While this vital process of multiplication of Baha'i isolated centers,
groups and local assemblies is being accelerated, through a rapid and
unprecedented dispersion of believers, and as the result of the initiation
of vigorous teaching activities, through individuals as well as
administrative agencies, the incorporation of full-fledged local
assemblies--a process which has been noticeably slackening in recent
years--must be given immediate attention by the community's elected
national representatives, reinforcing, thereby, the foundations of local
Baha'i communities, and paving the way for the establishment, in a not too
distant future, of local Baha'i endowments.
The inauguration of the first dependency of the Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar, the
first link to be forged destined to bind the Community of the Most Great
Name to the general public, expectant to witness the first evidences of
direct Baha'i service to humanity as a complement to Baha'i worship, is
yet another task which must be conscientiously tackled and fulfilled in
the course of the second phase of this Ten-Year Plan. The consummation of
this project must synchronize with the termination of the landscaping of
the area surrounding the Temple--a double achievement that will mark yet
another stage in the materialization of 'Abdu'l-Baha's often expressed and
cherished hopes for this holiest House of Worship in the Baha'i world.
Yet another task, of extreme urgency and of great spiritual significance,
is the selection and purchase of the site of the future
Ma_sh_riqu'l-A_dh_kar in Sweden, as well as the appropriation of
sufficient funds during the coming two years, for the establishment, on
however modest a scale, of a national Haziratu'l-Quds in Anchorage,
Alaska, in Panama City and in the capital of Peru, in Suva, in Tokyo and
in Johannesburg, and the lending of financial assistance to the
Italo-Swiss National Assembly, the proud daughter of the American Baha'i
Community, for the erection of a similar national center in the Italian
and Swiss capitals.
Of no less importance, though involving a smaller outlay of funds, is the
establishment of token national endowments in the aforementioned cities,
in anticipation of the formation of an independent national spiritual
assembly in each of them, at a later stage in the execution of this
stupendous Plan.
The translation and publication of Baha'i literature in the European and
American Indian languages, allocated to your Assembly and its European
Teaching Committee under the provisions of the Ten-Year Plan, is yet
another objective of this second phase of this World Crusade, a task that
must be resolutely pursued and speedily consummated in order to facilitate
the intensive teaching activity which, at a later stage, must be conducted
for the purpose of converting a considerable number of the minority races
in both Europe and America to the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
The all-important teaching enterprises in France and Finland, designed to
broaden the basis of the infant Administrative Order in both countries,
and extend the ramifications of the Faith to their chief towns and cities,
is yet another responsibility which should be promptly discharged, as an
indispensable preliminary to the establishment in each of these two
countries of an independent national assembly.
Finally, the establishment of a Baha'i Publishing Trust, similar in its
essentials to the institution already functioning in the British Isles,
and which must serve as a model for other national assemblies in both the
East and the West, is a matter to which prompt and earnest attention must
be directed in the course of the second phase of the Plan, and which will
require full and speedy consultation with the national elected
representatives of the British Baha'i Community.
A systematic campaign designed to proclaim the Faith to the masses through
the press and radio must moreover be launched and maintained with
vigilance, persistence and vigor.
The American Baha'i Community--the champion-builders of an Order which
posterity will hail as the harbinger of a civilization to be regarded as
the fairest fruit of the Revelation proclaimed by Baha'u'llah; the
principal trustees of a Plan which future generations will acclaim as one
of the two greatest legacies left by the Center of His Covenant; marching
in the van of a Crusade which history will recognize as the most momentous
spiritual enterprise launched in modern times; beset by the same anxieties
and perils by which the nation of which it forms a part finds itself, to
an unprecedented degree, afflicted and surrounded--such a community is, at
this hour, experiencing the impact of a challenge unique in its sixty
years of existence.