Of all the objectives enumerated in my message to the representatives of
this community, assembled on the occasion of the celebration of the climax
of the Holy Year, of the convocation of the second Intercontinental
Teaching Conference, of the inauguration of the Mother Temple of the West
and of the launching of the World Spiritual Crusade, the most vital,
urgent and meritorious, in this the opening year of the initial phase of
this world-embracing enterprise, is, without doubt, the settlement of
pioneers in all the virgin territories and islands assigned to this
community in all the continents of the globe, with the exception of the
few which, owing to present political obstacles, cannot as yet be opened
to the Faith of Baha'u'llah. This process already so auspiciously
inaugurated, which, in the course of the first eight months of the Holy
Year has gathered such splendid momentum, and which bids fair to astonish,
stimulate and inspire the entire Baha'i world, must, during the concluding
months of this same year and the one succeeding it, be so accelerated as
to insure the attainment of this paramount objective before the lapse of
two years from the official launching of this World Crusade.
While this goal is being vigorously pursued, close attention must be
directed to the preliminary measures for the establishment of the first
dependency of the Mother Temple of the West, as well as to the completion
of the landscaping of its grounds, a double task that will, on the one
hand, mark the termination of the fifty-year-old process of the
construction of the central Baha'i House of Worship, and proclaim, on the
other, the commencement of another designed to culminate in the
establishment in its plenitude of the institution of the
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar as conceived by Baha'u'llah and envisaged by
'Abdu'l-Baha. Moreover, immediate consideration should be given to two
other issues of prime importance, namely the purchase of land, which need
not exceed for the present one acre, in anticipation of the construction
of the first Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar of South Africa, and the prompt
translation of a suitable Baha'i pamphlet into the American and European
languages allocated to your assembly, and its publication and wide
dissemination among the peoples and tribes for whom it has been primarily
designed.
The followers of the Most Great Name, citizens of the great republic of
the West; constituting the majority and the oldest followers of His Faith
in a continent wherein, in the words of 'Abdu'l-Baha, "the splendors of
His (Baha'u'llah's) Light shall be revealed" and "the mysteries of His
Faith shall be unveiled," addressed by Him in His Tablets of the Divine
Plan as the "Apostles" of His Father; the recipients of the overwhelming
majority of these same Tablets constituting the Charter of that Plan;
conquerors of most of the territories, whether sovereign states or
dependencies, already included within the pale of the Faith; the
champion-builders of a world administrative system which posterity will
regard as the harbinger of the World Order of Baha'u'llah, must, if they
wish to retain their primacy and enrich their heritage, insure that, ere
the opening of the second phase of this World Crusade, the names of the
first American Baha'i conquerors to settle in virgin territories and
islands will, as befits their primacy, be inscribed on the Scroll of
Honor, now in process of preparation, and designed to be permanently
deposited at the entrance door of the Inner Sanctuary of Baha'u'llah's
Most Holy Tomb, that the limited area of land required for the erection of
four future Baha'i Temples, in Rome, Stockholm, Panama City and
Johannesburg, will be bought, that the landscaping of the grounds of the
Temple in Wilmette will be completed, and that the translation and the
publication of the aforementioned pamphlet in the specified languages will
be accomplished.
The two years that lie ahead, three months of which have already elapsed,
will swiftly and imperceptibly draw to a close. Tasks even more onerous,
equally weighty and requiring in a still greater measure the expenditure
of effort and substance, lie ahead, which will brook no delay, which will
carry the Faith to still higher levels of achievement and renown, which
will enlarge, through the forging of fresh instruments, the framework of a
steadily rising world Administrative Order, and which will eventually, if
worthily discharged, seal the triumph of the most prodigious, the most
sublime, the most sacred collective enterprise launched by the adherents
of the Cause of God in both hemispheres since the early days of the Heroic
Age of the Faith--an enterprise which in its vastness, organization and
unifying power, has no parallel in the world's spiritual history.