There can be no doubt whatever that to achieve this fourfold purpose is
the most strenuous, the least spectacular, and the most challenging of the
tasks now confronting the American Baha'i Community. It is primarily a
task that concerns the individual believer, wherever he may be, and
whatever his calling, his resources, his race, or his age. Neither the
local nor national representatives of the community, no matter how
elaborate their plans, or persistent their appeals, or sagacious their
counsels, nor even the Guardian himself, however much he may yearn for
this consummation, can decide where the duty of the individual lies, or
supplant him in the discharge of that task. The individual alone must
assess its character, consult his conscience, prayerfully consider all its
aspects, manfully struggle against the natural inertia that weighs him
down in his effort to arise, shed, heroically and irrevocably, the trivial
and superfluous attachments which hold him back, empty himself of every
thought that may tend to obstruct his path, mix, in obedience to the
counsels of the Author of His Faith, and in imitation of the One Who is
its true Exemplar, with men and women, in all walks of life, seek to touch
their hearts, through the distinction which characterizes his thoughts,
his words and his acts, and win them over tactfully, lovingly, prayerfully
and persistently, to the Faith he himself has espoused.
The gross materialism that engulfs the entire nation at the present hour;
the attachment to worldly things that enshrouds the souls of men; the
fears and anxieties that distract their minds; the pleasure and
dissipations that fill their time, the prejudices and animosities that
darken their outlook, the apathy and lethargy that paralyze their
spiritual faculties--these are among the formidable obstacles that stand in
the path of every would-be warrior in the service of Baha'u'llah,
obstacles which he must battle against and surmount in his crusade for the
redemption of his own countrymen.
To the degree that the home front crusader is himself cleansed of these
impurities, liberated from these petty preoccupations and gnawing
anxieties, delivered from these prejudices and antagonisms, emptied of
self, and filled by the healing and the sustaining power of God, will he
be able to combat the forces arrayed against him, magnetize the souls of
those whom he seeks to convert, and win their unreserved, their
enthusiastic and enduring allegiance to the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
Delicate and strenuous though the task may be, however arduous and
prolonged the effort required, whatsoever the nature of the perils and
pitfalls that beset the path of whoever arises to revive the fortunes of a
Faith struggling against the rising forces of materialism, nationalism,
secularism, racialism, ecclesiasticism, the all-conquering potency of the
grace of God, vouchsafed through the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, will,
undoubtedly, mysteriously and surprisingly, enable whosoever arises to
champion His Cause to win complete and total victory.
The history of a century-old Faith eloquently bears witness to similar
unnumbered successes won, in both the Apostolic and Formative Ages of the
Baha'i Dispensation, in circumstances even more challenging than those in
which the American Baha'i Community now finds itself.
So magnificent a victory, won collectively, at such a time, in a country
so vitally affecting the immediate destinies of mankind, singled out to
play so predominant a role in the unification and spiritualization of the
entire human race, by a community which in every other field can boast a
brilliant and unbroken record of victories, will, no doubt, exert not only
a profound influence on the ultimate destinies of an entire nation and
people, but will galvanize, through its repercussions, the entire Baha'i
world.
"A PRAYER WHICH I NEVER CEASE TO UTTER"
The prizes within the reach of this community are truly inestimable. Much
will depend on the reaction of the rank and file of the believers to the
plea now addressed to them with all the fervor of my soul.
To act, and act promptly and decisively, is the need of the present hour
and their inescapable duty. That the American Baha'i Community may, in
this one remaining field, where so much is at stake, and where the needs
of the Faith are so acute, cover itself with a glory that will outshine
the splendor of its past exploits in the far-flung territories of the
globe, is a prayer which I never cease to utter in my continual
supplications to Baha'u'llah.
[July 19, 1956]