of warm expectation and serene confidence. For
it, I will continue, from the depths of a loving and grateful heart to
supplicate blessings immeasurably richer than any it has yet experienced.
[August 18, 1949]