Faced with this organized and vicious onslaught on the followers, the
fundamental verities, the shrines and administrative institutions of the
Faith of Baha'u'llah in the land of His birth, the American Baha'i
Community cannot at this hour relax for a moment in the discharge of the
multiple and sacred responsibilities it has pledged itself to fulfill
under the Ten-Year Plan and must indeed display a still greater degree of
consecration and a nobler spirit of self-sacrifice in the pursuit of the
goals it has set itself to achieve.
A wider dispersal throughout the length and breadth of its homeland; a
more strenuous effort to consolidate the superb achievements in the newly
opened virgin territories in various continents and islands of the globe;
a still greater exertion to expedite the translation and publication of
Baha'i literature into the European and American Indian languages assigned
to it under the Plan; a more determined thrust towards the vital
objectives of acquiring the site of the future Mother Temple of Sweden and
of purchasing the remaining national Haziratu'l-Quds in the goal countries
of Europe, as well as in Central and South America; a concerted endeavor
to establish national Baha'i endowments in these European and Latin
American countries; a ceaseless concentration of attention on the
incorporation of firmly established local spiritual assemblies throughout
the United States and in the goal countries of Europe, and a closer
collaboration with the administrative agencies functioning in Europe,
Latin America, Africa, Japan and Alaska for the forthcoming formation of
the European, Latin American, Southwest African, Japanese and Alaskan
national spiritual assemblies; a more intensive campaign to win over to
the Faith representatives of American Indian tribes and of the Basque and
Gypsy races--above all, a concerted, wholly dedicated, inflexible resolve
to win the allegiance of a far greater number of adherents to the Faith it
has espoused and to insure a spectacular multiplication of groups,
isolated centers and local assemblies in the vast area assigned to its
care--through these, more than through anything else, can the American
Baha'i Community--the recognized champion of the persecuted and the
down-trodden, and the standard-bearer of the embryonic World Order of
Baha'u'llah--offset, to a marked degree, the severe losses the Faith has
sustained in the land of its birth, and bring an abiding and much needed
consolation to the countless hearts that bleed, in this hour of test and
trial, throughout the length and breadth of that bitterly troubled land.
"SAVE THE PERSECUTED FUND"
Not only through its superlative achievements in these diversified and
vital spheres of Baha'i activity, but also through the support given by
its members to the "Save the Persecuted Fund" recently established for the
succor of the orphaned, the widowed and the dispossessed, and to which the
entire Baha'i world has been invited to contribute, can this
stout-hearted, vigilant, self-sacrificing community which on similar past
occasions has so nobly discharged its responsibilities, proclaim to an
unbelieving and skeptical world, and particularly to its redoubtable,
implacable adversaries, the unconquerable spirit which animates it, the
inflexible resolve which spurs it on, in the hour of trial, in the service
of a Faith to which it stands wholly dedicated.